Random stuff

This'll make a change, instead of starting on one theme and then going totally random, I'm just going to add random thoughts :-)

Honesty is good. Although too much honesty can upset people if it clashes with the opinions they have of themselves. (I kept quiet with some of the wildlife at the Mall)

Yep - Mall run tonight. The Panasonic blu-ray player works pretty well now that it has room to breathe. It actually says in the spec "Operating temperature range : +5 C to +35 C". For domestic electronics, that's actually pretty low. I'm not saying I'd want to have my living room at +5 C (brrrr) but +35 is very low for kit that is quite likely to be sharing a shelf with something else. For that reason alone, I cannot recommend Panasonic blu-ray players to anyone. Hell, +35 C can be a daytime temperature in high summer.

Car :

Been enjoying the car more. The best analogy I have is that this car feels like something I want to keep driving, whereas the Focus was a tool for getting around in. Some of the first impressions need to be looked at again, because as I've got used to the Lexus, it's answered the questions I had.

Petrol and economy - mpg has been going up :-) Plus I seem to remember issues with filling up at the Cheltenham place in previous cars ... I'm now averaging 45.5mpg on the car computer in town driving. The Focus would have been guzzling at under 30mpg. One of my amusements when driving to work is seeing the mpg figure steadily go upwards while in stop/start traffic where it's running off the electric. I'll be crossing my fingers for better economy on motorway runs.

Driving the auto - one major criticism I have of my dad's Volvo is that the brain in the gearbox always picks the wrong gear for how I want to drive it. Not so in the Lexus, it'll hold lower gearing for longer and make itself ready for acceleration instantly. It has less power than the Volvo (134bhp combined vs 167hp actual, same weight) but feels faster because it wants to Go Fast.

Satnav - not really used this yet but one thing I put in the First Impressions is wrong, there's more than 6 memory slots, there are Many (100+). Just need to figure out if I can use the phone with bluetooth connection to let me pick a destination without being in the car. I think it's possible ...

Leg

How's the leg been ? Since I started using the cream it's been steadily improving. To the point where the fella I showed it to today (serves him right for asking - muahaha) didn't run off to the loo to be ill. Heh - it was never that bad and has improved a fair bit. Hopefully I get my leg back soon. Had a short run the other day and the leg as a whole behaved itself.

Music - not done a music post for a while. After resetting the play counts on the library at the start of the year, I've managed to listen to All About Eve's Devil Woman cover 13 times. Recent buys have included Kasabian (interesting), Aimee Mann (luvit), Ani Difranco (meh), Michelle Shocked (8>) but I've left Tori Amos albums (great but inconsistent) and Edie Brickell (too expensive) albums on the shelf.

Furniture shopping.

Hey ! Don't fall over with shock. I was actually inside a furniture shop. Didn't find what I wanted though. I don't want a TV stand (happy with the one I got from Craziequeen) which is all that's on sale. Nope. I'm after a hifi stand to put an amplifier, KeepMeCool blu-ray player and Xbox on. The choice is either £25 rubbish from Argos (it has to carry a 10kg amplifier) or something from PC World costing £53 per shelf. That's expensive overkill.

The reason a TV stand is out is because they are too wide, I want to save a little space with having Amp, Xbox and Blu-ray stacked on a shelf each and a TV stand is too wide with not enough shelves.

Any more random thoughts ?

Given up on Deus Ex for PC as it was making my PC cry. Also have a date for Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR) ... it's coming out at Xmas 2011 which puts a drop dead date on my current PC. As in, if I don't upgrade it, SWTOR will kill it. Same with Battlefield 3, after watching a couple of preview Beta test videos, this one is hitting my Interesting list.

Apart from that, I've been hunting for a game to bury myself in. Fairly unsuccessfully. I guess that will be Deus Ex, SWTOR and Mass Effect 3 when they come out.

Right - time to have a look at what Richer Sounds have in hifi furniture :-).