Happy New Year

to everyone particularly Suzie and Tavis. Well, back in the saddle I'd purposely avoided using the computer over the holiday period, at least I tried to. My aunt got a new digital camera for Christmas and I got roped in to install the software on Boxing Day - what a nightmare, they had a HP laptop with all the pre-installed gubbins and the Samsung software was conflicting with HP's own transfer software. I transfered photos using both and compared features, HP won hands-down so bye-bye Samsung. Still it makes me appreciate how good the Canon software is so I might end up installing that instead. They also appeared to have a dead pixel on the view screen. It disappeared after warm-up, and doesn't shop up on the photos; so I've just told them to keep an eye on it.

Plenty of snaps of the family over the week, damn the flash is harsh on the A620, I ended up switching it off. Of course that decreases the shutter speed and hello Mr Blur. So I had a play with the settings and switched it over to Portrait mode instead of Auto; this gives me access to the drive settings and a couple of quick button presses switched me to continuous drive mode - press the shutter and it'll keep taking shots until you release it. So for roughly every five shots I'd normally get at least one that's not fuzzy and I can delete the rest there and then. 300+ shots later fills the card, according to the numbers I'd manage to take 500+ in one day - I love digital cameras. I'll go through them and upload some representative samples at some point.

I avoiding shopping wherever possible though I ventured into Kidderminster on Boxing Day morning - what a waste of time. I counted 15 cars in the Bromsgrove Street car-park and 3 were in employee bays. The Swan Centre was shuttered off, so no Argos or Game, as was the Roland Hill Centre. Moseyed on down to Weavers Wharf - that was fairly busy, but again some shops were shut notably the Sony Centre. Got back in the car (count had risen to 30) and popped over to Crossley Retail Park; I think I saw more people over there then I did in the town centre. Sainsbury's was shut, quite spooky to see an entirely empty car-park, but it looked like everyone else was open. Repeated the experience yesterday, more shops open still quiet though.

Just as I avoided shopping and computers I also avoided the television, not that there was much worth watching. I recorded the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures which have moved over to Channel 5; kudos to them for putting it on at 7:15pm instead of Channel 4's 12:15pm, and for showing it during the Christmas week instead of the New Year week meaning that for the first time in ages I could have watched it all 'live'. It's aimed at kids, but still interesting to watch for adults. This year was about "Numbers", mostly primes; I was a bit miffed over the "Is 1 a prime?" question. His answer of "No" with a following explanation was very glossed over. Basically he said that primes were the building blocks of other numbers so take a number like 105 and it breaks down into 3*5*7; 1 doesn't contribute to this so it's not a prime. Uh-huh so what combination of prime numbers multiply to equal 1? Oops. Other than the odd slip or gloss it was fairly well done. Amusingly the teaser for the show that Channel 5 kept putting out asked "Why does a sunflower have X petals?" never actually got answered. One of the things I've never understood with this series is that it's a one-off; I mean I know they only make one a year, but to my knowledge it's never repeated at any point for the rest of the year - strange?

I've also got Doctor Who lined-up to watch some time, although critics have shrugged at it; the last two Torchwood's, which has been a very disappointing series; oh and the Vicar of Dibley; that's about it. As you might expect though there are two programs on tonight I want to record "Mortgaged to the Yanks" on BBC4 and "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" on More4, both starting at 9pm, thank the gods I've got a twin-tuner PVR so I can record both.

Oh yes and good old Celebrity Big Brother is about to go out, so expect the front pages of the tabloids to be dominated by the inane antics of a bunch of Z-list 'celebrities' as opposed to um well the inane antics of A to C-list celebrities - oh joy.

Slowly catching up with the news too, which looks like it's been as bland as the TV listings; the only think to pique my ire was the Sunday Express' ponderables

Shooting stars aren't really stars they're meteors

Sorry that's a ponderable? Oo-oo how about "Shepherd's Pie neither belongs to or contains shepherds" speaking of which I must admit I'm surprised that both that and cottage pie haven't been stamped on by the FCA Nazi's, perhaps if that Welsh butcher had named them Welsh Dragon's sausages instead of Welsh Dragon sausages he'd have been alright instead of being taken to task because he's misleading the public into believing they contain real dragon; if they crack down on that sort of thing I know it'll certainly make me look twice at fairy cakes.