http://haarball.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/a-flickr-deviation-stop-walking-start-running/ Gleeful observations. Sun, 02 Aug 2009 07:14:47 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 http://haarball.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/a-flickr-deviation-stop-walking-start-running/#comment-66 A Bunch of Wankers? at tossr Sun, 26 Feb 2006 18:43:30 +0000 http://haarball.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/a-flickr-deviation-stop-walking-start-running/#comment-66 [...] Speaking of self-abuse, a post over at Schadenfreude got me wondering about whether we need a rough unit for estimating time in the same way that the size of Wales is often used as a rough unit for estimating area; could we, perhaps, adopt the wank as a measurement of time? If ever I have to give a rough estimate of the time it took to do something, I usually arrive at a vague figure like “thirty-five, forty minutes” or whatever (for some reason I’m incapable of rounding to the nearest fifteen minutes like most normal people), but using a precise measurement in such an imprecise way feels wrong to me. Instead, maybe a wank could be the name given to roughly five minutes; therefore, it didn’t take me “thirty-five, forty minutes” to drive across town the other day, but “seven or eight wanks” (or maybe “seven or eight knuckles” in polite company). [...] [...] Speaking of self-abuse, a post over at Schadenfreude got me wondering about whether we need a rough unit for estimating time in the same way that the size of Wales is often used as a rough unit for estimating area; could we, perhaps, adopt the wank as a measurement of time? If ever I have to give a rough estimate of the time it took to do something, I usually arrive at a vague figure like “thirty-five, forty minutes” or whatever (for some reason I’m incapable of rounding to the nearest fifteen minutes like most normal people), but using a precise measurement in such an imprecise way feels wrong to me. Instead, maybe a wank could be the name given to roughly five minutes; therefore, it didn’t take me “thirty-five, forty minutes” to drive across town the other day, but “seven or eight wanks” (or maybe “seven or eight knuckles” in polite company). [...]

]]>