Computerized calendars mostly suck. Nearly all of them want you to specify the times for things. I, on the other hand, nearly always want to just add an item to a particular day, but with no time. If I do want to add a time, I want to be able to type it before the item description and have the calendar recognize it straight away without having to set the time on some horrible dialog or by going to a 'day' view.

I got my Nokia 9500 Communicator about two weeks ago. It's excellent. It's mind-blowing. It's now broken. For some reason it all lights up and works properly, but no actual stuff is showing on the screen(s) anymore. Seems like either firmware or some graphics chip is borked. I have to send it back to Nokia. I wonder how much that will cost.

Google is playing up again. Late August, this site totally crashed in the rankings. Late September, it went back to the top again. Yesterday, it crashed once more. Google's clearly playing with algorithms and causing a lot of collateral damage on the way. I think it's now essential to make sure Google isn't part of your online business plan because they're as unreliable and fickle as anyone else (and it demonstrates their point that high PR isn't everything).

Writing a book is hard, tiring work. At least, writing a long, non-fictional book is. I didn't think it'd take up much of my time, but it does. I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel as I'm approaching the final several chapters.

Feed Digest continues to need serious love. Requests have gone through the roof and there's still extreme customer interest. I'm always bashing myself over the head with it but I need to invest (almost) everything I have into this ASAP.

Mountain Dew. I bought two boxes of Mountain Dew (24 cans) from a UK-based American soda company the other day and it has arrived. Hallelujah! It's not generally available here anymore so we have to resort to high-priced imports. It was only about £17 for the 24 cans, so that's not bad really.

First ever eBay scam. I fell victim to my first ever eBay scam. The guy had tons of feedback (over 400 positive) and my purchase was only for £2.59 (for a car charger), but after several days I checked back and he was no longer a member and people had left tons of negative feedback. I'm not chasing it up since it's not worth it for a couple of quid.

Netvibes. I don't know why but I'd never really used Netvibes till now. Now I think it's possibly irreplaceable. Go play with it; it's amazing.

Boat across the Atlantic. I've decided one thing I want to do in my life is go on a freight ship across the Atlantic. What a way to travel! It's about £650 each one-way (a bargain for 10 days on-board!), but it's probably worth it for being able to stretch out your legs, enjoy the sea, and mix with some people you would otherwise never meet.

Things are pretty good. It sounds like everything sucks and everything isn't working out, but I'm actually pretty happy and I think things are going pretty well!