Ooops. Calendar malfunction

Tuesday September 3rd. 22:58

Okay, so I messed that up. I thought it was tonight that the guys from Beacon, including my near estranged friend Helen were coming over. I was wrong. Not for the first time lately, I got the wrong week.

Oh well. Glad that I call Stephen and checked when I got home. The conversation went something like...

Me '.... so Steve, when are you guys thinking of getting here for the filming...'

Steve ' Errr. Next Tuesday. Like I said in my email.'

Me 'Bollox'.

I have not heard anything from my temperamental teenage daughter. Nothing since the outbursts /  chaos of the weekend. At least I know she is alive and well. Well enough to be posting things of facebook at any rate.

Having suddenly found my evening a lot more empty than I had expected, I finally pried my sorry ass off the sofa around 21:34 to have a crack at the editing I have promised to do for Steve. I was just getting into my stride, trying to find all the files concerned, chose between doing the edit (or at least initially) in iMovie or in Final Cut Express, when the batteries in my 'magic mouse' announced that they were about to die.

Not that fucking magical of them then.

I took this as a foretelling that it was time to give up, pack up, and go to bed. By go to bed, I mean get into bed, and write a blog entry (this one) on my Chromebook.

The shenanigans with meetings and stuff at work meant I could not keep to my normal routine of going to lunch at 1pm. This meant that I didn't get to share it with my friend, which I find sad, as it certainly gives the day a nice break and she provides a nice distraction.

Hot Hot Hot

It's been super hot lately, and this has coincided with the week that I am on standby for the emergency call centre. I have been in rather a lot, and tonight (Thursday night) is the last night of my stint, but also the only day so far this week that I haven't been called in.

I had thought, or hoped that it not being the middle of winter that I wouldn't see much 'action'. I couldn't have been more wrong. I don't know how the guys out in the field were keeping up with all the problems that were going on. Trees causing problems, fires, lines coming down, over zealous gardeners digging through cables. All sorts of things. You could tell how tough it was getting in the delays that were creeping in for first response to faults - because the engineers were already out on another job.

The most stupid thing has to be someone deciding to prove that the power's out by using a ladder to climb up the power pole and test the supply themselves. Lucky the supply was dead, because otherwise they would have been. Important bit of advice people, don't climb up power supply poles, don't go near the cables if they happen to come down. Don't touch them. They have a really bad habit of killing people.

Having not spoken too much to my daughter this week, I text her tonight for a cursory chat about things. I couldn't call her from my mobile because I have to leave the line open in case I'm called in. The chat moved from sms texting to facebook chat, where I then sent her a picture of my new Chromebook. She then proceeded to lecture me about how I didn't need another device and that I 'just keep buying things'.

The problem is, she may be right. Okay, I have brought another device. But I did buy it ridiculously cheaply, and can always sell it on if I don't want it any more. Having identified a need, that I thought could be filled with my iPad and a portable keyboard, I went for the absolutely cheapest way of filling that need. Not the most complicated or expensive. But she is right, that I have an iPad, and iMac, why, oh why, oh why do I need a laptop. Well I do. I need to be able to type easily. On Wednesday, when I sat in the 'garden' working on a 'Doorstops' script for Beacon, it was on the Chromebook that I did it. I couldn't have really managed to sit out there on my camping chair with my iPad and a bluetooth keyboard. I have done in the past, and it's a thing of managing to balance everything right, setting them at the right angle on my lap so that I've got room to move or sit comfortably and type. Also the heat doesn't really do nice things to my iPad. Last time it actually shut itself down and refused to work until it had cooled down somewhat. The device itself, being made of metal was white hot. Picking it up in my hand, I was genuinely concerned I was going to get branded by the Apple Logo, burning into my palm.

I know that I can come up with loads of different reasons to justify my expenditure. To justify it to myself maybe.

It is finally dawning on me that our holiday is not too far away, and I should really get my arse moving and actually book one. There are emails I get frequently from some of the holiday places, offering me short notice deals, but those are still too close - and not yet for the week that we want.

I am confident that we will be able to get something. Part of me would like to have been able to go to Jersey, but it turned out to be so fucking expensive that I would have nearly had to sell the flat in order for us to go.
I may have just exaggerated slightly. Slightly. There's something special about Devon. Heading westwards has a spiritual draw to it. Heading Eastwards, like we did a few years ago when we went to Hastings doesn't have the same charm. I don't know how to put that into words, or explain it, but that's how I feel.

I would also like to go to Scotland, or Ireland, but there's also the part of me that thinks we should not be heading further North. Further South = warmer. Further North = colder, in my mind. Would I feel cheated spending my summer holiday deliberately going somewhere colder ? So that when I come home, it's warmer ? Now that doesn't make sense.

If it was somewhere more special, maybe Iceland, or Canada, or cruise up the Norwegian fjords, then maybe, just maybe. But to damp Edinburgh ? Nah. Does not compute.

I'm probably talking a load of shite and am about to get lots of comments from very angry people in the Scottish Tourist Board.

Need to get my clean on.

Saturday. Last two days before I return to work from my holiday.

I've had Chloe to stay most of the week, but she went home Thursday. She is, however staying tonight. I know that might sound strange and maybe even make little or no sense, but hey. That's life.

Just sitting on the sofa, having some breakfast of fake Shreddies (with demerara on top of course), cup of coffee and glass of orange juice. Trying to fight off Twilight, who seems to want to come and shred my left elbow in an effort to get me to stroke her.

No TV. Nice and peaceful, just the sound of the washing machine rumbling away in the background, the clickety clack of the keys on the iMac's keyboard that I'm using to write this on my ipad.

Okay, the reason the TV isn't on may have something to do with the BT Vision box stopping working since I have now cancelled the package and moved my telephone and broadband to someone else. There's been a few hiccups with the router or the broadband dropping out a couple of times, and I'm also keeping an eye on how fast the service is. I wanted to save money, but I don't want to do that at the expense of the broadband connection making my online life hell. When I say hell, I may be being a tad over dramatic. After all, it's not like it's the end of the world if I have to wait three milliseconds for a web page to load instead of one, is it ?

Scroll down one the page has finished loading then. I am currently looking around for a set-top box to replace the BT Vision box thingy, and have asked myself, how important is the ability to record TV these days ? Almost everything is on catchup TV, or available on Netflix or Love Film. This leads me in the direction of a 'smart' set-top box. One that will allow me to connect to the internet and to use on demand functions from 4od, BBC, ITV etc. It gets to the point where I could spend anything between about £30 (for a plain freeview box) to about £300, (for a freeview HD recorder with smart functions).

Starts to look like its worth buying a new TV with those features built in. All of these things I would rather not be buying at the moment. I don't want to be putting more large purchases on my credit card(s), and I'm not convinced that I actually spend that much time in front of the TV anyway.

So I spend hundreds of pounds buying something that I only use occasionally ? I think I'd rather spend the money on a Dyson.

what could possibly require such padding ? 

The light bulb in the en-suite gave out several weeks ago, and in a fit of efficiency, having waited said number of weeks to do anything about it, I ordered the special bulb off the internet on Wednesday (or Thursday, it's not important). Anyhoo. It arrived yesterday.

bubble-wrap supplies for next 300 years............. 

An anonymous brown box, surrounded with industrial sized bubble-wrap. Inside, was.. well, the light bulb and.. more bubble-wrap. I now had a replacement light bulb, and enough bubble-wrap to recreate at least three of the monsters from Tom Baker's era of Dr Who.

Despite my moaning above about not spending money I don't have, I have been on a mini spending spree lately, but I consider the light bulb a necessity rather than a luxury. I have also bought some new toys for the cats to play with, and those I will show when they arrive, no doubt with their truck load of bubble-wrap or polystyrene.

I have done little editing of my nanowrimo book whilst I've been off. I think I did some on the first day of the previous week I'd had off (I had the week before Easter off, went back to work one week and then off again). I need to be more disciplined.

There are too many distractions.

Another that I have also recently taken steps to limit is Facebook. I have actually gone so far as to remove the app from my ipad (I'm annoyed I can't actually remove it from my phone. Seems it's a default app or something). I have found that I'm not now wasting time endlessly looking through the comments of comments or inane minutia of other people's boring lives. I have gotten just so fed up with some of the bigoted short sighted rubbish that some people put on there. I want to argue with them, or correct them, but lets face it. You can't argue with stupid.

I am getting annoyed with my mobile phone too. It's just so slow, and doesn't seem that responsive anymore. This may of course have one of two causes, that either as it's getting older and more full of apps (even though I don't download any), it's overworked processor and limited storage capacity are getting stuck in the mud. Or it may be that it simply has never really recovered from being dropped in the washing up that time.

Being a bit-geek, I am already considering two courses of action here. I know that my contract does not expire until August / November, sometime, but after checking on Three's website I can upgrade in July at no extra cost, or I can upgrade early and pay a fee. Anyway, the two courses of action ? Well, I am looking at the new Blackberry's coming out, the ones with keyboards (don't even get me started on the point of a blackberry without a freaking keyboard), or something older, that isn't a smart phone at all. A candybar phone that just maybe takes pictures, does text and phone calls. That's it. Since I've got my ipad, and I do take it lots of places with me (reminds me I must show the new case I bought for it, that matches the one for my kindle paperwhite), and this means that I don't use the phone that much anymore for internetting. I may have previously trawled through facebook etc, but I just don't like working from it that much, compared to how easy to use and responsive the ipad is.

Do I get really rebellious, and get rid of my mobile phone altogether ? People would think I've gone mad.

The not so new iPad

On Monday, after much soul-searching thinking and convincing and reviewing my finances I decided to buy an iPad 3, the all 'new' iPad as they were called.

What I hadn't counted on, was Apple announcing that they are not only releasing a new ipad mini but also redesigned iMac and MacBook Pro. Certainly didn't consider for a second that the New iPad would suddenly become the not-so-new iPad.

Does this ruin my enjoyment of this device ? Well. Yes it does. I had decided, having looked around at various options that in replacing my netbook I was going to buy a tablet, and a keyboard. This I considered to be a better solution than the ageing, slow and downright unusable netbook. I'd looked at different machines. As us transformer prime being the preferred choice for quite some time. I wanted a keyboArd, I also wanted some thing that would do the job very well of replacement netbook and tablet.

The transformer prime seemed to do very well in my criteria of, how good are the apps ? how quick is it ? How light is it ? How good is the battery life ? It then came down to cost. Quite simply any tablet without a contract would require significant outlay. Now I've been doing Lots of overtime at work lately, and figured I deserved treat. The battery power was important as much as mobility as I wanted to be take the device out of the flat because I seem to get distracted and prevented from writing when I'm here.

The cost of the device and the ongoing cost of the contract and the benefits of having mobile connection for the device all weighed up. I wrote out a pro and cons list and tried to break it down realising that there was a limited amount of money to spend.

In the end it boiled down to was it better to make a larger financial outlay now and having a lower ongoing monthly expenditure, spending less now and having a larger ongoing monthly expenditure or paying more money upfront and having no ongoing cost.

I decided that it was better to have the additional ability to connect to the Internet away from home with the contracting tablet and therefore less initial expenditure. This is good because this allows me to continue using my overtime to clear my existing credit card bills and also worked out well because one of my other existing ongoing financial commitments comes to an end in January 2013.

Yesterday I was excited as a kid In a sweet shop or on Christmas morning. This evening, as I see from the news about Apple's latest releases, I feel miffed and more than a little bit screwed over. There was no hint that the iPad was Going to get a facelift a mere 7 months after it was released.

Shocking really, those devices  no longer carry the chache of having THE LATEST technical gizmo.

Is that really all that important ? Well to some people it is. Yes. To me, not so much. I still feel gruff about the situation though. I had decided to buy the latest version that I could as the difference in price between it and the ipad 2 wasn't really enough to make the financial incentive sweeter to go one generation back. My (not so) New iPad is now not the top dog, the latest device. Right now that doesn't make a difference, but in years to come will mean that at some point it will stop being supported by Apple and stop being capable of running their latest ever changing IOS.

Is this really any different from any other computer manufacturer ? The nature of technology is that you get a doubling of power or halving of price ever six months or so. Moores law. To expect anything you buy computer wise to be 'with it' three years later is unrealistic. You should though still be able to expect it to be supported and able to run software that you need.

My netbook, which my (Not so) New iPad replaces is about three years old, and is completely useless. The updates to Ubuntu have now taken so much of the memory that like me, it really struggles to wake up in the morning. I am sure that if I downgraded the operating system it would still have function enough to browse the web and for word processing etc.

As we journey ever more into the cloud.. does this make us more or less vulnerable to such continual progress that leaves people without very deep pockets on a never ending journey from gadget heaven to  obsolescence. 

To Vlog, or not, to Vlog. That is the question.

I've been playing around today with the camera and Final Cut Express to see how easy it would be to put the same person in one scene three times. It turns out that it's actually very easy, when you've spent half the day figuring out how the hell to do it.

After messing about with the technology vs my lack of skill and finally getting to a workable solution. Which I have uploaded onto the M27's facebook page for all the world to see.

I've also decided to have a little play with some of the footage that I've taken on my Blackberry of the cats, and edited that quickly in iMovie. Example of this  :-

Flip camcorder

I have been a little inspired lately by the vlogging style of Nerdzrl who seems to pretty much just take her  flip camcorder with her wherever she goes, and record her conversation to camera, and with real people too. I don't know if the good folks of Cosham would react in the passive way that the public in Canada seem to be happy with being filmed, which is funny really given our propensity to shove a CCTV camera in every conceivable location. (by conceivable location, I don't actually mean the ones people conceive in, although you never know....).

When I was a teenager, like most teenagers, I was pretty convinced that I had a unique and special way of looking at the world, and no one else really understood. It wasn't just me they didn't get, THEY also didn't understand how the world REALLY was. THEY just couldn't see it.

Well now that I am (ahem) older. My opinion is pretty much the same. Except maybe just a little (a little I said) arrogant. I do think I look at the world in a slightly different way to most other people. Does that make me some sort of undiscovered genius ? Hell no. It probably means that I am more socially backward than normal people and have far too much thinking time on my hands.

Anyway, I have digressed. When I was a teenager, I kept a diary. That's not that uncommon. A lot of teenagers do. Inspired as I was by 'The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole' (By Sue Townsend) in all it's generations, I picked up whatever writing implement was to hand at the time and committed to paper the workings of my demented, self absorbed teenage mind. There are volumes of my diary, pages upon pages of it. I told my impressionable, naive, and intellectually reckless young self that 'one day you can publish this, and it will be of comfort to anyone that reads it... ' not so sure about that one now or that 'your children can read it when they are teenagers and will be happy to know that the sort of things they are going through are the same things that their dear old dad was going through when he was their age'. hmmm. If there is one thing that is certain in the universe it is that teenagers most definitely do NOT want to be reminded of any similarities with their parents. As my daughter rapidly approaches her teenage years, one thing comes to mind. There's no way she would ever be interested in reading it.

For one thing, it's pages and pages of self opinionated drivel (see nothing changes). Deluded is the word that comes to mind.

So in the face of my daughter reading my diary, and suddenly having a tearful revelation that I too, suffered as I was a teenager, that I too did awkward uncool things. (still am doing - how's the hat going ?) That I too was a jumbling mess around the opposite sex. A mess around the same sex for that matter.

My point, my point ? Oh yes, there WAS a point. Is the written word more suited to this kind of outpouring or is the video blog (vlog) better ?

1001101101010

Was it really any surprise that I raced home after work today to get to spend some more time on my new shiny ?

Not really much of a revelation there. I have spent quite some time this evening getting to know it better. I have sadly not been able to complete the review of Kaos Absolute, the story of The Adventures Of Stephen Brown that I have been due to write for the last couple of months (hassle of moving, Christmas chaos and a lack of internet being the reasons for the delay), due to the footage seemingly not being encoded correctly. I can watch on of the four parts to the story, but sadly without the other three there' little point in me doing the review.

I guess the review will have to wait a little bit longer. I am a bit sad that after the success of yesterday's writing and rehearsal sessions that Helen and I weren't going to be able to meet up and get some more of the script written for the show. (The FatCat And The Grafter).

Work is feeling a heck load more possible what with a tweak to how we do things, and the efforts of a superhuman Louise, although I did have to spend 4 hours in a room today, going through a questionnaire that's meant to help the business figure out just how much we (don't) know. Good idea. Makes sense, as people's knowledge levels seem to be all over the place. But 4 hours ? Didn't even manage to finish the booklet in that time. I hope that doesn't mean that the conclusion the powers that be will take from the exercise is that I actually don't know anything, and have been blagging it the last 4 years. I haven't. Honest.

The Eagle has landed

It's so late, and it's been such a long and fantastic day, but I had to nip online quickly to report the much anticipated arrival of my beloved iMac. Despite the anguish, the expense, oh and the waiting, it is finally here. It does not disappoint. Helen had come up today rather early, well early for her. She arrive just before 10am, as she had promised to do. I on the other hand had been up since 7am to make sure that I was ready for the arrival of my new shiny.

Shiny it is. Although it didn't arrive until about 2:30 I was very excited when it got here. I practically threw myself down the stairs to go out there and meet the TNT driver, just to make sure that he had no problems finding my address.

Rather quickly I had the machine (somehow that word doesn't feel the right word to use) out of the box and operational within a matter of minutes. A little bit longer, but still a very short amount of time was all that I needed to get the all important Celtx installed and away we went, carrying on exactly where we'd left off, working on the script for The FatCat And The Grafter. Helen is not the most technically savvy person in the world, and would admit herself that what she knows, or cares about computers is very, very limited, but even she was impressed by how well everything was put together, and how well it all worked.

The arrival of my new Shiny was not the only great success of the day. We have made considerable progress with the play itself, and have indeed been able to plan out the storyline into the second act, and even get the first scene in Act II written.

The day seemed to take a bit of a downer when person after person cried off the session tonight, each citing differing reasons. Both Helen and I were beginning to feel that perhaps we would be better off if we cancelled the session, and carried on writing the script. We decided to push past those reservations, and boy are we glad that we did.

We had, in total, the same number of people at this session as we had the previous week. There were new people (Welcome Steve and Christine) joining in alongside the stalwarts that have become regulars over the last couple of weeks. The atmosphere worked so well with all the people there tonight, and everyone participated equally, there was so much laughter. Never a bad thing when you are trying to put on a comedy. Some of these people have now seen some of the scenes we were looking at quite a few times, but still, they laughed (in all the 'right' places). Tonight's session has really given Helen and I a boost, not really that one was needed, but it has shown us that we are on the right track, and we just need to get the script itself finished, and the show cast so we can move into rehearsals proper.

There's still a long way to go, and there's lots of work to do, but we have made great progress today, and this energetic success will embolden us further to press on and achieve what we need to do. We're starting assemble a cracking team of very talent and very nice people.

Things can only get better.

Here comes the rain again. (Is IT here yet ?)

Getting up at 7:20 on my day off is by no means something of a norm for me. I am revisiting that excited 'kid at christmas' feeling. Waiting not for some old guy to climb down a chimney we don't have and empty his sack. I await the delivery of my new shiny.

Will it get here before Helen does ? In all probability, yes. My iMac has come from the Netherlands, Helen comes from Buckland.

Meanwhile the weather has done a classic bait'n'switch job, and having raised my expectations yesterday with glorious spring like sunshine, has delivered for today, my day off, miserable cloud and rain. Does the weather have a regulator ? Offrain ?

I'm only rushing to the window every time I hear anything that I think sounds like a delivery van pulling up. Wouldn't be so bad, but living across from a school means that in the next hour literally hundreds of lazy parents will drive up and drop off their even lazier children. They may argue that its raining and they don't want their precious offspring to get wet, but it won't kill them, they are 70% water anyway. They can't get wetter than they already are, some of them. Drips only get bigger.

My new Apple shiny on the other hand will be hurt by rainfall. Clear the roads !! Man with Simon's new shiny (I'm assuming it's a man, it might not be) coming through !!

1st day back.. and I survived..

1st day back after my holiday, and it didn't go too bad. An interesting day where I learned lots about how I allow work to be created for me by not ensuring other people are doing what they should. Something that I will need to tackle.

I had arranged to meet up with Kelly, so she could come round for a kebab tonight. It was nice to see her again, we hadn't caught up in a while. She told me about how she went for a tarot reading, and the medium (or whatever you call them) told her some interesting things about her future :-

• That she would be pregnant in the next year
• That she would have 4 children. (either 3 girls and 1 boy, or maybe 3 boys and 1 girl - nothing like accurate predictions then ?)
• She would have an affair in 2 years time. 

She home, and then had a rather unbelievable conversation with her other half about how they were going to have so many kids, and how she was going to be cheating on him in 2 years time.

You can't make this stuff up, but someone did. Didn't they ? Well it's all recorded here, we'll check back in a few years time and see what happens. I'm certainly not putting any money on it.

The other exciting and disappointing thing that happened today was that when we got back here with our kebabs, there was a 'sorry we missed you' card from TNT, who had tried to deliver my iMac today whilst I was at work.

DAMMITT !!!!

Wednesday cannot come too soon...

An email this morning from Apple confirmed that they had, at last processed my order, and would be delivering my new iMac on either the 9th or 10th of March. Next week. Of course it would be arriving after I go back to work.

At least I know that it's on its way. I am sure as the time passes I will get more excited, and will practically be impossible to be around on Tuesday. Inconsolable if it doesn't get delivered on Wednesday (as that's my day off).

An iMac, apparently cannot be rushed. Whilst I await my new shiny, Apple have gone and released another new such gorgeous machine, the second incarnation of the hugely successful Ipad.

As ever, they have produced a wonderfully exciting device, that is an improvement over the previous model. Astonishingly, the Ipad 2 is priced at the same level as was the first Ipad when it was released last year. When I wasn't frustrated about the time it is taking for my new computer to arrive I was salivating over the new ipad. I simply cannot afford to buy one. There are some deals at the moment with a variety of mobile phone companies (Orange & Three) - with Orange offering the Ipad (1, as I'm guessing we'll now learn to call it) for £99, with a monthly contract £25 to existing customers, £27 to new ones it is sorely tempting. None the less, as much as the kid let lose in the candy store feeling is exciting, in the real world you still have to find the money for the shiny thing.

When I wasn't either frustrated or dreaming (never saying that to a someone in Curry's again) I got some thrashing out of ideas for Laptop (the idea I'm developing for this years Script Frenzy). In short, there are more post-its.

It's probably not clear from the photo, but it is now evolving into three distinct acts. There are still plenty of gaps, but there's definitely a story there. You know, like with a beginning, a middle and an end. Feeling the glow of that creativity. Additional ideas pop into my head every now and then, and I just add them to the wall. It's a funny thing, the more I add, the more ideas I have. Once I get the ball rolling I find it has a life, a momentum all its own.

Far across town, in another idea..... Workshop numero three for drama. Stunningly there were more people this week. A whole 8 people turned up. This was the most we've had so far. It was a really good session for that reason, and also because rather than struggling to find ways to fill two hours with random games we spent the vast majority of the time playing with selected scenes from the show.

Those that hadn't seen the script before responded well to it, which is always encouraging. Hopefully by the next session then Helen and I would have been able to write some more. Helen is due back off her holiday, just as I finish mine, so our chance of cramming and writing a couple of days straight seems to have passed us by.

It's a bit worrying that our deadlines for getting the script completed are slipping away at a rate of knots. It is now four weeks since the initial readthru, and we haven't written anything extra in that time. A whole month. With now less than four months until the show opens, it's critical that we actually finish the script, and in good enough time to allow ourselves to edit it sufficiently and to give the cast time to get to know it.

The iMac cometh

Never, ever, ever, go shopping with your daughter, and whilst standing in an electrical shop say to the assistant that offers to help you that you are 'just dreaming'. It's pretty much an invitation for them to tell you how you don't need to dream with their 6 months interest free option.. blah, blah, blah, blah.

To give him his due, he was very helpful, but I did kind of get the idea that he didn't entirely know what he was talking about. Not only did he try to tell me that the iMac I was looking at didn't come with a wireless keyboard or magic mouse, but when comparing payment plans he showed me a lovely chart for a repayment amount that was different to the value of the machine, and an APR that was a good 10% lower than the one quoted on the details. 

I have been dreaming about getting a new computer ever since my Mac Mini died last year. It's never seemed like a sensible thing to do when I was trying to buy the flat, and then move. I'm wouldn't exactly call it sensible now, but....

Well, I work hard, I deserve it. Anyway, I'm not going to justify myself to you, who do you think you are, my mother ?

So many choices. iMac, Macbook, Macbook Pro. Do I get in a shop on 6 month interest free, knowing full well I am not going to be able to raise the rest of the money by the end of the 6 months, so will get stung with loads of interest (which is racked up from the day you purchase the machine) ? Do I go for the option of paying about £500 now, and then paying a monthly contract fee with a mobile network provider ? (There was an option to buy one of the laptops for about £400 less, and then pay about £41 a month to get 5gb of data - this would have made sense if I actually had that sort of money knocking around).


So I did what every responsible adult should do. No I didn't flip a coin. I came home, and rationally set out a pros and cons list for each option. It became pretty obvious that as sexy as a Macbook or Macbook Pro look, how likely was it that I was actually going to take it anywhere ? Would I not be too nervous of damaging or losing my new purchase, or even that someone would steal it. (shock horror). Laptops are cool, and er... mobile, but a desktop is actually the machine that needs replacing, and the power on the iMac is substantially more than the laptop machines. With the bigger screen the iMac is also more suited to me using it for video editing. The activity I hate so much in connection with M27 videos, but a necessary evil. With an iMac that experience would surely be less painful that it was on my poor little macmini, and definitely more so than on a windoze machine.

So that's what I did. I went and ordered (online) an iMac. The really hard bit starts now. The waiting for it to arrive.

I want it here NOW !!!!!!!