Tag: funny

Cheap home insurance, but…

Manuel Marques October 17, 2014 No Comments Uncategorized , ,

Halifax-1

I got this through the post today – they seem to be barking at the wrong tree as we are all students with barely any valuables, but anyway, I kept reading… Ā£100 per year (with the cashback) doesn’t seem that bad – but they have made some assumptions. OK, let me see what they were…

Halifax-2

Right, so they got the # of bedrooms wrong, but the house has been recently refurbished so I’ll concede them that. I kept reading, though… hold on, applicant’s age 67 years old??! And how on Earth was I capable of having 5 years of no claims bonus if I’m only in this country for less than 3 years? šŸ˜›

The funny bit is that it seems the house has aged significantly since the last letter we’ve received (I think it wasn’t home insurance, it was about refurbs & home insulation) – we went from 1968 to 1955 in just a few weeks! šŸ™‚

Still, I don’t know how Halifax got hold of my mailing address. But that’s fine – they make me laugh from time to time, no grudges held!

On blowing things and stuff…

Manuel Marques September 20, 2013 1 Comment Uncategorized , , , ,

Yesterday was not a good day. While servicing one of our old PCs, hoping to make it able to scan our old negatives, I managed to blow a power supply (there were a lot of sparks and loud noises, followed by smoke and the characteristic pungent aroma of burnt electronics…), and apparently the hard drive of that computer as well (which had been reinstalled recently). Ended up having to reinstall XP in it on a slower, smaller drive than I wanted, argh!…

Then I went for a bike ride. All was well, I rode from my rowing club in Gaia down to Valadares, following the coast (didn’t have a tracker, but it was probably something like 15-20k). Then we pulled out, and got out of the bikes to stretch our legs, and that’s when a loud pffft was heard, and my rear tyre went from full to completely empty in about 2 sec!

We took the tube apart (not before breaking a brand new set of spanners my friend had) and realised nothing could be done on the roadside – no patch could save a 3 in long tear on the tube!

Ended up pushing the bike back towards the car, but fortunately I had the presence of mind to jump on the other (working) bike and sprint like crazy against a head wind to fetch the car… šŸ˜›

And now I should head to bed, ’cause this weekend I have a 60k row waiting… šŸ™‚

Naughty Thorlabs!

Manuel Marques June 10, 2013 No Comments Uncategorized , , ,

The other day I was just happily surfing through Thorlabs’ website (shopping! Yay!), when something very tiny caught my eye:

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Wait a minute… that light bulb over there seems quite familiar! I know I’ve seen it somewhere before, but where? šŸ™‚

Haha! There you go, I knew I had seen it somewhere! šŸ˜€ Thorlabs, Thorlabs… – it is true Apple will probably not chase you because of a product logo which was discontinued more than 10 years ago, but still, you could draw your own light bulb, it is not that difficult!

(although I’m not sure about the “not chasing you out” bit. Apple has a long story of being pushed around (remember “Sosumi”, the Mac OS sound?) and is also famous for pushing around as well!…)

Oh, the wonders of globalisation…

Manuel Marques April 27, 2013 No Comments Uncategorized , ,

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My car is truly international: it still displays the badge of a typically British car maker (Vauxhall), but its engine and bodywork were engineered in Germany (Opel), and everything was assembled together in the General Motors (USA) plant in Salamanca, Spain! šŸ™‚

This was a nice surprise…

Manuel Marques February 4, 2013 No Comments Uncategorized ,

Physics World Kent State… but please, guys, next time get my university’s name right! Kent State Uni is in the United States, not in Canterbury, UK! šŸ™‚

(By the way, I have too many magazines getting to me and too little time to read them… :P)

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