Google Maps and a blast from my past

I was talking to a mate the other day when he casually mentioned that he’d been messing around on Google Maps, looking for something or other, and that they’d now implemented the street-view, mouse-drag yellow figure in most areas near to where we live. I answered nonchalantly at first but then remembered an instance from this time last year where I was pretty sure a Google Maps vehicle - complete with the four-way telescopic camera set-up protruding from its roof - spun a 180 degree turn in front of my car at a T-junction. I recall looking in Maps at the time on the road in question but to no avail, probably due to the vast amount of digital images Google would have to process before uploading a tiny patch of a housing estate in Chadderton, so forgot all about it until reminded.

Oat-bran - a mixture just too far

I have the unenviable task of having to do my weekly shop with my brother since I crashed and wrote off my own car late last year and as we both usually rub each other up the wrong way, this single forced jaunt can cause friction. I’m indebted to him really as it makes my life so much easier and saves me a small fortune in taxi fares, so to sound like I’m complaining isn’t really my intention at all as I’m completely grateful for his help. The problem is our personalities clash, which is probably due to the fact we both know we have no alternative to our every-seven-days brotherly trip, and either I’ll end up annoying him - or as in this example from our latest escapade - he’ll manage to annoy me with his rhetorical flummery.

In eBay sellers we trust

eBay and the collection of utter cretins that now dwell within its virtual confines have stripped away my very humanity over the last couple of weeks. Amid ever increasing examples of (un)intentional seller idiocy to contend with no matter where I’ve looked, I honestly believe my days on the world’s biggest auction site are now numbered. As I actually run eBay sites for a living and have done so for the last 5 years, the above statement is tantamount to making myself unemployed and back in the bosom of Job Seekers Allowance, which is not the most ideal situation I grant you. However, I feel I have the insight and understanding of selling and buying on eBay as a whole to comment upon some recent examples of moronic traders I’ve had to deal with within this silicon-based market place.

Teen forced to marry Cow after sex!

The headline says it all, really. Yep, it's an unbelievable but apparently true story from the newspaper, Jakarta Globe. We are informed that a young man of 18 by the name of Ngurah Alit was caught naked having sex with a Cow in a paddy field near to Jembrana, then tried to excuse his actions by blaming the heifer for flirting with him!

Things got a lot worse for this inter-species Lothario because in order to cleanse the village of his bestial transgression, the poor lad was forced to wed the animal before his neighbours, Police and interested journalists. It all seems to have been a little too much for Ngurah Alit though as he ended up collapsing at the ceremony due to the stress and embarrassment of his new-found infamy. And if you think it couldn't get any worse, then just don't ask what happened to the Cow...

Here's the complete article over at the Jakarta Globe:

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/static/national/380095.html

Tories + Lib-Dems = ?

Post-Election Coalition: Blue and yellow makes...? So, after almost a week of electoral wrangling, unelected puppet masters twanging strings and a confused populace trying to understand the election result, we the voters have ended up with a newly-formed British Government that now takes the shape of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. Obviously this is a political compromise of gigantic proportions, with a fragile balance to be undertaken by all concerned under the repeated media mantra of “It’s for the good of the country” to paper over the cracks that exist on the left-of-centre and the right-of-centre of both parties; an experimental aegis granted which, fingers crossed, can at least attempt to stem Britannia’s monetary haemorrhaging and halt our national deficit (thanks for the last 13 years, Gordon and all the best, mate!).

Walking and Dogs: ready for a workout?

Now we have some better weather across the UK, due to spring whistling in and pushing out the worst winter of the last thirty years, and so with this warmer arrival, I’ve decided to take advantage and embark upon daily walks to my workplace rather than use my bike. As I usually whizz along some farm lanes to save time and cut the frenetic early morning cycling to a minimum, having a nice leisurely stroll along these lanes - which skirt a local country park called Tandle Hills - with my camera in tow to capture the awakening flora and fauna seemed like the perfect addition to creating a stress-free day. Well, this was the original idea but in practice things haven’t really panned out as intended and that’s all down to our canine friends and their many forms: whether that form takes the appearance of small and cuddly or huge and f**king frightening, there’s one constant I’m sure of; I despise all shapes and sizes of every barking, bleeding dog.

Halifax Bank's Radio Station: feeling a little queasy

I’ve been feeling peculiar recently and it has taken some time to pinpoint the cause of my unsettled equilibrium due to untimely oral and rectal emissions intruding into my life. The symptoms appeared to come and go at random: from waves of nausea accompanied with rises of sickly bile, through intense bowel excavations of rumbling wind, to hot fevers that rendered me void of energy and coated in a sheen of fop sweat. I was at a loss to find a common denominator for these instigated troubles until, by chance, one day while watching TV, I found these feelings washing over my being during an ad break. So, I waited for the next showing of what I thought was the culprit and lo and behold, another viewing resulted in my body being wracked once again with violent upheaval and I’d found the cause of my televisual discomfort: it was all the fault of Halifax Bank’s latest set of TV ads, churning out their aural dross and banal flummery in hope hilarity ensures (it doesn't).

Obama Bin Laden? Welcome to the Mail Online's Typo...

Noticed this name error last weekend (it’s dated the 16th April), while reading the online version of the UK paper The Daily Mail; basically the headline created a confused amalgam of the USA’s first black President’s Christian name and the USA’s number one Al-Qaeda terrorist’s surname name. Feeling helpful and noticing the story had only just been put online, I decided to inform the cretin who'd written the piece by submitting the first comment to the story:

The General Election: a Red turning Blue?

Across the UK, we are now within the final countdown to the 2010 governmental General Election - which will take place on May the 7th - and we all get to flex our democratic choices by using our five-yearly voting extravaganza to usher in a real change in policy in the form of red, blue or, in the event of a long shot, yellow. So, either it’ll be the same old garbage we’ve just had or a new set of morons to destroy our hopes and aspirations for the foreseeable future; either way, nothing’s going to change, we’re all going to carry on complaining about lack of money, lack of jobs and lack of freedom within our rule-restrictive society, so why even bother to vote?

A tale of two Bicycles

As mentioned in previous blog entries (see "Cycling..." for more details) I have for now - over the last 6 months at any rate - been cycling to my place of work in what I like to refer to as an “enforced fitness regime”: this phrase basically means having to use a bicycle for a ten mile round commute into my job and thus enduring a physical workout I actually have no say in. Now, please don’t get the wrong idea and think I’m complaining about pedalling hardships without gaining some benefit from all this cycling; now I’m half a year into this perpetual sloggery, at an age where the good times are long gone and my belly's future does indeed appear bleak, I’ve noticed my once slack shape has tightened somewhat and I do feel quite fit, although not quite as a fiddle.