Tag: Random Thoughts (Page 1 of 4)

My wardrobe. There are clothes that hang around within its depths that that may well predate Noah, but certainly are old enough to have lost whatever distant connection to fashion they may have had.
 
I am about to be burdened again with the chore of buying new clothes (it’s a male thing).
 
Burdened by the looking.
 
Burdened by the choices.
 
Burdened by the cost.
 
Burdened by the realisation that I will spend more on clothes, than a person in the developing world may well earn in a year.
 
But once those burdens have past. As they quickly will. I will enjoy wearing new clothes, despite the fact that in years to come they will again be worthless.

Waiting for a response can be like watching a clock slowly tick the seconds by. It can be frustrating and annoying when action is not happening. We can feel like we are wasting precious minutes, hours and days.
 
At the moment I am waiting on a person to enable me to take the next step in a project. Because it’s a collaborative effort, I can’t go any further with the project without this persons help.
 
I am starting to resent the waiting.
 
Tick
 
To get annoyed.
 
Tick
 
Then I realise, I need to get over myself. For 2 weeks, I reacted slowly, I was the time waster, I was the one being waited on. My slowness made this persons response time harder.
 
I realise that I do this often. Fast to expect action, slow to act.

It’s winter. The 1st of June brings the official change in season, then the season lives up to its reputation and delivers rain.
 
With the darker days comes much difficulty and a lack of energy for my 365 project. 251 days down, 115 to go.

A study was conducted that reviewed all the weather forecasts in the US to see which one was the most accurate. They discovered that the most accurate weather forecast is this.

“The weather tomorrow will be the same as today”

It’s true. Its not completely accurate by any means, but it is more accurate than what you see on the news. If the weather is changing the news will be more likely right.

The weather in Hamilton was raining today. The long term weather forecast on the news says it will rain for the next week. But then so does the short forecast above.

In life, this also reminds me that tomorrow will be by and large the same as today. Same things, same routines, same people. They change from time to time. But forecast is generally “tomorrow will be the same as today”.

You may believe that rolling two dice all is chance. That guessing the combined number is luck. And to a certain extent you are right.
 
However adding two dice to equal 7 is six times more likely than a rolling double 6. (1+6, 2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2, 6+1 compared to 6+6)
 
You may also believe that being successful is luck. And to a certain extent you are right. However add knowledge to the randomness of life, and you are 6 times more likely to succeed (I just made that up).
 
The point is this: Just as two dice can appear to the uneducated to be just luck, so also success can appear to be just luck.

I would not like them here or there,
I would not like them anywhere,
I would not like them cold or hot,
I would not like them from this pot,
I do not like green peas
I do not like them Sam, now let me be

The social life of a ping-pong ball sounds like an interesting thing to write about. After all ping-pong balls do get around.
 
When they are moving, they move at pace. With a bit of spin they are reasonably hard to predict. There are even different classes of ping-pong ball, high-performance down to functional but breakable.
 
My third form Tech Drawing teacher used to make us write 250 words about the social life of a ping-pong ball and share it with the class. This was his form of punishment, and it’s worthy of note that the following year he left teaching to be a funeral director.
 
Anyway, the moral of this post, “Ping-pong balls don’t have social lives.”
 
[Thanks to Stas and Sam Kelsen for their help in the taking of this photo. I like the way it streaks, but the ball is still in focus.]