This week has not been good. There is no reason to what has happened, but if I was even slightly inclined to believing in fate or gods then this would have had much more meaning…

Sunday - Roads are treacherous due to it pissing down with rain after a hot day.  I get all the way back from Lincoln to Radcliffe and then get arse ended at a roundabout due to some fucking bloke pulling up JUST BEFORE THE ROUNDABOUT.  We all scream to a halt, the car behind using me as extra brakes.  While we are out and assessing damage, the idiot that pulled up wanders over and asks how to get to Dorset.  My directions were “you are having a fucking laugh mate, this is all your fault!”. Tool.

Tuesday - While I am off work with man flu, my house gets struck by lightning with me in it.  It was damn cool, but could have been a lot worse. It only knocked the power out.

Thursday 1 - At the (admittedly dodgy) gym at lunchtime straining away at some tricep pushdowns when three badboys in hoodies come in and start shouting at the (massive) owner of the gym. It gets a bit lairy, so we leave.  They fuck off and I go back over, only to see that they have been throwing dumbells around and at the gym owner who has blood pouring down his face. I don’t even want to know what that was about.

Thursday 2 - Having had my car checked over to make sure it is safe to drive, I am going home with the crumpled exhaust banging away, then I hear a big clunk and the banging stops.  When I get home, the backbox is no longer attached to the car.  Left it in Nottingham SOMEWHERE.

So all in all, I have had enough of this week. I can’t remember breaking any mirrors or upsetting any gypsies.  I hope next week is better.

Nick

Paleontologists snarled it right up when trying to build a Brontosaurus out of bits they found, causing a big row about whether they actually existed or not, and what they were called. Here is that conflict, acted out by dinosaurs*.

The UnMuseum - What Happened to the Brontosaurus?

* No dinosaurs actually died during the production of this post. They were just pretending.

I had the pleasure of having to sit through my daughter’s DARE graduation on Monday. While an attempt to educate kids about the dangers of drugs is laudable, the method is laughable.

For starters, the course she took focused on smoking, drinking, glue sniffing and cannabis. The more damaging drugs were left out. Error. We live in a drinking culture, and it is no good telling kids not to drink and smoke when these extremely harmful drugs are socially acceptable. She has seen her mum getting hammered for the last ten years. How hypocritical is it of DARE to say that is wrong when millions of people get wasted every weekend?

The cannabis section was full of lies. The dangers they warned of are due to the smoking of tobacco with cannabis without using a filter. That information is misleading and plain incorrect. When they tried to give reasons for not doing cannabis, all they could come up with was the lame “you might stop being interested in after school clubs”. FFS.

Rather than trying to scare kids into not doing drugs, a more informed approach is required. DARE is trying hard, but their “facts” are not correct, and teaching moderation is likely to be more successful than scaring people into abstinence.

The only upside to the whole painful event was all the kids singing the “DARE song”, which made me laugh out loud. I will be sure to remind my offspring of that song when she is hungover one day

Just a quick one, dear readers. I keep seeing shit cars with Playboy stickers on, and girls wearing Playboy branded clothing. What exactly are they trying to say? They are invariably overweight, and have an orange glow and badly bleached hair. Playboy sell the concept of hot girls with no clothes on. Do these girls want to be porn models? Do they aspire to be a centrefold? Who would want to see these hideous girls naked?

I’m loving the Mac, but have had a bit of a learning curve! These are the things that scuppered me this week:

• The keyboard is all different. The Hash (#) is now “alt+3″. The quotes are in a different place. So are slashes. This is taking some getting used to, especially when making websites…
• Running a twin screen for the first time ever. It’s great, but very confusing to start with.
• Apps don’t quit when I close the document, so I end up with loads of apps open in the background. I’m learning.
• There were black rectangles around things like input fields, buttons etc. It turned out to be Universal Access VoiceOver - an accessibility feature of OSX. Turned that off and now its gone away.
• I wanted to lock my machine while I was away from my desk, and there is no lock computer option. I had to password my screensaver then put it to sleep.

None of these things are the Mac’s fault, but it’s made me realise how entrenched I am in the PC world. PC stuff comes second nature, so I am having to think about things I do now