Nothing's Perfect? What About Us!

        As much as I love my Eye-fone, I think that the idea of buying the latest model as soon as it comes out is as monumentally stupid and short-sighted as describing an up-coming evening with Jim Davidson as "entertainment". As much as I can, oh I don't know, check stock prices and launch a red bird at some green pigs all while on the loo, I'm aware that it isn't perfect. If used often, it has a battery life of roughly 32 seconds, and waits until you're hopelessly lost around Birmingham to tell you "sorry ol' chap, it appears that I need to sleep until I get some more juice", leaving you stranded. It is also mostly made of shiny glass, meaning that it simply won't sit on your leg without one of those horrid green covers that are available, and will inevitably get the tiniest of marks on the screen. Fixing this, however, isn't as easy or cheap as merely a new screen. Nope, apparently, the whole outside needs to be replaced! Now, I don't want to be "that guy" who calls Apple out on trying to profit from this "mistake", but they're blatantly trying to profit from this "mistake". Whinge aside, it's still a fantastic phone and overall, works brilliantly.

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Yes, It's Nice, But Do You Really Need All Of It?

Normally, when I have "time off" from something, it's a nice relaxing affair. That sporadic double bank holiday in Spring, for example, consists mostly of me sleeping. Then, when I've dragged myself out of bed at a time closer to when I'd get back from work than when I'd leave for work, I'll sit there and make lots of interesting plans, ranging from finding some cold sausages to how to carve an evil lair out of a volcano without (a) dying or (b) anybody noticing. They're relaxing times, full of dressing gowns, eating beans from a tin without a single care and pretending I'm a multi-squillionaire and going through RightMove/AutoTrader and finding my dream house/car. However when it comes to Christmas, I get more time off than any other time in the year, yet I need a holiday to recover from it! Seriously, Having spent two weeks moving house (which, without a van, was a very busy time indeed) I then ran full-pelt into the fun of Christmas shopping, followed by a bigger national tour than U2. Seriously, I've had to go and see my Mum, my Dad, my Grandparents, my Aunts, Mrs Max's Mum, Mrs Max's Dad, Mrs Max's Sisters and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Or so it feels. New year's eve-eve will be the only day where I have literally nothing planned, and I intend to keep it that way.

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After Defeating The iArgonauts, My Phone Is Now Here!

Imagine the trickiest thing you had to do? The most baffling task in the world ever? Maybe it's all the guy readers out there, and it's that awkward and shaming moment when you must surrender your will and dignity to a stranger, and stop and ask directions? Maybe it's that awkward moment when you know a really long and impressive word, just not when you're trying to use it in a sentence? All you can do is sit there and say "oh-god-I-know-this-I-know-this". Maybe you've ended up at a school reunion, and you're trying to think of a good reason why you're not president of the world yet? I mean, you'll get round to it eventually, only you have other made-up projects in the way. All very difficult things. However, I've managed to claim victory over a challenge that fate itself seemed doggedly determined to thwart me at every turn, to defeat me with awkward timing, and to lure me into a false sense of security. Yes, finally I can say: I've received my eye-fone!

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Despite The Technology, We're Still As Daft As Cavemen.

I'm jus' saying, I really like modern life. I mean, I can walk into a room and press a switch on the wall (sometimes with my head if I'm carrying something) and boom! A light comes on. I can switch on the internets and learn about whatever I want. The other week, I learned how Uranium is refined, whereas yesterday, I learned that a restaurant in Japan has monkey butlers! Instead of hunting for my lunch, I merely asked KFC to prepare some breaded poultry, which they did. My brother has a new eye-phone 4ess, which lets you ask it stuff. I, for example, asked it what the weather is, and it went on-line and found out instead of me having to look out the window like some kind of feral cave-man. I can watch live news from around the world on a TV that's flatter than the voice on most of the singers in the chart today. Modern life is just.... just great! Just 150 years ago, we had to walk everywhere, find out about stuff by asking Beryl over the garden fence, go outside to answer nature's call and burn our relatives just to keep warm. Plus, all of this had to be done before you died of dysentery. I'll take monkey-butlers over all that, ta!

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Who Cares About "Price"? It's What You Get That's Important!

As we screech towards the end of October and slippy-slide into November, you'll find me a very excited Max. This has nothing to do with the up-coming fireworks extravaganza that spans mid-October and finishes some time just after the start of January (known as Bonfire night). Despite my awesome plans, it isn't even Halloween either, for which the great wide world of the Internets has given me an excellent idea to confuse my neighbours. We'll make a door of our own, complete with frame, and place it in front of their front door with a "please knock" sign on it. When they open their front door and see ours, they'll knock on it, then we'll open it dressed as grannies, and coo over their "costumes" while we hand them sweets. Then, we'll pick up our door and move on, leaving them utterly confused as to what just happened. Failing that, I might just look to make an intricate and artistic pumpkin carving, just like this Lord Of The Rings one, this Native American one or this Octopus one. However I suspect that my hours of carving, cutting my finger, whining about it, followed by more carving will actually look like this.

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Why Some People Will Believe Anything, Because "Someone" Told Them.

Last week, Mrs Max and I found ourselves in Tesco. Nothing out of the ordinary as, just like everyone else, our Sunday was filled with the urge to swing by the nearest zombie holding-pen that we call supermarkets to fill a trolley with some stuff that we might be able to combine into something resembling a meal, and most stuff we really fancy at that time. This is why it isn't a good idea for people to go food shopping when they're hungry as apparently, you will end up with a trolley-full of Smarties. At least, I would be. However I also wouldn't be, as there are only a tiny number of things that I refuse to try and get used to: taking a bus being high up the list, but one of them is weekend supermarket shopping. I can't stand any supermarket when they're busy; why does the weekend turn the shoppers into the living dead? I mean, if I have a trolley and I want to take my time deciding which brand of Wine Gums I can most easily convince Mrs Max are entirely suitable for a Shepherds Pie, I will dump my trolley out of everyone's way. This is because I'm not five years old and can tell that this will only serve to annoy everyone else. So when everyone else seems quite content with just abandoning theirs in the aisle, it starts to make me want to scream. So, to avoid the frustration, I am simply left near the entrance in the magazine aisle, which I have renamed "The Man Creche". I wait. I read Top Gear or whatever, and am collected once the milk and Tiger Bread have been bought.

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