Bloody Xmas is nearly here again, the idiots are out filling the car parks and shops to overflowing and throwing money at the tills as fast as they can earn it. Am I any different ? yes I am actually, so there ! I have a wife who is so organised that all the kid's presents were bought and packed by the end of October. I have already had my main present (an iPhone) so I dont want or expect much more than a few edible gifts, as far as my wife is concerned her presents are also bought but not yet wrapped, I am not quite as organised as she is. So when I have to battle through my local Tesco store, especially on the weekend just to buy normal everyday food items I get really annoyed with the dozens of trolleys piled to the gunwales with crap. Why cant everyone be a little more organised and buy stuff throught the year like my wife ? ITS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE !!!

I have just returned from my local out of town Macarthur Glen shopping outlet with an absolute bargain. While browsing around the Virgin XS music and DVD store I came across the boxed DVD set of "The Laurel and Hardy Collection" 21 DVD's in surprisingly enough, a box ! This was priced everywhere at £199.99 this time last year, play.com have currently got it on offer at £110.99, but I managed to get it for £59. For an inveterate L and H fan like me this has to be The Perfect Day

How many of you love gadgets, I know I do, the problem is how many gadgets do you need ? I suppose the answer to that is none, but if you ask how many gadgets you want the answer is totally different. I bought myself a 17" MacBook Pro around a year ago it cost about £1800, but to stop my wife hogging it I had to buy her a MacBook which cost around £700. A month ago I bought an iPhone which was £269 with a £45 a month contract. In the last 2 or 3 years I have also bought an iPaq Pocket PC which was about £375 and a 40 GB iPod which cost around £230. If you add all this up it comes to £3374. OK so you have to add 2 Bluetooth mice at £50 each and about £200 worth of Mac software. So the grand total is around £3674. A bit over the top you may think, but considering I spent this over approximately 3 years it comes to around £3.35 a day. How many of you go out and blow far more than that on booze or cigarettes every day ? If you look at it that way it seems very good value to me, so there is no logical reason for me not to go out and spend another £245 on a Cybook 3 eBook reader, is there ? Just try explaining the logic to my wife !

I have had my iPhone for around 48 hours and with every passing hour I am more and more impressed with the features and ease of use. I would heartily recommend anyone to buy if they are undecided, the unlimited data on EDGE/GPRS and unlimited wifi via The Cloud is a first for a mobile phone contract. So what's holding you back ? Apart from the £269 for the handset and a minimum £35 a month contract for 18 months.

Cracked yesterday and bought an Apple iPhone, what a fantastically beautiful device, and far better than the doom mongers would have us believe. The touch screen interface is just brilliant even the keyboard, slated by some people is excellent and only takes a few hours getting used to. I am not regretting this purchase one little bit.

Just had my first play with the new Apple iPod Touch, what an amazing device, absolutely beautiful to look at and the touch screen is a pleasure to use. Watched a couple of film trailers and the resolution of the screen is amazing for a device that small, Its the nearest I can get to an iPhone demo till Friday. My resolution to wait for iPhone two is weakening by the minute.

I got my first mobile phone in 1991 it was a Motorola Micro Tac, which was the next generation of phones after the house brick sized ones you always saw people yelling into in news reports about bankers. The Micro Tac was a wonderful "small" phone which would fit in your pocket, although you couldn't sit down unless you bought the special trousers. Compared to today's phones it was a bit of a dinosaur, the menu system took some getting used to, it was a case of having to read the manual. There was a thin pull up aerial and a "flip" on the front, if you were lucky enough to get a mobile signal the reception left a lot to be desired, no such thing as Pay as you go then, you had to sign a contract for 24 months in blood.
The point of all this is, once I had bought my first mobile phone I developed this irrational need to be constantly available, so I had to continue to own mobile's. I have had a mobile phone in varying guises ever since, my current contract expires in around 7 weeks, and the Apple iPhone is released into the wild in the UK in just 5 days.
This presents me with a major problem, do I really want to spend £269 on a phone which is cutting edge as regards the user interface, but a few years behind as regards the function (That's the fault of the bloody Americans who are happy with crap out of date mobiles, but don't get me started on Americans).
The old form over function debate again, I have fallen prey to this a number of times, my head says no but my heart says just wait till you hold one, you know you want it. I should wait until version 2 is released, rumoured to be as early as January 2008, also rumoured to have all sorts of extra bells and whistles. Unfortunately they are just that, rumours, so I only have to wait a few months to find out, or sign an 18 month contract for version 1.
Its a no brainer really, wait and find out, but its not my brain that's controlling things as regards the iPhone, and I haven't even played with one yet ! I wonder what sort of blog entry I will be making next Friday the 9th ?

Just got out of bed after a night shift and was immediately collared by my 3 year old son asking where his green crayon had gone. Why is it kids think you always know where everything is ? So we started a major hunt for the missing crayon, but by the time I had got round to searching umpteen toy boxes, he had wandered off and started to play with some toys I had found in the first box, that he hadn't seen for ages. The green crayon is still missing but he doesn't care any more.
Its a bit like life, we all go wandering around looking for the green crayon, but continually get sidetracked, at least I do..............must remember to buy some new crayons.

If anyone is into old British movies the Britmovie site is an excellent resource. A friendly community who sell or swap British movies, a lot of which are not available on commercial release. The majority of these movies are black and white (quite right too). Amongst a number of useful forum's there is a classic british TV section where programmes can be swapped or bought, it's free to sign up. And in case your thinking I have some commercial interest in it, your wrong, just a useful recommendation

Today in History:
10/30 Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" broadcast, 1938

Today I am going to talk about one of my favourite things, biscuits. There is a wonderful website almost entirely devoted to them and to a lesser extent cake, its called Nice Cup Of Tea And A Sit Down. One of the best feelings in the world is to sit down and eat a whole packet of biscuits with a large cup or mug of hot steaming tea. Believe it or not there are people in this world who insist "I cant possibly eat a whole packet of biscuits in one sitting", these people fall into 3 distinct group's. Group 1 - Those who insist they need to get into their thong for the next holiday, its a packet of biscuits for god's sake not a cow, its not going to kill you to try it once. Group 2- Those who are too mean to eat a whole packet of biscuits (You know who you are), just get a buy one get one free deal and eat the free packet ! Problem sorted. Group 3 - The liars, probably covers about 95% of the population, its not a crime if people find out you wont be stoned in public, get a life !. Now I have got that off my chest along with the biscuit crumb's I feel a whole lot better.