Wednesday 14 February 2007

Automatic doors

Me and my sister were walking out of Wilkos yesterday, and as we were walking through the slidey doors she said 'open sesame'. Now normally this wouldn't be worth mentioning, because every sane person says 'open sesame' when they walk through automatic doors, but I'm telling you about it because there followed an interesting discussion about how they knew you wanted to go through. We came up with the new and controversial theory that, despite evidence to the contrary, the doors are not, in fact, sound sensitive (and if you don't belive me, I tried it! They do open even if you don't say 'open sesame'!).
Our new and amazing theory was that the doors were mildly telepathic, they pick up the expectation of opening which your brain radiates and convert it into the electronic signals which open the door. This means that if someone who has never been through slidey doors before went through on their own, it wouldn't open! (And then they would walk slap bang into it! hah!)
It anyone cares to test this out for me by finding someone who hasn't ever used one, I would be most grateful, otherwise I will just assume I'm right (of course).

P.S. If you are from the Nobel Prize committee and reading this, please post a message and I'll send you my contact details right away, although I must insist any credit is shared jointly with my sister.

Monday 12 February 2007

Funny Signs

Here is a collection of funny signs I have seen around, mostly on holiday when there's always a camera handy.



Evil golf buggies of DOOM! They have to be chained up so they don't eat passers by!

Just what this house was opposite, I'm not quite sure.


Hehehe- It looks just like a real road sign. I can't think why this would ever be such a big problem they would need a proper sign for it!

That's it for today, I'll be back with some more funny signs later.

Sunday 11 February 2007

A snowman candle




While searching through my boxes of clutter today, I came across this little snowman candle. I have no recollection of how it got there (though that's not unusual) and I started thinking about what sort of a company would make a funky snowman candle like this.
Perhaps a small family candle making business was lured by the opportunity to boost their winter profits, or some manager in a huge multinational corporation was desperately searching for innovative new product lines. I think the coolest idea would be if it was made by some 'Joe Bloggs' of a guy who decided to quit his job and take up making snowmen candles. He might have only made twenty before deciding that it wasn't working out for him. I wonder if it would sell really well on e-bay if I attached my speculations about it's origins; 'snowman candle that might (or might not) be LIMITED EDITION!'
It's funny to think that every item lying about your house has a story behind it, and I often have fun trying to imagine the weird people who came up with the idea for pens with fluffy birds on top, or pineapple corers, or floating banana boat soap dishes.

Smiles

I was thinking about smiles today (don't ask!), so I looked the word up in the dictionary, and for some reason found the definition somewhat amusing.

"The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English ... smile / smÄ«l / • v. [ intr. ] To form one's features into a pleased, kind, or amused expression, typically with the corners of the mouth turned up and the front teeth exposed: she was smiling"

I often wonder why on earth the dictionary-writers even bother with definitions like this, it's not as if anyone would not know the word, unless they were foreign, in which case the would not use the Oxford dictionary! Maybe they were told they would only be employed for as long as they were still writing definitions, so they were really scraping the bowl (it should be barrel, but cake mixture tastes so nice!) for words so they could keep their job as long as possible.
I can just imagine a bunch of incredibly bored office workers sitting around making up new words for hours on end-
"I think we could still do with another word for 'nice' "
"What, isn't 50* enough?"
*(And no, I didn't just make this figure up, count for yourself)

Another thing I like about this definition is it makes it sound so technical, like 'The Idiot's Guide to Smiling:'
  1. Use facial muscles to pull up mouth corners
  2. Part lips to partially expose front teeth
  3. Do not be distressed if the area around your eyes starts to crease slightly, this is perfectly normal and is even experienced by professional smilers
  4. If you are going for the 'traditional sincere' look, it is advisable to find something which pleases or amuses you before attempting to smile

I wonder if we natually smile, or are we brought up to do it by people smiling around us? Is there a culture in the world where smiling is rude, or has an entirely different meaning? There could be a HSBC advert about that!

Saturday 10 February 2007

Mr. Stinky




Hello and welcome to my blog. In my first ever post I am going to introduce my best friend: Mr. Stinky!
As you can see, Mr. Stinky is a sock puppet (but don't tell him that, he gets awfully upset). His interests include hang gliding, philosophy and searching for pretty looking buttons, beads and other small shiny things (I rather suspect he case a mild case of magpieitus)! Please don't be concerned if he writes the occasional article himself, as sock can have a lot to say too, especially an outspoken sock like Mr. Stinky.