all talk and no action

I've got so used to having broadband that I forget what a big change it is from the Bad Old Days. Reading Gary Marshall's six-word review of the movie Children of Men, I decided to check it out and, without thinking, I clicked the 'large' option for the trailer. Had I been on a 56k modem, I wouldn't have thought, either: I would have clicked the 'small as possible, please' option and then made a cup of tea while it downloaded before returning to watch a load of pixels and blurs in a postage-stamp-sized window.

The trailer still took too long too download, though.

But forget Children of Men. I'm waiting for Clerks II to come out on DVD.

Finally. I know it only comes around once a year (or every six months if you're bad at budgeting), but buying a new tax disc is something I dread. Invariably, I leave it until the last day of the month, so the evening before I have to spend hours rummaging around looking for my insurance and MOT documents, and the following day I spend three hours queueing in the post office along with everyone else who decided that the last day of the month would be a fantastic time to renew their car tax. (Or is it road tax? It's just occured to me that I'm not sure exactly what's being taxed here, but I digress.)

Anyway, now you can forget that frantic hunt for documents and cut out the visit to the post office altogether, because once you receive a reminder through the post you can head over to DVLA Vehicle Licensing Online and enter your reference number. The service then uses internet magic to check that you have up-to-date MOT and insurance and once that's done, you simply enter a credit card number to pay for your tax disc. It's that easy.

Just arrived in my in-box:

We know you hate the extra pounds, the ugly look and the social stigmata attached to fat people. Moreover, you can barely do anything about the terrible eating habits of yours.

I wish my parents would stop emailing me at work.

Just kidding, it was spam.