Hot Day

Jacob, my son. 

Today is a very hot day. You are doing very well my son. I can see a preschooler child emerging. Soon you will be telling me about your favourite toys and talking about everything, I will always listen as long as I am alive and able to do so. 

I often wonder what the rest of the 20s will be like. I have some grey hair already from the stress of recent events, luckily your mum dyed my hair so I look young again for a little while. Maybe if I am able to get a bigger place, we can build a small gym and we can exercise often at home. I think that most of the aging on your skin is caused by sunlight. If you exercise regularly and eat food that isn't too unhealthy and use sunblock then it is possible to slow down ageing, the thing that will slow it down the most is to use sunscreen on your skin. If you can stop the sunlight from damaging your skin then you can stop some of the wrinkles and look young for your age. 

If I don't build a small gym then we can just walk in the park regularly and throw boomerangs and frisbees. 

Small Life Hack

In some grocery stores they sell double strength squash juice. This means that instead of diluting them with 3 parts water you dilute them with 6 or 7 parts. This means you can get about 10 liters of juice from a 1.5 liter bottle of water. The bottle usually costs around £1 so you are actually buying 10 liters for £1. I have also learnt that you can mix two different squash bottles together and make a fruit cocktail drink. The other thing you can do is mix sparking bottled water to make your own fizzy drink. 

What I would do is get the one liter jug and pour 150 ml of the concentrated juice into it and leave it in the fridge. No matter how big your family is, 10 liters of orange juice for £1 goes a long way. I particularly like the lime flavoured one. It is very nice. 

I think it is also ok to put plastic bottles in the freezer. You can take them out the night before and they are still quite cold. The bottles can stretch slightly without shattering. 

Game preach

I saw a video on social media of a preacher that was preaching about video games. People claim that video games will send people to hell and that they cause children to commit mass shootings. They even claim that the game players make the game into their God. 

The way I see it is when a toddler is playing with their Duplo bricks and building little castles, the Duplo bricks are not the children's God and they are not being inspired to harm anyone. When a preschooler is playing with his Lego bricks and making a house, the lego bricks are not their God and they are not filled with malice. When I build things in computer games then the same must be true. 

If computer games are inspiring children to shoot their classmates then why is it only in America? Children play computer games all over the planet. Malice is being put into American children's minds but it can't be because of computer games, it must be coming from something else. When I play Rollercoaster tycoon, I am not worshipping it, I'm just being a big Kid, playing with a toy. I'm not inspired to harm other people when I am building theme parks or making a blue hedgehog jump over a ravine to avoid spikes. 

I could be wrong but right now, that is what I think. 

Damp Day

Jacob, my son.

You are making a lot of progress. We watch toddler learning videos on YouTube about the alphabet and counting. The number that you respond to the most is the number 8, you are able to say that number very clearly. In the morning I give you a slice of toast with butter and you eat two thirds of it and throw the rest on the floor. I put the toast pieces that you throw away in a small bag and freeze it to give to wild animals later. You seem ok with water now so it is easier to wash you. Every week you seem like a different little person, another part of you grows and makes you different. Sometimes your fingers grow bigger other times your ears are a bit bigger. 

Your mind is growing very fast and I can see a young boy emerging, it won't be long when you are a walking talking preschooler with a distinct mind and specific interests. I have so much to show you son. All the simple things in this world like going out and walking in the park and throwing a frisbee and eating out in a restaurant. Your first Chinese meal or a roast English meal. I hope to get the new Nintendo soon so we can sit together and play Mario cart from time to time. 

I am grateful for having you in my life. 

Punch Gorilla

Not too long ago I learned that a famous supreme boxer wanted to go into a Gorilla enclosure and punch the Gorilla in the face for intimidating the other Gorillas. I'll call the boxer Mr stripey-cheecks. 

Mr Stripey-cheecks  pleaded with the zoo keeper to let him into the Gorilla enclosure so he could teach the Gorilla a lesson. I imagined in my head what would happen if the zoo keeper allowed him in.

Stripey-cheecks walks up to the Gorilla and punches him in the face. The Gorilla then gives him an angry look in his eyes like.. "do you know what animal I am?!!!" 

Then he punches the Gorilla again but the Gorilla grabs his fist and pulls his arm off. Mr Stripey-cheecks gets a super human slap in the face from his own detached arm. The slap is so powerful that it sounds like an explosion and echos off the wall 3 or 4 times. Then he wakes up the next day in the hospital with an arm missing. 

The end. 

Speck people

Recently I learned that one of my favourite computer games, Rollercoaster Tycoon had been re-released on the mobile phone and I remembered that Bluetooth keyboards with scrollpads and joysticks in "point and click" mode causes a mouse pointer to appear on your phone screen as if it were a desktop PC. I think Roller coaster Tycoon is the best thing Atari ever made and they released 3 versions of the game for mobile devices. Well, I downloaded the light version that had been specifically designed for phones and tablets and it responds to the mouse pointer. I use my Bluetooth joystick and set it to "click and point mode" so I don't need to press the screen. (My fingers are  a bit fat so it is easier that way). 

Games that involve building things are very popular, games like mine craft, sim city, roller coaster tycoon, zoo tycoon, ...Tetris (just kidding). Anyway, I was wondering why I liked Roller Coaster tycoon more than sim city. I think it is because of the speck people. I like seeing little tiny speck people trying out my little creations and having fun. I also like micro managing things. Real theme park directors don't have control of everything about the park like the colour of rides and the staff wages and foot paths ect. 

Another good thing is I am able to cast my phone screen to the TV. The game looks a lot better on the TV. The cost of it all this is low. I already had a Bluetooth joystick, I already had a chromecast stick and I already had a phone, the game is free although you can buy expansion packs in the game that enhance the gameplay for about 89p each. I am a big kid that looks forward to the happy days when I can be lost in my hobbies once again. 

Why do they Obey?

I was reading a printed book about the elements the other day, the book is about the atoms that compose all matter, hydrogen, helium, lithium. Things like that. 

I was wondering why all atoms obey the rules. All atoms have a first shell that can hold 2 electrons. Bigger attoms have additional shells that can hold 8 electrons each. The first shell in an atom always holds 2 electrons, the second shell always hold up to 8 electrons. Why do all particles obey the same laws? There are so many of them and the universe is so big yet every last atom follows all the rules, they never disobey as far as I know. It is confusing to think that a universe that is so big is so orderly, as if it was just information.

Family reunion

Earlier in the week on Tuesday my brother and his family met my family again in person for the first time since lockdown in the start of spring. 

 I am the Reluctant Ralph and the Doubting Thomas of the whole family. I was reluctant to meet up but I guess we needed to get on with our lives and the virus seems to be here to stay so I reluctantly went along with it. 

My Brother showed me his new toy, it was very cool. I will say no more. We went to a park that is near me and enjoyed the day. 

While I was alone the same day I managed to chip off some of the lag from my Chromecast. I increased the frame rate of the chromecast stick to 50hertz. So now the lag is only about one quarter of a second. It is slightly better. It handles a bit better when I connect my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse panel. Slowly my phone is starting to be used as a desktop computer on my TV screen. For liesure and practicality. 

DeskTopia

Earlier in the week I tried to use my phone on the TV screen as a desktop computer. When you connect a Bluetooth mouse to an Android phone, you get a mouse pointer on your phone screen so your phone behaves like a desktop computer. This also works when you connect a Bluetooth keyboard and scrollpad. The keyboard replaces the screen keyboard on the phone and you get a little old school desktop pointer that is controlled by the mouse. At the same time you can mirror the phone screen on your TV so your TV screen becomes like a "turn of the millennium" old school desktop computer. I use chromecast to mirror my phone screen because you don't need to download any apps for it. The OS system already has Chromecast built-in. 

The problem is there is a lag. You see my phone sends a copy of the screen and sound to the router, then the router sends the data to the chromecast, then the chromecast re-renders the graphics and sound and sends it to the TV. So.... What happens is you get a half second lag. I move the mouse pointer but it takes an extra half second to move on the TV screen. 

 

Why bother? 

Well, I use my phone more as a computer then a phone, listen to LBC radio on it, I play games on it and write blogs and read things on it. Most of my modern day knowledge comes from smart phones. I read news articles, e books and Wikipedia articles on there when I am trying to sleep. 

Recently there as been an old school renaissance on portable pocket computers like smart phones. Old DOS games like commander keen and doom and the classic sonic and mario games are available and even my favourite game, roller coaster Tycoon is available. 

I will look for a way to remove the lag, perhaps the screen can be mirrored directly without the router. Lets see. 

Foot and Car

In my home there is there is a concrete step Infront of the front door, I like to keep that step clean because I take my shoes off when I get home from work and put my feet on the cold step. I sit there and wait for a while. Waiting for my coffee and my feet to cool off. 

I am also waiting for a genius to invent the low cost high capacity battery so electric cars can become very cheap. They have no exhaust pipe, no fuel pump, no clutch, no oil filter, no oil pump, no coolant system, no cylinders, no cam shaft, nothing, Just an electric motor and batteries. Electric cars are only expensive because of the high capacity lithium batteries they use. If they invent a cheap battery system then everyone can buy cheap electric cars with very few things to go wrong.

Sea Urchin

I was reading a Wikipedia article about sea urchins. Sea Urchins are echinoderms just like star fish and sea cookies. They have a five sided body plan, no eyesight or brain. They are basically just a mouth and ball of tentacles. They crawl along the sea floor and eat anything they can get into their mouth. I wouldn't be surprised if they could eat plastic and digest it as if it was carbon hydrates, the plastic floats on the surface of the water and sea urchins crawl on the sea floor so they never really meet. When you have a creature that is just a mouth on legs then perhaps it is strong at digesting things.  Who knows? 

Calm night

Jacob, my son. the other day I sat outside with you on my lap and we shared some crisps and I drank coffee and you drank your juice. You are getting better at manipulating your food, you are more keen on walking than before and seem to be trying to talk more often. Your mind is growing very fast. 

I wonder what stories you have for me. What is going to happen in the near future?  Is the future bright for us? Is life good in the 20s and 30s ? I hope there are no more disasters. Is the world at peace? 

My Birthday

Yesterday was my Birthday and my birthday is in the middle of summer. Ideally I would like to have a BBQ on my birthday and a big party or eat out but a lot has happened since my last birthday. The wildernesses of a few new world continents burned up, there was civil unrest around the world, Great Britain had 3 winter storms and incessant rain through the whole of winter and there was a political earthquake in the UK at Christmas. Then a global pandemic infection followed by a lockdown to slow down the spread of Covid19 that lasted the whole of Spring. 

Anyway, next year I hope to make up for it. If Jesus doesn't return before my next birthday, I would like to have a large vegetarian BBQ and party. I have thought about the music to play. I am a 90's kid so a lot of the music at the party would come from the 90s. 

I would play "Seal & Adamski, Killer" it was released 1989 but they played it in the 90s a lot and in the music video they look like they are trying to invent domestic internet, they even have plasma comming out of their heads perhaps from touching live wires. I would play "Crash test dummies, hmm hmm hmm Hmmm" they crash tested the lyrics and song title if you ask me. "The scat man" would be in there. I think Scat man John is the only man on earth that can sing his own song. 90's kids tried very hard to sing that song. If machines take over the world and understand and sing that song then they can have the keys to the planet. I would plug at least 3 "East 17" tracks, everything that group made sounded cool, I particularly like the duet with Gabriel "if you ever". "Good life by inner city" would be in there, it was from the 80s but it was popular in 90s parties. I would play "Flowers, sweet female attitude", it was released in 2000 but I would add it anyway. I would also add Craig David stuff. Right said Fred would be in there, "I'm too sexy for my shirt" 90s kids tried to sing that song with the deep voice all the way without laughing, it proved impossible. They also tried to make haduken plasma balls with their hands like in street fighter, no human hand can move fast enough to turn the air around their hand into a ball of plasma, it didn't stop us trying though. 

I would also add the 4 non blondes song "hey, what's going on" because I always heard it on the radio. I would also plug many melody techno remixes for 90s computer games like sonic the hedgehog and super Mario brothers. 

What a party... My wifes birthday is in August so perhaps there is still a chance of some celebration in 2020. I hope so. 

Travel Syndicate

If you find a way to save money on your expenses such as travel then that is the same as getting a pay rise in my view. I was wondering if there could be a way for staff to save money on travel. 

I thought that if they do a deal with a local taxi company then many staff can share a  chauffeur, if there was a people carrier taxi and it zig zagged through the town picking up staff then the cost of the ride would be split by 6 people. Each person would only be paying 2.50 if the trip costs £15. If they do a deal with the company then they may get the cost to just £1 per customer on each trip. Perhaps such a deal is impossible so I thought that they could do a deal with a mini bus company. The cost of hiring a mini bus and driver is high for one day but it brings all the staff to work and takes them home, perhaps the mini bus holds 12 people at a time. It may cost £100 per day but there are 100 staff using it so they only pay 50p per trip because they all make 2 trips, one to work and one home. It could cut the cost of travel in half for all the staff and that is the same as getting a pay rise. Also it could pick up customers that are old when the staff are not using it and then the shop would have competitive advantage over rival shops. 

Just a thought. 

Old School via phone

It suddenly dawned on me that my phone is a more powerful computer than my first desktop computer at the turn of the millennium in almost every way. It has more memory, the processor is faster, the graphics is higher resolution. The ram is more. The only thing that is less is support for peripherals like usb printers. 

I remember using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse panel on my previous phone. When I connected it to the phone, I found that a cursor actually appeared on my phone screen and the Keyboard worked with the phone. I think I was using android version 8. I used the chromecast button to cast the screen to the TV and it was as if the TV had become a desktop computer. It wasn't quite seamless and the home desktop didn't go into wide screen format but it was amazing to see, at least it was for me. 

Well, I now have android version 10 and I learned recently that "r

Rollercoaster Tycoon" has been remastered for the mobile phone so I will have a look. Thanks to a £30 Chromecast stick and a £15 Blutooth keyboard, I can use my phone on the TV as an oldschool desktop computer and that is amazing to me. Hopefully I can play rollercoaster Tycoon on it the same way I did at the turn of the millennium. 

I wonder

I wonder what would happen if I linked all four of my blogs together, my main diary-like blog(this blog), my formal blog called alanasis for  reviews of products, my blog for facts and statistics and my joke blog. I will see if I find the time to do it. Also I wonder what would happen if I linked my twitter handle in the description of all the blogs. What would happen if there was a link to all four of my blocks from all four of my blogs.  

Merging everything together is what summer is all about. 

Stream in the shadows

I sense that the majority of the entities that read this blog are just robots and security staff. Super inspectors inspecting their soup, KGB eating their KFC, Facebook-alook-ologists eating their sandwich in privacy, twitter-git-sitters eating their peanuts and tweeting, MI5 getting mixed fruits for their meeting. FBI checking their donuts are freshly fried they don't need to be terrified. What a shame , what a waste, I am a man that insights nothing and I have no activist agenda. I am so boring that a Crystal meth Junkie can run at me after rapeing a delivery van and fall asleep from hearing my dream of terrforming the moon and avoiding the solar wind from the sun, yawn. 

Yep, this blog is just the thoughts of an ordinary man that lived on both sides of the millennium. It is what the world means to me in words. Hopefully it is also a boat ride to placid waters for those that read it. It is a document for an older version of my self, my descendents and people of the future.  

You could say it was like a time capsule. 

Angry People lesson

I was a kid in the 90s and a learned a lot about people in that time. The Berlin wall was knocked down in 1989, I didn't understand why the people were so angry at the wall, they were hitting it with sledge hammers and kicking it and throwing things at it. When I played super Mario Bros there was a wall with an angry face that stumped the ground, I imagined it came from Berlin and had a German accent. The 90s was all about two Germanies learning to be one Germany again. They paid a big price because East Germany was poor and West Germany was rich but they pulled it off.  

In the same decade Yugoslavia disintegrated into about 6 smaller independent states and all the 6 countries had their own civil war. Kosovo, Bosnia, Serbia & Montenagro, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia. They all had civil wars because the people were fighting the establishment authorities and forces that wanted the union to persist. And they were fighting over who runs their new states. Lots of crazy things were happening in that area, so called ethnic cleansing, bombings, full scale battles between police forces and army soldiers plus rebel insurgents and paramilitary fighting. I think the conflict spilled over to Albania as well, not sure why though, they did have a significant ethnic presence in Yugoslavia.

My point is you can't buy out and control people forever, eventually the will of the people will breakthrough. Germans wanted to be one and Yugoslavians wanted to be independent republics. And that is what happened in the 90s, a high price was paid but it was inevitable. 

I never really understood what was going on at the time. You could say it was all a lesson on ice. I only really understood later in life. 

Cool night

Jacob, my son. At the time of me writing this, you were a true toddler. You could walk a bit and talk a bit, manipulate your own food a bit and your size was roughly  3 times what it was at birth. You had just spent the last quarter of your infancy in a pandemic lockdown and took your first steps while Covid19 was surging across the planet. 

Our ancestors didn't make many written records that I know of so I don't know what they were thinking. As for me, I can make some things fairly clear. 

Although there are many conspiracy theories circulating, I don't believe them. I don't think the new world continents and NATO leaders are conspiring to bring a one world government that is controlled by the Illuminati. I don't think 5g radio masts cause health problems. I think the moon landing really happened. I don't think vaccines do anything to your brain and I believe autism starts in a fetus before they are born. I don't think Covid19 came from a lab, I think it came from wild animals. I don't think the Queen is a reptilian humanoid and I don't think there are reptilian humanoids living under ground. I don't believe the Earth is flat. I don't believe Israel and the Jews living there are trying to take over the world and I don't believe the Rothschild family are trying to destabilise nations to elevate the new world order or Illuminati. 

I guess you could call your father a doubting Thomas. I believe something when I see it or see proper evidence but I do question everything anyway, but I need solid evidence to accept anything. I don't look down on people that embrace conspiracy theories, I just accepted their thoughts are different to mine. I even like to watch David icke videos on YouTube just to think about his views but then I think they are wrong and leave it at that. 

Fake Aquarium Queue

I mentioned in a previous post that I would love to own an amusement park. Infact, I had  the "roller coaster Tycoon" game on my first desktop computer and I used most of my free time playing it. It is a game with an isometric top down view of a terrain, it is very much like sim city from the 90s but you build your own theme park. It was a lovely game. 

If I owned a theme park then one thing that would be outstanding about the park is the queues. If you were in a queue in my Amusement park, you would find the queue itself entertaining. for instance, the queues on the water ride would be a semi fake Aquarium. There would be a few real fish tanks but the rest of them would just be empty tanks with video screens nested in them. So while you were queueing for your boat, you would be looking at sea creatures. Perhaps you would even forget you were queueing. 

Queue away

There is a lot of queueing at present because businesses need to space out the customers when they are inside. There a few places where there was always queues, post offices and amusement parks. Just about every civil document that I have ever filed was processed by the post office. The post office is involved with everything, my driving license, passport, things like that. Many people go to the post office so there is always a big queue there. 

Amusement parks also have long queues because there are many people that want to go on rides. Well, I imagined owning an amusement park myself and making the most of the queues. If I owned an amusement park, the queues for the rides would be an experience of its own. Time is short right now so I will write no more until the next post, unless something important comes up. 

Chameleon Horse

I was wondering if it were possible to breed chameleons into giant horse sized creatures. We breed dogs into different shapes and sizes, perhaps we could do the same for them. 

If a chameleon was the size of a horse, it would be amazing because it could change the colour of it's skin and do all the chameleon things that it does but in a large size. Perhaps at a large size, small lizards are dangerous. 

If it was difficult for Chameleons to live in a enlarged form or it was painful for them then perhaps it isn't right to breed them that way. They have a tongue that shoots out like a grappling hook, perhaps it would attack bigger pray if it was much bigger such as birds or humans. If they were dangerous, I imagined a Sci-Fi villain would keep one has a pet to kill his enemies in a very nasty way. Being eaten alive by a giant pet lizard. 

I wonder... 

More Fizz

At the time of writing this blog I was still using an old school wrist watch. The time on it is 1985, did I mention my jokes are dry? A Casio f91. It is an LCD digital watch. The numbers that represent the time are lcd pegs that are arranged into the figure of 8. 

The pegs can represent every number from 0 to 9. I often wondered how many pegs you would need to add to get the alphabet, not many but you get a cleaner finish if you just use a matrix of dots. 

When the sun is shining very brightly, it becomes more obvious that the background of the watch face is beige in colour and you can also see a very slight smear of coloured streaks. This is what I call the fizz. I would get that with my tamogotchi from the 90s. Tamogotchis were key chains with dot matrix displays that housed a virtual pet. It was a toy that was very popular in the 90s. 

For me the fizz is seeing beauty in details. A moment in time when everything is calm and I am left focusing on one thing in detail.