Friday 30 December 2011

A Christmas Century


Well it's not New Year yet , one more day left in 2011 so it's still Christmas time . This is the forst year I've done a hundred posts on this blog , though not sure if thats a cause for celebration, still it's a sort of milestone. I have a lot of friends who started blogs and posted some excellent stuff , but they got bored and the blogs are now just as they were a few years back.

A hundred posts , one every three point six five days, or two a week , roughly eight a month. You'd think it would be easy to keep that rate up , but even when blogging you can have nothing to write about, and this post is a case in point , it's all about the fact I'm writing my hundredth post and it's New year's Eve's Eve!!

Well it's the twefth post in December , suppose I could get to fourteen before this year plays out , but who knows.

My first post was February 18th 2007 and my 100th was about Apple autobuying music for me here on 7th July 2009 !!

Anyway Happy New Year!!

Six Point Eight Millon Phone Activations On Christmas Day

Thats more than one phone for every ten people in Britain , given the saturation of mobile phones in this country , that's quite amazing , obviously sales campaigns are being amazingly successful . Apple are the greatest marketers with the abiltity to create want and need in people , and their target market don't even know why they want the damned thing (iPhones and iPads especially) , hell I nearly bought an iPad so that's how good they are!

Anyway this must create a lot of disused handsets which companies like Boots will take off your hands and give you a couple of quid in return. Anyway I didn't get a mobile phone , my trusty San Francisco 1 still going strong and enabling me to make calls , text , surf the next and take bad pictures!!

Wednesday 28 December 2011

Christmas Resistability

Well I managed to resist the excellent Orange Christmas box offer  (free Angle & Curve Headphones worth £60 with any PAYG phone over £30)  , and am soldiering on with my first generation San Francisco that fulfils the main requirement of a phone , which is to make phone calls!! It also is fairly good for texts , and OK for internet access . Camera and processor are barely adequate but I can live with them

It seems to me that me are zooming to a point of no return with theese handheld devices . Unless there's another quantum leap in power storage , or distributed power becomes a reality mobile devices will become anything but that if they have to be plugged into a power source!!

No doubt Apple will come up with a marketing idea and Samsung will come up with an innovation , but I cant see for the life of me what it will be . We'll have iPhones 5s , iPad 4s , Galaxy IIIs and some new Blackberry , but we shall see .....

Tuesday 27 December 2011

A Playlist For Christmas

Am quite impressed with Grooveshark , not sure how exactly it works , but thought I would try this playlist I put together in "Crimbo Limbo". Hope you enjoy it , I certainly do!

If You Dont Listen To This , You Won't Ever Hear These Songs #1 by Mike Singleton on Grooveshark

Crimbo Limbo

A phrase I heard today on BBC Radio to by the excellent Craig Charles standing (or sitting) in for the entirely not excellent Steve Wright (as opposed to the very excellent Stephen Wright). Well Christmas day has gone , as has Boxing Day , present have been opened and we're now into that space where we are waiting to see what the New Year will bring .

Are you working (I am) , are you on Holidaday , will you get to a party , who knows.

Did you do the sales  (I didn't) ,

Any hope everyone had a great Christmas , and hope the "crimbo Limbo" has kept you on a high.

I nearly filled up my hard drive with films , and we still have Sky 1's Treasure Island to come!!

Saturday 24 December 2011

Ghost of Christmas Future

he world is improving and despite what the Dail Mail , Dail Express and most of the media tell us, life is getting better for most people . The progress of technology has been phenomenal , so you can watch what you want , when you want , where you want , how you want. Mobile phones these days are like something from Star Trek , but we still don't have hover boards and card or cities on Mars or under the sea.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
The blot on the horizon is the continual erosion of the holiday for commercial concerns , I don't want shops open at Christmas , it gives us time to socialise , and enjoy stuff at a leisurely pace , but certain chains wont be happy until they're open 24/7 , 365 days a year in case someone wants a newspaper and they can chalk up another sale regardless of the cost.

Anyway there will always be Christmas films on at Christmas (most a variaton on Dickens' Christmas Carol) and business entrepreneurs will continue to try and remove the spirit of Christmas in the name of money!!

Friday 23 December 2011

Ghost of Christmas Present

It's amazing how much we have available to us today , how much we take for granted. Today I had lunch with my girls with a choice of excellent Sounth American food in pleasant surroundings at Las Iguanas in Newcastle . Within a stones throw of that are Pani's (Italian) , Dabbawal (Indian) , Hei Hei (Chinese) , The Bacchus (English) , Simply Greek (Greek) , Little Saigon (Vietnamese) , El Torrero (Spanish) and that's just for lunch , and by no means the only restaurants or cafes to eat at. As a kid yohurt and pizza were the height of exotica and if you were really adventurous you could try a Vesta Beef Curry or Paella!

As well as the food technology gives us things like catch up TV , mobile smart phones amd timy music players that will hold most normal people's music collections. Never has life been more convenient with such choice. Despite all the golom merchants predicting global coolapse , the reality is that we probably never had it so good. And it feels good at Christmas