Henrik Lantz

During my modest shopping walk yesterday (only DVD player, a printer cable and a can of compressed air [a nerd has to have one]) I saw that the new Coca Cola Lime, according to the fine print on a huge ad poster, does in fact not contain lime juice. Scary that.

A couple of weeks ago, I went on a, for me, huge shopping spree. I came home with a new shaver (one of those funky Braun ones that clean themselves noisily at the touch of a button), an MP3 player (a proper Creative one with 20 GB harddrive) and - probably the best of them all - a breadmaker.

It’s amazing. You just put all the stuff in, hit the button and a few hours later your whole house smells of newly baked bread! Or do what I did the other day; on Thursday night I expected dinner guests, so on Wednesday night I put all the ingredients for my sundried tomato and feta bread in the pan, and before I went to work the next morning I set the delay timer and started it off - literally as I walked through the door with the first guest thirteen hours later the machine beeped, indicating that it was done. Perfect timing! (And then we went for a Steak and Guinness down at the pub instead.)

Today I promise I will be a bit more careful in my shopping. Over the years, I’ve collected a number of gift vouchers that are redeemable pretty much everywhere - I have a total of € 72.50 that I am planning to put towards a proper DVD player for the living room. The half-working LG one will move downstairs to the bedroom instead.

Oh, and what is, actually, the best invention in recent years? I nominate the Compact Flash card and its relatives.