In which we overthink childhood dreams

My friends have been talking about Bernard's Watch, and how useful/much fun it would be to have one. I always wanted one of those, as, I suspect, has every other person who's ever thought about it. Why wouldn't you? The practical applications are almost limitless. Though I'm a little worried about the ageing effects it could potentially have. I mean, would you end up aging faster than everyone else? If you only used it for an hour a day, you'd only gain 1 extra year for every 24, but what if you accidentally fell asleep with it on? For say, 8 hours at a time? That's an extra year for every 3 years every one else lived. So by the time you should be 30, you'd actually be 40!

Have I thought about this too much??

Some thoughts on how to minimise the badness

I have a list of Important Rules For Life:

1. Do not set yourself on fire¹
2. Don't say anything
3. Be relentlessly cheerful
4. Ghost is not a career choice
5. Never cook sausages up a tree²
6. You can never have too many stamps
7. Never anger copyright lawyers¹
8. Keep your pockets free of margarine³
9. Never build a super collider
10. Do not use your pillow as a pin cushion¹
11. Stay away from Raki
12. Do not attempt embroidery in the bath
13. Do not agree to anything until you've been awake for at least 10 minutes<sup>4



_{1</sup>As tested by myself. ⁴Repeatedly.
²As tested by some people I know.
³Advice given to me by my form tutor when I left school.}

In which we learn that I should never rent horror movies.

I was woken this morning by a phone call from debt collectors. Fortunately, it's pay day, so I was able to give them the £27 fine I had run up on my Blockbuster account (and then forgotten about) but it was still not a pleasant way to start the day. While I understand they are entitled to their money, I do wonder if it's worth all the custom they must lose by taking such a heavy handed approach. Many of the friends I have mentioned this to say they have also had this happen to them (mostly for much smaller amounts) and most have not used Blockbuster since. Personally, I reckon in future it would be cheaper and easier just to buy the DVDs.

In other news, this has got to be one of the freakiest things I've ever found on the web.