Microsoft buy Skype?

So, apparently the giant that is Microsoft have bought Skype form eBay (I think - let me know if I got it wrong) for $8.5bn. Thats quite a few Mars Bars worth of cash.

Now, tell me if I'm wrong again, but how exactly does MS justify this? I mean, its not as if we all pay Skype for use of their services, is it? To be honest, I reckon its more of a jab towards Apple, as MS try to out-do them on the face-time line of things (which, incidently, I don't have).

This battle between MS and Apple is, to put not too fine a point on it, not going very well for Microsoft - what they need to do is come up with something original, escape the confines of the MS OS.

Make an iPhone.
Actually - that's already been done, hasn't it?

Hey, don't buy anything in our shop!

As promised in a post ages ago, which I forgot (Ahem.), here is my account of my last visit to the great capital. London.

I must admit that the arcitectural beauty of the city is a wonder to behold. There, I hope I didn't sound too much like michael palin. Good. Then I'll continue.

The aim of the game was simple - to visit the silver vaults, their sparkling, shiny little works of art; the sheer value of the contents; the brilliant salesmanship of the shop owners.

Can you guess the opening, greeting sentence of the doorman, eager to earn some of my money [which nobody was going to anyway - I just wanted a nosy]

"Sorry mate, we've just closed"

Hey, I love the way the silver vaults' decided to ignore the basic rule of making making money - selling things.

The exitement of visiting, the drama as I found a map, the suspense as I crossed the bridge; all quelched as soon as I actually found the building. You'd think they'd signpost it, wouldn't you? Yeah, ok, so I took 5 wrong turns. Big deal.

Notice how I neglect to mention that the opening hours were clearly stated on the map I printed out.

Tate modern

A while back, I went to Tate modern.

Unsuprisingly, I hadn't planned on visiting it, it just sort of happened. Well, not quite. But I'll explain this in my next post. If I remember.

When I turned up on the doorstep, there was a little exhibition to the side. So I went in.

It was quite good actually, it was based on star wars - but that's not the point. I thought it was quite good, and I planned on doing something about it as part of my art project at school [yep. I'm afraid I haven't escaped the clutches of our education system yet. Not for quite a while]. Of course, I never got round to it.

So I went inside, expecting something the same kind of quality. How wrong could I be?

To be fair, there were at least 4 pieces out of the seemingly millions that were quite good. Maybe.

My favorite just had to be the picture I found upstairs. I forget it's name now, but it's description was brilliant. In place of the norml 'oil on canvas', or the slightly more unusual 'acrylic on wood' was a caption saying 'mirror on canvas' - I quote exactly.

Yup, that's right folks, I was looking at a mirror. Stuck on a bit of cloth. I wouldn't mind, but they hadn't even painted the edges of it.

However, this was just one of many beautiful pieces of modern 'art', closely followed by a canvas with a tear in the middle, and the black canvas with a brush hair and dust.

Annotated.

The only thing that annoys me is that the superb artist on the river bank, painting the bridge, doesn't earn a penny for most his stuff.

And his is better.

Why is apple perfect?

Ok, so I'm wrong again.

A while back, apples ipad was released, and I must admit that I was with the critics saying that it was simply an oversized iPod touch. I was right.

Until I tried it.

Well, I still am to some extent. It is simply a larger iPod touch. The feeling is of a new kind of machine - one only recently know to man.

Basically, it's pretty good.

I need two.