christmas present

Today I went to Manor to buy a christmas gift. I bought the gift and then continued to browse. Upon exiting the escalator the shop alarm went off and it was clear that it was my purchase.

Since I was next to a counter at the time, I signaled to one of the staff to just run it over the demagnetising machine. He called me over to the front of the counter and then proceeded to not only debeepify by goods, but also fill in a claim form that he wanted me to sign.

I agreed willingly because he had mentioned in passing that it is a great inconvenience to be beeped at when you haven't stolen anything and for my troubles he would give me a 10% voucher that would be valid for an entire day (of my choosing). Well done, good on you Manor.

Here's a lesson to other swiss stores - it's called customer service - customers like it

cheating at cards

Yesterday I learnt a new word at the same time as learning that I word I thought I knew isn't actually a word.

For your enlightenment:

cardshark - not a word
cardsharp - an expert in cheating at cards
card shark - a cardsharp

cruelty to humans

I hate animal rights activists. I don't quite hate them enough to be cruel to animals, but definitely enough to rip apart stuffed animals in front of their stands. The thing I particularly dislike is their posters and videos of animals being tortured. I'm pretty sure that all in all they do more damage to the humans that see those than was ever done to the animals. I also think that beknownst to them, they actually derive pleasure from the feeling of upset they get when they actively seek out and view animal torture.

They are good for one thing though - when they run up to me with a poster of a cleaved bunny asking me to sign their petition I enjoy shouting at them.

what's that about

Today someone wished me a merry christmas and gave me a chocolate bunny. I have no idea what it has to do with christmas, perhaps some politically correct crap. The swiss do however like giving out bunnies at easter too - perhaps they have a thing for rabbits.

take your time

I hate not having time to blog more than I hate not having blogged. You can tell when I remember that because suddenly 4 posts arrive out of nowhere..

email -> blog

TW Andrews:

Some interesting replies to the question "what would it take to make you move back to England."

re: telegraph article

Joscelin (Mr. straight to the point):

Interesting. I wouldn't go back. Period. The low quality housing, poor wages, high costs, little englander mentality, and the weather (roll on global warming), bland countryside for the most part and minging fat pissed up slags and their knuckle-dragging chav boyfriends.

Your host:

I also wouldn't go back, but not for the same reasons.

I love the friendly quiet british, I love their cynical humour, I love
the subtle but meaningful english mannerisms. I think the british
rolling countryside is beautiful (I imagine that Joss' disdain stems
from the fact that the north has all of the nice lush scenery - the
pennines, the dales, the lakes, etc - the weather is worse though).

I agree about chavs, but I don't think that's a problem of britain -
there are dislikable classes in all places in the world.

My problem with britain is the lack of choice. I want to live in a
small-medium sized city that's clean and not too far away from the
city limits. The only places you can live in england and expect to
get paid a reasonable wage are:
1) Birmingham - you have to be fucking kidding me
2) Manchester - I prefer my blood inside my body
3) London - Too big, too loud, too busy, too dirty, too rushed

I think that england is a great place to be a student because I think
that the english socially at that age are a really great crowd, but if
you don't want to do the London thing then england holds little for
the young professional.

What would it take for me to move back there? Retirement.

counterintuitive

I find this a little strange. It's a lamp that rewards you for conserving energy. If you're eco friendly, the flower blooms. While it might seem to make sense that the lamp becomes less useful the longer it's turned on, the flip side is that if you need a light on but it's closed (because you've been using it too much), you're more likely to turn a second light on as well..

tremors

Seems that my Basel brethren are tempting fate a little. While getting ready to settle down to an evening of gaming, my entire apartment building shook and made lots of worrying creaking sounds.

According to telebasel, a 3.7 richter earthquake was apparently triggered in a controlled manner. To me it just seems like they're playing with fire.

..in disguise

My American xbox 360 arrived this morning. The first thing I did was diligently check the input voltage required and I was then pretty disappointed to see that it didn't auto switch between 110v and 220v.

Now I had realised the voltage issue before deciding on a US xbox, the excitement of finally getting round to buying one seemed to cloud my thought process. Asking Tim, the US resident purchaser, to check the input voltage for me and buying the appropriate transformer from radio shack for me would have been prudent far too sensible.

So not put off by this minor set back, I went off to do what I thought I might have to - hunt for a transformer. Having spent a little time online I figured I needed one capable of 300W so off I trotted at 11.45am into town.

As soon as I left the building it started to rain.

After trying out a few electronics places to no avail I played my wild card and went off to the import games shop. He gave me some good advise including some information about a local electronics shop that would definately have it, but he couldn't recall exactly where it was. I tried the place he first suggested to no avail and the guys at that shop didn't know where this illusive electronics place at the station was.

Next stop, the other import game shop the other side of town. They did know about the legendary electronics shop and gave it a name - Grieder Bauteile.

Spurred on with faith in Grieder Bauteile, I wandered over to the location to be faced with the harsh reminder that this is Switzerland and lunch time therefore non mainstream stores are all shut. I had arrived at 12.40pm so I still had 20 minutes to kill. What the hell I thought, I'll try at Media Markt. 20 minutes later I was back at Grieder Bauteile dripping with more rain water with a wireless remote but no transformer.

Once inside the diminutive shop I patiently waited 10 minutes for the rough hewn uni girl to finish ordering her assortment of 100 diodes and watch batteries. Thankfully the guy there did have one in stock for the bargain price of 150CHF I just don't care anymore. I indicated that I would buy it and he then told me that it's in the cellar so he can't get it right now since the shop was busy (there were two other people after me by now), so I had to wait for his colleague.

10 minutes later and well into the second hour of my expedition the guy came over, then went off to the cellar for 10 minutes to find the beast. I purchased it, then got a tram back to work.

I am now the proud owner of a 350W step down transformer and wet feet.

campers suck

This morning I walked to the tram stop to go to work, but there was no tram in sight, so I thought I'd catch the bus instead. I walked to the bus stop and having arrived there I noticed I had just missed a bus. Although this is Switzerland so the next one was probably only 90 seconds away, I am incredibly impatient so I wandered down to Marktplatz to catch a different tram. I sometimes like going that way because there's a fantastic set of stairs that you can bound down and relive your childhood dreams of flying.

Anyway..

Since it was only 8.40am I thought I'd go to starbucks to get a coffee rather than hop on the first tram. This decision took me past Manor, a rather large department store. So to cut this rather verbose story short, I'll get to the point. In the main entrance of Manor there were 2 wii kiosks and a pile of wiis.



I asked the guy that was guarding them and he told me that it was launch day. I briefly thought of people in the US and UK camping out for days to get their wiis and smiled. Am I lucky to live in switzerland or are they just foolish? Probably both.

left hand drive

When I first moved to europe from blighty I found driving left hand drive vehicles a little confusing. The first time I drove a left hand drive car for instance, I found myself hitting the door with my left hand every time I wanted to change gear.

After a while a became somewhat ambidextrous regarding the steering wheel, but yet I always found something slightly odd about driving a left hand drive car and I never quite figure out what it was. Until now.

I was parking the car the other day and as I turned the engine off I noticed that my foot was still on the clutch. At that point I realised that I hadn't taken the car out of gear yet. Something about that process seemed inefficient and it was then I figured out why I prefer driving right hand drive cars.

When I get into a car that is right hand drive I do various things simultaneously.

• Put the keys in the ignition and start the engine
  
• Put my foot on the clutch and prep the other for the accelerator
  
• Put the car in the gear I want it to be in (normally reverse, or 1st)
  

When I park a right hand drive car I do the following (2 steps this time)

1. Simultaneously stop the engine and take the car out of gear
   
2. Take my foot off the foot brake and engage the hand brake
   

If you're driving a left hand drive car you can't start/stop the engine at the same time as changing gear! And that concludes it - right hand drive is better.

time

No matter what I say to myself, the fact is that there's always time to write a blog. If I try to convince myself that there isn't enough time then it's a lie. Time can always be made for things that don't take very long.