Shopping

I'm not much of a shopper, but at the weekend I went looking for two items for an upcoming LARP event.

A black, polo-neck shirt (one of those things you can roll up to hide half your neck) and some form of black cosmetic (probably lipstick) to go with the rest of the black makeup I'll be wearing.

Because there's nothing worse then getting all dressed up...just for your first cup of tea to dissolve the makeup covering your lips.

It just looks wrong.

So there I was, looking for the shirt.

In the entire town center shopping district, serving a population of about 100,000 people I found...not one.

Not even anything close. There are two possible reasons that I couldn't find one. I suspect it's a combination of things, to be honest, but...

The first is floor space. Broadly speaking there are three types of clothing shops. Those that exist solely for women - casual, smart, shoes - whatever. There are those that sell suits for men. And there are mixed stores that have a varying ratio of stick.

Most clothes stores fit the first category. The second category was useless to me, as I didn't want a suit - and the type of shirt I want was far, far to casual to buy there.

Which left the third type.

Now, here the amount of space varied depending on the store. The best store found was "Marks and Spencer". Here they had most of upstairs as a mens section - although I'm unsure of the logic of putting lingerie right next door to the men's shoes. But that's a side issue.

More to the point, they had a decent selection of clothes, helpful staff and even though they couldn't help me - they tried.

The far side of the spectrum was another department store. Here what few clothes they had for men were sandwiched between luggage and the garden section - just enough space to swing a cat.

They had more space put aside for handbags then they did for half the human race. They had twice as much space dedicated to women's underwear. They had three times the space dedicated to cosmetics.

The staff didn't even care enough to look interested in a potential customer - I've seen more life in a LARP corpse.

In the end, I failed completely to find what I was looking for.

Either due to the complete lack of floorspace dedicated - or the for the second reason.

Polo-neck shirts are a strictly winter item.

And it's sunny.

Why you shouldn't fear terrorists

You shouldn't fear terrorists because - essentially - they're muppets.

If a terrorist group wanted to cause some real damage they wouldn't be bombing places. Nope - it's a pointless exercise, because you can never do enough damage.

Number of bombings in the last 10 years in the UK that actually inflicted damage? Ditto, the USA, Canada?

No. An intelligent terrorist group would right now fly to Mexico and find some people infected with this.

Infect the dedicated in, say, London - wouldn't need to be many, maybe 10 - and have them go to the cinema. The theatres, football and a school play.

That would cripple the country - much more so then taking out a tube station or three.

Don't attack property. Inflict real fear.

(What can I say? I have high quality nightmares sometimes)

"Safety" proposals

Once again our glorious leaders in Westminster have put forwards proposals to protect us from ourselves. Details, here.

What was that? I don't sound impressed?

You'd be right. Lets look at a few...

Police would no longer need to suspect that an offence has been committed in order to stop and breath-test a driver. Breath specimens taken at the roadside would become admissible as primary evidence in court, removing the need to carry out additional tests at a police station. Drivers would lose the right to demand a blood test.

This sounds like a good thing, right? No more driving while intoxicated? Well....no.

What a roadside breathalyzer is the truly tiny amount of alcohol present in the air you breath out. This alcohol seeps out of your blood in the lungs to the air in them at a very slow rate. We're talking small quantities here people.

Silly things like using mouthwash, hyperventilating, being diabetic, having dentures or simply Being Odd all screw up the numbers involved. Which is why it's not actually illegal to have a high level of alcohol in your breath.

It IS enough to bring you in to a station and take a blood test - actual proof you've broken the law.

So what we have here is the possibility of being pulled over and being convicted of driving under the influence based on an estimate that's unreliable and is supposed to be used as an indicator only.

Oh, and you've lost the right to demand a test that would clear you.

Or lets look at another part.

Offences such as failing to signal or passing too close to a cyclist, which currently would draw a verbal warning, could result in a £60 fine and three penalty points.

Failing to signal. That's a sin, I'd agree.

But to put points on peoples licenses for failing to signal - that's a little harsh. Let's be honest - it's madness.

Signal that you're turning left at a roundabout - where you are turning? That could be a an offense - if you don't know that there's another tiny road. Get to a round about and don't know if it's the first or second turning or say, five? That's an offense.

There's a whole list of situations where signaling - or not - could be misleading, unsafe and downright dangerous.

Right now, a policeman could tell me off - and if it was dangerous driving there is an offense to cover this. An automatic fine and points? Bad idea...

I could go on, but I'm running out of lunch.

Things that intrigue

What does it take to get your attention?

I'm tired. So tired that I've got a hot mug of milk at my elbow and I'm going to bed in just a minute. After posting this, most likely.

But as usual for a Monday I listened to "Old Harry's Game" - a show based in hell. But that's a side issue. On the radio clip, before it starts there's some quirky music that sounds really out of place.

So odd and out of place, I might even listen. If I wasn't falling asleep already.

--

Side issue: I'd love to say that because I'd rather go to bed early and sleep it clearly proves I'm not a WoW addict. Because I can't.

The net here is still screwed and about as usable as a waterproof teabag.

Not much

There's not much I ask for a sunday evening.

Food, a net connection and a fun raid on warcraft.

It's really easy.

But after the net company (Demon) is supposed to have given me an UPGRADE I've got a connection somewhat more flakey then a flake 99, dropping me at intervals of 30 seconds to 3 minutes.

Even things like MSN refuse to log on. They can't even establish a sodding conection.


Arrrrrrggghhhhh!

Again??

What is it with weekends and my net connection - once more, I've seem faster corpses.

I can't even sustain a connection long enough to run a speed test.

Grrrr.

You grumpy lot!

Updates have been delayed by such petty things as food, sleep and me being lazy. All perfectly valid excuses.

About the weekend - it was fun. Immense fun.

We went from fear of attack to imminent attack. We hoped and stood ready.

We planned and talked. We dragged Justice down and blinded him. We did more damage to Justice then I believed could be done to a closet immortal.

We rampaged through Havockstan with a simple cry.

No peace in the war!

--
Am I going back?

Oh yes.

Normal Service Part 2

I will do a real post tomorrow.

But over the weekend I did 148.7 miles.
I used 9.61 liters of fuel.

That's 70.34 miles to the gallon. In bank holiday traffic, both ways.

I'm actualy rather proud of this.

Normal Service

Normal service will resume shortly after my weekend away. Details will be forthcoming.

However - it has to be said.

No peace in the war!

What a way to ruin a day

In my time I've seen a lot of computer errors.

Dead hard drives. That smell of burning plastic. I've even seen sparks flying.

There are two things I fear the most. The hard drive that departs this world for the next carrying 100gb of my data with it. For this can cause unheralded misery - can I get my photos back? When did I back it up last?

The other is a completely different form of panic.

You've arranged to meet someone online. You've got a raid planned. An email to write. Something that must be done, NOW, online. And it fails.

You run though all the usual fixes, trying to breath life into the shattered web. Renew the IPs. Check the cabling. Reboot this. Tweak that.

And all you get is this...



Meet my sunday.

Head and shoulders

I was shopping on Saturday and was forced to my more shampoo.

Mainly because I use it on occasion - and we all seem to have a different one. And it's empty.

So there I am, pottering about the shampoo, hair dye and conditioner bit of the supermarket. Almost an isle full - and I can't find what I'm after.

I can't find it because the brand isn't there. It's head and shoulders - everywhere sells it.

Nor is it concealed among others. It's right there in front of me.

I can't find what I want because of the choice. There's a few choices.

-Mint
-Conditioning
-Dry hair
-Ocean lift(?)
-Smooth and silky
-Coloured
-Extra volume
-Citrus
-"Classic"
-For men
-Refresh
-Sensitive

I'm quite sure I missed some. Now, what do I buy?

Conditioner? (Does it matter?)
Mint? (Smells nice at least)
Colour? (I don't dye my hair - that's easy, no)
Extra volume (Good god no, my hairs bad enough as it is)
Sensitive? (Umm.....probably not)
Dry? (Only if it's for my sense of humour)
For men? (Hold it, are ALL the rest of the brands for women??)

I settled for conditioner. But only because it was on offer.

So - does it actually matter? At all?!?
---
Edit to add:

And they've changed the shape of the bottle. So if you're essentially blind in the shower (like me) I now have to go looking for it - rather then just know what it looks like. Blue blob on white.

A new face

One of the lovely things about blogging and the internet is that you might find something completely Different. You look for one thing and find the reverse.

Searching for certain childrens cartoon characters - you exoect Disney and get - well, I can't possibly mention in polite company.

On WoW addiction, you find lots - broken lives, dirges and songs of sadness. But that's not all you can find. You can also find something like this tale of hope.

A few quotes...

"At family meals, I had no idea what they were talking about; I didn’t even understand the language they used. We had grown apart and the gap was widening."

"The solution was thought up by my younger son, who hit upon the idea of getting me, his mother, to play WOW. I was reluctant to say the least; I simply didn’t see the attraction, it was an alien world, I didn’t ‘do’ gaming."

"After 3 months of playing, my older son was married..... Several of the wedding guests introduced themselves by their online character names in the receiving line (bizarre).... They were sworn to secrecy in case the bride's mother found out, she might not have understood..."

I could go on and selectively quote the whole thing - but it deserves much better then that. Go on over and read it. It's her first blog post and everything - so give her some support.

She's made the first step into the wider world.

The next step...the hardest step....the second post...

This test awaits her.