As we live near the seaside we tend to visit the amusement arcade every few months for some light hearted fun. We found a fruit machine we absolutely love playing, it's called Crazy Fruits. 

It is a simple 5p play (about 10cents) and the jackpot is only £5 ($10) but we get value for money and we actually understand what the buttons and features are! Having recently decorated and moved some furniture I recognised a great space under the stairs that would accommodate a fruit machine.

I convinced my wife that we should buy a machine from ebay so we could use it as our own savings bank. She liked the idea, the hard part was finding a machine at a sensible price. I was lucky and I managed to get a machine delivered for just £150 ($300) complete with manual.

We have had some great fun but today it started playing up. Looks like a possible power supply problem. The good news is that the seller owns an amusement arcade and has agreed to send me another power supply.

If it works well I could be treating my own family for gambling addiction! Great to have some new hypno challenges.

Take care all 

David

Minds are like parachutes; they work best when open! 

I am currently doing quite a bit of driving and my daughter suggested that I use her sat nav system to help with those unexpected detours and to protect the rest of the motoring public from the dangers of me reading a map and driving simultaneously.

The basic set up was already done, home was indeed the home option, so now all I need to do is add the postcodes as I need them. Fantastic!

As my daughter was not really flush with cash at the time of purchase she didn't bother with speed camera subscriptions so I thought it would be good if I paid for the subscription. I duly went to the Tom-Tom online shop and purchased the speed camera option. While I was there I couldn't help but notice you can buy new voices.

The one that struck me as a great value for money option was John Cleese. I can confirm that it is very surreal to be driving along and have John Cleese giving you the directions. Cool! Especially when he makes comments at your final destination - "You can get out now but expect me to carry your bags for you! You're on your own from here." 

The best thing I found on the new toy was a life saver - I left the motorway services only to realise I had forgotten the main reason for stopping - get fuel! The sat nav has an option for finding all sorts of interesting things - especially fuel stations. One and a half miles later all fuelled up and at about 4p per litre cheaper than the services.

Off to Cardiff tomorrow. Wonder what else my new toy can do? 

It never ceases to amaze me at how versatile and adaptive we humans can be. Today has been one of those days where the list of good intentions gets thrown to the wind and all sorts of other tasks fill the void that was left!

My wife is recovering from surgery (recovering very well indeed according to the nurses) so first job was to make coffee and serve it in bed so it would be there when she awakes. Fortunately my wife likes cold coffee. I then trundle to upstairs office where my computer lives and I do my web work.

Today I was going to start the base design for a client site, then prepare some paperwork for tomorrow's tasks, and then attack the housework, ironing and prepare dinner. Simple!

First stop was iStock for a suitable header image - 70,000+ met my search criteria - I was lucky in so much as I only had to go through the first 1,000 to find one I thought would work. Next the template was not doing as it should and I have since taken a break from the PC before I go insane trying to find the error in the CSS files.

Wife was up by now and wanted me to move some rubbish from the garden to the car as the sun was out and she was going to make the most of it. I duly completed the task only to hear the dreaded words about the grass being too long. Out comes the strimmer and lawnmower. Meanwhile eldest daughter is watching Formula 1 in bedroom and shuts her window because I am being too noisy! Hmmm rather like pot calling kettle black.

To cap it all wife is now too hot and retires indoors rather than admire my handywork with the lawnmower. Now I wonder what will go wrong with the ironing and dinner. I'll let you know...