It’s become very clear to me that I’ve already blown my “100 posts in 100 days” challenge. It’s time to abandon ship, because this captain’s not going down with it.

My intentions, as always, were admirable, but as usual I let myself down in the delivery. As much as I would like to post something every single day, my erratic lifestyle just doesn’t make it possible to sit down with the prerequisite focus and inspiration as often as I would like.

To put it more bluntly: I suck.

If this blog was my full time job, then yes I could make several posts a day. But until this blog can provide me with a six-figure annual income, it won’t be my main focus.

To put this in perspective, one of the things distracting me from blogging over the last week was putting together my long-overdue accounting for my media empire, for tax purposes. Having done the sums this week, I can tell you that I am running my empire at a loss. Being a media tycoon costs me money and not a small amount either. Any revenue this blog generates is quickly swallowed by my expenses.

This is not a cry of poverty, my full time job provides me with ample income and I can afford my media empire losses without any hardship. I won’t be seeking donations to my paypal account. I don’t even have a paypal account!

As I am the chief sponsor of my own blog, perhaps I should replace my banner advertising with some of my own, but that would be silly, because if you’re already on my site, you don’t need to see adverts for it - you’re already here!

The only money I generate from this site is through my affiliation with EDIT including their exclusive distribution deal for my beloved “RooR Custom 5.0 northlondonhippy deluxe”. If you’re going to shop at EDIT anyway, and you click through my site, you’re handing me 10% of whatever you spend, so if you want to say thanks the best way anyone can (with cash!), please feel free to do it. I know quite a few of you do that, anyway and I don’t often mention this, but again, prepping up my taxes has made me take a good look at my finances.

I know I could take on more advertising, but I really don’t want to. I suppose for the right price, I would consider a single sponsor with very deep pockets, but there’s a higher likelihood of me sprouting a tail and I don’t expect to be wagging one any time soon!

So what else have I been up to this week besides my dreaded taxes? I had a sight test and ordered my very first pair of middle-aged man reading glasses. It was either that, or have my arms stretched. Ask your parents to explain that one to you.

I also went to my dentist and had the middle-aged crud scraped off my teeth. It was precisely as pleasant as it sounds.

I’m really lucky, I’ve got a good, local NHS dentist. He’s walking distance, his office is never busy and you can almost always get an appointment. I know there’s supposed to be a shortage of NHS dentists, but dig it I’ve got a groovy one and don’t email me asking for his name. I like the fact that its never busy there, so it will remain my secret.

Tomorrow I’m taking the Yaris in for its annual service (one year or 10,000 miles), which is technically a bit fucked, because I have only had the car for around six or seven months and I’ve only put less than 3,000 miles on it. Toyota say its due because it was new a year ago and they had it on the road as a company car, for all of 1,600 miles. It’s not expensive and I can live without the car for a day, so what the fuck.

Today, Sunday, I had a delivery from IKEA. I finally got around to getting a new mattress. Our bed is around 10 years old and it was time. Luckily, you can now shop online with IKEA, which is a very good thing.

The bed frame is still in perfect condition, so we saw no need to replace it, but our old mattresses were showing their age. The bed is a superking size, originally from IKEA, so the easiest solution was to get the replacements from them as well.

Their website was ok, nothing fancy and many of the items listed were not actually available to order online, but you could check the stock on the item at your nearest branch. Great, but that defeats the purpose of shopping online.

I hate going to IKEA, it’s always crowded, it’s always stressful and at the end of all that effort, you have to hand your purchases over to the independent delivery people, who if you’re lucky, lug it to you within a few days. Even with the meatballs from their restaurant, I’d rather not go if I don’t have to. Thankfully, the online gods of shopping were smiling upon me and everything I needed to order was available for delivery from the website and I checked out.

IKEA phoned a few days later to confirm my delivery, which was not the date I was given by the website at checkout, but a few days later. A Sunday. That’s quite impressive, especially for normal people with Mon-Fri jobs, but for me it matters far less because of my erratic lifestyle. The middle of last week would have been better for me.

The delivery was painless and the 2 guys who brought me the stuff were cool. Now, all I have to do is wait for the council to come collect the old mattresses and my work here is done!

Following on with my consumerism, I am being forced to buy something unexpected - a new sound system, sort of. My present stereo, a cheap Technics mini-system is having some serious problems and is prone to cutting out completely. A few gentle taps on the top and the sound returns, but this is not a sustainable solution. I’ve been forced to research AV amps and receivers.

Fuck me, its confusing. Consumer audio has become a minefield of complexity which has left my head slightly spinning. I’ve finally settled on a model from Pioneer, which I haven’t actually ordered yet, chiefly on its features, price and most importantly, availability. It’s a VSX-917V if that means anything at all to you, 7.1, HDMI switching, blah, blah, blah.

I haven’t even got the space for 5.1 sound, nevermind 7.1, but I am thinking I might opt for 3.1 - center, left, right and subwoofer. I’m not sure yet, I haven’t really gone as far as speakers. My simple plan is to use some old speakers initially, as I expect my old stereo to die any day and I’ll need to make a quick swap to the new one. If we ever move house, this system can grow a bit.

I’ve got three audio sources, which are all digital, SKY+, my Sony DVD recorder/player and my Mac mini. Oh wait, I have a fourth analogue signal, which feeds out of my Bravia’s Freeview receiver.

My biggest problem, as always, is space. My new amp, when it comes, won’t fit where my old mini system stereo is, which means I’m going to have to tear down my entire media centre and rebuild it from scratch, including all the cabling. What fun!

On the plus side, the new AV Amp will do all my audio switching for me. At the moment, audio switching is the one weak link in my system as it requires you to get off the sofa, go to the media centre and manually turn the dial. That means changing sources will all happen at the touch of a button, audio and video because I have a Logitech Harmony 885 remote.

Oh shit, I will have to reprogram the Harmony when I install the new amp. Damn, this stuff is all so complicated, luckily for me, I’m very techno-friendly!

The other thing I have been researching is espresso machines. We currently got a combo coffee maker, a big drip pot on one side and a steam espresso maker on the other. I’ve never, ever used the drip maker and the espresso side makes really lame coffee.

In doing my research I’ve discovered that steam powered espresso makers burn the coffee because the water is too hot when it is forced through the filter. What a true coffee lover wants, or rather needs, is a proper pump machine.

Pump espresso makers aren’t cheap, but it sounds like if you want to make proper espresso, its your only choice. And if you are going to use it every day, which I would, it would pay for itself in no time.

Think about it, a decent cappuccino costs around two quid or £2.50 from a coffee bar. Let’s say £2 which is on the low side I expect, for a tall one, every day for a year, would be £730 and the coffee makers I’m looking at cost a lot less than that. I haven’t factored in the actual coffee, milk or sugar costs, but they would not be that significant compared to the cost of the machine.

I’m very tempted by a Gaggia, they are well reviewed and extremely popular, but I haven’t decided yet.

This will sound silly, but normally I consult Which Magazine on purchases such as this. I’ve yet to go wrong by following their Best Buy advice and as a consummate consumer, I’d like to continue this guidance, but Which has not reviewed them in over 2 years! Times change, models change, their Best Buys from two years ago just aren’t valid any more!

What’s a coffee loving hippy to do? I might actually have to decide for myself without the benefit of advice from the experts who test all these machines side by side and report on the one that’s best value for money. I’m all about value for money, dammit! What if I buy one that comes up poorly in their next survey? Then what? Do I just throw it away and buy the one they tell me to or do I suffer for years with a substandard device?

These are the problems that currently plague me. It’s a tough old existence, fraught with hardship at every turn. Modern life presents many challenges, but confronting my coffee conundrum could just very well be the most significant difficulty ever faced by a cappuccino sipping-hippy. Well, that or deciding whether or not to switch off my father’s life-support machine, I’d say its a toss up.