Polymath or Hobbyist with Commitment Issues?

I play guitar, I play mandolin, I draw cartoons, I write poetry, I build robots, I write simulators, I read novels, I walk up hills, I take photos of gnarled tree roots...

I think about the vortex model of the solar system, the complexity of the physics of bouncing hair, the nature of implied pain, the mental graphics of quadratics rotated through the t-axis

I keep promising myself that I will finish a letter, complete a painting, make the robot I just built from junk do something useful...

Yet I suffer from procrastination as if it were an arthritis of the mind...

Am I so diverse that I am physically unable to focus, or am I....as my mother always told me...as my wife still tells me...as my boss has often said....

Just a lazy freaking a-hole!!!????

I'd like to argue my nature, but I can't be bothered today.

The Agrodynamics of Pockets

And Other Annoying Stuff About Garments, Car Seats and Dollar Store Glasses*

Long Story - I'm currently driving a rental car.*

It's a V6.

It's old, but a luxury model (Yes, it has a tapedeck...)

It's a smooth, fast drive.

But it has upholstery from Hell!!!!

The fabric is full of what would now be called "microfibres" - under a large lens, the strands would look like ineverted fishing hooks.

What initially feels like a cross between velveteen and corduroy soon proves to be a devious mechanism to pull down pants: When you slide down the seat, nothing happens, but when you slide up, your legs are losing a battle with the velcroid fabric to gain ownership of your trousers.

As I fidget a lot when I drive, I end up with hipsters by the time I need to alight...

Which has reminded me of an age old gripe of mine about cars seats and pockets. Since I normally drive a ute (Bakkie to a South African, Pickup Truck to everyone else), my seats are upright, and the bum part is horizontal.

But in a passenger car, the seats are angled back. You may think this is for safety, but I think not.

It's for annoyance.

Like the trolls who fill the net with drivel, knowing it will wreak havoc, every time you sit in your vehicle, it tries to mug you...your wallet and phone slide down the inverse hill, and somehow always end up in that slot between the seat belt clip and the seat where by an immutable law of lossodynamics, you can only find stuff when you've already looked there 6 times!

Anyone else hate this stuff????

*Editor's note...I thought I'd lost this blog (Possibly down by the seatbelt clip) - I originally wrote it around July or August last year and so, no, I'm no longer driving a rental, but yes, I still hate bloody pocket designers who clearly don't use pockets!

Thinking INSIDE the Square

By now you've probably seen this image... 

...and like me and millions of others you've felt nostaligic about using a pen to rewind a tape when it got tangled up...

Proof we're all impressionable.

Surely the connections between these two items are manifold? numerous? plentiful?

But we ALL see the same connection.

Not, for example:

 - they're both made from plastic...
 - they both record data
 - they were both invented in the 20th century
 - they're both portable
 - neither one can be used for its intended use on its own

etc...etc...

This is because we are all conditioned to think a certain way - we excel at spotting facial patterns (Even on Mars!), but we suck at spotting smelling mistakes (OK, I bet you BOTH saw that one!)

Here's one more example...what is the next number in this sequence?

9  8  7  6  5  4 ...

It could be anything! For example, a phone number: 987-6549...

So if you remember spinning tapes on pens, or doing online IQ tests, and you feel chuffed - you should be, you are proving yourself superior at thinking INSIDE a square (Well, maybe a hypercube?)

All else would be Anarchy (And All Else Is Entropy)

Like Life, This Is A Work In Progress...

And always subject to change, critique and presumably, abusive emails?

Nice pointless laugh for your day, I hope?

§ That's a Cool Idea! §

You know what the biggest problem with email is? It's the fact that the recipient misses out on the tone...

"Hi" - the quotes means I'm actually talking to you

(Hi) - it's an afterthought

Hi! - I'm excited to see you

Hi? - I can't hear you

Hi - I'm thinking of saying hello

Hi - I'm emphasising it

HI - I'm shouting at you

Yep - almost all the old-school metadata is there...

Except sarcasm.

You have to hope that your recipient knows when you mean it, and when you're ripping on them: Therefore, I propose the introducion of...

§ Sarcasm marks - they're a great idea!!! §

Simply place your text between two squiggly "S" things - §, (or maybe $?), and you're telling the reader that it is sarcasm, and they don't really have to § Ask for a raise for that good suggestion §, or believe you when you say, § I would never call you fat! § or when they reply,  § Yes, you do have a big readership of your §§ riveting §§ blog... §

You can even "Air-Sarc":

And yes, I know it looks like a Diana Ross & the Supremes dance move - § That's Not Gay At All! §

Set a Thief to Catch a Thief - or Just Vote For One

We have an election in NZ soon...and I don't mean at the Chinese brothel (Do you know someone with "electile dysfunction"?).

This blog could get long and political, or I could just say what all human beings have known at all times in history, and yet always been powerless to change:

Politicians are liars.

"The only time Phil Goff & John Key agreed on something...and also told the truth."

Unfortunately, it's hard to vote for a liar, wish I could help, but in the principle of Constructive Pessimism..."You can't Win, You Will Lose, You Can't Get Out Of The Game".

Knowing is half the battle, folks!

Let's talk PORN...

Pertinant Old Radio Nonsense, that is...

I think there's too much "Thinking outside the box" these days, instead of good old fashioned thinking inside the box. Basic "common sense" is being replaced with lunacy by whatever the 21st century folk describe as Yuppies (Yes, I am from THAT generation...) think will get them ahead by being bold and daring to split infinitives where no man has split infinitives before.

The funny (Well, peculiar, I suppose) thing is, that the places where this lunacy is highlighted for us all to see it in it's Y-fronted glory is in the world of satire.

Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde, Douglas Adams...

Or for those who don't have time to read, Monty Python, or my old favourites - The Goons.

These good folk show us how common sense makes sense, by making it seem ludicrous. They also make the ludicrous apparent by making it seem sensible.

I recently heard "Bridge Over The River Wye", and this snippet really gets to thecore of what I'm saying here:  

For all the Gen-Y Yuppies (Genies? Jennies?) out there - let's build bridges across the river, instead of trying to be the first to think outside the cludge by building a pontoon along the length of the Kwai.

On a separate note, I have once again shrunk my head to 72 dpi...