Less than a month to go…
Yes, it’s that time of year, having gotten through the 5 month shiny-things festival that Christmas has become, it’s time for the stores to coat the “seasonal goods” aisle with pink stuff and start pushing this years “must have” romantic gifts… (or at least the stuff people weren’t gullable enough to buy last year when I highlighted some of the other wonderful gift suggestions from some of the internets geeky retailers)
However, keeping an eye out for a new level of tackiness in such things is always entertaining, so if you’re looking for the perfect gift for the techie in your life - you could probably do worse (and better) than the recycled keyboard keys fridge magnets from Firebox.com - yes you could spend your hard on money on the keys off someone’s knackered keyboard so you can spell short messages of love on the surface of your fridge…
Oh dear…
Bring It On
This is a great idea - but doesn’t go far enough - such driving assessments should be made compulsory.
Cars have to be checked that they are up to the required standards for use on British roads every year (once they reach 3 years old), so why not have a similar assessment for drivers - say every 5 years, every driver has to have certain aspects of their driving assessed - most importantly, their eyesight, and their ability to perform simple motoring manoeuvres without endangering other people - you know, things like roundabouts, traffic lights, using indicators, correct motorway lane discipline, using mobile phones, and so on…
Roof Trouble
Unfortunately, my house suffered some minor damage in the storms this week… a tile fell off the ridge of the roof, smashed into the garden fence, then hit the ground and cracked into 3 pieces.
So now I have to get a professional in to climb up on top of the house and cement a new ridge tile on, and do a DIY repair on a fence panel (should be pretty easy, a couple of bits of wood and some nails are all that’s required there…)
However it would be the only fence panel in my garden which is behind a flower bed rather than alongside the paved area or lawn… I can see myself getting very muddy doing this job 
How did Disney do that
A nice 3 part article about the Magic of Disney - 50 pages covering traditional cell animation techniques, the themeparks, an article that dates from 1963.
Other pages on the site include articles about the electronics at Disney (from the late 50’s) and how the early films which merged live action and animation were made.
An interesting insight into how things used to be done, before this age of photo realistic CG animation…
Happy at Work?
Top 10, in rank order of the things likely to make people happy at work:
- Friendly supportive colleagues
- Enjoyable work
- Good boss or manager
- good work/life balance
- Varied work
- Doing something worthwhile
- Making a difference
- Part of a successful team
- Achievements recognised
- Competitive salary
I won’t pass comment on which of these my current job has…
Source: Chiumento’s Happiness at Work Index from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6246249.stm
Car Troubles
Yes, today my car is back in the garage again for another repair under the guarantee…
I have so much sympathy for this guy - who wants to crush his 307 - mine hasn’t had half the problems he’s had, and I’m fed up with the car, and the dealer too…
In the last year, I’ve had a small number of electrical faults - which have taken repeat visits to the dealer to fix - in most cases, the fault reoccured before I even drove off, and I was able to walk back into the service reception and book it back in for another repair.
The most annoying problem was in the spring of 2006, when there was a fault with the electric windows, which resulted in a window opening automatically when the car was locked with the central locking. This took 4 dealer visits to sort out. After the 4th visit, it became apparent that they’d broken the wing mirror adjusters while fixing the window controls - a 5th visit was required to put that right…
Now, since suffering a flat battery in December, it’s been in twice more, once to fix a set of electrical problems which occured after the battery died, and today, to fix the same fault again, as they failed to fix it last week, despite telling me that they had.
In fact, there are several other websites devoted to how rubbish Peugeot cars are - not least the fact that the 307 was second-last in the Top Gear survey for 2005… a position it rightly deserves, only beaten to last place by the 807, which itself has a website devoted to it’s faults too.
Apparently I’ve been lucky, and haven’t had the car try to kill me by shutting down the engine at speed, or the flywheel disintegrate… I have had a dashboard failure, but only once, and it rectified itself - but for a while the fuel guage was reading double the amount of fuel actually in the car…
Other 307 websites:
http://www.peugeotsucks.co.uk/ (this guy has also had dealings with my local dealer in Cardiff)
http://www.crushmy307.co.uk/
And the worst thing, the dealership is expecting to to part ex my lemon of a friday-afternoon car (their words!) for another Pug. I don’t think so…
Time to buy something else
Funderland Dublin
This weekend (eventually) saw a small group of friends meet up in the Irish capital for some fairground fun, thanks to the great people at Funderland.
Due to unforseeable circumstances, the expected showpiece ride was unable to attend, however it’s place was taken at short notice with with Goetzke’s FreeFall (actually a Huss Shot-n-Drop) tower, which was giving excellent rides, as was the case with all the rides I tried throughout the event. The core list of rides was much the same as last year, including the superbly presented “Power Wave” Schwarzkopf Polyp (shown here), and the regular 2 large-ish coasters, Wild Mouse (Reverchon) and Speed Loop (Pinfari ZL42), and for the spinner fans, Extreme and TakeOff.
Speed Loop was it’s usual self - far smoother than most examples of this type of ride, but the most fun was to be had on the mouse. A huge “thank you” has to go to John and Brian at Funderland for allowing us to experience the Mouse with the “spin pin” reset in the station, to allow spinning over the entire length of the ride, rather than just on the lower half of the coaster, as it is normally operated.
Now, having had this special ride, it’s very clear to me that, in general terms, this type of generic spinning-mouse coaster could be improved if the cars unlocked on the first straight at the top after the lift, rather than on the level below - taking the bigger drops spinning was a lot of fun, and is probably the biggest single improvement that could be made to this design of ride. However I don’t know what impact (if any) it would have on the wear-and-tear on the ride, but the forces the riders are subjected to are certainly not uncomfortable, although the end result is a little more like a tracked waltzer than a coaster!
Maybe Reverchon/Zamperla should offer options on the design as to exactly where the spinning gets unlocked…
Just to say, if you seen one of these Mouse coasters at your local fair, please do not annoy the operators by requesting such a ride.
As has been the case in previous years, the hospitality shown to us by Funderland is incredible, and if things come to pass, next year could be even better…
(thanks to Richard Bannister for organising our trip again, and for the photo gallery of this years fair on themeparks.ie - I didn’t have my camera with me this time, so there’s a lot of links to his gallery!)
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