Category Archives: Consumerist

The Quickening

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Kathy and I felt our unborn baby kicking last night. With a strong kick like that, I expect he/she will be either kicking footballs or doing kung-fu or something. The 20-week scan is on Thursday; it’s all becoming very, very real, very quickly!

This afternoon we’re having a demonstration of all the available ‘real’ nappy options at Born, a relatively new baby equipment shop in Bath & Bristol. They’re not cheap, but everything’s organic etc. – no nasty chemicals in the lotions and potions. So, if anyone’s thinking of buying us stuff: they do vouchers, or you can shop online ;)

Mac Mini

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Apple have released the most affordable Mac ever: the Mac Mini. Starting at £339 (G4 1.25 GHz, 40GB HD, 256MB RAM, Combo drive; no monitor, keyboard or mouse), it represents a bit of a bargain.

Yes you can trick it out to the max and push the price up to over £1000, but a simple boost to the RAM (to 512MB) and hard disk (to 80GB) and a Superdrive upgrade comes to £527. Not bad for a Mac. Still expensive compared to a Wintel box, but I don’t plan on buying one of those any time soon.

Apple Goodies

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So Apple have been busy little bunnies. Not content with ramping up the iBook to 800/900 MHz, they have launched a slimmer, sexier(?) iPod and launched the iTunes Music Store, which is browsable from anywhere, but only open for business in the US, so far.

Many good things have been written” about the service so far, so much so that Windows users seem to be either (a) jealous and sarky, or (b) salivating at the prospect of the launch of the service for Windows, due later in the year.

Must save up for an iBook (repeat ad infinitum)

Bargain

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I wish, I wish, I wish. This rather nice Apple iBook
is currently going for £900. I specced up something similar at the Apple Store and it came to £2700, with all the accessories and extra software. There’s even an iPod!

Drool.

Update: The seller has just closed the auction, cancelling all bids. I don’t know whether to be sad or happy…

IKEA = budget x 2

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It’s always the way with IKEA. You go there to buy one thing and then buy other stuff on the spur of the moment. We spent exactly twice what we’d intended to spend before we arrived, plus we got the car washed while we were shopping. There goes another £49.75.

Word of the Day

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Word of the Day: Consumerism


  1. the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically beneficial.
  2. a movement advocating greater protection of the interests of consumers.

I knew about (2), but wasn’t aware that (1) was part of the deal too. After 9/11, Dubya was telling everyone to “spend, spend, spend” for the good of the economy. The thing is, in the long-term this approach to economics is unsustainable.

Like a motorway

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Don’t you love it when you find someone saying stuff you’ve been saying, but they’re saying it in a much more joined-up way?:

bq.
“The sheer ugliness and anonymity of motorways seem only to reinforce their destructive environmental impact. Yet even motorways have their poets and celebrants. But what are they doing to our soul?”


Motorway culture and its discontents

Blister Spillage

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Blimey guv’nor! Has it really been over two months? You call this news? Anyway. Yesterday we went to Bicester Village, one of the ever-growing number of out-of-town “designer” outlet centres. It sucks, it really does. It’s the bottom of the consumer capitalism barrel. Naomi Klein would say that it’s private space masquerading as public space. I would say that it was an interesting experience, much like the Trafford Centre in Manchester, except at least BV was outside so my eyes and throat didn’t dry out.

I can safely say that there was nothing there I wanted to buy. Well, maybe the Vans trainers would have been attractive were they not made in sweat-shops. If the Bose shop was open yet I would have looked in there. Everyone shopping there looked so miserable! Pret was packed, but at least the guy behind the counter mistook me for BV staff and gave me a discount on my Chorizo and Mozarella sandwich ;-) Oh well, happiness isn’t derived from the sum of your stuff…