Uncontrolled Laughter

Not sure how to interpret this message.

Did a talk today for our ACE event, where we invite local students from local schools to take a look  at our university. It went very well, and the audience were great.  The Middleton Hall, where I gave the talk, has this really posh presenter control thing which I got to play with. And I used my new laser pointer. To point at things! Wow! (perhaps I am too easily impressed - even at my age). Anyhoo, we had a good time, and I'm doing it all over again next week.  Just hope that the dog behaves better next time.

Before the talk, the shadow of "the man".

The audience being wowed by Digby, again. Digby has his own group on my Flickr site if you want to see more pictues of him in inaction.

Spoiler Spoiler

Sans Spoiler...

Do you want a spoiler for your Bongo Friendee? Dave next door  does, but then there are other people out on the internet who do as well. With one minute left the item was priced at 51 quid. I was under instructions to go as far as 70 so, in the last minute of bidding with only seconds to go, I fired off my one and only bid.

And somebody else got the spoiler for 93.50.   Wah.

World Cup?

 

A football cup. Probably more than England will see this year.

Anyone who knows me will be aware of the level of regard in which I hold the game of football. Which makes my acquisition of the above mug actually a deeply ironic statement. (but it does hold a lot of tea and it was free).

Links to the past

I'm in the process of adding a links part to this site. This will include all my writings, going back deep into the past. I've even found some of my very old blog posts (as far back as 2003). No, they aren't very funny either. 

Instant Beans on Toast?

The press is all agog about how there are plans to make that old instant meal, beans on toast, even more instant. There were lots of anguished comment in the papers about how people are now getting so lazy that even opening a tin, emptying the contents into a pan,  heating the beans and then adding them to some toast is now beyond them.

So the plan is to make something you whack into the toaster and then just eat.  I'm not sure how they can stop the beans from all sliding off the bread into the innards of the toaster, but they must have some kind of super, techno, way that they are dealing with this.  I've a horrible feeling it will end up being like a Pop Tart but with beans in. Which is deeply scary.

Everybody seems to be taking a "galloping laziness" view on this one, but I think the truth is different. The thing about the new age beans on toast is that one person can cook enough for themselves,  at the time when they personally want to eat. 

When we had beans on toast it was as a family. Mum would come home from work and open the tin and make tea whilst dad sat next door reading the paper and making sure he was well versed in world events (the role of fathers everywhere it seemed to me). Then we would all pile into the kitchen and consume the bounty that mother nature and Heinz had provided for us. I would get told off for not wanting my beans actually on the toast (I prefer to eat it separately - OK?) and then mum and I would wash up whilst dad and sister sat next door watching TV and making sure they were well versed in events in Crossroads.

This new version of the food means that you can feed you, yourself, at any time you like. The individual portions mean that there is no need for everyone to sit around the table at the same time. Instead family members can scuttle down into the kitchen in a convenient commercial break, prepare the stuff and then zoom back to their own telly or computer screen.  This removes the need for conversations like:

"How was it at school today Rob?"
"Don't ask.."

.. and so on. Sometimes I fear for the future.

Building a better ToDo

I seem to have lots of things to do since I got back from MEDC.  For me personally, the standard method for dealing with things to do is to make a todo list.  The snag is that the list is getting rather long. It has occurred to me that it might be quicker to make a "not to do" list and then just do everything else. This is going rather well.

Rob Miles Not To Do List

• Appear on Big Brother
• Write another Visual Basic Program (unless the money is really good)
• Get a personalised number plate on my BMW
• Get a BMW
• Start buying water in bottles
• Start buying wine costing more than a fiver a bottle. No, make that four quid.
• Sign up for Sky Sports
• Watch Big Brother

And I can be absolutely sure that none of these is going to get done. Probably a bit like some of the things that are on my ToDo list.....

That rings a bell

I was sitting in my office today when the phone rang. So I picked it up and answered it. But it continued to ring. I pressed a few buttons on it and was mildly annoyed to hear the dialing tone. I seem to have an office phone which is both ringing and also giving me the dial tone. Most mysterious.

I was just trying to wrap my head around this concept when the ringing stopped. Thank goodness. I picked up my mobile phone and glanced at the display out of idle curiosity. I seemed to have missed a call recently. Interesting. I'm sure I would have heard it ring.......

I'm blaming jetlag for this. That and the fact I've got new mobile and office phones recently.

Re-arming

 
..but don't leave it loaded

I was most upset when my gun broke. I've hardly used it.  Instead of making a healthy "thwack" when I pull the trigger all I get now is a weedy "twang". Not right. I'm not really into guns. Unless they are five quid from Tesco and fire foam bullets you can use to shoot at Channel 4 presenters.  Of course I've taken the gun to bits. I found that a small part of the trigger locking had failed. The plastic had just given way. I put it down to my habit of leaving the gun loaded, ready for action, at all times. After all, you never know when Davina McCall is going to pop up next. Unfortunately this stresses the trigger and so after a while the gun breaks itself.

So today I got another gun. Same type, so I can reuse the ammo. This one is going to be left unloaded. If you arm the mechanism it becomes a bit like one of those Samurai swords which have to be blooded once you have taken them from their sheath.  Fortunately, with Big Brother on the horizon I'm not going to be short of targets.