Merl’s Blog

When I saw this I imagined it is how the Large Hadron Collider works.

I’ve just realised I haven’t blogged for ages, been busy with work and being a grumpy bastard because I live in a city full of halfwit chavs and its been cold and dark. Maybe I am suffering from SAD.

It’s now getting lighter in the evening and so I feel motivated to blog a little.

My attempt to increase traffic to my blog had little effect overall, although there was an initial peak I guess this was caused by the blogger ping effect as I uploaded my new story.

This morning the DEC, who I originally made my donation to the Tsunami appeal through, finally took my donation from by bank account. I sure hope someone wasn’t hanging around hoping to buy some food or medicine with the money that I originally pledged a day or so after the initial earthquake.

Currently listening to: You know you were loved by Lou Reed

My blog doesn’t get that much traffic – hardly surprising I guess. Anyhow I got to wondering how might be improved with a few choice keywords.

So here we go:
michael jackson, oscar nominations, ipod shuffle, hardcore sex, cheap software, free downloads, prince harry.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Currently listening to: Double Bass by Gorillaz

What’s the correct toilet etiquette when taking a piss?

Heading off to the Hole in the Ground’s toilet I find the floor is 1/4 inch deep in some liquid.

So do I paddle to the urinal and take a leak, or stand at the edge of the lake and piss on the floor?

Option one leaves you with stained shoes, if the liquid is indeed urine – of course if I had litmus paper about my person I could have checked the acidity of the liquid to aid my decision, or just squat down and done a taste test.

Option two was never really an option – I’m shy.

Currently listening to: My cat snoring!!

I read somewhere that a solar panel 70 square miles in area, built in the Sahara Dessert and using current (there’s a joke there somewhere) technology, could supply all of the world’s electrical power requirements – quite amazing. I appreciate that a 70 square mile solar panel is rather large but in terms of the earth’s land surface area, which is 57,500,000 sq miles, it is tiny – unlike the cable coming out of the end which would have to be huge.

So with at least four power cuts locally this year, and concerns that we in the UK are going to be saddled with a brown-out ridden, unreliable electrical grid like the Yanks – thanks to under investment by the power companies and dodgy regulators. I got to wondering what the world would be like if some serious research money was put into solar panel development.

Imagine you could pick up a 6ft x 2ft 6in solar panel at B&Q; as easily as a sheet of MDF and at a sensible price. If we give Apple Computers the the job of designing it then it would be plug and play, or would that be plug and power, and would just…, well…, work.

As technology advances we might end up with clothing with flexible and washable solar panels built in. Small quantities of power on the move for you phone, camera, GPS or iPod.

What about photovoltaic paint – slap it on a fence or the shed roof and light up your home – any spare juice you put into the National Grid and charge them for it. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

In the meantime, as I wait for this technology to evolve, I’ve put each work computers on a UPS and have a 2.5KW generator in the garden shed for emergencies.

Currently listening to: Weak by Skunk Anansie

Sri Lankan wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed more than 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island’s coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found.“No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit,” HD Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lanka’s Wildlife Department, said yesterday.

“I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening.”

The waves washed floodwaters up to 3km inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged south-east, Sri Lanka’s biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards.

Here’s the complete article.

Currently listening to: Brain Stew by Green Day

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers, of which, accordingly to my logs, there are very few, apart from search bots, who wont understand the sentiment of this message unless the have become sentient.

Currently listening to: Broken Stones by Paul Weller

The price of a few items you might come across during your day:

Airbus A300 (for your weekend in Spain) £30 million

Jumbo Jet (for your trip to Oz or Disney) £120 million

Power station (for half a million homes) £300 million

Cross channel ferry (2,800 passengers) £115 million

Hospital (900 beds) £190 million

Supermarket £5-25 million

NHS new computer system £6,200 million

Yes, that is the correct number of zeros. Well apart from the zeroes who are dishing out this contract.

Somebody is pulling my plonker…

I have moved the blog!

It is now at Merls own place: http://blog.merls.co.uk/ therefore please amend your bookmark.

Thanks

Currently listening to: Don’t Stop by Fleetwood Mac

Leaning on the bar in the Hole in the Ground with Milt and Raul last night my attention was caught by two guys on the other side of the bar. They were giving the barman Mark, a decent chap by the way, a hard time.

Apparently these old buggers were unhappy with the service, wanted assurances that their pint would be topped off properly this time, and also wanted to use the same glasses as before – which Mark advised them he wasn’t supposed to do because of Health and Safety guidelines.

Listening to them moaning I felt incensed, I hadn’t seen these guys before, so what they hell were they doing in my boozer – moaning. That’s our function, only we have the right to constantly harp on about slow service and short measures.

Bloody cheek!