atomic_fungus (atomic_fungus) wrote,
atomic_fungus
atomic_fungus

#3787: I'd wager it's more because none of them wanted to go to jail.

Vox Day writes: "An Indian man wonders why no British people were willing to intervene when he was being beaten up on a train."

Vox's answer? His headline, "Because you invaded their country".

He may be right; but I think it's more due to the fact that--in England--you go to jail if you defend yourself or your property. The average British subject faces arrest if he does anything to stop the commission of a crime; if you're not the one being beaten up, who knows what the police would do?

I mean, in a country where you're liable for injuries a robber sustains while burglarizing your home, where you go to jail if a criminal abandons a firearm on your property, where trying to stop a rape is considered "aggravated assault", why would anyone lift a finger to help a stranger in distress?

* * *

Maxis is still claiming that SimCity needs an Internet connection. The average game requires so much calculation that a modern PC simply cannot do it all, and a whopping 1% must be offloaded to Maxis' servers.

...or something?

* * *

"Today, of the two IDs I possess, I handed the cop that pulled me over the fake one. FML"

Do I even need to say anything?

* * *

Thursday night, Mrs. Fungus and I watched Wreck-it Ralph and it turned out to be quite an entertaining little movie. Bonus points for the primary antagonist being voiced by Wash, which was a big surprise for me.

* * *

Watching Wheeler Dealers is bad for me, because nearly every time I watch an episode of that show I think, "Man, it'd be nice to have one of those."

The most recent ep I saw was the one with the MX-5, otherwise known as the Miata. Longtime readers of the Fungus may recall that I had given thought--in 2008 or 2009 or so--to fixing up the MGB, selling it, and buying a decent used Miata. If I'd been smart I would have had Mom sign the car over to me when the idea occurred to me, because I could still do something like that now if I owned the car; but it's still in Dad's name, so oh well.

Watching Mike (on the show) hooning that Miata around, though, reminded me how nice it is to have a nimble car with a peppy engine in it. The MGB is very nimble, but its engine isn't even in the same zip code as "peppy"; the car goes 0-60 in 17 seconds, and does the quarter mile in 18.5 seconds at 65 MPH. Whee!

The difference between most of the cars on that show, though, and the Miata/MX-5, is that there are tons of Miatas around. You can find them in all states of repair for all sorts of prices, and if I were able to get the MGB out of the garage (preferably into my brother's, if he'd get off the f-ing fence), once I was gainfully employed again I could conceivably find a decent fixer-upper and make with the wrenching.

The garage is going to get a thorough cleaning this spring, and I am going to be merciless. I'd wager that perhaps ten percent of the junk in the garage is actually worth keeping; I'd be surprised if it were more. I need that space, damn it, especially if the MGB continues to sit where it is.

After all, I'm married, and I can't work on the dirt bike in the family room any more.
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