Commuting in Half-Term
Posted: Wed 29 May, 2013 Filed under: Commuting, Driving, M1, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Currently, the schools around where I live and work are on a break for half-term , and the effect this has had on my commute is just ridiculous.
During term-time, a “good” commute is 35-45 minutes door-to-door in the morning, and a “bad” one can be an hour plus. The difference in departure time to change from a good to a bad one can be less than ten minutes.
Today, my door-to-door morning run – even with still fairly heavy traffic on the M1 – was 22 minutes. That’s nearly half the time it takes during term-time.
I know more parents drive their kids to school “these days” (and yes, I also know what an old fart that makes me sound like) but the difference in traffic-flow really is surprising, even with that knowledge.
Ageing
Posted: Sat 25 May, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), People, Thoughts 2 Comments »Most of the time, I forget I’m 41. Hell, most of the time I have to work it out when someone asks how old I am. No-one ever believes I’m the age I am, and most people seem to estimate it as mid-30s (or less than 12, depending on my behaviour at the time) which is fine with me. Fact is, people have been estimating my age as mid-30s since I was early 20s, so I suppose I’m aging fairly well in general – although I must’ve been fuck-rough at 20.
My hair’s been going grey since mid-20s, and that doesn’t really bother me. My mum went grey early on – less charitable souls could observe that might be related to having me – so it’s always been expected.
Recently though, there’ve been other signs of ageing, and I can’t deny, my own sense of vanity (small though it is) rebels against them.
Firstly it’s been the hair growing on my ears – what the hell is that about? For some reason I now get long hairs growing on the top of my ears, and rounds the edges. I don’t see the point of it, but there we go. It’s annoying- to me – but I’m sure no-one else cares.
And now the grey hairs are appearing elsewhere. Eyebrows first – and man do they show up! And now today, I discovered the latest ignominy – I’m even getting grey chest-hairs. Obviously they’re less publicly visible, but all the same, it’s just a bit depressing, all these combining signs that I truly am getting older…
Bastardry
Posted: Mon 15 April, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Commuting, Domestic, Driving, People, Stupidity, Travel Leave a comment »Over the last year, one particular section of my daily commute has made me realise two things
- People are really fucking stupid
- I’m a complete bastard, and still get amused by watching stupid people screw things up
The road section is this one – Junction 13 of the M1. The particularly bad section is at the top – I come off the Motorway at the bottom right of the photo, have to go all the way round the first roundabout, over the motorway bridge, and straight over the second one to head towards home.
Junction 13 of the M1
However, rule #1 above says that people are really fucking stupid. This means that
- At least once a week, I see people on the first roundabout wanting to turn right (i.e. the same way I go), get confused, and drive back on to the M1, instead of taking the next turn off.
- Pretty much every day I see people in the wrong lanes on the first roundabout, being in the left-hand lane to turn right, right-hand lane to turn left or go straight-on, cutting lanes across the roundabout, etc. etc.
- Probably three times out of five, I’ll see people come off the other roundabout, and be totally confused about where to go next. That turn-off has two lanes – the left one to go straight on, the right one to – yes! – turn right. The number of people I follow who are in the wrong lane, and completely bemused by the junction is just unreal.
Of course, with option two there is also the – very minor – justification that it’s a confusing or badly designed junction (and in my opinion it is a bit shit) but it actually isn’t that bad. Slightly obscure, but not bad – so long as drivers read the signs and the roads. Which is, of course, the underlying problem.
And rule #2 is that I’m still a bastard. I can’t help but laugh at the fuck-knuckles who drive back onto the M1, and also (to a lesser degree) to the ones who fuck up the second roundabout.
I’m not perfect when it comes to driving – and I’d never claim to be – but at least I can read the road and don’t screw up the simple things.
Sweary Hypocrisy
Posted: Sun 14 April, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cinema, Cynicism, Hypocrisy, Offensive Repetition, People, Reviews(ish), Seeing Films, Sweary, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »I’ve found a new source of amusement – the “Parental Guides” for films on IMDB.
A perfect example is here, for the new Tom Cruise film “Oblivion”
Why is it so amusing? For wondrous things like this…
bitch used 2 times bastard 1 time ass 4 times shit 6 times 1 use of fuck. Son-of-a-b***h is used once.
It’s the hypocrisy of it all – coupled with the tweeness. In the example above, it’s OK to write bitch, bastard and fuck, but son-of-a-bitch gets asterisked out? Fuck me.
Increased Security
Posted: Sat 13 April, 2013 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Getting Organised, People, Security, WordPress 1 Comment »At the moment, there is a huge attack going on against blogs using WordPress.
It’s primarily attacking the blogs who’ve kept a lot of the default settings – particularly keeping the primary user as “admin” with weak/known passwords – but still, it’s better to make sure that things are secure.
D4D™ has always been on an altered install of WordPress – mainly because I’m really bad at leaving things alone – so I’m less concerned about it, but all the same, I’ve added in a couple of security plugins just to reinforce things. I’m also making use of Cloudflare to add another level of security.
It’s going to make things interesting for a lot of Blog Owners on the WordPress platform, though. Basically, if you’re on WP you need to :
- Make sure you’re not relying on the “admin” user
- Add a new user to WP , give it admin rights (and a strong password)
- Set “admin” to have the lowest possible permissions (contributor), or delete it completely.
- If possible, make sure your database isn’t using the wp_ prefix for all wordpress tables.
- Use Cloudflare or similar
- Install the Limit Logins plugin
- If you know what you’re doing, also install the Extend WP Security plugin
- Take backups!
There’s other stuff along the way, but those really are the key points.