Things I've been thinking of late.

Sometimes I remember that I have a blog to write my rambling thought paths down into for all the world to see. The problem is when ever I think of something to write I'm not near my computer and when I am I've forgotten what I was going to say. And they were good things to say too. Anyhoo, here's a few things that have been on my mind.

1. Religious holidays in Harry Potter. I'm all for tolerance and all that jazz and I have no objections to witches and wizards exchanging gifts under a large tree that has been erected indoors at christmas time but one thing bothers me here. Doesn't god hate witchcraft and all that sort of thing? I'm sure there was this whole burning witches at the stake thing that happened at some point that I would have thought would make magic types want to distance them selves from religious types as much as possible. I understand that christmas is a pretty neat time of year and all (I'm certainly not religious and I certainly don't object to food and gifts in large amounts) but I figured magic types may have some better thing to do than celebrate a holiday central to the reason their people were constantly murdered violently. Just seems like an odd choice to me is all...

2. The Finnish government. Now I understand that Finland wants to keep undesirables (read poor people) out but why the hell do they have to make it SO DAMN HARD to get into their country? Firstly I need to have 500 Euros in my bank account when I apply for my residence permit. I can't show documentation showing that I will have the amount by the time I'm in the country, I clearly need to have that money 6 months before arriving. I understand that you don't want some foreign schmuck mooching around in your country doing nothing but taking up valuable resources that could be used by useful people and 500 Euro per month is a reasonable amount to expect but it makes it very hard to get a visa if you have to have it on hand right away. Health insurance is another thing. Sure, again you don't want to be supporting mooching internationals on your excellent public health scheme but Australia and Finland have made a thing stating that Australians have access to medicare in Finnish medical facilities (read we still get subsidized healthcare like we would here) so why do I need insurance that does pretty much the same thing? Or perhaps I don't understand how medicare works, which is entierly possible...

3. My boss. Why would you sign someone onto a permanent part time contract for 21 hours a week then hire more people and cut everyone's hours? It just makes no sense to me. Also why is it so hard to actually roster me on for the hours you promised to give me?

4. Why are people scared of fun? There's this dude I work with who seems to be scared of having any fun at all. Anything at all seems to be far too risky for him to consider doing. I'm surprised he's even left his house. I mean honestly what's the point in having a life if you spend all your time doing nothing to keep safe.

What your joystick looks like inside (LOOK AT THE DUST!)

  5. Nintendo 64 controllers. Seriously, Nintendo designed a great controller for a great platform but why did they allow it to fall down in material selection? I recently pulled apart a N64 controller to see if I could discover why the joystick goes all loose and limp after a while and it turns out that it all came down to poor material selection by the design department. There are three components which are in constant contact in the joystick assembly, namely the joystick its self and two black plastic parts that it locks into and moves when the joystick is moved (which in turn activate optical sensors that tell the computer that's going on. Think old school ball mouse). The joystick is made of a harder material than the two black parts which results in the black part grinding away every time the stick is moved and causing the stick to feel loose after a while as it has nothing holding it up anymore. Games like Zelda, Mario Party and GoldenEye (which relied heavily on vicious joystick use) have a lot to answer for here. Was this planed by Nintendo to facilitate more control sales (remember all the pretty colours these things came in?) or just some lack on foresight by the design team?

The sides of the hole are not supposed to have a big curve in them

Anyway, that's me done for now. I hope you enjoy my poor spelling and bad grammar.