Woo-woooooooooo, wooooo-waaa-wooooooo

Competition now closed

In my head that sounds like the theme song to Doctor Who, I doubt it does to anyone else. Anyway welcome to the Life Goggles Doctor Who Christmas competition. We have a whole host of Doctor Who goodies to give away. Ideal stocking fillers for Christmas.

There are loads of prizes as in the picture, but I’m splitting them into four prizes:

First prize is an Electronic Sonic Screwdriver (with ultraviolet light and pen!).

Second place will receive a Light Up Toothbrush and Beaker Set (my favourite actually).

Third will get an Aluminium Water Bottle, pen, ruler and a rather bright orange eraser.

And fourth place will receive a set of posters, which include special prints for the Doctor Who Exhibition at Spaceport.

All you need to do is answer the question below:

Question: Who plays Captain Jack Harkness in both Doctor Who and Torchwood?

All entries need to be received before midnight on Monday 18th December so the winners get their prizes before Christmas.

To be in with a chance of winning, please enter your name, email and answer to the question in the box below. Please note that this will subscribe you to our Life Goggles email updates if you’re not already (no posts, no email. 10 posts in one day, just one email). You will be required to activate your subscription, so please use a valid email address and check your junk folder for a verification email!

Your email address will never be sold, shared, traded, or spammed and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Four random subscribers will be selected after the closing date of 18 December 2006. Our decision is final, no correspondence will be entered into etc etc. Just relax.

We also have another Christmas competition running - The End of the Question Mark.

Song of the Day - Torn with a brilliant video

Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn performed live with David Armand performing his legendary mime at Amnesty International’s Secret Policeman’s Ball. Thanks to Adam for the link.

Road or Rail?

Every day as a populous of a country we need to go somewhere. Be it to work, to see family or friends or to go to the shops, we need a mode of transport. The choices we have are to walk, to drive, to use buses, trains or planes…or maybe to hop skip and jump.

Here in the UK we have an extensive rail and road network, supplemented by buses, trams and the odd airport. In our nation’s capital we have Ken’s Kattle Kontraption - otherwise known as the London Underground. In the rush hour it is crowded, and subject to failures which cause chaos. Another option for the commuter is the overland rail network - but it is expensive, late, overcrowded and full of darned kids.

But is it really? And even if it is…is it really all that bad? Should we all say ‘knackers’ to using public transport and get in our cars? To quote a colleague of mine “it’s much nicer sitting in your own car, with your own music…who cares if you’re not moving as long as you’re not standing in someone’s armpit”.

Around the world, the notion is to build and augment rail networks supported by buses. Road expansion comes as a secondary option as a train path can transport more people in a shorter space of time than a road of equal length. Not only that but if the railway is electrified it is more environmentally friendly than the combined effects of numerous internal combustion engines (although there is the trade off from generating the electricity).

So is this right…or is the real answer to congestion more roads? Well, we can decide for ourselves thanks to an excellently constructed case study of Perth (Western Australia) and Auckland (North New Zealand)…

Auckland, City of Cars Episode 1

Auckland, City of Cars Episode 2

Competition winners announced

The competition winners for Joel’s top ten CDs and more USB batteries are as follows.

First Prize
Sonia Ponton from Cumbria has won my top 10 CDs plus a pack of USB rechargeable USBCELL AA batteries. There’s a complete mix of artists and styles, but my particular favourites are Snow Patrol (listen here), Johnny Cash (listen here) and Sigur Ros.

1. Green Day - American Idiot
2. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m Not
3. Scissor Sisters - Ta-Dah!
4. Snow Patrol - Eyes Open
5. Linkin Park - Reanimation
6. Idlewild - Warnings / Promises
7. Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire The Legend of Johnny Cash
8. Faithless - Forever Faithless The Greatest Hits
9. Sigur Ros - Takk…
10. A-ha - The Singles 1984|2004

2nd prize
The 2nd prize winner has not yet confirmed their details, and will be redrawn within a couple of weeks if we do not hear back. They will receive one pack of USBCELL batteries. They are rechargeable AA batteries that don’t require an additional charger. Simply charge them up in a computer USB port.

Why not enter our latest competition, The End of the Question Mark. There will be another Christmas competition announced soon so please check often for an update. Remember we provide a free RSS feed (more details on RSS can be found here) and an email subscription service to keep you updated.

The odd case of the gift voucher and the alien

For the lack of something better to do, I typed in “voucher” into eBay. Give it a try.

Now there are some things in there I do understand - holiday vouchers that people don’t want, that sort of thing. Even the sharks who are selling discount codes for a pound that you can find elsewhere (look here) make sense - if you can sell something that costs you nothing - why not?

But then there’s the vouchers for places like HMV and Next. A £10 HMV voucher is currently going for £9 plus 50p delivery. I can understand why the seller might not want it, but who the hell can be bothered buying it for a 50p profit? If you won it for a fiver then fine, but 50p? I suppose as soon as one of these comes up they just put a bid on of £9 and then hope no-one else bids.

Seems bizarre to me, but not as bizarre as this. £35 of Next vouchers went for £34.44 plus £1.10 delivery. What the hell? Who’s paying 66p more for vouchers than if they bought them themselves? Maybe they did a cost benefit analysis and included bus fare into town or the delivery charge from the Next website. Maybe they’re housebound. Or maybe they’re stupid.

I decided to find out.

Five days later and some investigative journalism and no-one got back to me from three different auctions I found. So I found this instead.

Song of the Day - Toxicity with Trickshots!

Toxicity by System of a Down plays whilst some amazing pool trick shots keeps you entertained. Easy, John Virgo can do the same thing….

Christmas Competition 1 - The End of the Question Mark

Competition now closed

We have previously profiled AQA (SMS short code 63336) who are a text answer service. They rather impressively answered the question I posed in that post, and I’ll be forever in their debt. AQA have received over 3.5 million questions, and just in time for Christmas have released a book called ‘The End of the Question Mark’. It’s a collection of the best, bizarre, witty and often thought provoking questions that they’ve been asked.

What’s the worst smell in the world? How many nipples does a bear have? Am I really here? Why is Martin’s head so big for such a young lad? Are there any weasels in Ireland? Do bees have knees? Check out their daily top 5 questions, and also ask a free question online.

We have three copies of this book to give away (RRP £5.99) courtesy of the nice people at AQA. All you have to do is answer this question:

This will also subscribe you to our Life Goggles email updates (no posts, no email. 10 posts in one day, just one email). You will be required to activate your subscription, so please use a valid email address and check your junk folder for the confirmation email!
If you are already subscribed and verified then you will automatically be entered in the competition - another bonus for our regular readers!

Your email address will never be sold, shared, traded, or spammed and you can unsubscribe at any time (although you need to be verified and subscribed to win).

Three random subscribers will be selected after the closing date of December 15th 2006 in order to arrive in time for Christmas. Our decision is final, no correspondence will be entered into etc etc. Just relax.

Another special Christmas competition coming soon! Our previous competition winners will be announced soon, once they have received their prizes.

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