I’ve never been much of a girly girl, and I fail completely at the art of clothes shopping. I operate like a bloke; I know what I want, and I go in, buy it, and get out.

Instead, I like to spend my spare pennies on things like films and games for the ps3 & wii. iPad apps are quite tempting too! I know, I’m a bit of a geek. So, when I was given an amazon voucher and some money for my birthday, I spent a fair bit of time looking at the ps3 games as well as the Blu Rays. These are the two selections I came up with…

Pride and Prejudice

I have had this six hour BBC adaptation on DVD for years, and it’s widely regarded to be the best ever Austen adaptation. Pride and Prejudice is one of my all time favourite books, and I have watched this particular dramatisation dozens of times. I may have watched the Colin Firth wet shirt scene more than that. Anyway, I’ve decided to replace my much loved DVD with the Blu Ray, because of this exciting news…

Experience the BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning series Pride and Prejudice like never before, as the magic of period drama is rekindled with state of the art technology. Returning to the original film negatives, this stunning adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel has been painstakingly restored frame-by-frame to reveal the sumptuous costume and detail that makes Austen’s world so enchanting.

I bought this from amazon at the bargain price of £12.93.. For six hours of pure Jane Austen. I think that’s about a third of the RRP so I’m a happy bunny.

Harry Potter Years 1-6

Shortly after getting my iPad, I reread the entire Harry Potter series (in 9 days. I couldn’t sleep very well that week!) and it rekindled my love for the series. I’ve just finished Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 as well, and I’m starting to get overly excited for the seventh film coming out in two parts over the next 12 months. It’s fair to say I’ve got HP fever!

Understandably, I want to prepare myself for the upcoming films by rewatching the whole series so far. We only actually have two of them on DVD, so buying the lot on Blu Ray has been the plan for a while. When I saw it discounted to £32.99 I jumped at the chance to get the boxset.. That works out to just over a fiver per film, and that’s very reasonable for Blu Rays!

Follow the first six years of Harry Potter’s matriculation at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with this box set that contains the original video releases of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to my packages arriving! I’ve had two notifications telling me they’re on their way so they should be here any day. That’s one of the only disadvantages of online shopping – no instant gratifiation! On the other hand, there is a lovely sense of anticipation while awaiting delivery!

Have you bought any good films recently?

Last weekend I turned 25; or as my loving husband put it, I am now a quarter of a century old! It was really nice to be able to celebrate my 25th birthday at my parents house in Cornwall, and I was spoiled by lovely mum who cooked a gorgeous meal for lunch, complete with a scrumptious rhubarb crumble for pudding!

I got some lovely birthday presents from friends & family, including lots of books by some of my favourite authors, a beautiful bracelet and a panoramic ’3D’ lenticular jigsaw from James which should be fun. He also gave me New Moon on blu ray and Lego Harry Potter for the PS3 which I’ve been having fun playing this week.

My parents took me & James to the Jake and Elwood show at the Hall for Cornwall in Truro, which was absolutely fabulous. The show is based on two characters (played by Dan Aykroyd & John Belushi) in the Blues Brothers films; a double act that started on Saturday Night Live. We had a meal in the restaurant first which was delicious; I had a minute steak and then shared a banoffee pie with James for pudding. The show itself was great; the two characters were spot on with their singing and mannerisms, the band was fantastic and they even had two dead people¹! Showing true dedication, the two people that impersonate Jake & Elwood Blues have even had their names changed by deed poll! They managed to get some audience participation going, although it was a shame that the seats were only half filled, and only one side of the audience really got involved. By the end of the show there were people dancing in the aisles. Mum even treated me to a trademark Blues Brothers hat & the necessary shades too.

My big sister made me a crazy cake for my birthday; the bottom layer was chocolate chip & the top layer was vanilla flavoured marble cake in yellow, pink & green. It may have looked a little odd but it tasted good…

It was a lovely birthday and has been a nice relaxing week in Cornwall – more blog posts and photos to come of what we’ve been up to!

In other news, Hayley sent me some questions to answer for her blog, and she has now posted my rambley replies over at her blog, so head over for a read if you’re interested.

1. James Brown and Ray Charles! [↩]

When I gave the MiFi Version 1 I borrowed back to the guys over at Three Mobile Buzz, I missed it more than I expected… So, I was rather happy when I got an email from Michelle offering me a trial of the new model!

I’ve been using it for a few days now, and I am happy to report that it is far less frustrating than the first model. All the major niggles have been fixed and it’s much easier to use. As a bonus – It’s also a lot more attractive! The device is now a lovely matt black on the front with a sparkly silver back, rather than having the slightly dodgy looking brushed aluminium plastic front and white plastic back of the first model.

Happily, it only takes one button push to get up and going, and there is a little light on the power button to show whether it is on or not – much easier! I found the three buttons of the first model really fiddly to use, and the symbols on the screen were so confusing I wasn’t sure if I’d managed to start the thing up properly.

The major change with this new model, is that the screen is much more informative – you can now see the connection info (including the number of wifi devices connected), the signal strength, a better battery indicator, and it also displays the session time & data usage. This is especially useful if you are low on data allowance and don’t want to use it all up by accident!

Also, you can now access the dashboard with any computer - instead of being via a windows program, the configuration for the gadget is a webpage located at http://3.home – which is really easy to remember. The dashboard lets you manage the device, view data usage and send & receive SMS messages. So as long as you have a browser, you’re good to go! This is great news because it means that you can manage the settings using an iPad or similar, and it even has an iPhone webapp version too.

Overall, the version 2 device is a big improvement on the first – my mind is now definitely made up about buying one, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to other people. I’m also really impressed with Three and Huawei – they have really listened to their customer’s complaints and made massive steps to rectify the issues people had with the first model. This kind of behavior from a big company is kinda unexpected nowadays, so it’s refreshing to see!

I’m off to Cornwall for a week on Friday evening, to celebrate my birthday, meet up with an old friend, and generally relax and enjoy a few day trips. I’m taking the MiFi with me, so I will be able to blog and stay in touch while we’re on the road & when we’re out and about.. it will be interesting to see how the network is down there. I’m really looking forward to having a great break!