My moon shot

I took this picture last night. Cath and I are attending the “Alien Worlds” evening class at the University of Glamorgan. Last night was the first visit to the University’s observatory tower, on top of one of the teaching buildings.

Access is up a stepladder from a shoebox-sized office. The telescope itself is wonderful, the biggest robotic telescope in the UK. It cost over £100,000 to install, but has a wonderfully eclectic mix of old and new technologies. The computer lets the telescope automatically track the stars across the night sky, but the observatory main door is opened by a switch that’s so high up on the wall it has to be operated using a stick.

Car Notes

Both of our cars got vandalised on Tuesday night. Three tyres were slashed, causing a day off work and £150 of damage. The police were called and they dutifully made notes and noises along the lines of “there’s nothing we can do”.

They balked at my suggestion that they should issue guns to citizens to protect their property. I’ll have to make do with a baseball bat.

Killer Sheep

It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. Three members of a family from Ebbw Vale were killed last Friday when, it appears, they swerved to avoid a sheep on the Aberbeeg to Crumlin road. Here’s the Western Mail’s story.

It reminds me of my crash caused by a sheep. I was driving from Merthyr to Ebbw Vale on the unlit part of the Heads of the Valleys (A465) road late on a Friday night back in 2005. There was a group of sheep on the road, and I swerved to avoid them. I hit one though, causing over £1,000 of damage to my car and the sheep was a write-off.

I duly reported this to the police, asking that they should find out who owned these sheep so that I could claim against them for the damage to the car. I pointed out that the evidence was lying on the side of the road with its feet in the air. Despite this, they were “unable to identify the owner” and so I copped the hit on my insurance.

Worse still, since the police seem unable/reluctant/not bothered to tell farmers about gaps in their fencing, then there’s nothing happening to stop further incidents happening. Just like the one last Friday night.

If Microsoft made TV dinners

1. You must first remove the plastic cover, but understand that it means agreeing to accept and honor Microsoft rights to all TV dinners. You may not give anyone else a bite of your dinner (which would constitute an infringement of Microsoft's rights). They may, however, smell and look at your dinner. You must tell them how good it is.

2. If you have a PC microwave oven, insert the dinner into the oven. Set the oven using these keystrokes: \mstv.dinn.//08.5min@50%heat//. You then enter: ms//start.cook_dindin/yummy\ /yumyum:-)gohot#cookme. If you have a Mac oven, insert the dinner and press start.

3. The oven will set itself and cook the dinner.

4. Be forewarned that Microsoft dinners are subject to frequent crashes, in which case your oven must be restarted. This is a simple procedure. Remove the dinner from the oven and enter: ms.nodamn.good/tryagain\again/again.crap. This process may have to be repeated, and might solve your problem.

5. Many users have reported that the dinner tray is far too big, larger than the dinner itself, having many useless compartments, most of which are empty. Microsoft says these are for future menu items. However, the tray is so large that it will only fit in the largest industrial ovens, forcing many users to upgrade.

6. Dinners are only available from registered outlets, and only the chicken variety is currently produced. If you want another variety, call Microsoft Help and they will explain that you really don't want another variety. Microsoft Chicken is all you really need.

7. Microsoft has disclosed plans to discontinue all smaller versions of their chicken dinners. Future releases will only be in the larger family size. Excess chicken may be stored for future use, but must be saved only in Microsoft approved packaging.

8. Users get excited about having veggies with their Microsoft dinners, often telling their friends about it, as though this were something new. Microsoft promises a dessert with every dinner after 2004. However, that version has yet to be released. Users have permission to get thrilled in advance.

9. The box for the TV dinners is so large that it will not fit in many smaller freezers, and the shape prevents the storage of any other brand of dinners. Microsoft dinners are often not compatible with other dinners in the freezer, causing your freezer to self-defrost. Calling Microsoft Help will elicit the explanation that your freezer probably should have been defrosted anyway.