» 2008 » February - little things

Call It By Its Name - Show Off Your Handbag - February 21st, 2008

Show Off Your Handbag is a meme (in the internet sense) inspired by this thread on Metafilter where someone asks about the ‘Go Bag’ Val Kilmer uses in the film Spartan. I’ve not seen Spartan but Kilmer’s character is obviously a very macho guy and the fact that he carries a bag provides a convenient parallel for weedy internet guys who also carry bags (like me) but don’t want to admit that they’re essentially handbags. Obviously this is an excellent opportunity for geek oneupmanship, with plenty of people apparently shoving half of Maplin into their bags on a daily basis (that’s got to be bad for your posture), one guy (the direct link to whose handbag I’m too lazy to relocate) goes as far as to claim that he goes around with live assault riffle ammunition in his backpack, I don’t know maybe people do that in the states*.

So with out further ado, here’s my cycling day handbag. No pack lunch today but otherwise this is pretty standard:

The bag itself is probably my most valued thing here, it’s totally amazing and can carry massive amounts of stuff including water as it’s totally watertight. As you can see the reflective stuff really works too which is good. I’ve got two of them (though typically I only use one) and it was totally worth paying that bit extra as I expect them to last me pretty much forever.

Other than that it’s : gloves, spare t-shirt to change into, ratchet and socket (my pedals keep coming loose for some reason), Muji cycle repair kit some one gave me for xmas (good puncture repair stuff and some alum keys), swiss army knife (mainly I use the scissors for cutting my finger nails as they work well both right and left handed), mobile phone,
notebook (I bought a Moleskine one as they were on sale but for all the hype around this brand I’m not impressed), London AtoZ (Millennium Edition!), 512Mb USB drive.

I encourage readers to show off their own handbags and post links in the comments section.

*Actually, I just found the guy apparently he was working in Kabul in a capacity not specified but presumably he’s a soldier so that explains the ammunition.

In Case You Are Trapped In A Sinking Car… - February 16th, 2008

For me, one of the most irritating things that can happen in a film is for people to be trapped in a sinking car and to behave in a totally irrational way and then drown. It even annoys me when bad guys and irritating characters are bumped off in this manner. So I’m glad that a Canadian scientist has chucked 80 cars into water to confirm my intuitions about the best strategy.

Remove seatbelt.

Free children.

Open window.

Get out.

Don’t try to open the door! This is the number one mistake that stupid people in films make.

“Most of the time, it will be impossible anyway,” …

“If you try early on, it is possible to muscle the door open, but then you take a vehicle that would float for maybe 60 seconds, and it’s going to sink within five to 10 seconds, because as you open the door, the water comes in, the vehicle sinks faster.”

Also I’m glad to learn that electric windows will work in the water as that’s always been a source of concern for me.

The above picture was taken by Flickr user drinksmachine

The Legend Of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass: The Things I Thought About It - February 13th, 2008

OK, so I’ve not quite finished it. My guy is standing outside the final boss room at the bottom of the big dungeon, I don’t want to do that fight as it will show up on the save screen and my wife will be annoyed at me for clocking it before her. She’s just outside the big dungeon at the moment. Anyway, I’ve played enough Zelda games to know what’s about to go down, so far there have been no big surprises and I don’t think it’s about to turn into a rhythm action game or anything.

First things first, as I alluded above it’s pretty much your standard Zelda game. That is to say it’s right up there with some of the best games ever produced, solidly entertaining and fun throughout. It feels a little churlish to complain about such a solidly enjoyable game but that’s still what I’m about to do.

Possibly at great length.

I’m not really going to talk about the plot (it’s the standard Zelda thing: Do some dungeons, collect some weapons, forge the master sword, save the day) but insofar as it’s possible to spoil a video game through discussion of mechanics and structure I might be doing that…
Read the rest of this entry »

Diplomacy Map - February 13th, 2008

Just found this map that I made ages ago for an aborted Diplomacy client I was making.

Kind of a stained glass window effect. Maybe I’ll resuscitate the project…

(probably not)

Thames Walk - February 11th, 2008

On Saturday we did the first stage of a long walk along the Thames. From Richmond to Hammersmith, about 12 km through parks and London’s affluent western suburbs. On the way we stopped at a pub and had lunch and a restorative pint. Hooky Gold, which was very nice.

Eurostar and Cycling - February 8th, 2008

So the Euro star is ‘Greener’ than flying. No arguments there but it’s a shame this obsession with greeness doesn’t actually extend to providing bicycle racks at the new St Pancras station (though they’re happy to show some on the-afforelinked page to cement their love of the environment in our minds). Sure there’s enough room for the longest champagne bar in the world* but not enough room to provide a simple cheap place for cyclists to keep their bikes.

As Jim recently suggested the target that 5% of trips in London should be made by bike really lacks ambition when you see what other european cities have been able to achieve. The lack of consideration for cyclists in planning terms is nowhere more obvious than if you try to cycle ’round the redeveloped Kings Cross area.

Apart fromt that I love the Eurostar. 2 hours to Belgium! I reckon I could get from the front door of my flat to Brussels in under 3 hours.

*The list of things wrong with the idea of building the worlds longest champagne bar and putting it in a train station is too much to fit neatly in this post so I’ll leave that for another time.