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    The Great Gordino Newsletter - Issue 261 - Mon 29th Nov 2004
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    Hi There,

    Monday again, and I hope you are well.

    Last week I talked about the new version of Band Aid, and I
    wondered what was happening with my copiously running nose.
    I talked about overcoming fear despite thinking that we can't,
    and I talked about doing what you love and appreciating what
    you have.
    If you missed any of it, just go and read them via the
    main archive link above.

    I'm a little upset today.

    On Friday I talked about Brett Favre making his 200th
    consecutive start in American Football, which takes place tonight.
    Last night I happily set my video as usual, to record the Sunday
    night game live, which happens between 1 and 5am UK time.

    Unfortunately I had set up the video wrongly, so imagine me
    this morning, settling down with a nice cup of tea, hitting the
    play button....only to find I had recorded 4 hours of news reviews.

    Oh bugger!

    I had to laugh, firstly because I haven't done that for a while,
    and secondly because it weirldy ties in with what I was going to
    talk about today, the video recorder.

    Dixons, the major electrical high street chain in the UK, has
    announced that it will no longer be stocking video machines!

    They have decided that after 26 years, the falling price of DVD
    recorders has established the new medium enough to move on
    from the video.

    I remember all those years ago, my parents had a swanky Beta
    video machine, only to see it made obsolete by the fancy new
    VHS videos.

    That was the first indication that the advances in technology were
    speeding up, and it was a new era of keeping up with the new
    machines.

    I remember when the CD was new.
    I was working at EMI records at the time, and I was a vinyl
    junkie, with a large vinyl collection, and I wasn't impressed with
    the CD.

    The industry made a sneaky move.
    They released a lot of records with a very limited run of vinyl,
    and then said 'See - look at the sales figures, CDs are outselling
    vinyl!'
    Of course they were, but that was because the vinyl was hardly
    available!

    Hmm.
    The industry was forcing the consumer without a doubt.

    Eventually the CD was accepted, and with the cheapening PCs, it
    became the norm.

    Mini-discs came along, and for a while they offered extra
    flexibility, but again, the cheapening of technology kept the CD
    strong, and the mini-disc never really took off.

    With the rise of the internet, and the file sharing programs like
    Napster, the music industry started to cry 'foul', but this was
    mainly because they had to follow the customer rather than
    being able to force the customer.

    When mp3 players came along, I wasn't impressed again, but
    as this Christmas approaches, the hot product is the Apple iPod,
    which can hold up to 10,000 songs!
    Wow!

    Now that *is* impressive, and I would love to have all my
    records on one little unit - imagine using the shuffle feature - I
    could just press and set back!
    Mind you, at the moment it costs around £300, so I'll be waiting
    at least until the New Year sales before I get one!

    When any new technology appears, you get all the poseurs who
    *have* to have one to show how much better they are than their
    friends.
    Personally, I can't be doing with that, I wait until the price comes
    down!

    I'll probably have to wait a while, as the relevant industry will
    take as much advantage as possible of the 'must have' factor.
    It's understandable that this should happen - the mobile phone
    industry in this country is absolutely hectic at the moment, with
    the latest video phone coming out every week!

    So there we are -how can I relate my waffle to my favourite
    areas of goal achievement, self-improvement and wealth
    creation?
    Well, it's always a good idea to be aware of the new ideas, but
    give them some time to settle before you dive in, let others do
    the trial runs!

    Have a good week!

    'Til Wednesday,
    Health and Happiness,
    Gordon
    email me at gordon@gordonbryan.com - you'll have to copy and paste
    thanks to the idiot online spammers!



    
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