Ahem. Yes. Well, this seems like an appropriate time to look back on the year just past and review what I've done in it and how I've spent it; or, and this is more to the point, what I've spent in it.

This, for me, has primarily been a completely ridiculous year for gadgets. In the course of this year my techno-toy acquisitions have included two enormous flat-screen monitors, an even more enormous TV, a GameCube, a set of DECT phones, an MP3 car stereo, an indoor hardware MP3 player, a load of additional computer hardware to support my new MP3 habit, and a digital camera. And that's just the gadgetry; it doesn't count the new pair of glasses (for the first time in ten years), the totally unnecessary long leather coat, and moving to a more expensive flat.

Combined with other incidental expenses such as an unexpected car breakdown, this has actually caused me to go over budget; for the first year in as long as I can remember, I've ended the year with less money than I started out.

Although I don't have much truck with New Year's resolutions as a general concept, and certainly don't approve of people finding random things to resolve just for the sake of having one, it has recently been the case more than once that I happen to find I need a behaviour modification around this time of year; so in light of the above, this year my New Year's resolution is to STOP BUYING TECHTOYS. Perhaps in 2005, if I've managed to find anything else I really want, I might let myself have one or two treats, but this year I went completely out of control so I plan to tighten my fiscal belt for 2004.

(I decided a couple of months ago that this would be my New Year's resolution; it was rather scary the way my brain immediately started suggesting that perhaps I should buy a couple more gadgets, quickly, before it came into force at the end of the year…)