21/06/2007 by Lee.

In just a couple of days time is my least favourite day of the year. The 22nd of June is a day to dread for me for there is slightly less “day time” on the 22nd than there was on the 21st. Winter is on its way.

I know that it’s a long time in coming and we still have the traditonal hot months of July and August to come, along with the promise of September which can be a nice month,  but by and large it starts to go downhill from here on in.

I love the warmth, I see nothing wrong with it being 80 degress all year round, I welcome global warming. I know this may seem like an outlandish statement with the current eco correctness that is engulfing us, but lets take a look at the bright side to global warming, and how it can be good for the environment.

1. We’ll use less power. I won’t have to put the heating on for months on end
2. I will only need one set of clothes. This will mean less wardrobe space is required in our homes. Many wardrobes are built from wood, so less wardrobes means less de-forestation.
3. More warmth means less flights abroad in the winter, so CO2 emissions will fall.
4. Farmers will be able to produce crops all year round putting an end to out of season goods being flown in from around the world, see point 3.
5. Sea levels may well rise. This will make our country smaller therefore cutting down on long car journeys as there will be less country to drive around.
6. Following on from point 5, people living inland will get the benifit of now living in a coastal area.

So it’s not all bad news. Go home, put the heating on, switch on all your electrical appliances and then go for a nice long drive. Let’s bring it on.

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20/06/2007 by Lee.

Second Life, the vitual world developed by Linden Labs is becoming the talk of the office (well, 3 of us anyway) at the moment. For the unitiated, Second Life allows you to create a virtual representation of yourself, own virtual land and unlike most virtual environments, make real money. People are property speculating, marketing & desgining, in fact almost any walk of life you can think of has been re-created in virtual form. Major corporations are buying up virtual plots of land and a Japanese MP has even opened an office in the cyber landscape. Unmoved by the technical wizzadry that makes all this possible, our thoughts have turned to just one thing: how can we make money from this?

Despite the fact that none of us have managed to make any money in the real world, have no business experience and all the clever “techy” bit will doubtless fall to one person there is a constant thought process of, “what could we do?”. Whilst I’m sure the final answer to the question will be nothing, that may be beside the point.

The dreams and hopes of doing this can take you away from the mundane work-a-day life. It’s not unlike the times where you mentally spend your lottery winnings. I’m thinking to myself I could start this business or that business, build this or that, sell something or other, all of which is - for me at least - unattainable in the real world.

When we were younger we had dreams and aspirations, and as we got older we slowly put barriers in the way of us acheiving those dreams. I didn’t grow up wanting to do my current job, I wanted to be an astronaut or a pilot but as the years go on too many of us create obstacles to those aims. By going through the process of what business opportunities there are in Second Life I find myself returning to that child like state of no barriers and obstacles. If that can transfer into my own “first life” then surely that will lead to a better life for me.  

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20/06/2007 by Lee.

There seems to be no end of books and TV programs these days highlighting how a variety of fast food outlets are making people fat. This is absolute bollocks. Eating BK or McDonalds for every meal WILL make you fat, but is that the fault of the eatery or the person eating it? Does this claim apply to any other industry? If you have fast food as it is intended - a quick bite to eat on the go rather than a staple diet - then it will do you no harm at all. Do we hear people saying, “the car industry killed my loved one”? no, it was the driver and not the car that caused the death. It was a case of a good solution being misused, and it is the same with fast food.

These people who say, “Look at me, I’m fat and BK did this to me.” should have a good long look at themselves and change their message to, “Look at me, my weak self control and ‘victim’ mentality make me blame anyone but myself for my own shortcomings.”

The founders of these establishments never intended for their meals to become the staple diet of their customers. The facilities in the outlets are specifically designed to get you in and out in the quickest possible time, NOT to encourage you to eat there 3 times a day.

Yes, they have designed marketing campaigns and facilities to attract families with their balloons and flags etc, but they do not come out onto the street and force you in at gun point. If you’re fat because of too much Mcdonalds or BK then there is only one person to blame for that; yourself.

It is only when you accept responsibility for yourself and your actions that you can begin to control your life. There will always be things beyond your control, but where you choose to eat and how much to have is NOT one of them. Fast food is only the tip of the “Don’t blame me!” iceberg.

TV makes you stupid. No, watching too much of the wrong programming makes you stupid, in fact watching Discovery can educate you. You see the theme here? You control it, not the other way round.

Computer games make kids lazy. Again, no. Not going out and being active makes kids lazy, not the games.

Stop blaming others for your own shortcomings.

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20/06/2007 by Lee.

Have you ever had a though that you know is just going to tempt fate or is just plain wrong and then spent a few minutes wishing you hadn’t thought it before trying to blot it out and erase it from your mind completely? What an odd thing to try and do. It happens to me all the time.

I often see people stopped in a really inconvenient place on the roadside causing traffic chaos and what’s the first thing that goes through my mind?

“I hope you’ve broken down!”

It’s not that I actually wish for somebody to break down, it’s just that I’m hoping that they haven’t stopped there simply to answer the phone or have a bar of chocolate. So the sentiment I’m trying to get at is, “I hope you haven’t just stopped there.” but again, that implies that I’m hoping they’ve stopped due to some incalculably expensive mechanical failure with their car.

Now drowning in guilt for having somehow worsened their plight simply by commenting on it, I try and erase the evil thought (and the unfortunate driver) from my mind. Too late though, I’ve had the thought now! Damn this is complex! But that’s only the beginning, it gets worse from now on.

Having wished a breakdown on the hapless road user, you now begin to fear your own breakdown must be imminent; that is sod’s law after all. Frantically you try and un-think the “I hope you’ve broken down!” comment, but you just can’t do it, it’s too late, the thought is on the loose.

Shit, shit, shit!

Praise be on high when you safely reach your destination free from mechanical woe for another day. It makes you wonder whether other more important thoughts have just slipped out before a round of frantic un-thinking?

“Bush? Yep, I’ll vote for him.” or going back in time (but sticking with the theme), “Hey George, you should stand for election.” or (still with the theme here), “Hey honey, how about we start a family. If we had a son we could call him George too.”

Now do you see how dangerous thinking can be? If only we could un-think.

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20/06/2007 by Lee.

Isn’t it odd how we try and change the world to fit our own needs. It was in a Terry Pratchett book that one of his characters (Mort) said, “I’m a quarter of the way through, which is almost a third and that’s practically a half so I’m nearly done.”

I’m going on holiday soon and I’ve started the process of adjusting time to suit my needs. This begins with not counting the week you’re in as part of your countdown. Quickly we progress to using “working days” but soon even this makes the event seem too far away, so I’m now down to measuring specific days of the week and that currently stands at 2 Mondays one of which is a bank holiday so probably doesn’t count. The truth is that it is still 20 days away but that is simply far too long to wait.

Perhaps Terry Pratchett’s trolls have the right counting method; one, two, lots, many. Holidays would always be just around the corner.

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20/06/2007 by Lee.

A lot has been made lately of the dangers of stingrays after the sad death of Steve Irwin. Like most creatures, its sting is a defence mechanism and not an attack device. Steve Irwin was plainly very unlucky. I’ve swam with stingrays, watched a diver feed them and were encouraged to touch them. Many people on some forums that I’ve come across are now questioning the safety of stingrays. This irrational panic is sadly all too predictable from a western population that is encouraged to live in fear.

Fear is the method that our governments use to control us. We are constantly reminded about terror threats from one dissident group or another, almost everything we eat or drink is bad for us. Our cars are killing the world and there is not enough water to go round. Anyone that doesn’t look like us is obviously evil personified, especially if they’re on a mode of transport. Flying today? Better be careful, that toothpaste has been banned as it could be an explosive.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some anti-establishment anarchist that believes in the destruction of Government. The plain facts are that less people die in terror attacks today than they did 30 years ago, and flying is still the safest form of transport. As for the food, everything is so mass produced and sterilised today that our natural resistence to many illness is at an all time low. I would place a fairly large sum of money on the fact that we all know someone that is allergic to one thing or another. “Oh, I’m dairy intolerant.” you’ll hear. Rubbish! Mankind simply could not have survived for this length of time with the countless allergies and intolerances we seem to have developed.

This is all rooted in a fear culture, and it’s not a modern phonemenon. A few hundred years ago, a group of sailing ships left England for the fledgling America. Why? Because they were afraid of religious persecution back home. On arrival, everything should have been hunky dory in their new homes; after all they are all like minded people. The local rulers then discovered that without fear they couldn’t exercise any control over the population. So there were witch hunts, after all we can all be scared of witches can’t we. Nothing gets a town more scared than the thought of little Ellie May turning the residents into frogs. Skip forward a couple of hundred years and you can swap the word “witch” for “communist”. People’s lives were runined across the United States by the mere suggestion that they might be a “commie”.

Escape the modern world for a time, and you discover that we are essentially all the same. Look at the smiles of children in poor countries, free from corruption or fear, and they could be children anywhere in the world. It’s only as we get older that the fear is placed in us. Our parents start to manage us by fear. “If you don’t get good exam results you won’t get a good job and you’ll end up living in the bad part of town.” is a line that in one form or another is all too familiar. The fear factor is being installed in you already. Perhaps if we started living by motivation we might live in a better world. “Do well at school and you can live anywhere you want.” echoes the same sentiment but focuses on the reward rather then the punishment.

We don’t trust our politicians when they tell us that there will be no new taxes, yet when they tell us that terrorists are everywhere we all agree. Look at George W. Bush for example. Without the “war on terror” he would have no purpose and the world would be discussing his failings and the way the rest of the world sees him. But more on dubbya on another day. As Douglas Adams once said;

“Those that want power are those least suited to it.”

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20/06/2007 by Lee.

A growing culture in modern Britain is to get in early and stay late at work. For many of those that do it, they are showing the boss how “committed” they are, always the first in and the last out. Those that simply do their standard hours are viewed as lazy and only prepared to do the bare minimum. Is staying late not simply a sign of not being able to complete your tasks in the time alloted for them? Should we not view being first in and last out as a sign of gross inefficiency?

Take sport for example. A game of football lasts 90 minutes. Each team has 90 minutes to complete the task, namely score more goals than the opposition. Now, overlay todays “unpaid overtime” culture to the game. Although kick off is as 3PM, Team A is on the pitch at 2:30 to get a couple of goals in early. Having come in early Team A leaves the pitch at 4:50, but Team B is now behind (damn those early starters!) so stay on the pitch until 6PM to finish off the job; now that’ll impress the boss. Can you see how ludicrous this is?

A recent report showed that the average Britain does £4,800 of unpaid overtime each year which is over 7 hours a week. We are effectively working from the beginning of the year until 23 February for nothing! Your boss is getting almost 2 free months work from you.

I say, “no more” to this ridculous situation. Your boss probably by now expects you to be doing this, after all you’re keeping the wage budget down. It’s time to reclaim your life. If they aren’t going to pay you then don’t do it. Would you expect to get a workman in and ask that he does a chunk of the work for free?

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20/06/2007 by Lee.

Is it wrong to play a PSP game and superimpose characters from your everyday life onto the hapless enemy that withers under your ferocious gunfire?

I know that we all play games for a touch of escapism but is there becoming a crossover from reality? I seem to try and come up with ever more inventive ways for my enemies to meet their maker, hell I even chainsawed somebody to death last week (you should have seen it though, HA! that wanker had no chance!) and surely that’s not normal behaviour.

I believe that some of this may stem from our flight or fight responses. Modern life is largely devoid of risk and consequently we create scenarios to give ourselves a digital risk. I have caught myself trying to peer around a corner in a game and actually leaning forward with my head to one side without leaving my seat! Mankind didn’t always need to fake such action as life was a struggle everyday and each one could be your last. Whilst I by no means wish to see a return to this kind of life (and sadly, many people in our world are still in it) I feel that life should involve some risks. It would be very easy for us to settle for what we have, but if we all did that we’d still be living in caves with Ug, Mnmn, Blargh and the rest of our cavemen (sorry, caveperson) family. Fortunately for us Ug thought, “I wonder what it’s like over there?” and one of his (or her) descendants thought “If I plant this stuff in the first place then it’ll always be here.”

But here’s the paradox; by taking those risks in the first place it started us on the road to the spawning of the Health and Safety Executive and me sitting on the sofa with a PSP in my risk free world. So we are taking risks to avoid further risk. Will this all end with us lying in a vat of goo cocooned from the dangerous world outside or will we seek to add increasingly more digital risk until one day our appetite is completely insatiable and the real world is put on course to a meltdown?

I could do something about this, but that would be far too risky

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20/06/2007 by Lee.

Let’s be clear from the start, I DO own one of these. I use it in the car every day. But what’s with these people that wear them almost all the time? Do you have extra short arms that don’t reach your ears or something? They walk round all day long looking as though they’re talking to themselves whilst at the same time sending out no signals to the rest of us that they are on the phone. Have you ever approached someone that is on a Bluetooth headset? The first thing they try and do is send you some kind of subliminal signal that they are on the phone. You can spot this by the strange, almost pleading look in their eyes. If their powers of telekinesis have somehow temporarily deserted them (no shock there then) they will next try and point at the device hanging from their ear. Yes, thank you, I’m not blind. I can see that you have something clipped to the side of your head. Finally, as a last resort they make the universally recognized hand signal for a phone (thumb and little finger extended) and hold it to their ear. Oh, so you can reach your ear. THEN WHY NOT USE YOUR HANDS???
It’s indicative of modern life that we are so lazy we won’t even lift our hands to our ears. This started to creep into our lives when that button was introduced to close the lift doors. Could you really not spare the additional 3 seconds it would have taken the lift to do it for you?

We need to slow life down a little.

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