Sites I like
Monday 31st March
According to a story on BBCi, doing a degree in an 'arts' subject reduces your average earnings to below those of someone who left school with just A-levels. Now they tell me. Even though mine was a BSc, I was still technically an art student and maybe would have thought differently about my choice of course had I (a) read that story in 1994, or (b) had to suffer the amount of debt that students have to cope with these days. Still, would I have been any happier if I'd done a degree in business studies and ended up working long hours for an impressive salary at a huge faceless multi-national? No, I wouldn't. Anyway, you're the only one who can make your own life a success and it doesn't matter what degree you chose (or even whether you did), as you can always work around it. Perhaps all the arts graduates they asked in the survey were perfectly happy working in tiny bohemian book stores and coffee shops, while the law graduates were ultra-ambitious and not happy unless they were earning above the average. I'm happy so who cares!
Posted on March 31, 2003 | Comments (1)
Saturday 29th March
When I buy car magazines, why do people assume that I'm looking to buy another motor? Is it because girls can't possibly be interested in cars, or because people assume that, if you're looking around, you must want to replace what you have with something better? Just because I like looking at cars and appreciate the style, technology and power, doesn't necessarily mean that I'm looking to replace my 106 just yet. I think it's the same with relationships too for some people.
I've never understood how some women can say that their man shouldn't be looking at other women because she "should be enough for him". What the hell does that mean? If they don't trust their guy to look but not touch, why are they with him? And if it's the looking that's the problem, don't they spend hours window shopping looking at clothes they will never buy? Looking never hurt anyone and, if anything, it should boost your self esteem. If your bloke appreciates the way other women look but stays with you then surely he likes you better than them. And if he doesn't want to look at other women, isn't that a bit odd?
Posted on March 29, 2003 | Comments (3)
Friday 28th March
It never ceases to amaze me how cheerful the entire staff of Asda is. The morale at every one of their stores I have shopped in is quite amazing. I've worked in retail and know how difficult it must be to stay happy when you're stacking shelves or working on a till all day, but at Asda they always seem to be smiling and ready for a chat. I'm not saying that staff in all other supermarkets are rude, but they're not quite the same. Perhaps they put drugs in the canteen food, or maybe it really is just a great place to work. I hope so, because I expect I'll be working there come retirement age when my pension fund is worth about £4.80 a week.
Posted on March 28, 2003 | Comments (2)
Wednesday 26th March
I've just discovered today that my new layout is doing odd things in IE, even though it was fine when I first tested it. Might be something do do with the comments as I've not checked since I added them, but I don't really know. Just thought I'd mention it here in case everyone thought I was beeing a complete dufus - I use Mozilla/Phoenix now and so hadn't noticed. If anyone has any idea why the banner isn't centering and the text has declined to limit its width to that of said banner, then please do let me know. In the meantime, I'll sit and wait for my 'technical advisor' to come home. Bah.
Posted on March 26, 2003 | Comments (1)
Tuesday 25th March
Ooh, I feel so evil! To ensure that I was up and about nice and early on my day off, the contractors next door decided to start removing the scaffolding at around 8am. I then sat eating my breakfast on the sofa while watching the men, but it appears that they didn't see me as they decided later on to remove a fence panel and trek poles through our garden. I opened the back door and moaned at them but it wasn't very satisfying because they didn't seem at all sorry, so I called the number on their pick-up and told their boss that I was frightened as I thought someone was breaking into the house. It was like being back at school again, telling tales to the teacher! I do hope they get detention.
Posted on March 25, 2003 | Comments (0)
Sunday 23rd March
Why are men so gassy? I just don't understand it. The average man must belch and fart at least 75 times more than the average woman. OK, so women fart too (and some even do it in public), but they don't do it before and after every meal. It's like men are marking their territory, or something. Do they have an organ that women are missing that is only there to produce gas for secretion at either end? Do they all chew with their mouths open and therefore swallow more air? I just don't know. It must be one of life's great mysteries.
Posted on March 23, 2003 | Comments (1)
Friday 21st March
In a conscious effort to bury my head in the sand and forget about Bush/Blair/Saddam for the moment, I scoured the news for something other than war and, most importantly, for something that interests me. It took a while but I finally discovered that some people still have nothing better to do than campaign against the apparent evil that is grammar schools (scary, huh?).
I attended a grammar school myself and still believe that the 11-plus is a fair way of selecting the school that a child will do best in. After years of doing well at primary school, I was thrown into a new school where there were lots of students who were much better than me and so I had to try harder than before to succeed. My sister, who didn't attend grammar school, was spared from having to compete with smug know-it-alls like myself and was spurred on by now being one of the best in the class. Sounds like a win/win situation to me. The kids that need more help get it, the ones that felt mediocre now excel, no one gets bored because the lessons are too slow, and everyone has a chance to go on to university if they want to. Things have changed since these protestors went through the system, and I don't think they realise it.
Posted on March 21, 2003 | Comments (1)
Thursday 20th March
I know the current situation is very serious and important to us all, however, it is still necessary to try to continue with your own life and not get too paranoid about the slightest little thing. Just in case you too are in need of some light relief from the serious content that litters the internet at the moment, I thought I'd share this that I was sent today.
Posted on March 20, 2003 | Comments (1)
Wednesday 19th March
You'd think that online retailers would have stringent checking procedures in place to ensure that every new product placed for sale on their site went up at the right price. Especially after all the well documented cases of consumers snapping up amazingly discounted eletrical goods due to administrative errors. Well, there obviously aren't enough checks currently at Amazon because they've been deluged with orders for iPaqs that were listed this morning for £23 and £7!. Unfortunately for many of the people who thought they'd secured a bargain, there is only a contract between company and customer once the order has been confirmed as dispatched via email as that is when payment is taken. It's understandable that Amazon now want to get out of this if they can, but will they lose customers? I doubt it. I will just be hoping that, if I spot amother of these mistakes, my order is dispatched before they notice.
Posted on March 19, 2003 | Comments (0)