Since its coming to the end of summer, I’ve harnessed the power of Google Earth to create a map showing the various locations of places I’ve been to (some places for more time than the others). There was also a short visit to a place in Wales but I’m sure I’ll cover that in a future update 
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This was meant to be a list of 10 things, unfortunately I could only think of 5 things and its been a week since I got back so I don’t imagine I will come up with any more.
Here’s the background:
I was out for a meal with my parents tonight and I saw a guy with his iphone lying out on his table [Note: I didn't actually see him using his phone at all, it was just out]. I then saw another woman with a basic non-smartphone samsung phone out too and it got me thinking.
So here’s the discussion:
Is it permissible to have a phone out at a mealtime, especially if it’s at a restaurant?
My view:
I think it says that the person has more important things than the meal. On the other hand they may have been waiting for a very important message/phone call. Personally I kept my phone in my pocket and resisted the temptation to read the three emails I got until after my meal (they weren’t anything interesting anyway).
What are your views? Should it be acceptable? Is it wrong to pre-judge? Leave me a comment.
Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
First off, its been a while since I updated, rather than just apologising, I found this comic (which holds a lot of truths):
Back on topic, here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve been doing:
I still have a few ideas for blog posts which I shall hopefully get round to writing soon.
So, on Saturday evening I went to a pub. Now that’s not the unusual part of the story that needs writing about.
The reason for this pub visit was due to my brother-in-law being in Sheffield so I couldn’t really pass up on the chance of meeting him. Sheffield’s a big place, how would I know where he was? How did they do it in the olden days? I guess people would have to have found a payphone and made a phone call. Assuming they could remember exactly what phone number they wanted. It seems possible but a bit of a faff. [As a side note, my Mum always told me to carry 10p for use in this sort of situation when I needed to make a phone call.] How did I do that the other day? We’re both BlackBerry users and with the BlackBerry Messenger app we get free instant messaging. Problem solved.
Ok, skipping that step, I now know which pub he’s at (assuming he hasn’t moved on). He’s at the Gardener’s Rest pub. It’s somewhere in Sheffield, but he has no idea exactly where that is. I’ve never heard of it in my life. How did they do it in the olden days? And here’s where I get stuck. What would they have done? The only thing I can think of is to look it up in a phone book. Then what? Find my A-Z map and look it up. How about getting there? Take the map with me? Leave it at home? How did I do that the other day? Going back to my BlackBerry I fired up Google Maps. [Sidenote: This is the only place I use anything Google -- Gmail does host my university and my personal email, but I avoid it as much as possible.] I whacked “gardeners rest” into the search and it popped up straight away. I then clicked plan route and I knew exactly where I had to go. Did I mention that it showed me exactly where I was by using the phone’s GPS? I was able to follow my whole route on my phone as I went. Try doing that with an A-Z. Twenty minutes later I was there. Problem solved.
So there you have it. I managed to navigate my way to a completely new part of Sheffield just by using my trusty phone. Simples. So what would people have done before technology? Leave me a comment with your ideas.
This week’s Wordless Wednesday is courtesy of today’s Garfield comic:
That’s right, on Sunday I lost a dear friend. My PlayStation 3 suffered from the dreaded Yellow Light of Death problem. He She It died at the young age of only 3 years and 22 days. That’s 22 days beyond the lifetime of its extended warranty. Typical isn’t it. I had only been playing inFAMOUS for about 15 minutes when it gave up the fight. Beeping a few times, it rolled over and died instantly. My worst fears were realised when I was unable to revive him by any means. It was a very ignominious end for it, after all it had survived being shoved in a rucksack and thrown in the back of a van. It had probably also been dropped several times in its life, but each time it kept on going. So this was truly the end.
I called up Sony who quoted me a price of £131 to get it replaced but that it would be a lesser model. My model is an original 60GB which has all the good features which everyone wants returned to the design. This would also loose all the data stored on my hard drive (which I had upgraded to 320GB). As an aside, make sure you back up all the data regularly. Fortunately for me, I had done a backup about two weeks ago, so although this is missing some of the latest saves, it would have been much worse if I had lost everything.
Determined to preserve the dignity of my console, I found a repairer in Newcastle called Console Doctor who can apparently fix these problems. Therefore as we speak my console is hopefully flying (it’ll be by lorry - due to the volcano ash) up north with the friendly DHL man. And this only costs £70, plus I get my console back and sooner, hopefully with all the data intact and with the disc that is currently stuck inside. Just because I need to add a photo to make this article more exciting, here is a picture of my PS3 in its original box waiting to get sent off:
I guess I should probably do something useful whilst I wait for its return… like my dissertation.
Why did I watch this film?
First off, this is obviously two films. The first film was watched on Friday evening, the second one on the Saturday evening. There’s never much on TV on a Friday evening, but this was on Film4 and it stars Charlie Sheen who also stars in Two and a Half Men which is one of my favourite TV shows. I had already seen the second film which I thought was quite funny, so why not watch the first one too? The sequel was on Film4 the next evening so I thought I’d watch it again anyway for continuity.
What did I think of this film?
The first film is a spoof of Top Gun and the second is a spoof of Rambo. Both films are very funny, and it’s not just current affairs jokes, so the majority of this will remain funny into the future. As mentioned it stars Charlie Sheen who I always like and it was good to see him in something different. Although there were elements where I could see elements of his Two and a Half Men character, it just made it that little bit funnier for me. Jon Cryer (Alan in Two and a Half Men) features in the first film and Ryan Stiles (Herb in Two and a Half Men and also in “Whose line is it anyway?”) has short parts in both films. Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean, Blackadder etc) is in the second film and is as good as ever. Lots of my favourite actors in this, but the ridiculous storyline is what made this film what it was.
Will I watch it again?
They are funny films and definately worth watching again. There are a lot of jokes so I think there’s probably a lot that get missed in a first run through (or even second run through in the case of part deux). They are definately not films to take seriously, I don’t think I would sit down planning to watch them, but if they were on I might give them another viewing. I wouldn’t even worry about only watching part of them, they are so unserious they certainly don’t need to be watched in full to enjoy.
