Patently Stupid

Saturday has passed in a haze of shopping and naff TV. It seems that the only things on TV at the moment are adverts selling perfume (for men - ugh), electric toothbrushes and shavers. This implies that they consider their audience to be smelly, hairy and have rotting teeth. And not just me. There is one particularly annoying production which goes on about the 45 patents for the Facescraper 2000 or whatever it is called. Forty Five patents for a razer. Don't make me laugh. I've been trying to think of 45 things you could patent about a razer. Well, here goes:

1: A patent for the idea of actually shaving and removing all those irritating hairs on your face.
2: Amendment to patent one, so that only the men shave.
3: A patent for shaving legs as well. But only if you are a women.
4: Patent for using a sharp steel blade to cut with, rather than a cabbage or other less durable vegetable.
5: Patent for shaving by holding the face still, and moving the razer up and down rather than the reverse.
6: Patent for using shaving cream on the face when shaving.
7: Patent for putting shaving cream on face before shave starts, rather than at end.
8: Patent for adding second blade "to shave closer"
9: Patent for adding third blade "to shave closer still"
Patents 10 to 20 adding additional blades at rate of one very 2 years or so or when we feel like it.
21: Patent for not having too many blades on the razer because it is stupid and makes the razer bigger than your face. Also leads to "Venetian Blind" effect if not pulled far enough down at a time.
22: Patent for having a handle on the razer.
23: Patent for not making the handle out of a live rattlesnake.
Patents 24 to 35 excluding other dangerous creatures including anacondas and polar bears.
36: Patent for using razer for shaving head as well, for authentic Phil Mitchell look.
37: Patent for those silly shaves which leave a thin line of silly beard which looks like you've drawn it on.
38: Errr.
39: That's me all out I'm afraid.

 

Green Eyed Gods

Been reading the blog pages of the Guardian Competition winners. Gosh they are good. But none of them mention Preston Foster. And none of them have Aga Kahn jokes. So there you are.

None of them have pictures of our library either

 

Christmas Good Cheer

Just spent a very happy time at the West Bulls Pub having our Departmental Christmas Lunch (tm). A good time was had by everyone and you are all my bestest mates ever, ever, ever (hic). Oh the other hand, I am driving and have in fact drunk nothing but Cola. I think, but I am just about alone in this, that the following what I have just made up is really funny:

What do you call a cooker that owns race horses? The Aga Kahn.

And, got an email from another blog reader. That makes at least two confirmed... Ian has found out who Preston Foster is. (for those unsure of the significance of this take a look here). To quote Ian "he lived his life in monochrome and died in 1970". And I even got a picture.

Bad news of the day. Didn't get an award in the "Guardian Blogs of the Year". Hmm. May have been because I didn't enter. However, the winner was the diary of a call girl. I'm not sure how I could compete with that.

 

Marking, Frozen Peas and Self Improvement

What can you say about marking? I've got 130 or so scripts to work my way through. I've done more boring jobs. The worst one was on the frozen pea production line - picking bits of pod off a conveyor covered in peas which glided past in front of you for hour after hour. Once you'd been there for a while you thought that the peas were stationary and you were flying past them. We actually had to slow the the belt down so we could get off it. Once the drive failed and three people were hurt in the ensuing crash. But I digress. Marking is OK I suppose. The work is steady and you get into a rhythm after a while. But as you are writing down the marks and assigning numbers you can feel other bits of your brain wriggling and trying to escape to do something more interesting. Then you go off to coffee and find all these random thoughts bubbling up to the surface. Like, is a device for burning pocket calculators a "weapon of maths destruction"? And people think you are going mad.

Actually, in coffee we have a rather neat little book club thing you can use to order books at nice prices. They have a boxed set for sale at the moment:

I'm kind of wondering just what would happen if you gave such a selection of titles to your wife/girlfriend/significant other, and how long it would take to remove them from the orifice which they were subsequently pushed up....

 

Musical Tuesday

A day marking, programming and stuff and then to the school concert to watch very young people do things with musical instruments that I can't. I used to play the piano, and progressed to the point where I know what the black keys are for and the importance of opening the lid before playing. However, to the chagrin of my parents, I discovered that you could get hold of music recorded by people much better at the playing thing that I would ever be - and so at that point I kind of lost interest in making my own. Good concert though. But boy, the seats sure were hard...

Useful Definitions Dept.

Artisan well: A hole in the ground which will make things for you

Geo-stationery orbit: An envelope which hovers over the same part of the earth at all times.

 

Giving it all back, and then a touch of Absolute Power

Spent some of the day giving back marked work to the first year Java class. There are some very good marks in there. Contrary to popular belief, we do like giving good marks out...

Then home to the telly. Rather sad, in that tonight was the last episode of Absolute Power, which is a gloriously funny take on the world of Public Relations. If the BBC don't lose heart with it it could be as big as the "The Office". If you see it out on DVD, buy it! You'll thank me.

 

Decorations

Put up the Christmas Decorations (tm) today. Went up into the loft and brought down the trees, tinsel and assorted seasonal items. One year we lost everything in the loft and ended up buying a whole new set of stuff (if you have seen our loft you would understand how this can happen very easily). The following year, of course, we found the missing stuff. What a Christmas that was.

Tried taking pictures of some of the lights with my phone. Not entirely unsuccessful. But not recognisable either...