TV License
I need to cancel my TV license.
Amusingly, there is No Way to do this. They do not have the concept that one might move out of the United Kingdom and to another country. This amuses me.
Automated Prompt: Please say your new post code.
Me: 10011
AP: Please say your new street name.
Me: 24th Street
AP: Sorry I didn't catch that. Please say your new street name.
Me: 24th Street
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I figured if I did it wrong enough, it would put me through to an actual person. I was wrong. I think it actually changed my address and post code. Duh. I think I'll just cancel the direct debit and call it a day.
We are watching you
According to the Daily Mail (not the best source of news, no, but nonetheless):
Big Brother is not only watching you - now he's barking orders too. Britain's first 'talking' CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming offenders into acting more responsibly.
The system allows control room operators who spot any anti-social acts - from dropping litter to late-night brawls - to send out a verbal warning: 'We are watching you'.
OH MY GOD how sinister. It almost makes me glad we're emigrating. Say what you want about Bush, but at least his Big Brother bullshit operates under a veil of surreptitiosness (why is the noun form of that adjective not surreptition?).
1984, anyone? Jesus.
Random fact
Petrol is $7.15572 a gallon here. :)
NHS Dentist
On the downside, you have to hold your own suction for part of the time because they're understaffed on the assistant/hygenist front.
On the upside, a checkup, full x-rays and two fillings cost you £43. With which, really, you just can't argue.
Beer Inspectors. Wow.
There's a BBC News article today about British beer. Apparently it's being served too warm.
The recommended temperature for a hand-pulled pint is from 11C to 13C but assessors found 44% of pints bought in 2,000 UK pubs exceeded 13C.
The fact that there are beer assessors that are being deployed about the UK to check up on this slays me. Where do I sign up for that job? Someone tell me!
Puzzle Mania
There's an article in today's Wired News about Su Doku a Japanese number puzzle. Most people who know me with any degree of intimacy beyond casual acquaintance know that I'm a big puzzle fan. I used to sit in Mrs. Clarke's Accelerated English class my junior year of high school doing logic problems and puzzles during lectures. Jeni used to turn around and laugh at me all the time.
I don't really know when my love affair with puzzles started. Probably when my father sat me down and showed me how to fill in a logic problem grid by reading the simple statements and drawing conclusions from the information given (and not given). I liked filling in the boxes. It was very orderly. And neat.
I'm sure that when I first came across Su Duko, they weren't called that. Well... maybe they were in Japan, but in whatever Games magazine (or actually it was probably Dell magazine's Math Puzzles and Logic Problems) they were called something different. [Edit: They were called Number Place.] I used to gobble those magazines up. The logic problems I grew bored with after a while, but I still start to drool when I thumb through some of the math puzzles. They publish a few math puzzles in Games magazine, but not nearly as many as I'd like.
The thing I find so amusing by this Su Doku boom is that, actually, I don't find them very interesting. I went through a phase where I really enjoyed them, and did them compulsively, but really it's pretty simple deduction. If you fill each little box with all the numbers that could go there, it's really easy to see which numbers must go where. Of course after a while you don't have to fill all of the possibilities in, but you get my drift. It takes a good eye but not all that much brain power.
Nowadays, I have a subscription to Puzzle Japan. Everyday, three or four new puzzles are posted and you accumulate them as you stay subscribed. So right now, I have access to 619 puzzles. This will change at 4:00 this afternoon. They have seven different types of puzzles: Sudoku (they don't break it into two words), Edel, Kakro, Slither Link, Nurikabe, Hitori and Light Up. My favourite is Nurikabe, by far, and then Hitori, Kakro and Light Up (which isn't very hard, but is very fun). Sudoku comes toward the end. If you go to their site you can try a few of the puzzles and see what they're all like - I know the Japanese names don't help much.
The Edel puzzles are lots of fun but I like them much better on paper than digitally. Conceptis has them too (and a few other visual puzzles), and they have them in colour as well, which is nice.
Puzzles of any kind are great, of course. Keeps your problem solving skills sharp. Any of you out there who are addicted to these Su Doku, do take a look at some of Puzzle Japan's other stuff, because some of it really is very good. Drop me a line if you get into it (I'm curious), or if you're unsure of how to do some of them. The instructions they give are pretty straightforward, if terse.
Terror!
Yes, terror. Today we, along with the rest of the nation, got a very special brochure in our mailbox: Preparing for Emergencies: What you need to know. i.e. What to do in the case of a terrorist attack.
"Emergencies" include
- Fire prevention and safety
- Bombs
- Chemical, biological or radiological (CBR) incident
There's also a section on "Helping to prevent a terrorist attack." According to this booklet:
Terrorists need...
A place to live: Are you suspicious about any tenants or guests?
To plan: Have you seen anyone pay an unusual amount of attention to security measures at any location?
Money: Individuals may set up bogus bank accounts, copy credit cards, return goods for large cash refunds.
Equipment: If you are a retailer, do you have any cause to be suspicious about anything being bought?
On the page after this, we're told: Do not hesitate to tell the police.
Maybe it's me, but I'm finding it disturbingly easy to draw parallels here between this document and, oh, Stalin's Russia - where denouncing your neighbour to the secret police was not just condoned, but encouraged. I guess this is where using a supermarket loyalty card could come back and bite you in the ass.
The whole thing is about 20 pages long and I must admit to finding it alternately amusing and horrifying. It is informative, though, and if the government is going to continue to scare us all with terror alerts, it's nice to know that they're letting us know what they expect us to do if such a thing does happen.
I'm allowed to order five extra copies. If anyone would like me to get a copy of this for them, let me know!
Edit: Chris informed me that there is already a spoof of this out there.
Euro2004
Well, we're out of Euro 2004. We lost the penalty shoot-out. What this means is that there were two periods of extra-time after the usual 90 minutes were up, because of a tie. When the score was still even after that, they took penalty shots until one team won. Unfortunately that team was Portugal.
So tonight, there will probably be some rioting in our lovely little town. It's bad that England lost, but it is good that we won't have to worry about further disturbances in town, as this tournament is over... for us, at least.
SNOW
It snowed! I love it. It's sort of pathetic snow - already melting and you can see the grass sticking up from beneath it - but it's still SNOW. Whee!
As always, click on the thumbnail for the bigger image!
