Martin Luther King Statue

I learned recently that the city of Boston in the American state of Massachusetts displayed a modern art statue representing Martin Luther King and his struggles. I couldn't quite get my head around the posture of the statue. 

I don't really get abstract modern art. I draw pen sketches in this blog but they show my thoughts the way they really are. They're not excellent but they are clear. 

I went to the Tate modern a few times in the past, I didn't like the art there. I like the large empty space inside the main hall of the building though. 

Half of January

We're already half way through January, It seemed like yesterday that we were counting down the start of 2023. 

I cheered myself up with a happy memory earlier in the week. I was remembering a time when I was waiting to fly to Peru to meet my extended family and arrived in the departure lounge 6 hours early because I was worried about the problems they were having with staff at the airport. I thought if my flight is cancelled, I would have a greater chance of getting another flight that day if I came early. 

I was very bored after 2 hours  and began to regret coming so early but then wandered around and saw they had a wetherspoons pub in the lounge, a proper full functioning wetherspoons pub in the departure lounge of Heathrow airport, I think it was terminal 5. I found a small table with a single seat in the corner of the pub, I ordered my favourite pub meal and refillable coffee. I must have had 3 cups. Before I left the pub, I managed to burn off 1 and a half hours of waiting time. Plus I thought to myself I could come back there if I'm still bored later.  The happiness was sitting quietly on my own and thinking nothing for a while. Just sipping coffee and being lost in the chorus of many languages being spoken all around me. Then I thought I could just sit and read for another hour. I will remember sitting in the wetherspoons in the departure lounge of the airport as a happy memory.  

Chromecast and Samaritans

I went to the top floor of the car park at my local shopping mall because it was crowded below and noticed there was signs on the wall for the Samaritans, I didn't make a connection in my head until I reached the lift; they put the sign there to try and stop people committing suicide. Samaritans is a phone number you can call for free and get counseling for free here in Britain. The number is 116 123. If you call 116 123 in Britain, you can talk to a stranger about your problems. Being a man isn't easy, I stood in the lift and wanted to shed a tear because I knew there was a problem with people jumping off the top floor of the car park and that is why they put the signs there; I restrained my emotions so no one could see. People think men don't have emotions, this is not true, we just restrain ourselves and hide our feelings. Men harm other men that show their emotions so we all restrain ourselves. 

I thought about my little Chromecast stick with Google TV to cheer me up a bit. I like the way it has Bluetooth built into it, I can connect my bluetooth headphones and generic Bluetooth joy pad and play computer games at 1am if I wanted to. I also like the way it uses CEC to override the TV controls, the HDMI cable can send signals to the TV to increase the volume or turn it off. The Chromecast controller can control the TV through the HDMI cable. The CEC feature needs to be switched on for both devices for it to work though. I won't go on though. 

Just think about a time when I work hard and leave time to play computer games on the phone and TV. A nicely balanced life. 

Lisa Presley Dies

I recently learned that Elvis Presley's Daughter passed away because of a heart attack. I feel pity for her friends and Family. I think about death every day because it can't be avoided. One day my luck will run out and my life in this world will end. I'm only one bad cell away from Cancer and one blood clot away from stroke. Every day I'm alive is good luck. 

At the time Lisa Presley Died, I was thinking about Prestige-Alan, an alter ego of me that doesn't exist. A version of me that is famous. He would have nothing useful to say. He would just laugh if someone said something he didn't like about him and turn rumours about him into a joke. The reason I was thinking this way was because Prince Harry released a book about the Royal family, he reminds me of Princes Fergy. If he was concerned about privacy and the press, then why the book and the Netflix series? I don't know. I have nothing personal against prince Harry, or Prince William. 

I think the most important thing in this life is to live a life free of hate and grudges. To be pleasing to the creator. It is more important to be righteous than to be popular. I hope that I avoid being pompous through the remainder off my life. 

One third of January

One third of January passed by, just like that. It goes by too quickly for me. It was filled with lots of thoughts. I wondered if they ever tried to make a car that runs on dry ice. Frozen Carbon Dioxide goes straight from ice to gas when it heats up. I thought that when it turns into a gas, it is still cold and has a lot of room for expansion. You could have a heat exchanger that mixes warm air with dry ice co2 to produce a lot of expansion. At the same time there would be contraction from air mixed and even that could be harnessed. 

Then I was thinking how rivers are full of kinetic energy and they are very long. Some of the water from the river could be syphoned off into aquaducts and used to turn lots of water wheels below the ground close to river banks. Yet we turn to wind all the time, most of the rivers are always flowing but the wind doesn't always blow. I don't get the logic. 

Then I was thinking about if they dropped tinned baked beans near an enemy in war and they made it look like a mistake. The enemy would eat the beans and fart. "Faaaaart" then "bang". Fart Fart, bang bang. Fart location, they would shoot at the farting. Who cares if my thoughts are silly? I don't care. One day there will be no thoughts in my brain, just decay; it would be as if my thoughts never existed. 

I was also thinking about the Chromecast a lot. I was wondering if it can handle a graphically demanding game without slowing down too much. My TV has a frame rate of 50 hertz but the Chromecast was running at 60 hertz, I slowed it down and the image was the same, it was working hard for nothing. 

A few January thoughts

I was thinking about the festive tub chocolates you get during the Christmas period; during January they're reducing the price of the Tubs. Every year the same thing happens. We eat the Caramel and the Fondant filled chocolates first, I think Fondant is cream mixed with fruit syrup; we Brits are always copying the French. Then we eat the solid chocolates, then we look for the hazel nut cream ones. Finally we are left with a tub of Toffee coins and Toffee fingers. The toffee coins and fingers are very hard, they're usually wrapped in a metallic gold coloured wrapper. I can't eat them unless I hold them in my hand for 1 and a half minutes to make it soft. You need patience to enjoy them.

I was wondering if it would be a good idea to put a toffee coin in your oat porridge. It could melt and sweeten the flavour of the food? I don't know, I'll have to wait 11 months to try it. 

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What December 2022 means to me

December 2022 was a mild winter for my part of the world, the temperature would often go from about 3°C at night to about 9°c in the day time. Half of the month was spent watching the knockout stages of the world cup in Qatar; I was amazed by the arrogance of my society. Instead of showing the opening ceremony of the world cup, the BBC was criticizing Qatar. They were making claims of human rights abuses and things like that. It would be like Britain hosting the world cup and other countries sending their journalists to the British museum to point out that we stole hundreds of objects from other nations and didn't give it back instead of talking about the football. I was very disappointed with British journalism. I was also disappointed with people wearing things that promote gay rights to the game because it is illegal to be openly gay in their country, they were showing disrespect for the host nation's laws and customs. I think my nation is very arrogant. 

December was about inflation and war, a theme that dominated the whole year. At one point in the year, fuel was priced at £2 per liter, £60 to fill up my tank. Plus natural gas was 10p per kilowatt-hour, very expensive. We had a very challenging year. 

The other big topic of the month was the takeover of twitter and the inside revelation of the company. Elon revealed that Twitter was abusing its censorship controls. It was censoring people because they didn't like them and covering up scandal about politicians that they supported. They were taking public money that was earmarked for teachers and police staff and using it to pay twitter to silence bad news about democrat leaders; a taste of corruption that was swept under the carpet by the press. 

It is now 2023, I pray and hope for a peaceful world with co-operative kindness to all. A happy 2023? Let's see.