Moans | MYWAY
Mar 1
Damned Computers
icon1 doug | icon2 Moans | icon4 03 1st, 2008| icon3No Comments »

Just when everything seems to be going well, there always seems to be something to jump up and bite you on the arse. For me this week it was my PC. This is always bad news for my family as I’m an addict. I use my PC every day for emails, blogging and just avoiding real life really.

So on Tuesday when the hard drive failed to whirr, and the PC sat looking back at me displaying a black screen with just the words “Non System Disk or Boot Disk Error, Insert bootable Disk Then Press Enter” needless to say I was not a happy bunny. It wasn’t for lack of trying that it wouldn’t boot, oh no. 27 resets, and a few swift slaps to the side of the case, hard drive removal, gentle coaxing, and even violent shaking of the errant hard drive were attempted.

YES I knew I was wasting my time, it was an ex hard drive, it had turned its last revolution and was in technical terms, knackered. But that didn’t stop me from trying to force it to work to get my hands on all the data it contained which I hadn’t backed up the last time I did a back up (ie never before).

My hard drive crashed and burned, with all my passwords, and website backups, and blog posts, some pics (I did back those up regularly thankfully or my wife would have sent me to the same place as the hard drive, only much more painfully). Luckily I had a spare hard drive, which has got me back online with minimal downtime, but still I’m annoyed.

The hard drive failed at 18 months old, for which I could blame the manufacturer. But worst of all is the loss of my data, and for that I have nobody to blame but myself, and that’s really made me angry.

Feb 23
The Blame Culture
icon1 doug | icon2 Moans, My View | icon4 02 23rd, 2008| icon3No Comments »

The blame culture, it’s a festering sore on modern life. Somebody smokes themselves to an early grave in spite of 30 + years of warnings on packets and discussion of the damage to health in small groups in pubs, around the coffee machines, and on TV and radio. Blame the tobacco industry, it can’t be their own fault.

Somebody else takes drugs, and shuffles of this mortal core, blame the seller of the drugs, the police for not stopping it, anybody but the poor unfortunate who made the choice to take the drugs. Yes somebody dieing young is a tragedy, whether through smoking, drugs or being knocked down by the proverbial bus, but we make our choices and we pay the price.
Only in this modern world we don’t expect to pay the price anymore. We all expect to do as we wish, then blame somebody else.

Parents blame schools for their failing offspring, the nice people of the world blame society for hooligans, vandals, and robbers. Isn’t it time we went back to taking responsibility for ourselves?
It’s not societys’ job, or the schools job alone to sort out our wayward youth, it’s up to the parents. Arguing with headmasters and teachers when your brat plays up and gets punished, then blaming them again when little johnnie is not listening to anyone anymore is plain stupid. Take responsibility for your children, and help the school to instill discipline.

Tripping over in the street used to bring a tut, and self admonishment for being clumsy. Now it’s an invitation to sue someone because you didn’t pick your feet up and mind where you were going.

Suing a hospital because somebody died in their care won’t help to fix the NHS either, all you do is drain more money from the system. Blame never helps, and claim just keeps some greedy lawyers in champagne and ferraris.

It’s also because of this lack of taking personal responsibility for ourselves that lets our government exercise ever more control over what we do. If we’re all willing to let somebody tell us what risks we should and shouldn’t take, relieving us of our responsibilities we shouldn’t complain as our rights are eroded away.

We all have free will, but with it comes responsibility too. If we wish to do as we want when we want then we also need to stop blaming other people when it goes wrong too.

Feb 12
Stupid Cyclists
icon1 doug | icon2 Moans | icon4 02 12th, 2008| icon3No Comments »

I guess I must be in grumpy middle aged man mode today, but here is another moan. Cyclists, where do they get off thinking they have the right to hold everyone up?

Here in my home city of Milton Keynes, we have an excellent road system, and to cater for cyclists, and pedestrians an equally impressive system of pathways called “Red Routes”. The Red Routes follow the roadways where it is safe to do so, usually leaving a nice gap between the road and path, so cyclists and pedestrians can get around easily. Where the routes cross roads there are underpasses, or overpasses, keeping fleshy unprotected humans seperate from the ones in the metal cases known as cars.

Great, pedestrians and cyclists are safe, and have pathways to get where they want to, and motorists, and other traffic can go about their business at sensible speeds without having to watch out for pedestrians crossing roads and cyclists to swerve around, brilliant for everyone. Everyone except the lycra clad cyclists who seem to spend their time petitioning for more cycle paths in places there just isn’t room for them, or riding along the middle of the road avoiding the cycle paths in Milton Keynes.

Why?

The tax payer has paid for extra tarmac for your use, for your safety, yet you get your super expensive bike, and all your skin tight fabric, and insist on using the roads, and waving your fist at the motorist who just had to swerve around you into oncoming traffic as you do 15 mph on a 60mph road, 5 yards from the specially prepared surface made for you which follows the same route exactly.

I have thought about making a sign to show these stupid cyclists which has an arrow pointing to their specially set aside piece of tarmac. I haven’t done so, as I feel if they can’t work it out for themselves, the loss of their dna in the gene pool won’t actually harm humankinds evolution in the future should a lorry not have space to avoid them as they go around one of the many roundabouts the cyclist could avoid by using the Red Routes but chose not to so as to make some point no one else can understand.

Feb 12

I live in Milton Keynes, I like living in MK. There that’s out in the open now, so no going back on that. If you don’t know about Milton Keynes you may have heard about two things for which it is (in)famous concrete cows, and roundabouts. The concrete cows are a bit of a feature if you can find them, the roundabouts on the other hand are part of a brilliant design.

Having lived most of my life in London, when I first worked in MK I found the road system a bit confusing. At first it is a bit difficult, but when you know the layout is a grid, it makes for easy navigation, and easy traffic evasion. The roundabouts at each crossroads on the grid also keep traffic flowing nicely.

Now somebody has decided we should take the London example and get rid of the roundabouts in favour of traffic lights. As I said I lived and worked in and around London for many years, and sat in the long queues waiting at traffic lights. In Milton Keynes even at rush hour I can get anywhere around the city in minutes, in London it would take an hour to do a couple of miles at any time of day, all slowed down due to waiting at traffic lights.

I don’t see how someone can look at the obvious chaos of Londons traffic lights, then see the unhindered flow of traffic in MK and decide that the London congestion is the way forward. Unless the local council feel they are missing a trick by not being able to charge a congestion charge because there is none, so they need to create some congestion to make the extra revenue.

Feb 10
Cinema Adverts
icon1 doug | icon2 Moans | icon4 02 10th, 2008| icon3No Comments »

Last night my wife and I went to the cinema to see “Sweeny Todd” with Johnny Depp, which was a very good film if you can stand a musical and loads of gore (we both could). What can I moan about then?

Adverts. I don’t mean the trailers for new films, although they did drag on a bit too long too, but the everyday adverts we see on TV each time we choose a commercial channel. Now I can understand that a commercial tv channel needs to show ads, that’s how they pay for their programs to be made. The cinema is a different matter.

I just paid for me and my wife to get in here. I paid over the normal price for popcorn, drinks and some maltesers, way over the price. Then they have the bare faced cheek to show back to back ads for what seemed like an hour before showing the film.

Maybe it’s a rose tinted look back in nostalgia, but cinema used to show different, sometimes more entertaining ads than the TV. Last night I watched the same ads I could have seen in between re-runs of a 70’s sitcom on UK Gold.

I simply resent the fact that a £20 + trip to the cinema had me watching adverts. Then the cinemas complain about audience figures dropping, it’s no wonder when you are forced to sit through so many adverts before the film can begin. And I’ve noticed hiring the DVD of a film later still has you watching ads, come on people I’ve paid to see a film, not be enticed to buy the latest offering from Ford et al.

Come on cinema owners, Cut the ads or you’re going to keep losing viewers in your cinemas.