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. 

New Pope

Yesterday I learned that the Vatican cardinals had chosen a new pope to replace Pope Francis, he died from an age related illness on the 22nd of April. They chose Robert Prevost, he was born in the USA and had dual nationality, he is both Peruvian and a USA citizen. When I think of the Name Robert, I instantly think of the famous British Radio manufacturer, they make all sorts of hybrid FM, Dab and Internet Radios and like to use polished wooden panels on some of their models, they look very cool. They Renamed him Pope Leo XIV(Leo the 14th). I think Leo means Lion in the Latin language. Pope Leo has a ring to it. 

Close to the time the pope was appointed, we had local councillor elections. The results of those elections had shown that the British community had largely written off the main parties and gravitated to independent leaders and the Reform Party. The Main Labour and Conservative parties had become very unpopular in recent months. 

While the Pope was appointed and local British councillors were elected, Nintendo had started manufacturing a new games console called Nintendo switch 2, it is like the Switch 1 but it can handle PlayStation 5 games and can run 4k games at their intended frame rate, for a portable console that is astonishing. The pre order market for the console had opened so one can buy the console before it was manufactured and shipped over. They will be shipped to Britain by June onwards. It is backwards compatible with switch 1 games. I don't like the prices of the switch 2 games though. 

Unfortunately there was a conflict at the India and Pakistan Border. The Indian government believes the Pakistan government was involved in an attack on their territory in Kashmir. The Pakistan government deny their involvement, they claim the terrorists worked alone and had nothing to do with them. There was an exchange of missile fire and the two nations are at loggerheads at the moment. Hopefully they will avoid war. I wish the best of luck to both nations. 

Just There

 The other day I was sitting outside looking at the trees swaying in the breeze thinking of nothing for a little while. I see the trees were driven by purpose, it was reaching out, reaching out for the light and reaching out below for water, the solvent of life. I live for those little moments when I forget about who I am and where I stand in the world and just observe the world. Looking up at the clouds and the grass on the ground and breathing in the fresh air in the morning. 

My steadfast tea drinking parents that I love very much always showed me the beauty of reading. Recently a few years ago they bought me a kindle paper white. It imitates the inky paper-like nature of real books. With amazon prime, you're permitted to read through a selection of e-books on your kindle account. I thought I should mention that on here because that feature wasn't available when I first set up my kindle  account. At this time of this post, you could read a lot of popular books for free. It's still nice to keep real books. Some of the best books I have come across have been from charity shops; I'm guessing that when people are done reading them, they send them to the charity shop to be read by a new person. They're making space on their book shelves. 

Take time to be still and allow the good positive thoughts to seep through your mind. Perhaps on your day off, early in the morning. 

One Hundred Men vs one Gorilla

I noticed in recent days a debate about one hundred unarmed men fighting one silver-back Gorilla was trending on social media. I think it was a popular debate on all platforms; x, Facebook, Tick Tock and You Tube. It is an interesting debate, the Gorilla is much stronger than the men but they outnumber it. Would the Gorilla beat the one hundred men or would it get tired before it was done beating up all the men to death. 

I was thinking to myself that in a lot of car parks there are 15 disabled parking bays and only one or two of them are being used, the other 13 disabled parking bays sit empty. I was also thinking to myself I could learn sign language so I could have a conversation with the Gorilla. 

Alan: Hello 

Gorilla: Hello

Alan: When I park my car, 13 out of the 15 disabled parking bays sit empty, if you cripple 100 men, I would call it capacity building. 

Gorilla: That's True, Why do they want to fight me to the death? 

Alan: There are 100 gullible thugs out there ready to respond to an internet debate. They risk their life for fame.

Gorilla: They're Daft

Alan: True.... Have you seen the movie 'The thing' from 1982 ?

Gorilla: The Zoo keeper showed it to us 

Alan: Do you think Palmer knew he was an assimilation? He got the other assimilation burnt. 

Gorilla: He knew, it was all a part of his deception, remember he looked very nervous during the hot needle test. 

Alan: I thought that he didn't know because, he was infected by contaminated food and slowly taken over from the inside.

Gorilla: So why were there torn clothes in the kitchen? was he not taken over in one go?

Alan: I thought the torn clothes were from Blair or Norris. I think Blair was assimilated quite early. 

Gorilla: Could be. But look at his face during the hot needle test. He looked worried. 

Alan: That's true. But maybe he thought McReady had gone insane and was about to burn everyone. 

Gorilla: We can debate about this later, the zoo keeper is bringing lunch, see you later alligator. 

Alan: In a while Crocodile. 

What April 2025 Means To Me

 April is that kind of month when you don't know what to wear. The weather seems to change by the hour from hot to cold. There were lots of little comforts, little familiar sights, Dandelions and Daisies sprouting flowers on all the grass verges and lawns. Migratory Birds returning to nest. Longer days, temperature in double digits. Lots of things like that. 

We went on our first short break for the year to celebrate Jacob's birthday in Southampton in Paulton's park. It's nice to use public transport to visit these places because the Journey is a part of the break. An opportunity to see another part of your country. You also get to see how your country is linked together through infrastructure. You can't really appreciate all that when you're driving. 

In the background was a lingering trade war between America and China. Import tariffs were shooting up higher and faster than the temperature. At the same time there was hope of the Ukraine war coming to an end. Negotiations were under way. I thought to myself they should let go of the Crimea Peninsula because the people that live there consider themselves to be Russian anyway; that was the one area of Ukraine that didn't resist the Russian annexation. The rest of the occupied lands are different. I don't know but the war is pointless and is going on for too long.   

The Pope passed away during the last third of the month, he was aged in his eighties and his death was common for his age group. While I was writing this post, they were in the process of choosing the next Pope to take his place.  

Lull FM

 If the government ever decided to pass a law to phase out fm radio, it should be broken. I would even think of setting up a pirate radio station myself. It's not illegal to think about making a pirate radio station only to do it. The trouble is if I went to prison for operating a pirate station, I would get bummed for sure. They would say what did you do, one guy would say I assaulted a traffic warden, another guy would say I robbed a bank then I would say I operated a pirate FM radio station. They would be like "bum him". The other problem is I'm boring so my pirate station would lull people to sleep. I would call it Lull FM.  

FM is a special gift because you don't even need to buy a radio to get it. An ordinary person like myself can make an FM radio. I just need some sort of dial to only allow one frequency to pass through, antenna, transistors, and a speaker. 

The FM signal seeps into the antenna and causes one side of a transistor to resist power less, this causes the wave to be copied, you can then pass the signal to a second transistor to amplify the current and so on and feed it strait to the speaker, I think that is why they call it a transistor radio. The dial could be a variable capacitor with a physical dial-head or if you're gifted you could make a digital dial with a micro chip or something like that. 

What is the advantage of this? FM works, it's simple and the radio itself uses less power because it's not running a micro processor to decode a signal. The sound is copied directly into the radio wave as it is. 

An ordinary guy like myself can make an FM radio or get a small one with change from fiver. Digital radio is different. The whole signal shuts off and on in pulses to encode characters. The code is interpreted by a micro processor, a small computer chip. One chip gathers the data and the other decodes it and turns it into sound waves. 

The advantage of digital radio is they can use signals that can't carry sounds very well because it's the pulses and interruptions in the wave itself that carry the data. They can cram many stations into a small space and each station would have perfect sound. The radio itself has to do more work so the battery would run down a bit faster in digital mode. 

I would say, lets keep both. I would prefer to listen to BBC radio 4 news hour on FM knowing my battery would last a bit longer but there are lots of other stations out there on digital so I can use both. 

Psalm 22

 A lot of people are looking to Nostradamus for prophecies about the future but I thought I should mention the Psalms of Kind David. I think King David was given vision and images from the future and he wrote them down as songs. 

I recall Jesus quoted Psalm 22 when he was on the cross. He said my father, why have you forsaken me. Psalm 22 describes a person being abandoned and scorned. It also mentions a person's hands and feet being pierced, I was amazed by this because the Jews and the Romans at the time of King David didn't use crucifixion as a punishment, I don't think they even invented it at the time. When I read through it, it was like the song was describing what it is like through the eyes of the person being crucified. It even describes the odd sensation of bones being out of joint and the pain and sadness.

I was wondering if he saw things that were happening today. I wonder if there is a psalm chapter that is describing things that will happen in the near future or recently. 

Look up Psalm 22 for yourself and decide if it is describing a painful humiliating death by crucifixion. I'm not infallible, I could be wrong. 

 

Angry Fired UPS man

 I watched a video online of a man having an angry outburst after being fired from his job at UPS. Let me share the video with you and you can have your own thoughts. 

Angry Fired UPS man video (remember youTube Plays ads before the video starts) 

I was in three minds about the video. I thought to myself that his anger was genuine. He felt like he was being cheated by the management team. I don't know the reason he was fired but i'm guessing there was an expensive mistake and he was blamed for it. He mentioned that they don't bother training their staff with the new system they use. I sensed his anger was building up for a long time. He also mentioned that they let him work a whole shift before being fired, if he was on a fixed salary then the extra spurt of anger would make sense. Perhaps if they fired him at the start of the shift, he could resign to save face so he felt like they were trying to screw him over. He mentioned he thinks they're cowards like the problem was their fault but they fired him to protect their jobs.  Was he a mistreated staff that had been with the company for 10 years? I don't know. 

I also thought to myself that he didn't think it through; he was still wearing his uniform, perhaps the video was recorded 2 minutes after he was fired. He is also showing the world he has trouble restraining his anger and does things without thinking about it. People might think they can't accept when he is wrong. It may put other employers off. Any hope of getting a reference from them for his next job may be difficult. Sometimes you need to think things through a bit.  

The other thought that came into my head was the whole thing was a parody. None of the people in the video worked at UPS, they were just actors looking for internet fame.  Who knows what the truth is. 

Another thing that pops up on social media a lot is what I call the 'Covered Mirror Paradox'. I don't think all those people are daft, I just think they're misinformed, every square cm of skin on your body reflects light in all directions and every square cm of Mirror also reflects light in all directions so light coming for the side will be reflected by the exposed part of the mirror and make it look like it an see behind the towel.  You can cover one portion of a mirror and the other parts of the mirror will still reflect the object behind the blind spot because light goes in all directions. Perhaps if they used polarised light then the result would be different. 

A few thoughts

 I have a few thoughts in my head as time passes along. I was wondering why they tend not to sell radios with DAB FM and AM frequencies together, they usually have DAB and FM but without AM or they have FM and AM but no DAB . There are also very few pocket radios with DAB radio. Britain is an excellent place for digital radio. They have a radio station for everything, there are christian radio stations, radio stations where they talk about sports all day like radio 5, they even have radio where they read out books. I always look at radios in online shops. I never buy them because I have a radio already.  

I was also wondering why the Pterosaur was named with a silent P when it was named in recent times; why do they need to make everything more complicated than it needs to be. It was an extinct flying reptile. The name is pronounced Terosaur. 

I was also thinking about reading ("reding"), a town in Berkshire west of London. It sits on the river Thames just like London does. The train station in reading is amazing, it is like it is the gateway to the west. Trains from reading seem to go everywhere. There is even a train that goes to the coastal town of Bournemouth that doesn't go through London there.