Gadget of the Decade

The early start this morning turned out to be not as bad as I had anticipated - which is always good and the rest of the house was up as well for one reason or another. After I'd handed in my assignments, I went to give blood. They have sent me about three reminders even before the date they had asked me to go which I think is a bit of a waste but I suppose they will be pretty desperate for the stocks at this time of year with a lot of people unable to donate because of colds and flu.

Waiting for the bus to come home from town took an unusually long time. The bus normally comes up to every seven minutes but either there was some sort of hold up or a couple of them got lost because I was waiting about half an hour. Whilst waiting, a couple of young kids came into the bus stop, music blaring out of a mobile phone - something guaranteed to annoy me (unless it is a song I particularly like which bizarrely has never happened). I could see the lady next to me in the queue getting visibly annoyed and even struck up a conversation with the miscreant enquiring as to which bus he was planning to catch (presumably so that she could avoid them). What was more funny was the music they were playing because after the first song which I failed to identify, they played Cheryl Cole's single Fight for this Love... twice. Not an especially 'cool' tune I wouldn't have thought, usually this type listen to speed garage or N-Dubz rather than pop songs. The second funny thing was the conversations they were having with one another and the kid with the phone actually said to the other kid "well at least I don't look like a chav." The other kid was dressed in typical chav attire, tracksuit etc but the other kid was not wearing the traditional dress of his species and would not have been identified as one of them had it not been for using his phone on loudspeaker to play the music. Haven't these people heard of earphones? I'm pretty sure they come as standard with most new phones these days due to the proprietary sockets that many of them use (although this is set to change). Thankfully they were not on the same but as me but I do feel sorry for the lady standing next to me who was on the same bus. As they were boarding she turned to me and said "some people are so ignorant, ignorant f***ing b******ds" I'll be honest, this took me a little bit by surprise. I didn't know that other people had the same level of hatred for this that I did and I almost thought at one point that if they had carried on playing the music on the bus she would have punched them in the face.

Another strange thing that happened was whilst I was on the bus and almost home, when the guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked if this was the way to Hillsborough because he didn't recognise the route. I told him that this was the bus to Crookes and that the big letters on the front of the bus made that very clear. Okay so I didn't say the second bit but I was thinking it. He looked pretty miffed when I told him he would have to go all the way back down the hill and catch another bus to get to where he wanted. It does strike me as odd because he seemed to be deliberately waiting for the Stagecaoch 52 bus, ignoring the First 52 bus which travels on the same route. The only reason I wait is because the Stagecoach buses offer a 50p student fare. Perhaps he meant to catch the 120 but even then he was at the wrong stop.

I caught up with Defying Gravity this afternoon and finally, the secret behind beta is revealed. This strange organic creature of sorts has relatives (or others like it) spread across the planets. It seems to emote with those who have a strong feeling of guilt and doesn't affect everyone. On board the ship, Wassenfelder and Jen are unaffected by it so far and it is revealed at the end of the episode that Jen cannot even see the being. Wass can see it however because he describes its appearance as fractal which he seems to have a minor obsession with so it is unclear at this stage as to why he can see it but is largely unaffected. Mission control eventually reveals to the crew that their mission is to 'collect' these things and that they are uncertain as to what to do with them after this, relying on being 'told' by the creatures.

The Gadget Show has come to the end of its run for this series - and in fact this decade, something I am still trying to get my head around. The show was all about revealing the gadgets of the decade although they use the word 'gadget' in the loosest possible sense. As you would expect, the iPhone won in the phone category and the iPod in the music category but bizarrely, Adobe Photoshop Elements won in the photography - here is where they began to stretch the definition of a gadget because I'm not sure that software really counts what with it not being tangible and all. Computer gadget followed a similar pattern with the award being handed to YouTube. Entertainment gadget was about the only sensible choice I think, going to the Wii which has without a doubt revolutionised gaming and prompted all of the major players to rethink how we interface with the consoles. The overall gadget of the decade went to the iPhone again which makes me a little bit annoyed. The Mac lot have racked up three awards this evening and whilst I understand their contribution to the world we now inhabit, I genuinely think there are better gadgets out there. I am anti-mac which makes me more than a little biased but as far as portable music players go I think Sony has a clear lead with better headphones, better quality products, better sound quality and is not tied into any proprietary software like iTunes. It also doesn't need to prefix all of its product with the letter 'i'. For me, based on the lists they compiled, Computing GOTD goes to the humble USB memory stick, I'm not sure I could live without it. Phtography GOTD I don't have strong opinion on although I do use both Windows Movie Maker and Flickr but both have their flaws. I agree with the Entertainment GOTD and cannot find any decent choices on the Music GOTD page, I'm tempted to say Spotify but I much prefer We7 if only they made a desktop client. My choice of Phone GOTD would go to the Sony Eriksson k800i for being a pioneer in including a decent camera on the phone. The iPhone still lacks a decent flash and cannot take decent pictures. Overall GOTD should probably go to Wikipedia because despite its occasional inaccuracies it is the primary source and starting point for almost any fact and there is no similar contender out there.

Notably omissions in my opinion are the BBC iPlayer which has become a major part of my life both on the TV through Virgin Media and on my computer. If there was one thing I would change about Sky it is adding iPlayer functionality. Last.fm is another glorious invention even if neither of the above fit into my definition of gadget. Speaking in more general terms rather than specific branded devices, the winner of the decade is surely the portable music player. I could live quite happily without a smartphone - oh wait, I do - and I could live without a digital camera (although I probably wouldn't take any pictures). eBay and Amazon are two more websites that should have been considered - possibly in their own category whilst Google also fails to make an appearance.

Single of the week time comes again and once more I stuggle to choose through lack of decent music. Next week will be my Christmas single of the week and the week after will be a special single of the year entry. This week however I am very tempted to change my self-imposed rules about not listing it if it hasn't been released because I have at least two songs I would consider then. The only problem here is that they are pretty much only available on YouTube and the artists personal webpage's which makes it difficult to access the music, especially on the move.

Thankfully, after checking this weeks releases, I found two contenders and eventually settled on this. Little Secrets is the latest release from Passion Pit and has been available on the Manners album for some time now. It is a really happy-go-lucky up beat tune almost guaranteed to make you start bopping and tapping along to the infectious beat. It won't be everyone's cup of tea and those of you who find the high pitched vocals from the likes of La Roux may be disappointed but I think this is a really good song and is a different genre to a lot of the music being produced at the moment. As usual, the official video has embedding disabled so lets hope this stays up for a decent length of time. "Keep on climbing, higher and higher..."