Things that have annoyed me this week

I saw a man throw a cigarette on the ground in our street. I shouldn't be surprised that people who don't care about themselves don't care about anyone else.

I overheard people saying "LOL" and "OMG" in real conversations.

Every single BMW driver I have seen in the last 25 years drives like a shithead. I must conclude that every BMW driver IS a shithead.

The clothes that used to make me look young now make me look old.

A woman in the checkout line pushed her trolley into me three times before I asked her to stop because it was hurting me.

Some cash machines show commercials after I've put my card in making the process of obtaining cash take twice as long as it should.

There is way too much negativity and cynicism about the preparations for the 2012 Olympics.

People still use pop-under windows. Don't they get it that it makes potential customers hate them?

Three people told me that they hate "Twitter". I don't care.

I can receive 200 TV channels and there has been nothing I wanted to watch for the past three days. Now I've got eye strain from reading in poor light.

I saw a dog wearing a coat.

Some people complained about a sexist character in a TV advert. Yes, he's a sexist character. He plays a sexist 1970s TV cop.

TV news stories are being chosen on the basis of video availability instead of news-worthiness.

Tom and Jerry has never had a successful conclusion. One of them needs to die. People need closure.

Teenager audio test

Created by Oatmeal

However, I now have a powerful teenager-specific weapon at my displosal. Mwahahahahaaa!

Swine Flu vaccinations

This morning I was listening to the news on the radio and heard a government spokesperson advising elderly people and pregnant women to take the swine flu vaccinations being offered. I can understand a flu vaccination being offered to old people, that's nothing new, but any suggestion of injecting pregnant women with anything sets alarm bells ringing in my head. I'm old enough to remember when pregnant women were offered the safe thalidomide drug. Safe. Yeah, right.

You might as well worship the sun

I find the concept of religion very interesting. But I am baffled as to why apparently intelligent people take it seriously.

I read a quotation by Napoleon Bonaparte today where he said, "If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god."

This reminded me of a funny George Carlin stand-up routine where he gave several good reasons to be a sun worshipper. First of all, everybody can actually see the sun and that really helps the credibility it's existence. It gives us everything we need; heat, light, food, flowers in the park and reflections on the lake. There are no crucifixions, and nobody is setting people on fire simply because they don't agree with them. Sun worship is fairly simple. There's no mystery, no miracles, no pageantry, no one asks for money, there are no songs to learn, and we don't have a special building where we all gather once a week. The best thing about the sun is it never tells us we're unworthy. It doesn't tell us we're bad people who need to be saved. The sun has never said an unkind word. It treats us fine. Strangely enough, prayers offered to the sun are answered at about the same rate as prayers offered to other gods.

I've always found it a silly idea to think that anyone's problems will be solved by their imaginary friend.

Daddy can I grow up to be anything I want?

No, not under our current system.

Most right-thinking people would agree that all people are born equal and have the right to choose their leaders. What you would expect to see in a real democracy is the head of state chosen on merit by the public. So why, in the UK, should we tolerate an unelected head of state? The only requirement to become our head of state is to be the child of the existing head of state. The opinion of the public does not matter. They do not elect the head of state and neither can they get rid of them. Sure, our head of state has little actual power but they still receive huge amounts of money from the taxpayers. Why does one family get to be head of state? If the public want to crown a succession of decedents from one line why does it have to be the same one? Why can't another family be become monarchs? Why not mine? Or are we not all born equal?

Why do the public want it this way? They clearly do or something would have been done about it. Why don't they want to be free citizens? Why do they want to remain subjects of the crown?

Albert Einstein knew why when he said, “The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them.”

Prince Charles showed that he understood this very clearly when he said, "Something as curious as the monarchy won't survive unless you take account of people's attitudes. After all, if people don't want it, they won't have it."

btw have you ever read the British constitution? You haven't. It hasn't been written.

Goodbye Facebook

I've deleted the data from my Facebook account in preparation for deactivating my account, probably within the next few weeks but definitely by the end of this year.

My life already seems less noisy.

Blogging

I've had a blog for seven years now but posted nothing for the past eight months because of my interest in using Facebook. Initially I was still blogging and auto-importing my posts into Facebook but soon started to post directly into Facebook. Recently I have decided that I don't need to see everything that everyone on my Friends list posts and have been steadily removing people from the list of posts I see although I haven't removed anyone from my Friends list. The more I think about it, the more I realise that I need to start using my blog again. Facebook is immediate and short term and anything I post will disappear into the archives in a very short space of time whereas my blog posts stay around a lot longer and the archives seem simpler to access. If I do start blogging more often I suspect they will be more likely to be of the cathartic rants that I used to post. These may not be the sort of things I feel comfortable revealing to everyone on my Facebook list so I may stop importing them into Facebook.

Captain Cook monument

Today we to a trip to the nearby monument to the localy born Captain James Cook. The walk in the sunshine was very pleasant and the view were spectacular. But what stuck me the most was the inscription on the monument:

In memory of the celebrated circumnavigator Captain James Cook F.R.S. A man of nautical knowledge inferior to none, in zeal prudence and energy, superior to most. Regardless of danger he opened an intercourse with the Friendly Isles and other parts of the Southern Hemisphere. He was born at Marton Oct. 27th 1728 and massacred at Owythee Feb. 14th 1779 to the inexpressible grief of his countrymen. While the art of navigation shall be cultivated among men, whilst the spirit of enterprise, commerce and philanthropy shall animate the sons of Britain, while it shall be deemed the honour of a Christian Nation to spread civilisation and the blessings of the Christian faith among pagan and savage tribes, so long will the name of Captain Cook stand out amongst the most celebrated and most admired benefactors of the human race.

Marvelous.