I didn't quite catch that...

I’m on my way out to get hammered now, so I’ll just get a big Happy New Year in now.

Enjoy

Well, I’m sure that everyone on Earth has now heard about the whole air marshalls thing. And now the unions are weighing in, which is always a good thing.

Of course the pilot will remain in charge; thats like saying that having armed cops on the streets of London will remove Livingstone from power (if only…). Of course the marshalls will be trained. But the bit that annoys me is:

“We shall spell out why putting armed guards on aircraft rather than stopping armed terrorists on the ground is far from a universal solution.”

It’s quite suprising to me that there is doubt (in the avaition community, of all things) about the concept of redundancy. Try to stop terrorists on the ground from getting on a specific flight, and if you can’t then cancel it. But then place armed people on similiar flights, just for a bit more security. You can’t cancel every flight, and you can’t stop every person who meets a demograph (ie: Irish, Catholic, young, male doesn’t automatically mean terrorist*), so you take precautions.

That’s the plan, anyway.

* – please make note of this. Specificially at Birmingham International Airport

I think that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket. I’ve said this before, many times. (I’ve been pished some of these times, as is currently the case, but hey)

Anyway, what about this?

STAMFORD, Connecticut (AP) — A 2-year-old model and actor who cut his head at a playground is seeking unspecified lost wages and other compensation from the city.

Konrad Mader of Greenwich was running toward a treehouse at a playground November 4 when he crashed into a railing, according to a claim filed last week by his mother and reported Friday by The Advocate of Stamford. The blond toddler received several stitches.

Christ on a bike. A kid hurt themself. If a parent can blame someone else for their own child learning what not to do in life 101, then what hope does the world have? “Here, you couldn’t save my child after someone else KILLED them. I sue you, cos I can’t be arsed going after them…

I’m glad I ain’t a doctor.

I mentioned a while ago that I was considering getting the HIGNFY DVD. And I got it for Christmas. Does this mean that someone in my family is reading this site? Should I tone it down? Decisions.

…

Right. I’ve decided. Fuck ‘em.

And I’ve got a decent DVD to be watching. Which is nice.

May the spirit of Christmas bring peace to your heart and music to your lips.

Or, in the Queen’s english: Lets go get pissed.

Enjoy, the lot of you.

I’m really suprised that this isn’t getting more coverage. I mean, if it had happened in Iraq, then the Quagmire! bells would have been ringing overtime. But hey.

I’m also a bit pissed off at how it was reported on the radio: “An army helicopter has crashed in the Waterside area of Derry. There is no word on how many have been injured”. For a one big reason: it is very clear from footage and eyewitness reports that it crashed in a rugby club. This is probably due to a mixture of skill on the part of the pilot and luck on everybody else’s part. If it had crashed in the Waterside proper, there would have been many, many casulties, what with it being a densly populated area of a small city.

However, it didn’t, and the casulties were limited to those onboard. There were a couple of lucky breaks, it has to be said:

• It happened during the day, when the local hospital (about 2-3 miles from impact) was fully staffed with very skilled & qualified doctors and consultants on site. If it had happened at night (very possible, what with the Gazelle having full DLIR and FLIR ability), there would have been one SHO in A&E, and one each in Surgery and Anaesthetics. Not so good.
• It didn’t happen during training or a match in the rugby club.
• It was a Gazelle, not a troop carrying Lynx.
• My big sis wasn’t working in the A&E at the time of impact. Lucky for her, not for everyone else.

I can’t really class a winter as a proper Winter unless some conditions have been met. For example, there must have been a bit of snow. There must be extreme cold. There must be an occasion for me to suffer both of these. And there must be a funeral.

All of these happened today. Therefore, I can safely say that the winter of ’03-’04 was a proper Winter.

That is all for now.

If anyone can give me any hints on “IT Security for Network users” (other that don’t give people your password), feel free to give me some hints.

Ta.

The policy of deterrence is a tricky subject these days. Some people seem to think that you can just talk about it and it’s job is done. Others realise that, for deterrence to work, you must make good on the threats when the person you’re trying to deter ignores you.

Example: Iraq ignored world demands to behave. France said “Demand a bit more”. Sensible people instead sent in a hundred thousand troops and made them behave.

Will this deter others? Maybe. It may also be a coincidence that Libya started to play nice just as the endgame in Iraq got interesting, but I think not.

Common sense: 2, Axis of Weasles: nil point.

Right. I’m sick of people turning up to my site looking for bleached assholes. It’s not funny, y’hear?

I ask you, honestly. I’m gotten more hits from that search query than any other in the last week. Some people.

Today marks the centenary of heavier than air flight. Which is always good. Pity it had to happen in the year that aviation took a giant leap backwards (see Concorde), but there you go.

• Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, “I think I’ll squeeze these pink dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?”
• Who was the first person to say, “See that chicken there… I’m going to eat the next thing that comes out of it’s bum.”
• Why do toasters always have a setting so high that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
• Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?
• Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don’t point to their bum when they ask where the bathroom is?
• Why does the Gynae leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look RIGHT up there anyway?
• If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?
• Why does the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
• Stop singing and read on . . . . . .. . . . .
• Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets pissed off with you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

Many years ago, I asked Santa for an Atari 2600. I didn’t get it. The year after, however, I got a 520ST, which was so much better. Instead of getting a game machine, I got a real computer. I mean, it had a word processor. It could do spreadsheets. It was real technology. I got a printer for it, I got the hard disk (I believe it could hold an amazing 2Mb). I liked it.

It also played games. The famous Dizzy series was good. SWIV was good. Carrier Command was great. But the best came free with it. Bomb Jack. I loved that game. It was like Tetris, stupidly simple and yet hugely addictive.

Guess what I got the other day on my phone. Oh yes. Bomb Jack is back, baby, and I can now play it on the bus.

Hell, for the next month and a half, it’s legal to play it while driving. So watch out if you see a hideous Hyuandi swerving on the M2 over the next few weeks. Mwhahaha!

Spoke too soon. Instead of being sensible, they’re introducing that bloody mobiles law here as well.

Me not pleased.

A little more information on last weekend, then.

Plan: fly over on Friday morning, meet a friend in Reading for an afternoon drink or two, then go to Cov. Arrange to have a pint or two Friday night in Cov, then retire to a bargain hotel. Saturday, meet people, the spend the evening in the Union getting hammered. Sunday, have pub lunch with a few people, the go home.

Actual: fly over on Friday morning, meet a friend (see right) in Reading, get hammered there, catch up (Me: single, living at home, unemployed; Her: attached, living with the bloke, employed in bar). Finding it impossible to find somewhere to put my bag, we decided (in the iinfinite wisdom supplied by beer and whiskey), to cancel hotel in Cov and book B&B there in Reading. Proceed to meet a few people and get very drunk. Then proceed to have a debate with a bouncer (“Fire exits and why I should be allowed to gain access to events through them”). Get very cosy with friend. Very nice, but probably not something I should really have done. Have to leave B&B early in morning, and she has to work. Very unsatisfactory, but what can you do.

Saturday morning & afternoon spent recovering. Evening spent drinking, insulting Chez (& his beard, I probably was a bit harsh, but hey), discovering more reasons to be mean to Matt, catching up with people, getting very drunk, and dropping people (see left). Sunday spend recovering, cancelling what plans there were (which would have gone a lot better of some people had left their phones on), watching a bit of news (something about some guy called Sodom?), cursing Virgin trains, and going home.

Nearly according to plan, then. Have to mend a few bridges, burn a few CCTV tapes, but apart from that, it’s all good.

Oh, and does anyone know a good doctor? I need to sell a kidney. To cover the cost of getting drunk in Reading.

I would be very grateful if someone could provide me with the following:

1. Memories from Friday night. If no memories are available, could someone furnish me with exlpainations as to what vague memories I have: heated discussion with bouncer;spending more money than George Bush in a cruise missile shop; getting very cosy with a very nice young lady I really shouldn’t have been getting cosy with. If you can help with any of these, feel free to do so.
2. An ability to read the signs. This follows on from the last of the previous items. I estimate that my life would be some 14.2 times easier if I had this ability.
3. Some common sense. Specificially, enough to do the following: stop dropping people when I’m pissed; and to talk to people instead of shouting random insults at them.

There are others, but I think that that’s enough for now.

Watched Have I Got More News For You… the other day. George Galloway was ripped to shreds on it. Always enjoyable. I may have to get the DVD…

I haven’t posted in the last week. This may have been noticed. I’d like to be able to say that I had a damn good reason, and that I had an amusing tale to regale my reader with. I do not, so I can’t.

Honest reason? This arrived in the post. The first 44 episodes of the West Wing. About 33 hours of West Wingy goodness. And it’s all good. I especially like this line:

I am an educated man, but when anybody tries to explain cricket to me, all I want to do is hit them in the head with a teapot.

It’s all good.

This is a sensible prosecution.

A woman who failed to clear the mist from her car’s windows before a collision with a tractor and trailer has been fined.

Cleaner Katrina Radley admitted driving carelessly when she appeared at Perth Sheriff Court.

I say this mainly because I was driving down a country road the other night when some nutter in an Audi pulled out in front of me and stayed at 15mph for a mile to try and clear his windscreen. Why not just wait the minute or two to get it cleared properly in the first place. Luckily, I had my brakes relaced recently, because if I’d had the old ones, I’d have been in the back of him. Cock.

As some people may already know, today it became illegal to use a mobile phone while driving in the UK.

Sorry. A mistype there. It became illegal to use a mobile phone while driving in England, Scotland and Wales. It’s still perfectly legal over here. Ha ha.

I say this not because I have a huge urge and need to phone people while driving, but because the ban is a knee jerk reaction. And therefore, in all probability, it is bad law. Unenforcable in many cases (the wording allows a driver to use his fingertips to operate a phone, but not hold it or use the thumb. Watch that in court “But, your honour, I saw him use his thumb!” “From a car, 15 yards away, at 70mph? Piss off and stop bothering me.”), un-necessary (bad driving could always be punished under existing “without due care and attention” clauses) and soon to be irrelevant.

And what really gets me is this: the operation of the phone is not the dangerous thing, according to the road safety lobby. The dangerous thing is the attention of the driver being diverted from driving to talking. IF this is the case (and I don’t think that it is, but hey), then lets follow it through to the logical conclusion: the driver must sit in an enclosed compartment, with no chance for passangers to communicate with them. They must not use a radio. They cannot check the time. There can be no billboards on the sides of roads. Anything within 100 yards of a road must be there for reasons related to driving.

Fucked up, yes? So why pick on something that will only create more nightmares for traffic branch (a bunch who often like to share their nightmares with the rest of us), punish sensible, careful drivers, and not touch the worst offenders?

But I don’t really care. Because it doesn’t really affect me. Ha ha.