anecdote – Nothing About Potatoes

Films
I saw Mirrors last night. It started off as rubbish and ridiculous as it looked from the trailer, but then got a lot better, with a suitably ridiculous climax.

This week, Quantum of Solace, no more need be said.

Owing to extreme hecticness in the next few months, I have cancelled my Cineworld Unlimited card. The Films section may well disappear for a bit.

Puzzle Part 1
I ate at a Busaba Eathai last week. When I went to the toilets I was confronted with the two signs you see in the image below. I paused, then figured I had cracked the code. Where did I go? Make a guess now, then try part 2 at the end of this email.

A link
…which is also a puzzle. Test your ‘colour IQ’
http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77

A quote or anecdote
When paying for my ticket to see ‘Mirrors’, the guy at the till dropped a one pound coin into the vat of popcorn. Pretty soon three employees were scooping the popcorn around trying to find it while a manager was shouting ‘just complete the transaction!’ at them.

A video
Link courtesy of my mum – squirrel leaping in super slow mo from Autumn Watch:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/autumnwatch/video_archive/showrecord?Id=hppromo06

Pictures
Pictures of the sun taken using science:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/10/the_sun.html

Puzzle Part 2
Looking at the Signs for the Busaba toilets (above) I concluded that they represented the two modes of toileting: standing and sitting. I further inferred that this implied gender. I entered the door marked by the kinked line. It was a simple square wood-panelled room, and all I could see was urinals and sinks. Urinals were not sufficient for my needs at that time.

What would you do?

(Originally sent September 2008)

It’s Things 30, I’m 30. Isn’t that nice.

Films
If I have time, I may watch Taken, because it seems wonderfully up-front about its aim as a film – “They have taken his daughter. He will hunt them. He will find them. And he will kill them.”

IMDb: 7.8/10
RT: 50%

Last week’s puzzle
What is the difference between a duck?

One of its legs is both the same.

That’s the official answer. Now for something more serious.

This week’s puzzle
In evolution, the principle of ‘survival of the fittest’ generally means that over time only the most well-adapted versions of a species thrive, and this causes species to develop and improve over many generations. For example, Giraffe’s necks get longer, Lions become better hunters, and so on.

In humans, we look after the sick and the weak and we often have redistributive tax systems. We go to a great effort to help the ‘least fit’, in the evolutionary sense, to survive. In the context of the above, this seems incomprehensible. How did this happen?

Video
More cat video goodness – this time a cat that knows the rules of that childhood game known as ‘Red light/Green light’ in the US, ‘1,2,3 Soleil’ in France, and presumably something else in the UK that I can’t remember. The game also featured to great effect in the movie The Orphanage.

Link
A very practical link:
http://www.metcheck.com
An excellent site for checking the weather, as it includes how weather changes over the course of the day.

A quote / anecdote
On Saturday in Regents Park (while running a treasure hunt) I think I may been the target of an interesting pick-up strategy. A rather attractive French lady asked if I could take a photo of her, so I agreed. She sat on the grass and posed seductively and I took a sensible picture. She asked me to take another one with the camera looking down at her from above. It seemed unreasonable to say no at that point. Then she said “Now let us check the photos to see if you are a good photographer [she then checked them]… oh, you are fabulous! Now, let us go to Queen Mary’s fountain and take some more photos there.”

It was at this point I explained I was a bit busy and had other places to be. But I was impressed by the general idea. If I actually found the French accent attractive it may even have worked. Or perhaps I just have entirely the wrong end of a very long stick.

A picture
An optical illusion: