A Special Place in Hell

They should have a special place in hell for people who drive close behind you. The dammed should be followed at all times by a specially chosen demon with hot bad breath who has been trained to stay exactly one inch behind them and crash into them whenever they stop walking.

I was driving along today on a surface that I wasn't entirely sure of, in my shiny new car. And a buffoon comes up behind me in a BMW and decides to see if they can actually see themselves in my rear view mirror. If I had needed to brake I'm sure we would have had an unpleasant and expensive "two become one" moment. Fool.

In the Good Old Days (tm) we had a Ford Cortina which had a towing bracket on the back made of angle iron. Think the kind of stuff they use to hold up the girders in buildings. In this situation we were without fear. When somebody drove into to the back there would be an enormous crash and a cloud of steam from their shattered radiator. We'd get out and notice a tiny scratch on the ironwork. They'd have to buy a whole new car front. And quite right too.

Exciting Life

Some people find excitement by climbing mountains, driving at high speed, and sailing across oceans (although probably not all on the same day).

I can get to maximum excitement levels by simply forgetting to put the wheely bin out the night before the dustmen are due. Then I have the thrill of leaping out of bed, sprinting downstairs, skidding over ice covered tarmac dragging a large plastic container full of the week's refuse and then the breath taking wait to find out whether or not the lorry has been yet. And all the time with the nerve tingling threat of painful sanctions from number one wife if it turns out that I've failed to get the rubbish out on time.

Fortunately all is well, and the bin is empty again. I wonder if I can build a robot to do this for me?

Forbidden Cake

Tis nearly the season to be jolly, and in keeping with the festive season forward planning policy implemented by number one wife, it is the season to be making christmas cake. In fact, three cakes are to be provided for various grateful parts of the family, which means that at this time of year the house is full of the glorious smell of cake baking. And I can't eat any of them. This is so unfair. I've made arguments along the lines of quality control "We need to make sure that they are as good as last years" and been rebuffed. I've also been told that any evidence of cake tampering will be severely dealt with.

Never mind, only four more weeks.

Why does this work?

We don't get very good radio reception in our kitchen. If we want to listen to Radio 2 and actually hear the programmes we have to open the dishwasher door.

I've no idea why this is the case, but it is. And no, we don't keep the radio on the dishwasher.

Trader Rob Goes Karting

Traded in a couple of naff Nintendo DS games today and swapped them for a peach. Game trading is quite a nice way to get hold of things without parting with large sums of cash. I was surprised how much I got for the two that I handed over (I'm too embarrassed to tell you what they were). The good news was that Mario Kart DS ended up costing me only eight quid.

And what a game it is. Colourful and smooth graphics. Great kart handling and devious weapons. And I can actually do this one - unlike the dratted TOCA Racing for the PSP which nearly drove me up the wall. The only snag at the moment is that I can't get the much touted WIFI ability of the game to work at the moment, but this might be down to my naughty Access Point. Pity that, I was looking forward to taking on somebody from the other side of the world - even though they will almost certainly beat me hollow.

Update: I've got the thing going now. All I had to do was replace the Wireless Access Point with one that actually works. And I did manage to join a game. And they did beat me hollow. I'm not sure if this is an advance or not..