Category: learning curve

Do you want fries with that?

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I’m often asked how close the nearest McDonald’s outlet is. Aren’t we all? Most days, right?
Of course, with my Android smartphone in my hand, it’s easy to help the enquirer out – I just use Layar or some similar augmented reality browser (note: first time you use it, you will feel like you’re in a science fiction movie) [Android QR here].
But what if I wanted to know how far it was between McDonald’s “restaurants”?

Well, then, I would turn to datapointed.net – because they have helpful maps for that sort of thing:

    

Here are their images for the UK and Ireland:

…on the isle of Great Britain, proper – anywhere reachable from London on foot, aka the mainland – Cape Wrath ranks McFarthest. From its restless shores to the nearest McFix, the hungry traveller must traverse the Scottish Highlands to Inverness, 136 kilometers [84.5 miles] inland.

And the US of A:

As expected, McDonald’s cluster at the population centers and hug the highway grid. East of the Mississippi, there’s wall-to-wall coverage, except for a handful of meager gaps centered on the Adirondacks, inland Maine, the Everglades, and outlying West Virginia.

Initally, they had the McFarthest Spot™ down as “between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley: 107 miles [172km] distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles [233km] by car!”, but that has since been updated:

Because per our calculations, the winds of McDistance have shifted – from your lovely rolling grasslands to the dusty Western outback. There, in the high desert of northwestern Nevada, you’ll find antelope, wild horses, and the Lower-48?s new-and-improved McFarthest Spot: a patch of sage and soil that is 115 miles [185km] away, as the crow flies, from the nearest McDonald’s!

Which is all very interesting and shows a certain degree of obsession and nerdiness. Not, however, as much obsession and nerdiness as actually getting in a car and actually going there. Really.

What follows is a diary of a two day road trip to Nevada, complete with photos, videos and an image of the McFarthest Spot™,  appropriately marked:

Brilliant.

There’s loads of other wonderful stuff to get immersed in at datapointed as well – including a statistically computed visual representation of the game “Chinese Whispers” and horoscopes dismantled:

David McCandless and friends have analyzed the text of 22,000 online horoscopes and found that they’re different permutations of the same few words, more or less.

Who knew?

Gotta love the internet. How ever did we manage without it?

Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe…

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This one is for the folks back in Blighty (although some over here may not have seen it, I guess). There are currently issues in Tokwana in Zimbabwe. OK, so there are currently issues everywhere in Zimbabwe, but I am focussing particularly on the heinous events which have recently befallen the Ndlovu family in Tokwana.
You know, the ones who were co-habiting with Rah the goblin…

HELL hath no fury like a goblin scorned!
A Plumtree family in Tokwana area has deserted their homestead and fled the marauding goblin which they lived with for the past seven years.
The owner of the homestead, Richard Ndlovu; his sister – Sithokozile Ndlovu; their mother only identified as Gogo NaNancy (Nancy’s mother) and three juveniles fled the homestead with nothing except the clothes they were putting on and sought safety in Plumtree town.
The reportedly bilingual goblin (speaks Kalanga and Ndebele) which introduced itself as Rah to the family started demanding human flesh in June 2009 and thereafter started reigning terror on the family after its request was turned down.
Sithokozile said they started co-habiting with rah in 2003 but they lived with him in harmony.
“We have lived with the goblin for the past seven years but it was not violent at all,” she said.
Rah became violent in 2009 after his keepers denied him human flesh.
“One day June 2009, he woke up and said he was tired of goat meat and as such wanted human flesh. We asked him whose meat and Rah mentioned my name,” Sithokozile said with troubled voice and spirit.
Sithokozile’s mother, gogo NaNancy could not kill her daughter and the goblin was infuriated.
“I was not going to sacrifice myself for the goblin and my mother could not do the same. Rah got angry and started beating everyone in the family. We have never head peace since he demanded that I become part of his meal,” she said.
It is said that at times Rah would tie children onto a tree using jerseys and spend the whole day thrashing them with switch.
The family has since deserted the homestead and is seeking refuge in Plumtree town.

That’s the way life is when you choose to live with a goblin. One minute they’re quite happy with goat meat, the next they’re demanding human flesh and reigning terror on your family.

Please note that in presenting this story to you, I am certainly not belittling the African belief in goblins and evil spirits. No more than I belittle other fanciful beliefs, anyway. It’s the individual’s choice as to whether or not they wish to believe in these things. Those in the Western world who read these sort of stories and mock such “primitive” ideas would do well to go and think about how exactly they differ from those people going to church each and every Sunday.

So no, I don’t believe in goblins, but I recognise that for some people, those beliefs are very real and form an important part of their culture.

I really do love the way these articles are presented in the Byo (Bulawayo) Daily. And thank goodness it’s there to keep us informed of these things, such as the man who stole his wife’s urine to go and do a pregnancy test:

The comical incident, which seems to have been posted on the popular social networking site, Facebook occurred at Number 18 Clark Road after the man suspected that his wife was trying to abort the fruits of his all night sweat job.

Interesting to note that the protagonist in that one is also a Mr Ndlovu. A Mr Polite Bukosi Ndlovu, in fact.

Or the woman who pulled a gentleman “by his manhood over a distance of 50 meters after failing to pay $15 he owed her”.
His name?

Mr Ndlovu.

I think I see a pattern developing here.

Winning?

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SA Blog Awards Badge This is a sticky post.
There are other posts below this, but they are less sticky and have already become unstuck. Scroll down to see the pile of other posts which have slipped further down this page.

Yes, it’s that time of year again when I ask for your assistance in promoting my blog in the annual South African Blog Awards, this time being the 2011 version of these wondrous, infamous and occasionally contentious accolades.

There will be other blogs out there vying for your vote, so why should you vote for me?

Here are some reasons you might feel are good enough for you to put cursor to that VOTE button and left-click:

The Sob Story

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, 6000 miles… has been a finalist for each of the last 26 years in various categories of the SABAs. It’s become such a big thing is our household that the first words that my little boy ever said were: “Dad, have you won a Blog Award yet?”. The first word that my daughter came out with was “Feck“, but soon afterwards she also asked about the Blog Award thing as well.
Admitting consistent failure to one’s children is the hardest thing a father can ever do and I have to do it (and here, I pay homage to my daughter’s vocabulary) every single fecking year.
Your vote can change this.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

For many years, the Roman Empire was built on the belief that Oregano was The Spice Of Life. Only upon Julius Caesar’s ascension in 49BC did it become apparent that Oregano was actually a herb and was therefore patently ineligible for the title “The Spice Of Life”. Variety, popular among the middle classes at the time, made a bid for the vacant post and – despite not being a spice either – took the label and has never relinquished it since.
In celebration of this fake historical fact, 6000 miles… has been offering you variety like it was going out of fashion.  So far in 2011’s 339 posts (this is 340), we’ve done gardening advice, passed comment on the London riots, infamously got mildly annoyed with Lewis Pugh, mourned the demise of a Cape Town pastime, noted the contents of fruit salad and helped save ickle baby turtles (sort of).
And that’s just a tiny snapshot (2%) of the vast array of variety we’ve brought you this year in honour of  Emperor Julius.
(My sources tell me that you’d best get used to that term, by the way, ok?)

I Pointed Out That Chris Von Ulmenstein Had Parked Illegally In The CTICC Car Park

This, I have been told, is the clincher for many of the food and tourism bloggers out there. But that is not why I did it. I did it because heinous behaviour such as this should be publicised and roundly ridiculed. Irrespective of the danger I was putting myself and my family into, I plunged deep into the truth and was singled out by Ms von Ulmenstein for a Sour Service award. I felt duty bound to respond. Rumour has it that she was going to start parking outside my house until I removed the disabled bay.
There will be, I have been told, bad blood.
A South African Blog Award is all that will take the bitter, bitter taste away.

If you can come up with any other reasons as to why readers should vote for 6000 miles… as their favourite blog of 2011, please feel free to let me know. In the meantime: Vote, Comrade! Vote! And share this post far and wide: twitter, facetube, even by iMessage if you know anyone else on it.

Spread the word.
Share the wealth.
Be the difference.

Chris Moerdyk’s list of selfish bastards includes Chris Moerdyk

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Chris Moerdyk has finally had it with the selfish bastards who don’t pay their taxes and cut red lights and talk on their cellphones while driving and get behind the wheel after one too many.

And that includes him:

But then, it suddenly dawned on me that if Colin didn’t pay his taxes, government would hardly just say “oh, well we have just made a bit of a loss, let’s take it on the chin and move on.”  What government would most certainly say is: “OK, now where can we make up that shortfall?”
And they would simply get more tax from those poor sods, who unlike Colin, have PAYE deducted from their pay-packets and don’t have the choice of paying or not paying their taxes.

So, I thought “Colin, you selfish bastard.”

I spent another hour pacing up and down my study thinking about all the other selfish bastards there were whose actions cause, or could cause, innocent people so much grief and trauma.

Then it occurred to be that I am also a selfish bastard.

But, I am going to stop.

I really don’t want anyone to be able to point at me and call me a selfish bastard for killing their child/uncle/wife/grandfather/dog. That’s the sort of thing that ruins your life forever. And all for the sake on a drink or a cellphone conversation. Logic tells me it’s actually not worth it. I have also just discovered by the way, that non-alcoholic cocktails actually taste exactly the same as those with alcohol in them.
The only difference is one doesn’t turn you into a selfish bastard.

Wise words indeed, and it stuck me that Chris’ epiphany was probably prompted by a quick read of this post from last week.

I applaud him for his bold stance but note that 90% of the comments are based on the dangers of drink driving, despite the fact we have been told that cell use “is probably six times more dangerous than driving drunk”.

That message is still not getting through. That social stigma is still not there.
There are still too many selfish bastards out there, although according to Chris, there’s one fewer now.

Don’t you hate those last line “less/fewer” issues?