Eye Contact
Being off work, I’m spending a lot of time in the Woman’s World. This is the world out of doors during office hours, when all the mums with prams are out along with the elderly widows, whose hubbies couldn’t take the pace and popped their clogs a mere 5 or 10 years after retirement. (Incidentally, why has women’s retirement age been traditionally lower than men’s, when women outlive men by 10 years or more?)
It’s brought back to my attention a strange observation. In supermarkets, men are far politer than women. Now this is obviously written with a gender bias (I believe the gulf in outlook between the two genders makes almost all discussion on gender issues near impossible) but from this man’s point of view, the simple matter of two trolleys passing is generally much easier with another man piloting the other trolley. Here’s how the etiquette goes:
Guy pushing trolley notices other trolley on collision course.
Guy looks in the eyes of the person pushing the other trolley.
Other person is also a guy, who is therefore looking in the eyes of guy a.
Some magic happens (I’ve not managed to analyse what exactly happens here. I think it’s in the eyes and body positioning)
Both guys know whether the other guy wants to stop there, go back, or pass on the left or right.
Now in the guy/lady scenario:
Guy pushing trolley notices other trolley on collision course.
Guy looks in the eyes of the person pushing the other trolley.
Other person stares at goods on shelf, shopping list or floor and either does not change course or charges directly at guy.
Guy defers to lady.
Also, walking around town with my slightly squiffy back, I’ve noticed this is a common thing. The number of people who seem to charge directly at you while looking in nearby shop windows with gritted determination is surprising. Now before you get all scientific on my ass, I’m well aware that these observations are extremely subjective and not at all statistically reliable: I didn’t take the time to tally up the people that this didn’t happen with, and have no control to compare with.
I began to wonder about this eye contact thing. In the end I thought it must boil down to a sexual prey scenario: don’t meet a guy’s eyes of you’[ll end up bringing up his kids on a run-down council estate and having to turn tricks for cigarettes. Or something. I thought how sad! All that perfectly platonic human contact down the toilet for the sake of a sexual neurosis! I tried to think whether it was a specifically British thing: don’t the spanish make eye contact for much longer than the Brits and it doesn’t mean anything there? God! Why to people have to always assume there’s some sexual dimension to be avoided at all cost? How sad!
On the way home, a girl was walking up the road, the sun behind her. I couldn’t make out her features but she had the most unruly mane of blonde hair I’d seen since Glastonbury ‘96… Almost in dredlocks. As she moved into the shadows her face became visible, and there was this lovely pair of bright eyes looking me straight in the eye, and a sort of half-concealed knowing smile was wrestling with her features, trying to get out.
Woo hoo! Said my LSB. I’m in there! Follow her home! Go On!
D’oh.
Well, ‘oo’d'a’ thought it!
Went out dancin’ last night, first time in a while I can tell you, to Bump City, where my mate Stu DJ’s, and they have a live funk band. It was a great night, I was about an hour late getting there in the end what with being (a) slack (b) diosorganised and (c) unable to do anything in a hurry with my back out of sorts. Arrived to a filling venue (only about 100 capacity in there anyway) and some good sounds from Stu. I’d walked down - walking (nearly) always does my back good, as long as I’m gentle and lie down when I’ve had enough. I kicked off the evening by spending my entire drinks budget on a double scotch, and bumped into Jim the Groover at the bar… I broke the news that I wasn’t going to be grooving too much and went down to see Kate, Alex and Kim.
Well.
Jim kicked off the dancing and I wasn’t too far behind. Kate et al joined in a couple of songs later, and I was the model of restraint, lots of gentle, civilised dancing that would make an uncle at a wedding proud. Then the band kicked in. As the floor filled up I was bumped a couple of times, which *did* upset the back, and after a while I stood out and leant on the wall to ease the tension.
Then Stu *had* to go and play James Brown didn’t he!
So I started giving it some. The earlier dancing had clearly served as a warm-up, as I found a much larger range of movement was available to me. Now the amazing part is: I walked home from there, went to bed, and this morning woke a little stiff but certainly not in pain! All day I have had the most free and relaxed back I can remember since this whole sorry affair began!
So now it’s back with the patience, patience, and trying not to overdo it!
What not to do after pouring petrol down your shirt
Well obviously it goes without saying, don’t pour petrol down your shirt, but this was unintentional and unexpected and resulted in quite a thorough dousing with flammable, possibly carcinogenic spirits. So I ran (hobbled) inside, took off the shirt and, since I was in the middle of working on the car and all my prized tools were lying around out there, bunged it straight in the washing machine, along with some bedding and a little underwear that needed a wash.
I now have underwear and bedclothes that make your eyes water and are probably a deal more flammable than they were when I bought them.
Ho hum.
It is a USB optical wheelymouse.
Many of us spend upwards of 6 hours a day trying to convince computers to do our bidding. The odds are stacked against us: the cynical approach of some software companies and the incompetence of others; the unreckonable complexity of the modern computer and all that may not be installed that we require, or may be installed, that conflicts with something else; network-based drives that disappear half way through saving your morning’s work; web pages that try to install language packs or worse when all you want to do is see how big a furlong is; and the variety of form-factors - keyboards, touchpads, montitors.
The last thing you want in the middle of all this is to have to take 6 attempts to point at the thing you want to use. If you’ve ever used a machine at a university or in a public library, you’ll probably know this one: the pointer seems to reach an invisible obstacle on the screen and it doesn’t matter what you do with the mouse you can’t seem to get it to go above a certain location on the screen. This is caused by cruft being picked up by the mouseball and deposited on the rollers inside. The number of times I’ve taken the ball out of a public mouse and scraped this matter off the rollers with the blunt side of a key… But this is not always a practical solution. For example I didn’t dare try it in the library in the picturesque town of Visby, Gotland, Sweden for fear of having to explain in some irate librarian’s second or third language.
The cruft itself probably doesn’t bear thinking about. I’d wager it’s mostly made out of dead cells and sweat deposited by the heel or the many users’ hands, along with dust from the surrounding environment. Eeew.
With an optical mouse, there are no such moving parts. You can use it on carpets or your lap with greater success than one with a ball, and - while the pads on its underside do pick up the cruft, it (a) doesn’t get into the moving parts and (b) is easier to clean off. The product of this is that it is much easier to avoid thinking about dead cells & sweat. Plus your mouse pointer always goes where you want it.
Now, ownership of a better mouse does not help you in all situations. However, a USB plug means you can plug into many machines and they will recognise and configure the mouse within seconds. Whether a desktop windows box, linux box, or a laptop with touchpad or nipplemouse, if it has a USB port, you can play! I expect it’ll be a few years before libraries have modern enough computers for this to be useful there.
Discover the Way of The USB Optical Wheelmouse!
I’m off to the estate agents to see about a cult headquarters now…
Back trouble sucks!
Well, it’s almost a month now since I stood up at work and had to immediately lie down as my back went into spasm. It’s been a slow process, recovery, and it’s not over yet by any means. There has been progress though - I can get up and down pretty much as and when I decide to now, rather than having to carefully roll into various positions that allow me to get into other positions that eventually let me get up. I also noticed last night that I was climbing the stairs with a symmetrical gait, which has to be good news. It’s strange though, because I don’t tend to notice the increased mobility as much as the fact the pain seems to change, but not decrease much. It seems that whenever I get a new exercise or get manipulated, the next two days show great leaps and bounds and I feel as if I’m mostly better, then the following few days it feels as if it’s worsening. It can get quite depressing but I’m forgetting to note that underneath the ups-and-downs of the levels of discomfort, I seem to be gaining mobility all the time.
The problem is not eased by the fact that the only decent furniture in my house is my thermarest and an office chair I brought with me all the way from Southend in 1995… and that is only ?*half* decent. I’m going to get a posture seat but have no idea how to make a space for it - the small lounge here contains sofa, two chairs (all soft and saggy) a dining table and four chairs (all rickety) and a fireplace. There’s not a lot of room for extra furniture. The only alternative is to de-junk the front room (which has played study/junkroom for the last couple of years). In there though is a single bed, fireplace, wardrobe and desk that I am not at liberty to throw away.
I wish this house price crash would hurry up and happen, I’m looking forward to having a place where I’m allowed to throw the furniture away!