Gadgets: who doesn’t love them? A good gadget (or even a bad one, let’s face it, work can be dull sometimes…) can turn your day around in a matter of seconds. One minute you’re fed up with your boss and his slave-driving ways…the next you’re marvelling at the gadget on your computer which enables you to hit just one button and a little BOSS HERE, CAN’T TALK! Appears in your messenger window to let your friend know that now is not a good time to chat. Gadgets, honestly, we couldn’t do without them and we wouldn’t want to either! Another person who is a huge fan of gadgets and not ashamed to admit it speaks out at the following link. Check it out and see if you agree: http://www.enigingeek.com/2010/07/31/some-people-just-like-the-latest-enigin-gadget/

And Enigin certainly have a right to speak out and shout, it would seem. The gadget in question helps you accurately monitor how much energy you are using / wasting so that you can take the appropriate measures before the bill comes in rather than after. So, hands up if you don’t think that’s worth a cheer or two? I’m sure there are companies up and down the country and across the world who would jump at the chance to save money and give their employees bigger bonuses (well…maybe not). Enigin PLC also have loads more to offer, which they are more than happy to talk to you about. They have inventions which can make nearly everything in your household work better and more efficiently, including heating and electrical appliances, and even apps which make your phone look really cool.

Gadgets: who doesn’t love them? A good gadget (or even a bad one, let’s face it, work can be dull sometimes…) can turn your day around in a matter of seconds. One minute you’re fed up with your boss and his slave-driving ways…the next you’re marvelling at the gadget on your computer which enables you to hit just one button and a little BOSS HERE, CAN’T TALK! Appears in your messenger window to let your friend know that now is not a good time to chat. Gadgets, honestly, we couldn’t do without them and we wouldn’t want to either! Another person who is a huge fan of gadgets and not ashamed to admit it speaks out at the following link. Check it out and see if you agree: http://www.enigingeek.com/2010/07/31/some-people-just-like-the-latest-enigin-gadget/

And Enigin certainly have a right to speak out and shout, it would seem. The gadget in question helps you accurately monitor how much energy you are using / wasting so that you can take the appropriate measures before the bill comes in rather than after. So, hands up if you don’t think that’s worth a cheer or two? I’m sure there are companies up and down the country and across the world who would jump at the chance to save money and give their employees bigger bonuses (well…maybe not). Enigin PLC also have loads more to offer, which they are more than happy to talk to you about. They have inventions which can make nearly everything in your household work better and more efficiently, including heating and electrical appliances, and even apps which make your phone look really cool.

Due to the increasing pollution and global warming effects, the manufacturers of cars are shifting to the concept of hybrid cars. And, since 2009, hybrid cars are fast joining the big race of automobiles section.

The biggest advantage of hybrid cars is that it gives a better gas mileage. Moreover, these kinds of cars are much more economical than the normal cars. Expenses related to the weekly gasoline consumption are very high but with the hybrid cars you will get an advantage of tax break.

Moreover, the hybrid cars can be run for a longer time without spending so much on the gasoline. If you fill the gas tank fully once then it will give you a longer mileage without any hassles.

Gasoline vehicles have got an adverse impact upon the environment, as it releases harmful gases in the atmosphere. Today, the world is suffering from the global warming problem, so these kinds of gases can ruin the earth’s atmosphere completely. The hybrid cars help in lowering the emission of harmful gases and hence are eco friendly too.

Once you get a hybrid car you will be provided with a warranty card. So, get the hybrid car and stop worrying about its service and working life. If you are thinking about the battery services then you do not need to worry as the warranty card will cover the battery services. Hybrid cars might just be the car of the future.

I grew up with an intense fear of ghosts, or, more specifically, polterguist. This was my childhood:

When I was five I asked my mother what gravity was. I had heard the name bandied about a few times and I wanted to know what relevance it had to every-day life, if any. My mother looked at me, then looked left and right as if we were being watched (which we were, because we were on a beach and mum was talking very loudly and had her luxury beach towel around me as I tried to get changed without anyone seeing my naked body; oddly I remember feeling very embarrassed), and said “there is no such thing as gravity–”

I said, “right–what are you on about mum? Isn’t it what makes things fall down and stuff?” (I don’t recall the exact words: I was five…)

She said, “Well–gravity is really just playful poltergeist children messing about! So you had better be careful, hadn’t you!” (Mother was always a bit weird; she did amateur dramatics and according to dad it tipped her over the edge when she failed to make it as a professional actress.) It didn’t help that when she made this statement polterguist’s were very much in vogue, with the film of the same name playing at cinemas everywhere and scaring the hell out of all ages. (Surely nobody can forget the creepy old man…or was that the sequel?)

From that moment on I was convinced that the thing which made things fall to earth with a bang was really poltergeist children mucking about at my expense. This was fun for about one day, but quickly became terrifying to a small boy. Soon I was afraid of dropping anything, fearing a poltergeist would attack–

]]> http://www.brightsparkblog.co.uk/2010/06/09/blame-mum/feed/ http://www.brightsparkblog.co.uk/2010/05/27/get-jt/ http://www.brightsparkblog.co.uk/2010/05/27/get-jt/#comments Thu, 27 May 2010 12:15:02 +0000 admin http://www.brightsparkblog.co.uk/?p=2223

When did being late for things become cool? I wouldn’t mind if this was an occasional thing that happened every so often, but recently I’ve been noticing a worrying pattern that seems to be spreading like wild-fire (to get a thorough understanding of the intensity of a rapidly spreading wild-fire, all you need do is consult Google). In fact, it would seem that within my company, I am the only individual who arrives bang on time.

Take J.T. for example. (Yes, writing his two initials repulses me as much as it does for you to read them.)

J.T. arrives at work fashionably late, usually ten minutes after he should have started. He’s smiling and laughing and apologizing for being late, and I just want to cave his face in. Obviously I stop these murderous thoughts within moments. It’s not healthy to think about that at work so I save all my rage up for the bus ride home later.

J.T. then arrives late at the canteen (probably because he’s had to sneak out to have various laser treatments done to perfect his already vomit-inducing perfect skin) and so there is no food. This means that he has to come over to us and sit there picking at everyone’s food. I wouldn’t mind so much but this one girl, Sophie, always feels sorry for him and gives him her chips. This disgusts me and it should disgust you.

Basically, J.T. is late for everything as far as I can tell. If he was a woman then I would not want to be J.T.s boyfriend–

The moral if this story is this: don’t tell anyone if you have thoughts concerning caving other people’s faces in. Or if you do, keep it anonymous.

If I was given the choice of an original movie poster that I could have then I would have to think very carefully about which one I would pick.

I am quite a fan of films and I can think of a large selection that I would have to choose from. The price of certain posters would probably dwarf the £1,500 tag on ‘The Great Escape’. I wonder how much you would have to pay for something like ‘Casablanca’ or ‘ET: The Extra Terrestrial’?

For any fan of a particular movie it would be magical to have something like this hanging on your wall. If it is the original artwork then you also know that no-one else has got one the same.

In other news, my best friend has just given birth to a brand new bouncing baby boy! How exciting is that? His name is Henry. I must admit though I am a little bit worried that not only are my friends starting to get married, but they are also starting to produce offspring. This scares me, I mean I don’t even have a girlfriend yet and to be honest I don’t really feel like I am that kind of guy who will even get a date soon. The really worrying thing about this whole situation is that now I need to get a gift for the baby shower.

She has asked me for some clothes for baby. According to her, he is very messy, spills on absolutely everything, spews up every night, and she never has time to do laundry. To be perfectly honest, he sounds a lot like his mother in uni…

As a writer, like people who perform breast enhancement surgery blind-folded, I am apparently a thing of interest to some people who don’t write and wish to unlock all the secrets to what it is we do. That’s right, I said a thing, not a human. It’s my opinion that some people don’t think of writers as living breathing people. And that’s fair enough. We are a bit weird and so it makes perfect sense.

Now, as a society us writers put up with an awful lot. OK, we bring it all on ourselves, but this is my piece so leave it. One of the worst things we have to deal with is when people who nothing about writing attempt to infiltrate our mysterious world. “Tell us”, they say all innocent to the insult they are about to cast forth: “how do you come up with all your wicked ideas?”

It’s seriously a wonder that nobody has been killed!

So here it is. For all you out there who beg the answer to this ridiculous question, here is a definitive answer: we just get them and we don’t know how, stupid.

You wouldn’t ask a mechanic how he mends an oil leak, would you? Not unless you had an oil leak and wanted to coax information out of him so you could fix it on your own, I mean. No, he just does it, and it’s the same with ideas. If you write and you write a lot you also think. And here’s the thing: thinking brings ideas, that’s just the way the world works.

]]> http://www.brightsparkblog.co.uk/2010/05/10/the-ideas-riddle-solved/feed/ http://www.brightsparkblog.co.uk/2010/04/28/madbad-and-dangerous-to-know/ http://www.brightsparkblog.co.uk/2010/04/28/madbad-and-dangerous-to-know/#comments Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:23:59 +0000 admin http://www.brightsparkblog.co.uk/?p=2104 Have you ever noticed what terrible injuries we can cause to ourselves by ourselves? Or maybe it’s just me…

Over the years I have spent many long hours building things with wood and I’ve had a number of stupid accidents. Amongst other things, I have managed to hit myself on the forehead with a claw hammer, whack my own shin with a sledge hammer and run a bow saw across my knuckles on numerous occasions. So frequent were these mishaps, that at one point I actually began to question whether I was carrying them out on purpose on a subconscious level; I genuinely think there was about a year there where I could have kept all the doctors at triple west medical employed single handedly.

I have also hit myself on the back of the hand with a hatchet and lost a fingernail after dropping a huge piece of oak on my own digits. Doh! Anyone would think I were a masochist from the way that I go on.

But my accident-prone tendencies are by no means limited to the realms of woodwork… I have impaled my own foot on a rusty bicycle spoke (unattached to the bike at the time), dropped a huge sheet of glass (edgeways) on my un-shoed foot and head-butted a gravestone at thirty miles per hour (the result of a frenzied mountain bike race through a cemetery. A long story…).

My skills also branch out into the unintended mutilation of others. I have fitted a door with four of someone’s fingers trapped in the jamb, drilled into another person’s flesh and I almost broke a child’s back whilst ‘playing’ at school.

As I say, perhaps it’s just me. And the more I think about it, this is probably the case. I was affectionately known as ‘Danger Man’ by people at one time and I certainly lived up to my name. I’m beginning to wonder whether I should have a government health warning tattooed across my forehead…

Most of us know the fundamental idea behind energy: that it transfers from thing to thing and place to place invisibly, always turning in to something new and never disappearing out of sight for long. But what most people don’t know (me included) is that motors waste tons of the stuff. And according to the guys and girls at Enigin there are a lot of motors in the world doing just that. Enough that loosing this much energy is actually quite a big deal, when you stop and think about it.

The link you want to click to find out more and to see the article is this one.

In the aforementioned article you’ll find a good explanation of how motors and energy work together. It’s something that everyone should read. And it might even get you thinking about how you can do your bit.

Because the thing is this: motors (say Enigin) are all around us. They’re in supermarkets and cars and homes and even in toys. So when we all just walk on by and don’t consider how much energy they are wasting then there isn’t much hope for the future. But, I know. You’re asking What can I do personally?

Well, it’s easy, you can go to the above link (why haven’t you yet?) and read all about what Enigin are doing to solve this problem as best they can. OK, they might not be able to solve it, but at least they are giving it some thought. In my book that counts for something.

Me and my brother used to play a game called Who Loves Me Most with our dog. Him dying ruined all that, but we held (and hold) no grudges, because little Freddy was a fine hound.

The game was extremely cruel, easily as cruel as cyst removal is to someone with a great many cysts, and probably caused untold—mainly because Freddy couldn’t tell us—suffering to our poor little dog. And it went like this.

My younger brother would take his side of the arena (the living room) and I would take my end. Then a third-party (anyone who would help, but usually our sister) would drop Freddy in to the arena to do battle. His mission? Simple: to decide who he loved the most. The rules were simple: there were no rules. We could do whatever we wanted to do to convince Freddy that we loved him the most, but ultimately it was up to Freddy to decide where his loyalty laid.

The game caused massive disputes, of course (some of which remain to be settled to this day, such as the outcome of one game in March 1994), such as the time when I was said to have employed devious tactics to get Freddy’s attention (his favourite dog treats) and the time my brother lunged at Freddy in a bid to ensnare him.

I miss those days playing Who loved me most. I’m sure that Freddy died happily, though. Wouldn’t anyone die happily if they knew that they were wanted so much a game was invented especially for them?