Bad Driving

American drivers are the worse.  Every single day I encounter terrible driving.  And I suspect most of them don't even think they're doing anything wrong.  Some of their worst traits are not signalling, not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign, speeding, tailgating, not having a clue how to negotiate a roundabout, single drivers using the carpool lane (a particular pet hate of mine that I see every time I go onto the freeway on my commute into the office - something which I've never seen policed, but surely there is the technology available to install a camera that will identify these law breakers), and so on.  Anyway, on the way home from the office today I encountered a new low.  And it was on the road at the bottom of my driveway.  Somehow, a van had managed to drive into the ditch on the side of the road and become stuck.  That is shocking and inexcusably poor driving.  How did they even manage to do that?  I suspect either speeding - something which I see all the time on that stretch of road - or distracted driving.  Either way, very very embarrassing.  I should have taken a photo, but I don't think that would have gone done well with the driver who was waiting for someone to tow him out.  It's not the first time I've seen incidents on this stretch of road - from drivers unable to negotiate the slope when it's icy, to a car engine fire, to someone threatening me when I told them they were speeding.  I'm not saying I'm a good driver, but I think I'm a lot better than most of the other people on the road here.      

TV Theme Tunes #65

Of the various shows presented by this artist, I've plumped for the theme from this one - mainly because it's the one I remember from my childhood.  He is a real national treasure, and must have influenced so many kids to love art and inspired today's generation of designers and artists.  And having read some of his background - including serving his country - I'm actually shocked he never received a knighthood (which is shameful when you think about some of the degenerates who have been).

Flight Prices

Was having a look at prices for flying back to the UK in summer, and was a bit shocked by how expensive it was.  Considerably more expensive than even how much it cost to fly back over Christmas.  British Airways currently have a sale going on.  But then you read the small print, and discover that there are all kinds of limitations on what is actually on sale.  And this includes the dates you have to fly to get the sale price.  Naturally, the days I want to come back do not fall in that window.  I want to fly back sometime around 4th July, but that will cost over $1000 more than a flight, for example, around my birthday in August.  It's making me reconsider my plans.  But the overriding factor is that I get a week off work for 4th July, and I really want to make use of that to give me an extended stay in the UK (3 weeks).  I don't know what to do.  I think I'll still aim for early July - but maybe hold off booking the flights just to see if the price comes down at all.  Knowing my luck, it will just go up.      

HDR

I've been watching a lot of the Australian Open over the last few weeks.  Not so much for the tennis - though nothing gives me greater joy then seeing Djokovic lose.  No, it was more about the fact that I was able to watch some of the matches in 4K HDR.  You'd think that would be great - but nope, that wasn't the case.  The fact is that my 4K image is incredibly dark - so dark that I actually preferred the "bog-standard" HD image.  So instead of watching tennis in 4K, I was spending all my time mucking about with the picture settings trying to brighten the image without sacrificing the quality.  I googled the recommended picture settings for my TV, but they were absolutely useless.  But I think I have resolved the issue by adjusting the "Gamma" setting.  Don't ask me what the hell that is, but it seems to work.       

International Lego Day

Just in time for International Lego Day, which is Sunday, I just finished building my most recent set:

It looks great, but I don't know whether you can tell from the photo but it is much bigger than I was expecting.  Lucky it just about fits on top of this bookcase in one of my spare rooms. 

One of those days

Despite having plenty of work to do, today proved to be one of those days where I just got nothing done.  Not for a specific reason.  I just couldn't be bothered to knuckle down.  Some days you get loads done.  Some you do not.  Today was definitely the latter.  Not a disaster, I may have plenty of work to do but I don't have any immediate deadlines.  And next week I'll quickly make up for what I didn't do today.  Probably.      

Work

Not good news from work.  I think my plan of wanting to take a sabbatical in a few years time is becoming increasingly less feasible.  We were told at a meeting this week that basically my department is putting a hold on new hires, and won't necessarily even replace employees who leave.  So if I request a leave of absence, it either won't be granted or there won't be a job for me when I'm ready to return.  It's a thoroughly depressing state of affairs.  So if I want to take some time off work when I turn 50, which is something I really want to do, then I'm probably just going to have to resign.  Maybe that's not a bad thing - I don't like the direction my job is going either.  It seems like we are increasingly outsourcing more of the kind of work I do to India.  So my role will start to become more about oversight of other people's work rather than doing the actual work myself.  Which is not what I want.  And that's only until AI eliminates my job entirely.  That seems to be case of when, rather than if.  And I'm not even joking about that - at this meeting they presented a timeline of when they expect AI to take over some of the tasks.  Which is extremely disturbing.