Posts Tagged ‘meme’

1. Yesterday my Wordless Wednesday picture was of this vase full of nuts and I promised I’d post an explanation.
   
2. I was walking in Newsham Park in Liverpool a year ago. As I went under a Horse Chestnut tree a gust of wind brought a liberal shower of Horse Chestnuts down on me. Fortunately it was a chilly day so I had a thick hat on. The one at the front is new and shows what they looked like when they fell on me.
3. I don’t know why but I collected them up – it seemed like the thing to do. I probably wasn’t thinking straight – I’d just been nutted by a load of nuts on my nut.
4. I dried them out, got rid of a few bad nuts and put the 122 that remained in a glass vase from Woolworths.
5. If I were a modern artist I’d sell them to a gallery and call it "What the sky looks like when it falls on your head"
6. The Common Horse Chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum) was introduced to Britain from the Balkans in southern Europe in the 17^th century. They have distinctive oval leaves. A typical mature Horse Chestnut tree is around 25m tall although some reach 35m.
7. The nuts are inedible but much sought after by children. In Britain we call them Conkers and children play a game with them.
8. Now the science bit: They weigh 0.6kg (1.3lbs) so the average conker is 0.05kg (0.01lbs).
9. They have a volume of 0.55l or 0.0005m³ (0.12 imperial gallons 0.15 us gallons) giving an average volume of 0.0045lm³ or 4.5cm³ (0.001 imperial gallons 0.0012 us gallons) each. That gives a density of 1090kg/m³ (68.1lbs/ft³).
10. Assuming the tree is 25m tall a conker falling from the top of the tree will take 2.3s to hit the ground. Assuming the conkers on average fell from half that height 1.6s to hit the ground.
11. The velocity of that theoretical falling conker will be 16m/s (51ft/s) or 56km/h (35mph).
12. The impact energy for our theoretical conker is 0.6J (0.8 foot-pound force). As a comparison the impact energy of a brick falling the same distance would be 370J (500 foot-pound force). Or if I was a journalist being hit by a conker is equivalent to being hit by two three millionths of an elephant falling out of a tree.
13. I’ll take getting conked on my cranium by conkers over elephants any day.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

What the sky falling on your head looks
like; and you can forget collecting any ruddy larks.

1. When they say it will only take a minute of your time it never is. I wouldn’t mind but they’ll never give me an address for me to send my bill.
2. 99% are a waste of my time and the company paying for its time. I don’t need new double-glazing tested to withstand the long artic winter.
3. When they pretend to be calling on behalf of a company you actually deal with for something important but can’t tell you which one or my name. The law has two words for that – False Pretences. I also have two words for it but I’m too polite to say them here.
4. That they call at times their statistical models say they will catch me and make a sale. Otherwise known as dinnertime and when I’m in the shower.
5. When you ask them nicely to go away they’ve been told they have to keep trying. They’ve been taught we are too polite to hang up. I’m not too polite I apologise and do it anyway then I feel bad because I’ve been rude and that makes me angry for about five minutes. Then I think why am I the one who is angry and hope their boss has an accident at a demonstration of stone cladding double glazing and ends up with an attractive new look.
6. That an over-paid marketing executive is so uncreative; so burnt out; and so lacking in ideas at their job that they think this is the best way to make me like their brand and buy their mythril framed double-glazing. If you can’t come up with a better strategy why not get work doing something you’re good at. Something honest. Like robbing banks.
7. I’m signed up to the Telephone Preference Service (UK) so the ones that call me are they’re ignoring that. Basically I only get the really unethical cold callers with the cheapest scripts, Dickensian sweatshop conditions and the staff who’ve already taken the most stick.
8. They have to have my number either from a company I’ve given it to for some important reason or be using hardware that calls banks of numbers. One is a breach of trust the other is an abuse of the phone system. At least when you get an obscene call your not the only one getting abused*
9. Friends use answer phones to screen calls for cold callers and I hate speaking to answer phones. The beep makes me a gibbering idiot. I can’t put words together in the right order. I’m more coherent speaking to an attractive woman than an answer phone. The only worse thing is an attractive woman’s answer phone.
10. Sometime I get more cold calls in a month when I’m in than I get calls from people I know. Make your own punch line up for that one.
11. When the phone rings and you’re expecting a call you get a bit excited. A bit like a small child, maybe it’s an attractive woman calling, but no it’s a cold call to sell me raspberry ripple flavoured double glazing.
12. A section of the most talented and well educated part of many developing countries population is sat around trying to sell me antique style double glazing because it’s cheaper to employ them than to come up with a smart targeted way of selling me double glazing for my car. The only experience of westerners workers in foreign call centres get is from cold calling. We hate their calls and they think we’re rude, obnoxious, angry bores who need double glazing. . That’s great form of cultural exchange.
13. That’s a great message to send when one of those workers is the leader of their nation in twenty years. One day one of them may have nuclear launch codes.

* This joke was "acquired" from Margaret Smith

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Finish short story for ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
2. Work on my novel only another 20K or so to go
3. Tidy my flat
4. Reading – lots of it
5. Catching up on some DVD watching
6. Go to the cinema
7. Work on my impworks web site
8. Finish writing my first facebook application
9. Make some pictures with Vue
10. Taking some photographs for Wordless Wednesday
11. Write at least one new python script for Vue
12. Go to the Liverpool 800 exhibition
13. Fail to do 50% of the above because of either sleeping in, getting a cold or bad weather

Bonus 13 – 13 smileys to celebrate 25 years of the smiley

   Traitional   Wink   Noseless B-) Sunglasses  Wide Eyes   Unhappy    Kiss :-< Forlorn
:-\ Undecided -:-) Mohawk :-{} Wearing Lipstick   Tongue stuck out  %-^ Picasso

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Robert A Heinlein – Particularly for the Past Through Tomorrow stories but also his novels (which I’ve read most of)
2. Harry Harrison – For The Stainless Steel Rat novels, Make Room! Make Room! and pretty much everything else except the Bill the Galactic Hero stories that I just can’t get into
3. Frank Herbert – Dragon in the Sea, the Dune series and many of his other works
4. JRR Tolkien – For The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit but I’m not bothered about the rest

5. Bernard Cornwall – The Sharpe novels which are easy to read

6. Raymond Chandler – The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely and The Long Goodbye but mostly for his style of prose

7. C.S. Forester – For the Horatio Hornblower novels, The African Queen, The Gun and all his other novels I’ve read (which is most of them)

8. Wilfred Owen – The only poet to make the list. His work is still so moving almost 100 years after his tragic death

9. Dumas – For the swash and buckle of D’Artagnan Romances and The Count of Monte Cristo

10. Alistair MacLean – For all his thrillers and adventure novels

11. Terry Pratchett – For being funny, clever and prolific

12. Ian Fleming – For Bond but particularly the short stories and novella which tell you more about Bond than many of the novels

13. Nevil Shute – For Slide Rule and A Town Like Alice

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Black Peppercorns
2. Mild Madras
3. Birdseye Red Chillies
4. Turmeric
5. Cinnamon
6. Green Cardamom
7. Ground Nutmeg
8. Tandoori Massala
9. Ground Ginger
10. Garam Masala
11. Celery Salt
12. Ground Coriander
13. Crystallised Ginger

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Architecture – The waterfront, the cathedrals and William Brown Street are often mentioned but there are many more distinctive buildings throughout the city
2. Music – From the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to a band you may have heard of called the Beatles
3. Sport – Notably Liverpool and Everton football clubs and the Grand National at Aintree
4. Visual Arts – From the varied collections in the city galleries to the SuperLambBanana and Turning the Place Over
5. The night life – Although I’ve not been out clubbing in years
6. Education – There are the three Universities (the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool Hope University), the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and an assortment of schools and colleges.
7. The people
8. Poetry – including famous poets like Roger McGough and Adrian Henri
9. Eating out – the choice of types of food to eat in Liverpool is excellent and so wide I can’t list even a fraction here
10. Museums – Liverpool has Merseyside Maritime Museum, World Museum Liverpool, the International Slavery Museum, National Conservation Centre and Sudley House
11. FACT – A great little cinema
12. Festivals and Events – from the 800 celebration this year to the capital of culture next year and the various regular festivals there is usually something happening
13. Did I mention the people?

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Mint
2. Thyme
3. Marjoram
4. Parsley
5. Tarragon
6. Sage
7. Dried Rosemary
8. Coriander Leaf
9. Oregano
10. Basil
11. Ground Cumin
12. Chilli Powder
13. Mustard Powder

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My short story, The Electron Jockey, has been accepted for Astonishing Adventures Magazine issue #1 here are some of the character’s who appear in The Electron Jockey or the sequels I’m writing at the moment. For a bit of fun most of their names were taken straight from the names on the 600-1200 messages in my google mail spam folder.

1. Dale Hoover: A small time operator who thinks he’s a big fish
2. Wu Xiong: Warlord’s Steward
3. Raul Harrison : An ex-boxer
4. Mot: A secretive hero in the pulp tradition
5. Dusty Sellers: An antiquarian book seller and former racing driver
6. Roxie Ryan: A down on her luck night club singer
7. Jonathan Ruffin: The inevitable British Butler
8. Ferdinand Largent: A safe cracker who doesn’t use explosives
9. Tanya V Coffman: A Bureau of Internal Revenue accountant
10. Enigme: A famous illusionist, hypnotist, stage magician and film star
11. Ayumi: A mysterious Japanese woman – is she an innocent bystander or a deadly assassin?
12. Everett Diggs: A journalist and writer
13. Cesar Brown: The Syndicates man on the West coast

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. A Police Box (Doctor Who)
2. A Wardrobe (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis)
3. A direct strike from a Nuclear warhead (Farnham’s Freehold, Robert A Heinlein)
4. A DeLorean (Back to the Future)
5. Visiting with fairies (Mythology)
6. Thinking hard (Heroes)
7. A Quantum Accelerator (Quantum Leap)
8. Cryogenics (The Door into Summer, Robert A Heinlein)
9. Being a Miser (A Christmas Carol, Dickens)
10. A Lame Demon (Paris avant les homes, Pierre Boitard)
11. A Time Machine (The Time Machine, H.G. Wells)
12. Just about any method you can think of covered above and a few that aren’t including travelling very fast and stepping through a portal (Star Trek)
13. Dreaming
14. Reading a good book
15. Setting your clocks to the wrong time
16. Living in an earlier time zone
17. Using the button at the bottom of the blogger panel to change the time or date

If you could travel in time when would you go to?

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!