I think I'm finally getting the hang of this..

I feel accomplished today. I jumped on the iFrame that was on my main website, ripped it into itty bitty pieces, and decided that my blog and my site should be two separate entities.

Why? Well it's because I plan to update my blog pretty damn regularly, whereas my site is unlikely to get the same treatment. Typing about stuff is easy, drawing things and making music requires me to use the desktop PC.

The desktop PC is not useable from my sofa, and so the laptop and its blogging ability win.

I'm rather impressed by this little widget I got for my MBP dashboard, rather than having to go to all the trouble of clicking Blogger on my Firefox toolbar, I only have to hit F12! That's gotta save at least quarter of a second.

Of course I might backtrack on these words when I go to check my blog and see this post formatted in a way jarringly different to the rest.

Also, I managed to put my latest Tweets in the sidebar. Isn't that just lovely?

Anyway, I have to up stupidly early to give the keys to my bloke's car to some garagey people. Can't wait!

Traffic Lights, The Stabilisers Of Learning To Drive

I'm fairly sure Leeds City Council are colluding with the Highways Agency in an attempt to deprive me of a car without massive bits missing, or indeed depriving me of my life.

What brings me to this conclusion? Well I'll tell you.

When you're driving along, minding your own business. Idly picking something out of your ear as you rest your arm on the window and flicking it somewhere over the horizon of the dashboard, you come to a junction.

Ooh it's a busy junction this one, but it's okay. This junction has a selection of ludicrously timed traffic lights to guide you, albeit slowly, through the hazardous intersection.

BUT OH NO THE LIGHTS ARE OUT.

Now, I don't know about you, but I find this occurrence exhilarating. It's like the road people are saying "oh go on, we trust you. Give it your best shot, what do a bunch of boxes with pretty lights on know? You make this, you're a real man, you've passed the REAL driving test."

So you man it up, you approach that junction, it doesn't look like there's going to be much of a gap. It's a bright day, and you didn't even notice the lights weren't on until you were far too close. Time for Matrix style 'shut your eyes, breathe in some sort of trancelike fashion and melt between the deathwagons' shenanigans. You drive, your manning up goes a bit limp, you whimper slightly, and somehow you pass out the other end without leaving your legs stuck to the front of a wildly careering Renault Laguna.

"Hurrah!" you think, "I win the road." Congratulatory heavy breathing and shaky arms ensue, and a flinch as you look in the rear view mirror as others attempt similar runs.

An interesting article cropped up recently, relating to Ealing Council in London, who have actually decided to start removing traffic lights on purpose. The amount of time spent waiting without any need at the lights in the area has proven so ridiculous, they believe that just letting drivers take matters into their own hands is going to be a more effective method of traffic flow. Naturally, unlike my crazy Frogger like attempts to cross a multi carriageway inner loop road, the roads they are going to de-lightificate are more likely to be junctions at fairly tame A roads. The exercise has already proven to have reduced drive-time, and due to people actually having to watch where they're going and watch everyone else with the other eye, accidents are down too.

So why am I fairly sure that Leeds City Council have it in for me? Perhaps because this has happened to me THREE times, in the last four days, at three different locations. At this rate I shall be looking into my rear view mirrors for shifty looking cars with some sort of signal blocking device strapped to the roof, waiting for me to approach nasty junctions, ready to flick the switch and get the popcorn out for the resulting Sean/Mazda/something explodey show.

So if you see a dark blue/green (bleen) Mazda driving about, approaching a junction, brake and just hold back a bit.