Apathy Sketchpad

Today, I got to wondering what the three buttons on my keyboard marked “User1”, “User2” and “User3” did. First, I looked at Time’s support site. Since they are not considerate enough to allow me to email them without quoting my warranty number, the nearest page I could bring up was one about changing the keyboard layout. It read:

Incorrect Keyboard Layout
The following should identify and resolve your problem:
Click on Start, then Settings, then Control Panel
Double click on Keyboard
Click on the Language tab at the top
Click on Add
Select English (British) from the menu
Click OK
Remove all from the list except English (British) by highlighting and clicking on Remove
Click OK
You may get an error saying it can’t remove one of them because it is currently in use. Click Yes to this
Shutdown and restart the computer
Has this resolved the problem? Yes/No

Well, no, it hadn’t. I clicked no. It then brought up a page that read:

Incorrect Keyboard Layout
The following should identify and resolve your problem:
Click on Start, then Settings, then Control Panel
Double click on Keyboard
Click on the Language tab at the top
Click on Add
Select English (British) from the menu
Click OK
Remove all from the list except English (British) by highlighting and clicking on Remove
Click OK
You may get an error saying it can’t remove one of them because it is currently in use. Click Yes to this
Shutdown and restart the computer
Has this resolved the problem? Yes/No

This page was in a different colour text.

I’ve commented on McDonald’s several times before in this column, but this has to be said. There is now a “Playstation Meal”. You get: Medium soft drink. Medium fries. Any McChoice sandwich. An advert. You pay: £3.19. Alternatively, you can buy the food from the McChoice menu, save 22p, and get large fries and drink. In that respect, I suppose this meal is actually rather like the Playstation.

How wonderfully ironic is this: This week, our local incinerator burned down.

I mean, how does it happen? I would have thought — and I fully admit I don’t know much about these things — but if it was me, I’d have made it fireproof. I can just see the construction workers stood around saying to each other “Hmmm. Guess we should have seen that one coming”. There is an opinion that “We’re sorry, we can’t burn your trash because our incinerator is on fire” is the worst excuse for anything, ever, and I tend to agree with that.

One disadvantage of living in a house with friends is that this column doesn’t get updated as often as I might like, because there is always someone around to listen to my rant. So today, since it is half past one in the morning, after all, I thought I’d rant on my webpage, rather than to my friends. The important thing here is that I rant. I can’t keep it in. Quite what the people at Utterly Butterly were thinking, I cannot say. Their latest competition somewhat beggars belief. I have absolutely no idea why I, or for that matter anyone else, would require an inflatable biplane, but this is precisely what you can win. Suffice to say I did not see side of pack for details.