Hand Crush

I remember in the movie superman 2, superman was aware that he needed go away from the cities and wait for the 3 super villains to come to his base because they were causing too much damage. He switched the crystal over that makes super heroes crippled like a human and tricked them into activating it and turning themselves into weak humans. 

I was wondering if he crushed general zod's hand because he was trying to crush his. He didn't know he had lost his super human state. He held superman's hand because he kneeled down before him to surprise him. 

I was wondering if general zod tried to crush superman's hand before super man crushed his. 

Charlie Kirk Assassinated

I learnt last night at about 2am that Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a lone sniper purched on a rooftop. I felt a deep sadness for his death, not just because I admired him but because he was young and had two young children that will now have to grow up without their father. I feel pity for his family's loss. 

I will now do what he would have wanted me to do, I will share the good news about Jesus Christ our lord and saviour.  I will write about Jesus on my blogs and talk to people about Jesus. This is my response to his death, I will tell everyone about the love and peace of Jesus Christ, everyone. Even though there are many flaws in my character. It's not about me, it is about Jesus (Yeshua) . Forget about me, or wicked people, turn to Jesus, he is full of love and wants you to have a light plough on your shoulders. 

Skip Away

I became aware that I'm over weight because I'm 1.8 meters tall (5 ft 10) and I weigh 110kg ( 242 pounds). The ideal weight for my height should be around 80kg. I'm carrying an extra 30 kilograms of weight around with me. I picked up a sack of rice that weighs 20kg and I thought to myself that I would be tired if I carried that around all day. But I'm carrying 30 unnecessary kilograms already. 

Last week I bought a skipping rope for £4. I thought, if I can get my weight down just by skipping then I would save money because a decent treadmill cost £200 and gym membership is usually £20 to £30 per month. It is very nice skipping rope, it has a polymer cord, hinged joint between the rope and handles, the handles are padded foam. If I shopped around a bit online I could probably get a very good skipping rope for £2. 

The goal now would be to skip for 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the evening; two sets of 5 minutes per day. Then I would increase the five minutes to 10 minutes. Eventually I want to go outside once a day and skip continuously for 30 minutes as fast as possible. 

My extra weight is making my life more difficult and short. I get tired more than when I weighed 90kg in my 30s. When my weight is 90kg, I can buy weights to increase my muscles. I also need to stop eating so much bread. Most the food I eat every day is bread. 

Epstein Files

Jeffrey Epstein was a famous American financier that was sent to prison for sex crimes; he exploited young under age girls for sex. 

My view is, if you knew him and you went to his private island, it doesn't mean you're part of his crimes. People approached him because they were paying him to improve their assets and didn't know about his crimes.  

They approached him because of his expertise and his extensive people network. He set himself up as a supreme middle man. Even world leaders of nations that were at loggerheads would skip over the UN and approach him to meet up on his island. I wouldn't be surprised if he managed to talk leaders out of going to war. 

I think involvement in his crimes would depend on when his cronies burnt their bridges. Did they cut him off when he was first exposed as a sex offender? Perhaps others cut off ties with him when he went to prison a second time. Perhaps there were a few on his premises after he committed suicide in jail, they would be part of his inner circle. 

All I know is he had supreme people skills and was a gifted financier with a dark side. 

Moving the Bar

I bought a skipping rope the other day, I thought the most important exercise is high speed arobic. Your heart needs to speed up a bit to improve your health. I look out for very cheap arobic exercise equipment that can be left outside in your back yard. 

Exercising is very much like having a hobby, you want to see how far you can push the bar, you want to see how much you can improve what you are doing.  In exercise you want to strengthen your body. In my cartoon Blog, I want my cartoons sketches to satisfy my own standards, they don't at the moment but they're improving but I wouldn't buy it if it was printed. That's ok, that's what it's about; you want to see how much progress you can make. This is my cartoon strip blog https://jokejohn.blogspot.com/. 

I look for things to improve my health and I try to improve my cartoon sketches until Jesus comes back or I pass away. 

Cabinet Reshuffle

 Recently David Lammy became the new deputy prime minister, this also means someone else had to move to his old position, we call that a cabinet reshuffle  because cabinet ministers are moved around to different roles. David Lammy took Angela Rayner's job because one of her properties was owned by a trust and that meant she paid less property tax than a regular home owner, so the public felt like they were being blind sided. If a trust or a bank owns a property, they pay less property tax because the law protects banking assets in this county, the trouble is individuals can set up a trust or a small private bank and use it to own property so they would be exploiting a tax loophole. If a minister uses tax loopholes, it is unacceptable because the public community is looking up to them for help and they're helping themselves. I'm not saying she is a crook though, I think accountants can sometimes tell people to do things like that. When you're working in the leadership cabinet, journalists and opposition leaders will scrutinise everything you do and your job is temporary. 

I only think about it when it happens or when it's on the news. Otherwise I just explore my imagination. I imagine owning a 12'' gauge train set, one you can ride on that is tucked away inside a large vent space in your home. No one would see it unless they opened a cupboard with no back panel, it would be a doorway to a mini train station. You could dress up all the fittings on the station and even build the train yourself out of large boxes. The wheels of the tiny train would just be skateboard wheels that sit downwards and sideways on the rails; the rails would just be sheet metal bent into a rectangle shape. The train itself would move by being dragged by electromagnets that are on the floor. The train itself would look like boxes with hinges holding them together but as you modify it, it looks more and more like a train. You cut out holes in the large boxes and put see-through plastic for the windows. You add stickers and paint, things like that. You use a 3D printer to print out seats and housing panels for the progress displays. Finally you make the doors because you're not content with a cavity on the side to get in. The vent would also take away the stale damp air and leave cool fresh dry air. 

Backless Cupboard Fishless Aquarium

It is getting darker and cloudy these days, days are noticeably shorter. I can sense the days are getting shorter because the sun dips below the horizon before 8. Here in Britain the skies can be grey for days at a time, it feels so grim, the summer is fading away for another 9 months. In virtual reality the weather is always nice unless you don't want it to be.  The talk on everyone's lips is the strange comet, i3-atlas. Some people think it is slowing down or changing speed like a space ship, others are sceptical and think it's just a comet flung out from another star system. Other people think it is heading for earth.

When the news is grim, when the skies are grim and filled with grey, what can you do? Get some comfort from your imagination. I imagined winning the lottery and getting planning permission to build my house on an abandoned industrial site. The house would have extra large vents, the vents would be used to contain a small gauge railway set. 

There would be cupboards in the house with nothing in them. You open the cupboard and there is no back-panel, just an opening to a mini train station. There would be small trains with 4 cars, each car is just big enough for one person to sit in it. Each train car would be a custom made box with an array of skateboard wheels screwed to it but it would be dressed up like a train. At the flick of a switch lights would turn on and the miniature metro rail system turns into a fishless aquarium; there would be screens inside little glass boxes showing fish swimming around but there would be no fish in them. It would be a fake aquarium. It looks real but there is no water and no fish.

The large vents would also be very good at taking stale air out of the rooms and filling the rooms with fresh air. A house with extra large vents to facilitate hobbies and make the air fresh. Imagination just for comfort. Sometimes imagination isn't just used to create things it is to settle the mind. 

What August 2025 Means to Me

 In august 2025 I was drawn to a cosmic mystery that came with conspiracy theories. A very fast moving comet was discovered in deep space by the NASA Atlas telescope. They called it i3-Atlas; the name sounds like a new processor chip, but it's a comet. They think the object came from another solar system because it is travelling too fast to keep a place here. They don't know what star system it came from or what it is made of. They think it came from a star that is closer to the centre of the milky way galaxy than ours and it seems to be a comet. They think it went close to a large object like a planet and was flung out of its solar system by the sling shot effect; giant planets sometimes cause smaller objects like asteroids and comets to be flung away from the star system where they formed. 

Some people on the internet think that i3-atlas is actually a space ship from an alien civilisation heading for earth, and the government are trying to cover it up because they think it will cause a panic. I will go with NASA's verdict, a large comet was flung out of a star system and drifted in interstellar space and is now passing through our own solar system. It curved towards our solar system because of the sun's gravity but it is going too fast to stay put and will pass through our solar system and continue to head away from the centre of our galaxy for eternity. 

For me the big thing is getting to know the world of virtual reality. I purchased a meta quest vr headset shortly after my birthday in the middle of summer. It is a notch on the sci-Fi portion of my bucket list. 

Talking with machines, check.

Exploring virtual reality, check. 

Conversing in real time with artificial intelligence, check.

Wearing a flying coat, not yet. 

Flying cars, not yet.

 You get the idea. 

There are countless worlds out there to explore. countless stories and games to try. Playing golf in virtual reality or visiting a pinball arcade; there is something for every type of leisure out there in the meta cloud. The thing that is missing is something to let you walk with your legs. You can step around in a virtual reality boundary but you can't really walk naturally. You have to use your controller sticks to walk in virtual reality. Walking without moving or stepping can make you dizzy.  

Old Fountain

I imagined an old man that decided one day to build a smart water fountain in his front yard that works like the MGM grand hotel fountain in las vagas. He knocked down the front wall and rebuilt it as wall with seating built into it; a bench-wall for people to sit down on the wall while they wait at a nearby bus stop and look at the fountain. 

He would start off with a small fountain with water jets that shoot little drops of water out. Then he would build a larger pool around the outside of the smaller pool. He would program a computer system that controls the water sprays. Soon the whole front yard was one big set of pools with water jet sprays. 

Crowds would gather in front of his house and look at the fountain. Some people would throw rubbish in at his display while they sit on the bench wall but he would just use a hand grabber stick to pick up the trash and put it in his bin, nothing seems to bother the old man. He would even find uses for some of the rubbish. He would put the sweet wrappers in to a blender and turn the plastic into plastic powder and mix it with cement to create the walls of his fountain, a kind of water resistant concrete. He would line the rubbish infused concrete with waterproof resin just in case it wasn't enough. To most people it would be a pleasant sight, something to smile at while they were passing by or waiting for the bus. 

Finally lighting would be added to his mix. Lots of LEDs. 

One day someone would ask the old man why he does it. He would say it is a hobby. I create joy for free. It keeps me busy he would say. 

Petting Toucans

I learnt recently that Toucans like to be petted just like cats. If you stroke a toucan, it will lean into your hand, then purr or meow like a cat. 

Here is a video of a toucan purring and meowing like a kitten because it is being stroked... Petted Juvenile Toucan. 

I learnt from other videos that some Toucans will even approach people to be petted. I think they need to be Toucans that are used to being around people. Toucans are wild animals so they probably avoid people by default. 

I guess if you're a cat person, you could also be a Toucan person.  

Day Life Metronome

I watched the new Jurassic park movie today, there was a scene where a chocolate bar wrapper got caught up in a door and caused a system failure and that caused the creatures to escape, it brought back a memory of pondering the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is the notion that very large scale events can be caused by small things through a series of chain reactions. An example could be the infection that killed king Henry 8ths older brother. He could have touched something that made him sick and die. Henry took is older brother's throne, he then went on the cut England off from the Catholic church and alienated England from the rest of Europe and later caused wars to happen. You could trace the cause back to his older brother's decision to pick up some bread that had the virus particles on it. If his older brother stayed alive, he may have made different decisions. A small decision made changes to history that were very significant. 

That is what day to day life is like for an ordinary man, we sit down and think about life and death for a little while, then we check stuff, then we think and read, then we check stuff again. 

I look through shops at things so see if I can get good deals then I stop and I read. 

A very small portion of my browsing leads to a purchase, I scroll through hundreds of products and then decide not to buy anything. Then I look at the news. 

I check the news and read articles and e books for a while then I stop and go back to browsing. 

I check the holiday sites to see if they have good deals for next year. I scroll, read and stop then I think for a while. 

That is the Metronome of daily life when one isn't working. 

I browse for shopping, then I think, then I read. 

Half of August

One thing that has changed recently is the cost of ordinary things like food. I see branded instant coffee  that costs more than £5, I see budget coffee at £1.50 per 100 grams. I see a single shopping bag of basic items costing above £25. I can't change anything, but I can try and stay cheerful if possible. I mentioned before that I finally got a virtual reality headset of mine after dreaming about it for a few years. Every day I can go to a happy place for an hour or two. I can go to a golf course or an '80s pinball arcade. Slowly I am building up my collection; getting add-ons, not all at once but slowly adding more content every month to keep that happy hour a golden time. 

You don't need a virtual reality headset to stay cheerful these days. You can get lost in a book and get joy from that. The more you read the more happy you will be. I found 3 old books I stowed away the other day; they were factual books about interesting facts. Reading a book is a bit like virtual reality, you visit a story or another world in your own imagination. Reading a book for a while will take you to a trance state as you forget about your life and get absorbed in a story. 

Armchair Creator

Things are normal these days. I was looking through the meta virtual reality shop for apps that might have a similar classy arcade lobby to the Pinball FX VR one. The one thing that is missing from VR is a treadmill that lets the user walk in virtual reality by moving their legs. In virtual reality you can walk but you don't really move your legs and your brain thinks there is something wrong after a while; it starts making you feel sick. 

Virtual reality is a nice way to be lost in your hobbies, you can just sit there in an arm chair and do all the things that make you tick. You can build a train set, draw pictures and even build things. It is even possible to fly in a flight simulator. 

Isn't it wonderful that a person can be fine just by sitting in a comfy armchair and doing their hobby. They sip some coffee, create something beautiful. Wouldn't it be even more nice if they got an income from their hobby. 

A British Pier

One thing that is outstanding about Britain is we have a lot of sea side piers, more than any other country in the world.  We constantly work to improve  them, paint them, add things to them, modernise them. I think that is why they charge money to go on them. Some of them even have little trains running on them. It is one of the things I'm proud of, we have something that makes us different to everyone else. 

When I approach a pier, I expect to see an arcade on there and some adventure mini golf. One could walk out onto the pier and look out into the horizon at the ocean beyond. You could sit at a café and look out at the sea while you eat your chips with coffee. 

I wonder what pier is the best? There are so many peirs out there that I have never seen before. Perhaps I could do some research on British piers. 

I will peer into the online brochures, excuse the pun.

Pinball in VR

I have the 'Pinball Fx Vr' game on my virtual reality headset. At the moment it is my favourite app. It is very much like walking into a forgotten 80's pinball basement arcade and having the place to yourself. As you play the pinball machines, you unlock customisation items that allow you to customise the arcade and machines. There is also a leader-board to compare your scores with other people around the world. You can climb up the leader-board as your skills improve. 

Playing pinball machines in an arcade, in virtual reality can clear your mind because you're focused on what you're doing. You leave behind your ego and all your worries for a little while and just exist in a happy place where you can focus on one thing, keeping the metal ball out of the pit and into the score zone. It is like being a kid. 

When I got my virtual reality headset, I was convinced that golf is the best thing to play in virtual reality. I was wrong. So far it is the Pinball FX VR arcade. I'm sure in the future there will be more worlds to explore but for now I'm happy with golf and pinball. 

Both the golf and pinball games have DLCs or expansion packs as I call them that let you play new items or areas. That is what I will do for the coming months, I will slowly build up my collection. Until it is time  for a new game.  

Puff Pastry Courtesy

Here in Britain there are good things and bad things. There are people filled with hate, they would tear a poster of a kidnapped toddler that doesn't know what Zionism is off a wall and leave the missing cat one there. You can sugar-coat hate with political jargon but you can't cover the smell; an ordinary man with common sense can smell hate a mile away. There isn't just hate, there is selfishness. People put graffiti on trains, they don't care about how other people see it, they don't care that some tourists see the graffiti and decide not to come back the following year. They don't care that commuters feel a bit less happy when they go to work because they have to look at the mess. They only care about their own expressions, very selfish. 

When I go to some restaurant chains I see the pasty style doubles as a key to indicate what is inside. I thought to myself that it is very creative. If someone bought multiple pasties and rolls, they would be able to tell them apart  using a pastry pattern key. They found a way to show courtesy with puff pastry. Puff Pasty Courtesy.  

The other day I walked past a BT digital advertising board. Right on the side of the display was a small discreet dial pad and a small message that said make a free phone call. I dialled my own number and my mobile phone rang, there was a speaker and microphone inside the casing of the sign and I could hear my own voice. They made a discreet way for people that are stranded to make an emergency call. If you lost your phone and wallet and you were far from home, you could call a relative to rescue you. They thought about it. The trouble is, it is overlooked by most people, I try to imagine why there is a partially hidden phone on the side of the billboard but I don't know. 

People do amazing things every day. There are good and bad everywhere. 

What can I say. 

Short Life

Back in July, Hulk Hogan and Ozzy Osbourne both passed away. Another reminder of how short life is. You can't even assume you'll reach the age of 75; you're not even guaranteed tomorrow. Even if you lived for 200 years, that isn't a long time. I feel a small amount of pity for the relatives of the two men. If I knew them better, the pity would be more.

They both passed away about a week after I purchased a 'Meta Quest 3 virtual reality headset. The positive thing that came from their deaths is a reminder that I don't have long. I should try and make the most of every day. Use my vr headset when I can. 

Appreciate all you have until it's gone. 

What July 2025 Means To Me

My Birthday is in July. The same sort of things were happening as the previous month. Conflicts in the middle east region, the government was being scrutinised for taxing too much and overspending while cutting costs. Every government does things wrong and other things right, this time around it could be the case that moving the railways into state ownership is the way forward; it could be one  thing the labour party got right; lets see what happens.

In the middle of the month during my birthday, there was a new viral sensation sweeping social media that was replacing the 'hawk tour girl'. It was the cheating tech company staff caught at a 'cold play' concert on a kiss cam. Never have I ever seen a man blush red like a tomato so quickly. Every media platform was showing the same video of the two people, Tick Tock, Facebook, X, you name it their video was on there. 

Towards the end of the month I learned that the Wrestling superstar 'Hulk Hogan' had passed away. He suddenly had a heart attack at the age of 71. I remember watching hulk hogan on TV when I was a kid; he would shout out in a deep voice how he will be victorious in the WWF and his eyes would bulge out like he was excited and fired up. I think he was paired up with the ultimate warrior and they would fight together as a tag team.  

Ozzy Ozbourne died around the same time as Hulk Hogan for the same reason I think. Their causes of death were common for people in their age group. 

For the first time I owned a stand alone virtual reality headset. I bought the meta quest 3. I put off buying it for 2 or 3 years but now I have it. I use it to help me get a good start to the morning. I wake up at 6am and play golf in the back yard in virtual reality. I visit iconic golf courses and play some golf; then I'm set up for the day. My ordinary working man's mind is blown. I can instantly visit a coastal paradise and play golf. I can visit other worlds or just use VR apps. I can fill out other blog posts about what I have seen. 

It's august now. Lets see what happens. 

 

New Ick Unlocked

There is a new phrase created on social media, 'new ick unlocked'. It's when women find men creepy or disgusting. It is usually triggered by a behaviour of some sort. They film the guy with their smart phones and post it on social media. 

I can give you an example from tick tock https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdHByDvm/ 

I have an ick of my own, like when ladies film a guy without them knowing and brand them as creepy on social media. When a guy's privacy isn't respected even though they're minding their own business. Is that an ick to be unlocked. 

This world stinks sometimes. It really does. 

Virtual Reality Club

I recently joined the virtual reality club. I asked everyone in my family to give me Argos gift cards for my birthday, then I waited a few weeks until my other work and customer perks had lined up and managed to get Meta Quest 3 of my own. It is set up as a fitness gadget for me. I get up at 6AM and  go to the back yard, get some fresh air and play virtual reality golf standing up for an hour and a half. The fresh morning breeze appears to be coming from the world I'm visiting. Then I'm set up for the day. I also noticed the golf plays very much like real golf, if my wrist shifts while I swing, the ball goes off course just like in real life.

The virtual reality app that left the biggest impression on me is the 'youtube' one. It is like having a floating 4k 350 inch Tv in your sitting room, you can resize it and reposition it  in your room and leave it floating anywhere you like. The meta quest 3 supports mixed reality so you can have a video feed of your sitting room mixed together with the software. You can also make the screen very big and remove the real world so you feel like you're in the cinema and if you sink with your 'youtube' account you can play google movies that you bought on there. Another thing you can do is use a desktop application while the youtube is running. There are many configurations that can change the way the screen appears. 

Playing golf is excellent in virtual reality, you can teleport to where the ball is with the press of a button and change your view of the course. You can also go to the course when you like, even at 3 in the morning. 

It's nice to finally use virtual reality without borrowing someone else's 

Nationalisation of C2C

Recently the C2C train network in Britain that goes from Fenchurch street to Shoebury in Southend on sea was taken over by the government. This means the railway is now once again state owned. Eventually all the train lines in Britain with be run by the British government. 

What will happen now? We will see; perhaps  the government will run the railways so badly that they're unusable. Perhaps it will be cheaper to take the train soon. Maybe they will cut less corners than the train operator companies. 

I like the German model the best. Their railways are all state owned but they allow private companies to rent or have access to their rail lines so people still have a choice. 

Instant Shame

Recently I saw two high profile tech company staff receive instant global shame. They were both caught on a kiss cam at a 'Cold Play' concert cheating on their spouses. The incident quickly turned into a tempest of shame and sleaze witnessed by millions of people around the world. It even made it onto an ordinary man's life journal blog 😉

The first thought that came into my head was if Andy Byron's face was bright red like a tomato because of shame or sunburn, there was no sunburn on his arms; perhaps Kristin was wearing makeup, I didn't see her face turn red. I was wondering how a man's face can go bright red so quickly. Then I thought to myself they bought a one way ticket to the blues and that is where they arrived. If you don't want to go to the blues, don't buy the ticket. The only positive thing that came out of this is I won't feel ashamed about displaying a small plastic dinosaur and a pocket ball game I won at an arcade recently on my wall. Some people will come to my home and laugh at my small plastic dinosaur but I would tell them it is just a souvenir of my short birthday city break at an arcade, it's not like i'm a love rat or something like that. 

I value different things to most people. I don't care about prestige or power, I just care about sharing a good time with family and friends. Going to the coast and having fun for a while. When I look at my plastic dinosaur I won't just remember playing in an arcade by the coast, I will remember the instant shame of Andy Byron and Kristen Kabot, the CEO and  Human Resources director that cheated on their spouses and all the news and memes that followed their story. 

Happy Birthday

I think when it is one's birthday one should take a break from work. They should take a small holiday and be happy they are ok for another year. If you made it all the way through the year and your health is ok then it good to recognise that and take a break; go on a small trip or city break, perhaps visit a town or city you have never seen before. 

Naturally when it was my birthday in the middle of July, I used my birthday downtime to create some cartoon strips on my humour based blog. 

Who is Older

Earth Moon BaryCenter

The goal of my humour cartoon strip blog is to make people think about the world, to ponder reality and to laugh a little bit. 

There are many interesting things out there. Life is a journey to eternity. It is very short but make it count if you can.  

Where is the Joy

Sometimes I sit down outside for 15 minutes on a sunny morning with a cup of tea in my hand. I look at the trees swaying in the breeze, a work of beauty. A self balancing being reaching out for the light and water. They alter their body to be balanced and to strengthen themselves against the wind. If happiness were only the absence of sadness then every one of them would be filled with joy. 

I think sometimes to be happy we don't need to find joy, we need to lose sadness, we have everything else we need for joy to flow through us. If a tree ever hosted consciousness and thoughts, it would be the most lonely being around. It would be trapped in itself for centuries without any way to share its world. 

The beauty hidden in plain sight can only be shared through prayer because there are no words for it all. The blue sky and the fresh air in the morning. The fields of countless blades of grass, the sudden joy when your sad thoughts are removed and you're left with the flow of peace and rest. The feeling of the air flowing through your lungs. 

Texas Floods

Recently there was widespread floods in the center portion of the state of Texas. The valleys that contribute to the river Guadalupe were affected the most. I think Austin and Dalas was affected by the floods. I did some research about Texas, it is the 28th state of America and was the only state that was an independent country before it joined the union.

While Texas was flooding and countless people were facing a disaster, I was observingy my cherry tomato plants that were sitting in the window box and eating some of fruits; they grow very fast when they have enough water. Then I was considering buying CBD drinks because I learnt they're good for your health, some people even think it helps reduce the symptoms of Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. Then I was looking at the evercade alpha bartop arcade machine. That's what men do, they look at things. 

What a pity about all those people in Texas, some of them lost their lives. They received a deluge of rain that equals 3 months of rainfall in a few days and their cars were swept away. 

Digital High Street

One downtime avenue for an ordinary man like myself would be to traverse a digital High street of online shops on my phone, I would go to apps like Temu, Amazon, Argos then ticktock shop. I would look for silly t-shirts with dry jokes on them and different things like that. Things for my little man-cave in the corner of the sitting room or things to store stuff in to make the inside of my home more spacious. I don't buy most the stuff I see, I just look at it. Then I will look at the hotel sites to plan my next city break on my birthday next year. I've set up this coming short break for my birthday. 

The world is full of chaos but I keep my nose in the shops to look at things and trips. I look at cities I have never visited before and places I can go to and all the perks that may come with it. The news makes one angry and the shops makes one distracted. 

It's nice to be distracted, to read countless reviews of things you're unlikely to buy. I don't want to be angry, I prefer to be distracted. 

Then there is the other down time avenue, drawing ballpoint pen sketches and writing blog posts, a hobby that anyone can do. 

What June 2025 Means To Me

The main news in June was the Iran Israel war. The two nations were firing many missiles at eachother. America stepped in and dropped several bunker busting bombs on one Iran base buried under a mountain. I thought to myself, if they're enriching Uranium just for industrial uses then why does the facility need to be buried deep in a mountain? Why does it need all that protection. There's no point in an ordinary man like myself thinking about it, my thoughts won't make much difference. 

Everything else was down to me staying busy and trying to keep my chin up when times were stressful. 

I try to enjoy the long days and discover new and interesting things. Internet window shopping takes lots of concentration away, even if I never buy anything. I just look at all the t shirts and gadgets.

Sometimes I just look at a tree swaying in the breeze with sunlight filtering through the leaves. 

The search for Keen

When I was a young boy, the ID software corporation created the perfect side scrolling game, 'Commander keen'. They made 3 crude versions of the game, then they released an experimental episode called keen dreams. Then they refined their engine system and made 3 more games, Keen 4, 5 and 6; I think they were called 'Goodby Galaxy', 'Aliens ate my babysitter', and 'Armageddon Machine'. They released them as freeware products, you could copy it to a floppy disk for free then play it and then there was a paid version of the game. I can't explain it but I just felt like they got it right; the games were fun, the best thing on dos. 

Now I look for new releases of the same games on the evercade website and Nintendo switch store. Nintendo released the so called lost episode, keen dreams but not the magnificent 3. I keep watch to see. Perhaps evercade will release a cartridge with all the best ID dos games. Secret agent, Commander Keen, things like that. I would get the evercade alpha instead of virtual reality for my man cave if they released it. 

Be Happy

Many of my fellow Brits go on holiday and get drunk and become very disorderly every summer. Why? Because our lifestyle causes lingering misery that we take along with us so one feels a need to slow down their brain. It is very sad that we have become like that. We have become so miserable that we need alcohol to slow down our brains so we can stop being miserable while we are on holiday. 

The way we live is wrong, no small talk, no greetings and no fellowship. If you greet people and they don't respond then that should be a measurement of how low and sick our society is. If you live in a world where greetings are strange behaviour and small talk is silly then no one will be happy. We are selfishly creating a society that is impossible to feel happy in. The rich would be alone and the poor would be frustrated but no one would be happy. 

We have become a society of people that love only themselves. I see it everywhere, I see individuals that sit in the group booth seating area of cafes so families  or groups can't use them. I see people putting their feet on seats on public transport. I see teenagers publicly swearing even though there are young children present. It's like their mind is just me me me me me me me all the time. 

I'm not criticising my nation because I hate it. I'm criticising my nation because I care. I want people that are yet to be born in the future to  grow up and live a life that is happy. Right now our society makes that almost impossible. 

This county is an extension of my body. I know many little places and many little worlds on this Island. Even in London, a city I dislike, I know it well. I know Croyden is in the south of the city and has trams like the northern cities do. I am familiar with the part of London that is nearest to me, Uxbridge, where the number 10 would be on a clock face. I know Upminister and Barking are in the east of the city where the number 3 would be if London were a clock face. I know Heathrow Airport is where the number 9 would be on a clock face on the west side of the city next to Ealing and Acton.  

I know reading town("redding"), the mini London with a train station as big as an airport. It sits on the river Thames ("tems") like London does and is the location where the river kennet and Thames merge together to make a much bigger river. My favourite pub in Britain is the 'Last Post' next to Southend central train station. I go there for my birthday to have a drink and relax for a while. It has a lovely garden and themed decorations, there are also hotel rooms above. I know sidmouth, the peaceful place where so many people love to live after retirement. 

What I am trying to say is I know my country very well and I know what it needs and many splendid things about it. Little gems in the muck. Happy pretty places on a grim island.  

Iran and USA at War

There has been some exchange of missile strikes between America and Iran. I'm an ordinary man I don't think about it. All I will say is the world is filled with ordinary people like myself that are not interested in war. 

I sit down and make a nice cup of tea or coffee and turn on my Nintendo. I play computer games and read a bit and try not to think about it. It's good to be an ordinary man sometimes. No one gives me a second thought or considers me a target to be eliminated. I'm just there.  

I sit down and play computer games. Sports games like golf, adventure RPG games. Things like that. Then there's netflix. I can sit down and watch Netflix, a nice crime- mystery documentary. It is so easy to please an ordinary man, a TV connected to games console and access to netflix is enough for me. 

Monitoring stuff

I ask my smart speaker to tell me the news more often these days because the situation in the middle east is escalating. America attacked some of the Iranian nuclear sites the other day. They were very pissed off about  the incident. There is a lot of tension in Iran. Almost all people on earth are like me, they don't want war, they just want to carry on with their lives, yet there is war. The source of most of these wars is dogma; that is the only way I can explain it. 

I'm also keeping an eye on the Squad Micro EV car site. Their site claims they're making a 4 seater EV model but I find it hard to believe from the images. Perhaps the seats at the back are very small. The price looks too good to be true. This is the website for the car https://www.squadmobility.com/.

I like electric cars that charge themselves. 

Current Events

Whenever I see a jumping spider, I always see them purched on front doors; it seems to be a favourite spot for them to hunt. I'm guessing the long flat surface of the door gives them an advantage because they can see clearly all the way across it and they can judge where they will land more easily. That's just a speculation on my part, I don't don't really know why they prefer to hunt on front doors of houses. They look very cool to me, they are very colourful and have lense eyes. They also have iridescent fur in places on their bodies. It's always a treat for me to see one. The world is changing but simple treats like natural wonders stay the same. 

Isreal and Iran are on the news these days, they're exchanging missile fire quite often, they're definitely at war. Israel wants to spearhead hesbullar at their source and they're convinced they're making nuclear weapons. Iran are claiming they're enriching Uranium to build nuclear power stations and never admitted intent for such a thing.

Donald trump's game is pocker, he won't let up his intentions. His face and cards are hidden. If he has a game plan, he won't share it. It could be a shrewd move. It also suggests he may not want to make a decision at this stage. Perhaps he is waiting to see if things will settle down on their own. 

The world is full of ordinary people like me that aren't interested in war yet there is war. 

Israel Iran War

 I learnt recently that Israel and Iran are at war. Israel claimed Iran is developing nukes and planning to use them against Israel; they launched air strikes at sites they thought were used to enrich Uranium, the key material used to make nukes. Iran retaliated and launched many missiles towards Israel. 

In the past at the end of world war 2, America used nukes to force Japan to surrender. On paper it made sense. They thought surrender from a nuclear strike would cause fewer deaths than an invasion. The problem was the cruelty factor was overlooked. They didn't understand the devastation a nuclear bomb would cause because they were never detonated over a city before. When Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit by nuclear bombs, millions of people were subjected to varying degrees of suffering. Some people were vaporised instantly, others had their skin burnt off in places and died days later from infections, there were others that received lethal doses of radiation and slowly died weeks later from organ failure. There were even more people that passed away years later because of cancer and had offspring that died of cancer. The suffering caused by the bombs lasted for decades; There were countless burns, endless pain, slow deaths and grief, sicknesses that were never witnessed before were common.  I would compare a nuclear blast to a plague. 

If Iran is developing nukes and planning to use them against Israel, I ask myself how they could do such a thing knowing the cruelty it would cause. If humans could deliberately cause that level of cruelty to other people, perhaps people don't deserve to be here. Life has gone wrong. Mankind is too evil for the Earth. 

After America nuked Japan, they never used the nukes again because they witnessed the cruelty of the weapon. They have many nukes but they won't use them. I hope the world has learnt from it. 

Ahmebadad Plane Crash

 I learnt yesterday on the news that there was a plane crash in India in the city of Ahmebadad. There was 1 survivor of the crash, the other 239 people on the plane perished. It is sad news for all those people that lost friends and family. I'm guessing there was an issue with one of the parts of the plane. I think the survivor was able to get up on his feet and walk away from the crash, that's amazing. A true miracle. 

It was while I learned of a plane crash that I also  learned that Coventry city in the centre of England was developing a lite tram network. I imagined they asked themselves if they could make a tram network without installing overhead power lines and sleeper blocks under the road. They came up with a small single car tram that is battery powered, it can run on basic small gauge rails that are bolted to the asphalt. The trams are charged up at night or when they're not operating and then they run during the day. There are no power lines to maintain and very little structures, just the small metal rails that are bolted to the ground. I think other cities are looking into this technology. It is very low cost, low noise and low maintenance. 

I was wondering what would happen if the Paraceratherium  ever met the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Paraceratherium was a giant rhino that went extinct  about 11 million years ago, the tyrannosaurus Rex went extinct 66 million years ago.  The Paraceratherium looked like a giant horse and towered over all the other animals on land.  

I thought the Paraceratherium would win most times because it was a mammal and had endurance and was much bigger than the T Rex would have been. The two animals never existed at the same time so I can only speculate. 

Mark Five Pigs

I recall in the bible in Mark chapter 5, Jesus met a man that was possessed by 2000 demons. When they saw jesus, they could see the Angel of the lord living in the body of a man and they were terrified of him. The demons knew there was a heard of 2000 pigs nearby so they asked Jesus to send them into the pigs instead off hell. Jesus let them go into pigs instead of hell. 

When the demons entered the pigs, there was a problem. 

The pig's minds could not process the emotions of the demons. In a pigs brain, everything needs to make sense. The demons had a strong desire to go into the water because they don't breathe and the water is dark and out of sight from Jesus. A place to hide from him but the pigs didn't restrain themselves, they just ran and all drowned. 

I was wondering if Jesus knew the pigs would panic and drown themselves when the demons entered them. Was he surprised? I don't know.

I was wondering  what the story was trying to tell me. Is there a hidden message in there? I don't know. 

Jenifer Castro

I learned recently that a passenger of the flight in Brasil was suing the airline and a passenger because she was filmed refusing to swap seats with a child passenger. This is what happened. 

A lady called Jenifer Castro paid a fee to have a window seat on a flight. The child wanted to sit in her seat and the mother asked her to swap seats, she said no. The mother of the child started insulting the passenger and a second passenger not related to the mother started filming her. 

This is my view. She did nothing wrong and that should merit some respect. If you film someone and put it on social media, you're inviting multitudes of people to mock that person and even attack them. Plus you could damage their reputation and cause them to lose their job. Saying no to a child isn't a bad thing. I think saying no to children is good for them because they will learn they can't have everything their way. Perhaps they will develop some strong metal in their character and stop being a spoiled brat that gives up when life gets hard. 

I think there isn't much respect in global society so I thought it was a breath of fresh air that someone is pushing back. Be nice to other people and stop inviting multitudes of people to mock people for silly things. Respect people's privacy. If someone is doing something wrong then that's different I guess but don't mock people on social media for silly things like seats and stuff like that. 

Here is a video about the issue https://youtu.be/iEZ4U-YKdAQ?si=TtB3ui-N5_PN2Pla (remember youtube plays adverts before the video starts, unless you have a premium account). 

Play Weekend

Son, 

I saw the prices Nintendo want to charge for some of the games on their new console coming out later this summer, I wondered what planet they're on. They're charging £70 for some of them. I won't pay £70 for a game, not these days. Maybe in five or ten  years, £70 won't be so much. 

I tried out the game titled 'caravan sandwich' over the weekend. It is a nice game. That is the highlight of my week. Knowing I'm not going to work that night and I sit on the couch and start playing some games and a nice cup of coffee. The game is a 3rd person open world adventure  game. You get lots of missions and you try to complete them by solving puzzles and finding things.  

They just remastered the game 'the thing' from the horror movie. I'm in two minds about the game, I never played it before so if I got it, it wouldn't feel like deja vu but it is an old game, there are new games out there. 

Flow Thought

A lot of things are undervalued in this world, let me give you an analogy that covers an alternate use of water. What you think is open to debate. 

When you run a clothes washing machine, about 50 litres of grey water spurts out the back and is sent down to the sewer line. To me the used grey water from the clothes washing machine is very useful so it would be collected into a water butt tank. The grey water is quite hot so the water butt tank gives off heat during wash cycles. The grey water also contains detergent chemicals that break up organic compounds and perfumes. The water butt feeds into a toilet cistern tank, you flush 5 litres of grey water at a time. The cleaning chemicals that are still in the grey water act on the sewer pipe and help break up skid marks deep in the pipe. Why flush with fresh water when you won't drink it? I wouldn't care much if the water I flushed with had a grey hue to it; I'm guessing the toilet bowl would need to be grey in colour to hide the grey stains from the flushes. 

My analogy doesn't stop there. When you defecate and urinate, the materials you expel are the harder portion of your food and chemicals that can't be broken down by your body, they are quite tough. I thought to myself that sewage contains tough materials that are embedded in fats and oily fibre compounds. They could be sent to a tank beyond your home, the tank has air pumped out of it, that causes the water content of the sewage to boil away without heat being applied. The dry material left in the tank is sent to an incinerator to be burnt.  The ashes of the burnt sewage could be mixed with resins or plastics to make bricks and road surface material. 

Because your poop contains some very tough particles, those particles could become ingredients to make roads and  bricks. The incinerator would burn away the soft fatty portion of the dry sewage leaving behind dusty ashes that are very strong when mixed with resins or cement. 

This is a common thought I have in my head. I always thought it was daft to use fresh drinking water to flush a toilet. 

Nationalisation of British Railways

Recently the new labour government had decided to re-nationalise the railways, they're doing it by not renewing the contracts of the line operators; when their contract finishes, the line becomes part of the states public controlled services. As far as I know, south western railways have already become part of the state owned railways. 

I thought it would be a good idea to abolish peak time rates, even if it makes the off peak rates more expensive. I think a lot of Brits feel blind sided or ripped off when they pay for peak time rates, they don't get a better service for paying more for their ticket. I think the price of the ticket should reflect the distance travelled alone.  Perhaps they should set the price to 5p per kilometre for the whole Island of Britain. Perhaps 10p per kilometre if that is what it costs to abolish peak time rates.

In my model, the distance from Wembley park station to Finchley Road is 7 kilometres , so the price would be 35p because they were charged 5 pence for every kilometre travelled. 

Another example would be going from Barking station to Southend Central, the distance between those stations is 43 kilometres  so they would pay £2.15. it would be £4.30 if they were charged 10 pence per kilometre. In my model there is no peak time or rail card. The customer pays for the distance they were moved by the train, that's it. 

The distance between London and Edinburgh in Scotland is about 500 km  but the trains bend and turn around the valleys so I think a train journey would be about 600km, in my model, the ticket would cost about £30 or £60 for 10p per kilometre. That is probably the longest journey people will make on this Island. 

Lane Loitering

I'm not sure about other countries but here in Great Britain it is illegal to loiter in the overtaking lanes on the motorway(highway). The first lane you come into on the left is Lane 1 and you're required to stay in that lane unless you're overtaking another vehicle or the lanes are bifurcating into different roads or if a lane is closed. If you overtake a car then you're required to return to lane 1 afterwards.  

As far as I know, lane loitering is one of the stipulations of the Dangerous Driving Law and people that loiter in the overtaking lanes(2 and 3) can receive £100 fine and 3 penalty points on their driving license. A lot of people don't know that it is illegal to loiter in the overtaking lanes and they don't know that sanctions can be placed on them; I know that because when a police car appears, some cars move to the first lane and others continue to loiter in the overtaking lanes. I see it for myself.  

Loitering in the overtaking lanes for too long makes the road more dangerous because if their car stops working, they may not be able to reach the hard shoulder on time and can cause a crash. I find it difficult because I'm required to overtake on the right hand side of the vehicle and cars that are going too fast use that 3rd lane as well and they get annoyed because I'm overtaking a car that is in lane 2. What can I do? 

Middle of Spring

 It is the middle of Spring, a bank holiday here in Britain. I recently learnt that an old colleague of mine passed away in his sleep last week. He didn't look very old so I felt shocked. I'm guessing one of his organs stopped working like his heart and that caused him to pass away while he was sleeping. 

The news of his death caused me to make a firm decision about getting a virtual reality head set. Knowing life is very short and could be shorter than you think can be unsettling. I have used family and friend's meta quest head sets before; I like playing golf in virtual reality. If I get one of my own then I can use my short down time every day to play a game of golf. The good things about playing golf in virtual reality is you can teleport to where the ball is and the weather is always nice, unless you don't want it to be; another good thing about virtual reality golf is you can play any time you like. You can play at 3 in the morning if you like.

If I can get my virtual reality head set by the middle of summer then I have achieved my goal. Being British is loneliness, you're surrounded by many people but almost all of them don't want to talk to you, unless you're annoying them, then they talk to you like a nuisance. Society makes you pay many bills to get by and you feel empty. If I say a greeting like good morning then most Brits would feel upset by that. I don't understand why anyone would want to live here. I hang on prayer,  hard work and perks. Little treats to make me smile, like a virtual reality head set. So many Brits go on holiday and drink alcohol to forget about their misery and then they behave badly because they're drunk. I don't. I drink tea and coffee. 

I don't know what is going on but I don't like the idea of Britain getting involved in the Ukraine war. I think we should mind our own business. Lets hope the two nations can settle down and put their differences aside. 

Virtual sunny Day

Son, 

the other day I learnt that a colleague I worked with about 10 years ago had passed away in his sleep. He went to sleep and didn't wake up again. The guy didn't look too much older than myself. 

I thought to myself I should try and get a Meta quest virtual reality headset. I have been putting off buying it for a long time; I love to borrow other people's virtual reality headsets and play golf in virtual reality, why don't I just get one? I could be like the colleague that went to sleep and never woke up again. Then I'll never get to use it properly. 

I also wanted to know the difference between diet coke and coke zero. It turns out diet coke contains aspartame sweetener but coke zero contains a mixture of different sweeteners and less aspartame. I prefer diet coke, I like the way it tastes. I don't drink it often enough to worry about the so called negative effects of aspartame. 

I put roller coaster tycoon on the Nintendo, why? Because I stop overthinking when I play that game. I concentrate on the game and forget about my worries for a while. It's a bit like drinking without the negative side effects. Late in the evening when there is nothing left to do, over thinking is pointless. Just do something that consumes your thoughts. 

Tape for It

You forget how vulnerable you are until your phone stops working. Anyway, most phones seem to come with a pin tool to open the sim card-chip slot. I decided it is a good idea to tape the sim slot tool to the charger brick because I would lose it otherwise, it is so small. 

I feel the same way about micro SD cards, they're so small, I feel like a strong breeze could blow it away and it could fall into a crevice that I can't search. I remember when we used to use cassette tapes, they were the perfect size, they were small hand sized plastic cartridges with magnetic tape reels nested inside them. You wouldn't lose those things so easily. They mostly stored music but there was a time when they also were used to store computer data. 

I'm not saying memory modules should be the size of old cassette tapes, I'm just saying it would be nice if they were a bit bigger. Perhaps if they were the size of a standard bank card or something similar to that. Perhaps if they were just big enough you wouldn't worry about the wind blowing it out of your hand. Perhaps they could make a sheaf to contain it for use on a computer and the size is enough that it would be easy to hold 
 

Disneyland Southend

 I learned recently that Universal was building an amusement park in Bedford. I thought to myself that Disney are rivals of Universal and may also want to build an amusement park in Britain; if they did, I thought it would be a good idea to build the park next to Southend airport if it was possible. Perhaps if Rochford golf club sold their land or they used public green land nearby. If they did build Disney land next to southend airport, they wouldn't need to worry about noise complaints because the airport already makes noise. Southend is near London and on the coast so it already has tourist gravity. There is also an amusement park on the sea front in Southend itself. People would visit the area more knowing there were two amusement parks. 

If you want to know what Southend airport is like, I found this video made by a travel journalist and he covered everything about the airport. I was impressed by his knowledge and comprehensive overview.

Shai Explores Southend Airport Video 

From the government's perspective, it would also bring relief to Heathrow and Gatwick airport because tourists could fly to that airport instead and stay in a resort and still visit London. 

I think it is a good idea to build an amusement park next to Southend airport, what do you think? 

Walk Less

They started installing the new Piccadilly trains on the London metro rail network, they're made by the German company Siemens. They're a lot like the sub surface trains, you can walk freely from carriage to carriage and the train is open plan but still shaped like a Swiss-roll.  I thought I should mention some tricks I know of to get about without walking much. 

If you want to visit London and you want to walk less, I can give you a few tips. There are some special stations where the line crossings are very close together. I noticed that some people will get off at baker street station if they want to change lines from Metropolitan to Jubilee trains, they come side by side at Finchley road. 

The Bakerloo and Jubilee line come side by side at baker street station, there is a wall between the two platforms but there is a crossing near the end of the platform about 6 meters across. The platforms that are side by side are heading in the same direction. The eastbound Jubilee and Bakerloo platforms are side by side and so are the west bound platforms and they both have a discrete crossing near the end of the platform that often gets unnoticed by tourists, they head to the exit instead and work their way back again. 

A similar thing is true of 'Mile End' but there is no wall between the platforms. The central line, Hammersmith line and District line all share the same platform island, they come side by side and changing lines there is as easy as stepping off one train and onto another.