In retrospect the Windows 7 Party was a bad idea.
Do you remember those daft adverts? Trying to sell the idea that ordinary people would actually get together to celebrate the release of Windows 7, and party hard by showing each other how to share pictures over WiFi, or something of that nature. For some reason I decided it would be "hilarious" to actually hold one. Proper satirical, dude. Not only that, but make it a really sophisticated Windows 7 party. I laid on a ton of posh booze, and used my not inconsiderable cheffing skills to make a range of delicous vol-au-vents. I was particularly proud of the crab puffs.

I invited a whole host of people, techie and non-techie; I even invited a bunch of Apple fans, figuring it would be churlish and unfair to exclude them from what was essentially an opportunity to make fun of Microsoft. And a surprisingly large number of people actually came. Even Elaine was there; sweet, sparkling-eyed Elaine. She couldn't have cared less about this sort of thing but there she was, which left me with a pleasant ache of hope that she'd actually come because she wanted to spend time with me. I was delighted.

The party got off to a successful start, as we made our way through the instructions in those ridiculous videos. The booze and food were a hit, and Elaine, having no particular interest in the computer stuff, kept herself busy by picking at the spread I'd laid on. She was particularly taken with the crab puffs; in fact, I think she ate the whole lot. Things were going well. Very well. Suprisingly well for a party predicated on a self-indulgent nerd-joke. But I guess people were there to have a good time, so that's what they had.

Fast forward a few hours and things were really swinging. Everyone was drunk, particularly Elaine. Alan, one of the Apple fans, was busy trying to download horse porn onto my laptop. I have no idea what he did to it, but it suddenly blue-screened.

"Hah!" said he. "What a shitty piece of Windows shit!" he gloated.

"Fuck off back to your Baby's First Laptop, you fat Mac twat!" slurred a voice. A beautiful, angelic, drunken voice.

I turned, and there she was. Sweet, wonderful Elaine, pointing and laughing at Alan. And then she looked at me. The smile, that sparkling, knowing smile in her eyes said it all. "I know you," it said. "I understand you. I love you." It was a perfect moment. Utterly, utterly perfect.

A moment which was thoroughly ruined when she shat herself thirty seconds later.

It turned out that in my technophiliac haste to get the party up and running, I had neglected to actually cook the crab puffs. And she'd eaten all of them.

I could only look on in horror as the love of my life was carried out of the party, hooting and shitting, whilst Alan noisily vomited on my brand new Alienware desktop. We didn't see much of each other after that.

And later on my fucking Dyson vacuuum cleaner died. This the third one in a year I mean for fuck's sake they don't make them like they used to you know that man makes it all up as he goes along you know it's a triumph of form over function I bet his next invention will be some kind of plastic anus by god.
(Frank Snow, Fri 30 Sep 2011, 23:17, 6 replies)

Suck.
This is a tale of two men and their vacuum cleaners.

I have a Henry. It has a cheery face, it needs emptying about once per general election, and cleans well despite my having once rolled it down the staircase of a Victorian two-up, two-down by accident.

In the time I have had my Henry, a friend of mine has owned exciting, exotic and expensive robotic vacuum cleaners, at least one of which has excitingly, exotically and expensively destroyed itself to pieces.

My typical cleaning session goes like this: Recover Henry from cupboard. Plug in. Hoover round the flat, pausing to move the occasional rug or chair. Put Henry back in cupboard. Make tea.

My mate's goes like this: Program robot to start a hoovering cycle. Try to find out why it hasn't moved. Wonder why it hasn't got any battery charge. Jiggle robot and base station around until former starts charging from the latter. Go out. Come back home to find the robot has managed to clean a 14 foot by 6 inch L-shaped section of carpet. Plug all the cables back in the television where the robot has attacked them. Unbeach the robot from the shoe it has tried to drive over. Supervise the robot while it trundles round the lounge, occasionally rescuing it when it gets trapped under furniture or stranded on a ledge. Tidy up any more cables the robot has tried to drag across the floor. Watch the robot suddenly stop trundling and zoom back to the base station, only to stop three inches short of it and make a sad beeping noise before shutting down. Note with disappointment that large swathes of carpet have been ignored. Go and get the backup hoover from the cupboard. Do all the bits the robot missed. Wish there was time to make tea.

I'm sure all these Roombas and Trilobites and the like are amazing triumphs of human ingenuity and mastery of artificial intelligence... however, I can't help but wonder that they'd be more honestly sold not as vacuum cleaners, but as devices capable of finding the nearest shoe and beaching themselves on it with improbable efficiency.
(Timberwolf, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 20:16, 10 replies)

Dyson Ball Cleaner - can fuck right off.
I ended up in casualty.

My testicles are shredded to shit.


:|
(nappy rash, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 15:45, 6 replies)

Rbbsh kybrd
bght chp kybrd ff th ntrnt. Bt mgn my srprs whn t rrvd nd nn f th vwls wrkd.
cnt vn wrt n ml t cmpln.

Gv m my vwls y cnts!
(Mystery_Machine, Tue 4 Oct 2011, 16:42, 10 replies)

Robot guard dog.
My cat kept shitting in my cheeseplant pot so I bought a proximity activated robo guard dog to bark at him if he went near it.
Came home and he'd crapped all over its head.
Sold it for a fiver at a bootfair, there was still some brown bits in the crevices.
( Brandy_Bumwinkle, Fri 30 Sep 2011, 12:20, 7 replies)

Consoles.
I'd forgotten this one. I think I've tried to wipe its very existence from my memory and only attempting to use it this evening has reminded me.

I bought a PS3. This seemed like a sensible decision at the time - a humble PS1 had entertained and delighted through University years, my PS2 had been a thing of joy and wonderment, so when Sainsbury's had a cut-price deal on the latest incarnation I thought I couldn't go wrong with Sony's portly wunderkind.

It is the single most disappointing object I have ever owned. Turning it on is akin to opening a crushing vortex of disappointment, enough to envelope the entire lounge with a sense of despairing gloom.

I bought a game for it. It has a picture of a car on the box, but from the gameplay I've experienced so far it would be better titled "Downloading Update". Sometimes I get to the second level, where you have to download a "System Update" to "Sign In", and once I discovered a driving minigame where AI cars ram you off the track until you get bored and start again, but mostly it's a slightly more graphically enhanced copy of Microsoft Progress Bar Simulator.

So anyway, I cut my losses and stopped trying to play games on it, assuming it would at least need electricity to disappoint. At which point it rebelled and used some kind of magic disappointment force to give my personal details to Bad People From The Internet.

This wasn't so bad as I hadn't really given it much more than my name owing to being too disappointed by the awkward input scheme, and I did get some free games as an apology. One of them is the Neutral Entertainment Game. It entertains me to precisely the level of my natural decay towards boredom. I will finish playing it exactly as entertained as I was before I started. Some might question how this is disappointing but - aha! - it's the psychological long game of disappointment, disappointing through the medium of questioning the existential emptiness of everything.

The other game I haven't tried, but every so often it wakes the PS3 up at a random time and re-downloads all 7 or 8 GB of game files. I assume it's a version of "Downloading Update" that plays itself. If you weren't already in enough of an existential crisis from Neutral Entertainment Game then hah, how do you feel now you realise the console doesn't even need you, the player?

The worst thing about it, though, is it has somehow managed to infect an HDMI cable with its disappointingness, as if the plastic casing has failed to contain such a huge amount of disappointment. There's a MTBF of about 15 minutes before the screen will go blank and you'll need to wiggle the cable to get a picture back. So the one thing it could do well, playing DVD and Blu-Ray video, it has managed to render itself useless at. All it has left to give now is disappointment.

(At least until I buy a new cable for it to consume with its overpowering negativity.)
(Timberwolf, Sun 2 Oct 2011, 22:42, 4 replies)

I had a keyboard that had a row of rubberised "internet" buttons on it,
one of them labelled "refresh" was directly above the F5 button.
( Undulating Tentacles of Love getting fun down to acceptable levels, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:31, 2 replies)

A guy I knew had a load of gadgets.
Most would have been quite good, but the voice recognition software they used was shit. I lose track of the times he's call for his gadget skates and the umbrella would pop up.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Tue 4 Oct 2011, 21:01, 2 replies)

I bought a tanning bed
whose settings were all wrong. Boy was my face orange.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 2 Oct 2011, 12:31, 4 replies)

Matthew Broderick

( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:00, 1 reply)

Add a touch of lethal to your children's parties!

Back in the mid 80's, my parents used to do a lot of shopping at Bookers cash & carry. As well as food items in amazing bulk sizes (who in the world would want that many prunes?) they'd also sell 'odd' items on special, a bit like ALDI do. Random items, usually from China.
Anyway, it was my brother's birthday and mum returned from the C&C armed with a round carboard tube, with a wick at the bottom, marked 'PARTY BOMB'.
The idea was simple. A firework full of plastic toys. Light the fuse, a bit of a bang, flying toys, happy kids. Easy.
Mum lights the fuse and (thankfully) makes everyone stand well back. there's a moment of quiet and then

BOOOOOMMM!!!

The fucker explodes with amazing force and, as promised, the toys are blown out. Unfortunately the firework is so powerful that most of the toys are blown into splinters. Most of what's left hits the ceiling and shatters. About ten percent survive intact. A week later and a news report confirms that we were one of the lucky groups to escape with our eyes. They were banned straight afterwards.

What better way to celebrate your eleventh birthday than with a perspex shrapnel bomb?
( The Togaboy The world will end on, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 11:29, 11 replies)

i like breads

( broadsword w⚓, Tue 4 Oct 2011, 10:21, 2 replies)

Particle Accelerators
Thumbing through a classroom science catalog, looking for equipment suitable for a high school physics class, we came across 'particle accelerators' for only several dollars each. Curious, we ordered a few. They were little desktop ramps for marbles.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Sat 1 Oct 2011, 10:08, 1 reply)

QVC + weed = third degree burns.
Thankfully, this happened to friends of mine, and not yours truly. Way back when QVC was a new entity, filled with the siren call of useless gadgets, my friends embarked on an evening of heavy smoking and channel surfing, unfortunately paired with easy access to their credit cards.

So, it was inevitable really. They purchased a candy floss machine.

Several days later it arrives, and (once again) armed with an ample amount of pot and a minimal amount of sense, they fired up the machine. Scenes from films flashed before their eyes, children, happy, laughing children, swirling their hands inside machines filled with pink fluffy clouds of sugary heaven, fingers coming away dusted with light, sweet strands of joy.

Wrong. Think more along the lines of Apocalypse Now, the carnival years. It was, apparently, like plunging your hand into "a pink napalm machine".

That must have been a decade ago now, and I still chuckle about it every time I see QVC.
(Smaldini www.fuggler.com, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 17:22, 1 reply)

Car radio
It works perfectly almost all the time. One notable exception was on a 464 mile drive from Dumfries to Newquay this summer. The radio got stuck on radio four during the birdwatching programme. It would not turn off or down. An hour of "And THIS is a black headed gull" *CRAW CRAW CRAW CRAW CRAW CRAW CRAW CRAW CRAW CRAW CRAW CRAW CRAW CRAW* is capable of turning the mind to mush. I pulled in and switched off the car after twenty miles. No effect.

I got to Newquay in a little under seven hours. I did not stop again.

The radio was fine the next day...
( MatJ LOOK, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 15:06, 37 replies)

Aerobie
First try - lenth of the field, over the trees, into the woods, never seen again.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:14, 4 replies)

A cautionary tale - sorry for length
It's not that I am accident prone, it's that accidents seem to occur near to where I happen to be. Take DIY, for instance.
Went out to paint the fence one day, having purchased one of those spray pumps and paint for the garden fencing. I personally recommend, particularly if you are easily swayed by television advertisements, you put all notions of technology in the garden to one side and use a brush to paint the fences!
I assembled the pump and filled it with chestnut coloured fence paint, duly primed the pump and pressurized the tank, all well there. After spraying the first panel I was not suitably impressed, but it did work. Anyway, moved to panel 2, just off the patio area and re-pumped to pressurize when, BANG! The pipe came off the pump.
There was fence paint on the roof of the house extension, the conservatory, me, patio doors, patio and a huge radius of garden extending to some 15 feet! I couldn't see, because my glasses were covered (good job I had them on), then it was a toss-up, do I go for the hose to clean up the garden or have a shower first? Well the hose won, and I even had to get the ladders out to get chestnut paint off the roof of the extension and conservatory. Finally, after a couple of hours cleaning I went and had a shower and had to virtually use a brillo pad to get the stuff off, which was well and truly dried. I was still glowing red following all the abrasion, good job I didn't get any down the front of my pants! Jean arrived home and said, have you been in the garden, you look like you've caught the sun. I don't know what stopped me thumping her one! On top of that my eldest daughter remarked as I slumped at the dining table, "Dad, there's still paint on the conservatory roof".
Anyway, that morning there was, what appeared to be, a chestnut hue to a large circle just off the patio, this included plants, grass and various wildlife, like chestnut coloured blackbirds and blue tits, frogs and newts! Oh! Also noticed brown splashes on the guttering and the bedroom windows of the upper floor too.
I was thinking of taking the pump back for a refund, but I doubt whether I could have stood the embarrassment of having to explain. The last straw would have been that the next door neighbour had videoed the event and I would appear on "You've Been Framed", which I suppose would have been OK for a cut of the £250 transmission fee.
Two days later my neighbour, Phyllis, asked if I had been painting with red paint. It transpires she had splashes of fence paint across her windows. She refused my offer of reparation, saying, "No thank you, I'll do it myself". Obviously not impressed with me.
(Hugh Jambton Wun Hung Lo's mate, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 15:40, 5 replies)

I once bought "How to become Invisible" off of ebay for £2
It was simply a one-page document, which read; "Hide behind things"
(Pavlov's Frog figures no-one really reads sigs anyway, Tue 4 Oct 2011, 18:19, 6 replies)

THE SHOUTY PHONE!
Nowadays, I am a smartphone-toting media person. Or, in the common parlance: a twat. But once upon a time, back in the mists of memory, I carried THE SHOUTY PHONE! THE SHOUTY PHONE was a basic Alcatel housebrick that could only send text messages using CAPITAL LETTERS! IT HAD A TWO LINE DISPLAY! PUNCTUATION WAS BASIC!

And so I gained a reputation amongst my friends as an IRASCIBLE BASTARD! ALL SHOUTING! ALL THE TIME!

And, oddly enough, I GREW INTO THE PERSONA! IT SUITED ME! I WAS A NATURALLY SHOUTY PERSON! I'D JUST NEVER REALISED IT BEFORE! I AM THE BRIAN BLESSED OF NEW MEDIA, YOU COCKMUNCHERS!
Thank you, Alcatel. Thank you.
(universalpsykopath loves what you've done with your hair., Fri 30 Sep 2011, 15:24, 5 replies)

Victor Bombers
Back in the 1960s, my father worked at Handley Page, designing and engineering bits of Victor bomber aircraft. For those of you unfamiliar with them, they’re slightly larger than your common or garden twin engine Airbus, but unlike an Airbus they can exceed the speed of sound in a dive and were built to obliterate large bits of the Soviet Union.

One sunny April morning, he was invited along for a ride in a brand new Victor which had just rolled out of the factory, prior to it being handed over to the RAF. No-one in their right mind would pass up the opportunity of being chauffeur driven at low level over Hertfordshire and Essex in a four-engined weapon of mass destruction (if only to open the bomb-bay doors over Harlow and let your imagination run riot for a minute) so he understandably jumped at the chance.

The big plane thundered off into the sky and was put through its paces. The flight went without a hitch, so the big bomber was returned to Radlett Airfield and was subsequently delivered to Biggles and his chums, just after my dad left the plane wide eyed and grinning.

Worryingly, a few months later however, the company received a phone call from an RAF depot on the other side of the world. Apparently all wasn’t well with the Victor in question and a couple of issues had been identified during routine maintenance.

Firstly, a section of wiring in the wing fuel tank hadn’t been completed and it was a miracle that the plane hadn’t succumbed to the dodgy electrics and simply blown itself to smithereens at any time.

Secondly, from within the same fuel tank, RAF technicians retrieved a three-legged wooden stool.

A subsequent investigation discovered that the bloke who assembled the wiring in the wing used to not unreasonably sit on a wooden stool while he worked. While working on this particular jet, he’d buggered off for his mid-afternoon tea break with the job half done but by the time he returned, the fuel tank was sealed and that was that. I never did find out what happened to the engineer in question, but it’s reasonable to assume that he didn’t work in the aviation industry for much longer.

As for Victors in general, none of the eighty six of them built was ever used to drop anything remotely dangerous in anger. Aside from the occasional terror to its crews, Victor bombers have probably caused less anguish and misery to the population at large than a single Ryanair Airbus does on a daily basis.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 30 Sep 2011, 14:59, 5 replies)

Dangerous Invention
I'm going to tell you about a household gadget you can find in nearly every home in South Korea. Before I tell you its name, just bear in mind that every single one comes with safety instructions so you will know how to use it without dying. Everyone knows these rules by heart except for foreigners coming to the country, and there will always be a helpful Korean at hand to explain it to you. Even so, every summer the newspapers report on the numbers of deaths attributed to this device. It's possible even you might have one of these in your home, facing you right now.

So, I guess I should let you know what dangerous contraption I'm talking about. Ready? The electric fan.

...Wait, you're probably wondering, how's that supposed to kill you?

Well, there's no one answer, but many theories. To be lethal, you must leave the fan on while you sleep. Also, there must be no windows open, and you're as good as dead. I'm sure you're as alarmed as I first was, as I'd spent every night in Canada sleeping with the fan on, even in the dead of winter, and of course I never opened a window.

So, how does a fan kill you in your sleep? There are many theories. Listed from least implausible to most, they are:
-the fan gives you hypothermia
-the fan consumes oxygen and gives you carbon dioxide poisoning
-the fan overheats, raising the temperature and killing you from too much heat
-the fan creates a vortex over your mouth and nose, preventing air from reaching your lungs
-fan blades are able to chop O2 molecules in half, rendering the oxygen unbreathable

And many more, but this covers the spectrum from pretty crazy to pretty damn crazy.

I was pretty surprised by this, so I asked a medical doctor. He backed up the story, and I believe cited the hyopthermia explanation. Even fan manufacturers, who have a vested interest in not having their product classified as lethal, print all sorts of warnings in the instruction manuals.

A few years ago, there was a newspaper article about a group of guys who made a suicide pact. They rented a motel room and went to sleep with the fan on. They were still alive in the morning, so they rented the room for one more night. Sometime in the night, one of the guys decided he wanted to live, so he switched off the fan. The article quoted the chief of police crediting him with saving all their lives.

Of course fan death is not real. One Korean news station even did an interesting experiment on the topic, and discovered that sleeping with a fan on helps you sleep deeper and improves oxygen absorption. Still, almost every Korean believes in it, and dozens of deaths every year get attributed to fan death, leaving the real cause unknown.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Fri 30 Sep 2011, 9:43, 13 replies)

My butt plug keeps popping out all day. Doesnt plug shit.
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 22:20, 2 replies)

Bathroom scales
I may as well have just painted a square of wood white with the words "You're still not as slim as you want to be, maybe you shouldn't have had that chocolate bar for breakfast".
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Fri 30 Sep 2011, 20:30, Reply)

My Fleshlight Review
Aunty Vera got me this handy little gadget for my birthday, and I've got to say I've enjoyed it very much so far. It tickles my dickle in just the right way and makes me spunk more than Gary Glitter in a nursery. However, there's definitely room for improvement and these are some of the ideas I've come up with to improve the fleshlight.

1. Speech
There's nothing I love more than a bit of dirty talk! Unfortunately when I'm using my fleshlight I usually have to just talk to myself in a feminine voice, and sometimes when my voice cracks it turns me off abiv. A cheeky speech box added in would be spectacular, with options for different voices like with Sat Navs you get Mr T voice and shit.

2. An integrated penis measurerer
Ever been in that situation when your online camsex buddy asks you how big your willy is and you don't know cuz you haven't measured in so long, so you scour your bedroom for a tape measure or ruler but can't find a thing? Well that can be a thing of the past! Just press a button which makes an inner platform pop up from the bottom, and you push it down with your willy and the speech box tells you how big you are.

3. Theft Security- Penis Fly Trap
With dick recognition technology, whenever someone elses dick other than the owners enters the fleshlight spikes from the side poke out and well and truly mutilate the thief's John Thomas. Bit harsh like but they deserve it the fucking thief. Also great for a prank on a friend!
(SirStromming, Fri 30 Sep 2011, 15:15, 9 replies)

Two different blokes I know
Spent vast wads of cash on fancy wristwatches. I wear a £12 Casio, so it's not really my thing, but I can understand the appeal, and I like a fancy bit of technology as much as the next man.

However, what I really don't get is that they bought watches which charge themselves from your body's movement - you wear them and they use your motion to recharge. Excellent.

AND THEN THEY SPENT HUNDREDS OF POUNDS ON SPECIAL BOXES WHICH WIGGLE THE WATCH AROUND FOR YOU, WHEN THEY COULD JUST WEAR THE FUCKING THING.

Both of them are a bit thick, to be fair.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 30 Sep 2011, 11:18, 16 replies)

Bought the missus one of Ann Summers' infamous 'Rabbits'.

Rubbish. Might as well have stuffed it up her chuff.
(R. Jimlad twitter.com/sirmarkymark, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 19:04, 2 replies)

Allright, here's my first offering:
"Pound shop" batteries.

Despite carrying any number of meaningless adjectives on the packaging, these 'Heavy Duty Super Plus Ultra Power' little tubes of shite seem to carry about as much usable charge as a stray fart. The "1.5" optimistically printed on the side is, in fact, the lifespan in seconds.

It's a small wonder when, if you do manage to get some light from a torch given a fresh set of these worthless wonders; the feeble beam of light doesn't just give up and curve to the ground, as the tragically underpowered photons lose their struggle agaisnt gravity.

As for digital cameras, you'd probably have better luck trying to run one off a battery bay full of urine, than with these typically zinc carbon/chloride failures - although even the rare-find alkalines are no guarantee of decency.

According to wikipedia, Zinc–Carbon batteries account for 6% of all primary battery sales in Japan. In the UK, it's 20%. Why are we so tolerant of these useless waste-generators?

TLDR: Aren't cheap batteries crap?
(The Incredible Sulk Finally remembered his password on, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 16:41, 8 replies)

A tenuous pearoast, you say? Oh alright, then:
My dad is a warchild, and thus resents having to replace absolutely anything.

He's a keen and celebrated scientist, and his office at the university when he was there was an original professor's combination of a desk surrounded by piles of books, batterered armchairs, and mechanical devices. Some of my first toys as a child were jigsaws for the undergraduates of the current working knowledge of DNA structures, and animal skulls, with which I'd play when he'd bring me into work with him. He made his coffee in a beaker on a tripod & gauze, over a bunsen burner on a blue flame. It took all of a minute and a half to make, as a result.

His current single bedroom flat is like a Heath Robinson cartoon designed by a graphophile: books line all the walls to the high ceilings, and everything nearly works. The cooker has a wedge with which to close the door, the fridge is leaning backwards slightly so that the door doesn't fly open when you open it, and the chest of drawers in the hallway fits so into the alcove so well it's supported by the skirting board.

The living room ceiling has an increasing amount of dents in it - he regularly drives to France to stock up on booze, and has a taste for champagne, and whenever he opens a bottle he likes to pop the cork with aplomb. Wherever the cork falls it stays, for another visitor to find, that he can regale them with the story of who that bottle was drunk with and what was discussed.

Without doubt my favourite mechanism is for the shower door, which requires the "magic paperclip" as the door does not quite fit flush to the bath. This is a clip bent in a manner just so, that, when hooked over there and then tucked into there, holds the door shut.

Gadjets? You can keep your gadjets - he makes his own.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:23, 1 reply)

battery operated glowstick
as a child at disney for the first time, i was so overexcited by the glowsticks that they sell when it turns dark. such beautiful glowing colours. i had never seen anything so cool. they were going to make me look so motherfucking cool at school when i got back. i spent a hefty chunk of my souvenir money on the precious things and loaded them gleefully around my little neck, wrists, ankles... hot pink, electric blue, stinging lime green, acid yellow... i was so, so happy.

and so, so gutted the next day when i got up eagerly to inspect my booty, only to see that they had all died in the night and i just had a series of stupid plastic tubes.

fast forward a hundred years, and the boy wants to take me to a rave. on a boat. now i am not a cool, rave-going kind of girl. i am more a "cheeeeer up sleeeeeepy jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeean" at 3am kind of girl. but i wanted to rise to the challenge (and for the record, no pun intended, i'm fucking glad i did, best day out in london EVER. although that may have been the 80 degree sunshine and the unlimited vodka). so i bought battery operated flashing neon glowsticks rather than real ones. these fuckers wouldn't die on us. surely.

my faith was misplaced. they lasted about 2 mins. we spent the rest of the rave looking as if we were wearing tampons around our necks. sadly we were so smashed that this only became apparent on examining the photos the next day.

fucking batteries. fucking glowsticks. fucking useless.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 14:20, 3 replies)

My mum's microwave...
... had a timer that you could set in advance. Not a bad idea; you could set it to nuke something nice and hot in time for you coming home from work. Brilliant.

So all you did was set the day, hour and minute you wanted it to switch off at, and the cooking time. You could even set a couple of different cooking times so that it could nuke something, let it stand, then nuke it again. Back up a minute, *day*?

Yes. Day. You could set it up to two weeks in advance.
(gordonjcp, Tue 4 Oct 2011, 15:31, 4 replies)