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What is it about cars and stupidity? Friday evening on the way home and again this morning on the way to San Diego, I’m in fierce rain, near zero-visibility in the spray off the road and people are driving with no lights on. Apart from the fact that its illegal, its damn stupid, people.

And Friday night on the way home there are huge convoys of RVs heading for the desert as usual. But its rained for days and the forecast is for storms for the weekend and beyond so where do they think they’re going? Well, they end up spending the weekend in every large parking lot in town; Von’s, McDonalds etc. Near impossible to do any shopping with every space filled with RVs bigger than a house. How hard is it to look at a weather forecast and determine that leaving home didn’t make sense? I think all those diesel fumes must rot the brain or something. Its just stupid, people.

From the abacus to the Powerbook and beyond.

In the life-imitiates-art category, this story from Boing Boing tells of a dodgy transaction involving a sick parrot and a pet store owner.

Listerine can get you arrested for drunk driving. Ok, so you’re not supposed to swallow the stuff but its still one more reason why Pfizer sucks ass. Hopefully this week the FDA will announce their findings on Celebrex and Pfizer will go further down the flusher, sucks for my some of my 401k, but there are many many people in the company who deserve it. Of course the good people will suffer whilst the idiots will remain, blaming everyone else., but those of us still suffering the trauma of having worked there can smile a little. Better than therapy!

It seems that the idea just won’t go away, some states want to introduce a tax on the miles you drive. It seems that by encouraging people to drive more efficient vehicles, the state is losing revenue and needs ways to make that up. So… here’s a tax on how many miles of road you use. The article talks also about the price per mile being different depending on time of day, location etc. I think its a dumb idea, why not just increase the tax on gas which will keep revenues up and continue to discourage buying gas guzzling cars. And if we really have to have a per-mile tax, why not just have the odometer read on a regualr basis? Putting a GPS in each car is just a recipie for abuse.

Charles and Camilla are set to wed in April. If he ever becomes King (doubtful), she will have the title of ‘Princess Consort’ rather than Queen; that title is reserved for Prince Edward. I am sure there are lot of people in the Church of England who are unhappy that a divorcee is getting remarried (oh, the humanity!) and so they are having a civil ceremony in Windsor Castle. I haven’t received my invite yet, but you know how slow that trans-atlantic post pigeon is.

In sport news, there is talk of ressurecting the Home International Championship. As a kid I used to look forward to this tournament of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The games between England and Scotland were always classics and when they weren’t, you always had the fighting to watch instead. It would be good to see them played again, though I’d probably have to pay $20 a game to watch it on PPV.

And, finally, if you haven’t yet eaten check out this sorry story of a woman who has been jailed for ripping off a guy’s testicle and trying to swallow it. Don’t try this at home, kids.

It’s healthy to eat your bogies, so get picking and eating.

Another Race is over, I think the wrong couple won but they played a good race at the end so fair play and all that. I think its a shame that the next series is starting so soon, there needs to be more time between these shows so we start to miss them. I think the Race is the best show on TV but that doesn’t mean I want it on 50 weeks a year.

Its a well known rule that if you’re in a foreign land, speaking English loudly and slowly will get you understood…. well, apparantly the term “fast fast fast” is universally understood – every team used it with every cab driver!

Now I know every teenager and music lover in the world already has this but I just discovered it. Replay Music captures any streaming audio from any source and lets you save it. It even looks up the tags online and sets them to what you’ve recorded. Not that I would ever do that of course, Mr RIAA lawyer, but its cool that I can.

In the ‘is-there-nothing-Google-wont-do’ category, there is now Google Maps which looks to be pretty neat. I really like how you can drag the map around with the mouse, no clicking pan arrows to move around. In contrast, have some fun at Microsoft’s expense…..

1. Go to http://mappoint.msn.com/DirectionsFind.aspx
2 Plan a trip from Haugesund, Norway to Trondheim, Norway
3 Laugh