The new Apple iMac arrives.

The day finally arrived; on Friday the TNT Courier company delivered my long anticipated new top of the range (with every optional extra installed) Apple iMac. I was working from home and manfully resisted temptation to take a peek until I had finished for the day. I spent the evening setting it all up and transferring all my files and settings from my old G4 iMac, which took over an hour, but could not have been easier to do.
As you will see from the first four photos above (please click on any one for a larger photo), I also purchased a pair of Edirol (actually a trade name for Roland) studio reference monitor speakers and an Iomega external hard drive, which gives me a Terabyte of backup space to mirror the Terabyte of internal storage in the iMac. As you will see I opted for the mini wireless keyboard and mouse. The keyboard is a revelation; it is machined out of anodised aluminium and is wafer thin, but the key feel and travel is perfect. The wireless mouse has no buttons at all - the whole of the case acts as a motion sensitive rocker which detects where you push it for those left click / right click moments. You can even control the computer using an iPod Nano sized remote control for all of your multimedia content. The screen is fully High Definition and has amazing colour rendition and contrast. The bottom photograph is of my old G4 iMac in its' new retirement home at Ian's house, where I am certain it will give many more years of sterling service. Anyway, if you really want to see more of the new beast you can view additional photographs on my Flickr photo site.

On Saturday afternoon I was waiting at a bus stop in Erith Road, Upper Belvedere for a bus to Plumstead to visit Dad as normal. I looked around and saw a 401 double decker bus heading onto the roundabout when suddenly a black Volkswagen Sharon van shot across the roundabout going the wrong way around it. I had just enough time to think "There's going to be trouble!" when there was a very loud crunch and the sound of rending metal and breaking glass as the van impacted into the double decker. Fortunately no-one was hurt and both drivers waited as two PCSO's came to take the details. I hung around for a few minutes for them to take a brief statement from me, then went on my way. I reckon the driver of the van had probably just come back home from a foreign trip and temporarily forgot which side of the road to drive on.

This weeks' video clip is a bit of a curiosity which comes courtesy of Ian who stumbled across it online; do give it a go and watch it all of the way through, as much of the unintentional humour happens towards the end of the excerpt - and it is only a couple of minutes long anyway. Ladies and Gentlemen - please meet mister Klaus Nomi...