all talk and no action

I learnt to make use of user reviews before booking hotels after arriving at a Florida motel that some friends and I had booked online, on the basis of it being a. cheap and b. reasonably ok-looking in the photo. On arrival, we realised that it was also the perfect place to get shot. Since then, I've relied on the excellent VirtualTourist and TripAdvisor for a heads-up on places I'm visiting, but now Yahoo! has come up with something I can see myself using instead.

The Yahoo! Trip Planner (in public beta) lets you build a complete schedule for an upcoming trip. It's nifty: simply log in, choose your destination and travel dates and then browse for hotels, restaurants and activities. Clicking a hotel name, for example, takes you to the relevant Yahoo! Travel page where you can read user reviews, check prices and make reservations. Back in Trip Planner, you can get driving directions to the places you want to visit, schedule activities for specific times and dates, add your own notes, and then share the resulting itinerary with your travel companions or the entire Yahoo! Travel community.

If you don't want to build your own schedule, or you're after inspiration, there are already over 700 public trips listed, including the Sideways Movie Wine Trip and the Cracking The Da Vinci Code Trip.

One thing that drives me nuts is the way the way people meander around the street, bumping into me and blocking my path when I want to get past. Dan once suggested that this frustration is due to using computers regularly and then expecting people to behave in a similar, logical manner -- you chart your course, tell your legs to go in that direction, and assume that people walking in the opposite direction will do the same, not weave haphazardly around the pavement.

To solve this problem, Ministry of Gadgets is flogging Indicatears (geddit?). Stick one on each ear and with a switch attached to your belt you can now signal your intentions and avoid bruises from shopping trolleys. And you get to look like an idiot at the same time.

Personally, I'm waiting on a men's version of the 80,000-volt No Contact Jacket instead.

OK. I had a lovely Moveable Type blog that took me weeks to set up and put me through a world of pain. Then I stopped using it and couldn't remember how to make any changes to the set-up. I'm not going down that route again. If you've stumbled in here, you're clearly a l33t haxx0r type as this isn't linked from anywhere and it's merely set up for when I get around to writing stuff. Everyone else seems to be blogging, so I thought it was time I did. Hey, maybe I'll change the world with my insights. Or perhaps I'll just post up pictures of monkeys pulling funny faces.