You may have noticed that I get something to unbox or play with and post loads about it the first day or two then I don't follow up.  Two recent examples of this are my lovely new DECT phone and the i8910 from Samsung.

I think there's that initial excitement you get when opening a package, the box inside and digging inside, pulling out all the bits and pieces (oh no, now I sound like a cannibalistic serial killer...) I think this is harks back to being a kid at Christmas and, of course, that new fresh plastic smell of a new gadget or gizmo (yes, that is why my blog is called what it is called).

Anyway, I've got a bunch of pictures, videos and thoughts that I'm going to spurt out in the next few days - much of it without thinking too much (me + thinking = long, long time!)

My blog's been a tad neglected of late.  Instead of a few posts daily, it's now a post every few days.  I've not fallen out of love with blogging but it's way more effort and just not as much fun.  There's something about having only 140 characters to play with that appeals.  Plus there's instant feedback.  I know what's funny and/or interesting because people will tell me straight away.

I rarely get replies to my Vox blog even on posts I know are popular.  Why?  Well you have to be a Vox member to leave a comment, and let's face it - how many folk are?  Joining up to leave a couple of words is too much effort.. I know I wouldn't bother unless I really thought something was so astonishingly good that it would be worthy of my time.

In all honesty, I rarely leave comments on anyone else's blog posts either.  That goes for friends' blogs too (which admittedly I rarely read either!)

Anyhoo, I figure my next Vox post will be a bunch of mine (and my follower's) favourite links I've recently posted.  Some will be funny, some will be bizarre.  They'll all be interesting.

Any one that regularly reads this here blog of mine may have noticed a lack of updates of late.  There isn't any single reason for that, just a bunch of things.  Including, amongst other things.. it's far easier to tweet than blog.  Oh, and having to deal with a neighbour who told police that I was brainwashing him (yes, really!)

If only I was able to brainwash folk, and do so remotely (the guy lives downstairs, I rarely see him, haven't talked to him in years).  Can you imagine how cool that would be?  I'd always be able to get my own way.  I could use these powers to silence noisy nuisance neighbours for a start (the guy accusing me of the brainwashing shouts at himself all times of the day and night).

If you've ever watched the excellent 90s sitcom 'Father Ted', you'll be familiar with Father Jack.  My wacky neighbour is uncannily like him...

(I couldn't find a suitable/relevant clip on YouTube, best I could find was this...)

Hopefully it's a good sign, 'Chill Kid' (aka Milky98, aka Ben10) who's now been out of theatre for an hour or so, wanted food soon after!  Lots of pain (as can be expected when you have both your legs cut open and messed about with!) but it would seem under control, at least to the extent that he was thinking about his belly!

I'll be finding out more tomorrow when I go visit him.  Expect plenty of photos (if he's up to it!)  In the meantime, check out these pics from after previous ops and check out the brave little guy's blog...

My nephew, and fellow blogger, Chill Kid (aka Milky98, aka Ben10) has probably just been wheeled in to theatre (or O.R. to you guys in the States).  A short while ago he was on the phone to his nan and myself, just after he had his pre-med!

I've got to hand it to Southampton General, allowing the use of mobiles makes a huge difference especially for a new generation that's used to being connected all the time.  I can only imagine what my hospital experiences would've be like had I been able to stay in touch with friends and family at such scary times.

Earlier today, Chill Kid was happily playing away on his new DS game, Professor Layton and the Curious Village and getting tips for the more challenging puzzles from YouTube! ..on his phone!  How cool is that?!?

Anyway, good luck to him.  We've got about a 6 hour wait until the surgery ends and then however long it'll be before he wakes up.  I may speak to him later if he is up to it.  If not, then I'll see him tomorrow.

I blog about my Eee PC all the time.  Most of my posts consist of me berating the bloody useless 900 model I have and it's...

• Poor battery life
• Poor battery life
• Poor battery life (sorry, I just can't stress it enough!)
• Unresponsiveness
• Unresponsiveness (sorry, I'm used to typing things more than worse as it lags all the time!)
• Complete and utterly frustrating keyboard

Just in case you've not seen my previous posts about my Eee, let me just go into a tad more detail... The battery takes a couple of hours to charge and only lasts one hour (if I'm lucky!).  Having just a few tabs open in Firefox causes the laptop to hang, this happens even on the most basic of web pages. Finally, the bloody keyboard - I don't have the usual 'small keyboard' issue (I can cope with that).  Nope, I have an issue of it not registering my key presses or it typing the wrong letter.

Anyway, looks like ASUS want to hear from some bloggers as they're running a competition where competing bloggers will be er, competing for an Eee PC 901.  What do they have to do to win?  They have to get the most hits.

Here's the deets... The Blog Herald: Asus competition to Brits: blog about our computers and Mobile Computer

Just browsing through fellow VOXers posts, discussions etc and saw that a post by me was featured rather prominently on the 'Technology' page...

Shame that those rather awesome creations aren't mine, but in some ways that might be a good thing.  Why?  Well can you imagine how sore your fingers would be after making those?

If you would like to see those responsible, pop over here: Aardvark 3D Design

I clearly haven't been blogging for nearly two weeks, and for a week before that hadn't blogged much either.  Despite this, and despite the whole Christmas wind-down, my traffic hasn't really dropped all that much.  Interestingly I'm getting hits from all sorts of weird and wonderful places I wouldn't normally be seeing.

That is all.

My nephew has his own VOX blog, Flame of coolness.  It's his second blog - he had one on Blogger a few months ago and grew tired of it (after just a few posts IIRC).  Hopefully he'll stick with this one, this time.

He asked me earlier if I could help him get his Mii from my Wii to the PC and set it as his avatar - hence the similar kinda 'vibe' to his blog.  His posts are somewhat different though - for one, they're a lot shorter!  I think maybe he should get into Twitter or Jaiku instead?

Anyway, this post of his is worth a read:

wall-e...2

Back story to that (in a nutshell) I received a copy of Wall-E for the Wii courtesy of Alex at Hill & Knowlton (who represent THQ games).  I thought the least I could do is play it and write up my thoughts.  I'm useless at those kind of games and am probably a bit too old for them (I'm 32 with greying hair!) so after 30 minutes of not getting past the first level I decided to throw it the way of my sister's offspring.  I asked 'Milky 98' to play it and write up his thoughts and, well, you saw the result!  Despite the scores he gave, he much prefers the DS version (that wasn't a freebie - he paid for that with his pocket money!)

Oh, and BTW, he took that picture of Wall-E himself - not bad huh?

Obviously because the content of my VOX blog is so damn good I get the main stream media trying to muscle in and grab my readership.  I don't blame them - anyone reading this is, quite frankly, super intelligent and um, probably has more money than sense (which is a lot of money as they have a lot of sense!)