Hotwire's Blog

An Electric shaver, seemingly a useful personal hygiene gadget, but really an international conspiracy to get my money for nothing. I have always shaved, like any sensible person, using a safety razor and shaving foam; but recently my laziness has compounded in me buying an electric shaver to save a little bit of time. I wasn’t really expecting wonders from an electric shaver, but I was taken aback to find that not only was my face still covered in hair, but it was in a surprisingly large amount of pain. It seems to me that these devices of torture are designed to rip the hair from your face, rather than cut it. I would not mind so much if I was left either hairless and pained or haired and painless, but no, I have a not so nice halfway house. To conclude never buy electronic hair removal gadgets, and _never_ trust adverts! Oh and if anyone wants a free torture device your welcome to come and get it any time.

Today I discovered that before 1847 vegetarians were known as Pythagoreans; at first this fact shocked me because I have always known the Pythagoreans as the followers of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras of Samos who based their beliefs on the school of mathematics, but also held mystical beliefs. Until today I was unaware their views on vegetarianism, but it seems they were deeply against meat eating.
It is clear that Pythagorean views were not widely held until 1847, so how did the term, Pythagorean, come to cover all vegetarians for over 2000 years after the death of Pythagoras himself. It seems most likely to me that as the number of vegetarians was low at the time the name of group of famous vegetarians was given to all vegetarians. Not it seems not all of #php agrees with me, they claim, “All Pythagoreans were vegetarians, but not all vegetarians were Pythagoreans, so to say non-meat eaters were Pythagoreans or were called that, is false, since only the vegetarians who were that because of Pythagoras could really be called Pythagoreans”. This seems to me to be presuming that a groups name must directly link to the belief system they hold, and cant just be what people call them. I mean does every single person that calls them self Catholic today even believe in God, no; and that is what people are calling themselves not what the majority call the minority. It seems to me that some of #php are too quick to make assumptions without looking into the evidence.
http://www.salagram.net/veg1.html
http://www.ivu.org/faq/definitions.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoreans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarian

I have decided that, to give my blog some sort of meaning, I should review every restaurant dine in. In the spirit of this resolution here I record my thoughts on Amalfi Italian Restaurant. The meal was first rate throughout, the service good, the menu expansive, and very reasonably priced. I started with an Al Salmone Bruschetta, essentially a simple tomato Bruschetta with smoked salmon layering the top. This was cooked to perfection with just the right amount of smoked salmon. For main course I had Tagliatelli Carbonara, I found the sauce particularly rich, not dissimilar to eating pure cream; that is not to say I did not enjoy it. I rarely eat dessert was this was a tradition unbroken on this occasion; although I did drink a bottle a white wine with my meal, which is even more unusual for me. I freely admit I know next to nothing about wine, so I will leave my comment to the wine to, it was pleasant. In total, a meal for two including a bottle of wine, come to just over £30, most reasonable for a meal of such high quality and such good service. If anyone is ever in Cardiff, I highly recommend a visit for a cheap yet extremely agreeable meal.

I have found a remarkably interesting government website (www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk); I applaud the government for finally getting a web project working well, even if it is unlikely to really provide a useful service to many people. This website allows inputting your postcode and viewing a whole host of data relating your postal area and city, the data covers many different topics from crime and health care to deprivation and economic data.
Among many other useful facts I found that almost a 1/3 of Wales has no qualifications, this I found it be a shockingly high number, maybe I am over optimistic about British education standards, but I thought we could do better than educating 2/3 of our population.
I also discovered that over 50% of my local area is rented accommodation; I do live in a student area so this is to be expected really. The thing that bothers me about it is how few people’s hands all this money must be falling into, but I suppose that’s just the kind of world we live in.
You should really check this website out, I haven’t really managed to make it sound like the best read ever, but I think it’s defiantly worth a look in a spare 10 minutes.

I have just finished watching the 3rd episode of the new American version of Teachers. Although I did laugh a few times during the show, I was appalled by how poor the jokes were. I first remember Teachers being aired on Channel 4 in the UK; I found this an incredibly funny show, with very real characters. The new Americanised version it clearly a cheap imitation of a great British show, and they haven’t even managed to keep the sense of reality I found in the original series. I find it amazing that the country that exports the largest amount of TV shows feels the need to mimic our comedy. Go, Go British Comedy.

I've never had a blog before, or even really thought about getting one, that’s until www.netlamers.org was set up and s|k coerced me into signing up to this, most probably passed, fad. Anyway I make no promises to ever update this blog or talk about anything remotely interesting or relevant, so don’t be too expectant of me.