another irrelevant voice

Call of Duty 4 +1

2008-10-27T14:31:00.002+01:00

Over the weekend I got hold of a code to access the Multiplayer Beta of the new Call of Duty: World at War on Xbox 360. For those who may not be aware, this is the much feared sequel to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, feared because it's a return to the World War 2 arena.

I'm pleased to report that they seem to have succeeded. The gameplay has lost none of COD4's charm, and they've somewhat tenuously included many of it's features. The unlockable red dot sight has become the "apperture" but it's much the same thing. The 3 kill perk is now "recon" which acts much like UAV, 5 kills get you an artillery strike and 7 kills gets you a pack of attack dogs. Which sounds rubbish, but are suprisingly effective.

It's not all a rehashing of the same, there are some new features also. Vehicles now feature and tanks on the battlefield can be a lot of fun. There is also now the ability to form your team into "squads" with your squad appearing in a different colour on the map. This encourages teams to work more tactically. The maps are obviously all new and gorgeous and there's a suprisingly high amount of gore. World War 2 was not pretty and this is well reflected. Walk over a land mine (known as "bouncing bettys") and expect to see both your legs blown off. Hold a grenade too long and lose an arm.

There's only 3 maps in the Beta but it's kept my attention for much of the weekend. I will definitely be pre-ordering.

For those interested, Beta keys can be obtained if you were previously registered on the Call of Duty website (or charlieoscardelta.com). In which case you should have received an email with a code. The email will indicate that the opportunity expires on the 19th October but still appears to work regardless.

Otherwise, you can also obtain a Beta key if you pre-order the game (via Game.co.uk in the UK or Gamestop in the US). The Game website indicates that the keys will be emailed out to people in batches on Fridays (providing you pre-order before 1pm Thursday). My American friends inform me that Gamestop sends the keys a day or two after your order.

The PC multiplayer beta will be opening shortly but will also require a code. Register on the website for details.

That's all from me. See you in the trenches.

Considering Santa

2007-12-02T00:56:00.000+01:00

I was just doing some of my best thinking (you know where I mean), and I was thinking, maybe Santa should get some corporate sponsorship. If he was real I mean. It would be a win-win situation: The corporation/s would get increased Sales and Santa would get greater exposure from all the advertising. Plus the increase in Santa revenue should in theory be passed on to the end user, resulting in better quality presents. So in fact it's win-win-win!

I mean don't get me wrong; Santa has been doing pretty well for as long as I can remember. But in this day and age if you don't move with the times you're destined for failure. He definitely needs to review his business model, reconsider his target audience and work on increasing his profile. Did you know, in some parts of Africa they don't even know it's Christmas time AT ALL? A shocking revelation I know.

Stepping back a few paragraphs, he should probably deal with this whole does he exist/doesn't he exist problem as well. Without a significant number of "believers" he seriously risks becoming reclassified as a cult. Which would be incredibly damaging to his reputation overall.

To conclude, perhaps this year we should give something back to that overweight bearded freak who's given many of us so much over the years: Instead of just sending your wish list of presents, why not also include a few suggestions on how you think Santa could improve his operation this year.

'Tis the season after all.

TV's Lost, the mystery solved in an MSN conversation

2007-11-01T23:35:00.000+01:00

Lauren says:
life without lost, thats no life to lead

Mark says:
shh
that word is banned till february

Lauren says:
i hope its not shit without charlie

Mark says:
i hope charlie comes back as a zombie

Lauren says:
noo

Mark says:
flesh eating zombie?

Lauren says:
i hope claire finds the ring he left

Mark says:
i bet the baby swallows it and dies

Lauren says:
:0
Mark says:
well
your not supposed to leave small parts around under 3's:
choking hazard

it would be a good infomercial

imagine the whole 3 seasons of lost were just to get to this
point in the story, so that they could present the whole choking hazard baby warning
no one would see THAT coming.

The top 5 reasons to murder someone

2007-10-02T23:34:00.005+01:00

Ever wondered why people kill other people? Note i'm only talking about homicide here, so this excludes obvious things like war. And everyone knows that killing someone in a war doesn't *really* count anyway. But what do you suppose is the number one human vice? Greed? Jealousy? Hatred? Well i spent fifteen minutes researching the subject so that YOU could find out! You lucky person you.

#5: Alcohol and drugs

In last place: is just being plain high. Picture the scene: you've been down the pub and had one or two dozen pints. You stumble home, to find your wife hasn't even left you any dinner out, let alone put the washing on. I mean, what were you supposed to do? Be warned however: the only kind of hangover worse than waking up in the morning next to a pig, is waking up next to a dead pig.

#4: Revenge

By far my favourite category. You've got to wonder if this should even really be classed as a crime. Certainly "he had it coming" should be a perfectly acceptable defence. People in this category probably figured they'd get away with it. I mean, if they had any faith in the legal system, they wouldn't be taking matters into their own hands in the first place.

#3: Money

In at three, is cold hard cash. One scenario might be that the job centre was way on the other side of town, where as your elderly rich relative lived just around the corner. And lets face it his best years were behind him anyway. Or perhaps you'd spent too much time planning how to get into the bank and not enough time planning how you'd get out afterwards. Which is really probably the trickier part.

You might be one of those people that think that this is the most despicable reason to do away with another human being. But consider this: how much would I really have to pay you to kill Paris Hilton?

#2: No apparent motive

Or as I like to think of it, "lazy police work". This category might not have made it to second place if the law enforcement agencies were a little more determined on finding out the truth. And by finding the truth, I don't just mean 'lets plant a glove and hope it fits'. Of course it could be that there really is no motive. In which case we could just blame video games or something.

#1: The domestic argument

My source indicated that "domestic includes jealousy, desertion/termination of relationship, and other domestic altercation.". It seems our favourite excuse to bump someone off is the ol' crime of passion. I guess it just goes to show that you *can* love someone too much. Or not enough. Until scientists determine the exact amount you're supposed to love someone, we're all just going to have to watch our backs.

I hope this has been informative for you. Apologies if your favourite murder motive wasn't mentioned, but feel free to let me know about it in the comments.

If you'd like more information on murdering someone, you should seek immediate help. (Statistics show that murderers who have accomplices are 25%* more likely to succeed).

*not a real statistic.

Running a bath

2007-03-19T17:13:00.000+01:00

Mark says:
i wish could run the bath with a ./etc/init.d/bath run script.
first i suppose i'd have to ssh to the bathroom.

Kev says:
haha
Yeah
and you'd need to be root probably.

Mark says:
oh yeah.
i guess turning the taps would be easier.

Happiness: 10 cents.

2006-07-08T14:42:00.000+01:00

I get these daily, and they are all brilliant. But every now and again they really tickle me, so i wanted to share it with you. I wish the author would make more.

I've had to reshape it to fit it in this blog. So read it top row then bottom row from left to right.

In case anyone doesn't know, the strip is called "Calvin and Hobbes" by Bill Waterson. Calvin is the kid. Hobbes is the Tiger.

Hobbes is actually a stuffed Tiger, but he kind of comes to life in Calvin's imagination. Or maybe it's just only when Calvin is around. To everyone else he just appears as a stuffed toy. It's never really been explained. It's a bit like Stewie from Family Guy.

I'm hoping that by telling everyone how great this strip is they won't sue me for reproducing it. Plus, it's really great.

There's no C in art

2006-05-25T21:25:00.000+01:00

Andy says:
i got a C in art
Markus says:
there's no C in art

theres an A
and a R
and i think a T
but no C

maybe you're thinking of cart?

My apparently car obsessed day. I like cars.

2006-05-21T21:16:00.000+01:00

I do twelve hour shifts at my full time job. My hours are 7 - 7, which can be either 7 at either end depending on whether i'm on nights or days. I prefer nights. They're quieter. I like the quiet. I also like the dark. If i can ever do something just as easily in the dark as i could in the light, i do. Which probably sounds dodgy. But it wasn't meant to. Bright lights just get on my nerves. It's probably a little strange.

Today i got up at about 6am. This is how it usually is with day shifts and won't happen until i've cancelled my alarm at least 3 times. It's a dangerous game, because my alarm thinks there should be a limit to the amount of times i'm allowed to snooze. If i go over the limit, it figures i'm better off just going back to sleep. My boss probably wouldn't agree.

I can leave the house by about 6:15am. Not much time i suppose to get "ready". I tend to use the shower hose on my hair, but mostly just to get it in some kind of order. I give my pits and my face a wash. Brush my teeth, cover myself in deodorant and i'm away. Today i remembered to grab a banana out of the cupboard. Bananas just don't last that long, so it's best to eat them while they're still good.

Driving to work usually takes about 30 minutes and covers between 25 and 30 miles. This depends on whether i go the short way or the fun way. Both are good. My car is a bit of a monster for a person my age. It's a 4.4 litre V8. I don't want to be one of those people that shows off, so i'll pretend i told you that to draw a little more of a picture of my day.

I arrived at work at 6:45 or thereabouts. Sundays are great for many reasons, one of which is having so many choices of where to park. It's currently impossible to walk away from my car without looking back at it, because it really is very beautiful. There are a few angles in which it looks a little strange, but i forgive it because of the noise it makes.

Making my way through the building to my desk involves passing several complex security features. Most have hand scanners, pin codes and radio card readers. It seemed so cool at first. But now it's all a bit annoying. Another annoying thing is having to share a desk. Being a shift worker there's always someone at your desk 24x7, so in the morning you have to wait for them to leave. It's not their fault, it's just the way it is.

Another good thing about Sunday is things are quite relaxed. Customers don't call up too often, so you can get things done that you want to get done. I've been doing a project for a while now that i'm really starting to enjoy. It's probably weird to some people that i'd enjoy doing something for work, but i like setting goals and achieving them.

For a twelve hour day i find it suprisingly difficult to talk about what went on. But suffice to say, stuff did happen and before i knew it we were back at another one of those 7's. This one was a good 7 because it meant getting back in my car.

The journey home is almost as equally fun as the journey to work except i don't HAVE to be anywhere which makes it all the more relaxing. Heated seats are cool too. These heat right up your back which is very nice. And i thought a heated steering wheel was a crazy unnecessary novelty, but it's also suprisingly pleasant. I let my car worry about when to put the headlights on and how fast the windscreen wipers should be going. All i have to do is give the steering wheel a little flick as i'm going round wet roundabouts and feel the rear end slide round. It's all a bit mad really but the car's clever electronics quickly snap it back into form. And it's once again away.

So i'm a bit car obsessed. Go figure. I guess i didn't even know really. But it must be true. I mean i just wrote more about the journeys to and from work than i could think to write about what happened at work. I guess these are the things we learn when blogging.

So i'm back home. Back home on a Sunday evening isn't as easy to find a parking space. But i do, albeit too far away to be able to see my car. Which is probably for the best.

I'm too tired to make any kind of proper meal. So i just snack and relax.

And watch Top Gear.

Humans found to be vulnerable to viruses. Microsoft to release patch.

2005-11-10T10:58:00.000+01:00

Blogging about blogging or the lack of blogging is seriously uncool so i'll try not to do that. Rats. Well i'll try not to do it twice.

I have been sooooooooo ill recently. I'm usually immune to most of your human virii but one seems to have got me. And it's a doozie. It's had me laid up in bed for all of my four days off. Which isn't nearly as fun as it sounds. Plus it's suprisingly evil. It woke me up 10 minutes before my alarm this morning for work and it had me believing i felt pretty ok. Right up until i got here. Now i'm sweating like a very fat person who is somewhere moderately or extremely warm (sorry, couldn't come up with an original analogy).

Anyway fingers crossed its not bird flu. Although if i were to wake up one morning with wings that would be pretty cool.

You can't kick a pigeon

2005-09-14T00:39:00.000+01:00

It's tough to keep blogging when you have an approximate regular audience of about four. And i can't even be sure of that. But i did get a comment from Dan demanding i blog. Sure he could have just spoken to me on messenger, asked how i was, what i was up to, but nah why go to the effort when you can just sit back and demand someone blogs. Go him i say. Girl power and all that.

So anyway, i know this is supposed to be at least in some part about my life so here goes. I've been pretty lazy these past few days. I can't even claim i didn't have time to blog, because i've had plenty. I did finish a long out-standing project the other day. A website i've been making for someone for over a year, so hopefully i'll get paid now and it'll all be done and dusted. I found some great paid hosting for it (well i'm hoping it will be great anyway). It's with www.streamline.net. I'm going with their basic package, which offers unlimited bandwidth, 50mb of space (turns out the site i made is only 2mb so far despite being at least 50 files and a small DB running the guestbook), a FREE .co.uk domain name of my choice, £25 of google adwords advertising, my choice of a Unix or Windows server (Windows of course) and all the standard support a good webhost should offer, for the princely sum of £28 for two years. TWO YEARS! I find that pretty outstanding.

In other news, apparently you can't kick a pigeon. Not that i'm suggesting anyone should try it. Kicking pigeons is wrong. But while i was debating whether it was possible to kick a pigeon with my friend while walking through town behind one, he decided to prove it was impossible by running at one. Turns out they move pretty fast.

Where are they now?: Venger

2005-09-03T06:18:00.000+01:00

You may or may not remember the 80s cartoon Dungeons and Dragons, It featured this motley crew of misfits:

As far as i remember it they'd become trapped in the mystical land of Dungeons and Dragons, and each week had a series of adventures that usually ended up in them fighting a real evil looking guy called Venger (who was probably only really annoyed because someone had stolen his other horn):

Grr. Scary. At the end of every adventure they'd have fought for a chance to walk through a magic doorway to get home, but would always have to just miss out on that chance to save something lame like the annoying baby unicorn character (which in truth was a lamb with a cone glued to it's head, but that's a side issue).

Why am i bringing all this to your attention you might wonder. And quite rightly so. Well, i was researching where the characters (read: voices) of Dungeons and Dragons the cartoon were today. And i was most amused to see that Venger is still very much in employment. He plays Eeyore in the latest series of Winnie the Pooh movies.

Ultimate evil to donkey without a tail. No wonder he's so depressed.

Don't believe me? Well i'm offended, but see for yourself: http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0191520/

Dirty flipbook animations

2005-08-31T20:11:00.000+01:00

A good friend of mine pointed me to this website today: http://www.fabrica.it/flipbook/index.html

You can quickly and easily make your own fun dirty flipbook animations (or clean ones if you like). No msn-messenger style stuffing of pointless extra features here. Just draw, flip the page, draw, flip the page, draw..

Trust me it's more fun than it sounds. Here's my first attempt, which i knocked up in just two minutes:

http://www.fabrica.it/flipbook/flipbook_player.php?id=1125515310-213174192217

If you give it a go, post links to your animations as a comment of this post. And i'll cast my uber-artistics eye over your super creations. :p

Maybe i'm just getting old

2005-08-30T02:20:00.000+01:00

Do you know what's more interesting than being in a club? Well lot's of things. But do you know what one of those things is? Being outside a club! (i'll get back to that in a minute). Tonight i went and played pool for a bit which was quite cool. We played a game called killer. Five people, and we took it in turns to take a shot. You get three lives, you can pot any ball, but if you miss you lose a life. If you pot the black, you get a bonus life. Simple as that. £1 each in the pot. I won the first game (woohoo £5 up!) but then lost the next seven games (d'oh £2 down).

Anyway after that malarky (and several pints of a golden liquid known as "lager") they somehow convinced me to go to a notorious local club. Now i hate clubbing, but on the way there i was pretty sure i was drunk. Upon entering, i was suddenly the most sober person. Wow it was crap. Too hot. Too crowded (maybe i'm just getting old, or MAYBE clubbing just sucks). So anyway, being the slightly old slightly boring person i am , i went and sat outside (see told you i'd get back to it). It was totally interesting! I got to see an ambulance crew help a person who was having a massive asthma attack. Then a random (very nice looking) girl who seemed to know me asked me if i knew where this other girl that i know was, because she had all her stuff. I said if she couldnt find her i'd walk her home but in the end she didnt take me up on the offer :(. Then i got to witness the bouncers drag a guy out who was going a bit mental, and one of the bouncers had to be dragged back inside by other bouncers as he yelled "I'M GONNA F***KIN' KILL YOU!!" which i thought was perhaps not appropriate conduct for a bouncer. Then i got to see a guy and girl have a massive argument and the guy start on some other random guy.

I mean come on. That's more pikey entertainment than on any TV channel! Score one for real life! And it's right there at 1am on a high street near you!!

Uber cool lighter tricks!!!1!!!1!!1!

2005-08-20T13:03:00.000+01:00

Here's a great video that shows how totally cool you can look doing tricks with a zippo lighter. Totally cool dudes!! Check it out and you could be as uber cool as this guy!!1!1!1!!11!

http://media.putfile.com/itburns

Because the jedi don't want to get wet anymore than the next person

2005-08-15T00:06:00.000+01:00

I'm actually pretty glad there isn't a UK store now. I think i'd become it's number one customer.

For example, what would you get if you crossed a lightsaber with an umbrella? No it's not the start of a very odd joke, it's a strange and confusing reality:

More crazy free advertising: http://www.googlestore.com/product.asp?catid=1&code=GO0105

I wonder if they have an affiliate program i could join..

Goo-gle

2005-08-15T00:00:00.000+01:00

If you're lucky enough to live in the United States of America, you can buy Google Goo. That's right, Google Goo:

If anyone knows where you can get it in the United Kingdom, please leave a comment. Thank you!

Obligatory Link: http://www.googlestore.com/product.asp?catid=2&code=GO0096

YOU feature on google's homepage! (possibly)

2005-08-14T18:12:00.000+01:00

Today i've been re-affirming my love affair with google, by playing with some of their tools on offer in their "labs" area. I'm going to tell you about two of them: Personalized Homepage, and Google Download accelerator.

The personalized homepage ROCKS. Mostly because you can add your own sections provided by RSS feeds. This means my homepage not only features local weather, bbc news headlines, some tech news, a quote of the day, a word of the day and my favourite bookmarks, but it also includes the last 3 posts from my friends blogs. How cool is that my friends? You feature on google's homepage! Check it out:

The second tool i played with was Google's Download Accelerator. I think it's been done in one way or another before, the idea being that while you're internet connection would usually be idle (you're reading a webpage or whatever) it could be pre-fetching pages you might click to visit next. Then having already cached them it can present them to you faster.

I had mixed results. Sometimes it was noticeably faster (although my connection is pretty fast anyway) . Other times i suspected it might have been slowing things down.

There's a downside for those of you who are internet paranoid (they really ARE watching you you know). You have to agree during the install that you don't mind Google being sent personally identifiable information such as your IP address, and other such things that are sent to the sites you visit. I'm not entirely sure on the idea behind this, other than that it perhaps communicates back and forth with google and a clever algorithm (they love their algorithms at google) works out what you might click next in order to decide what to pre-fetch. Also, you'll be inadvertently visiting sites that are linked from the page you've viewing (or at least your IP address will be) whether you actually end up choosing to or not.

There was some delicious cleverness that i observed. You can enable it to underline in grey links that it's prefetching. Having this on, you'll notice it prefetches links you hover over, in anticipation of your click.

They've officially shut the supply of the beta of the Download Accelerator, but any good googler will find it for download on countless 3rd party sites.

[your advert here, apply within]

2005-08-14T16:59:00.001+01:00

I saw "the island" today. From this film i can tell you one very important fact. In the future, there will only be two companies: Microsoft and Puma. And their products will be advertised blatantly througout all science fiction related adventures.

Why-oh-why do they have to do it? The films make billions of dollars! Much more than the amount they cost to make, so why include blatant obnoxious marketing in the film? It distracts from what is otherwise a very interesting plot. But instead of watching the film, you're left wondering why in the future they're still advertising the (would-be ancient) xbox or why the msn and puma products haven't changed design in however many years it's supposed to be.

It's pointless money-grabbing pap. And any film-maker that allows it should be kicked to death by someone wearing the latest Puma trainers, available in a store near you for just £59.99.

Pornogami

2005-08-12T13:47:00.000+01:00

I just visited the greatest bookshop in the world. It features such brilliant titles as "the gangsta rap colouring book" where you can colour in a tribute to the Notorious B.I.G, "kill your pet" which was just filled with lots of disturbing messages scrawled in large black pen such as "IT WILL HAPPEN", and pornogami. Make pornographic origami (obviously!), using their detailed instructions and step-by-step pictures. Fantastic.

Tales from a rail commuter

2005-08-11T20:08:00.000+01:00

Sorry that this blog is turning into a "tales from a rail commuter" but despite all their flaws, the most interesting parts of my day seem to be the train journeys. I have no idea what i'm going to blog about once i'm done with this training in London.

So the train related news today: I was sat on a crowded train near the toilets (not a first class seat clearly, in fact the toilets are probably the best seat on the train, seeing as you get your own private quarters). Aaaanyway, as a gentlemen entered one of the toilets the train pulled away from a station, which caused the door to slam. And wow did everybody around me jump. I didn't quite put it together at first, because i was seated facing the toilets, so i could see it was just the door. But then the cogs turned, and i thought large bang + on a train + recent events (+ thursday).

In other lighter news, today i inadvertandly started a new game (well new to me anyway) on the walk with my friend to the train station on our way home. I've cleverly titled the game "bra or no bra" after i observed at lunch time a definite lack of bras amongst a lot of London women. Contestents have to call it as they see it, such as "definitely not", "definitely" and "probably not, but probably should". Points aren't awarded for creativity, in fact points aren't awarded at all, but creativity certainly isn't discouraged.

Play it today, in a town near you.

Time for some geekery

2005-08-10T12:10:00.000+01:00

Here they're using a Microsoft product called Virtual PC 2004 and i'm really impressed by it (which probably means Microsoft didn't write it, they just bought it from someone else).

Basically it allows you to create Virtual PC's on the hard disk of one machine. The PC's exist as a file large enough to store all the data they contain (so for Windows, usually about 2gig) and once you open them, it boots in a Window or Full-screen just like Terminal Services.

It's really handy for doing testing and experimentation with Windows products, and you can have multiple images that can inter-communicate, if you need to test a multi server environment. Anyway it impressed me. Here's Microsoft's link for more info:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx

The euphoria of free coffee

2005-08-10T08:40:00.000+01:00

The train scored a point at last today. When i arrived at Wimbledon, i was given a voucher for a free cup of coffee from the local coffee place. At first i ignored her, because much like pop-up advertising, we've become trained to ignore people that shove advertising in our faces. But then the words FREE and COFFEE reached the frontal part of my brain (where all the really important decisions take place) and i went back to collect it. I also thanked her on the way back past with my coffee, because i'm nice like that. And so was she.

Unfortunately, the euphoria of the free coffee didn't last very long, after i discovered my next train was delayed due to "flooding" at Kings Cross. Here's how Wimbledon train station dealt with the matter:

"The 7:07 thameslink train is delayed."
10 minutes later..
"the 7:07 thameslink train is cancelled."
"the 7:37 thameslink train is delayed."
10 minutes later..
"the 7:37 thameslink train is cancelled."

I could see a pattern emerging so i sought out an alternative route. This involved asking non-english speaking station staff questions that they couldn't understand, and reading an overly complicated map of London. In the end i decided best bet would be to carry on to Waterloo, and to get the Tube. Basically i shouldn't have bothered getting off my original train (except i got free coffee and a copy of the metro).

So tube travel. Scary. At first i thought the tube was actually just a series of underground tunnels that you walked, because it took forever to actually get to a train. But once on it, it was quick, efficient, and devoid of anyone carrying a backpack. What do you do if you do spot someone though? It's so crowded there's nowhere to go. Suffice to say i'm alive and well and at at my destination.

The tube station staff were all very good. All i had to do was explain i couldn't use the Thameslink, and they let me through all the barriers without a ticket. Anyone travelling by tube today if you don't want to pay just say you couldn't use the Thameslink.

The Train: It's blogger's gold

2005-08-09T19:35:00.000+01:00

I will say this about the Train. It's great for coming up with Blogging material. You've just got to remember to jot things down somewhere. Or start moblogging. Which i'm told is slightly weird. So here's my list of bloggable things from one train journey:

It all started with this man, who was on my train. I recognised him as being the Dad from the BBC's TV apaption of "The Borrowers", but googling him for a picture just now, it turns out he was also in some film called Lord of The Rings. Okay so it might not have *actually* been him, because i can't imagine he uses the smelly south-west trains, but it sure as hell could be his evil twin. Unless he's his evil twin, in which case the guy on the train is the good twin. We've established at least, he's definitely a twin.

After that, i wanted to tell you about how hilarious it was to watch someone come flying down the station stairs, only to get to the train just as the doors close. It might have been mean and unnecessary of me to laugh, but it was still funny. And we've all been there.

The train was very crowded again from the start and although i managed to get a seat, it was next to a pregnant woman. Note to self: don't pick a seat next to a pregnant woman. Pregnant women are wider than normal, and take up an unfair amount of seat space. On the other hand, i did get to read some of her book, which was of course "baby names". There was some that brought me some amusement. I joined her as she reached "N", and she spent a disturbingly long time looking at "Norman". Poor kid. The strangest name was definitely "Odyssues", but best of all, i got to look at some alternative names for "Ralph". For anyone that know's Ralph, you can also address him as:

- Rauf
- Raul
- and.. Raoul

Congratulations, Rauf. After that, i decided i wanted to make an important observation on the over-crowding of the trains. The government are currently discussing the idea of "pay-as-you-go driving". This is where you pay an amount per-mile for the roads you use. This will effectively make driving so expensive it will force most people off the roads and on to public transport. Public transport which doesn't appear to have the capacity to support it's current passenger-load. Perhaps they'll replace all the roads with railways, and have about a thousand times more trains than they do now. Which will of course cause congestion on the rail network. Which they'll resolve by making people pay a ludicrous amount per-mile for rail travel.

I had to change at Wimbledon, on to another train with no available seats. Here i stood in the doorway bit and as the train pulled away almost fell on top of a random woman. No one found this amusing but me. Which just seemed backwards.

After that the train eventually emptied out. Turns out the only person who travels by train to my town is me. I did get to listen to one-side of another long boring mobile conversation. Oh, and i was on a brand new South-West train. It has a clever auto-announcer that tells you what the next station is. This one was clearly already bored of it's job, because it kept lying. I'm telling you once that Skynet comes online these machines are going to kill us all.

mmmm.. bourbons, hmmm.. foot-longs

2005-08-09T10:46:00.000+01:00

They have FREE bourbon biscuits here that come in packets of 3. That's just too many bourbons to be eaten in one sitting! Dammit, there should be a 3 packet limit.

Speaking of over-eating, i was handed a voucher outside the station when i arrived today. Three one-foot long foot-long (obviously) sandwiches from Subway for £9.99.

Who could eat THREE FEET of sandwich? Anyone??

Why not have 10mbps broadband?

2005-08-09T08:51:00.000+01:00

UK cable firm NTL today promised to make 10Mbps its standard broadband access speed, and to upgrade existing customers at no extra cost.
The first home surfers in the UK to receive the upgrade will be NTL's current 3Mbps broadband customers.
"By the end of this year they will have a connection of up to 10Mbps, while their
usage allowance will increase from 30GB to 75GB per month," the company stated.

I'm a 3mb customer! :p

Taken from: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2140877/ntl-10mpbs-broadband-standard

"Does anybody know who's bag this is?"

2005-08-09T08:37:00.000+01:00

It's the words you never want to hear while on the train,

"Does anybody know who's bag this is?"

Thankfully a woman immediately took ownership of this suspicious and seemingly abandoned item that i'd failed to even notice.

"It's mine!" she said with an awkward smile, "but you were right to ask."

And he was.

It's not British to speak to strangers on the train, or the bus, or in the evelator, or well.. anywhere. Thankfully that's not stopping the good people of this nation from looking after eachother. And well, that felt good.

Why you shouldn't ever stop blogging

2005-08-08T21:22:00.000+01:00

"raphs says:
you better keep blogging
raphs says:
or the easter bunny will get whacked and you'll never get a db9.
raphs says:
as well as never get a promotion.
raphs says:
did i scare you enough to keep you blogging?
Markus says:
yes."

Why my car is better than a train

2005-08-08T20:56:00.000+01:00

This week i'm visiting London every day. I thought about it long and hard, and as much as I love my car, it just didn't seem the best way to get into the centre of London. I was sorely mistaken. Here's a few ways my car is better than a train:

- My car leaves almost the moment i board it. It never makes me wait, and it's always there on time.

- My car only stops when it gets to my destination, or to pick up vital snacks. It doesn't stop at every town along the way, and it takes the most direct route.

- My car never stops to pick up strangers. If it were to stop and pick up a stranger, i'm almost certain they wouldn't sit right next to me due to lack of available seating.

- Even if due to some strange coincedence a random stranger were to be seated next to me in my car, the seats are wide enough for me to be a comfortable distance away from them.

- In my car a single press of a button rolls down the windows. However if you're on a crowded train and someone farts, there's nowhere you can go.

That's not to say i didn't notice any intrinsic benefits from travelling on the faithful train. There were several things i enjoyed:

- On a train, there's more time to admire the view. Often this turns out to be run-down council estates, but still, admiring the view while driving a car just causes accidents.

- You can have short amusing conversations with the random strangers. It's fun to make sarcastic comments about the woman who's having a loud conversation on her mobile. "Do you think she could speak up a bit?"

- By peering over a person's shoulder, you can read pages from the middle of a random novel. It's harder to read the pages on the left side of the book than the right without getting caught, but you still get to enjoy parts of an interesting story.

So there you have it. Trains might not be fast, clean, efficient, timely, free from crowding, cheap or have timetables that anyone outside of Mensa can understand, but they do get you to your destination. Eventually. Sometimes.