Someone on my friends list probably wants one of these...

http://svp.co.uk/product/t_clock_t_shirt_with_digital_clock_and_stop_watch_8084

but I think one of these might be more me, if it was a bit cheaper

http://svp.co.uk/product/i_see_dumb_people_t_shirt_8103


Later: The rest of their shirts including some others with electronics are here
http://svp.co.uk/category/novelty_t_shirts

icegadgets DVDs - Avoid

A few days ago I asked about a company called "Icegadgets" which is selling DVDs at about half the usual UK discount prices. What they claim to do is buy direct from far east factories. You get a DVD that's genuine and comes with the real case inserts etc. but not the plastic case and not necessarily manufactured for the UK.

Well, I gave it a try, took ten days to arrive but today I took delivery of the DVD I ordered - the 2007 Transformers movie.

What they sent me was the DVD in a card sleeve, the wrap-around card thing to go around the plastic case, and the insert for the plastic case, with lots of Chinese on the cardboard. It looks professionally made and plays OK but I don't think it's kosher - the Ironman and Transformers trailers don't work, amd it turns out to be all regions and unencrypted, which seems just a little unlikely if it's a legit copy. The sleeve says "one disk special edition" on the front but appears to have info for two disks on the back. Lots of other inconsistencies.

What I think we have here is a factory-made counterfeit - someone has cracked the encryption and I think compressed it to single layer to save on manufacturing costs, run it off via a professional disk duplication factory, and printed a genuine-looking sleeve to go with it.

Now I suppose I need to go warn eBay, who are running their ad, and Google, who handle their payments. Count me somewhat less than impressed.

Monolithic

Just somewhat surprised to discover a message from Fred Clarke (brother of Arthur C. Clarke) on my answerphone, thanking me for forwarding a black monolith picture to him. Except that I didn't, so far as I know, unless someone passed on the link I posted a while ago to this:



I suspect that it isn't that since he was talking about a monolith-shaped prize that ACC is funding for his old school in Taunton, and saying the picture looked like it.

I have exchanged mail etc. with him a few times in the past, so it's possible that I've been confused with another Marcus or something. If anyone has recently forwarded a Monolith picture to him, it looks like the wires have got crossed. I'll phone back tomorrow and see if I can sort it out.