A big congratulation to Rich and Anna who announced the birth of their first child, Dylan, last month!

The baby and family are looking fine. And what a great place to grow up in, Coogee Bay! Dylan has also become a member of the technorati by having his own website, Dylan’s World.

Good luck guys! Hope the harsh Australian winter isn’t getting you down. And see you when you’re over next, early 2006?

Uppity

adj
1. Taking liberties or assuming airs beyond one’s station

Churlish

adj
1. Of, like, or befitting a churl; boorish or vulgar.
2. Having a bad disposition; surly
3. Difficult to work with

Well I’m still thinking of using the 3 network. The 3 coverage checker says I’ll be okay in Brighton and if I dont like the phone I have 14 days to take it back for a full refund.

After looking at some more phones and packages I’ve taken a fancy to the Nokia 6630.

I can get a 12 month contract for £10 a month from Carphone Warehouse . It also does mp3s and takes better pictures.

New Update: I’ve been into the Carphone Warehouse in town and they can’t get even close to the deals that their online store can give me. So for future reference I will be ordering online.

Even Newer Update: I’ve ordered this phone from Carphone Warehouse and it’ll turn up on Monday. I’ve been reading about it and all the software I can download for it. The main test will be the reception. If there’s no reception around town then I have 7 days to send it back. I suppose I’ll have to wait and see.

The time has come for me to ditch my battered old Nokia and start afresh with a new mobile. I’ve had a look in various shops and online and the best deal I’ve seen so far was at Phones4U for the Motorola V975 on the 3 network.

And I’m so close to getting it but after reading a review I’ve decided not to get it, yet. The UI is noted as being “typically Motorola” which apparently is a bad thing.

With it being on the ‘3′ network, which for me is an untried network, and it having a so-so camera and bad UI I’m against having this. But if I use no more than 500 minutes a month (and 100 texts) this phone will cost me £324 for 18 months, thats £18 a month, which is less than my pay-as-you-go. And it has an mp3 player. So I’m still torn. Any ideas? I’ll keep on looking for alternatives.

Just put a bird through the engines. Streaming video here.

I’m currently reading Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. In the chapter I’m reading at the moment a lame Italian character moves to Bleeding Heart Yard in London. This was written in 1857, almost 150 years ago:

It was uphill work for a foreigner, lame or sound, to make his way with the Bleeding Hearts. In the first place, they were vaguely persuaded that every foreigner had a knife about him; in the second, they held it to be a sound constitutional national axiom that he ought to go home to his own country. They never thought of inquiring how many of their own countrymen would be returned upon their hands from divers parts of the world, if the principle were generally recognised; they considered it particularly and peculiarly British. In the third place, they had a notion that it was a sort of Divine visitation upon a foreigner that he was not an Englishman, and that all kinds of calamities happened to his country because it did things that England did not, and did not do things that England did.

And you’ll be happy to know that this Italian character is accepted into the community:

They spoke to him in very loud voices as if he were stone deaf. They constructed sentences, by way of teaching him the language in its purity, such as were addressed by the savages to Captain Cook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs Plornish was particularly ingenious in this art; and attained so much celebrity for saying ‘Me ope you leg well soon,’ that it was considered in the Yard but a very short remove indeed from speaking Italian.

You could read Little Dorrit at www.Online-Literature.com but I’d advise you to get the book.

The blogosphere is continuing to grow, with a weblog created every second.

If anybody wants a blog let me know and I can set it up (for a small fee of course ).

I must sort those Technorati links out.

The Fall Cal-Stewart meet honors the memory of John King with a cocktail party on Friday evening in his name. John King was the life of the TTOS SW Division and contributed much to the early success of the Fall event. He loved to be the auctioneer at the annual event and encouraged new young collectors to feel welcome into the hobby of toy train collecting and operating.

Cheers Guys! Have a beer on me!