Batman! (Part 3)

Part 1: http://andrewdrisc.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/batman-part-1.html

Part 2: http://andrewdrisc.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/batman-part-2.html

Time for the modern films!

It's Batman eve, for me, I'm not seeing The Dark Knight Rises until Sunday, but there have been people in midnight showings, early ones tomorrow, Saturday etc and if any one of you gives me even the slightest hint of a spoiler I promise I'll go postal. (This has since happened)

So anyway back to the point I started making about 2 days ago...

Batman Begins: Reboot! Turn it off and back on again time! Batman Begun some time ago I hear you (me) cry, well the name refers to the plot more than anything which essentially is a origin story for the Bat. It was touched on in Batman how he got pissed off to the point where he donned a rubber suit, spent gazillions on gadgets and kicked ass, but this film is far more detailed, including his training, trying to give us more of an idea of Waynes past. Fair enough. Then he kicks some behind and it all goes well... ish.

Dark themed Batman is definitely back, and thank science for that. Sadly it appears new Batman, Christian Bale:

Had some kind of throat infection before filming his suited up scenes, giving him a kind of gravelly, almost John Connor-y sound to his voice...(The woeful Terminator Salvation was much later, I'm being nasty and that was still better than Batman and Robin).

As part of my Dark Knight Rises prep, I of course revisited this and it stands up as a good film easily, and fixed the... issues caused by BnR. To be a worthwhile franchise it needed a reboot and the style on display here is plentiful., Nolans direction is good and while not my favourite (we've been through this) Bale is a good Batman, if a smarmy and not always comfortable Bruce Wayne.

Liam Neeson is a good, if miss-pronounced Ra's Al Ghul and he'll be back in the finalé. The other choice of enemy is both random and genius, Scarecrow is one of my favourites and works well here (works even better in one of the games, but that's for later on). Victor Zsasz (mis-spelt Zsaz, honestly the continuity checker was the weakest person on the film) is on screen but only plays a brief part of the film, maybe he needed to... 'sit down' (5 bonus points if you get that).

Good start to a new series, trilogy if you will. If only the first films had been a trilogy hey!

The Dark Knight: First up, a great viral marketing campaign, the use of the Joker was outstanding and sadly cut short for reasons I don't need to go into.

Who wouldn't want to see a film advertised by that??

Heath Ledger was outstanding as Joker, and while the Oscar was pushed by circumstance, you'd struggle to justify a reason why he didn't deserve it. Two face is also used, but quite clumsily. The Dent character is well developed, but the CG a bit stupid (how does he talk exactly), but lets face against, against Tommy Lee Jones' effort, it's outstanding. Scarecrow is also back very briefly.

The film itself is once again well written and directed and the ending was wonderfully set up for a further film. It makes the claim that they were dubious about making a third hard to believe.

I have to be upgrading to blu rays of these, my Batman Begins doesn't even work...

Going on then...

The Dark Knight Rises: I'm not as oblivious to detail as I'd like, thanks to people who will be unfollowed, blocked and preferably kicked in person etc on twitter as soon as I've seen the film and I log in next. But tomorrow (well today now) I will see the film and conclude the trilogy, it's going to be awesome.

There is a part 4, nothing on TDKR, only dick give spoilers, it'll cover games!

New toy time! - Samsung Galaxy S3

More of a forced upon me change this one, but I still do love a new toy as return readers and/or people who know me already are well aware of, but usually I seek them out rather than them being forced!

I've had some issues with the three network over the months, their poor signal, poor service, the disaster of a phone call trying to cancel my mobile broadband... it's all built up.

The mobile signal was the ongoing issue though, and finally, after my 5th time of referring it to the 100% outsourced call centre, they agreed the product wasn't for me and allowed me to return the phone and go elsewhere. Bye bye my lovely iPhone 4, I enjoyed using you, if not using you particularly quickly or at all in areas with poor signal quality.

But what now? I need a new phone and fairly quickly as my three stuff ends today.

Come sunny Sunday morning, after some online research and asking on facebook/twitter (@andrewdrisc!) to Carphone Warehouse we headed to have a moment of hands on with the shortlist:

iPhone 4s
Samsung Galaxy s3
HTC One x

It took me about 14 seconds to make the decision, it was a Galaxy all the way, not this galaxy

Or sadly this one:

but this one (in blue):

I've now had it for a couple of days and I'm impressed, some of the things that made me android wary aren't really issues at all, their app store is good, I'm not missing anything I use regularly and have found new stuff, it runs easy is simple to use and their version of iTunes, while it doesn't sell stuff, runs... just like iTunes. 

The phone itself is great, the screen is lovely, its responsive and while the battery isn't great still, in it's infancy it's easily adequate (and if needed you can take it out and replace it!!). There'll be some getting used to it, but as of now I'm very happy with my purchase.

The contract comes with unlimited data and tethering (which I'm using right now!) and the signal... well there is some, I have signal! This feels a bit weird after about a year of cutting out calls and no 3G. Bravo T-Mobile/Orange.

Now I've never been a tech snob, any brand has a shout with me, it's all about the quality of the product, but I did like my iPhone(s). The iPhone 5 is coming i know and I'm sure it'll be lovely and shiny and new a feature packed, but I had to choose now and by the looks of it I've made a cracking choice.

I will take this opportunity to have a last swing at three though, honestly people these are best avoided. The signal can be poor, obviously not everywhere, but everywhere I wanted and the service is worse. Avoid!

iOS5 and the 3200 error

I've had some fun with technology the last few days. Firstly I switch on my netbook on Monday evening and the screen is screwed up, green lines, flashing pixels like green snow, colour scheme that would make Windows 95 look classy, to say I wasn't impressed wouldn't exactly be an understatement. After some brief internet searching, I discovered the area around the side of the screen was somehow coming apart, so I clicked that back in, still the same.

Then I closed the netbook in annoyance and noticed the battery bit thing wasn't straight, somehow something there had come loose too. Out came the battery, and a quick repair later and I had one netbook looking like nothing had ever happened to it.

So I thought right, that's my weekly machine break down, it's all good. Then last night I decided to try n get a bit of iOS5 action going on for my little soon to be out of date little iPhone. I was expecting slowness having the drawn out process of going os3 - os4 still in my memory, but thought fuck it lets go.

The first part was more a lesson than anything, don't ignore iTunes updates, as I think I had to do about 150 updates to that first (that may be an exaggeration... may be). But then I was ready to go. I began the download, all ok and done in about 30 mins, much better than I was expecting, iTunes then backed up the creatively titled 'Andrews iPhone' (imagination pumps from every pore on times), it was time.

Time? Yeah! Time to friggin crash!

I was greeted with the soon to be infamous 3200 error, iTunes didn't know what it was or if it did it didn't want to tell me. The update stopped and the phone reverted to its previous state. OK, no big deal, no harm done. Let's try again. Same thing happened.

"To google!" I exclaimed (in my head) and started a search for this problem. Of course the Internet was instantly filled with know-it-alls who were making it their business to tell everyone how to fix it as they knew cos they were clever. They varied from restarting PCs to restarting phones to reinstalling iTunes itself. Nice one assholes, I've heard people talk shit before and I spotted it a mile off, so ignored them. However there was one, reasonable sounding post saying to just keep trying eventually it worked and they thought 3200 was some kind of server issue due to traffic.

This all made sense, it was doubtless busy at the moment, so I soldiered on. Numberous times I was thwarted at the metaphorical gates of Mordor by this 3200 error, but I battled back, only to be pushed back again. Then finally... it connected, the installation started, this was it... iOS5 would be mine.

Boom in comes a 3004 error and stops it dead, only this time no revert, I'm stuck in restore mode. I have no idea how to get out of restore mode. I stomp off for 5, phoneless...

A bit of research tells me how to reset the phone using the buttons, I do so and try again. 3200 kicks my ass all over again. Twitter is alight with part 'yay os5' tweets and part '3200 gumble grumble' ones. With a side helping of smug Android users (easy to be consistent if you never try anything new). One more item I think, just one more time...

Battle of Los Angeles (that's battle of, not Battle: Los Angeles) had been playing in the background thanks to Syfy+1 and was about to finish (and may I say what a piece of dog turd that film is. I know it's one of the Asylum low budget cash in films, but Jesus Christ, how do you make films this bad??) so I knew it was late.

I hit restore one last time and bingo, it worked, iOS5 was mine took seemingly an age to update and then it was done. To be honest, looks a bit prettier in places but so far not noticing a ton of changes, but I have used it for about 15 minutes to date. But improvements are the subject for another day. This was about my battle against 3200 and how I won!

Go me...

My beloved netbook and me...

...we go everywhere together. But on times we don't half get some strange reactions.

We live in a very technological world, I'm pretty sure the non Amish readers I have would agree with that. Amish readers... you appear to be cheating, you better go...

However, despite this the sight of me slipping out my black sleeve and getting my little red one out incurs at best some funny looks, at worst some disdain! The people them selves can be put into one of a few categories:

• The over the shoulder reader - as if I'm up to something so interesting that they just have to see it. I have absolutely no idea what they're hoping to find on my screen, but as a general rule I'm assuming they leave disappointed. In a mild variation of this an OTSR has once been reading something I was producing, and was never intended to actually see the light of day (he seemed quite interested so maybe it's not all that rubbish) and decided to give me a grammar tip on the last bit I typed. Which I took and said thanks, as he was right.

• The WTF is that?? - I'm sure laptops, netbooks, tablets, kindles etc have been around for quite a time now, but still on occasion you'd swear we were in a cave and I just pulled a lighter out of my pocket and produced fire. These people tend to be older, as you'd expect, but to them the idea I can look on twitter (not that they'd probably know what twitter was) on my lap on the bus boggles their mind. I mean honestly, where's the wires!! If it was their day, and let's face it, their day was quite some time ago now I'd be trying to type this while tied to a stake on the village green, about to get a wicked tan.

• The mine is bigger than yours - On occasion the sight of my little friend sends some people flying into backpacks, holdalls etc and has them dragging out whatever device they are also carrying. For some people I've served as some kind of reminder, like an alarm clock for 3G, that they have something with them. For others it almost seems like I've laid down a challenge, as if I've gone, "Hello stranger on the bus, my nob is so big, let's see if you can top that bad boy." I've seen kindles, ipads, various android devices, fellow netbooks, laptops, even all of a sudden a spike in those HP pieces of crap that were sold off cheap and once, and I remember this, a brand new in box xbox 360 elite. The guy then proceeded to open the box and.. stroke it, that's the only way I can describe it... he stroked it. Once again, sometimes people simply use them, others they are almost like a geek off weapon, screens are tilted towards me to give me the chance to show my respect at the geek altar. Please just leave me alone!

• The conversation starter - These are the worst, particularly if they are sat next to you. I always dread hearing, "Oh what's that?" or, "Excuse me is that a Packard Bell Dot netbook." Now before I go any further, I'm an introvert, and a pretty severe one, I struggle in large groups or when weirdos some straight on to me, but I'm not (usually) rude, so I feel some need to respond, at least at first. But I really don't want to have a conversation about what version iTunes I'm running, if I know I can update the firmware on the graphics chipset, if I suffer from overheating after prolonged use (a little, but nothing drastic, there now never ask me again), battery performance through the years, or the relative speed of my 3G dongle compared to the 3G capabilities of an iPhone or iPad. (all of which have been real conversation I've experienced in the years of commuting with a computer). Headphones, usually the barrier between me and various people I don't want to speak too (works lovely on charity collectors in the street) are no boundary, to the point where hand gestures are used to gain attention, and once some dick puled out one of the headphones and said, "Ahh I didn't think you could hear me...".

• The suspicious mind - Some people think the Internet is for 2 things only, facebook and porn. Due to this some OTSR people check what I'm doing as opposed to being interested in reading it, they think they should make an assumption based on it. When my first reaction of the day isn't to open Facebook, they make the logical step too... porn, and assume that's where I'm headed. I've had people look at me in disgust and then look quite apologetic when the ATP site turns out to be the 'Association of Tennis Professionals' not 'Ass Tits and Poontang'. I've even one respectable looking gent get up and sit somewhere else before I've had chance to put my password in... on two separate occasions. Maybe he was allergic to red start up screens and championship manager?

There are normal people who realistically don't give a crap what I'm doing as long as it doesn't bother them, and kudos to these people. I like to think when netbook-less either by choice, battery or forgetfulness, I'm one of those people. I hope anyway, I'm weird enough as it is...

Oh and apologies to the eels for the title.

Facebook 'friends'

I actually had a look at my Facebook profile for the first time in god knows how long today. First up it decided to spend about an hour telling me about all the security changes, but I powered through and caught a glimpse at my friends list:

Friends (203)

it said.

I'm not even sure I know 203 people, let alone consider that many to be 'friends'. In fact I'd imagine people I actually consider to be good friends, so I should be sharing masses of personal information with would struggle to number 30. Add family to that and it doesn't add up to 200+.

Looking round though, my one is quite low (sob sob) there are people with 500, 600, even more than 1,000, and looking at some of these people.. really?? I doubt it.

Just having a nose through as I type and, yes I do know most of these people, can't remember the last time I spoke to many of them. Can't remember the last time I wanted to speak to quite a few, but it's some kind of twisted manners that I continue to tell them when I'm on holiday, when I'm in Tesco, when I've got a headache etc (actually that makes me sound like I update my status every 10 mins, believe me I don't) it's a fact that each of these people would have had the opportunity to gander at photos of me in a dress, a couple of times.

Saying that it's a miracle they haven't removed me. Bt equally I also have to wade through their shite on a daily basis, stuff I'm not really interested in, even question the integrity of much of the time.

So far I've removed a massive one, but come lunchtime there'll be a cull, if I can be arsed. Or I may pop to HMV and see how much Rocky Horror is on Blu-ray. I'm disgusted with myself I don't own it.

This is why I prefer Twitter (@andrewdrisc don't be shy!) yes I still make stuff public, I can easily control who reads it if I wanted too, but I only read what I want too (well there's still some there that need to go, but anything like the same kind of scale.

Maybe Facebook should give us some google+ (still not really used that, am signed up) style options, so I vcan have friends, family, and... other...

Dara O'Briain

...or at least I think that's how you spell it!

I've got a very odd sense of humour, and as a result of this, there are very very many mainstream type comics that do nothing for me. MacIntyre? Annoying. Brigstoke? Blah. Addison? Meh? Djalli? Murray? Sorry, not for me, etc.

However, I do like a rather odd selection of 'funnymen', Jasper Carrott has always made me laugh, Daniel Kitson was the funniest Stand up show I've ever seen and of late Dara O'Briain has become quite popular!

I've always known Dara from stuff like Mock the Week, QI, Have I got News for You, all programs that can be very hit and miss but generally are worth the effort of watching. He's always come across as funny, quite intelligent and generally quite interesting. Something vital on these type of panel shows as unless you stand out, whether acting as presenter or panel show member, you do tend to just blend in and end up leaving no real impression (Unless you're Ian Hislop, then I just think you're a cock).

He was one of the first people I 'followed' (not a fan of the phrase...) on twitter and generally on there he's equally as witty and interesting, all boded well!

A few years of consistent merriment and I decided to acquire his DVD, This is the Show, after all who doesn't love Tits. I can't say I paid for it, it was Christmas time and the always lovely wife (almost!) provided me a copy in shiny wrapping paper, we watched it and I was impressed by both his levels of geek (also very present on twitter) and of course the routine. It remains one of my favourite comedy DVDs to this day (that's not a particularly huge thing, I've only had if for like 6 or 7 months... but it's still good)

Although I had realised I liked the guy, I didn't really consider myself a fan still, even though I was. I was in some kind of Dara denial. It only came into sharp focus when I was on my way to Tenerife for my mates stag do a few weeks ago. I popped into the WH Smith in Bristol airport to get some reading material for the plane and the clearly relaxing(!) weekend which was to follow, I'd been hankering for Nerd Do Well by Simon Pegg for some time, after all he's nerd royalty and he's motherfunking Scotty! Now the paperback had been issued, I marched in with my £7.99 in my (metaphorical) hand.

I picked it up and noticed the book was in a buy 1 get 1 half price offer.... ooooh the possibilities. I scanned round and noticed Tickling the English, a book I was unaware of the existence of before. So I got it and easyjet whipped me 4 hours to the Moroccan coast. I intended on reading the Pegg book, with the expectation I had for it and in the unlikely event I finished it, Dara would step in.

I looked at both and found myself drawn to the Dara book. I then proceeded to read his book over the holiday and finished it when I got back, not giving a second thought to the Pegg book. The book was excellent, I think there would have been something extra too it if I had been English (I'm Welsh...) as there would have been more to relate too etc, but it was good from the perspective of watching one Celt dissect the next door neighbours, of whom I do of course have my own thoughts, hates, preconceptions, for the pleasure of another.

After this I am fully converted! The final piece is to see the guy on tour, so I'm sat waiting patiently for some dates.... anytime your ready Dara... and play Cardiff or Swansea or both, can't be arsed trekking to Bristol thank you very much.

But he does have an excessively large head...

Social Networking!

As I've mentioned previously I'm a member of a few Social Networking sites, namely Facebook and Twitter (I'm sure my MySpace account still exists, still with 1400 shite garage bands begging to be added or linked or whatever it was called back then, tough!) I enjoy using Twitter, not so much Facebook, as a wise man/woman once said, "Facebook is the people you went to high school with. Twitter is the people you wish you went to high school with." For the record, it wasn't me (as if) and I have no idea who it was but I see where they're coming from!

I'm not planning on joining anymore, and I don't like the features that many of them employ. When I write posts on either, or even on here, obviously I don't mind people knowing what I think, but I'm not overly fussed about giving out where I'm thinking it from. Step up foursquare, which essentially is geotagging yourself at all times. Magic if you need an alibi, potentially a disaster if it announces you're out, even miles away and burglars take the opportunity. Also as Facebook, which is mildly popular nowadays I hear, does this as 1 feature among many, what's the point?

Moreso, when I read Facebook entries, I honestly don't give a rats ass where these people are. There's a fair chance the more mundane status updates already give up a considerable amount of info. "In Bed, nite xx" yep know where you are etc. Same for twitter, plus if I've just tweeted something rude about someone nearby (as I did today) I don't want someone doing a proximity search (very easy to do) to then point this out so I get some extra attention. I suppose I could be nice, but no damn it, that's not what my 6 followers want!

It's SXSW at the mo, traditionally the birthplace of many interesting stuff such as this, including Twitter and foresquare (if I vary the spelling its bound to be right at least once). That many geeks in a concentrated area is the perfect for several things, mainly Felicia Day doing panels, and launching new apps. So, no doubt by tomorrow there'll be something new again, maybe this time it'll take a photo of you as you post and really give away what you're doing and where you're doing it!

P.S. To the person who decided that a badly timed backspace should work the same as the browser back button... Fuck you. To the person who decided this blogs editor autosaves every time you so much as look at the keyboard, thank you.

Japan - help not take advantage

I would think by now everyone is familiar with the happenings in Japan. If not... how, but pick a news service any news service and et voila. Honestly I can't see how anyone could think of the situation as anything but tragic, loss of human life, lives scarred etc. But there are people.

Anyone who could use a situation like this to their advantage is someone how needs a punch to the throat. But some of the things flying round the internet make me sick. So far I've heard:

• It's vengeance from God for the people of Japan living immoral lives, some kind of Noah's ark 2 maybe. No doubt adding that if everyone follows the religion they're backing they will be saved, or potentially they're next.
• It's karma for previous events, with Pearl Harbour being mentioned more than once

All I can ask is, what's wrong with people.

What kind of person would use a situation like this to their advantage? What kind of person falls for it? First up any religion or cult that would try and use it to recruit is the lowest, they'd make the BNP look like well reasoned individuals.

But equally who'd respond to them? Who thinks 'by gosh they're right, clearly as Japan haboured homosexuals they deserved to get wiped, I better sign up!'? Maybe some scared people initially, but they'd wise up sooner rather than later. Leaving who? I honestly think we've advanced as a species to the point where we'd know better. I am sure I don't know anyone that stupid, but people must exist.

Don't get me wrong, most, probably all, major religions have acted appropriatley. But these stupid fucking extremists...

As for the karma people, what goes through these sick peoples head? Places like facebook (where I've seen such material) and twitter give everyone a voice that can be heard, unfortunatley some knuckledragging morons are far ignorant to deserve this kind of voice. To think people were celebrating this event essentially being pleased it happened makes my blood boil to all new all kinds of new degrees.

There are dozens of ways we can help by donating. Whether it be via the British Red Cross site by text (Over in North America at least), I encourage everyone that if they can help do so. I'd hope for help if the roles were reversed.

Txt Spk

Before I start, I'm quite a lazy person. I'm sure anyone I know will happily back me up on that fact. However, I still do fine the energy to type 1 maybe 2 extra characters into words to make them from gibberish to some kind of legible language everyone can understand. (OK occasionally on twitter I'll shorten, but that's due to the 140 limit. Sue me) However, increasingly my Twitter feed, Facebook news feed is taken up but streams and streams of borderline illegible shite.

I ask myself, why do they do it? Does dropping a vowel from a word save some amazing amount of energy? Does it cover up such poor English language skills that they wouldn't be fully capable of spelling the word correctly?

Regarding the energy, I'm fairly sure the amount of time/effort/energy saved by these... 'interesting' spellings is so low it would take 10000s of words to even get near the amount of energy I use out of pure frustration every time I see one. So straight away they're hurting the energy balance of the entire world.

I've made a decision anyway, from now on, if I get a post on any social media network that can't be bothered typing things out in proper English. I can't be bothered reading it, or any future posts by that person. Acronyms are fine, twitter shortening I can live with if it's to bring it in under limit. But I'm 'neva' going '2' 'rply' '2' 'ne'shite I 'c' '4rm' shortened word using people.

Just learn to spell for Gods sake, I know you didn't pay attention in 'skool' 'cos' you were to 'kool' but really, I don't give a fuck, yes I said fuck not 'fuk' or 'fk'.

I'm not saying I everyone needs to write by my standards, people can write what they like how they like. I'm saying I can't be arsed getting my English>Chav dictionary out to read someone it turns out I wasn't interested in anyway. I don't want perfect English, there must be people out there who find my grammar offensive (how many 'that's are in this piece alone??)

To be honest for all the intelligent well thought out stuff that comes across it, I'm tempted to bin my Facebook completely. Honestly, I can live without it, it wasn't for the photos on there I'd do it now. I'm fairly sure I have enough backups anyway. Actually yeah, I'm going to do it now!! Maybe.

Being more positive, Newsthump have used a few of my things of late woo-hoo must be getting better (remember look for the stuff 'by Andrew Driscoll' including the current headline). Also, I'm working on a plan to try my hand at my own site, it's been a while since I did HTML, but it's all good fun.

It was only a joke!

Hmmmm I was a little ranty last night wasn't I! Quite rightfully so I think too! I've received two emails from ticketmaster informing me ticket sales start tomorrow. Shove them!

But anyway that was yesterday this is today.

I'm very sad/annoyed to hear that Paul Chambers has lost his appeal in the infamous Twitter Joke Trial. Watch it trend!! For anyone who doesn't know, Mr Chambers published a tongue in cheek tweet about blowing up and airport, ok not a tongue in cheek subject, but in the context it was placed, clearly not a threat.

However, he was taken seriously and arrested, costing him a criminal record when prosecuted, under some poxy sub-law not any anti terrorist legislation, and his job.

Twitter has commonly been the home of overreactions (anyone remember the Duncan Bannatyne incident) but this is probably the most serious of them. Does it mean that every tweet is scrutinised by someone (sure to god nobody reads mine). Do we all have to be now far more careful about what we say? It's going down that way, the more avenues people open up for communication, the more closely we're watched. In the age of freedom and free speech it just doesn't sit right to me.

Was what Mr Chambers did wrong? I wouldn't say so, on reflection misconceived and I bet if he had the choice now, he'd change sending it. But honestly it was a clear joke and it was left to some humourless judge to decide what it is or is not acceptable to say on our own accounts in our own time. If the police had said, "Think about it next time" and sent him on his way, that would have been fair enough, and given enough warning no doubt so he would have. But this is heavy handed and big brother-y (not a word)

How many people, talented funny people, will not express themselves to the full any more, wary they might upset some follower and end up with a slander case.

The always cool Stephen Fry has offered to cover the fine, and if he didn't mean it so so many people will donate to help cover it, showing a community of users who understand each other.

The threat or terror is a current one, and honestly none of us know if it will ever effect us, but if there was to be an attack something deep down tells me, they wouldn't announce it on twitter first.

When a luxury becomes a necessity.

I have a fairly cushy life, the majority of people in the UK do (for now, the Torys aren't in full swing yet).

Yes, like with most people, I don't live in a palace, a castle etc but I have running water, more than enough food, a bed, a roof and access to healthcare. There are places on this planet where people would kill for any of them, but I/we take them for granted.

I thought I was quite grounded, until I moved home recently which resulted in a slight fall in my access to things such as TV, Internet, XBOX. These things are almost the definition of luxury, but there were times where not having these things really put my nose out. It was at this point I thought, when did these things become THAT necessary? I even have a dongle, at some expense, so I have a backup internet source (using it now!!), so just incase I'm out of wifi range, my iPhone hasn't got signal, I can still grab my spare laptop (smaller one so more portable) and check twitter http://www.twitter.com/andrewdrisc or post here.

The counter argument is we have worked hard for these luxuries and deserve them, and to be honest it's an argument I'm happy to hide behind!

I wonder whether many people of my generation could last without Sky Sports (maybe people would travel to the grounds to see sport?), without games consoles, without Facebook (which I dislike anyway) without email, IM, etc

To be honest I would probably fail horribly, but honestly I don't even want to try. If that makes me a bad person, I apologise whole heartedly.