Dangers of an Idle Mind

Sorry for the missing post last week but all creativity got used up writing a six page essay on the ethics of naked short selling. So here is a bunch of updates on previous entries Gadget Crisis. In go - go gadgets I discussed my over-stock of gadgets. Well one thing has changed since then. Through a bizarre series of events I found myself selling my 5th Gen iPod a few days before leaving on a trip to England. Despite my promises to cut back on expenditure I couldn’t face the airport/aeroplane routine without an MP3 player and so I took advantage of the moment and bought a 2nd Gen iPod Touch. Put simply the iPod touch has the best UI of any gadget I have ever had. It does have its problems but I will save comment on those until I have installed V2.2. However, for music, movies and game play the iPod Touch has usurped the Palm already. Now if it only had a GPS chip … More in a few weeks. Speedy and Sparky Given the financial issues we are all having I have started to wonder if there is...

I awoke this morning in my southern New England home to the sound of the wind pushing against the house. Outside the sky was a crisp blue. The multi-colour leaves of autumn were lining up like golden sky-divers; waiting for their cue to leap from the trees and then tumble and dance down the hilly road. The wind breathes excitement and animation outside my window. The heavy foliage of summer stops the hanging green frog from spinning over our deck. But now the fall has come and the cover is thinned, so that you can see patches of sky, the frog spins madly throwing off spirals of reflected light. Speedy, Sparky and their friends that inhabit the grassy bank, are nervous. The sweet smelling autumn wind moves everything and drowns out the normal sounds of safety. The change of air is tangible to them as they stand on their hind legs, twitching and sniffing. The small mammals are obvious now because they are the only stationary things. Ironic that they should be so exposed by the very act ...

We haven’t had an embarrassing kid’s story for a while so here is the tale of Moochy and the monster under his bed. Moochy, my eldest son hated going to bed and never more so than when he felt there was something happening that he was missing out on. In those times he would invent all sorts of reasons for why he could not go to sleep or had to keep getting up. This story takes place on one of those occasions when he was about four. One beautiful spring evening we were staying at his Grandparent’s house in southwest London, near where me and his mother both lived before moving about 60 miles away. Anyway, we had arranged for some of our old friends to come around and hang out for a while. They were due around 8 and so just before that we put Moochy and his younger brother, Spud, into their pajamas, tucked them into bed and turning out the light, bade them goodnight. No sooner had the first visitors arrived than a little blond four year old appeared and told us. “I can’t sleep; there’s a...

Last week I was in Europe and even flew out of Düsseldorf again. I am very proud to say there was no repeat of the incident from last October . Before going to the Netherlands and Germany I stopped off in London. While I was there I did go to see the newest Narnia film (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian) with my two sons; it was kinda fun. The film had the usual religious allusions, which did not get in the way of the enjoying the story. One thing though, all the baddies in the film spoke English but had Spanish accents. These were the only human people in the film (apart from our four little heroes who were very very English). At some point we learned that the baddies had been in Narnia for three generations. But even so, surely they would just speak Spanish to each other? It couldn’t possibly have been a case of using an accent, other than British or American, to mark someone out as a baddie? *** Pixar Need To Study Elementary Physics *** Before the film started I did find som...

That same trip to Borders I was looking at an audio book version of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time. I was wondering if it was read by some famous actor or would it be that computer voice the whole way through - thus proving his assertion that time does indeed lengthen. Next to the audio books were the journals. Leafing through the journals were two young ladies (I'd guess late teens or very early twenties); one young lady turned to the other and said, "I want to keep a journal this summer; I think it is going to be a significant one. But you know what? I don't know when summer starts." Her friend seemed lost for an answer and I caught the eye of the original speaker. "Summer will start the day you start your journal then." I offered. The young lady just smiled. It was a smile that said. "What?" Oh well. <Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza

Standing in the kitchen the morning after the drive back from Chicago, my back and legs ached and my head felt as if all thought was being filtered through a thick piece of cloth. I looked out of the kitchen window at the grassy bank that leads to the road. It was incredible how much had happened out there in a week. We had aimed the car at the sunset nine days before and when we left the three mature trees out the back and the bushes at the front were starting to show signs of leaves. Now, the neighbours downhill and to the front had disappeared behind a wall of green. And looking out to the back the mid Sunday morning sunlight was all but occluded by the green canopy from the trees. The shadows of the leaves allowed only tiny dots of bright light through, I was watching, mesmerized, at how the patterns shifted and changed. Suddenly I noticed two chipmunks quite near to the house and huddled close together. This is unusual as chipmunks tend to be territorial. As I continued to watch a...

We left at ten minutes to nine in the morning. The city took sympathy on us and did its best to let us out painlessly, unlike when we had arrived seven days earlier. There is no other city I have seen where the skyline does so much to define its nature. At times it seems so compact you could imagine it is inside the glass dome of a snow-globe, just waiting to be shaken up. As we drove down the Kennedy, the monumental buildings increased in size as we passed by their feet, until we got to Sears Tower. Then faster than they had grown they fell away again. The Kennedy became the Dan Ryan and the soullessly named US Cellular Field appeared on our right. After that it was foot down and head for Indiana. We turned 90 degrees at the bottom of Lake Michigan, the sun shone and the lake was sparkling blue in the distance. We left Illinois via the Chicago Skyway. Sounding futuristic and romantic, the reality is the heavy industrial iron design of the bridge never allows you the feeling that you a...

After Saturday I decided to look up the definition of anticlimax . It said: 'An event, period, or outcome that is strikingly less important or dramatic than expected.' And given the definition I guess the end of the world not happening could be classed as a bit of an anticlimax. The calendar did roll over to a new number (see picture) which I am assuming means 100. If that is the case then we must assume the end of the world is probably 900 days away. So the apocalypse is officially rescheduled, by my Hyundai, to a new date of October 26th 2010. I'll try and remember to remind you the day before. Couple of other points. There a fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims but you never hear of fundamentalist Atheists Last night on the TV news the new reader said that Ford were recalling thousands of their trucks ‘because of problems with their ho’s’ does Eliot Spitzer have a Ford then? In professional and school life we are taught there is no such thing as a stupid...

Just checked the calendar in the car and it reads Feb99th so just wanna wish you all the best for tomorrow. I have noticed that the calendar changes at 1pm Eastern so you Brits have got a bit more time whilst the Californians have 'til about 10am. Anyway enjoy it - I was gonna video the end of the world but I'm not sure I can be bothered. (Confused? See here and here and here ) <Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza

Boarding the plane in London it was hard to miss the festive bunting and banners that the crew had placed all around the aircraft. ‘Happy Retirement’ was the theme of the day. Now I don’t know about you but in any film or book you watch or read, when it is someone’s last day, well you know what happens – they die!!!! They never make it. From Catch 22 to Ed McBain, they die. So when the purser announced it was the final trip of Captain Bob, the pilot, it was all I could do not to scream “We’re doomed. We’re doomed!”

Somewhere over South Eastern Canada the blue outside my oval window became grey and the plane flew on. On my iPod the Thievery Corporation filled in the aural space with rich, compressed full-range sound. Out of the window I looked upwards and there was grey. I looked back and there was grey. I looked forward and down; grey. And the plane droned on. Thievery Corporation became A Girl Called Eddy, Ivy then Embrace and the plane flew on – still enveloped in grey. The iPod started on Massive Attack and I wondered if we would ever see anything again. What if ATC had forgotten about us and we had no place to land. Would we spend eternity suspended in bleakness? Was this what happened to pilots – they didn’t retire they are just held in an endless holding pattern? When the New York suburbs did suddenly appear they were alarmingly close and were followed almost instantly by the hatched markings at the start of the runway. The ceiling must have been less than 200 feet. I hope pilot Bob got ho...

Last ‘my kids’ story for a while – I promise. Back in 2002 I took Spud to his first major sporting event. It was a Cubs against the Cardinals baseball game at Wrigley Field. Spud had been playing Backyard Baseball, the PC game, for a year or so and knew enough about baseball to follow what was happening on the field. It was a bright and warm August afternoon as the Spudster and I settled into our seats, which were behind home plate about half way up the second tier. Spud was 6 and had never been to any type of big sporting event before (closest was a single A game the year before). It was a great experience, we did all the things kids love about baseball games. We had cotton candy, soda, peanuts and I even got him the ubiquitous foam claw. The early innings passed with Spud getting acquainted with the mechanics of a ball game. The peanut throwing, Wrigley’s skanky toilets etc. but we soon settled to watch the actual game. Almost immediately the Cardinals star batter stepped up to the p...

Every parent has a s tory of h ow their children have embarrassed them and here is mine. Back at the end of the summer in 1996 I lived in a small village in Essex, England. That summer had seen the Olympics in Atlanta, an explosion over the Atlantic of a Paris-bound TWA plane and England were beaten by arch rivals Germany in the Euro 96 semi-finals. Oasis and Blur dominated the UK airwaves. By September 1996 my family consisted of my wife, a two year old boy referred to as Moochy and a six month old who become to be known as Spud. Oh, and a nameless Goldfish too. Moochy was as cute as any two year old ever was. He had a shock of white hair and big blue eyes. Overall he was a pretty happy kid. The only concern we had was that he was having some problems with talking, most of the things he was saying were pretty unintelligible but at least he was trying. The story takes place one Sunday afternoon. Spud and his mother were both taking an afternoon nap and I decided Moochy and I should do ...

As you can see my car now believes it is Feb 61st - next update on Feb 99 (May 9th).

As I described in 2 Green Dots and 28 Green Bars my car has a little green clock. Well those cunning South Korean Hyundai engineers also put in a calendar. On the 12th of March my wife and I were driving back from dinner and she happened to notice the date that was being displayed on the calendar. Seems the Hyundai engineers may have missed something … Feb 29 + 12 = 41 so at least it is right! <Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza

When I first told my eldest son about Speedy and Sparky, the Chipmunks who live on the grass bank outside my kitchen, he said I should be careful as all Chipmunks are evil (the cuteness is just a cover) and they are all plotting to take over the world. The then 12 year old said that Chipmunk's borrows are full clever machines and computers with lots of flashing lights, some of those tape reel things that go round for no reason. I thought he was joking until recently. Three weeks ago I wrote about not having seen either Speedy or Sparky all winter in 'Missing Speedy and Sparky' . I surmised it was too cold and harsh for them and I even expressed concern about whether they had enough food. Just after the posting one of those machines, deep below the muddy grass bank, must have whirred into life. Speedy wobbles up to the screen and reads a blog in increasing rage: 'Too harsh? Not enough food?" He screams in a Chipmunk, "I'll show the humans!" He waits hi...

It might be illegal but this morning, using my phone, I snapped this shot of the three X-rays of my wife's ankle. The doctor wasn’t around at the time. The X-rays clearly show the plate and various screws needed to get her ankle back together again. In image one and two the plate and seven screws holding together the fibula are obvious. Apparently the damage was somewhat greater than the original X-ray showed and so a further screw had to be added between screws 3 & 4 of the plate (counting from the top). That screw is holding the bone together horizontally. Lastly, all of the images show the two large screws keeping the pieces of the tibia together. This all stays in place forever now - so wish us luck when we next get to go through an airport. <Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza

The ankle is a joint where the foot meets the leg. It consists of the bones of the leg - the fibula and its larger neighbour the tibia - and the top foot bone part called the talus. The fibula and tibia run between the knee and the ankle. If you were to cause a fracture to the one of these bones anywhere from the knee to about three quarters down, you would be considered as having broken a leg. If the break, in either or both of these fine bones, happens in the general area of the top of the foot then you have broken your ankle. To break either the fibula or tibia is bad, to break both is worse. This is a picture of a clearly broken fibula and, less obviously broken tibia (it is two images of the same foot). The bones in the X-ray belong to my wife and that is why I now know more about the bone structure of the lower extremities than I did last Friday morning. Those same bones are also the reason I did not post a blog last week. We were attending the wedding of some good friends out at...

This morning I sat by the big kitchen window half heartedly picking at a crossword, eating breakfast and looking out at the large grassy bank that runs down to the road. The bank (like so many US banks) is in a poor state. The locals tell me the snow was early this year, then it froze and there have been two or three very heavy rain storms inbewteen it all; so the the bank has taken on a a worn, muddy, threadbare look. As I gazed out the morning frost was being erased by the bright wintry sun and there was a small grey/blue bird perched on the brittle black twigs of a bush but no other sign of life. I felt like a sailor’s spouse who is constantly drawn to the oceans edge, hopelessly scanning the horizon but knowing it will be weeks before they do catch sight of what they need most. Last time I saw Speedy and Sparky was towards the end of October. Activity on the grass bank had increased to manic proportions. They seemed to have thrown off the debilitating cloak of caution and could be...