I don’t know if its me, but all these Christmas sales are just not interesting me right now…

Mostly the items are “B” stock, or stock thats not been out pre Christmas at all..

Worst however is the technical goods in which I like - yes there are a small number of genuine bargains to be had if you queue outside Currys at 7am Boxing day - but myself - I can wait.

In my opinion at least I think the real bargains will come ~ 20 Jan- 15 Feb when the current Furore has died down and companies want to sell goods to a nation who have just spent all their money in the sales.    Heres hoping that the Sony TV I want will drop to the price I’m willing to pay then (at the moment the sale price is only £30 less than the price last 2 months!)

IT shops at this time of year are a breading ground for bugs - I’ve just returned from the first bout of seasonal flu (which was inevitable considering 2/3 of the department have already had it). IT departments (and all large office spaces) are such a breading ground for bugs. It does show why Bird flu is a very scarey proposition.

This week I had the most annoying incident while sick on Monday. I got called on my (personal) mobile by a persion who had been told I was sick and unavailable to do the work by my boss earlier in the day. I know this as he sent me an email advising of this (I did ocasionally look at my blackberry) . Its just rude to call when you’ve been told that.

This person is now on my “bad people” list . I think the said person realised their mistake when they could hardly understand me on the day - its certainally not clever to call a very sick person.

I’m also not generally off work sick - it takes a serious bout of illness to keep me away (last time was for an emergency appendicitus operation over 12 months ago). My boss knows this - so when I do call in sick he knows not to bother me. The good news about this is my boss is shocked said person called me on my mobile after being advised earlier - and has reported the incident to the tactless person’s manager.

The above is yet another reason I try to avoid anyone apart from my manager having my home number or personal cellphone number. If I want people to call me when mobile, I can always remotely divert the office number to my personal cellphone (without having to give said number). In this case the person involved had my personal cellphone from years before I had started implementing the above policy.

Hows illness in your office right now?

I need help - my old circa 1990 CD player has packed up - which was a portable ghetto blaster style unit which had reasonable sound, was battery powerable for taking into the deeper regions of the garden where I have no power (nor a lead long enough).

I have many other things that can play CD’s, including my TV.   However:   What I want is not something that needs hooking to a TV - I want a semi-portable CD/Radio/MP3 player.

I seek assistance from the gadget gods of ITpro to find a device that has the below:

• Can stream radio stations wirelessly from the Internet
• Can receive DAB broadcasts
• Can access my PC to play mp3’s and other un DRM’ed media using 802.1b/g
• Is battery powerable (not as essential)
• Has excellent sound quality (100% essential).

Can anyone at ITpro help me here.   I can find devices that do some of the above, but not all.     There are good looking mp3 streaming devices such as the Squeezebox but they don’t do everything - and notably don’t have speakers in Squeezebox’s case!

Can anyone suggest alternatives.    I know JVC do some devices, but they seem to use a Wireless USB dongle rather than 802.11b/g.

Help!

If the above doesn’t exist can’t someone out there please make one.