How to Instantly Identify and Foil Stupid Pedestrians Before They Get in Your Path

Ah, legs... Where would we be without them? Probably at home, I imagine, as getting around would be a pain in the arse.

That's why I love my legs. There has yet to be invented a better way of "walking" or "going for a stroll" than using these simple and charming appendages.

However, there are people out there who use their legs to frustrate the daily lives of many an innocent bystander. The technical term for these people is stupid pedestrians.

For your convenience, I've categorised stupid pedestrians into 6 types, with information on their habits and how you can avoid needless problems.

1. THE SNAIL: This is the type who walks slowly. Not a problem in itself, but they usually do it in narrow streets where you have no room to overtake. They enjoy hearing you mutter insults from behind, and will even decrease their pace in order to increase your frustration. HOW TO AVOID: Often, the snail is quite old, and can be encouraged to speed up by saying things like, "I hear there's big discounts on rich tea biscuits at Tescos," or "I think the post office is closing soon."
2. THE POSSUM: The possum is a difficult one to spot because he normally looks like any other pedestrian. That is until he decides to stop suddenly right in front of you without any warning. HOW TO AVOID: You can't avoid this pedestrian, I'm afraid, but what you can do is to carry a sharp pointed object--an umbrella will suffice--and when the possum freezes you can poke him in the nether regions. Remember to say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were going to stop. Maybe you should consider fitting brake lights..."
3. THE LEMMING: This person for some strange reason thinks it's cool to walk out into oncoming traffic. HOW TO AVOID: If you are driving a car, there is no need to avoid this specimen, though do take some extra cleaning materials to get the blood stains off your vehicle.
4. THE STAMPEDING ELEPHANT: This example walks in a straight line only and will not get out of anybody's way--from his viewpoint he is the most important thing in the universe and everything must rotate around him. HOW TO AVOID: Fortunately, this particular beast is easy to overcome, just pretend to get out of the way, but leave one foot out so he trips over. Do not worry if the pedestrian hurls abuse: it's his way of showing appreciation for your amazing kung-fu skills!
5. THE PACK OF WOLVES: These animals are terrified of walking in single file and only move when there are enough of them to completely block the pavement to all oncoming pedestrians. HOW TO AVOID: Difficult but not impossible. It's advisable to have a clipboard to hand, as you can pretend to be doing a survey. In fact, this method will always guarantee you complete freedom to walk down the street with no hassle whatsoever.
6. THE HEADLESS CHICKEN: When you try to overtake them, they wander unerringly into your path. HOW TO AVOID: You need to deactivate the radar system they have built into their heads. Just punch the pedestrian sharply in the back of the head. Problem solved!

I hope this article has proved useful to you. Remember, we all have legs, but only some of us have brains.

Valentine's Day - Stupid or What?

So, February is around the corner and you can expect the internet to be filled with ads for Valentines gifts. But does anyone stop to think about what St. Valentine would make of it all?

The real St. Valentine, though not much is known about his life, was a third century martyr who died refusing to deny his belief in Jesus Christ. Is that a good reason to buy your loved one a box of chocolates? I don't think so. If the poor guy were alive today he'd be turning in his grave. No, hold on, I think I got the metaphor mixed up a little...

The point is this: by concentrating our notion of romance on one day of the year we trivialise it. Nowadays, if you don't buy your loved one something special, you're a terrible lover, even if the rest of the year you've been the perfect partner. Doesn't make sense to me.

But maybe I'm just unhappy because, like most men, I'm completely useless at buying presents..! Honestly, this is the guy who once bought his girlfriend a poncho for Valentines.

So, what this post is really about is this: HELP ME! I want to buy a special gift this year for you-know-who and I don't have a clue. Who better to ask than the smart people who read my blog? Over to you...

Addicted to Blogging? Seven Warning Signs...

A terrible new disease is attacking the finest minds of our generation. Find out if you are at risk. If you see any of the following tell-tale signs, you could be next to succumb...

1: You worry more about traffic to your blog than traffic to your job.

2: RSS Feeds are more important to you than food.

3: You visit more Blog Carnivals than parties.

4: You pepper your daily conversation with high-profile keywords in order to attract more listeners.

5: You spend more time checking your adsense account than your real one.

6: When friends fancy a chat, you submit them to a word recognition widget before accepting their comments.

7: When asked for your home address, you give the URL of your blog.

Stupid Car Drivers Take to the Skies

Can you imagine the problems this hunk of junk is going to cause?

Stupid car drivers are going to have the chance for some real action. Over our heads!!!

What happens when one of these flyboys forgets to fill up the tank? Or is too busy talking on his mobile phone to pay attention to where he's going? The possibilities for disaster are limitless.

And there are currently no traffic lights in our skies!!! No air police to make these people pull over!!! No radars to make sure they don't break the sound barrier!!!

And I have not seen one single ad campaign warning of the dangers of drinking and flying...

I don't know about you but I'm going to be wearing a helmet when I go out.

And by the way, who thought up the name of this thing? The Transition? That doesn't sound like a flying car, isn't it something that happens between paragraphs. Are they really going to attract testosterone-pumped morons with a name that could be the title of a Chekov play?

I seriously doubt Han Solo would have been so cool if he'd been flying a Transition instead of the Millennium Falcon. Still, it is the 21st Century. It's about time we had something futuristic in the skies, I just wish we could use the Force to protect ourselves when things go wrong...

Stupid Coruña (2)

A lot of people come up to me and say, "Hey Richie, you're the smartest person I know, what do you think of floors?"

So, I think it's about time I addressed this burning issue.

Floors! Don't you just love 'em? And so simple too! Just put some stuff down on the earth and presto! You have yourself a floor! Ceilings and roofs, boy they're difficult. But a floor--anyone can do it! Try it for yourself at home--no wait, you don't have to!

You'd think that now we're in the twenty-first century we'd have floors that are perfect, floors that are so good our grandparents would be walking around all the time going, "I can't believe how good this floor is! In my day the floors were terrible, they really sucked big-time, but this...this floor is positively orgasmic! My feet are in floor heaven!"

Sadly, here in La Coruña, floor technology has not progressed since Roman times. I mean, what is it with this addiction to marble? Everywhere I go they have highly-polished floors. Cafeterias, hairdressers, bookshops -- marble, marble, marble.

Maybe you're thinking, "What's the problem with marble floors, dude? If they were good enough for Caesar, surely they're good enough for you?"

Well, firstly, may I remind you that Caesar was assassinated...on a marble floor! And secondly, my problem is this -- RAIN!!!

Here in Galicia it rains all the time. While I write this, it's raining. When I go home it'll be raining. I'll wake up tomorrow and, guess what? Actually, the forecast for tomorrow is sun... But it'll rain anyway dammit! You think Noah had to put up with a lot of rain? 40 days and nights? That's nothing. Here in Galicia it's been raining for the last 40 YEARS. There's a whole generation of people here who don't know that the sky is actually blue.

My point, yes I do have one, is this: rain and marble floors do not make a pleasant combination.

When I go to my local bookshop to pick up a magazine (something informative and educational, like Playboy, for example) I don't just walk in -- I slide. In fact, slide isn't the word for it. I skitter. The bookshop assistants probably call me The Skitter Man. If they weren't so busy polishing that goddamned marble floor they might actually look up and notice that I get absolutely zero traction during my visit. I skitter along up to the counter, collect my magazine, and I skitter back out again. The only reason I don't fall over is because I'm familiar with the territory. Usually though I walk in somplace I'm not accustomed to and WHOA!!! Almost swallowed my shoe there.

Speaking of footwear, I think that La Coruña must be some sort of testing ground for shoe companies. I can imagine executives at Nike saying, "Well, if this new sole can grip in La Coruña, it'll grip anywhere." Whenever the shoe companies invent a better sole, the Galician shop assistants find some way of making the floors even slippery. I'll bet that NASA could learn a few things about frictionless materials from the locals here.

And on the subject of Nike, I saw the great Michael Jordan himself the other day opening a supermarket in the centre of the town. Poor guy. He may be all that on the basketball court, but on a wet marble floor... man, did he skitter.

Smart Tips for Bloggers

This is going to be a fairly long post, but here's the short version: get feeds from your favourite blogs to your homepage. You'll thank me for it!

Right, now for the long explanation. I'm fairly new to blogging. I started on December 8th of last year. So far, I've had a great time and I'm really enjoying the experience. However, one thing I've noticed is that it takes a lot of time!

One of the real pleasures of blogging are the comments people leave on posts, and I like to join in the conversation on various blogs. Apologies to all of you who've had to put with up my so-called "humour". Anyway, it was a real pain having to type in blog addresses, or click on links from one blog to another. Remember, I'm not really that savvy about web things.

Then I discovered the beauty of bookmarks. Yes! Go to a page, bookmark it, click on your bookmark folder and all your favourite pages are available! What's more, I discovered that with Firefox I could drag the bookmarks onto my toolbar! I click on a button and I'm there on your blog's doorstep!

Even so, there wasn't enough room for all my bookmarked pages on the toolbar, my favourite pages were increasing exponentially, and I was spending a lot of time going to a blog only to find it hadn't been updated since my last visit. Time for a bit of research...

A lot of bloggers were talking about "Feeds". Huh? What's a feed? Are bloggers particularly hungry people? Then they kept mentioning things like "RSS". Doesn't that stand for Repitive Strain Syndrome? Not clicking on that, I thought, that's for sure! Others were boasting about "Atom". Well, we're all made of atoms so I didn't think there was much to boast about.

I soon discovered the truth.

I'll keep it simple. So simple even I can understand it. A feed is a way of sending a message to say that your blog has been updated.

Why is this such a good thing? Well, I have an account with Yahoo which I previously used just for email. They had something called My Yahoo, a page where you could have news and weather updates delivered to you. Big deal, I thought. If I want a weather update in real time, I'll just look out the window. But I found out that the My Yahoo page can be used to receive blog feeds. This means that instead of going all around the net to see if my favourite blogs have been updated, I just go to My Yahoo and I can see immediately which blogs have new posts. All on one page! No more wearing out my fingers!

So now, when I go to a blog I like, I see if they have a feed and I subscribe to it. How do you know what to look for? Well, just look for something that says "Atom" or "RSS" -- or a message saying "Subscribe to this blog". You'll notice on my page, for example, an orange icon in the left hand column. If you want to subscribe to my blog, click on that.

Problem: some of my favourite blogs don't have feeds! I think it may be that the old Blogger didn't offer feeds automatically. The new one does--the Atom thing at the bottom of this page. If your blog doesn't have a feed then you should think about getting one. I got my orange icon from www.feedburner.com and I prefer this to the Atom feed because it also allows me to get statistics about the number of subscribers I have. That number is currently 2 -- myself and some mysterious unknown person. Mysterious unknown person: I love you!

Good luck and smart blogging!

PS: RSS -- stands for Rich Site Summary. I think it should stand for Richie's Site Summary that way maybe I could get some money out of it but the stupid people at the patent office don't believe in being flexible...

PPS: I use My Yahoo as my feed reader, but I guess there are loads of different browsers and things you can use.

PPPS: And no, I'm not getting any money from Yahoo for saying nice things about them. I'm a man of principles, and if they so much as hinted about making a donation I would have to put my foot down and accept it.

Stupid English (1)

Given the popularity of the Gun Wounds Again post, I've decided to continue the theme of stupid English.

Now, we can expect people who don't speak English as a first language to make mistakes, but what's funny about these links is that some of the worst come from English speakers... They have no excuse! They're just plain stupid! So it's okay to laugh. In fact it's obligatory.

Anyway, I'll stop yabbering now and give you the links... This is kind of like those programmes that show funny video clips people have sent in. You know, the ones where the presenters never shut up and let you see the videos, they just ramble on with some boring monologue that nobody is interested in. "Get to the funny stuff!" you cry. "Get to the funny stuff!"

I'd hate to be one of those people, so without further ado here are the links to some fantastically warped uses of the English language. Oh, but before I give you them I'd just like to say thank you to Valeria at Conversation Agent whose comment inspired me to scour the web for this stuff. Fortunately, my search didn't take long as these are all from one site! It's called innocentenglish.com and it's well worth the visit.

Okay, now I'll post the links.

No, really I will.

Say, that reminds me of the time... *raises hands in submission* okay, okay. Jeez, some people are impatient...

Stupid Warnings -- Warning: these can seriously damage your keyboard if you are drinking coffee. That means you Mary;)

Stupid Signs -- Where did these people go to shcool?

Stupid Classified Ads -- Think I'll answer that ad about time travel. No, wait, I already did that tomorrow...

Stupid Church Signs and Bulletins -- Finally, religion gets honest...

I could go on and on. There is enough stuff on this site to keep us entertained for days. Thank God for stupid people--they are an endless source of pleasure!

If you have any links to humourous content like the above, please send it to me and I'll post it here with a link to your page. Got to go now, have to put my sides back together...

P.S. Also at innocentenglish.com you'll find a hilarious restaurant menu. I didn't link because it's a bit rude, but for those of you who are over 18 it's well worth fishing around for...

Gun Wounds Again?

It's been a heavy week here at Smart People, what with quantum physics, PIN-number cracking and sex with wild animals in West Virginia...

It's time for some kung-fu!

Oh, yes. These are actual English subtitles from Hong-Kong films. From them we can learn three important lessons:-

1. Translation is a tricky business, with meaning easily being confused.
2. Not everyone is happy to receive intestines as a gift...
3. We should always remember to team up and inflict the pain of our karate feet on some bad ass lizard person!

I Want Kung Fu!

Stupid Laws

You're in Alaska armed with a fully loaded gun. You see a grizzly bear, you take aim and fire. No problem. You're perfectly within your legal rights to do so.

But if you came upon a sleeping bear and decided to wake him up for the purposes of taking a photo, oh boy are you in trouble. That is illegal.

I don't know why Alaskans are so worried about people taking photos of bears, instead of people shooting them. But I do know that Alaska is not the only place with strange notions of the law...

Let's take another situation. You are Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. Halfway through a concert in Devon, Connecticut, you launch into your famous Moon-Walk. Oh-oh, busted! It is illegal to walk backwards after sunset! Now you're going to jail, unless you can prove it was actually the entire audience who were moving, not you.

So, Richie, I hear you say. Are there any other stupid laws I need to know about? Yes, it is imperative for your safety that you know the following:-

• In Alabama, incestuous marriage is legal, but you cannot wear a fake moustache that causes laughter in church. Tom Selleck be warned!


• In Arizona, hunting camels is prohibited. I think they were being a little optimistic with this one. How many camels are there in Arizona? Or is that because the hunters killed them all?


• In West Virginia, it is legal for a male to have sex with an animal, as long as it is below 40lbs. Maybe this is where we get the expression "a dog is a man's best friend"?


• Also in West Virginia, it is illegal to whistle underwater. Why? And how do they know when you're doing it? I mean, is it even possible?


• In Wisconsin, citizens may not enter the state with a chicken on their head. Presumably, then, nor can chickens if they have a citizen stuck in their rectum.

Well, I hope this helps to clarify some important legal issues for you all. If you'd like to know more then click here

I Know Your PIN Number!

Yesterday's post about Richard Feynman got me thinking about how many passwords and PIN numbers we need in everyday life.

I have a PIN for my bank account and my video club. Passwords? Now we start to go crazy. I have passwords for my: blogger account, hotmail email, yahoo email, myspace group page, group's email, Digg, Echo and the Bunnymen forum, local music scence forum--I have probably hundreds more that I can't even remember right now.

How easy would it be to crack these PINs and passwords?

Let me do a little experiment. Of the readers of this blog, I reckon not many are stupid enough to have their PIN as 1234. But I think some of you were born in 1980. So, I guess at least one of you has that as your PIN. Password? Ooh, let me take a wild stab in the dark--your first name plus 1980 or your first name plus 80.

Scary huh? Don't worry, I'll keep it safe...

Pic: www.freefoto.com

Richard Feynman -- Smart People (1)

Today it’s time for a change. Instead of focusing on stupidity, I’m starting a new, regular section--Smart People, which will focus on intelligent individuals who have added to the dignity and glory of humanity.

This first instalment features the scientist Richard Feynman. As well as contributing to the development of modern Quantum Theory, Feynman also found time for a host of other extracurricular activities...

Richard Feynman

How to Crack Safes with the Power of the Mind

"Pompous fools--guys who are fools and are covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus pocus--THAT, I CANNOT STAND!…An ordinary fool isn’t a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible."

So said Richard Feynman, one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century. Throughout his life he had tried to add to Mankind’s store of knowledge, practical knowledge about this universe we live in. And time and time again he had come into conflict with pompous fools-people who knew little or nothing, but pretended to have the answer to everything.

Feynman was one of the originators of modern quantum theory, a theory which looks at the physics of the universe below the atomic level. It’s a place where things get a little weird, but Feynman brought the light of genius to a field which had been plagued by lack of clear understanding.

The Manhattan Project

Before that he worked on the Atomic Bomb project at Los Alamos, during which he developed a talent for safe-cracking, a practice which required more psychology than it did nimble fingers, despite what you may think from watching Hollywood movies.

To his great surprise Feynman learned that most Los Alamos staff kept their safe combination at the factory setting. Those who didn’t usually used their birthdays or those of their loved ones. Of those who were left, top-ranking scientists might use a relevant mathematical equation. For the absent minded, they often noted down the combination and left it lying around or tucked in a drawer.

When Feynman started leaving notes in people’s safes, alerting the Project authorities to the existence of a safe-cracker, the military decided that enough was enough.

Science Vs. the Military

One important General, a pompous fool indeed, demanded that his safe be the grandest in the building. He was, after all, much more important than any mere scientist and his secrets should be more efficiently guarded than anyone else’s. He ordered the most expensive, most technologically sophisticated safe in existence.

Feynman, by nature a mischievous little rascal, couldn’t resist the lure… He discovered that the General, interested more in impressing people than anything else, hadn’t even bothered to lock the safe which had cost so much money and which held such precious information about the atomic bomb!

Feynman had learned that pompous fools were, indeed, the worst kind of fools. But cracking safes was just one small entry in Feynman’s list of quirks…

• To find out more, you can visit Richard Feynman's entry in Wikipedia here
  
• This article was inspired by a post in Conquer's Blog
  
  
  

Stupid Accidents (3)

Okay, so I let you all have a laugh at my expense with the previous post. Now it's your turn...

What's the most stupid accident that you've ever been involved in?

Be honest now--we all have at least one story to share. Please let your fellow bloggers know the truth about you!

Stupid Accidents (2)

All this talk of accidents has got me thinking about something that still makes me cringe even today.

Let me take you back to the year 1993. I was going on a date with a beautiful girl. I think this was the second or third date we'd been on. Naturally, I wanted to make myself look as good as possible.

Cue hours spent in front of the mirror using hair gel to get my image just right. Damn, I was one handsome guy!

So, I meet the girl at the restaurant and we sit down to order. Everything seems perfect; the atmosphere is relaxed, my hair is glorious and the girl is laughing at my jokes.

The food arrives and I tuck into my hamburger with chips. Hey, do I know what to order to impress a girl or what? The waiter comes over to place a candle on our table and I tuck into my food.

Then it seems like someone has turned up the lights. I look around. The other diners are going about their business. No one seems to notice anything different.

"Have they turned the lights up?" I ask.

The girl looks at me, and her mouth opens in shock. Before I know what's happening, she's slapping at my hair shouting, "Your hair's on fire! Your hair's on fire!"

I reach up and discover that ouch! yes, my goddamn hair is on fire! My girlfriend pours a glass of water over me to douse the flame.

How was I to know that hair gel was flammable! Highly flammable! When I had bent down to eat, the candle must have been close enough to set my crowning glory on fire.

I flick the burnt embers from my head. A terrible smell of burnt, human hair pervades the atmosphere.

The funny thing is, I look around and the diners are still going about their business like nothing happened. What is this? Are they accustomed to people's hair spontaneously bursting into flames? Is that normal in this restaurant?

My girlfriend signals for the waiter to come over. "Don't tell him!" I grimace. I'm embarrassed enough without having the staff know what happened.

"Could I have some more ketchup?" my girlfriend asks the waiter.

Yes, she was one cool chick. And she still is. God knows why she puts up with me, the Human Torch, though...

Stupid Accidents (1)

Did you know that in the year 2002, some 1,230 people were injured by leaves?

Could you believe that 431 poor buggers suffered poisoning while mowing the lawn? Or that a staggering 5,577,661 people were hurt while shopping?

And that was just in the U.K.

God knows how many innocent victims were mauled by dangerous leaves worldwide. And when I think of the size of the shops in the USA--it must be a complete massacre!

No, I'm not making any of these figures up. Go and see for yourselves. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has its work cut out trying to keep Britain safe.

Unfortunately, things aren't going too well as "...the number of injuries inflicted by vegetables remains unacceptably high, at 13,132".

Your grandmother was right; eat your greens. Before they eat you...

Carnival of Customer Service

One of my posts has been accepted at the Carnival of Customer Service! Please feel free to have a look here: CRM LOWDOWN

The blog is dedicated to Customer Relations Management and if you're interested in giving or getting good customer service, I can highly recommend it.

What is a Blog Carnival?

A blog carnival is when a blog invites other people to send in posts relating to the subject of the carnival. In the above case the theme was bad customer service, so I submitted one of my posts about stupid shop assistants.

The advantage of blog carnivals is that they can drive readers to your page who may not have found it any other way. There are blog carnivals on every subject under the sun so I'm sure you could find one related to your favourite blogging subject.

You'll find a list of blog carnivals here: Blog Carnival

Give it a try! What can you lose?

False Alarm

Sorry guys, I think the person who alerted me made a mistake with the comments process. Everything seems to be working normally. Relax, and breathe out!

Comments page problems

Somebody has just alerted me that they were asked to enter an email address of a friend to leave a comment. I don't know why this has happened.

I leave my comments sections open for everyone to leave a message. I don't even use word verification.

If you have had any problems or strange happenings while trying to leave a comment then please let me know on your blogs or send a message to blogger. I'm going to try and sort out what has happened. Sorry for any inconveniance.

Stupid Car Drivers (2)

Well, it had to happen. Somebody reversed into my car last night. Thankfully, my eight-month pregnant girlfriend was not with me at the time.

The driver got out, came over, looked at the damage her massive BMW all-terrain tank-cum-weapon of mass destruction had inflicted on my little Polo and said, "Que raro que tu capo hace eso!"

Translation: "How strange that your bonnet/hood does that!"

My bonnet was crumpled up like it had smelled something particularly nasty.

My reply: "No, it's normal that the bonnet does that when you crash into it! What is strange is that you would reverse without looking straight into my car."

More details later when I've calmed down... Fortunately, nobody was hurt or injured. Stupid people, GRRR!!!!

Pardon my Appearance

I'm currently rethinking the design of this page. Please let me know your comments. For example, do you think I should change to a black on white format? Is there too much clutter on this page, or do you think it's okay to read?

Much obliged!

By the way, Jorge (one of my Spanish readers) hope you are feeling better!

Taking the Piss

People steal for one reason, you would think. To get money. Or to get something highly valuable which can be turned into money. What was This Guy thinking?

Forget all those criminal masterminds you see in the movies: the majority of lawbreakers are stupid.

Stupid Web Addresses

Setting up a company is a lot of work--doing market research, getting loans, hiring staff etc. You would think, then, that people would invest in a website name that didn't make you go, "Oh My God! That is So Funny!"

Well, fortunately for us, some companies don't!

mistupid.com has a fantastic list of Stupid Web Addresses

I particularly like the website of the Italian Power Generator company. Somehow fits my image of macho Italians!

Technology--a Man's World?

Boy, was I raring to get to grips with my first MP3 player. Yep, a Christmas present from my girlfriend.

Read the instruction manual (of the player that is--not my girlfriend, though wouldn't life be easier if women came with instruction guides?). As usual, I couldn't make much sense of the information. Obviously it had been translated from Klingon by an online translation program.

Undeterred, I plugged the gadget into my PC and transferred some cool albums. Call me old-fashioned but I actually own the artists' CDs. I think I'm the last person on earth still buying the things.

Soon I was listening to the last Echo and the Bunnymen album. ("Siberia" -- highly recommended!)

Then the player decides to shut it itself off. What the-!

Okay, don't panic Richie. Check the instructions. Damn Klingon. Hmm. Seems that I might have to reload the driver for the gizmo. Done. Hey! It works!

Three minutes later... no it doesn't. Grrr!

"Why don't you check the battery?" says my girlfriend.

Ha! What an idiotic suggestion. I am a man! Technology is my abode. I eat silicon chips and I crap fibre optics. I used to own a ZX Spectrum for god's sake. Don't you think I'd know if the battery was a dud?

Four hours and many failed attempts later, I decide, on a whim, to change the battery. It works.

Perfectly.

So, my girlfriend is currently dancing around the flat listening to her favourite songs while I'm writing this from the doghouse. You know, I was a lot happier when I thought MP3s were some new and improved kind of politician.

2007 Lucky for Some

What's the most stupid conversation you've ever had?

Last night, as part of the New Year celebrations, a TV presenter commented that 2007 will be wonderful because 7 is a lucky number.

Someone asked me why 7 was considered a lucky number. I replied that the week was divided into 7 days, and consequently we feel there is something special about this particular number.

I won't go into the stupidity of superstition at this moment. I felt confident that my response was coherent if not necessarily correct. Morons, however, always manage to catch intelligent people by surprise. Someone jeered at me, "The week doesn't have seven days; it has 8."

"What?"

"Sunday to Sunday. Eight days."

Could you have managed a reply to such an insane idea? No, neither could I. And this was no joke, the person was serious.

Be careful in 2007, my friends. Be very careful...