Last car boot for the month of April

We look forward to every Sunday and our favourite weekend pastime - car booting. Yesterday was no exception and we made our way to the Furnance End car boot sale. CJs has moved to the Rugby Club in Leamington Spa and will only open in Stoneleigh Park later this year.

As I have mentioned before, the car boot at Furnance End is huge. I have never had the chance to go over the whole place. Because of the slope and rough paths, pushing a pushchair can be quite a challenge. One of the main reasons we bought a Quinny Speedi push chair over eBay.

Bought a lot of stuff this Sunday as compared to the last. Probably because my wife was there too and she always spots some nice stuff.

Here are the stuff we bought this time:

- 2 Ikea Smila lights: £1.50 One hasn't even been opened yet.
- 2 Jigsaw puzzles : £1 These are for my daughter.
- Table lamp:£1 Later found out that the bulb was not working.
- Tomato and Marrigold seedlings: £1
- 4 seed packets (carrots and courgettes): £1
- Toothpaste: 50p
- 3 Uplighters: 50p
- Paper shredder (manual): 50p
- Air bed (as new, single with foot pump): £2.50. A real bargain.

Total: £9.50. Not bad and we got some real good deals.

Related posts:
- Furnace End car boot
- Car booting March 18
- Rainy carboot day
- Car Booty in Coventry
- Cheapest books ever

Tags: Car boot sale CJ's Car Boot

Watching the clouds go by

One thing I really miss here in the UK are the sunny islands of Malaysia where we used to holiday almost every year without fail (at least before the kids).

The best were the islands off Terengganu on the east coast of Malaysia. It where you could get away from it all - with no mobile phone connections, no newspapers and usually only one TV set for the whole resort.

Just relaxing in a hammock between two palm trees on the beach with a favorite book or just watch the clouds go by. Sigh! Falling asleep was never this easy. That's real relaxation.

Talking about hammocks, visit HammocksRock.com to learn all about Hammocks. I was really amazed to realize that there were so many different types of hammocks that are available. I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a Hammock Chair. I also learnt that the best hammocks are cotton hammocks - those made from cotton.

You can also read about hammock stands because not every body has 2 coconut trees growing in their backyard.

Trips to the tip

I finally cleared up most of the junk in our backyard. You won't believe the amount of stuff that was lying there.

Simply can't understand why people would throw bottles, cans and other rubbish into your backyard when there is an excellent Waste collection service that comes every Thursday.

Anyway, had two make two trips to the Public Waste Recycling and Disposal Facility (the Tip)off London Road yesterday. It was back breaking work but it was worth it.

Related post: Getting the gardening itch

Free handphones with T-mobile and Wirefly

Wirefly.com is offering free T-Mobile phones when customers sign up with a new wireless account. Among the popular models of phones are the Moto RAZR and the Motorola PEBL.

Of the two model mentioned above, I would definitely go for the Motorola PEBL. Though not the most high tech of phones available, I love it's curvaceous design and the unique external screen. Trying it out at the local store, I really liked the feel of this phone on my hands and the clamshell open mechanism is really smooth.

However, it's not on the top 10 list of T-mobiles phones listed on the site, given below:
#1: Samsung Stripe
#2: Dragon Tattoo RAZR
#3: BlackBerry Pearl
#4: Plum Samsung T509
#5: Motorola v3i D&G
#6: Samsung T619
#7: Samsung T519 Trace
#8: Samsung T719
#9: Nokia 6133
#10: Samsung T319

If you live in the US, you can check whether you are eligible for the the online offers by entering your zip code.

For your information, Wirefly.com is the online storefront of InPhonic Inc. It has received a number of Internet awards, including Forbes magazine's "Best of the Web" for 2004 and Keynote System's "Best In Overall Customer Experience" in 2005. Wirefly.com is also the Internet's #1 Store for Cell Phones and Plans.

University of Warwick students are the best

Wanted to blog about that earlier but I left it as a draft and forgot all about it.

I don't know about you guys, but quiz shows can be really exciting. You feel really great when you know the answer but the contestants don't and followed by "the answer is xyz, stupid!"

It has been proven that the University of Warwick has the brightest students in the country. A team from the University recently won the TV show University Challenge 2007. This was out of a total of 28 teams from various Universities here in the UK, which entered this year's competition.

The winning team from Warwick was made up of Daisy Christodoulo ( the Captain), Harold Wyber, Rory Gill and Prakesh Patel. To reach the finals they beat Emmanuel College, Cambridge in the first round; University of East Anglia in the second round; Aberystwyth in the quarter finals and University College London in the semis. In the finals, they beat Manchester University, the previous year's champions (170 points to 140). The finals was aired on BBC 2 on 16th of this month.

Related links:
- The University of Warwick Wins University Challenge
- Warwick wins University Challenge

Educational science toys

My daughter is really growing up fast and is really curious about a lot of things. Her favourite word now-a-days seem to be "Why?" An answer to that will most likely result in another "why?". *sigh*

As she grows up, I want to make sure that she doesn't grow up to dislike science. One way to show that science is fun is to buy her fun educational science toys.

Sciencekits.com is an online retailer of educational science kits and toys. I was quite impressed with the wide selection of scientific toys and kits to choose from. In fact I won't mind playing with them myself with my kids.

One product category I was attracted to were the robot kits and one I really liked in particular was the Spider III. Not really suitable for my kids as yet, but it should appeal to a lot of older kids. This weird looking robot avoids obstacles in it's path using an infrared beam. It can even find its way out of a maze.

The Nitty-Gritty Soil Science would be quite useful too. There are a number of cool science experiments for fun activities and games. As I have started gardening, it would be interesting to find out how to perform pH, nitrate, phosphate and potassium soil tests.

Just realised that the toys would be cool for adults too.

Sat nav ready

Check out my new toy!

This seems to be the favourite phrase of bloggers whenever they show off a new gadget they have acquired. I too am guilty of the same and have done so a few times in the past.

Recently bid and won a gadget on e-bay. It's definitely not a toy though I was playing around with it a bit when we received it by mail today. After getting lost in Nottingham, we realised that we really needed one.

I am talking about my new TomTom ONE Sat Nav. It's not actually new but the previous owner really maintained it nicely as I can't see a single scratch on it.

Previously, I was thinking of getting a PDA with sat nav but the ones I wanted were way too costly and out of my budget. In the end I decided to go for the TomTom ONE.

The TomTom One has loads of features. This includes among others:
- Plug and Go: Works straight out of the box.
- High quality touchscreen. The screen is 3.5 inches diagonally, which is quite good enough for me.
- User-friendly menu with high resolution graphics.
- Fast GPS signal fix. Took about a minute when I first tried it out.
- Safety camera information. Very important here in the UK as the fine can be really heavy.
- Car speed linked volume.
- Searchable postcode digits.
- It also has dynamic routing. Say you miss a turning, it will automatically redirect you to a new route.
- Includes points of interest. Great if you are on holiday and looking for banks, rest areas or museums.
- The user interface now includes 22 languages, including Bahasa Malaysia (called Ella). However, I prefer Jane (UK English).

I also like the fact that it is quite lightweight and can fit easily inside my trousers pocket. There have been a spate of sat nav thefts in the West Midlands and I am definitely not going to risk losing it by leaving it in the car for all to see.

Checked various online retailers and the cheapest is in Amazon.com = £155.84. However, you may be able to get it cheaper (like we did) on eBay!


Related posts:
- High Tea at Nottingham
- PDA with sat nav

Tags: Sat Nav TomTom ONE Satellite Navigation