Posts by Rich Lock

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  • Up Front: The Up Front Guide to Parenting,

    Here's my answer to your question: the engineer can design the plane and go home, and I'll have an entertaining, conversational dinner with the arts graduate. Sorted!

    Right.

    I'll just be down in the cellar, then. Designing, building and maintaining absolutely everything that enables your feckless, carefree modern lifestyle.

    No, really, it's no bother, even though it has been a bit damp down there lately and my chest is playing up something awful. You go out with your sparkling, witty friends. I'll be fine, honestly. I prefer to be alone with my robots, really I do.

    I'll do my best to have all that housework done for you by the time you get back, too.
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    [Sigh] At this rate I'll never find the time to start mass producing those special violins.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report

  • Field Theory: Those Jamaican Yams,

    Ah, should probably point out that that was in reply to Jack's commnent:

    I'd be astonished if, say, the NFL and NBA weren't hotbeds of steroid use.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report

  • Field Theory: Those Jamaican Yams,

    Cough....

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report

  • Up Front: The Up Front Guide to Parenting,

    After about five years in the workforce, who cares what your degree was?

    ...and staying on the 'bagging the engineers' tip, a thought experiment:

    You are flying over the pacific to attend a prestigious international conference on, oh, lets say 'Joan of Arc imagery in Vichy France'.

    Who would you have preferred to have designed the plane you are flying in?

    1) A 5-year engineering graduate who has specialist training in material composition, stress analysis, fracture mechanics and so on.

    2) A 5-year arts grad who thinks square windows look better than ones with rounded corners.

    Answer carefully, or I will unleash my army of giant robots.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report

  • Up Front: The Up Front Guide to Parenting,

    I remember reading an article a while ago about the so-called "helicopter Moms" at American universities - the mothers who are constantly hovering around their children, even while the kids are living on campus. While I never encountered their like while at uni myself, I'm sure they exist here.

    They have their own wiki article.

    This is also quite amusing.

    At my university, they even have a name: engineering students.

    The only student worse than an Engineering student is a Performance Voice student.

    Laugh it up while you can, arts grads.

    You'll be laughing on the other sides of your faces as soon as you need a bridge built, or a new sewage farm, or an electic-petrol hybrid with an improved cupholder to hold your soy moccachino while you drive to your organic farmers market.

    Then we'll see whose laughing.

    And if that doesn't work, you wait until my army of giant robots is ready....

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report

  • Field Theory: Those Jamaican Yams,

    So the tiger would have, in fact, have eaten Darvis Patton.

    Reminds me of an old, old joke.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report

  • Hard News: A voice of reason and authority,

    James:

    Don't you think it's rather odd that in all countries with a national or socialised health system, there is no great outcry over the fact the nanny state clearly has it's jackboot on our throats?

    I don't see all that many people marching down Whitehall chanting: 'give us fully privatised health insurance, or give us death', while Gordon Brown hides in his bunker.

    Presumably we're all just ignorant savages, who have yet to be converted by your missionary zeal and brought into the great white cleansing light of The Free Market Uber Alles?

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report

  • Hard News: Let Us Spray: The Aftermath,

    In relation to the Armageddon Death Beaches (tm), it could be worse....

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report

  • Hard News: Greetings from the Garden City,

    Confirmed: Bryan Singer to direct a Battlestar movie

    Obviously, nobody at Universal endured the multiple bore-gasm that is Superman Returns.

    Hmm. I quite enjoyed 'Superman Returns'. But Singer has a track record that could charitably be described as....patchy.

    And given how much I disliked where BSG ended up (Angels. What. The fuck?), I'm not holding out much hope for either 'Caprica' or this film.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report

  • Island Life: On the waterfront,

    Like it, but it's not at all realistic.
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    I mean, the Kea ferry is clearly shown as being in service as a working passenger vessel, rather than 'out on survey'.

    (Devonport commuter in-jokes - I haz them)

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report

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