KFC WTF?

So I'm doing a bit of driving. Didn't have breakfast, so I've called in at Woodall services to have a KFC. No lights on, but the self-service tills are working.

Maybe they've blown a fuse. Anyway, I placed my order on the self-service till and go to the counter. Turns out they don't open until 11 am. That's just weird.

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The Grinding Gears

This gear-grinder just proves how some people can be inconsiderate, dangerous and stupid all at the same time.

People who think it's OK to drive around with one or more of their car's lights not working.

See, the weather here has been pretty miserable lately. And it's that time of the year where most evening commutes and some morning commutes are done in darkness. But I still see folks driving around without lights working. Sometimes it's headlights. Sometimes it's headlights and sidelights. Other times it's brake lights.

The worst bit is, that since I have a knack for remembering car number plates, I can be sure that it's always the same few cars that I see over and over again.

I was unlucky enough to have a couple pop on my own car not so long ago, and I noticed immediately when I switched them on again to go home. I had to change them. Half an hour stood in the dark and the rain, groping around inside the engine compartment. OK, I could have left it until daylight, but I didn't. It really does reflect poorly on those that leave it.

The Big Freeeeeeeeze

Well, it's been pretty nippy here lately. Not been posting, as I've been busy doing Christmas preparations.

The weather turned nasty a couple of weeks ago. Just before I went down to Silverstone on the Monday morning, I was greeted by a flurry of snow at the office. By the time I'd gotten down to Silverstone, it was clear again. This, regrettably, didn't last long, and by Tuesday afternoon, it was looking rather dire. I decided to try and get home. Got home safely, but crawled the last 10 miles or so of the motorway, and had to dig the car in when I got back.

More snow that night, so I couldn't get off the crescent again on Wednesday (we're up to about a foot and a half of snow now...) or Thursday. Made it in OK on Friday, and every day this week. The snow still hasn't shifted significantly here, but it has been noticably warmer these last 2 or 3 days, and will be relatively warm (compared to the -14 centigrade) up to Tuesday, and possibly Wednesday too, so I'm hoping that it'll have all but gone by the time family visit on Wednesday afternoon / Thursday.

In other news, I've got a few odds and sods of Christmas shopping to do, and a large wad of Christmas cards to write, including, for the first time, some to foreign lands!

Contact Lenses

I can't remember whether I blogged about it previously or not, but I thought it'd be a good idea to get my eyes checked. Firstly, the glasses I have are about 5 years old, and on the verge of dropping apart, so I needed some new ones anyway, but seeing as though the actual eye tests are free at Tesco, I went and had the full check.

It turns out (unsurprisingly) that my prescription hasn't changed significantly since the glasses were made, so it would appear that things are pretty stable in that department now.

I also enquired about contact lenses. After a couple of appointments (one for an assessment, and another to teach me how to put the lenses in and take them out, I came away with 5 pairs of trial lenses.

First pair went in on Saturday, and everything was fine until I washed the car. The combination of the wind, the spray from the hose, and me was enough to make the right hand one disappear. Not sure where it went, but all of a sudden, it had gone. I had to take the left hand one out, and revert to glasses.

The second pair went in today, and were just fine. All day, no problems at all. I did get a weird sensation as if one was falling out, but it didn't. I guess it'll take a while to get used to them.

All in all, I think I'll get on with them. Might have to invest in a new magnifying mirror though.

Firefox x64

So I've downloaded a beta release of Firefox 4 x64. I quite like it, actually.

The interface is much more minimalist. All I get is a button in the top left that says "Minefield" (which will presumably change to "Firefox" on the final release), a row of tabs underneath that, and a toolbar underneath that. The toolbar has forward, back and home buttons, an address box and a Google box. And that's it.

Clicking on the Minefield button pops out a menu that has everything on it (Options, Add-ons, Downloads, Print, etc, so no functionality is lost there. At first glances, the "back" button appears to have lost it's memory feature (the list that allows you to go back five pages by clicking the line on a dropdown box) but it's still there. Just hold the mouse button down and the menu pops out. Also, it warns you if you have unsubmitted data in forms on the site (like this blog post) and gives you the option to stay. Useful.

The best bit is it's 64 bitness. Whether it's just me, I don't know, but it seems faster, especially at things like images and stuff.

I have also downloaded the beta (or perhaps an alpha) release of Adobe's x64 FLash player, codename "Square". But it and Firefox won't play nicely together, with Firefox crashing and exiting at the sniff of anything Flash, whether it Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook, or Youtube.

Anyway, the release is due for sometime in the New Year. The official review should wait until then, as it's not really fair to pick faults in a beta. It's a beta, afterall.

The Grinding Gears

This particular gear-grinder is probably the most annoying so far...

Pedestrian crossings.

They are too slow. The one in Staveley is so bad, such that when you press the button to cross, does absolutely nothing to stop the traffic until there is no traffic on the road. When the traffic has stopped, the traffic signals change. Unfortunately, by the time this has happened, most folks have already crossed. Utterly pointless. What's worse, for the innocent car driver that just drives up, they now have to wait for no-one to cross, and for the lights to turn green again.

This particular crossing in Staveley also has another annoying trait. A little sensor that detects whether you are stood on the kerb waiting. If it's raining, and a truck is coming, you stand back, so that when the truck hits the pooled water, you don't get soaked. The magic eye senses that you are no longer stood on the kerb, and pretends you haven't pressed the button, and carries on like you're not there.

Down down down down.....

Yes, the pressure is falling.

It's currently hovering at a needles width above 28 inches of mercury. I'm informed by t'internet of two things.

Firstly, 28" of mercury is equivalent to about 948 millibars.

Secondly, Hurricane Jeanne (in 2004) had a lowest pressure of only 950 millibars.

Assuming both of those pieces of information are correct, and assuming the barometer is reading correctly (it is rather old...) then we have a big-ass depression over us right now....

What do do with telephone sales / marketing calls

So what to do?? I seem to be getting a few calls from these folks, even though I've registered with the telephone preference service. Fat lot of good that did.

Anyway, it gives me a chance to have a laugh at someone else's expense without feeling guilty. They phoned me, after all...

The usual one is to jot down the questions, then ask them back after he's finished. Can be rather amusing, especially when filled up a bit with drivel. I kept a guy going for 15 minutes or so with that one. At which point, I got bored.

I did ask on my Facebook page, and had a variety of responses, from a "Hold on a sec" and put the phone on the sideboard, to just plain "£$%^ off!". Thanks to Sara and Nicola for those two.

I've also contemplated a few other things, so I'll see which one works the best.

Message on a Cup

"What is better than a french bakery open 24 hours a day? NOTHING! Amelie.... "

A good movie, or so I've been told...

Yes, I know, it's been a while since I last blogged. Too long.

Since the last blog on the second of October, I've been rather busy. Mostly at work, but I've been battling with the blackberry briars in the back garden in attempt to curb the takeover next year, and I've been out a bit too, and not to mention a visit back to Skegness (with another one at the weekend...)

Also, I've got a trip up to Scotland tomorrow, to try and get to the bottom of some mysterious failures on site. I think I know what the cause is, but I need to see it with my own eyes to be sure. A (hopefully) nice day out.

Also chatted briefly to Erin Gladstone, another friend of mine in the US. I miss my American friends..

The model railway and other stuff

So, I said I'd mention the model railway when there is something worth mentioning.

In this case, it's a just-about-as-new condition Hornby "Flying Scotsman" model. It's a limited edition of 1 of 5000, and is from the time when Flying Scotsman Enterprises ran the loco with two tenders, for extended range.

It comes complete with 3 limited edition carriages, with Eastern Region numbers, and it's all in original packaging, albeit slightly damaged by previous owner(s).

It has been run before, and I did give it a quick run around my track, but that's about as far as it will go, at least in my possession anyway. You see, it won't convert to DCC, and therefore as soon as I convert my layout to DCC, it will become unrunnable. Not a major problem, as I wasn't going to run it anyway. I might make a display case for the entire train, and put it on a shelf int back bedroom.

I know I said previously that Hornby models are cheap and nasty, but this one is before the badly-made-in-China era, so doesn't count. It's a proper, well made, British model.

Anyhow, Chloe thought the whole model railway was very interesting, when she came over last week, and was forever trying to escape up the stairs to have a peek. Apparently there was always a problem that needed fixing.

Vikki is back from her holiday tomorrow, so I've got a drive over to Manchester Airport tomorrow afternoon. I've hoovered out the car, and given it a quick wash. Won't spend too much time on it this time of year, as it'll only get rained on.

The Grinding Gears

I don't like it when I put a search term into Google or Yahoo (and even Bing, which promised to be different - another let-down from Microsoft...), such as "Free PWI viewer", and I click on the top result link to discover it's just a redirection to another search engines result page that says "No results found".

Hello? Did I type in "I don't want a free PWI viewer"? No.

And why are we wasting time and resources indexing useless crap, such as what it can't find?

Message on a Cup

So, I've got a couple of cups to blog. The first came in on Saturday, but I was busy with the family visiting.

"If you don't ask for it, you will never get what it is you want".

So true. Please, Amber, can I have a lottery ticket with the winning six numbers on it?

And then another one from this morning...

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't look out, you just might miss it!"

Chloe, my niece, is living proof of this. I'm glad I'm back.

The Grinding Gears

So here's another gear-grinder.

This one's a long-standing grind.

Facebook seems to have no sense of geography. For example, it thinks that Skegness, Lincolnshire is in Norfolk. Now, OK, as the crow flies, Skegness is not that far from Norfolk, but seriously?

And as if that one boob wasn't enough, my hometown of Bolsover is in Nottinghamshire.

Pah!

Bargain Time!

Whilst I was over in the US, I regularly called in at a friends house. They've got a Wii, and also had Guitar Hero III. I got into it, and decided that when I got back to the UK, I'd have to buy a set.

Well, I thought, how much are they? It turns out that they're quite expensive-ish. So I thought I'd look around for a really good deal.

On the off chance, I called into "Game" yesterday, in Chesterfield, and they had got an exchanged pack in. Guitar Hero III, complete with guitar, used three or four times, and complete. Price? £14.99.

I'll have that, thanks :-)

The Grinding Gears

A new feature? We'll see. For now it's just one thing.

What's grinding my gears today? Toilet Paper.

Quite simply, can someone please invent a toilet roll that never runs out? Please? Anyone?

I had a near miss today.... Done the deed only to realise that there is only a piffling amount of toilet paper left on the roll, and no more rolls left on the roll stand. Luckily there was just enough, and the day was saved, but it was close...

In Memory

Dedicated to the 2,977 people that lost their lives in 2001.

Service Unavailable

So it seems Blogger have beeen having a few problems.

I keep getting a "Service Unavailable" message. Seems to have gone for now.

Anyway, I've had yet another massive cleanout of stuff, and re-arranged the back bedroom slightly. Now the server is downstairs in the closet, I have much more room up here. It's nice.

Flying out to Antwerp next week for training. Should be either very interesting, or very boring. We shall see...

Anyhow, I've still got a few bits to shove in the attic, eventually going on the car boot.

Car park capers

Now normally I don't complain about other drivers, and this is no exception. It is merely an observation.

I was sat in the queue waiting to turn right into the carpark. A nice bloke in a Mercedes lets me in, then follows me into the car park. A few minutes later, I've found a space, so I reverse in.

I'm in the middle of the shutdown procedure, and Mercedes man pulls up, thinking I'm leaving. Crikey Mavis, you only let me into the carpark two minutes ago. Is your memory really that bad?

I switch off and get out to go to the barbers, and he gives me the glare.

How very rude!!

Adobe InDesign

It seems that the powers that be at the office have decided to use Adobe InDesign for doing instruction manuals and the like. It seems to me to be quite a nice program. I have always liked Adobe products. They seem to know what they are doing, and well, they're not Microsoft.

I tried to install the demo version at home, after waiting ages for it to download. Won't install. At all. I've spent half an hour fiddling with it, and have now given up.

Instead, I'm going downstairs to have some chilli con carne thats been cooking all day in the slow cooker.

Mmmmmm...

Message on a Cup

"Sugar free pudding...... Quite the concept, but why? With no sugar in our food... what makes us sweet?"

Amber... I hope you're not on one of those silly diets again...

Good day today

I've had a really good day at work today. I seem to have crossed off a lot more things from the to-do list, than things I've added to it.

On the downside, it's more like the calm before the storm. I'm going to Antwerp next week for a training session, and no doubt will come back with some more work. At least it keeps me in a job.

I haven't really had much time in the way of the model railway this week since I spent most of last night, and some of tonight doing some personal stuff.

Still no word from the builder about the rendering. I'll give him a call on Friday. I really wanted it done by the end of August, but I guess the weather has been a bit poopy to do it.

Heyho and on with the show. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

The Coin Collection

A final note on the collection of State Quarters. After the last post on AA, I went to Empire for the last lunch. I was going to go to Moe's, but something drew me to Empire.

Call it spooky, but Amber had an American Samoa quarter. And she gave it to me.

I'm happy to report, therefore, that the collection is complete, with 5 hours to spare before departing US soil.

In the process, I've also collected a bicentennial quarter from 1976. I've no idea how special they are, but I have since (in the UK) found 2 more. Also found a quarter from a previous design. Not sure whether it's correct or not, but the date is 1895. This would make it 115 years old, which would deny it's apparently good condition. It's possibly in better condition than the 1976 bicentennials.

Things to do 2010

OK, so keen bloggers will remember the list "Things to do when I get home" from American Adventures. I've moved the list over here, and the original list on AA will stay as-is.

I'm happy to report that I have (in 2 months) changed the oil in the car, spent some money, took some people out for lunch, sorted out the builder to come and fix the rendering (although he hasn't actually done it yet...), visited my family 3 times, and visited Sally B. I've also had a couple (or maybe 3) webcams with friends back in the US.

The main focus for a while will be the model railway, but it's a long-term project. It's been going since November 2007, and it's never going to be finished!

Messages on a Cup

I've decided to carry over the "Message on a Cup" feature from the American Adventures blog. Firstly, because it's something nice, and secondly, Amber promised to send me more messages.

So, without further ado, here are the messages so far..

From 21st July 2010 - "Sometimes I hate my job..... but it hasn't made me want to kill myself or anyone else".

I'm glad you haven't killed yourself, Amber. It would be a tragedy.

From 1st August 2010 - "Mean people suck! We should kill him."

People who are always mean should seriously think about whether they belong in society. I'm guessing Amber has a particular person in mind... I wonder who?

From 21st August 2010 - "You can live to be one hundred if you quit doing the things that won't make you live to be one hundred."

A truer collection of words has never been spoken.

And finally, for now, from the 30th August 2010 - "Bad things happen.... people who need reasons are weak."

If only my boss understands this point.

New Blog!!

So here's the new blog.

This one is a continuation of the "American Adventures" blog, except back here in England.

It'll include all sorts, so check back to find out what.

If you were looking for the American Adventures blog, it's still available at http://mattsaa.blogspot.com