There's always been a lot of talk about Flash and how, to be polite, it's a bit of a CPU hog. In our house, Mr C will often be found bemoaning the existence of Flash, and it's understandable that the Apple universe of products is less than supportive of it. I never really thought about the problem too much, but that has changed. I watch the majority of my TV …

I really enjoyed the last round of voting. Instead of a moral decision, or something that defines Mitch as a character, it was simply a "what obstacle shall we throw in his path" and you got to make that decision. The voting changed drastically throughout, but there could only be one winner. It seems as though Mason has got under everyone's skin, whether it is for good or for bad! …

I never really spent much time reading newspapers, which is apparent if you ask me about world events, but now that I spend a vast amount of time online, I do stumble across the online versions of the dead tree counterparts more often. There are two media type offerings from The Guardian that I wanted to give a bit of a shout out too. In my quest to catch up …

And thus we begin the second half of our story, and part six is here. The voting was down a little for the last section, but I am not surprised. It's not really a difficult choice between partying and studying, is it? Ah, it was closer than I suspected. Good stuff. However, it is party time in Monaco, and Mitch and Bruno are ready to hit the town. Please note …

We have reached Part 5 of our story, halfway through, and I still have no idea how it’s going to end. I’m starting to get a vague sense of direction though, which is always good. Fun, isn’t it? The voting picked up again for Part 4, which was lovely to see, and the winner was also quite an outright favourite from the start: It’s interesting that Mitch didn’t get to …

Just a couple of things to note: I gave Chrome a try, I did, honest. I set it as my default and I used it for a couple of days. I really like the transition when you drag a tab to become a new window. Beautiful. I missed the Copy Link as Text Firefox plug-in something chronic. And when I was doing some F1 Minute stuff, Chrome was copy/pasting in …

It's all quiet on the FKM front at the moment, but there was an update on his official website by the man himself at the beginning of the month. He talks about when he first started getting interested in driving, and how he feels behind the wheel. He even takes a moment to thank us, the stalkers! (via Google Translate) I am happy to have people who support me, encourage …

Here we are with part four of our story, a day later than expected. Sorry about that, there was podcasting to be done. So, how did the vote go for part three? I was quite surprised with the result: I thought perhaps the voting would be more adventurous, this is fiction after all and anything can happen! It seems as though reality was more convincing though, and we all know …

The first episode of 2010 has a brand new look, and covers a wide range of topics that have caught my eye over the past month. It doesn't work like that anymore From the Apple iPad, to the Amazon Kindle and everything in between, MFC gets a fresh look for 2010. Topics in this show also include how to keep wiki sites in business, and what would happen if you …

Here we are with Part 3. The pattern seems to have evolved to a chapter being posted, voting for a day, and then a day-ish for writing. I hope you're enjoying the story so far, I've certainly been impressed with the voting. Speaking of which: I thought love was a bit of a long shot, but with Valentine's Day just around the corner, you never know. Anyway, rivalry it is, …

Hi, my name's Christine and I'm a blogaholic. My global dashboard in Wordpress is looking pretty scary right now. I started a brand new blog called Ten Step Stories [link defunct], and it's fiction. This is quite a big deal, although I don't know why. The basic premise is a story, told in ten separate parts, and at the end of each, you get to decide what happens next via …

Here are a selection of photos from tostie14 on Flickr. They are cute!

Thank you to everyone for all the encouraging feedback following Ten Step Stories’ debut. I haven’t really written fiction for a couple of years so it was a bit of a push to hit the publish button. I’m glad I did though. Thank you. The voting was close. On the first day, it looked as though Mitch would be heading over to beat the living daylights out of his rival, …

This was it. This was the moment John Mitchell had been waiting for. His heart was thumping, he could feel it in his temple, could hear his pulse echoing in his ears. A crackle of static interrupted the rhythm. “Don’t forget to breathe, Mitch,” came the raspy voice of his engineer. Mitch gripped the steering wheel tighter, his gloves hiding the white of his knuckles. From fourth on the grid, …

I've always been an iPod Nano person. I had the first gen Nano, a long, blocky, black thing, with a small and grainy screen, and enormous body. I skipped the second generation in preference for the third, although I was initially wary of the squat little thing. From a taller, more elegant solution, the third gen was a bit of a handful. It's no surprise to me that they returned …

Recently, I drove past one of those building sites with white boarding all the way round. It was early on in the building process, as there was no sign of any brickwork, and merely a crane or two ready to get going. On the white boarding were some advertising hoardings, preparing you for the new supermarket that will appear at some point in the future. The slogan read something like: …

One of my personal resolutions for 2010 was to try and eat five new foods. It sounds stupid, I know, but it's harder than you might imagine. I'm not all that adventurous when it comes to food. I don't mind trying new things, but it turns out I'm quite picky about what I eat. I either like something or I don't, there isn't really a middle ground, and I can …

Hi there, I am testing out the new Wordpress App for Android with a random post. To make it slightly worthwhile, here are some snippets of thought: Why is it people never ask what you did the previous evening or weekend when you actually have something worthwhile to say? What is the etiquette on retweeting someone who has their Twitter account protected? I really need to do a Media. Future. …

Yay for Groundhog Day! I didn't know I was particularly bothered about Groundhog Day before, but apparently it is something that makes me keep an eye on a Twitter search to see what Phil decides. I am ascribing this to the fact that over the past year or so, I discovered marmots were ridiculously cute, and of course, Groundhog Day was the first Film Watch movie I covered. So, now …

Note: I enjoyed writing my little Christmas thoughts post on the Archers, and thought I could turn this into a monthly thing. I have long been saying how I would love to keep a blog on the soap, but as I'm constantly running about a week behind, it doesn't seem worth trying to start one. However, I do like to discuss it, and I think it would be fun to …

At my first proper job, I was the youngest on the team, I was crazy shy and wouldn't go to the pub with them, plus I did double the work everyone else did. It is conceivable that they hated me. My one saving grace, though, was that being such a swot allowed my team a bit of leeway when it came to... well... messing about. As long as we got …

I'm currently listening to some old episodes of Net@Night, one of the TWiT stable of podcasts, and Leo Laporte was talking about feed readers. The episode is about a year old now, and even back then he was discussing the fact that everyone gets their news from Twitter, they choose a few key sites to visit every now and then, and that having a news reader is just too much …

A conversation about skiing over on Sidepodcast got me thinking. I have only ever tried skiing once, on a dry ski slope and it was during a school trip. My school had this Activity Week thing, where you forked over a lot of money to go on nice trips abroad, and if you couldn't afford to do that, you stayed in school and did something like chess club for a …

A video for you today, from a couple of years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYvpe5NezTA

Here's a video that my dad found mentioned in one of those computer magazines. It's always difficult to listen to someone moan about the trials and tribulations of being famous, but if it's got to be done, you'd want it done this way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwY5o2fsG7Y I have to say, if I saw Biff and summoned the nerve to speak, I'm pretty sure my first question wouldn't be: Was it real manure? …

This time Franck is actually on stage, no ice cubes in sight! Also, love the "just woke up" hair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewBVzk_M9-0

Franck gets a mention at Autosport. Shame he is not in the video itself, but I love Allan calling him Monsieur Montagny. https://static.mrschristine.com/blog/videos/2010/franck-at-autosport.mp4

Eight Songs The song choices are by far the hardest part. My mother left her choices on the previous post, and told me that it took her the best part of an hour to narrow it down to eight. I'm not sure how long I've spent thinking about this as I chose them over a period of several days, by writing one, then going away to ponder and picking it …

Ah, hmm, well, this is quite embarrassing. I quite recently wrote a post about swearing off Twitter, and naturally, after making such a fuss about it... well... I'm back on Twitter. So, moving on. It appears that my old installation of Smarter Than... was hacked and the feed essentially ruined (thanks to John for alerting me to the fact). Something weird was happening with the site a while ago as …

Today, Autosport and Castrol announced they were teaming up to produce driver rankings, on a weekly basis. There is a secret formula that works out whether a driver should move up or down the rankings, presumably based on his performance, although it's hard to tell. They were released today, but already have a year's worth of data in them - and get this, Franck started 2009 in 20th position, but …

A while ago, they finally debuted Desert Island Discs as a podcast via the BBC. It took a while to sort out due to rights restrictions both with the music played, and with the original format owners, but it's there, available to download, hosted by Kirsty Young. I only listen to the people I'm interested in, such as the recent David Tennant episode, but it's good to have the option. …

I've left it a while to write about the last David Tennant episode of Doctor Who because I was trying to convince myself that it hadn't actually finished, and that he was still floating around in his TARDIS somewhere. I have plenty of questions about the story itself, including why Time Lords would want time to end, who the Time Lord woman is and how she got through when no …

The storyline with Pip wanting to leave college is really annoying me. I can understand David and Ruth's reluctance for their daughter to make a rash decision, and the compromise of giving it another go for one more term is a good one. But they are so dead set against her leaving, praying that she'll have changed her mind before another term is up, it makes me cringe. I did …

A few weeks ago, I left Twitter. I was a sporadic Twitterer anyway, but I did like reading the updates from everyone and keeping up with people I otherwise probably would not. I gave it up for many reasons, but mostly because all the changes that have been made recently take away functionality for the way I use Twitter. They are obviously focusing on the general public now, and that …

It's Franck's birthday today and our favourite Frenchman is 32 years old. Happy birthday!! Let's hope for some good racing this year to be the best present ever.

A news item I have been catching up with on Buzz Out Loud recently has me a little bit stunned. In Chicago, a young woman was at a birthday party where they rented out an entire cinema for the duration of a screening of New Moon. She was filming some video of the party-goers and managed to get about three minutes of the film on camera as well. This is …

Rumour has it that Amanda Holden is going to present a new game show based on the Crystal Maze. I can't tell you how many parts of that sentence are just so. very. wrong. It's not just that she is completely the wrong person to continue the tradition of Mazing. It's that there are reportedly celebrities being lined up to play. And why is it "based on" the game? What …

Ooh, at last, something from the movie industry that is both progressive and good! Presumably in an attempt to both halt the many unauthorised film clips available, and perhaps monetise it along the way, Paramount have opened up a site that allows you to select a clip from a movie, and purchase the licence to it. From the article where I learned of such things: Paramount will initially restrict use …

Suddenly, over the festive holiday period, I have become obsessed with accessories. I have never been interested in that kind of thing before - except for an ill-fated venture into necklaces and nail varnish when I was in my teens. Since then, the only accessories I have really been bothered about are a ring from my dad, an engagement ring and a wedding ring. Roll on Christmas, and all of …

I have returned with another episode of Media. Future. Change, catching up with some of the news from the past few weeks. Google have been dominating things recently, with lofty goals and tons of new products, but there's plenty more to discuss in this episode. It's down to the user to be sensible Coming up today we'll discuss how you can celebrate New Year at home, why Switzerland isn't a …

Try five new foods Complete the archives of this site Make that fish video Reach Film Watch 50 Go outside more Okay, the last one isn't exactly quantifiable, and that is the key to achievable goals, but still, it's an aim. I'm keen to hear your resolutions, if you have any.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart... But the very next day, you broke it. Oops.

Mashable has a brief article about a new advert taken out in the USA Today newspaper from chewing gum company Trident. Supposedly the tweets were discovered naturally, rather than the writers being sponsored to talk about the gum, and everybody was consulted to make sure they approved being included in the ad itself. A bizarre concept of micro-blogging turning back into print media.

For a long time, the Christmas Number One single in the UK has been rubbish. I don't remember the last time there was a decent song at the top, but then again, there haven't really been an enormous amount of worthy festive songs released recently anyway. For the past few years, the Yuletide number has been dominated by the Simon Cowell sponsored X Factor winner, and that's usual a cover …

The BBC released some statistics to coincide with the iPlayer's second birthday ahead of the festive season. Some facts: Average of 5 million unique users a week iPlayer on mobiles peaks on weekday nights between 7pm and midnight The top streaming series for the year (Top Gear) generated more than 1.5 million streams, whilst the top radio was just 183,000. Supposedly Mac users prefer comedies, while PC users prefer dramas. …

After the success of the chocolate covered pretzels, my mother and I decided that baking mince pies would be the next challenge. It is Christmas, after all. After a bit of a delay as we tried to locate some mincemeat (silly supermarket two for one offers resulting in empty shelves), and we were ready to go. Now, I cook and I bake and I enjoy it, but I'm not so …

I was determined that my Etsy purchase would be a one off, because despite all the proof that Etsy can be addictive, I'm so not into gathering stuff. Oops. Here's what I got from my second Etsy delivery: This is a nifty little keyring type device that has space for tissues (a free pack came with the delivery as in the photo), plus a lipstick, or in my case some …

I'm not sure how long this has been around for, but I noticed today that YouTube have a new section called Shows. This is an expansion of the idea that broadcasters and networks have been signing up and posting clips of their TV programmes to YouTube in an attempt to a) stop people ripping their stuff and b) still use the site as a marketing tool. Now, though, there is …

When I first gave up Christmas, I was so anti-everything-even-slightly-resembling-the-C-word that it was a lot of effort. I blogged about it a lot, I made rules, I set up a website, I wrote articles and guidelines about how to avoid the festive season. It was exhausting and a lot of it made me very angry. Everyone has to have a cause, I guess. Now, with the benefit of several years …

For a while now, Mr C and I have been engrossed in the Spotify world, only just managing to stop from signing up for the premium service to get rid of the pesky ads. It is too much money and not quite worth it, but only just. Now though, I'm starting to wonder what we ever saw in it. The fact you can play music from many different genres, decades, …