(Received from a friend recently)
In case you needed further proof that the human race is doomed through stupidity, here are some actual label instructions on consumer goods.
-----------------------------------------
On Tesco's Tiramisu dessert (printed on bottom)
"Do not turn upside down."
(well...duh, a bit late, huh!)
On Sainsbury's peanuts
"Warning: contains nuts."
(talk about a news flash)
On Boots Children Cough Medicine
"Do not drive a car or operate machinery after taking this medication."
(We could do a lot to reduce the rate of construction accidents if we could just get those 5 year-olds with head-colds off those bulldozers.)
On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding
"Product will be hot after heating."
(...and you thought????...)
On a Sears hairdryer
Do not use while sleeping.
(That's the only time I have to work on my hair.)
On a bag of Fritos
You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside.
(the shoplifter special?)
On a bar of Dial soap
"Directions: Use like regular soap."
(and that would be???....)
On some Swanson frozen dinners
"Serving suggestion: Defrost."
(but, it's just a suggestion.)
On packaging for a Rowenta iron
"Do not iron clothes on body."
(but wouldn't this save me time?)
On Nytol Sleep Aid
"Warning: May cause drowsiness."
(..I'm taking this because???....)
On most brands of Christmas lights
"For indoor or outdoor use only."
(as opposed to what?)
On a Japanese food processor
"Not to be used for the other use."
(now, somebody out there, help me on this. I'm a bit curious.)
On an American Airlines packet of nuts
"Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts."
(Step 3: say what?)
On a child's Superman costume
"Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly."
(I don't blame the company. I blame the parents for this one.)
On a Swedish chainsaw
"Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands or genitals."
(Oh my God..was there a lot of this happening somewhere?)
-----------------------------------------
Keep well...
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Feel good, dare to be different
Atyllah the Hen presented an intriguing post on my birthday, a couple of days ago. It goes without saying that I, as an inveterate Apple Macintosh user with almost 20 years experience, would like to contribute to the worldwide liberation of good feelings all round.
Please enjoy this magnificent parody of the legendary "1984" advertisement, presented in eh... 1983.
On the serious side though, it was a seminal moment in the evolution towards the informational ecosystem we live in today. At the time IBM (Big Blue) was perceived to be the greatest threat to personal informational freedom, a role later taken on by Microsoft in the eyes of many. Here's an address by Steve Jobs in the autumn of 1983 in the runup to the presentation of the first Apple Macintosh.
The times have changed, the markets have evolved beyond recognition and yet one could say that Apple took to opportunity to break open the computer market and create a world in which there was healthy competition amongst suppliers and users, one which still exists today in so many forms.
Freedom is a quality we take on for ourselves, often in the face of daunting obstacles. If one has the courage, the wit and the ability to present and nurture new ideas in society then there is the possibility to succeed in the same way David slew Goliath with nothing more than intuition and innovation.
Keep well, feel well, be different...
Please enjoy this magnificent parody of the legendary "1984" advertisement, presented in eh... 1983.
On the serious side though, it was a seminal moment in the evolution towards the informational ecosystem we live in today. At the time IBM (Big Blue) was perceived to be the greatest threat to personal informational freedom, a role later taken on by Microsoft in the eyes of many. Here's an address by Steve Jobs in the autumn of 1983 in the runup to the presentation of the first Apple Macintosh.
The times have changed, the markets have evolved beyond recognition and yet one could say that Apple took to opportunity to break open the computer market and create a world in which there was healthy competition amongst suppliers and users, one which still exists today in so many forms.
Freedom is a quality we take on for ourselves, often in the face of daunting obstacles. If one has the courage, the wit and the ability to present and nurture new ideas in society then there is the possibility to succeed in the same way David slew Goliath with nothing more than intuition and innovation.
Keep well, feel well, be different...
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Monday, January 15, 2007
Dedication
The things worth doing are worth doing well. On a large scale, on a smaller one and at the totally personal one.
Below is one of my favourite photos, made in Antwerp last year. The master and the apprentice, totally focussed on that one small spot on the ceiling of the cathedral in a floodlit darkness, applying their knowledge and technique to restore the fading treasures.
Their dedication is an echo of the religious intensity of the late Middle Ages, when men and women worked together for what they considered a higher cause, convinced that their activity would lead toward a better world. Europe was filled with the most amazing structures, amplifying their beliefs and giving form to personal need for salvation.
Take a look at the site of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, it's beautiful, it's haunting and confronting if you can read the symbols left behind in stone 700 years ago.
Below is one of my favourite photos, made in Antwerp last year. The master and the apprentice, totally focussed on that one small spot on the ceiling of the cathedral in a floodlit darkness, applying their knowledge and technique to restore the fading treasures.
Their dedication is an echo of the religious intensity of the late Middle Ages, when men and women worked together for what they considered a higher cause, convinced that their activity would lead toward a better world. Europe was filled with the most amazing structures, amplifying their beliefs and giving form to personal need for salvation.
Take a look at the site of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, it's beautiful, it's haunting and confronting if you can read the symbols left behind in stone 700 years ago.
Dedication
The things worth doing are worth doing well. On a large scale, on a smaller one and at the totally personal one.
Below is one of my favourite photos, made in Antwerp last year. The master and the apprentice, totally focussed on that one small spot on the ceiling of the cathedral in a floodlit darkness, applying their knowledge and technique to restore the fading treasures.
Their dedication is an echo of the religious intensity of the late Middle Ages, when men and women worked together for what they considered a higher cause, convinced that their activity would lead toward a better world. Europe was filled with the most amazing structures, amplifying their beliefs and giving form to personal need for salvation.
Take a look at the site of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, it's beautiful, it's haunting and confronting if you can read the symbols left behind in stone 700 years ago.
Below is one of my favourite photos, made in Antwerp last year. The master and the apprentice, totally focussed on that one small spot on the ceiling of the cathedral in a floodlit darkness, applying their knowledge and technique to restore the fading treasures.
Their dedication is an echo of the religious intensity of the late Middle Ages, when men and women worked together for what they considered a higher cause, convinced that their activity would lead toward a better world. Europe was filled with the most amazing structures, amplifying their beliefs and giving form to personal need for salvation.
Take a look at the site of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, it's beautiful, it's haunting and confronting if you can read the symbols left behind in stone 700 years ago.
Friday, January 12, 2007
For he's a jolly good fellow...
Just getting myself in the mood for my birthday tomorrow...
Keep well...
Keep well...
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Springtime on Mars
We humans are doing such a wonderful job of disturbing, distracting and destroying our own planet, one wonders what would happen if we were allowed to continue our explorations into space on the same premises we've taken for granted up to now...
Remember the things that are important in your own life, take care of that which gave you life and gives you meaning in your daily doings, irrespective of the siren's song of exploration and of endlessness, the reality is here and now, and nowhere else...
Keep well...
Remember the things that are important in your own life, take care of that which gave you life and gives you meaning in your daily doings, irrespective of the siren's song of exploration and of endlessness, the reality is here and now, and nowhere else...
Keep well...
Monday, January 08, 2007
Questions of importance
- What is the speed of dark?
- Why are there Braille signs on drive-up ATM's?
- If women wear a pair of pants, a pair of glasses, and a pair of earrings, why don't they wear a pair of bras?
See also a previous post
- What is a "free" gift? Aren't all gifts free?
- After eating, do amphibians have to wait one hour before getting out of the water?
- If knees were backwards, what would chairs look like?
- What happened to the first 6 "ups"?
- Why does your nose run, and your feet smell?
- If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
- How much deeper would the ocean be if sponges didn't live there?
- Why when a man talks dirty to a woman, it's sexual harassment, but when a woman talks dirty to a man, it's $3.95 per minute ?
- You know how most packages say "Open here".What is the protocol if the package says, "Open somewhere else"?
- Since Americans throw rice at weddings do orientals throw hamburgers?
- Why are they called buildings, when they're already finished? Shouldn't they be called builts?
- The light went out, but where to ?
- Why is the alphabet in that order?
- If you got into a taxi and he started driving backwards, would the taxi driver end up owing you money?
- If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
- If a train station is where a train stops, what is a workstation?
Keep well...
- Why are there Braille signs on drive-up ATM's?
- If women wear a pair of pants, a pair of glasses, and a pair of earrings, why don't they wear a pair of bras?
See also a previous post
- What is a "free" gift? Aren't all gifts free?
- After eating, do amphibians have to wait one hour before getting out of the water?
- If knees were backwards, what would chairs look like?
- What happened to the first 6 "ups"?
- Why does your nose run, and your feet smell?
- If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
- How much deeper would the ocean be if sponges didn't live there?
- Why when a man talks dirty to a woman, it's sexual harassment, but when a woman talks dirty to a man, it's $3.95 per minute ?
- You know how most packages say "Open here".What is the protocol if the package says, "Open somewhere else"?
- Since Americans throw rice at weddings do orientals throw hamburgers?
- Why are they called buildings, when they're already finished? Shouldn't they be called builts?
- The light went out, but where to ?
- Why is the alphabet in that order?
- If you got into a taxi and he started driving backwards, would the taxi driver end up owing you money?
- If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
- If a train station is where a train stops, what is a workstation?
Keep well...
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Duck for cover
Some people have the strangest hobbies and/or pasttimes... it's really sad to see the lengths they need to go to to get their kicks...
It could be worse though... imagine a rubber duck fetishist :P
Keep well...
It could be worse though... imagine a rubber duck fetishist :P
Keep well...
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Midwinter murmers
Despite all the changes and confusion of the last few months, I'm particularly happy that I've been able to stay off the medication I've needed every winter, for the first time in several years.
It was so often the case that in September I could already feel the darkness creeping up on me, following on the same lines as the seasonal changes in light. The only difference being that, whilst nature was erupting into a blaze of autumn colour, my soul was bleeding dry in an all-encompassing despair.
This year was different... I changed jobs earlier in the year and took on a position which at first glance would be a step backwards, but one which in return offered me a chance to slow down and look a little more objectively at my life... a difficult and painful business yet one which needed doing at the time.
During the summer and autumn I took on the fundamental difficulties concerning my marriage, again with mixed results but in the main with positive results. There are still so many issues to be resolved in that field that they are still rather daunting at moments. The good news is that we're both trying as best we can to get matters sorted out, trying to respect each others limitations, the bad news is that there are still such frequent eruptions of emotion and ill-feeling that one would still be tempted to give up, take the easy way out and let matters take their own course...
Some measures taken were part of a readjustment in my own personal life style. I'd always been a little overweight, I'm working on that and I'm now losing weight. Not at a particularly spectacular rate but slowly and steadily. I needed more physical activity, which I've been working at a little more conscientiously recently... being outside more often during the day, walking a lot more, getting blood running faster and more often than had been the case during the last few years.
The sum total of this all is that I've been feeling much and much better during the last three months than I have for years, the effects of the depressions that have debilitated me at moments are less pronounced in their effects on my life and I'm a lot more happy than I have been for a very long time.
One of the greatest gifts of being human is the ability to remain hopeful, despite all the pressures toward a contrary state of affairs. I truly think I've been through the worst of my own personal winter and although there will undoubtedly be setbacks from time to time, I'm still convinced that the net result will be better than it ever was.
I'm glad I've written this... it's helped. Keep well...
It was so often the case that in September I could already feel the darkness creeping up on me, following on the same lines as the seasonal changes in light. The only difference being that, whilst nature was erupting into a blaze of autumn colour, my soul was bleeding dry in an all-encompassing despair.
This year was different... I changed jobs earlier in the year and took on a position which at first glance would be a step backwards, but one which in return offered me a chance to slow down and look a little more objectively at my life... a difficult and painful business yet one which needed doing at the time.
During the summer and autumn I took on the fundamental difficulties concerning my marriage, again with mixed results but in the main with positive results. There are still so many issues to be resolved in that field that they are still rather daunting at moments. The good news is that we're both trying as best we can to get matters sorted out, trying to respect each others limitations, the bad news is that there are still such frequent eruptions of emotion and ill-feeling that one would still be tempted to give up, take the easy way out and let matters take their own course...
Some measures taken were part of a readjustment in my own personal life style. I'd always been a little overweight, I'm working on that and I'm now losing weight. Not at a particularly spectacular rate but slowly and steadily. I needed more physical activity, which I've been working at a little more conscientiously recently... being outside more often during the day, walking a lot more, getting blood running faster and more often than had been the case during the last few years.
The sum total of this all is that I've been feeling much and much better during the last three months than I have for years, the effects of the depressions that have debilitated me at moments are less pronounced in their effects on my life and I'm a lot more happy than I have been for a very long time.
One of the greatest gifts of being human is the ability to remain hopeful, despite all the pressures toward a contrary state of affairs. I truly think I've been through the worst of my own personal winter and although there will undoubtedly be setbacks from time to time, I'm still convinced that the net result will be better than it ever was.
I'm glad I've written this... it's helped. Keep well...
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Progressions
You are the red spot... following the lines of an image which represents the progress we appear to make in the course of our lives, searching for meaning and wanting so desperately to achieve perfection at the focus of our respective realities...
Could it be that our reality is just as much an illusion as the images we hold dear?
Just wondering... keep well...
Could it be that our reality is just as much an illusion as the images we hold dear?
Just wondering... keep well...
Monday, January 01, 2007
Ding dong, the witch is dead
The traitor, the demon, the scourge of Iraq and (supposedly) the world at large has been hanged by the neck a day or two ago... the images have circled the world, populations rejoice and it seems a curse has been removed from our world.
The images are sickening, the ways in which they are presented unfortunate... at so very few times in our history the images so disturbing and inhuman have been distributed in such a swift fashion, a human being who erred in such a horrendous way was consigned to his fate in full view of a waiting world, waiting with bated breath as they anticipated his execution and almost pre-orgasmic in the hope of his extinction...
The man involved was a sour, sad and disturbed relic of a world which was in flux at the time... in the era of "decolonisation" and the subsequent shifts of power he managed to grasp the reigns of his country and guide it into an episode of total madness, one which echoed the descent into hell experienced in Europe several decades earlier...
Just for the record, but not as a justification for the iniquitous deeds performed by him and his regime, he was captured and convicted by the powers who helped him into the ruling position of his country, who aided, abetted and financed his war against Iran in the 1980's and kept him in power as long as was necessary... I would beg to assume that part of the blame of the horrors performed in region were part and parcel of a larger strategy in which he and his country were small and manipulatable entities.
He deserved the ultimate penalty, but I beg to offer the gift of justice which becomes every human being on this planet, in that his life shouldn't have been ended before its natural time... the crimes committed were beyond comprehension and yet as befits each and every being who temporarily inhabits this planet of ours he should have been able to live out his life in the way we all should be able, yet being confronted with the results of his own deeds at every turn.
Once again, we should consider the merits, demerits and failings of the concept of "freedom of thought" or freedom in general, in the ways in which it compromises the concepts of "free will' in as far as this exists...
Keep well... think well...
The images are sickening, the ways in which they are presented unfortunate... at so very few times in our history the images so disturbing and inhuman have been distributed in such a swift fashion, a human being who erred in such a horrendous way was consigned to his fate in full view of a waiting world, waiting with bated breath as they anticipated his execution and almost pre-orgasmic in the hope of his extinction...
The man involved was a sour, sad and disturbed relic of a world which was in flux at the time... in the era of "decolonisation" and the subsequent shifts of power he managed to grasp the reigns of his country and guide it into an episode of total madness, one which echoed the descent into hell experienced in Europe several decades earlier...
Just for the record, but not as a justification for the iniquitous deeds performed by him and his regime, he was captured and convicted by the powers who helped him into the ruling position of his country, who aided, abetted and financed his war against Iran in the 1980's and kept him in power as long as was necessary... I would beg to assume that part of the blame of the horrors performed in region were part and parcel of a larger strategy in which he and his country were small and manipulatable entities.
He deserved the ultimate penalty, but I beg to offer the gift of justice which becomes every human being on this planet, in that his life shouldn't have been ended before its natural time... the crimes committed were beyond comprehension and yet as befits each and every being who temporarily inhabits this planet of ours he should have been able to live out his life in the way we all should be able, yet being confronted with the results of his own deeds at every turn.
Once again, we should consider the merits, demerits and failings of the concept of "freedom of thought" or freedom in general, in the ways in which it compromises the concepts of "free will' in as far as this exists...
Keep well... think well...
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