BS: Some more Sods'-Law

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 06:43 AM

We've got one of those three-way mini-roundabouts in Bude. In the tourist season it's normal for all three lines of traffic to sit there with no-one knowing who should move first. My horn and headlight flasher always get really good exercise. Sometimes it's the only fun I get until they've all buggered off home for the winter.

Waitrose Strength 5 Italian-style coffee beans are our favourite tipple. Cheap too.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Mr Red
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 05:02 AM

When waiting to exit a T junction,

What about tricorn junctions with a mini traffic island in the epicentre?

Inevitably there are times when 3 cars arrive simultaneously. Who goes first?

The BMW in all cases except when there is a red car involved!

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST, DTM
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 04:58 AM

Any experiment done under laboratory conditions to prove Sod's Law works always gives a negative result, ironically, proving Sod's Law works.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST,Bert
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 01:40 AM

I have a couple of old percolators around. But it doesn't matter because you can't buy good coffee nowadays.

We had a really good coffee shop here in Colorado Springs and Sumatra Mandheling was my favorite coffee. But the owner went kinda crazy and all of his roasts now are overdone and all taste like Turkish Coffee.

I've finally decided that the best bet is the cheapest supermarket brand that you can find.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST, DTM
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 07:21 PM

When waiting to exit a T junction, Sod's Law demands that any break in the traffic coming from your right will automatically be blocked by an exact length of traffic coming from your left. Likewise, the reverse.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 12:52 PM

We bought ourselves a bean-to-cup machine for Christmas and we haven't looked back. Nothing goes off quicker than ground coffee. We keep the beans in an airtight tin in the fridge.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 12:07 PM

I have moved on to all-metal cafetières now and have them in varying sizes.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST, ^*^
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 11:15 AM

I have a coffee maker (grounds in filter-lined basket on top), old-fashioned percolator, and a French press. Since I don't drink coffee I leave it up to guests to choose how to make their brew (using ground coffee stored in the freezer). It's interesting to see the choices - people are apparently set in their ways at home but will experiment elsewhere.

My bugaboo is the hot drink travel mug. Plastic vs steel, closable top vs open sipping slot. It changes the taste of the tea simply by being transferred to the portable container, so I have to really want that tea to drink it cooler and with an altered taste.

Sods' law would have to do with how likely am I to dribble tea on myself in the car. The more dressed up I am and the more important the occasion, the more likely the drip.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 10:03 AM

Perhaps a hipster thing, retro forward? I have been seeing percolators a lot in shops the past few years. They're well and truly back.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 09:58 AM

Doug, you must be living in a warp in space-time that is inimical to coffee containers. There is hope, though. Can you buy a metal percolator?

Where I live, they are old-fashioned, but a few are still around.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Ed T
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 07:32 AM

""Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.""

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 07:07 AM

I have a true but sad tale which links coffee, Sod's law and Mudcat.

Shortly before setting off for the 2007 Mudcat Eurogathering in Kiel, I broke the glass jug of my cafetière and had to buy a replacement. During the journey, I stopped at a rest area somewhere in the middle of Germany to make some coffee in my new pot. I removed the parcel shelf in the back of my hatchback and put it deep into the car to give plenty of headroom above my camping stove. Once I had made the coffee, I checked the shelf just to make sure that it was secure and couldn't fall on to my coffee pot but disturbed something else which rolled onto my pot sending it crashing to the floor before I had taken even one mouthful.

When I got home, I asked my wife to pick up another replacement glass when she was doing her weekly shopping. She hadn't been back in the house more than 10 minutes when the bag of shopping fell off the kitchen unit, breaking the glass before it had even been unpacked. The choice was either buy a fourth glass or else stick to drinking tea.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 04:51 AM

the Coffee Codicil to Murphy's Law:

If you work in palaces like the Real* Coffee Company there is always one person** who when asked "What variety of coffee sir?" will answer "Instant!"

*Mint, Mocha, Cinnamon et al are real - apparently! Instant ain't!

** {:-)}

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Joe_F
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 09:03 PM

I used to be proud of how bad my coffee was. I made up a large flask & reheated it every morning for a week or so. By now I am almost snobbish. I swab out the mug with my hand because I have convinced myself that I can taste the faintest trace of detergent on it. I brew my morning coffee on the spot, and keep the can in the freezer.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 05:34 PM

It was a lovely spring day in the Lakes. I took my camera out of its case to take a photo and a sudden gust of wind blew my camera case 1500 feet off Ill Bell. I didn't bother looking for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Penny S.
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 04:56 PM

The quickness of the cursor on the submit button deceives the brain.

I was going to post - after Micca's list...

Everything you want to do, you have to do something else first

If you want the smell of gas in garage dealt with, it will have gone by the time the gas man cometh, but he will decide you can't use your heater because it doesn't have a suitable route for combustion air.

If what you want to do is get the gas-safe person fit a vent in a plywood panel around a door, it will turn out not to be plywood but glass plied with wallpaper, so you will need the glazier to come and fit the vent before the heater can be serviced.

My feet are cold.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Penny S.
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 04:48 PM

When you drop something round that will roll, it will, if at all possible, align itself with any slot in the floor and drop through it. As in a pound coin that rolled out of a pocket in washed clothes, under a stack of shelves, and down between two floorboards, or my Nikon lens cap dropping between the floor of the lift and the deck of a cruise ship.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 10:53 AM

Yep.. "A matter of taste & convenience of course," (I am not a gourmet who can tell you which side of the mountain the grapes or coffee beans grew on, but I do have my limits.)

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 12:57 AM

Steve, dryer sheets are rather stiff, translucent squares impregnated with miracle ingredients which "soften" fabric and fight static electricity. Procter and Gamble's Bounce is the most famous brand.

I only use a dryer sheet when there is a Kleenex debacle, but they are worth buying just for that. One box lasts for years.

============
Coffee: I don't like instant coffee, and I dislike cleaning up coffee grounds. I've decided that I'll make a big batch every 3 days and keep it in the fridge. It tastes good enough for me, and saves mess.

But I'm not fussy about taste. To me, there are two kinds of wine, ropy and not ropy.

My husband, meanwhile, claims to detect all sorts of nuances in wine and coffee, yet he cannot detect food that is so spicy-hot that's it's burning my mouth and is en route to giving me a stomach ache in the night to come.

Some couples have separate vacations. We have separate coffee.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 15 - 11:52 AM

Storing coffee in the fridge? A matter of taste & convenience of course, but not usually recommend. I found this (and other remarks) in a search.

"The storage of brewed coffee in an airtight container in the fridge is not as big an issue as reheating it, and not because of the myth that killer chemicals of some kind are released in knife-weilding gangs to take over entire cities.

Coffee compounds start breaking down almost immediately after brewing - particularly if the coffee is left sitting on a heating element. Old, reheated coffee will has a bitter taste, and lacks aroma. Anyone suggesting otherwise is in the process of having their meds adjusted. And just to make your previously made coffee that little bit more disgusting, use a microwave to do the dirty deed. This is why pre-brewed, single-serve coffee pouches from the fridge section of your local supermarket are not a commercial sensation."

I visited some people once, and after staying all night, I was offered coffee in the morning.... from the half-full pot still on the counter they had brewed yesterday. I...ummm... choked it down.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Sep 15 - 11:02 AM

Speaking of Kleenex, I once bought a second-hand VW Polo. The previous owner had clearly believed that the dashboard air-vents were for the disposing of rubbish. For the whole of the two years we had that car, it randomly spat out fragments of tissue all over us whenever we had the fan running. I wonder how long germs live.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Sep 15 - 10:54 AM

That could be useful. But what is a dryer sheet???

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Sep 15 - 09:56 AM

This just happened.

If you wash a load of black clothes, there will be a forgotten kleenex in the load. Result: white fragments stuck to all the garments.

Fortunately, I know the cure: a dryer sheet and a dryer.
=======
Steve, I have an even-worse refrigerator story. Recently a heavy Corning wear glass pitcher fell out, splattered coffee all over and landed smack dab on the joint of my big toe. I was wearing sandals, so no protection there.

I could have been worse. My toe was only bruised, not broken, and the coffee was easy to wipe up.

From now on, I store my coffee in high-end Tupperware.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Sep 15 - 06:22 AM

When you open your fridge door, the object that falls out will be the one with the loosest lid and the greatest capacity for leaving greasy spatters over the maximum area of kitchen floor.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Sep 15 - 05:10 AM

When you drop something, if it is valuable or necessary it will go where it is hardest to retrieve. If is is cheap or readily replaceable it will go where it causes most damage.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Sep 15 - 04:53 AM

Try to plug in a USB connector.

remember Tippex? Try painting a bit on the upside of all your connectors. Rub off excess and the black USB symbol appears.

Where's the Sods Law you ask? Well the device you plug it into is never the right way up, or like my other laptop, the socket is upside down!

Well Tippex & CD markers are made for such phones & laptops!

Like lettuce farming - It ain't rocket science.

Errrrrrr...

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Joe_F
Date: 01 Sep 15 - 08:29 PM

Micca: To No. 6 one should add: "-- usually, piss".

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Sep 15 - 04:11 PM

And don't forget Barton's Amendment to Murphy's 1st Law --

"And even if it can't, it might."

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 15 - 03:47 PM

If anything bad is going to happen to your teeth, it will happen on a Friday evening.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Micca
Date: 01 Sep 15 - 01:57 PM

I had this in a really good Font and a nice frame on my office wall
It especially applied to the Technician Service of the University for which I worked.

Murphy's Laws

1.        If anything can go wrong, it will
2.        If two things go wrong the worst will be screened by the less bad incident
3.        Nature sides with the hidden flaw.
4.        It always costs more than you have.
5.        It always takes longer than you expect
6.        Everything you want to do, you have to do something else first
7.        If you fool with something for long enough it will eventually break
8.        Never under estimate the power of stupidity
9.        If a slice of bread is dropped it will land butter side down if the carpet is expensive or the floor is dirty and it is the last slice.
10.        If you think there is some good in everyone, you haven't met everyone
11.        You can make things fool proof but you can't make them idiot proof.
12.        If you think you've covered all possible flaws, there is always one more you didn't think of.
13.        There is never time to do it right but there is always time to do it over
14.        Forward planning is useful for preparing you for what can go wrong but does not tell you what will go wrong
15.        An expert is not someone who is always right, they are just wrong in more sophisticated ways.

For Management
16.        When in doubt, mumble
17.        When in charge, delegate
18.        When things go wrong, blame
19.        Simple solutions only fit simple problems and appeal to those who do not understand the problem anyway.
20.        You can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time and that's usually enough.
21.        If you pay peanuts you get monkeys or garbage in equals garbage out
22.        An extra pair of hands can help out but if they have knowledge they can transform and enhance
23.        Just because you are paranoid it does not mean they are not out to get you.
24. Expertise is not transferable, just because you are good at your job does not mean you are good at, or even understand, mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Sep 15 - 01:03 PM

Nothing minor ever happens to a car on the weekend.
Nothing minor ever happens to a car more than 20 miles from home.
Nothing minor ever happens to a car.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Ed T
Date: 01 Sep 15 - 12:26 PM

Machinery never breaks down when you don't really need it.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Ed T
Date: 01 Sep 15 - 12:23 PM

Your study will only make sense as long as your research question is hazy.

Example:

Eat slow 

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST,guest strad
Date: 01 Sep 15 - 09:46 AM

I'll try again! I remember a competition for Sod type laws in a magazine many years ago. The winner was the brilliant and brief
"Everything takes longer" So very true!

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Mingulay
Date: 31 Aug 15 - 06:05 PM

Don't forget,of course, that 3 instances or more of sod's law in a row immediately invokes the 'Buggeration Factor'. Sod it, I just had to type that 4 times!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Joe_F
Date: 31 Aug 15 - 05:57 PM

Peter Laban: There is in fact a theorem that if you & your enemy join different queues at the same time, and your enemy gets to move forward before you do, then you are almost certain to catch up with him eventually, but the average time to do so is infinite.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 31 Aug 15 - 11:42 AM

During the seventies Dutch writer Bob den Uyl put forward that whenever you change queue, the queue you have moved to will come to an immediate standstill while the one you have just left will quickly start moving forward.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST,guest strad
Date: 31 Aug 15 - 10:37 AM

Whatever I post vanishes in the electronic ether!

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Aug 15 - 04:41 PM

I almost included the disclaimer about brass, stainless steel, etc.. parts. When I accidentally dump a jar of mixed screws (not at all a rare happening), there are always those the magnet won't get...and Sod ensures some will be missed when I get down on my poor, aging knees.

The magnet still saves me several times a day...

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Aug 15 - 01:59 PM

I'll take the risk. I'll just remind Bill that harmonica screws are often made of brass. I rest my case.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST,Eddie1 - Sans cookie as ever
Date: 30 Aug 15 - 01:29 PM

Steve Shaw and Will Fly - Sod's Law states quite clearly that if you are going to discuss harmonica bits, the whole thread has to be moved above the line! So get out of that then!

Eddie

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 30 Aug 15 - 10:43 AM

I don't know whether the following is a corollary of Sod's Law and/or Murphy's Law, but it sums up my life accurately (I reached the Biblical three score and ten last birthday) :

We are always in the shit - only the depth varies.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Aug 15 - 10:43 AM

I have a woodworking shop..... I often have piles of dust & shavings on the floor under my feet. The function of these piles in to make even moderate sized screws and tools disappear when, due to Sod's Law, I drop one while reaching for something.

   Thus, the most important tool I possess is a powerful magnet on the end of an extendable wand. A few seconds of dragging the business end thru a pile of shaving will 84.8291% of the time retrieve a fallen item. (You wouldn't expect Sod to allow 100%...sometimes it it days or weeks later that I discover how cleverly old Sod helped a small item to proceed to a spot where my wand cannot be deployed.)

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Aug 15 - 05:47 AM

Yes Will, but you're forgetting that harmonica screws are designed to bounce, ricochet and roll vast distances before settling. And they have mysterious powers of camouflage to boot.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Aug 15 - 05:29 AM

Ah Steve - take a tip from an amateur watch mender. When you service your harps, spread a large, thin white linen cloth, such as a sheet under the chair/table/work area. If your screw falls, then it'll be much easier to see.

For real emergencies have a small hand vacuum cleaner at the ready. Vacuum the whole area then go through the dust carefully - and you may well find the missing screw.

Alternatively, just say "fuck" and go for a pint.

Anyway, back on thread: My wife has an electric toothbrush. To change the batteries involves squeezing the end cap tightly while pulling it off. Of course it gets gunged up and is incredibly difficult to get off sometimes. After much squeezing, swearing and pulling, off came the cap. There, on the table, were new batteries and next to them went the dead batteries.

Guess which batteries got put back into the toothbrush...?

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Aug 15 - 07:08 PM

I spent hours once removing a bad reed from a harmonica reedplate and replacing it with a good one cannibalised from another harp. It's a fiddly and tricky procedure. Half way through the operation I got distracted. I returned to the job and did all the tweaking and aligning and fine-tuning. Only when I raised the harp to my expectant lips did it dawn on me that I'd chucked the good reed away and reattached the duff one.

There is another law regarding the fixing of harmonicas. No matter how careful you are, one tiny screw will fall on to your carpet and get lost in the pile. You will never see it again. Just like Bill and his pills. I know that one only too well too.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Aug 15 - 06:24 PM

The three laws of thermodynamics (other than the zeroth) have been summarized as follows:
1. You can't win.
2. You can't even break even.
3. You can't get out of the game.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Aug 15 - 11:13 AM

If you drop a pill you are about to take....even if it falls right at your feet... it will bounce and roll into some inaccessible spot.... or even totally disappear. In the latter case, you will find it a couple hours later by stepping on it.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Aug 15 - 10:22 AM

If there's a simple and straightforward job that needs doing, there several complex and fiddly jobs that need doing first before you can get to the simple and straightforward one.

Subject: RE: BS: Some more Sods'-Law
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 29 Aug 15 - 03:46 AM

The chances of something going right are inversely proportional to the number and importance of the people watching.

If more than one thing can go wrong, the one that does will be the one that causes the most damage.

DC