Big Me Up

A couple of weeks ago New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his plans to ban 'super-sized' fizzy drinks being sold.

It struck me some years ago (as I watched the young 'professionals' most mornings feeling thoroughly incomplete if their Next tailoring wasn't accessorized by a bucket of coffee in one hand) that I don't ever actually WANT a bucket of coffee when I'm out and fancy, well, just a coffee.
I'll stand next to one of these and invariably hear "Can I get . . . . "  
What?  What does that mean? (Apart from the fact the idiot next to me wants to believe he or she is living a "Friends" episode?)

But back to the Coffee . .  let's be really boring - I mean, doesn't the last bit get sort of luke warm?  Isn't it really difficult drinking all that liquid at one sitting, or standing, or walking back to office?  Fashions are damned weird aren't they? 

We're implored to 'Big me Up' or 'Supersize Me' for soft drinks, coffees, alcohol . . . . when pure, honest reality would tell you this is nothing more than silly, and damaging marketing.  Of course Coca-Cola and McDonalds complained, and so did the New Yorkers - choice, they said, choice.

Choice, ah yes, here we go again.  The UK's default choice this past generation has been to go American.
En-masse we've chosen to load-up credit cards, build shopping Malls - (and populate them on Sundays), we choose that popular music gets nowhere unless the singer(s) sound American, our TV and Radio adverts are peppered with American accents, we choose to drive around in enormous jeepy things that don't fit British road lanes, or side roads.

The latest item I suppose we've slavishly followed is to be obese.  Go anywhere, look around - I mean LOOK properly . . . . . bigger and bigger and bigger, men,women, children, young girls.
Maybe just a 'little tubby' right now, but well on the way to becoming wonderfully American.

Big me Up, and Supersize Me was never so true.

EDF get lucky

EDF got lucky didn't they?  Of course their Birdy-Bobble thing appeared years ago on the original Hawaii 5 - 0 series (hence the backing track to EDF's advert) - fantastic

Busy, busy

I should be grateful for such a dark and wet May Bank Holiday weekend, I guess.

I've been steadily developing Adverthell.net . venturing out during the brief sunny bits we got.

If you've a chance - check the site out, it's moved a thousand miles from its shakey beginnings!

www.adverthell.net

Gordon Bennett Lives!

Saturday in downtown Bournemouth (ha ... laugh?).

Pixie and I are using the Dalkeith arcade to get from the carpark to Specsavers (to get our sheepdog re-trimmed).

On the way back, there's a sign on the Dalkeith manager's door.

(It was straight on the door . . . . )

Firefox - the new IE?

Firefox has been my Browser of choice since the Zulu wars.  The latest incarnation of this steadily more bloated beastie got me in a tizzie - TABS on TOP, no status bar - and a speedy PC with gigazillions of RAM reporting to me daily that my Browser was hogging memory.

Shame.  In the early days you flew Firefox with goggles, a coat-hanger stuffed into your scarf (to make it look like the wind was blowing it backward) and enormous leather gauntlets - you were on the edge, buddy - the cutting edge . . . . wind in your hair, spinach in your teeth . . . . . . fantastic.

Fast forward to 2012 and our browser-blade is less sharp, a little 'corporate, perhaps.

Enter Pale Moon.

I've been testing this (Mozilla based) browsing babe for couple of weeks and it is lean, fast, VERY stable and well worth the time to test it out for yourself.

Sporting ALL of Firefox's goodies, and NONE of its recently silliness (you can import EVERYTHING into this browser, including your settings, personnas, themes, add-ons) this one looks set to really go.  Read some of the supporting documents and you're back in the land of 'reasonable' rather than 'so damned modern I'm actually not enjoying this anymore ......'  Or, worse still, 'change - just for the sake of it'.

Let's hope not TOO many people find out, I was enjoying those leather gauntlets.

PALE MOON (link)

Exercise, five-a-day, and all that . . .

 

The BBC's Horizon (28 Feb 2012) seemed to confirm for me what I'd always suspected - at least for me  (minimal times, hi-value exercise seems to do as much 'good' as any amount of puffing and preening at the 48 million Gyms this country appears to have).

We're lucky here in Dorset, it seems unthinkable to use a walking-machine, indoors, in a Gym - having driven there, and paid monthly to walk.  With over 7 miles of beach it all seems a bit silly.

S'Funny, we have more Gyms than ever in the UK, and more Obesity than ever.  I suppose it is more likely that we do have more toned, muscled inhabitants than we ever used to, but to be fair - how much of this is a product of a Body Concious mentality - rather then fitness for Health?

In the same way, I know in my heart we're probably not too far away from the results of some 'Study' - and we'll be informed (or more possibly, we won't) that - well, actually, five-a-day is a bit wierd . . . hardly necessary, and . . . well, the proof was never really there.

Now, where did I leave those Barbells?

Razzle Dazzle

Ahh . . . the days are lengthening, and in a month we'll be looking forward to changing the clocks (I fancy a nice blue one). It means, also, that to-and-from work won't include countless blindings from the new(ish) dazzling HID headlamps or distracted by those lovely patterns of LEDs adorning a few older cars ("Hey! Look at me - just like an Audi eh?") 

 Lessened also, with luck, the occasions you've needed to put your hand up to shield the glare from being sat behind a vehicle at traffic-lights with all tail lights, stop lights, indicator - blazing away to no-one in particular.

I've often mused about this, you really need to drive around in the evening with a dipped mirror half the time, but more interestingly - why does anyone use headlights at all in a well-lit town?  To 'see and be seen' is self-defeating isn't it?  If you cannot see a car, with sidelights, or a cyclist (without hi-vis) in a well-lit town, then just stop driving, please.  And 'to see' is just plain ridiculous, the mixture of numerous over-bright light sources, weird traffic and road markings and clutter of signage, 'street furniture' etc all make for far less safety, never more.