Computer says no

Well, after a week or so of techno problems, the misery seems destined to continue: no internet access at home, while here at work, we've lost a lot of functionality because of a fire at the main server building. They have this daft system where people's profiles and data are stored on the one server at a central site so users have to log-on to the network to do any work. If the network goes down, we all go shopping for an hour! I just got a bargain Nike top for the gym for a tenner from T K Maxx.

Car colours
There are far too many silver cars on the road. This is probably because most cars look very good in silver. However, here are some other car colours that are very attractive: metallic mustard/gold, blue, maroon, and not forgetting, black (which I find particularly sexy). I'm talking the Audi paint jobs here because they're lovely, particularly the paint jobs for the A4 convertables.

A survey said that people find drivers of silver, black and red (I think) cars most attractive - in that order. Makes you wonder what proportion of cars on the road are silver, black and red... Perhaps the government will introduce quotas to bring about equal proportions of car colours. Imagine being last in line and getting white or green? I had a white car once. By the time it reached the end of its life, it was "Manchester white", or cream, as it's more commonly known. Stupid colour for a car.

Trade offs
Living on a budget, as most people have to, there's a constant trade off when planning what to spend hard-earned money on. I go for real things - tangibles they call 'em - all the time, and I always put a luxury item in terms of tanks of petrol since this is my biggest outlay each month (after debt repayment). So, a week's holiday in the sun is 3 months' worth of petrol and this can translate into the tangibles: 80GB hard drive; 256MB RAM; DVD-RW drive; a pair of Timberland roll-top boots AND an iRiver personal jukebox. It's no competition really and it looks like I'll be staying in England for another year.