“The Deathly Hallows? What on earth is Rowling on about?” was roughly the first thought through my head when I heard of the last Potter book’s title. The second was how massive this book would be given how large the previous one had been. Rowling is many things, but concise is not one of them. Indeed, even having read the books, I don’t get why it’s “The Deathly Hallows”. All credit to Rowling though, she’s good with coming up with names and the like. ...

Let me count the ways: free showers, free massage chairs, cinema in the airport, hotel in the airport (for those really long layovers), perfect-place-to-relax banana chairs, laptop charing points, and oh, free wifi. Man, I don’t think I’ll travel through anywhere else ever again if I have the choice. Yeah, I’m here for about 4 hours all up - flight delay leads to flight delay and our next slot is at 3 AM Singapore time (conveniently enough, 8PM London time and thus just spot on to getting internal clock aligned. As long as I can avoid napping here…) ...

Apple unleashed the new range of iPods overnight, including the iPhone-esque iPod touch. My take on the new range, especially the naming of the “classic” It looks like they got the headphone jack on the Touch right. No games on the Touch; probably pending update for touch & phone? Wifi iTunes store. Meh. US$200 price drop on the phone! Whoa. Brings it closer to a reasonable price here in Oz =) The price of phone functionality? US$99. That means phone, mobile internet, and bluetooth basically. Apple’s stock dropped 5% from the announcement - clearly, the markets aren’t enamoured of the new range. Has the iPod jumped the shark? Maybe, just maybe. ...

Last minute flight to Melbourne - $300 (very) Last minute hotel booking - $200 Lunching, brunching, dinners, cakes, and 7 coffees - $200-ish Realising your friends are more awesome than you’ve ever given them credit for? I’ve felt this way before, and the earlier feeling returned stronger than ever, as I moved from one friend to the next; I didn’t spend nearly as much time as some of these people deserve, and didn’t meet nearly as many people as I should’ve, but the doubts I had Saturday night proved to be baseless. Some friends you can never let go, and I think I’ve found my few. ...

Max Barry (of Jennifer Government and Company fame) put up a mini-comp to design a can for a promo for an upcoming movie of a book Max wrote (ain’t that a story all in itself) - and here’s my entry: Y’know what, I’m inordinately proud. Where the hell did I come up with that? No idea, but I Likey. Just, y’know, thought I’d mention, in case you see these around town some time =) ...