Week Thirty In Which I Was On The Wireless From My Bed!

I am freelance and keep good hours as MeJulie has a Proper Job and I have to take her the short distance across our leafy suburban hill top to work each day. But when she is poorly, it’s only the self discipline. (And one look tells you I am crap at that.)
So when the phone rang at 09.15hrs, I was in the land of happy drifty-poo and fumbled the bedside DECT phone, dropped it and only just stopped the answer phone from kicking in. I was pretending to sound awake and whilst giving it the Alert Voice, only gradually came into focus as it was clear it was BBC 3CR and they wanted my input on cyclists as ever and hey – BIG subject right now! I did my best and said I hoped there would not be newbie idiots falling about the place, said some cyclist-bigot comment about morons and got off air. I left to hearing Jonathan Vernon-Smith asking his listeners, ‘So, are all cyclists morons?’ Talk about start a fight and leave the room. Git.
And oh last week’s best of intentions to do ‘one a day’. That Kenwood is an amazing heap of powerful electronics in a remarkably small space and took longer to sort. Despite the Double DIN being ‘Real Estate’ for designers, the chassis is still bloody rammed with cleverness and what it can do is breath taking. That it did it all so well was impressive, too. The review was epic and simply not a throw-down. Although it DID raise a layout issue. With the spec lists and capabilities of a unit of that scale, like the Sony XAV-601BT that I have to slap in the test rig next, these crucial information sources become unwieldy and there’s a lot of page-downing to do to get to the meat and potatoes. Do you think it might be good to put the conclusions and ratings at the top? With the Editor Review underneath and the full epic spec at the very bottom, so you only need to go through it if you have to?
I guess I have been guilty of ‘Exit Via Gift Shop’ compulsion. Just because I sweat blood over these specs and make sure that mine are definitive, doesn’t make them any more readable. In fact, no company at all, ever in my experience has entirely correct details on their websites. There are typos, layout cocks and plain worng bits to find (did you see what I did there?) in everybody’s web details. However, one day, some sad nutter will recognise that the ‘Absolutely Authoritative’ schtick I use at the header has been beating me up for years.
(compare my spec list in any review with any maker’s website and you’ll see!)
The Sony is a monster and may force me to plead with my son to use his phone to MirrorLink it to fully test the beast as my iPod Touch 4th Gen is well loved anyway control-wise and not what MirrorLink was developed for. Likewise my clockwork BlackBerry is not going to MirrorLink. It aughta Bluetooth up like a brute, though.
Tomorrow night I am due to go to a local business hotel to attend the Celsus Ice ‘Installing Excellence’ training session. I will be filming a product video/interview or two before the session kicks off, with the advantage of the astonishing HD sexiness of image quality of the new sponsored Talk Audio Sony HDR-CX730E Handycam. Just wait until you see the product video I have started on the nutty GZ Nuclear GZNW6.5 subwoofer. The detail allows you see the woven tinsel leads on the spider – on a six point five inch. Carl Zeiss lens and 24mp sensor and even GPS on board! Mmm!
Yes, that’s right, 6.5inch subwoofer! And a GPS camcorder!
Right, let’s see how much we can get done, then.
Adam Rayner On Line Editor