From a by-gone era

Posted 26 Nov 2008

Commuting, Daily Life, The Little Things | 2 Comments 

It was an early morning for me today. I had a full schedule of client meetings and was out the door of my house pretty soon after sunrise (which admittedly in England at this time of year isn’t that early). On my way to the park-and-ride, I saw an older chap pull quickly up to the kerb, jump out of his car and run into the phone booth.

“Blimey!”, I thought, “You don’t see that very often any more.” The mobile phone has pretty much done away with the pay phone these days. Not entirely, mind you, but it’s become enough of an old dinosaur that I certainly didn’t expect to see someone using it this morning.

So, what else lingers about these days but doesn’t really get much use?

(On a related note, over the weekend, I found myself having to explain to a 4-year old what a cassette tape was and how it doesn’t get really get much use anyone, at least not in the West.)

Just one more thing

Posted 25 Nov 2008

Commuting, Daily Life | 6 Comments 

“Sure. Go ahead an throw it on top – we’ve got plenty of room up there.”

Mountain of stairs

Posted 24 Nov 2008

Commuting, Daily Life, People | 3 Comments 

Over the weekend, I was caring for a young child I know. The child had learned to walk in the previous months and so powering about on his feet was still very exciting to him. This child loved to climb the stairs in his house – just for fun. And I was watched him climb, making sure he didn’t tumble backwards to a painful crash, I was amazed at how much work it was for him to climb the stairs.

Each step just about came up to just below his waist. There were 13 steps leading from the ground floor to the next. So, this little fella was pulling and scrapping his way to the top, time and time again, for fun. He was giggling, laughing, talking and singing on each trip. It was a hoot.

As I watched on, I began to think about whether or I would climb proportionally sized steps for fun. I am 6′3″. Would I repeatedly climb 13, three-foot steps just for fun? For that matter, would I go back up almost 40 feet (close to a 3-story building) in stairs to collect whatever it was I forgot this morning as I ran down the stairs this morning, late for work? Could I even run down the stairs if each step was half my height?

Dear Spammers: You’re barking up the wrong tree

Posted 17 Nov 2008

Daily Life, People, The Little Things | 4 Comments 

This is an open letter from the editors of chickenmonkeydog to all spammers who leave comments on our blog:

Dear Spammers of Porn Advert Comments:

Please do not leave comments on our blog advertising videos of dog sex, even if those movies are available for free. In fact, please don’t leave us adverts for any sex movies. We’re just not interested. Furthermore, we’re fairly confident that our readers aren’t terribly interested either. (And if they are, I am sure they don’t need us to show them where to find such videos.)

To be perfectly honest, our technical editor is becoming frightened of discarding your spam of late as your video offers are growing increasingly violent and disturbing in nature. For the sake of our staff, please do stop sending us these ugly offers.

Thank you,

The Editors
chickenmonkeydog.com

NOTE: Our technical editor has used Photoshop to blur the swearword in the advert comment; otherwise it is as it was submitted.

Don’t Drink and Fight Fires

Posted 14 Nov 2008

Daily Life, Drinks, People, Signs | Leave a Comment 

“It is the duty of all members of the Public being on the premises to conduct themselves in such a way that no person on the premises is exposed to danger from fire through any act or omission of theirs”

Geez. All I wanted to do was have a few pints, yet suddenly I have to make sure that I don’t omit doing anything which could prevent any person on the premises from being exposed to danger.

It reminded me of Asimov’s first rule of robotics, yet it was missing the crucial additional qualifiers. Sure, I don’t want anyone to come to harm and I certainly will do my best to prevent any dangerous situations, but the absolute and all-encompassing nature of the posted demands are well beyond the skill of this completely untrained fire-fighter. Again, too much work for a fellow just looking for a drink.