And that’s how the fight started……

 

My wife and I were watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire while we were in bed. I turned to her and said, 'Do you want to have Sex?' 'No,' she answered. I then said, 'Is that your final answer?' ... She didn't even look at me this time, simply saying, 'Yes..' So I said, "Then I'd like to phone a friend." And that's when the fight started...

I took my wife to a restaurant. The waiter, for some reason, took my order first. "I'll have the rump steak, rare, please." He said, "Aren't you worried about the mad cow?" "Nah, she can order for herself." And that's when the fight started.....

My wife and I were sitting at a table at her high school reunion, and she kept staring at a drunken man swigging his drink as he sat alone at a nearby table. I asked her, "Do you know him?" "Yes", she sighed, "He's my old boyfriend. I understand he took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear he hasn't been sober since." "My God!" I said, "Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?" And then the fight started...

When our lawn mower broke and wouldn't run, my wife kept hinting to me that I should get it fixed. But, somehow I always had something else to take care of first, the shed, the boat, making beer.. Always something more important to me. Finally she thought of a clever way to make her point. When I arrived home one day, I found her seated in the tall grass, busily snipping away with a tiny pair of sewing scissors. I watched silently for a short time and then went into the house. I was gone only a minute, and when I came out again I handed her a toothbrush. I said, "When you finish cutting the grass, you might as well sweep the driveway." The doctors say I will walk again, but I will always have a limp.

My wife sat down next to me as I was flipping channels. She asked, "What's on TV?" I said, "Dust." And then the fight started...

Saturday morning I got up early, quietly dressed, made my lunch, and slipped quietly into the garage. I hooked up the boat up to the van and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour. The wind was blowing 50 mph, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on the radio, and discovered that the weather would be bad all day. I went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into bed. I cuddled up to my wife's back; now with a different anticipation, and whispered, "The weather out there is terrible." My loving wife of 5 years replied, "And, can you believe my stupid husband is out fishing in that?" And that's how the fight started...

My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary. She said, "I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds." I bought her a bathroom scale. And then the fight started......

After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social Security. The woman behind the counter asked me for my driver's License to verify my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left my wallet at home. I told the woman that I was very sorry, but I would have to go home and come back later. The woman said, 'Unbutton your shirt'. So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair. She said, 'That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me' and she processed my Social Security application. When I got home, I excitedly told my wife about my experience at the Social Security office. She said, 'You should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten disability too.' And then the fight started...

My wife was standing nude, looking in the bedroom mirror. She was not happy with what she saw and said to me, "I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you to pay me a compliment.' I replied, "Your eyesight's damn near perfect." And then the fight started........

I rear-ended a car this morning...the start of a REALLY bad day! The driver got out of the other car, and he was a DWARF!! He looked up at me and said 'I am NOT Happy!' So I said, 'Well, which one ARE you then?' That's how the fight started.

One year, I decided to buy my mother-in-law a cemetery plot as a Christmas gift... The next year, I didn't buy her a gift. When she asked me why, I replied, "Well, you still haven't used the gift I bought you last year!" And that's how the fight started.

Happy New Year.

Twas the night before Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you all.

Have yourself a Merry……. Elf ‘n safetee

 

During the Winter holiday season, all personnel and visitors are requested to note the following:

Please be advised that all persons planning to dash through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh, going over fields and laughing all the way are required to undergo a Risk Assessment addressing the safety of open sleighs. This assessment must also consider whether it is appropriate to use only one horse for such a venture, particularly where there are multiple passengers. Unlicensed carriers will be reported to the local licensing authority, and fixed penalties will be applied. Horses are liable to seizure by animal protection should Inspectors deem that overloading has occurred.

Please note that permission must also be obtained in writing from landowners before their fields may be entered. To avoid offending those not participating in celebrations, we request that laughter is moderate only and not loud enough to be considered a noise nuisance. All resultant manure must be collected and disposed of in the appropriate recycle facility. Seat restraints must be worn.

Benches, stools and orthopaedic chairs are now available for collection by any shepherds planning or required to watch their flocks at night.

While provision has also been made for remote monitoring of flocks by CCTV cameras from a centrally heated shepherd observation hut, all facility users are reminded that an emergency response plan must be submitted to account for known risks to the flocks.

The Angel of the Lord is additionally reminded that prior to shining his/her glory all around he/she must confirm that all shepherds are wearing appropriate Personal Protective Equipment to account for the harmful effects of UVA, UVB and the overwhelming effects of Glory. Untrained personnel are restricted from this activity.

Following last year’s well publicised case, everyone is advised that EC legislation prohibits any comment with regard to the redness of any part of Mr. R. Reindeer. Further to this, exclusion of Mr. R Reindeer from reindeer games will be considered discriminatory and disciplinary action will be taken against those found guilty of this offence.

While it is acknowledged that gift-bearing is commonly practised in various parts of the world, particularly the Orient, everyone is reminded that the bearing of gifts is subject to Hospitality Guidelines and all gifts must be registered. This applies regardless of the individual, even royal personages.

It is particularly noted that direct gifts of currency or gold are specifically precluded under provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Such gifts must be declared in advance on page 193 of personal tax declarations. Being a King, regardless of qualification, does not qualify for exemption.

Furthermore, caution is advised regarding other common gifts, such as aromatic resins that may initiate allergic reactions. These must be supervised by an appropriately trained First Aider prior to receipt.

Finally, in the recent case of the infant found tucked up in a manger without any crib for a bed; Social Services have been advised and will be arriving shortly.

Merry Christmas,
Risk Management Team

*Nicked from Bill Sticker who nicked it from someone else*

Aussies and beer.

If only this happened to me.

Amazon out of control.

Not the female kind, the retailer kind.

It’s not the ordering that’s at fault, it’s the delivery. I ordered four items yesterday and was given delivery forecasts for all four, of an estimated delivery slot of between the 17th and 21st. Now that’s a bad enough forecast in itself. Am I supposed to stay in for five days in a row? I think with all their money they are making, they can do better than that. However that’s not my point. Two items arrived this morning, four days adrift of the estimated delivery dates.

Does this mean that I have to stay at home for NINE bloody days now. I suggest that they tell their outside suppliers the delivery forecast dates and get them to adhere by them.

I personally think that they are in danger of losing customer satisfaction if they can’t buck up with their ludicrous forecasts.

Incidentally if Tesco’s, can not only name the day and give a two hour delivery slot in that day, then why can’t Amazon at the very least name a specific day.

Amazon. You’re pissing me off.

Santa Claus: An engineer's perspective:

 

I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th. of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second < 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the Oflying¹ reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them; Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

IV. 600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance < this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth¹s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion Joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in a milli-second, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 G¹s. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

(Shamelessly knicked from the comments @  Head Rambles

Christmas surprise

 

I wonder if Ryanair will take note.

Silly me.

At the moment this computer I’m writing my usual drivel on is situated on a table in the kitchen. This is because Mrs FE doesn’t like the sound of keys clicking and me swearing at the monitor, whilst she’s watching the X Factor. ( personally I think my screaming sounds better than any of the X Factor contestants).

However the computer has to be re-sited elsewhere as Mrs FE wants one of those big American fridges to take it’s place. A new venue has been found in a small bedroom, but a new desk will be required.

I’ve just spent an inordinately length of time scouring the internet for a suitable table to fit in the space allotted and was up to page 32 on  Amazon and beginning to despair at finding one suitable for my needs.

You’re probably wondering why that should be a problem? The answer is I was trying to find one with a shelf to hold my rather large printer. Could I find one with a suitable shelf? Yes of course I could, but I’m not paying £450 fucking quid for a desk!

Just in case I might find one eventually with a shelf I decided to measure the dimensions of the printer. Immediately I realised what a fuckwit I was. On top of this new printer was a small glowing blue icon in the form of a transmitting antenna. I’d completely forgotten that this new printer was WiFI and therefore doesn’t need to be near the computer at all.

Mind you Mrs FE and myself will never agree where the printer will have to be sited. (I wonder if it’ll fit on top of the fridge freezer?)

A plus side as pointed out by my kids and their partners. is the existing larder fridge can now become a dedicated ready use beer fridge.

I’ll drink to that.

Sign language.

Below is a simple set of chalked shapes. These shapes are used by a gang of burglars in Surrey to classify which properties are worth the risk of breaking into. So if you live in leafy Surrey it’s worth checking to see if you have any strange chalk marks on the front of your house. (I’m looking at you, Huw and Lizi).

A public service announcement from The Filthy Engineer

Wind turbines are……..

Crap. Today when we actually have some wind, most of the turbines are stationary. As an example this pic shows the output for a wind farm in Kent, rated capacity 59.8 MW. Look at what it’s producing. Sweet EFF all. In fact it is probably using power to enable the turbines to rotate slowly to protect the gearboxes from damage.

Temperature outside is 3 deg C at the moment.

SOURCE

Street Lighting

My local council is considering dimming or even switching some of the county’s street lights to save money. A position that I don’t think they have thought through.

Dimming:

All that happens in a simple dimming system is that you exchange lots of light and heat for less light and loads more heat. This defeats the object of saving power.

An ordinary resistor is a piece of material that doesn't conduct electrical current well -- it offers a lot of resistance to moving electrical charge. A variable resistor consists of a piece of resistive material, a stationary contact arm and a moving contact arm.

As the charge works to move through the resistor, energy is lost in the form of heat. When you put a resistor in a series circuit, the resistor's energy consumption causes a voltage drop in the circuit, decreasing the energy available to other loads (the light bulb, for example). Decreased voltage across the light bulb reduces its light output.

The problem with this solution is that you end up using a lot of energy to heat the resistor, which doesn't help you light up the room but still costs you. In addition to be being inefficient, these switches tend to be cumbersome and potentially dangerous, since the variable resistor releases a substantial amount of heat.

TFE note: There are no, dimmers fitted in my area as there was never considered  any justifiable cost.

Switching off:

Apart from the obvious dangers of  the running down of pedestrians on a more regular basis, there may be legal ramifications. Consider the 30 MPH speed limit in towns, villages and cities. There is more than just the signage to consider.

Scenario:

The Beak: “Mr Filthy Engineer. You were stopped for exceeding the 30 MPH speed limit. How do you plead?”

TFE: “Not guilty”.

(Stunned silence in court as everyone rushes out to get popcorn.)

TB: “Please state your reason for your plea as we have the statement from two Officers that you were at the time exceeding the limit”.

TFE: “I didn’t know there was a limit, your honour. I’ve never driven through that area before”.

TB: “Didn’t you see the sign”?

TFE: “Maybe that was when I had a sneezing fit.”

TB: “But didn’t you see the street lights?”

TFE: “There were no street lights”.

TB: “How can you say that? They are clearly visible”.

TFE: “Not when it’s raining, dark, and it’s a cloudy night. AND the bloody things are switched off”.

TB: (Consults clerk) “Case dismissed”.

.

Now to deliver.

\i must stop droning on about deliveries.