Masai Barefoot Technology - WTF?

It has been brought to my attention (by the glorious Helga Hansen) that people have started wearing things like this. Now, obviously fashion and I have never quite seen eye to eye but this is just silly. No one could possibly think that this is attractive (la la la la – no I can’t hear you...) and indeed I am assured that the reason for wearing these things is in fact for health not fashion. However, when I read things like...

Because of the way MBT shoes work, walking in them is very much like walking on the sand at the beach.

Then I start to worry. Walking in sand is hard work and in no way enjoyable and yet these people want me to do it all the time. Smells fishy to me.

Anyway, my mission, now that I have chosen to accept it, is to try these things and see if it’s just another marketing stunt or if they are indeed going to change the world. I’m not sure that I want the world to be changed into a Masai world or even a barefoot world but hey, stranger things have happened.

Has anyone worn these on a beach? That must be hell.

If you want the full marketing crap, then you can find it here.

Pick Me Up

When I was finishing off my education I was still a teenager. I’d made it into my twenties, but the mentality was very much still that of a juvenile teenager. I was, if you will, a bit of a prat. During these last few years of irresponsibility, poverty and eternal optimism I met a fellow student with who I built a friendship. Despite him being just as much of a prat as me, the friendship has lasted*. Even though we are now twenty years older and much water has flowed under the bridge, we are still capable of mindless, irresponsible fun. I confess that our antics no longer cause injuries or quite so much damage to property but it is, as they say, the thought that counts.

So this friend of mine came for a visit this weekend. Since I am pretty much living as a student again for the moment, it was easy for us to slip back into the mind set of twenty years ago. The main difference being that we were able to spend a little money this time, since we aren’t really students anymore. So, coffees were drunk in cafés, slices of apple pie and salmon pistolettes were consumed and of course, computer games were purchased. (My purchase of a PSP game is something that is actually going to cause me sufferance, as I have been challenged to a dual by a thirteen year old who is more than likely going to whoop my ass at it.)

One of the highlights of the weekend, for my visitor at least, was the realisation that a certain lamp that he has seen many times in one of his favourite restaurants, is for sale in shops. This excited him quite a lot.

We ate together in Amsterdam on Saturday night and both did our usual people watching. This generally involves being pretty childish and making comments about anyone that comes into view, but it was the diners that got my attention this time. In an Italian restaurant in the middle on Amsterdam on Valentines night more than half the diners were same sex couples. What I couldn’t work out was, if they were friends that couldn’t get dates or gay/lesbian couples. Obviously in our case, it was a pair of sad single muppets but the rest could have been either. The waiter clouded the issue by giving all the ladies roses, but not one to a man. I’m sure that there were gay couples in the restaurant somewhere, but I’m not as good at spotting them as my friend is, since he bats for their team too.

But it was an excellent weekend and only spoiled by the fact that it was so closely followed by a Monday. Somebody should do something about that.

*It had a gap of about 4 years when he decided that he didn’t want to talk to me anymore . The silence ended one day when he rang me up to ask me how to install Skype. No, I don’t understand either.

A is Also for Apology

Since my last post took so long to appear I have decided that I shall do a 2 for the price of 1. Yes folks, here, totally free, is A part 2. The Apathy is Annulled.

Atari 2600

My dad bought us one of these in the late 70s. Of course I was pretty much the only one that ever played on it. I can honestly say that I had as much fun on this as I have had with any modern console game. Kids today, huh? Pah! They don’t know they’re born.

Australia

My apologies to all Ausis for missing this one out on the first run. I have no excuses. I had a fantastic 7 months in Ausi back 1987/8. I had a working holiday visa so I worked my way around the whole country after 3 months at the University of New South Wales. Perth was my favourite place but the north provided me with all the best adventures. wonderful land, but too far from anywhere else to emigrate. I even got to play with the dolphins in the sea.

Action Man

There were two main toys for boys when I was a kid. Lego and Action Man. Lego was the constructive toy and Action Man suffered... The older I got, the more he suffered. This culminated in his final "Race for Survival". This was when my friend and I set up our last remaining Action Men at the end of the garden. They had their armoured car and tank and a few trees to hide behind, but basically they had to make it from the the middle to the fence without, as Scary duck would have it, being Killed to Death. You see my friends father worked at Webley and Scott, who, for the uninitiated, make air rifles.

Aston Martin

No, not just because it has my name, they are such cool cars. Admittedly I'm really talking about the cars from the 70s and 80s and I confess to never having driver one (or even sat in one if we are going to be picky) but the styling, sound and general coolness is exactly what I would like in a car. When I'm rich, you'll see.

Aardvarks

Who could possibly do a mem on the letter A without mentioning aardvarks?

The A-Team

Proving that no amount of violence, explosives or gun fire ever hurt anyone. The team were also fully qualified magicians often pulling entire armoured vehicles out of Murdoch's magic top hat. No task was too great, no cause too minor and no script too stupid. I'm told that the A-Team is now being made into a movie. This can only be a bad thing.

Aircraft

I love flying. Many years ago I managed to get my Private Pilots Licence and I occasionally flew friends around the countryside, but it's an expensive hobby in terms of time and money, so that phase quickly passed. Shame as I would have like to do it much more. I also got my glider pilots licence and that doesn't expire, to technically I could still fly a glider legally if some made fool were dumb enough to lend me one. Helicopters are great fun too, but I've only been a passenger in one of those.

A is for Apathy

I’ve agreed to do a letter mem. Actually I’ve agreed to do a letter A mem. I agreed a long time ago, but it’s finally here. My letter was assigned by CyberPete and I’ve done the best I can. I’ve even managed to avoid rather dubious links such as A Range Rover, A Song by Kate Bush and Another Song by Kate Bush.

Apathy

You know the feeling when you just can’t quite be bothered to do anything at all? That’s the most wonderful of times when you lay in bed, knowing that there is a perfectly good reason that you should have been up half an hour ago, but well, hey, you’re still in bed and it’s likely to stay that way for a while.

And then there is the time when you were chatting on MSN and the work that you had to have finished yesterday was still sitting next to you incomplete.

Yes, these are the best of times, when you dictate to life what is going to happen and not it to you. That is why this post is a week late. Deal with it.

Acer

It’s a big of a big bugger, but that gives it a good 17” widescreen display which I appreciate for watch DVDs and stuff. I could have a minor rant regarding them plastering 120gig harddisk on the labels and only giving it a 100gig drive but that is a long rant that bores even me. Now I just want a netbook to carry around and I’ll be a totally happy bunny.

Adam and the Ants

One of the few pop groups that I liked almost everything that they produced. I read Adam’s auto-biography last year and it was a really interesting read. He’s bipolar and that makes him a big of a nutter. I guess it’s all the same with these pop start types. They start out as slightly eccentric (otherwise they wouldn’t have started into that game in the first place) and then the industry just takes hold and twists them and totally disconnects them from the rest of us mortals. Ho hum.

Austin Powers

These are just cool films although you do have to be British to catch half of the jokes, which makes it even better from our point of view. Apparently Mike Myers’ father is British and it was this that inspired him to do a lot of his humour. These films also gave me my favourite ring tone ever…

Apples

Now for it is mainly Golden Delicious. I’m open to others, but them is wot I prefers. Even though they come mainly from France. And then it’s the slightly yellow ones that are best. The only downer with apples is when the skin gets between your teeth. That requires hours of sticking sharpened things into your mouth and sometimes blood.

Achievement

When the apathy finally passes and then you realise just how far behind you have fallen, then, and only then do you have the motivation to really do your best. Or at least, your fastest. And as the slogan tells us, it’s best if you can actually get someone else to do the hard work. This is why I have plans for world domination. It’s not something that I would do, it’s what my minions will do for me…

Ambulances

We called two ambulances to our house in 2008. One to stop my arm falling off (slight exaggeration possibly) and one to stop Jesse from dying from a stroke. (Go on, tell me the last time that you know of that a thirteen year old had a stroke?) Anyway, he actually needed two of these odd looking vehicles. I managed with one. I’m not greedy.