I was in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil in the middle of a sleepless night earlier this week when my gaze rested on the juicer I bought five years ago. and I realised that other than the occasional wipe down I haven’t touched the damned thing for about four and a half of those five years. I certainly haven’t juiced anything with it. For lack of any other bright ideas at 3 in the morning I bunged it in the under-sink cupboard.

When I first got it you couldn’t move in my kitchen for apples and carrots and ginger. Friends visited to sample the amazing fresh beverages and almost all of them left my house on a mission to buy their own juicer. For a while we swapped recipes, tried to impress each other with new things to juice. Then it all stopped and we silently went back to eating our fruit and veg.

I’m beginning to think that Facebook is like that juicer. Perhaps it just hasn’t successfully made the transition from its beginnings as student networking tool to being used by such as me, but I’m not convinced that it’s tried that hard anyway. Like an affordably-priced kitchen gizmo, long-term allegiance doesn’t seem to be an important brand factor.

if they weren’t one of the most trustworthy b(r)ands in music i wouldn’t have believed it. radiohead’s new album comes out on 10 october and how much you pay for it is up to you. it won’t be in the shops, you can only buy it from them either as a download or as a box set and here’s where they get smart.

the box set has a fixed price (being made to meet the exact demand, not a costly approximation) and the download costs you whatever you’re prepared to pay. i chose to enter £3.83, my favourite numbers, to see if they meant it. they did, and only added a very reasonable 45p transaction fee.

if only i could get more things this way…

what is going on? everything i want/need recently seems to come from finland. marimekko have always occupied a soft corner of my heart (sometimes i think i’m only moving house so i can buy their new fabrics) but now the finns are taking over.

first it was minna parikka’s shoes, all pony-girl fiestiness in shiny patent or vibrant suede colours. then it was IVANAhelsinki and their kinky, kooky clothing. the collection ‘loghouse lover’ has me pining for a winter of snowdrifts.

book me on a husky safari for christmas, santa’s only got one shopping destination in mind.

mmm etsy, won’t you marry me? you and your crafty ways have got me all a-fluster. oh how i love to amble through your various ways of searching for handmade things to buy. from decoupage furniture to knitted earrings you’re a feast of frippery and frolick.

i can vist the ‘geolocator’ to see who’s selling where, travel the ‘time machine’ to see what’s the latest-greatest-most up-to-datest. if i’m feeling blue i can ’shop by color’ (i forgive you your american english) or hold my breath before stepping into the ‘treasury’ for all things hand-picked by members. or i can while away time window shopping on a ‘favorite connections’ seeing who loves what and where it all leads.

repeat after me: etsy, etsy, etsy!

i was playing with the iphone all last week and i really rather liked it even though it’s not perfect. (word count: 20)

that’s all i really have to say about it. stephen fry has written 6,475 words.
if you have the time and share his level of intense geekdom for all things technical (and all things mac) you’ll probably get a lot more out of his blog entry on the matter.