Identity

Posted: Sun 29 September, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Introspective, Thoughts, Weirdness, Writing | 1 Comment »

At the moment I’m thinking a lot about identity – it’s primarily related to an idea I’ve got for a writing project, but it’s just a process that keeps bouncing round my head.  Are we really who we think we are? And if not, which is the true identity? The one we live, the one we think we live, or the one we dream of being?

As an example, I’m pretty sure of who I am, but other people see a different person to the one I see. They see personality traits – good and bad – in me that I don’t see in myself. So which is true? Or are both true?

There’s probably more to be written on this, I’m just bouncing things round in my head, seeing what shakes out in the long run.

Up For Sale

Posted: Sun 22 September, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, House Purchase, Norfolk, People, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

Having just done a random search, I’ve found out that the house in Norfolk I had with Herself is back up for sale.

It’s kind of weird, seeing the changes that have been put in by the new owners – some make sense, and are things we’d talked about doing. However, others are – somewhat mental.

As a prime example of the latter, the new owners have brutally trimmed the cherry tree in the front garden, and completely removed the huge weeping willow that was in the back garden. (and was one of the factors that made me like the place)  I can see why they would have got rid of it – it was a pain in the tits to mow around, and dropped crap on the grass all year round – but it was such a fantastic tree, I’m actually kind of sad to know that it’s gone.

Interestingly, despite the work the new owners have obviously done, the price isn’t actually any different than we paid for it six years ago.

Progress, eh?

Changing Homes

Posted: Fri 13 September, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, People, Thoughts, Weirdness | 2 Comments »

No, it’s not me that’s changing homes, for once – I’m staying firmly put for a while longer, I think.

In this case, one of the houses along the road from me went up for sale nearly a year ago, sold in February of this year, and last weekend they were finally able to move out. (I don’t know the people, I’ve just seen how long they’ve stayed there after the ‘sold’ sign went up!)  The front garden of the house was filled with plants, including a spectacular lilac, and was really quite decent. Not my thing, but decent all the same.

Anyway, within a week of moving in, the new owners have completely ripped out everything in the front garden. I don’t know what they’ve done with it all (one assumes the tip’s been busy) but I came home the other day and noticed the change straight away.

I understand the whole thing of buying something/somewhere to do your own thing to it, and all that Sarah Beeny crap. I get making it your own, making it more attractive, more sellable, blah blah. I just don’t necessarily get the reasoning of buying something, only to rip out one of its more appealing features. I just think it’s a bit of a shame really. (And yes, I know it’s nothing to do with me.)

Traffic Bulletins

Posted: Thu 12 September, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Commuting, Domestic, Driving, Weirdness, Work-related | 2 Comments »

On my commute, I have the travel bulletins set to be on, which means they interrupt whatever else is playing. (radio or CD) That’s fine – the travel reports are occasionally useful (although more often not) and can give me some warning if the roads are screwed. Mind you, most of the time they don’t do the warnings until I’m already in the jam – although that’s a separate issue.

What does grate though is that my commute appears to be in the footprint of no less than three local radio stations, so I end up getting all of the broadcasts, at roughly the same time. Which usually means that I miss the one I want.

It would be really useful to either

  1. Be able to ‘mute’ certain stations from the travel report  or
  2. For the stations to have an ident at the start, telling you which station’s broadcast you’re listening to. Then I could quickly cancel the ones I don’t want, in time to hear the one I do want.

Of course, it would also be useful if the presenters weren’t sometimes complete dickknuckles, and manage to screw up the use of the “Travel Alert” button like they did this morning. At some point they’d obviously missed pressing the button, so when they pressed it at the end of the bulletin, it was actually the ‘start’ trigger. Which meant it was screwed for the entire morning. Bell-ends.

Driving Through

Posted: Wed 7 August, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, People, Thoughts, Weirdness | 2 Comments »

My local supermarket is on a small(ish) retail estate, and there’s also a McDonalds in the area, with a full “drivethrough” (sorry, “drivethru” *spitting noise*) option. Every time I go past it, there’s something that boggles my brain.

I don’t understand the drive-through option.  Well, that’s not true – there’s one particular aspect of drivethrough behaviour that I really don’t understand. I get the whole “grab food while driving, and continue going” concept, that’s fine. For now we’ll gloss over the whole road-safety aspect – after all, if it’s dangerous to use a mobile phone while driving, surely it’s equally dangerous to be eating a messy burger – but I get the concept.

What I don’t get though, are the people who use the drive-through, and then park up to eat their ‘food’. What’s the reasoning? If you’re going to do that, surely it’s just as easy to take a proper break, go inside, sit at a table, eat, and then leave to go back on the road.

What’s the logical process for getting food, and then sitting right outside the premises (I refuse to call it a restaurant, sorry) to eat them?

Yet every time I drive past, there they are – people doing exactly that. They’ve bought at a drive-through, and now they’re sat in the car park to eat it. It truly makes my brain bleed.

Transport

Posted: Mon 29 July, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Driving, Media, Public Transport, Travel, Weirdness | 1 Comment »

What on earth is going on with public transport in Europe this week?

In the last week we’ve had…

There’ve been other things too – the bus in Manchester ripping it’s roof off going under a bridge, for example – but it just seems like public transport is having a really bad time of it at the moment.

Equipment Failure

Posted: Sun 2 June, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, Domestic, Finances, Geeky, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, iPhone, Shopping, Technology, Thoughts, Weirdness | 1 Comment »

Don’t worry, this isn’t another post about the joys and pitfalls of getting older…

No, instead it’s about technology, and why the bastard stuff all ends up failing at the same time.

First of all, this post is being written on a new laptop – which I really could’ve done without having to get, but needs must when the devil drives (and/or you’re a web techie and wannabe-writer).  The old Dell laptop – which it turns out I bought back in September 2009, so I shouldn’t whine so much, I guess – had been getting flakier over the last six months, but I’ve been eking out the life of it since then, suffering the occasional (and then more regular) hard-drive crash, and the ropy keyboard with some keys that only worked intermittently.

This week though it’s been crashing every time it was in use, and was obviously getting to the point where I needed to a) pull all the relevant data off it like NOW, and b) replace it with something else. And with a trip up to Manchester this week where I’m *really* going to need a reliable laptop, this was the weekend for it.

So I’ve bitten the bullet somewhat, and the new one is a (dirt-cheap) Asus thing, running the already-much-disliked Windows 8. To be fair to Windows 8, the old laptop was on the much-loathed Vista, which I never really found all that annoying. Eight annoys me more so far, but I’ll get used to it.

The other two equipment failures are both iPhone related, allbeit power-related rather than device-related. (Although I did think one of them might’ve been the phone being fucked, which was a real worry)  First the Mophie battery case has failed. Again. (More accurately, the cable/charger for it, which will no longer charge) I love the Mophie cases, but they do seem to be somewhat crap, and only last about a year. And then the normal iPhone charge/sync cable also went kerfut and wouldn’t charge the phone.  So I’ve had to get a new cable for that as well – considerably less expensive than the laptop purchase, but still, why all at the same time?

Oh yeah, and the fridge in the house also played up this week, with one day where it didn’t appear to be working all that well. Fortunately it’s now back up and running.

But why the hell would four things, two fairly major, all decide to kiff out within the same week? Weird things, I tell thee, weird things.

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