Whetby

Whitby Harbour Entrance

We went to Whitby today. A lovely place. Even when it rains all the time. Whitby is a good place to visit for fish and chips, an amazing Abbey, bracing air, old style sweetshops. And Dracula. The best time to go is when they are having a Goth festival. They weren't having one today, but we did find some fun goth stuff in some of the shops. My favourite was a sticker which read "Heaven won't have me and Hell is afraid I'll take over". Nearly bought one for the minister.

Improve your Satnav

We went away for the weekend today. Margot lent us her place in a little seaside village and so we packed up our bucket and spades and headed off into the sunset. (actually we went east, but you get the idea).

We used the Gizmondo to find our way to our destination. Sadly the Gizmondo company is no more (someone will have to make a film about what went on there - probably starring Euan McGregor) but the device itself works very well. It can be fitted with a SatNav program which works nicely. But satnav is not perfect. Whilst the system is quite happy to give friendly route advice in a very ladylike voice when it can tell where it is, when the location signal dissappears the device goes eerily silent. I don't like this. It causes you to career wildly off course - working on the basis that "she would have said something if we were going wrong". I'd much prefer it if she said:

"Sorry, but I'm drawing a bit of a blank at the moment, you do what you think is right and I'll get back to you later."

- when the going gets tough. Whilst we are on with improvements, I'd also like her to give me supportive advice as I drive along to the next junction where I have to change direction.  Rather than just counting down the distance she should say things like :

"No, don't turn down there. It leads to a farmyard where a bloke in a tractor will laugh at you whilst you fail to perform a three point turn in front of a herd of Fresians. "

- just to keep me happy. And when her battery goes flat she should say something like:

"I'm going out now. I may be some time." before shutting down, rather than falling silent and causing us to go the wrong way round Bridlington.

Anyhoo, we are here now. And the weather forecast is rubbish.

Filming the Imagine Cup

 
Tiny camera on big tripod. Apparently this is the right way round to do it...

Microsoft came to see us today in the persons of Mark and Kevin. We had some high level discussions (well, we were on the third floor for some of them) and Mark took some video of the Imagine Cup Team for a Channel 9 video he is making.  Great fun.

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.....