Stuff Archives

So, have any of you folks managed to get your hands on one of the new iPhones yet? I got my first look at one on Friday night. I was having drinks with one of my teams at work and the husband of one of my colleagues had one.

I have to say I was very impressed. It's missing a few things functionality wise, but that's a bit like saying a Ferrari is no good off road. So what, if you look that cool, you're not going to worry about the things it won't do. I'm not sure that my son agreed with this review, however. He was being extremely well behaved until his picture was taken with said phone. I also like the title that this photo was sent to me with - "like father, like son!" (William had come along for the food, not the drinks in case you are wondering. Although, that said, he tried to steel my beer several times).

On a side note, our firm issued an Alcohol Policy today. I'm told it's purely coincidental that it follows our drinks on Friday night.

My brother was up visiting our parents this weekend. Whilst there it seems he took ill. Apparently his arm became very swollen, so he was taken to the emergency room. He was diagnosed with repetitive strain injury (RSI) - seems he has cheeseburger elbow!

Hog - you're getting old. You need to slow down. Maybe take on a salad every now and then.

An odd little town in the UK. Interesting service providers based on the photo below:

So, I was sent these pictures with the following text:

In a zoo in California , a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth.

The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health,
although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused
the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate
another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve.

After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there
were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians
decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother
of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only orphans" that could be
found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in
tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops?

Take a look...you won't believe your eyes!!



Seems great at face value doesn't it. Well, would you really say "a zoo in California" without being specific? Probably not. Also, as I live in California, this would be all over the local news if it were true.

That said, if you are happy with the story above and want to live in happy land, then read no further.

A little research shows that this is not even in the US and looks to be from somewhere in Asia. Potentially tied to "Tiger baiting" where tigers are starved and then introduced to various animals for the sake of gambling. Participants have the ability to bet on which animal they think is going to last the longest before they are devoured by the tiger. The photos taken above are apparently legitimate and were a test to see if they could confuse the tiger into leaving the piglets alone for a longer period by wrapping them in the skins of dead tiger cubs. (The tiger cubs having been killed earlier by being introduced to a different tiger family). The purpose of which is to simply extend the amount of betting that can take place.

The email story above the pictures was made up as a joke to see if people would look at sick photos and think they are cute.

Actually, I just made all that up (the bit about the tiger baiting), but you were falling for it weren't you - see you can be manipulated into thinking anything. (Hog - there is no water powered car!) Best we can tell is that these photos were from Sriracha Tiger Zoo just outside of Bangkok in Thailand. The zoo has some kind of circus/carnival thing and these photos were taken at that. They were picked up by someone who decided to make up the story about the zoo in California to see how much spam they could create on the basis that the pictures were cute.

Apparently this story [in today's morning news] was about a manhunt for a home invasion incident that started in Newark and spread to San Leandro. Obviously a very disturbing event for all those involved that doesn't paint a very pretty picture.

I, on the other hand, heard the title on the radio and had somewhat different images come to mind.

Well, the outbound flight from San Francisco to Houston wasn't much fun given that I had to get up at 3:15 am to get to the airport. Used to be a time when I saw 3:15 when it came around rather than getting up to meet it, but those days are all but gone except for special occasions.

Three and a half hours on the plane - what is there to look forward to? Some kids movie or a cut up episode of a not very funny American sitcom? No thank you. It's the Sky Mall magazine! I have to be honest, I try and do anything to resist the urge to look at it, but at some point during the flight I will pick it up and read through. It kills me as I always think "there's no way I'd buy this crap" but always end up thinking "that'd be quite cool." So what's on my list:

- A remote control R2D2 because it would be cool.
- A hot dog toaster because it's called a "hot diggity dogger" and I think it would be so funny to tell people that my "hot diggity dogger" came in the mail or see how many conversation I can bring it up in. (I'm probably going to find that everybody already has one).
- An ice cream making machine because it's ice cream and Mr Whippy doesn't come round these parts.

That said, the best item on the list (and I need to say added recently - yep, I travel enough to have memorized the Sky Mall catalog and now look forward to changes) was a lightening detector. Bear with me on this. This device will apparently detect if lightning is coming, around 40 miles away if I remember correctly, in order that you can get to safety! Don't we have a saying about things that are rare and not going to happen that goes something like "that's about as likely as being struck by lightening"? So it makes perfect sense to come up with a device that warns you of this unlikely event. (Just in case the loud thunder noise didn't give away the fact that there's lightening in the area anyway).

Wouldn't you have liked to have been round the table when someone came up with that idea? Actually, I'd rather have been round the table when the marketing group came up with the idea of selling it on an airplane. Is it likely that someone who's paranoid enough to buy a lightening detector because they think they may get struck by lightening is going to get onto a plane?

I'll leave you with that thought whilst I go and order my hot diggity dogger!

Sprint, one of the US wireless network service providers, today announced that they were cutting contracts with 1,000 odd of their customers who have excessively used the support desk. At first this seems very alarming, however, when you get into it, these people have been calling the help desk between 40 to 50 times a month on a regular basis.

Obviously we don't want companies just deciding who they are going to allow to be their customers on an ad hoc basis, but if the facts provided about excessive usage are true then I'm all for it as these Muppets are just increasing the cost for the rest of us. Don't they have any friends?

I don't know about you guys, but we argue in our house every time we need to call customer service about anything. It usually goes something like "it's your turn because I did it last time" You've got to be really desperate to want to talk to the support desk more than you need to.

No, this isn't an article about that “special place” that you don't get to visit very often after marriage and kids. This is about Houston. That place that you do get to visit on a regular basis after marriage and kids.

Why on earth does anyone choose to live here? It's so muggy. And I'm told it's not that bad at the minute, it will get worse in August. I'm glad I'm only here for a couple of days as the heat and humidity oppressive. I have nothing against Houston - as a city, it's fine. It's just the weather.

Anyway, don't ask how, but whilst here in Houston I came across this YouTube post that I couldn't stop laughing at and I think actually fits the title “Wet and Warm” very well.

As Independence Day draws to a close, time to contemplate being American. Which I'm not, but my son is, so it's probably quite wonderful at the minute as he seems fascinated by any tiny little thing.

I think the best thing I've heard of late was on the local news. San Francisco is hosting the Major League Baseball (MLB) All Stars game. Which, most people are getting very excited about. Wereas I am probably more worried about how much extra traffic it's going to cause. (No, that's not true - it's still a sport, so I will be compelled to watch it). Anyway, back to the American thing, the news presented quoted:


Still, when you name your biggest domestic competition the World Series, what should I expect?

Then again, if I didn't like it here, I wouldn't be here. So it's time to head out and watch some fireworks go bang.

Where do you start? There are some days that are good and then there are some days that are great. Then every now and then one of those days turns up that you won't forget for as long as you live. Maybe not quite as significant as February 27, 2000 watching Matt Elliot put the winner past Tranmere, but June 24, 2007 saw Juan Pablo Montoya take his first victory in NASCAR.

One of the most exciting races I've seen (and probably because the person I was following won), but it really did seem like a great race. JP started a poor 32nd on the grid, but made a great start. Each lap he seemed to gain a place. However, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon were making a charge from the back. Circa lap 30 saw Johnson and Montoya enter probably the best battle of the race. For several laps they traded places and all the time it was painful to watch as clearly they would have been better just working together to move up positions (but, at the end of the day, it's a race so what do you expect?)

Finally pit stops split Johnson and Montoya leaving Montoya open to run his own race. Credit to Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon being the only other two drivers to pass Montoya. Gordon's seemed to be tied in to pit rotations, but Stewart's was clearly in open race. (What does Stewart need to do to win a race this season? At one point he was leading this race by a mile and clearly was the best driver on the track given clean air).

Montoya's victory has to be attributed to a great pit stop call that brought him in on the earliest lap possible to give him enough fuel to run to the end of the race. After his last pit, he exited near the front, chasing car after car and ultimately chasing down Harvick then McMurray to take the lead

After gaining the lead it was plain sailing all the way to the checkered flag. One parade lap, then the most feeble burn out as Montoya's car ran out of fuel. Having been to a lot of football games and watched the clock tick down as Leicester cling on for a victory, I'm no stranger to the last minute nail biter. That said, the last 10 laps of this race seemed to take an age and all the time I was wondering whether the 42 car had enough petrol in the tank to see it through. Fortunately enough to cross the finish line and briefly do this:

So, gorgeous weather, an afternoon drinking beer and watching your chosen driver take his first NASCAR win. Does life get any better?

Congratulations again to Juan Pablo and the Texaco/Havoline team.

For more NASCAR photos of this and other races, see the NASCAR photo page.