21st Century Socks

One year on from my last post and I'm struck by how similar the situation is to last year.

The lead up to Xmas is again hectic and not helped by the fact that most of last week I was in Southern France. In November, I also visited Amman again!

Daisy didn't do so well at her GCSEs but has got on the computer course she wanted by the skin of teeth. She's learning the harsh lesson that comes from not doing enough. Repeating exams that she failed by a few marks will hopefully stiffen her resolve not be in that position again.

Rory, continues to do well. We went to the WWE again for his birthday. We saw a show that was used for broadcasting.

Both the kids have had their main wishes from last year.

Daisy has had the Acer 5920 laptop. After much research, I came to the conclusion that it was the best value around. In my view Intel's Core 2 Duo is a must for Vista and to build in future proofing an '8' series graphics card. The cheapest laptop to tick all the boxes was the Acer 5920. I bought it from Tesco but declined their extended warranty which was £100 more than Acer's.

Rory got his Playstation 3 for birthday and early Christmas present combined. Just before his birthday they reduced the 60 GB version of the PS3. This version can play certain PS2 games. The salesman tried to tell that they'd done a survey and most people didn't want to play PS2 games once they had played on the PS3. No doubt, but as the mug that's being paying out for the games I kinda want to feel they are worth more that scrap! I'm told when they run out of the 60 GB version they will stop making it. I can't help thinking they have to bring out a 100 GB version in a year or two.

Work wise my company's parent company has been taken over so it's an uncertain future. All the more so because without the takeover I would re-locating for a secondment to the Middle East.