Brand names can be funny things.

There are some supposedly 'cool' brandnames that would turn me off entirely. I’d never buy anything with Beats Audio or Skullcandy etc and my opinion of Apple is well known. On the other hand, I am a fan of GoPros. Brandnames carry weight, wether good or negative.

One brandname that’s quite popular at the moment is Fitbit. 

A Fitbit is basically just a pedometer, aka a step counter. It tells you how many steps you’ve taken on a given day. The Fitbit is a little smarter than the cheap ones, and can be accessed by an app on your phone, but it’s still a step counter when you get down to it.

I got one for my Birthday, and was getting a fair bit of use out of it. Having something record your steps is an incentive to keep walking - which is always a good thing. 

Anyway - much as I was enjoying mine, I wasn’t entirely sure that the Fitbit brand deserved all the hype and premium price point - until mine went through the wash.

It was my own fault - I was rushing one evening and forgot it was still in my pocket.

After it’s trip through the machine, it was very clean - but rather useless. 

I left it for a day in rice trying to dry it out - but it would only start up when connected to the charger and didn’t have any battery life at all.

So as it was my fault, I figured that was that. But the troubleshooting guide said that if the rice trick didn’t work, to contact Fitbit for advice, so I did.

To my great surprise, the Fitbit support team got back to me and said they’d replace it if I could get them the receipt.

Even though it was my own daft fault - they’d give me a new one!

As it was a gift from my folks, I asked if they still had the receipt. Unfortunately my Mum’s got a thing about keeping her inbox empty and had deleted it, but she did manage to track down the paper delivery docket (why you’d keep that and delete the email I’m not sure). Once again Fitbit surprised me by accepting the docket as evidence - and they sent me the new unit.

Now this means two things:

1: the actual device costs Fitbit very little compared to the retail price

2: Fitbit support rocks.

So I’m once again counting my steps - and I’ve decided the Fitbit is one brand I’m happy to support.

  

It’s only taken me about 6 months, but I’ve finally uploaded the video from Mangamuka Gorge in New Zealand.

I’ve spend the video up (2x) to make the video shorter – I really wasn’t pushing hard at all (which is good as I met a cop).

Check out the video here:

 

Well - apparently $7 jaffle toasters are worth about what you spend on them... not a lot.

I felt like jaffles the other night, and I don’t have a convenient fireplace to make proper ones - and Kmart had cheap toasters.

A week later and I was using it again - and it tripped the safety fuse. 

Don’t trust it anymore - but I guess I got my money’s worth.

 

"We have to go back"...

No - not the island from Lost. I’m talking about Isla Nublar, from Jurassic Park.

It’s been over 20 years since the original Jurassic Park movie came out. We got two sequels set on Isla Sorna (Site B) but we haven’t been back to the original island.

This week Jurassic World opened in cinemas - so I made the trek.

Ok - so I didn’t go to a tropical island. Instead I went to Melbourne.

Why? Well, Melbourne has an Imax - and I figured Jurassic World is a big enough movie to be worth the trip. 

So with Tom, Tim, and Jim accompanying me (mainly because it was a cheap trip to Melbourne for them), we headed over the strait. Hit some of the Lego sales, and caught up with Mike in time for the movie itself.

So the verdict? 

Well - I had a blast. 

I’m a huge Jurassic Park fan - so more adventures in that universe are always welcome. And because we were back on the first island - they could tie some stuff directly back to the first movie. Props and sets from the first movie cropped up - and made sense within the story. Even Mr DNA got his brief cameo.

Some of the characters were very stereotyped, and some of the plot was overly predictable. But I really enjoyed my time back on the island. 

It certainly doesn’t reach the heights of the first movie - but it might be the best of the sequels - I’ll have to watch it a few times to decide.

It’s apparently making a killing at the box office too - which may mean we get more JP movies.

Life will find a way....