Treated myself to a new car stereo today as I'm sick of faffing around with ipods and tape adapters. Sometimes the tape's unreliable and flips itself between A and B sides all the time, sometimes the ipod battery is flat, etc etc. I just want to play CDs / MP3CDs dammit! That way I always have my music no matter what!

Well, it does just that (standard audio CDs and MP3 CDs, as well as WMA CDs) but also has a standard aux jack on the front for plugging in ipods or other equipment.

It also has built-in Bluetooth, which is an awesome feature. It automatically connects to my phone when turning on the ignition (even if the phone is in my pocket) and acts as a handsfree car kit. Tested it, works great. This was a major selling point as although my phone can do handsfree on its own, someone always phones me when I've forgotten to take it out of my pocket and place it in the cradle. This is no longer an issue. Fellow road users and myself can rejoice as we are now much safer!

I didn't bother with the plethora of ipod dock-capable units as I've never had much luck with powering my ipod from the car (crappy voltage regulator perhaps?) and knowing my luck a month later they'd tempt me with a whole new ipod model with completely different connectors, or I'd end up going off Apple and buying a player that can't connect to it. I'd sooner stick to the industry standard 3.5mm jack rather than the proprietary ipod dock connector.

The Halfords bloke, who I asked for a bit of advice on connectors, came out to have a look. He was highly surprised at the fact I'd ripped my own dashboard trim out (necessary to change the radio in an old Corolla) and said that he rarely sees people doing this kind of thing nowadays; most people would rather get The Man to do anything on their car even if it means coughing up 50 sheets to top up the windscreen washer fluid (to be fair, Halfords are usually free when it comes to the radios, but it's usually an appointment and not while-u-wait). I gave him a "WTF, this is simple?" look, he gave me a "WTF are you WTFing at, *people* are simple?" look and I said that I was a computer engineer and pulling things apart doesn't really scare me. He seemed to understand this perfectly.

I just think that whilst us Britons moan about being ripped off, most are so lazy - and ignorant of their own skills - that it serves them right. With the exception of Jeremy Clarkson, anyone with the confidence to say "oh come on, just how hard can it be?!" has the potential to make a *lot* of money in this country, where everyone else just sits back, throws their hands in the air and shouts "Help!! My windscreen washer's empty!!"

But I digress....

Ironically I don't really need it that much. I should've bought it between 4 years and 4 months ago when I was working a very tedious 30 minute drive away and had the dodgy ipod setup most days to keep me sane. Nowadays my drive to work takes 4 minutes, haha, so it's kind of pointless for that. But I'm sure it'll have its uses and will keep me entertained for a good few years and a couple of cars.

Yay for the long weekend. I'm convinced that Easter is especially designed to make you put on the weight you worked off after Christmas though! And just as you've burned off all that Easter chocolate, food and booze.... along comes Christmas again!