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Gadget Syndrome

8/31/2005

I hate buying gadgets. As much as I adore the concept of technological advancement bringing entertainment and convenience to the household, I abhor the process of buying technology myself.

The reason is simple. Technology moves so fast, in order to be confident you have made a sound purchase you either have to 1) know exactly what you want or 2) have researched to high heaven and back to ensure you have got yourself the best deal in terms of features, quality, longevity and reliability - and that takes a heck of a lot of effort.

My regular Gadget Friday slot was an attempt to share my research into various things with the public, in the hope that it would improve others' ability to purchase wisely.

But this weekend has proven that even I need to revisit my strategies. You see, I wanted a VCR. Well in the old days you'd call it a VCR, nowadays, as I learnt, it went from VCR to DVDR to HDDR in a matter of months. So instead of recording to VHS tapes, and instead of recording direct to DVD discs, you record onto a hard disk and then burn onto a DVD at your leisure (after carefully editing out the adverts of course!)

The bottom line became this - I needed to get a HDD recorder since the VHS paradigm is over. I toyed with various things along the way. I've a large investment in VHS movies, so I still want a VHS player. So I figured a combination VHS/DVD recorder would help - I looked at this JVC and this Hitachi. I then twigged that any DVD recorder should be multiregion, so that I can see the films I bought whilst in the states. This proved difficult. Plus I found that these combo units are large, and wouldn't fit into our lovely tv stand anyway. So scratch that idea. Then came the dedicated HDD recorder only. Couldn't find anything like that. So it was back to a DVD recorder with a HDD in it. I found a lovely Sony, 80G HDD, great reviews and multiregion. Ordered it, knowing in the back of my mind that 80G put pressure on me to get things archived quickly before space ran out.

As chance would have it, the people I ordered it from have run out of stock. So they sent me an email that said if I didn't reply, they'd cancel the order. I then started looking again.

This time I was focusing in on 160G. Each time I read more, the more I discovered that I knew NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH about the various formats these buggers recorded on. DVDR, R+, dual layer, it was all greek to me. I just wanted to record Match of the Day for goodness sake!

So after buying a copy of What Hi-Fi and Video from WHSmith at Padders, I saw that Sony were releasing a 160G version of the unit I thought I had purchased earlier. A dizzy heights 500 quids worth of technology from a great brand. So what did I do?

I went and bought a Panasonic 400G whopper for a massive 600 smackaroonies, and its multiregion too! What on earth am I going to do with SD/CF slots? What am I going to do with 400G of space other than lazily let it fill up with enough football (AND CRICKET) to make me weep ;-) The latter is why I thought it was a splendid Idea.

  1. Final Test Match
  2. World Cup 2006

You see, with 400G, I can record the compulsory 2 footy matches a day that the World Cup brings and not worry about archiving so quickly.

Luck, as they say, favours the idiot.
--
dp


Madness Comes And Madness Goes

8/29/2005

Its Bank Holiday Monday today, the sun is out and I'm contemplating getting the lawnmower out to do some mowing (again!) Whilst sipping at my morning coffee, whilst the lady slept upstairs, I heard a noise, a wailing sound. I thought it was part of the soundtrack to the film I was watching (Mystery Men if you would care to know). The noise went on as the scene changed. How odd I thought, surely soundtracks are synchronised to edits in the film? I turned off the volume and the noise was still there. And then suddenly I remembered what the previous owners told me - there is a weekly Siren test on Monday mornings.

Its the weekly siren test for Broadmore Hospital for the Insane. I've heard air-raid sirens tested in West London, and I've also heard a similar hospital siren ring near where I used to live. But this one sounded really hi-tech. They must have a bank of Yamaha synthesisors racked up to a massive amp to blast out this noise for miles around.

Not too worried that there are loonies out there, I mean, if push comes to shove and one is running amock down the road, I'm sure some of my illustrious neighbours would happily jump into their Chelsea Tractors and mow him down nonchalantly without a single care - obviously its a great excuse to go off road onto the pavements and lawns chasing the bugger down. Yes, there are some tractors here, but mostly flash BMWs that make me drool. Luckily my 306 exhaust isn't rattling anymore, how embarrasing that was!

Spring cleaning has finally taken place in the Num Num household, and the pad is looking rather plus indeed. Still got a fair way to go yet, but its getting there. I managed to even catch the ending of the 4th Test between England and Australia - how great to see us 2-1 up with one last Test to go! Now talk about nailbiting finishes - if we win that one, or even draw, the ashes are staying here! But those Aussies - they are a damn fine outfit, and its not going to be easy.

Right, I had better get my skates on and go mow the grass (again!)
--
dp


Who am I? Can I be something different? How?

8/25/2005

Being an INFP (see bar on the right) I'm of the opinion we can improve ourselves by understanding ourselves, both the good and bad within us. Why do we act the way we do? What is the potential for change within us? What do we need to focus on to remove barriers in our psyche? All these things bug me consistently, to the extent that I am constantly looking to better how I act and react within the world I live in.

So here are some links to things that can help you do the same, should you so wish. Firstly, even if this doesn't appeal to you, don't dismiss it outright. There is a lot to be said about the psychology in some of these techniques. Secondly, you DO have the capability to change. Thirdly, only YOU can make that change happen. And finally, Making it happen takes a concerted effort on your part.

So enjoy.

1) The MBTI - Keirsey Sorter - find out what type of person you are - and if you do it correctly, its bang on the money. This then helps you focus your plan of action.

2) Seven habits of highly effective people - a key requisite to the working and living profile for most American professionals.

3) Neuro Linguistic Programming - take that phrase out of your head and put in one that subtly changes how you behave!

I could go on, but only if you want - but the above three are basically the best starting point for those who dare!
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dp


Commuter Columbo

8/23/2005

I am sat on a train opposite a most unusual individual. He has tie undone and hanging aound his neck. It looks like standard MandS fare. His pale yellow shirt has the top two buttons undone. He has light blue jeans on, and his brown shoes and white socks finish the ensemble.
Is this man an eccentric?
His powerbook is dominating the table, he has an ipod plugged into one ear and is yapping away on a Moto Razr in the other. His ring tone is the Hello Moto snippet.
Is this man weird?
His Daily Telegraph is sprawled on the seat next to him and his tattered full size gentlemans wallet spilling on the table in front of the paper.
Is this man obnoxious?
I love playing commuter columbo. Its so much fun (unless you have a cop with a gun looking to shoot a dark skinned bloke).
What games do you play on the train, shopping, driving...
..
dp
[mobile]


Wacky Weekend

8/22/2005

A change from the opinions and more of a narrative...

Theres much to be said about the weekend just passed. It started off splendidly with a lovely Friday afternoon with my brother-in-law and then dinner at my sister's. The first was at a charming area of Swiss Cottage in London, with quaint road names such as Fellows Road, and Kings College Road, and Trinity Avenue. Do you get the picture? Fantastically grand old houses with a bit of a old-town twist. An afternoon with the brother-in-law and his delightfully cute little girl (though she's not exactly little). Then off to my sister's to play with her 3 little 'uns, and have another scrumptous dinner - she's a most excellent cook.
Saturday was a busy day. A morning of flat pack furntiture making culminated in a disaster of a sideboard that had three of the wrong doors. I need to get the details of the order and phone Ikea to resolve the issue promptly. Then off to a wedding at the Radisson Edwardian. A wedding presided over by the most comical and centre-of-attention seeking priest I've ever seen. The wedding will remain memorable for a long time for all who attended. Needless to say the priest was a bit in love with himself. Just a bit. Then a disaster of an evening reception at the same place. Instead of a lovely time, in the largest of halls, they put together a really shoddy schedule of dancing, dancing and more dancing, with a menu that was cut down and not at all palatable. I went home hungry, though I did marvel at the taste of a fresh green capsicum chilli - yes I was dared to take a bite out of one and I sure as hell did. And it was HOT. Lovely sharp bites of chilli pain on the tongue, fantastic!
Sunday was another long day, spent setting up my PowerBook, dashing off to shopping, dashing off to Reading for more shopping and to return a lamp that no longer worked, and then home to mow the huge lawn back and front. I need to get a gardener to come landscape the place, its getting unruly!
A relaxing and lovely evening dinner with Icy, who's cooking reportoire is coming along steadily, and a night cap of Poirot.
Through it all, very little time to do what I really wanted to do, but hey, there's always the weekend after next right ;-)

PS Saw that the Sony Walkman Phone is now available in general release here in the UK. I expect it to be a pretty good seller, much like the 2megapixel phone camera I reviewed many gadget fridays ago.

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dp


Gadget Friday - Kop Out

8/19/2005

Do comics count as gadgets? If they do, you'll love my refernce to BoltCity. This is one heck of a great place for absolutely awesome comics. Check this one out, I find it hilarious:



I know I know, there are no reviews or new gadgets introduced. I'm really sorry, I've just had too much going on at home. On top of that I really have to sort out my new Powerbook which arrived yesterday :) SuperDuper.

Oh, one thing that really got me hooked, was lots of articles on Fountain Pens. So here we go, something gadgety - a discussion point of sorts: in light of the near ubiquitous nature of the qwerty keyboard, will school children be taught Mavis Davis Typing Skills rather than a wonderful handwriting script? What will become of the wonderful Fountain Pens of yore? Discuss (max 500 words) 10 points
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dp


Again, my peers show true character.

8/18/2005

Not only did the email debacle from a couple of days ago show the ingrained behaviour of my executive peers at work, but today someone showed one more - taking another's idea and passing it off as your own. The names have been changed to protect the culprits.

----

From: someone else
To: Lots of Executives where I work
Date: today

I don’t think this note was intended to come to me, please pass along to the correct person. thanks



From: another person
To: Lots of Executives where I work
Date: Monday

I don’t think this note was intended to come to me, please pass along to the correct person. thanks



--
dp


Yahoo! vs Google

8/17/2005

I'm a bit of a geek, as most of you will have concluded form my Gadget Friday posts. I do like my technology and I love speculating on the future of it. I'm not always far wrong either - would you believe that in 1998 I predicted that there would be a single online page for each person where that person's:
  • calendar,
  • email,
  • notes,
  • cv/bio
would be available for people to see? The calendar would allow workers to see and share a single calendar securely so that you can get booked into meetings and people wouldn't have to know that the black box at 5pm on Thursday was your Doctor's appointment etc. The notes would be your thoughts and meanderings on life. When you were born you would be given a Birth Certificate, an IP Address or Domain, and a Mobile Phone Number (notice I didn't say ID Card ;-) All of this technological malarky is slowly coming around, and lo and behold, Yahoo! have decided to bring it one step closer.

Yahoo! 360 is kinda like a friend circle based version of the .person concept. Have a look at mine here.

I've made quite a few suggestions to the Feedback team, largely trying to tell them that their blogging won't really gain critical mass so their RSS Feed structure needs more work (see how oddly this blog turns up there?)

You see, Yahoo! is coming head to head with Google right now in all things cyberspace. Would you believe that just last week Yahoo! was given the Search Award for having the Most Pages Indexed? Yep, its hard to believe but Yahoo! could give you a better result than Google - though the exact 'relevance' of the result is debatable.

Email is another battle. 2G of storage from both, but one is free the other isn't. Google has to be taking a Nike approach to the Yahoo! old guard. However, Yahoo! has some things which it can draw upon to keep up the stakes. Firstly it has a great content system. Yahoo! News is still a tad better than Google News. But as you can see, Google is really pulling out the stops. Yahoo! has some fight left in it yet, and Yahoo! 360 is another example of just what its trying to do.

Enjoy!
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dp


8/16/2005

Right, I really got to find a good job doing something useful.
Yesterday saw about 100 emails being sent from all over the world by Executives within my company. They were all replying personally to a person's request for a security pass to let a trainer into the Mumbai offices. The replies were evident of the character filtration machine known as promotion. In summary - Reply To All, state you cannot help or are offering advice on how to help, state the bleedin obvious, reply to all instructing others to not to reply to all anymore, and finally ask to be removed from the mailing list.
I was in hysterics all afternoon, until the IT department closed off executive mailboxes to clean out the huge volume of emails (imagine it, 100 x every executive in the company globally).
Today sees us having dinner at Eat & Two Veg. Looking forward to it.
--
dp


8/15/2005

I can't help it, there are some perfumes that just drive me wild. Its inevitable. The aromatics in some of them just hit the right notes in my being.

Top of the list has to be Dune. Icy wore it for the first time in ages on Sunday when we went to the London Mela. Its such a dreamy scent, captivates me big time.

Organza Indecense is a racy number too, gets the old ticker moving rapido as the aroma drifts in. Guerlain are very nice indeed, with Shalimar or Samsara making a romantic evening complete for me. And Ultraviolet is just yummy.

There are others out there that actually make me ill. I can't stand some of those 'washing up liquid' type scents, they don't work. And though the ubiquitous Orange Blossom type perfume is wildly popular, it doesn't make the animal growl, iykwim.

I'm reliably informed that Cologne has a similar effect on some women. I've had compliments on Vetiver, Elite and Bulgari.

So, now that Summer is slowly making its ceremonious and ever-brief appearance, its nice to know that sometimes, a waft of something delightful is all it takes to make you smile.
--
dp


Gadget Friday

8/12/2005

Alas I'm mega busy today, so this one will have to be quick!

Todays Gadget Friday is all about Windows Desktops - or rather how to enhance them. Over time, you can get rather bored with how your PC looks, same old style with a different background etc. There are lots of tools out there, some free some not, that change the way your Desktop behaves and looks.

I'll list a few here, and show a pic or two about just what can be achieved.

Lets start with the newest development.

Konfabulator is an old toolset, that was recently bought by Yahoo! Its gone from subscription based to completely free. Its a great introduction to the concept of adding things to your Desktop, changing the way it looks and acts. I love it, I've got it working on my work laptop and it shows my the news as background feeds on the workspace!

There are tools that help you change the background on a random basis, these are good, but the better option is to completely change the look of your machine!

Have a look at this, its actually a PC - but it looks like a mac!

Its done using WindowBlinds - a tool from Stardock who also make the Desktop X Suite, a great piece of software that I use a lot, that turns my PC into a lovely silvery mac-lookalike. I particularly like the WindowFX to add shadows and smooth animation to things.

There are countless number of themes out there, that help you 'skin' the desktop windows using WindowBlinds. And full suites for DesktopX.

In addition to that, there are great 'widgets' that add super features to the environment.

I love the 'multiple desktops' options which give you - multiple desktops. I also loved the ObjectBar and Mac like ObjectDock.

On top of that there are Konfabulator like background widgets that can show new mail and calendars in the desktop background itself!

Do I use these? For sure...



Thats not a Mac, thats a Dell Win XP Laptop - with DesktopX and Konfabulator! Been using Stardock's products for over 2 years now, and can't use a PC without 'em ;-)
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dp


Home Building (and Shipping)

8/11/2005

I'm in Furniture Buying Mode, but I doubt very much I'll be tempted to attempt anything as eccentric as this.



--
dp


As Records Go...

8/10/2005

I have to admit it, I have a degree of admiration for Alan Shearer. The guy is quiet, dedicated, works hard, and is bloody lethal on the football pitch. I read this morning that he is just shy of a massive 200 goals for Newcastle - his boyhood team. So it got me thinking - just what are the stats right now in the premiership. Lets begin with Shearer, the guy has averaged a massive 1.5ish goals a game for his club. Thats serious Romario territory imho.

SHEARER
League: 263 (7) games 138 goals
FA Cup: 33 games 20 goals
League Cup: 13 (1) games 6 goals
Europe: 45 games 28 goals
TOTAL: 354 (8) games 192 goals


I couldn't find the proper stats for the Premiership, but the Wikipedia has this - as you can see, its about 13 goals shy for Shearer, so its about that out for the rest. Notice who's leading the pack though!
Rank Player Goals
1 Alan Shearer 250
2 Andy Cole 172
3 Robbie Fowler 155
4 Les Ferdinand 150
5 Teddy Sheringham 139
6 Thierry Henry 134
7 Dwight Yorke 121
8 Michael Owen 118
9 Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink 114
10 Ian Wright 113


Here's something regarding Thierry Henry vs Ian Wright's record for Arsenal. I tlooks remarkably like Wrighty has a slightly better ratio overall, but all Henry needs is a Sehwag like flurry of goals in a match and its done.

HENRY
League: 189 (16) games 137 goals
FA Cup: 15 (6) games 6 goals
League Cup: 2 (0) games 1 goal
Europe: 66 (4) games 37 goals
TOTAL: 272 (26) games 181 goals

WRIGHT
League: 212 games (9) 128 goals
FA Cup: 16 games (0) 12 goals
League Cup: 29 (0) games 29 goals
Other: 22 games (0) 16 goals
TOTAL: 279 (9) games 185 goals


And with regards to English Goalscorers for England - Just check out Jimmy Greaves! Bloomin Heck. I've added the Ratios, since they are useful in comparing efficiency. Linekar wasn't so bad was he?

Place Player Goals per Game
Games Goals
1 Bobby Charlton 0.46
106 49
2 Gary Lineker 0.6 80 48
3 Jimmy Greaves 0.77 57 44
4 Michael Owen 0.45 70 32
5 Tom Finney 0.42 76 30
= Nat Lofthouse 0.90 33 30
= Alan Shearer 0.47 63 30
7 Viv Woodward 1.26 23 29
8 Steve Bloomer 1.27 23 28
9 David Platt 0.43 62 27
10 Bryan Robson 0.28 90 26
12 Geoff Hurst 0.48 49 24
13 Stan Mortensen 0.92 25 23
14 Tommy Lawton 0.95 23 22
15 Mick Channon 0.45 46 21
= Kevin Keegan 0.33 63 21



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dp


Lots of things going on

8/09/2005

There are quite a lot of things going on right now aren't there? Firstly, I noted with some surprise that the Football Season is kicking off, with Man Utd playing someone tonight. Of course it kicked off a while back, but I hadn't noticed.

The house is coming along slowly, though its quite messy in the Study and Spare room. I think I'm going to have to sit down and work out what really needs to be inside the house, and what can go in the Garage, which will have to be secured with the final Magnetic Contact that I've got for the house alarm.

Then we have my car, its got a buggered exhaust, the electric indicators on the dash don't show the headlights as on, and the backlight on the clock has gone. In short, I think it might be on its last legs. I'm thinking of trading it in for a Ford Focus Zetec Climate 1.6 Automatic, which has a NCAP 5* rating at the highest of its class.

Work is slowly coming along, though I'd rather it just give it all up and sit back and decide what I really want to do with life. IT is getting a bit boring in its current guise here.

I'm racing through Icy's Patricia Conwell books, and I must admit her writings a bit simple. The Key Scarpetto novels are not exactly thrilling according to my standards. But she's mega rich with million bestsellers, and I'm not, so I'll shut up.

And finally, I saw this in the online Guardian today, so thought I'd share it with you. Enjoy the curry's y'all here?

Curry spice may protect against cancer

James Meikle, health correspondent
Tuesday August 9, 2005
The Guardian


Scientists hope they are unravelling the secrets of how a prime curry ingredient helps protect against cancer.

They have found the active agent in turmeric, the spice that colours and flavours many Asian meals, can block a cancer-promoting protein.

They want to follow up tests using cell cultures in the laboratory with trials of tablets on patients.This would involve giving volunteers 500mg tablets of the constituent known as curcumin each day for a week to see whether it inactivates the NF-kappaB protein which plays a key role in Barrett's oesophagus, a pre-cancerous condition, and oesophageal cancer.The work at Swansea University's school of medicine and the Morriston hospital in the city builds on a growing body of worldwide evidence that turmeric, powder from a plant of the ginger family, can help stave off cancers such as leukaemia, prostate cancer, skin cancer and colon cancer.A team in America is hoping human trials could help lead to the development of a drug against Alzheimer's disease, while others hope its anti-inflammatory properties might also protect against Crohn's disease.

Lower levels of some similar conditions among people living in Asia first sparked the interest in investigating whether curry has protective properties. Barrett's oesophagus is a condition in which long-standing inflammation of the gullet leads to changes in the cells lining the gullet. In about 10% of cases, this can lead to cancer.

The Swansea team, which has previously found that increased NF-kappaB has helped tumour cells develop in several cancers of the gastro-intestinal tract, have been investigating how different substances with reputed anti-cancer properties deal with the protein.Resveratrol, a chemical in red wine which a recent Spanish study suggested helped drinkers reduce their chances of getting lung cancer, also blocked the protein, as did vitamin C and a chemical from green tea.

Vitamin E and a chemical found in broccoli were far less successful.

But rushing to the curry-house and washing the meal down with wine, will not be the way forward, says Gareth Jenkins, a lead researcher in the project.Despite the fact that a number of spicy foods have recently also been found to contain illegal and potentially cancerous ingredients such as Sudan 1 and Para Red, too much drinking increases the risk of gullet cancer."We are looking at the activity of just one protein, it is only one part of the whole cancer development process," said Dr Jenkins. "You would not want to encourage people to eat a takeaway every day to get the curcumin because they may die of heart disease."

Indian food contained a lot of fat, he said. Developing supplements taken in tablet form or adding turmeric to less fatty foods would be better.That all remains some way off. For now, the researchers hope they can win ethical permission for a pilot study in humans.This would involve some volunteers with Barrett's oesophagus having curcumin tablets and other dummy treatments a week before they underwent an endoscopy.Their tissues would then be tested for NF-kappaB activity. Laboratory tests have suggested 24-hour treatment of cells with curcumin almost totally blocks the protein.

But even this study might take two years because the researchers did not want to subject patients to more endoscopies than their condition merited."All these patients will have completely different diets, they will be taking different drugs."No one really knows why only 10% get cancer," said Dr Jenkins.Other research teams investigating potential benefits of turmeric have looked at diet of different populations and conducted tests on animals.But there are no satisfactory animal models for oesophageal cancer, according to Dr Jenkins. Professor John Baxter, another of the Swansea research team, said: "The curcumin discovery is a shot in the arm for our research."

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dp


Gadget Friday

8/05/2005

I must admit, this week's Gadget Friday almost passed me by. It was only whilst walking to work and pondering why people adhered to Brands did I realise it was Friday (yes, don't laugh, I had no recollection that today is Friday) and that this meant I had to put together a slightly better-than-last-week installment.

So rather than do another Bose type brand based installment, I'm going to do something related to Watches - why? Because I looked at my watch as I was walking in to work to confirm that it was indeed Friday - only to discover my wind-up watch doesn't show the day, only the date.

So, watches. What can be at all Gadgety when it comes to Watches? Watches have been made with style and panache for eons. There are some superb brands out there, that I totally admire and I'll list them at the end of the article in order of my preference. The thing is, these are brands of quality watchmakers. The watches themselves cost anything in excess of £5000.00 for a basic model. So we are already beyond the 'watch' and into the 'timepiece' category. A Breguet is not a watch - repeat 100x and you'll get the picture.

Humble persons like you and I need a more down to earth price range. And Would you believe, there are fantastic brands out there too, that fit this bill - also listed below for reference.

However, in terms of everyday watch innovations, what do we need to overcome? Well there are three factors I think that make a watch for normal lifestyles:

1) Accuracy
2) Longevity
3) Comfort.

There's no point in a Watch if its not accurate (my own wind-up watch aside). Also, why fiddle with a battery every 2 years (again, my wind-up aside). And no point buying a watch that you can't wear on your wrist without you realising its there - weighing you down or hurting you big time (sic).

So lets go for Accuracy and Longevity in one massive swoop.

Enter the G-Shock (and Baby-G for the ladies amongst us). I have to admit to being a huge G-Shock fan. So what do these guys offer?

1) Radio Controlled Accuracy. Don't you just love the idea of a clock signal keeping your wristwatch dead-balls-on-accurate with the real marker-clocks around the globe? That's what the WaveCeptor watches from G-Shock do. They have the Radio Controlled technology inside of them. This means wherever you are, whatever time zone, it adjusts to the second to the correct time automatically. I highly recommend these for house clocks, and was chuffed to see they are also now available for your wrist (radio signal poisoning and side-effects ignored ;-)

2) Longevity. How does Solar Powered strike you? Solar powered to a degree that ANY light source will do. Even a bulb in your house. I can vouch for the Tough Solar watches since I have one. And the battery reserve is phenomenal. Remember that this is a G-Shock, so the solar panels are rock hard, and won't leak. There are alternatives to Solar, such as Kinetic power - and Seiko lead the way in this arena, closely followed by Lorus/Accurist who have some really good Movement based mechanisms. Longevity however, is where G-shocks lead by example. Not only would your Solar powered G-shock never need a battery change, but it will never break either. Well, not never, but if it does break, they'll give you a new one. These things are bloody good!

3) Comfort. Alas G-shocks are massive beasts. They are no way as comfy as some Sekondas (they are very good indeed) and some Swatches (that are pretty neat too). So in that area, Seiko pretty much would win, since it has a penchant for quality comfort.

So if you are in the look out for a watch, consider this. Its purpose may be to show your accessory style, but in truth it needs to be accurate. So how much more accurate can you get, other than dead-on-balls-accurate like an Atomic Signal Watch? And whilst you're there, check out them G-Shocks, they are mean machines!

Quality Time Pieces
Breguet
Oris
Blancpain
Patek Phillipe
Omega
Rado
Longines

Everyday Watches
G-Shock
Sekonda
Seiko
Citizen
Lorus
Accurist
Swatch

Enjoy. Have a nice weekend.
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dp


Transport Thurs

8/04/2005

Sat on the train, with my backpack i must add, and slowly waking up into this morning. There is something nice about being able to just sit while the train does the hard work of getting you from a to b.
Anyway, gives me time to update the Blog.
At the moment life remains in flux. Home life is coming along. Slowly getting used to the neighbourhood and the fact that the house still needs some work.
Work life sucks. The new project location is great but the work has dried. We don't have a contract so i'm about to be rolled off back to the bench. Sod lays his law again. I hate office politics.
My sisters kids may come to stay with us tomorrow. That will be fun. And thats it for the day.


[addendum]

Ganguly joins 10,000 club

Amid talk about his questionable place in the side, declining form, lost captaincy and the end of an era in Indian cricket, Sourav Ganguly strode past the 10,000-run milestone in India's third match of the Indian Oil Cup versus Sri Lanka at Dambulla. (Click here for Ganguly's ODI statistics)

He reached the mark with a single during an innings of 51, his 60th one-day half-century, and broke into what was an exclusive two-member club which includes Sachin Tendulkar (13642 runs) and Inzaman-ul-Haq (10933 runs), although pedants might argue that, seeing as 22 of his runs came for an Asian XI against the ICC in January, he is still four short of the mark. Even so, it was still a fitting reminder to his critics of what a powerful force he has been in Indian cricket.(Click here for highest run-scorers in ODIs)

Ganguly has not been slack in reaching the 10,000-run landmark either. It took Tendulkar 259 innings and Inzamam 299. Ganguly needed 262, as he and Tendulkar forged what was the most productive opening partnership in the history of the game. Ironically, the rise of Virender Sehwag, who eclipsed even Tendulkar with his array of bludgeoning hits, coincided with the decline in Ganguly's batting form. He has scored 3319 runs at an average of 36.47 in 97 innings since Sehwag claimed his spot as India's one-day opener, statistics that many average players would love to claim as their own. However, these numbers are dwarfed by Ganguly's performance as an opener where he has amassed 7870 runs in 200 matches at 42.06.

A big-match player for India, Ganguly's form has been instrumental in several Indian victories, with 18 of his 22 centuries coming in those games. Ganguly's return to the Indian team with a out-of-sorts half-century has been the subject of much conjecture. Only time will tell whether he will build on his gargantuan ODI record or whether his recent run of poor form will erode it.

Batsman Total centuries Centuries in matches won Percentage
Sourav Ganguly 22 18 81.81
Sachin Tendulkar 38 28 73.68
Inzamam-ul-Haq 10 7 70


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Tangy Tuesday

8/02/2005

More policemen at Paddington this morning. I wonder when we'll stand down? Will the next budget have an increase in the allocation given to the Met? I always wondered how things would be if the police were privately funded. I keep casting my mind to one of my favorite films - Robocop - and thinking OCP Detroit. What fun that would be (not).

Speaking of films, I unboxed a few of my DVDs this weekend. Icy was a bit shocked to see so many, and is now in disbelief that I have twice as many more still to come! I've been a very good boy though. Since my last purchase of 24 Seasons 1,2 and 3, I've not bought anything new. Prior to that was my birthday gift to myself (sad but true) of the Complete Sherlock Holmes set. I've managed to satiate my need for films via amazon rentals. I migrated there via ScreenSelect, which was one of the early dvd-rentals-by-post players in the UK.

There is also a brand new Powerbook G4 15" Tiger OS on its way to me. This finally means I can give my iBook to my sister, as I had planned (well I had planned on Icy getting a couple of massive G5's from work, but that didn't transpire, so I have to get my own). Anyway, I'll have to clean up the iBook before I hand it over to sis, who will no doubt wonder why its not like her PC at work ;-)

Work sometimes, well you know, makes me wish I was a kid again you know, life of reilly and all that.

*sighs*

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Ha Haaa (sad)

8/01/2005


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Weekly musings from a confused mind. This blog, and all posts within it, are just ramblings. They are in no way affiliated with any past, current or future employers. Neither do they represent my deep felt views, or those of my friends or family. Really, its just a blog, which is a new thing, and has new dimensions. So please, dont take anything seriously. If you do, contact me via a comment, and I will get back to you to resolve the situation. Seriously, enjoy life, ignore this blog, and views within it.

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