7 Reasons

Author: 7 Reasons

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons Your Child Should Not Be in Martial Arts Classes

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons Your Child Should Not Be in Martial Arts Classes

    Given that we have been working in such close proximity for over a year now, it’s amazing that we have never jumped off the 7 Reasons sofa and started scrapping with each other. Today, we had hoped to change that. Instead of the usual three-piece suit, we both came to work in white dressing gowns. It was time to karate chop each other. Unfortunately, martial arts teacher, Deborah Dera, took one look at us and said we were just too childlike to kick each other to pieces. So we took our dressing gowns off and went to have a sulk. In the meantime, we have left Deborah in charge of the sofa. And she has something to tell us.

    Children Martial Arts
    The boy had nothing on Kung Fu Panda

    I know that it is important for parents to find time for themselves. I know that it is important for children to remain active. What I don’t know is why some parents insist that their children are ready for activities that are either a) beyond their physical abilities or b) beyond their levels of comprehension.

    That said, I’m constantly surprised (and sometimes amused) when parents bring their children in to our martial arts school and insist they sign up for classes. One look at your child tells me he’s not into it. Here are some of the things we see that you may not be hip to.

    1.  He’s Not Old Enough. A good martial arts instructor will not sign up children under a certain age. We do not accept children under the age of four in our school. Even at age four, we insist on a free trial class (no exceptions) so that WE can determine if your child is ready. Even still, we once had a mom lie and tell us that her child was four. He just barely made it through the trial class, so we thought maybe he’d be able to stick with the class. As time went on, it became painfully obvious he was not prepared to be in a social situation, let alone in a martial arts class. While his mother insisted he was four, she put his real birth date on the registration form. He was a very young three and a half.

    2.  He’s Crying. If you are pulling your child through the door while he cries and says he does not want to go in, your child may not be ready to be in a martial arts class. Ok, we get it. Some kids are shy. Those kids will stop crying after a day, maybe two or three – we had one kid who cried for two full weeks before he became the most popular kid in the class. Dragging your child through the door and insisting he cry through the class because you want him there makes no one happy – including us.

    3.  He Has No Concept Of Hygiene. We’re totally cool with kids needing to go to the bathroom during class. We also know that young children aren’t likely to wash their hands after going to the bathroom (thank goodness for hand sanitizer). What we don’t understand is why they look at us like we have three heads when we ask them to please, pretty please, cover their mouths when they sneeze and cough. I should not have to wipe fluids from my my arm, or face, or floor, after your child sneezes.

    4.  He Saw The Karate Kid Movies. I have bad news. The movies were cute (even the newest one) but we simply don’t teach the stuff your kid saw in the movies. Even worse? There will be no dramatic fight scenes on the walk home after class. That’s bound to get boring, right?

    5.  He Can’t Pay Attention. There is a difference between can’t and won’t. Kids who have problems won’t. Kids who simply aren’t developed enough on a mental or emotional level can’t. We don’t expect perfection but we shouldn’t have to spend an entire class finding ways to pull your kid back out of la-la land. Wait a few months and try again.

    6.  He Saw Kung Fu Panda. Seriously. A parent actually told me that his child wanted to take martial arts lessons because he saw Kung Fu Panda. This is worse than Karate Kid because – if you haven’t notice – it’s a cartoon. Combine this reason with the first one on the list (a three and a half year old still in diapers) and you’re in for a real treat.

    7.  You Have Unrealistic Goals. Please, please do not enroll your child in martial arts classes if you are not willing to give them time. Martial arts classes do help with discipline and self control, but it usually takes more than a week of classes to get the job done. The child with a history of hitting did not hit you the day after his first class because he learned how to do it in karate – he did it because he already has a history of lashing out physically. Get it?

    Want to know the truth? I love ever little runny-nosed, screaming, crying kid who comes through the doors every week to check out our classes. They all bring something unique to the table. I just wish I didn’t have to turn so many away.

    Deborah is a full time writer, martial artist, massage therapist, and student of life. She quit her job working with car insurance after 10 years so that she could focus on her passions – including sharing her love of the martial arts with both children and adults.

  • 7 Reasons You Need To Improve Your Scamming Technique

    7 Reasons You Need To Improve Your Scamming Technique

    Scam Alert!

    I never once felt sorry for Bernadette. I probably should have done. After all, her Dad had just died in a plane crash leaving Bernadette to live with her evil mother. A mother she then ran away from and found safety in a run down orphanage. An orphanage without running water, electricity and warm bedding. In fact the only thing that kept the likes of Bernadette going was the super-fast BT Broadband connection. The truth is though, I didn’t care about any of this. I was much more interested in the money. Bernadette was offering me a lot of it. Millions of pounds worth. That was a lot of tea bags. Which is why I gave her my bank details. That was two years ago. He’s still borrowing my money now. That’s right, ‘he’. Bernadette turned out to be a bloke called Alfonso. I am now partly responsible for Nigeria’s heroin addiction and at least thirty-five murders. The only way I can get out of this mess is by winning the lottery. That way I can pay Alfonso the £1 Million he is now demanding and I get to keep my fingers. No wonder I got very excited the other day when this email arrived in the 7Reasons inbox:

    Your Email ID won!
    EuroMillion Lottery Intl. Program
    FOREIGN SERVICE SECTION BARCELONA.
    REFERENCE NUMBER: SOXW/HAWIR
    BATCH NUMBER: 2011/149 /BMQ

    OFFICIAL WINNING NOTIFICATION.

    We are pleased to inform you of the released results of the EuroMillions Corporations Sweepstakes Promotion in conjunction with foundations for the promotion of software products organized for Software users.

    This Program was held on 16th February , 2011, in Barcelona- Spain. Wherein your email address emerged as one of the online Winning emails in the 1st category and therefore attracted a cash award of EUR1,500,000.00 (One Million Five Hundred Thousand  Euros) and an Apple  laptop. Your laptop, certificate of winnings and your cheque of (EUR1 500,000.00 Euros) will be sent to your contact address in your location.

    Please take note, lucky winners will pay for their courier services delivery. EuroMillions corporations only provides lucky winners with a laptop and the sum of (EUR1 500,000.00 Euros) only. To file for claims of the release of your winnings, Contact the Customer Service Officer with the information below:

    1.FULL NAMES:
    2.ADDRESS:
    3.SEX:
    4.AGE:
    5.MARITAL STATUS:
    6.OCCUPATION:
    7.TELEPHONE NUMBER:
    8.COUNTRY
    9)BATCH NUMBER
    10) REFERENCE NUMBER

    Email: [email protected]
    Tel: +34 634 105 921
    Contact Person: Manuel Borreria [CSO]

    This Email Lottery is sponsored by Software development firms a Software Engineering Resource Consortium Companies. This internet E-mail draw is held periodically and is organized to encourage the use of the Internet products and promote computer literacy worldwide.

    Congratulations!!

    Sincerely,
    Mrs. Eva Lopez
    Online Coordinator

    For thirty seconds I got very excited and flexed my fingers in delight. But then I read it again and I realised a few things. This email was a scam! A scam! And it was so easy to spot. Here’s why the scammers drastically  need to improve their technique:

    1.  The Prize. I have won €1,500,000 and an Apple laptop. Obviously Mrs Eva Lopez is trying to stand out from the crowd here. She is trying to differentiate herself from her rivals by offering an incentive to claim the €1,500,000. In an already saturated market place it is a nice idea, but she lets herself down on the terminology. There is no such thing as an Apple laptop. It’s called a MacBook or a MacBook Pro. An understandable, but ultimately telling mistake.

    2.  The Address. Barcelona. That is far too nice a place to have your winnings sent from. Look at the base of any cereal packet and I guarantee you that the address you have to write to claim your prize is an industrial estate in Uckfield, East Sussex. That’s the way these things work. The scammers have failed by trying to be too exotic.

    3.  The Reference Number. SOXW/HAWIR. I’m not falling for that. This has quite clearly been copied from Mrs Eva Lopez’s to-do list, ‘Sort Out Xanthium Watering/Help A Witch In Rio’. It’s nothing short of laziness.

    4.  Courier Services. That’s right, I – the winner may I remind you – has to pay to get the money from somewhere in Barcelona to my lounge. This would never happen in the Lotto. If you win the Lotto Myleene Klass knocks on your door with a massive novelty sized cheque, a bottle of cheap fizz and a camera crew. It might be tacky, but it’s genuine.

    5.  Personal. The details they request are really rather prying. Take the third request for example, ‘sex’. What do I put here? ‘If I’ve been a good boy I earn the right to have a discussion about the possibility at a later date’? This is private information that should not be shared with anyone else. And quite frankly I don’t think my sexual prowess should stand in the way of €1,500,000. It never has before so why should Lopez think differently?

    6.  The Aim. As you will note from the bottom of this email, the mission behind the E-Mail Lottery is to promote computer literacy. While this is to be applauded surely Lopez would be better off sending the email to someone who doesn’t really know about computers and thus more susceptible to falling victim to scam emails. That way they may actually try and claim their winnings. Obvious really.

    7.  Repetition. I had the same email last November. Only a scammer would think that because they caught me out once they can do it again. Idiots.

  • 7 Reasons That Anatidaephobia Must be Awful

    7 Reasons That Anatidaephobia Must be Awful

    Anatidaephobia is the fear that wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, a duck is watching you.  While some people might see this debilitating condition as funny, we do not.  We realise that it must be bloody awful, here are seven reasons why.

    a road sign bearing the words "please no ducks"


    1.  It’s Not Taken Seriously.  People are often crass, insensitive and immature.  While they would shy away from mocking the sufferers of other phobias they think nothing of making fun of anatidaephobes, solely for their own puerile entertainment and amusement.  Well at 7 Reasons, we’re bigger and cleverer than that.  We know what not to show an anatidaephobe.

    Not for anatidaephobes
    This is what not to show an anatidaephobe.

    2.  At Home.  Anatidaephobes must find it terribly difficult to cope at home.  After all, they’ll believe that when they’re there a duck is watching them.  And how is anyone supposed to relax with a duck watching them?  And how are they supposed to tell if a duck is watching them or not when they’re suffering from snow-blindness?  Or soft-furnishing-induced vomiting.

    3.  Escape.  So they’ve got a duck staring at them at home.  What to do?  What to do?  Get away from it all, that’s what.  Get away from the daily grind, the endless plates and pitchers, the white stuff all over the place, the searing pain in their eyes, the duck that may or may not be there staring at them and head off on holiday.  To somewhere far, far away from the many, many cups and saucers and the sinister duck.

    a scary duck staring into a plane

    4.  Having A Lovely Time, Wish You Were…Oh…You Are.  Well, apparently to anatidaephobes, flying isn’t a barrel of laughs either.  But a journey in an aircraft is a temporary annoyance – unless it plummets from the sky in a fiery ball and hurtles at several hundred miles an hour into a mountain, in which case it’s a more permanent irritation – and, having escaped the duck at the aeroplane window, the travelling anatidaephobe can finally emerge from the aircraft all set to begin their relaxing holiday in Osaka.

    5.  Look On The Bright Side.  Well okay,  Osaka may not be as relaxing at they’d hoped.  But sufferers of anatidaephobia can console themselves with the thought that the big yellow duck isn’t real, and it’s not like ducks hang around in large gangs.  That would be terrifying.

    Just lots and lots of ducks.
    Yes. This would be terrifying.

    6.  It’s Still Not Being Taken Seriously.  Well it seems we’ve been rumbled.  There does appear to be a series of images in this post that would be terrifying to anyone with a fear of ducks and, if you’re an anatidaephobe that’s made it this far down the page, we apologise for our silliness and can reassure you that there are absolutely no more photos of ducks in this post.  It’s all just text from now on.

           ..---..
     .'  _    `.
 __..'  (o)    :
`..__          ;
     `.       /
       ;      `..---...___
     .'                   `~-. .-')
    .                         ' _.'
   :                           :
   \                           '
    +                         J
     `._                   _.'
        `~--....___...---~'

    7. Comparison. Okay, that was a cheap shot (which is great as there’s a global recession) and, you might reasonably ask, would we make fun of people who suffer from other debilitating ailments; people that are scared of the dark, for example, or the morbidly obese?  And the answer is no, we probably wouldn’t.  A series of pictures of the dark would be very dull indeed, and a post full of pictures of fat would be totally disgusting and would put everyone off their sandwiches.  The good news, however, is that unlike the fear of the dark – or fat people – anatidaephobia isn’t real.  It was made up by Gary Larson – he of  The Far Side fame – so we can all relax now.  Unless you’ve ever claimed to be an anatidaephobe or have been reading this piece through the gaps between your fingers, in which case you’re a simpering nitwit and we can heartily recommend this fine web page.

  • 7 Reasons To Buy A Military Icon

    7 Reasons To Buy A Military Icon

    Rather disappointingly, Valentine’s Day 2011 went without hitch. I say disappointingly because no doubt you were expecting a tale of pure muppetry featuring me, a lasagna and a cactus. Sadly, such a disaster did not occur. Instead we are going to take a look at some of the UK government’s cuts. You may have seen on the news that a number of military vehicles and paraphernalia are now up for sale. And guess what? You could own them! Here are seven reasons to buy a piece of military history.

    Buy A Chieftain Tank!

    1.  Chieftain Tank. Fed up with junk mail and Jehovah Witnesses? The Chieftain Tank comes with it’s own 12.7mm ranging gun meaning those front door stalkers won’t ever get within 2,600 yards again. Yours from only £15000.

    2.  Ejector Seat. At £1000, this is the perfect addition to anyone’s lounge. Especially if you don’t want to watch American Idol, but do want a skylight.

    3.  Ferret Scout Car. A fairly niche market we admit, but for all you boy scouts out there this is the ideal ferret chasing device. Prices start from £5000.

    4.  Tornado Nose Cone. For just £500 you could play absolute havoc with the local roadworks. Or you could have a very big ice-cream. The choice is yours!

    5.  Harrier Jump Jet. The ultimate dinner-party antidote can now be yours with this little beauty. Impress your contemporaries with tales of heroism. Like the time you moved the jet from your garage into the back garden and only just missed the rhododendrons. From £19,999 (exc engines and weapons).

    6.  FV432 Armoured Personnel Carrier. Are you fat, ginger, bespectacled and spotty? If so, this is for you! Don’t let the bullies get to you, hide in your own armored personnel carrier! With room for ten of your friends (yes, we know, what friends? Haha) this is the most accomplished hideout vehicle on the market and yours from only £3000.

    7.  Warrant Officer. Want your own bodyguard? Recently sacked by email, these men have a lot of anger in them and are the ideal accompaniment to any war-torn location. Only thirty-eight left. Please note, these men have put their lives on the line and are currently priceless.

  • 7 Reasons You Should Never Buy a Half Bottle of Champagne (on Valentine’s Day)

    7 Reasons You Should Never Buy a Half Bottle of Champagne (on Valentine’s Day)

    It’s Valentine’s Day here at 7 Reasons and, as you might reasonably expect, everywhere else too (we don’t have a special one just for ourselves, you know).  Anyway, we’ve decided to do something different today.  Usually we’d bring you seven reasons for something: Reasons full of speculation and conjecture; hypothesis; whimsy and made-up statistics.  Today, however, is different: We’re not going to do any of those things.  Because in another lifetime, one of the 7 Reasons team spent several years running wine shops (yes, you didn’t think either of us had any sort of practical use, but you were wrong). As a result of this, today’s 7 Reasons post comes from experience.  Make the most of it, it won’t happen often.  This piece is mostly aimed at men who, while in the minority of wine-buyers for the majority of the year are – by far – the majority of champagne-buyers in the run-up to (and at the last minute) on Valentine’s Day.  Anyway, from experience, here are seven reasons that you should never buy a half bottle of champagne for Valentine’s Day.

    No half bottles of champagne

    1.  You’re Missing The Point.  Allow me to explain the point of buying champagne.  It is a luxury item; an extravagance; a frippery; an opulent treat to be blissfully enjoyed in intemperate immoderation.  You cannot have half an extravagance.  You can’t have partial gratification.  It is not possible to temper excess.  If you buy half a bottle of champagne to share with your beloved on the universal day of romance and indulgence you will – should it turn out that you’ve parked it in front of someone’s driveway – be able to move your car; you’ll be able to put up shelving safely; you’ll be able to do the crossword with a clear head.  Trust me, those things are not the point of Valentine’s Day.

    2.  Consider The Message You’re Sending.  What kind of message are you giving to your loved one with a half bottle?  That your gesture is half-hearted and half-arsed, that’s what message you’re sending.  This is a token gesture.  The spark’s gone out of our relationship.  I don’t really want to spend a romantic evening with you.  Here’s a bit of lip-service (which will, ironically, ensure that no lip-service will occur).  I have no feeling for you whatsoever.  I have no romance in my soul.  I’m an insensitive bell-end and you’re wasting your time with me. You’re not saying just one of those things with half a bottle of champagne, you’re saying all of them.  It’s sending a worse Valentine’s message than turning up with flowers that you’ve pilfered from a graveyard.  In fact, it’s worse than turning up with a wreath that you’ve pilfered from a graveyard.

    3.  The Customer Is Always Right.  This is not true.  As we know, there are many people who can’t walk in a straight line, drive a car without endangering others or operate a telephone without calling the wrong person.  This wrongness also manifests itself when purchasing things.  Stupid people, when placed in a retail environment, do not suddenly experience some sort of revelatory experience in which the fog of stupidity is lifted from their feeble brains, leaving them with a hitherto unfamiliar sensation of lucidity and exactitude: They remain stupid.  So, should you ask, in a wine shop, in the run up to Valentine’s Day, for half a bottle of champagne, you will be treated with utter contempt.  Should you choose – once the aghast member of staff has explained reasons one and two to you, possibly in a voice an octave or two higher than their normal register – to persist with your foolish purchase of a half bottle of champagne, you will be forever thought of as the idiot.  They will remember you; they will point at you whenever you come into the store; they will whisper about you to their colleagues before they both erupt into laughter.  This reaction is not a temporary thing, it will last for eternity, and possibly beyond.  Helpfully, they will also put your tiny bottle of champagne into the largest gift bag they can find and that won’t help you at all because…

    4.  Symbolism.  There’s a lot of symbolism around champagne.  Let us consider the use of champagne in film and television for a moment.  The most obvious example is the popping of a cork and the subsequent cascade of abruptly released champagne as a metaphor for the male orgasm.  In this metaphor, the bottle of champagne represents the male appendage.  So – even though it might not be a conscious reaction – if you turn up with half a bottle of champagne on Valentine’s Day, your lady will be doubly disappointed.  Not only will you have arrived with barely enough champagne to get the cat in the mood, you’ll have arrived with a small todger too.

    5.  Variety.  Although all champagne is grown in a small geographical location, and is composed of any, or all, of a mere three grape varieties, there is a panoply of scents and flavours across vintages and producers.  The variety is absolutely fascinating.  So buying champagne is your chance to turn up with something interesting, to wow your beloved.  And it doesn’t have to be expensive.  This is your moment to turn up with a bottle of Taittinger Brut Reserve NV and tell your other half that, like her, it has a beautiful nose, is perfectly balanced, refreshingly complex and has a glorious aftertaste.  Or you can turn up with any other nice bottle of fizz that takes your fancy; there are loads of them.  If you buy a half bottle though, your choice will usually be limited to the house champagne or the ubiquitous Moet & Chandon.  So, you’re either saying “Darling, I brought you half a bottle of Moet because I don’t care, I have a tiny cock, and you’re just the same as all the other girls” or “Darling, I brought you half a bottle of the house champagne because I don’t care, I have a tiny cock and you have lower standards than all the other girls”.  That won’t go well.

    6.  Cost.  Buying half a bottle of champagne is cheaper than buying a full bottle of champagne and, in the current economic climate, it might seem like a reasonable economy.  It is not.  Not only is the cost of a half bottle far greater than half the cost of a bottle, there are other costs that accompany the purchase of one.  These costs are the usual ones associated with apology for acts of crass stupidity and thoughtlessness; flowers, chocolates and the like.  And while we’re on the subject of peace offerings for women, lingerie is never a suitable apology gift.  Never.

    7.  Volume.  There is one thing to be said about the half bottle of champagne.  It’s an ideal size for one person.  This is useful as, if you take your significant other half a bottle of champagne, there is a high chance you’ll end up drinking it alone.  Perhaps for many years to come.

    The 7 Reasons team would like to wish all their readers lots of love and happiness this Valentine’s Day.

  • Russian Roulette Sunday: How You Found Us Part 3

    Russian Roulette Sunday: How You Found Us Part 3

    In this non-too regular, but popular, feature we take a look at some of the phrases that have led people to our site. Sometimes the phrases are pleasing, most of the time they are worrying, occasionally they’re disturbing. Above all though, they are entertaining. And, more importantly, they serve as a reminder that we are actually normal.

    1. Phrases you used to find us that we found flattering:

    Men

    2. Phrases you used to find us that we found less flattering:

    Physical embodiment of evil

    Strange men at bus stops

    Ginger moustache

    How do I tell him I want to split up?

    Weird looking penis head

    3. Phrases you used to find us that we’re sorry we couldn’t help with:

    Three reasons Herbert Hoover was bad

    Reasons to have a bad week

    Dating is like musical chairs

    In how many schools in the world do they do detention?

    Three reasons you should get a kiss

    Different lampshades

    How do you tell if you’re going to have a hairy body?

    How do I iron a shirt?

    4. Phrases you used to find us that we don’t know anything about and nor do we want to:

    Hairy chested sex

    Boyfriend left me feeling really horny

    Nachos in bed

    Did Margaret Thatcher like minors?

    5. Phrases you used to find us that are just plain wrong:

    Hitler

    Is is wrong to kiss a stranger’s cleavage?

    Cross-eye sex

    Women who look like horses

    Why won’t my parents let me sleep with a pig?

    Six Reasons

    6. Phrases you used to find us that there is no earthly explanation for and that we can’t help with:

    Dragons with split tongues that are alive

    Reflexão sobre a vida

    Three reasons why recycling is bad

    Reasons to jump long

    Muscle makes a face

    7. Phrases you used to find us that there is no earthly explanation for but that we were able to help with:

    Richard O’Hagan Facebook – He is.

    Jonathan Lee Jehovah Witness – I’m not.

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons Japan Is Awesome

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons Japan Is Awesome

    We’ve published posts telling us the USA is great, we’ve ignore posts telling us France is great and we already know Great Britain is great, so what’s missing? Ah, yes. Japan. Home of the most annoying game ever invented. I never owned a tamagotchi, but it felt like I had a vested interest in the company given the amount I knew about them at school. Girls you see. They liked to talk about them. And I didn’t have the heart to walk off. Thankfully, Japan have done some good stuff too. As Maria Rainier now explains.

    Maria Rainier
    Maria Rainier 

    Everyone knows Japan is crazy. The reasons why Japanese people are crazy is exactly why they’re awesome. Crazy awesome. I mean, who else has come up with female androids, steakhouses with Mexican cooks, Karate Kid, and Jackie Chan, right?

    1.  Cute. They are the only people on earth who can regularly make poop look cute. Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo does not qualify, Mr. Parker, Mr. Stone. He leaves unsanitary racing stripes wherever he goes and makes a terribly ugly cell phone accessory. Rhinestones look so much more kawaii on unko.

    2.  Humour. Their game shows are not only extravagant wastes of money that could probably fund a super smart cancer research team if only their scientists weren’t too busy riding elephant-sized bouncy balls and falling into mud pits, but more importantly, none of the humor is lost in translation. No matter who’s talking, there’s still a guy getting hit in the face with a giant foam log, and that’s funny.

    3.  Resolute. No one takes a punch like Japan, the only country that’s taken not one but two atomic bombs to the face and said, “Oh, so sorry. Would you like to send over a scientific team to study the damage and not help out the 250,000 women, babies, and old geezers who inexplicably survived your atrocity, and then try to justify it 60+ years later by saying we would have killed more of you had you not done it, even if your planned invasion wasn’t going to happen for two months?” Nah, it’s all good, ya’ll.

    4.  Sushi. They have convinced the West that eating raw fish eggs and octopus suckers is not only healthy and tasty, but sophisticated, especially if you know how to use a pair of chopsticks. They’re laughing their asses off right now, eating their steak and potatoes with a knife and fork.

    5.  They Will Rule The World One Day. While Naruto and animated school girl porn are distracting Westerners and turning them into malnourished, nerdy, basement-dwelling virgins, the Japanese are busy with their next invention: an invisible army of flying life-sized Gundam with nuclear capabilities. The Pokemon franchise was a total Japan takeover of the western world foiled by Trey Parker and Matt Stone in their groundbreaking investigative journalistic endeavor, “Chinpokomon.”

    6.  Vendor. They are the gods of vending machines: hot soup, hot coffee, and panties once worn by hot school girls for your pervy businessman pleasure.

    7.  Ninjas. And samurai. Mr. Miyagi. Ichi the Killer. Those guys.

    Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education and performs research surrounding online degrees. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

  • 7 Reasons That Love is Important

    7 Reasons That Love is Important

    It’s Valentine’s Day!!!  On Monday.  Apologies for any panic we may have caused there, but the 7 Reasons team have decided to jump the gun and celebrate St Valentine’s Day prematurely.  Because we’re lovesick.  Well, one of us is in love and that just makes the other one feel sick, but that’s near enough.  So, in honour of the patron saint of pink stuff everywhere, here are seven reasons that love is important.

    A pink heart

    1.  Make Love Not War. It’s a tired expression, but – short of a nuclear missile – love really is the one thing that can end conflict. For good. We are not interested in truces. Like a dirty weekend in a Travelodge outside of Leeds, it won’t last. Real love means complete acceptance of what others believe and how they choose to live. A marriage of acceptance if you like. Not that I’m suggesting we should accept or indeed make love to radical extremists. That would be extreme. And quite dangerous if their grenades are dangling above your head. If you do find yourself in this situation we suggest you wear a helmet. Just in case.

    2.  Passion. That’s what love is really. Whether it’s passion for your partner or passion for your team or passion for passion fruit, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that you feel something for something. Because it’s those feelings that keep us alive. Without emotion we’d be robots. And if you read yesterday’s post you’d realise that’s not a good thing.

    3.  Compromise. I guess I got lucky. The person I fell in love with also loves what I love. No, not myself. Sport. Which means we don’t have to do the, ‘You can watch Eastenders all week so long as I can watch the rugby all weekend,’ thing. Claire gets to watch Eastenders and the rugby and I get to do the ironing and watch the rugby. But we know we are in the minority. Other people really do have to compromise. And while it may mean missing England beat Wales, you do it because you’re in love. And I admire that. I admire it because I couldn’t do it. Which is why I told Claire before we even started dating that watching England play cricket or rugby comes before anything else in my life. A year later I still haven’t missed a game. And that just makes me love her even more.

    4.  Inspiration.  Throughout human history, love has acted as a spur, a stimulus, a motivational factor in many of mankind’s greatest accomplishments.  The life’s work of Thomas Aquinas; Shelley’s One Word is Too Often Profaned; Shah Jahan’s construction of the Taj Mahal, the historical examples of great works inspired by, and created out of love are almost boundless.  Essentially, if we didn’t have love, we’d still be slimy-fish creatures or animal-bothering Neanderthals living in caves or swamps or our own poo or something.  But thanks to love, most of us aren’t.

    5.  Tennis. I don’t think anything in the world explains love better than a tennis match. As I am sure you are aware, ‘love’ in tennis is the equivalent of zero. Zilch. Nothing. In other words, it is valueless. And that is what love outside of tennis is too. You can’t put a value on love. Unless you are in Amsterdam. Though between you and me I don’t think ten minutes* with a Dutch girl called Helga really counts. Love is the most valuable commodity in life and yet it is free. I have always thought that is a rather wonderful intricacy. We pay our taxes so that the NHS and the Police are there for us when we need them, but the people who are there for us when we don’t need them are free.

    6.  Popular Song.  If it weren’t for the eternally prevalent theme of love, pop music would be wholly different.  There’d be no Renée and Renato’s Save Your Love, there’d be no Yummy Yummy Yummy I Got Love in my Tummy by Ohio Express, and there’d be no When We Collide by Matt Cardle.  This might initially seem like a spectacularly good anti-love argument, but it’s quite the reverse, because when repugnant, saccharine dross like this is being played, you might just find that across a crowded room, someone else is also covering their ears with their hands and bellowing, “What is this shit!?”  And at that moment, your eyes may meet, and that’s when you’ll find true love.  And all because of love songs, which really do begat love.  However circuitously.

    7.  Emotional Intensity.  Love – and this is important in these straitened economic times – is free.  Your other half loves you because you’re you, not because of what you can give them.  Love – true love – transcends the baser human tendency toward being fiscally and materially acquisitive in favour of devotion to and acceptance of another person; no matter what their circumstances or their idiosyncrasies.  When you have found your true soul-mate you will have found unconditional acceptance.  Which is why my other half is going to love her Valentine’s Day card this year, no matter how much it cost.

    A Valentine budget card from Tesco
    She's gonna love this.

    *Okay, two and a half.**

    **This never happened.***

    ***Well, it probably did to someone exciting.

  • 7 Reasons That RoboEarth is a Bad Idea

    7 Reasons That RoboEarth is a Bad Idea

    Readers of 7 Reasons and people of Earth, some horrendous news has reached us: According to the BBC, robots could soon get their own internet.  Yes, the internet.  For robots.  Now, an ill-considered, knee-jerk reaction to this news would be that it is an appalling development that exudes menace and could prove potentially disastrous to humankind.  And we agree.  So here are seven reasons that RoboEarth is a bad idea.

    A still from Terminator 3

    1.  Time.  The internet is wonderful innovation that saves so much time in communication, research, the dissemination of information; in just about every field.  But the internet is also a colossal usurper of time.  After all, if you want to waste time, where do you go?  Online, that’s where.  That’s where you’ll find Farmville and Failblog and Facebook, and other sites not beginning with F that rob you of time.  But who’s to say that, eventually, like the human internet, the robot internet won’t develop from a useful tool into a place where robots sit about in their tin pants eating breakfast cereal and generally cocking about?  And robots shouldn’t be doing that.  That’s not what they’re for.  Robots are supposed to be making the lives of people easier which, as far as I can tell, means making futuristic cocktails for us (preferably in blue or green) and impersonating Stephen Hawking while we lounge around in spangly jumpsuits on white swivel chairs.  I’ve seen Space 1999, I know these things.

    2.  Information.  According to RoboEarth researcher, Dr Markus Waibel: “The human equivalent (of the robot internet) would be Wikipedia”.  Ah, so the robots will be sharing information amongst themselves via a robot equivalent of Wikipedia?  Well that’s reassuring then.  After all, Wikipedia’s a name and concept that we’re all familiar with and who isn’t comforted by the familiar and the…wait.  Wikipedia?  The user-generated website that’s less accurate than asking Geoffrey Archer for biographical information?  The website that told me Pink was born in 1879 and that Carlos Puyol was a pig of the team of Barcelona?  The website that I, myself, have mischievously altered in the past using these very fingers and this very keyboard that I’m typing on now?  If the robot internet is to be based on Wikipedia, we’ll be filling our robots’ circuits and diodes with unsubstantiated gibberish and setting them loose among decent society like automaton hordes of aluminium and silicone Daily Mail readers.  It’s going to be awful.

    3.  Broadband.  Or, as we despairingly call it in my house, “gggaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!”  Am I expected to share my bandwidth with robots now?  I takes long enough for my videos to load as it is, without having a robot halve my bandwidth by downloading Rage Against The Person albums or trying to watch Cyberpets Do The Funniest Things.  What if I want to see something on the iPlayer?  I’ll get dizzy watching the little circle spinning round the centre of the screen.  I don’t want to share my bandwidth with robots.

    4.  It’s Mysterious.  I don’t even understand the practical application of the robot internet (so it must be evil).  The only robot we have in the house is our Roomba robot hoover, and how will the internet benefit that?  Is it going to be able to suck cat-hair off the floor better because it’s got access to the internet?  No, of course it isn’t.  After all, I don’t do the washing up any better because I’ve got the internet, quite the reverse.  So why does my hoover need the internet?

    5.  Science.  The robot internet is something that’s being developed by scientists.  This means that it’s intrinsically bad.  After all, scientists developed the H-bomb; scientists developed anthrax; scientists sent dogs into space; Margaret Thatcher was a chemist* for God’s sake.  And because it’s been developed by scientists, it’s not just evil, it’s badly named.  It’s called RoboEarth.  RoboEarth!  What sort of a shit name is that?  We can all see that it’s a portmanteau of robot and Earth, but it’s about as uninspired as well…um…actually, it’s the least inspired name of anything, ever in the history of everything, ever.  Even the BBC’s Cash in the Attic has a more inspiring moniker than RoboEarth and that’s a shit name too.  If you want to get something named right you need to go to humourists.  We’d soon tell you that the robot internet should be called Cyborgspace which, although there’s a dull, technical difference between robots and cyborgs (something achingly tedious to do with not being part-human or something), is at least a good bloody name.  And also, if humourists had developed the thing it wouldn’t be evil, and it certainly wouldn’t work.  And that’s important because…

    6.  This. Do you know what I said when I first read this news?  No, no you don’t, because you weren’t here in the dining room with me when I read it unless you are a)my wife, or b) the cat, so I’ll save you a tricky guessing game that could involve a lengthy email correspondence and I’ll tell you. I said, “Fuck me!  It’s the rise of the machines.”  And it bloody is.  This is how the Terminator movies start.  The machines become sentient and then they try to kill us.  To death.  And what better way is there to give them a friendly helping hand on their merry way to freedom of thought and action, than to give them their own internet, where they can form ideas and opinions and plot with each other unmolested by us.  Because there’s no way people will be able to control them.  Most of us can’t even stop Microsoft Windows and Norton Anti-Virus when they choose to do stuff that we don’t want them to do on our own computers, so what chance do we have of stopping large sophisticated machines with lasers and stuff that are doing things in remote locations?  Things that they want to keep secret from us?  No chance, that’s what chance.  Most of us are habitually outwitted by the controls of our own central heating systems, and our central heating isn’t actively trying to kill us, so we’re going to be powerless in the face of the robot-apocalypse.  Robopacalypse.  Robocalypse.**    If you want to know how this is going to pan out just watch any of the Terminator films, but take the happy endings with a pinch of salt.***

    7.  Reasons.  Because on the robot internet there’d inevitably be a robot 7 Reasons written by robots, for robots and that would never do, because we do 7 Reasons, and we’re irreplaceable.  So, fuck you, robots!  And toasters.  You may take our lives but you’ll never take 7 Reasons.

    *This is the nicest thing I’ve ever said about her.

    **This is roughly how it will go.  Half of humanity will be engaged in an epic struggle against the machines for our very existence and the other half of us will be sitting around trying to name it.

    ***Don’t take all happy endings with a pinch of salt.  That could prove painful.