Yesterday I was sporting my new t-shirt as gifted to me for Christmas, by Brother Jason and Sister-in-law Susan. Now, I had thought that the shirt was fairly self explanatory, and yet you’d be surprised at how many people asked me, “what does that shirt mean?”. (Truth be told – it was only three people which isn’t actually all that many, but there were a lot of confused looks. I’m sure they all wanted to ask.)

If you too are in the latter group of people who are a wee-bit confused by the shirt and afraid to make it known to the world – it’s a take-off from the iPhone’s “Battery Dead, plug into power” screen, only instead of a battery, it’s a cup of coffee, and instead of a plug, it’s a pot of coffee.

Thanks Jason and Susan!

Does this look like a happy face to you? Indeed it is! I went to the dentist, fearing the worst after not having been in two years. But it seems I’m in the clear, though I’m not sure if that’s because my teeth are ok or because the English dentist didn’t want to be too heavy handed and intervene. ‘Best to leave things to nature’, was the distinct impression I got from him.

I also recently collected these new sunnies from the optometrist. I’ve been without prescription sunglasses for a few years, thinking it would be a waste of money if I ever got up the nerve to have laser surgery. The optometrist recently told me that I wasn’t a good candidate for surgery, so I rushed out and bought these babies. I had a rather comical discussion with the dispensing dude about the type of lens I should get. He was recommending a lightweight lens over a darker finish that cut out more light. The minute I mentioned Australia, he changed his tune and decided I needed whatever sun protection he could possibly offer. He’s never been to Aus, but word of our powerful rays had seemingly made an impression on him.

I cannot overstate how excited I am to be able to see outdoors again. And how relieved I am not to need dental work. So bring on the sunny days and sugary sorbet!

For about as long as I can remember, or at the very least, since a few weeks ago, I’ve been wanting to build a Media Centre PC. It’s not the easiest thing to research – there’s a few places where you can buy something “out of the box”, but I couldn’t find any that would put a machine together out of the pieces I wanted. So, I finally bit the bullet, bought all the bits, and put it together myself!

I’ve never actually put a computer together from scratch before, so I was a little intimidated. The thing I was most worried about was the CPU, as there’s so many things that can go wrong with it. For example, if you don’t have enough thermal paste between the CPU and the heatsync, and it can overheat, burn out, and potentially damage the motherboard as well. Ironically, if you have too much thermal paste, the same thing can happen!

There were a few other gotchas as well, like just trying to get everything to fit. It’s a fairly large case, but due to the way it’s “zoned” (which helps with cooling), there’s not a lot of space for all the cables to fit in. Plus, I made a few n00b mistakes, such as not attaching both power connectors to the motherboard, and then wondering why nothing happened when I powered on.

But after a few false starts, I finally had everything up and running! Here’s the final product – as you can see, the machine fits perfectly into our existing TV cabinet:

The only thing that I couldn’t get working properly was the sound. I was relying on the sound from the motherboard, but as it turns out there’s no optical output. So after a number of frustrating hours trying to get that working, I’ve given up and ordered a Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio card instead. Awesome!

Update: The new audio card has arrived, and has been installed. Just wish I got this one in the first place, it would have saved a lot of headaches!

When we went to Prague recently, we didn’t bother checking any luggage since we were only there for the weekend. Instead, Kristy shoved all her clothes into a little backpack, and I took along my bulky old Targus Matrix backpack. Since you’re only allowed to have one carry on bag when departing from Heathrow, and the Targus bag was the only one which fitted my camera bag in it, I didn’t really have much choice.

Unfortunately, even though it’s a huge bag, the compartmentalisation is terribly done, so it fills up quickly without holding a lot of stuff. Well, the Prague trip was the final straw – I was on the hunt for a new bag!

Crumpler had a few backpacks in contention, until I found the Oakley Surf Pack 3.0, and instantly knew it was a winner. It’s such a cool bag! Firstly, it looks cool – at least I think so anyway. Secondly, the laptop sleeve has both top AND side access. And thirdly, the main compartment is exactly that – one big main compartment. Even when the camera bag is inside of it, there’s still a heap of room for clothes to be packed on top. And finally, the bag has lots of side pockets for easy access to cables and accessories, and even came with a clear plastic passport case, and a spare Oakley bag! Best of all, I think the bag is an end-of-line model, so I got it for an absolute bargain!

I love backpacks almost as much as I love watches (though I have no idea why…), and I think this one has already become the new favourite.

A massive fanks goin’ out to ma main man Karl, who be sendin’ me a wicked good package in va post! I was well surprised to come ‘ome today and find maself a nice, soppin wet pacakge from va States. Lucky for me, va rain didn’t be doin nuffin to va contents of va package, so it’s well good!

Va package be containin some Reeces cups, which is me favorit chocolates, and which I’m well missin’ since leavin va states. Also, a wicked new shirt, from Va Macchiato Cafe, our old coffee joint in va Big Apple. And just for a bit of a teesa, Karl be throwin in a little servie from Chipotle, which I’m well missin’ since departin from da US. Nice!

I’ll fink I’ll be wearin’ ma new tee ta work tomorrah! Fanks again Karl, very nice!

It’s been a very successful week in terms of acquisitions!

First up on the list is our new blender. Finally we’re back to enjoying a fruit smoothie every morning – hugely helpful towards the seven a day directive. And one wonderful thing about London is all the fresh berries that they have – and for so cheap!

Second on the list – Miss Silvia! We had planned to drive to Coventry last Saturday in order to pick her up, but we found out on the Friday before that we could no longer go due to circumstances beyond our control. Somewhat annoyed (I had already paid for the car hire), I jumped onto the google, and was pleased to discover that a retailer not too far from where I was working, sold the machine as well! (Now why on earth couldn’t I find them when I had looked previously?) And not only was their price £20 cheaper, but they also threw in a free 1KG bag of coffee as well!

Let me tell you, that was one very uncomfortable trip home – Miss Silvia is heavy! Still, this is by far the most amazing machine I’ve ever used, and way more powerful than any of our previous machines. I am amazed how quickly it heats the milk – instead of two minutes or so like the last machine took, this one gets the job done in twenty seconds!

And finally, the Pièce de résistance – our new television. Kristy had been begging me to get a nice 40″ LCD with 1080p and lots of HDMI inputs (probably for that Playstation 3 she’s so keen on). So I just couldn’t take the begging anymore, and forked out for a nice Samsung box. Sweet!

We also accompanied it with a Philips DVD player which has 1080p upscaling, and a USB slot from which you can play DivX and MPEG movies. Totally awesome! It’s a wicked good setup – now all we need is broadband and Sky…

With warmer days ahead, Karl decided he needed a couple of short-sleeved shirts for work. So, with no ulterior motives, inspired only by our desire to help the dear boy settle into NY, we accompanied him to Jersey Gardens for some extreme outlet shopping. Yes, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Strangely, we made it through an 8-hour day of shopping (you heard me, EIGHT hours: we saw the centre open and close) without buying Karl a single work shirt, or any work gear at all. Sneakers, yes. T-shirts, yes. Necessary items… well, no.

Gerrod, on the other hand, channeled his inner shopaholic and went a little beserk. Work shirts. T-shirts. Polo shirts. Walk shorts. Gym shorts. Swim shorts. Socks. Even a pair of spare sneakers.

And for the first time in history, I came home with less packages than anybody! Have I lost my shopping touch? Hmmm. Better get back on the horse and hit another store sometime soon!

After much humming and harring, plus a very helpful advanced phone search website that Karl found, I decided to get myself a Nokia E65. Yes, I know what you’re saying – it wasn’t even on the shortlist – but it still seemed like the right choice to me.

For me, the number one feature of this phone is that it has built in Wi-Fi support. Admittedly, I can’t see myself using it to surf the net on unsecured networks all that often (but I guess it’s handy to know that I can if I need to, and the browser is better than I thought it would be). But the big plus of this is that the phone also has built-in support for VoIP. Better yet, you can configure the phone such that if a Wi-Fi network is available and you make a phone call, it will default to using VoIP instead of the cellular network.

Other selling points of the phone – for me at least – were:

• It’s a slider phone. I’ve never had one of these before but I liked the concept and was keen to get one.
• Built in 2MP camera. Admittedly, it’s not exactly time to trade in my dSLR just yet, but still the photos are much better than they were in my 1st-gen Razr.
• Built in bluetooth and IR.
• Long battery life. The battery is rated to 10 days on standby, but we’ll see what that actually equates to.
• Small form factor. Obviously bigger than my Razr was but when closed, this is still a pretty small phone.

So far so good! Oh, and most importantly, it seems to make and receive phone calls quite well, too .

Now we just need to find a new phone for Kristy…

Since I’m now in the market for a new phone, I’ve been searching around to try and work out which one to get. It’s been a while since I bought one and honestly I’m no longer sure what’s best. I remember when buying a new phone basically meant go and buy the latest Nokia and be done with it, however now it seems like there’s stiff competition from lots of other vendors.

I figure for what I use a phone for, the most important features are -

• Bluetooth – and what’s more, it must be able to sync with the Mac address book over a bluetooth connection. (This immediately rules out any Samsung phones unfortunately.)
• Large address book – since my address book syncs with my Mac address book, it brings down ALL the details for each contact – phone numbers, address, e-mail, etc. So a large amount of address book storage is essential.
• Camera – essential for moblog!
• Decent battery life – Goes without saying, really. Oh and speaking of battery life, it would be good to have a phone that charges over USB.

So with that said, here’s my shortlist, in order of price:

• SonyEricsson w810i – about $300.
• Nokia 6300 – about $350.
• SonyEricsson w850i – about $430.
• Nokia N80 – about $450.

The thing I especially like about the last two is that they’re slider phones, and I like the concept of having a covered keypad. But, they’re both somewhat more than I want to spend – $400 should be more than enough for a mobile.

Anyway, I’m putting it out there for comment/votes – which phone do you think I should get, and why? Is there any other phones that should be on the shortlist for consideration? Has anyone had/got any of these phones, and if so would you recommend it?

Check it’, y’all… I’m thinking that we were somewhat influenced by Lou and Steve being here, more-so than we think! We headed to Gap this afternoon to get some skinnies for wifey, but instead we ended up only buying stuff for me!

(Apparently that’s the norm for Lou and Steve; they go shopping for Lou, but instead it’s Steve that comes home with the new wardrobe.)

It was a tough call, usually I go for the darker washes, but without him knowing it, Bender convinced me on a lighter wash. They’re also a little baggier than I’d normally get (loose fit), plus they have features – like a “tattered patch” (thanks to wifey for the official name) on the knee. Still, they’re boot cut, so they don’t actually make me look too much like a homeboy.

They’re my brand new, old favourite jeans, and they’re very comfy!