"What are you on about" i hear you ask. Well, the reason is simple. Whenever a woman sees a baby, they instantly become hypnotised by it's hideous features and are reduced to mumbling cryptic phrases such as "Goochie goochie goo" and "Who's a big boy then?" to said baby. Unfortunately, this distracts them from real-world issues such as how to cross the road safely.
I was cycling to college yesterday, as i've done for the last 3 years (i cycled to secondary school for the 6 years before that and primary school for 3 years before that). All was going well, i was a mere 2 minutes from my house and was just preparing to take a left turn (in ireland we drive on the left-hand side of the road) when all of a sudden, a woman with a baby decided to cross the road in front of me whilest talking to her baby. So there i was, travelling at approximately 25 miles an hour with a baby in a pram being pushed by an idiot a mere 15-20 metres in front of me.
I jammed on the brakes, the back tire locked, the wheel skidded on the wet ground and i went flying. Whilest i got away with some scrapes and bruises, my MP3 player wasn't quite so lucky. I only got music from the left earpiece. I was pissed! So, as an electronic engineer, i tried to fix it. A quick google got me instructions on cracking open the case, so i did.
Initial inspection made it look like very minor damage:
However as i gently poked it, more and more bits started coming off:
Finally, by the end of it, the entire lefthand side was toasted and the top bit was also completely broken off. I was none to happy:
So, my task now is to find something to wedge along the side of the earphone jack which will hold the metally bits in place. Everything works fine at the moment, but unless i support those metally bits, they will bend back out of position through use. Worst case scenario, it's a 30 gig portable harddrive which can play films on any tv via TV-Out. Still pretty useful.
4 comments:
The real question is, of course, whether you could have saved your player if you accelerated to ramming speed instead.
I have almost the exact same problem with my iPod, only I didn't trip with a bike to destroy it. I haven't found a great fix to the problem yet, so if you do, please post an update! :-)
I don't see why it's acceptable to approach an intersection at 25mph on your bike. I don't even approach a turn that fast in my car!
Was it a stop sign intersection, traffic light, or roundabout?
Well, you have to remember i was on a pedal bike, not a motor bike. A pedal bike is substantially different to a car ;)
For me to reach a safe speed to complete the corner would require me pulling my brakes less than 15m from the corner. I was still more than 40m from the corner, but had entered the 'freewheel' stage of cycling. It was a light-controlled junction with the green on for me.
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