Sleepypete's Pillow

There must be some science behind how people decide when to put their adverts on the telly.

The most recent trend I’ve noticed is the commercial van ads surrounding the cricket … The science bit must be making the advertisers (and it’s not just one manufacturer) think that the people watching the sport/cricket are the ones more likely to get a van. I wonder if they’ve considered putting their adverts on to the documentary channels, especially the historical ones, to see if they can catch the re-enactors.

The other pattern is the one that kicks in around 11.30pm or midnight … This is the phone text adverts (get your self a friend by texting anonymous people) that infest the breaks. I get the feeling they’re on at that time because they don’t want to spend the extra cash that would go with prime time ad breaks.

Vulture adverts annoy me, although I can filter them out. These aren’t just the injury lawyer adverts (“I slipped cos I wasn’t looking where I was walking – giz 10 grand”), it’s also the moneylender ads too. These definitely have the science bit fully engaged, they almost always paint a dark, depressing or troubled scene for the person looking for cash, that magically changes to Bright, Happy and Confident outlook when the person goes for the loan. I can recognise the psychology there, which gets me walking away every time.

So – vans & cricket – how come the science bit is getting these adverts on connected with the sport ? I dunno, I’d have expected cricket to be more associated with sunny cars like the panoramic glass ones and convertibles. They might also be looking at the typical cricket player, it seems a more middle class game than football or rugby, so the players could well be interested in commercial stuff through their work instead of their play. It wouldn’t go as far as needing the van to fit all their kit in :

Leg pads, helmet, gloves (multiple pairs), bats (probably a couple), spiked boots, tape, drink, munchies, jumpers, hats. It all adds up. As an allrounder, I could still get away with a lighter bag but I know players who carry so much junk around they have to get what is nicknamed a “coffin” which can get close to being a 2 man lift for size.

Oh – I’ll also happily admit that however much I’d have liked to drive one of the two Mazda sporty cars around, I don’t think I could have put even my small cricket bag into either the MX-5 or boot of their RX-8.

Time for a bit of lunch/breakfast now and then more cricket. England are well and truly on top at the moment, although with South Africa’s underlying class it will get a lot closer.

I had wanted to see this series. 🙂

I should have gone to bed an hour or so ago because ever since I got home from work, I’ve been struggling to keep my eyes open. So I missed most of the Middlesex vs Yorkshire Twenty20 quarter final and my dinner was one sandwich.

(I’m chubby enough to not really get into trouble for a missed dinner, plus I’m eating too much junk at work)

Why am I still up ? I’m currently watching the second episode of Long Way Down, which is the follow up to the series Long Way Round from a few years ago. The first series had Ewan McGregor and his mate Charley Boorman riding from London to New York, going East (through Russia etc). Long Way Down has them going from John O Groats to Cape Town.

The bikes they have rival cars for width !

Series has started in the same form as Long Way Round, looking forward to the rest of it. The two boys take the watcher on a tour of far away countries that we’ll probably never see but present it rather differently to the normal Attenborough type presentation of the wild … I like it 🙂

I’m stuck a little for knowing what game I want to waste my time with at the moment, so I’m looking at the old ones again.

This time it’s the turn of Rowan’s Battle of Britain, a fairly old one that has two modes. One mode has you in the position of the air commander for Britain’s defence in Summer 1940. The second mode has you jumping into the cockpit of a Hurricane or Spitfire to do your part from the flyboy’s seat. (You can also fly as the Germans)

However, when this game came out, it had a critical bug where the game would crash in the campaign mode after just a few minutes of waving the mouse around. I could go into the technical details but that wouldn’t add much. So why the “Yey!” moment ? I’m currently reading through the manual for the official patch and hidden in there is my name, given credit for spotting the root cause of this particular bug. I didn’t fix it but my fault finding efforts allowed the BDG developers to squish da bug within about 2 days of being notified.

Having credit like that gives you the belief that occasionally, you do actually know what you’re talking about with software 🙂 I don’t get that all that much at work, because the technical content is mainly with the contractor with us looking after project management. And project management is far less interesting (to me) than seeing what’s happening with the Wiggly Amps.

Oh – it’s also just started raining at Wimbledon. Nadal is up by 2 sets at the moment but Federer has a chance to get back into it. Good game so far.

Weekend ahoy !

Been a relatively busy one. And varied too in what I’ve been up to at work. I’m looking at a bit too much finance at the moment though, instead of being more interesting engineer type busy. Still, it’s useful stuff as the bosses don’t let us buy as many toys if they think we can’t control the budget.

I’ve been attempting to keep up with the telly stuff and that will ease some over the next week or so as a group of series that I watch are finishing their run. I’ve been watching a rerun of Star Trek Voyager, which has got to nearly the end of its third of seven series. House and Heroes are another which are finishing, like Jericho last week. Jericho seemed a bit rushed in how they finished it but at least it’s been allowed to have a good closing out, unlike series like the new Bionic Woman which just fizzled.

Doctor Who should be a cracker tomorrow, it adds a bit of anticipation when BBC do such a good job of rumour control. There were a couple of flashes of what’s ahead but what we will see is a complete mystery. The writers for the new Doctor Who have been producing some good output but I can’t help feeling that they’re steadily tripping up over what they’ve done before. Sometimes a series can build up a little too much history, Buffy is a good example. I think series 5 had Buffy up against a God, it’s like – ok, they’ve beat a God, where do they go from there ?

The Crazies watched Prince Caspian on Wednesday. Not quite sure what to make of that one, it’s up to the normal Disney production standards and has some very spectacular battle sequences. Somehow it was missing something though. Can a film have a soul ? At least the pizza before was excellent as usual, even if Pizza Hut’s brainwave for how they present garlic bread is rather flawed.

We’ll be watching Wanted tomorrow. It has Angelina Jolie as one of the lead roles, so I’m expecting something special there.

Right – back to Voyager now and later a bit more Warcraft. It’s Alterac Valley weekend, which means most of the players who can participate will be hitting that particular battleground because it’s the most efficient way of earning a currency known as Honour which goes towards buying better gear.

He’s not exactly mainstream is Jools Holland 🙂

Miss A works around the corner … We used to joke that we worked in the best looking project team on the site 🙂 Because of the people who worked in it. The faces have changed over time though, with more mature faces replacing the very young ones. Miss A is the last one left of the young & pretty ones 🙂

(the others are “mature” and pretty !)

this is the 3rd time in as many days that I’ve read a mention of Jools Holland. I have to check them out, I am so uncool at times.

Miss A? Have I missed some juiciness!?

What’s happened since Thursday ? Been up to see mum & dad, with big sis coming along as well. Friday was Newmarket races, Saturday was general chilling out (that was the plan 😉 and watching the England v NZ game before heading home again. Sunday was free and I’ve been back to work today.

Newmarket was a different kind of sporting event. People seemed to feel the need to dress up as if it was a special social occasion. Weird. Meant there were some excellent sights on show, amongst the chavs who stick out because they try too hard. You don’t tend to see much with the racing, apart from the rumble of the horses as they’re approaching and the blur as they flash past. You’re depending on the course announcer to let you know who wins and that’s a bit like trying to hear the proverbial train announcer.

I only put one bet in, an accumulator type that failed on the first race. However, I picked 2 winners on the look of the horse (out of 5 attempts) and 1 on form (out of 2). From someone who’s only seen my sister’s horse for the last few years, that’s not too bad. I wouldn’t have made any worthwhile money though if betting because I was mostly agreeing with the bookies with their favourite to win.

What do I mean by the Look of the Horse ? Form can give you an idea of how the horse is likely to do but the best way is to get a good look at them while they’re in the parade ring. That way, you can see whether they’re healthy and most importantly Up For It. Some horses get a little too excited for the whole thing, some want to follow instead of lead. The ones to look for are the ones who are relaxed, lean and appearing to know what they’re doing. Which is to Pin Back the Ears, Run, Run Fast and Feel The Wind. I feel like that when I open up for sprinting – not had that for quite some time. Getting too excited means energy wasted.

After the racing was a concert by Jools Holland’s band. The bits where Marc Almond guested were the high point here. I have a fuzzy piccy from my mobile and need to figure out how to extract that for posting.

Saturday was more fraught than it needed to be. My mum & dad hadn’t had a trip in the new car yet, so I took ’em to the pub in Lincoln. Car reverses, car comes off the drive, car goes forward, car gets massive judder from the back end. Looks like part of the brake pad on the left rear became detached and welded itself on to the brake disc. Interesting … So I had about 1mm-2mm thickness of detritus stuck to the brake disc that was whacking the part of the brake pad that hadn’t got damaged.

The judder on normal forward driving disappeared quickly but it took a few applications of brake over the 20ish miles to pub to stop it juddering on braking. It’s back to 100% now, no more judder and I had full brake capability all the way. A scare to be sure but it doesn’t look like it’ll cost me money.

Saturday also had the frustration of watching England lose tamely again. On Wednesday, the commentators said that NZ had their best side out which had me asking “Why don’t England pick their best side ?” We have a wicket keeper who doesn’t score any runs, doesn’t look like scoring runs and commits the cardinal sin of dropping catches, easy ones too. Byebye Mr Keeper. Hopefully. I have the feeling that the politics of team selection will keep him in when he doesn’t deserve it. The keeper isn’t the only thing though, they have several players playing in unaccustomed positions.

Yesterday was going to be a lazyday but I got caught in a long World of Warcraft session 🙂 Which was fun because I was using my druid in a party with more guildmates. That’s something we didn’t do enough of in Mercs, past the early days we never seemed to support each other. And today was back to work. Having a “hello”, a smile and a wave from Miss A is enough to cheer anyone up 🙂

Yep – smoking’s getting more and more expensive too as the lawmaking people try to get people avoiding the addiction by making it harder and harder to keep up with. Bit like trying to get people off the road by putting “green” taxes on fuel etc.

It doesn’t work that way – addiction’s far more insidious like that. It’s like punishing people for things they have to do anyway, like that long car journey they’re going to do or even using the car for work because the public transport just isn’t up to the job. (or costs more)

PS I is horribly addicted to Spider Solitaire. But I can still put it away when it’s time to get back to work 🙂

PS2 I must be a sucker for the pretty blonde 🙂 Just had one turn up on the door step, look at me “that way” and before you know it, she’s in the house calling me a bachelor (it’s a much deserved title!) and I’m changing my energy supplier !

really insightful stuff kiddo

I have to be at the computer a lot due to work so it would be easy to get addicted to blogging or games (I play silly old lady stuff like popping balloons or moving mahjong tiles around!) but I too suffer from back and neck issues so I move around a lot – plus the work needs to get done!

I will admit I smoke and that is a nasty SOB to get past. And way more dangerous than a game or pizza, not to mention incredibly expensive.

I see it and I try.

Did you know that pizza is considered one of the most nutritionally balanced foods at just 245 calories a slice!?

You’re doing good.