I am now a fully-fledged member of Generation Y (yes, the cusp of the group lies on the 80-81 birth year). I bought an iPod. It is a reward/incentive for going to the gym. I love its streamlined design and simple packaging. When I was living in London, Pete "the Fork: Lau (Dave's older brother) and I visited the Design Museum, which was displaying the 5 finalists of some 2003 European design awards. One of the finalist was the designer of iMac, iPods and various other Apple products. Another finalist was the team that designed GTA 2: Vice City. The other entries, some doilies, jewellery and vases or some other arty stuff, couldn't compete. Who needs beauty for beauty's sake when you can combine beautiful form with outstanding function?

There are minimal instructions, evidently geared toward the plug-and-play generation who wouldn't bother to read lengthy manuals. They'd much rather search for help online when it's required. (I'm like this myself - when I'm feeling too "lazy" to ask someone else for help. This has been a problem a couple of times when my web access wasn't working especially as I don't even have a hard copy of the white pages. How to ask for help when your only medium for help is the that thing that you need help to use?)

All by myself...

When I was young, I never needed anyone, and making love was just for fun...

I have a housemate now! We haven't hung out much because I've been working so much (and sleeping when I'm at home). So far I haven't noticed any problems.

Where I do notice problems is in my payslips! This is an ongoing problem that was not solved when the hospital outsourced our pay. Every fortnight it seems that I have to phone up and say, "I just have a few queries about my pay period ending..." I don't need to explain my queries; the person on the other end of the phone makes some busy noises (murmuring, shuffling paper, keystrokes, etc) then will make an announcement along the lines of, "Oh, it appears that you weren't paid for 6 hours that you worked that week. Would you like me to rectify that?" or, "It seems that they've tried to reduce the amount of penalties they're paying you by shifting some of you penalty-loaded hours into the overtime-loading category - would you like me to pay the extra penalties you deserve." As far as I can tell, these are stupid questions for them to be asking. Why do I bother?

Because I'm worth it. (Although I really can't be arsed to colour my hair, Milla Jovovich.)

Two constancies in life that provide comfort: video clips on weekend mornings and The Simpsons on weekdays at six.