Fair play to TFL - my article about privacy erosion contained a reference to the fact that Oyster cards could be used to track people's movements. However, the Transport For London press office have contacted me to tell me that all records are actually kept for just eight weeks.

James from the press office told me: "information is kept on an individual’s travel for 8 weeks and even then it is only used for customer service matters like refunded tickets and problems."

I asked if this eight week information block was audited and was told that it was.

You can also buy a pay as you go Oyster with no personal details that will, of course, keep privacy more intact.

Okay, so that's the current practice on Oyster cards; the information IS gathered but ISN'T available to anyone bar customer services, and (I'm assured) ISN'T sold to any third parties.

This, in actual fact, is not too bad a privacy policy - especially if it is correctly audited by an independent body. It would be great if the information was available to the public on the Oyster card section of TFL's website.

On a wider issue, I think Oysters tie directly into one of the longstanding problems of privacy versus convenience. I have an Oyster card and I get a monthly travel pass, because it is easy and more convenient for me.

The system isn't perfect, and won't be until there is universal coverage across all transport links within London, but it is effective and the prospect of a paper ticket is not an appealing one to me having got used to flashing a card at a reader.

So, essentially, I am giving up information about my travel patterns and movement for the past eight weeks of my life in exchange for convenience. It's a small trade off (I don't actually mind too much who knows where I go on public transport), but it's still a trade-off.

My concern is, that with every trade-off, we move closer to accepting that our privacy is no longer private. And not every body has a privacy policy that prevents data entering the public domain, or can offer guarantees that their current privacy policy won't change without notice in the future.

It's an interesting modern conundrum.
Pic credit: PA/PA Wire/PA Photos

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I managed to get one of of my articles done and dusted it relatively quickly today which is always cool because it gives me a little time to look around, find some decent blog links and generally sponge up some new information that might, or might not, be of any use going forward.

My article was on realistic graphics, which gave me an excuse to use some of the stunning screenshots from Far Cry 2.

Of course, the team that put together Far Cry left to do their own thing and produced Crysis - leaving Ubisoft to the Far Cry IP - but they certainly appear to have done a nice job in terms of making it look purdy.

I reference the 'Uncanny Valley' theory in my article - which is something that I read about several years ago and involves the way in which people find themselves disliking faces that are near real but wrong.

Of course, with gaming getting ever closer to photorealism, they are now increasingly running into this problem - with even the otherwise amazing Half Life 2 not truly getting beyond characters that 'feel' wrong.

There was also a little discussion about diamonds and cubic zirconia - in which I found out that the latter weighs MORE (which shocked me because I thought diamond was one of the most dense substances around, but apparently this is the case).

One of the money editors then sent me an article about the diamond trade which I found interesting, and that led me to wonder what the rarest gem was - which appears to be a matter for discussion.

Then I found out that titanium is a common metal but, because the process to extract it uses mercury, it is very expensive.

Isn't the internet a wonderful place for the curious?

Last week, the people at Ubisoft unveiled their minimum specs for the PC version of Xbox 360 smash Assassin’s Creed – and they have to be seen to be believed. I took these from C&VG’s site…

· Supported OS: Windows XP / Vista (only)

· Processor: Dual core processor 2.6 GHz Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or better recommended)

· RAM: 2 GB (3 GB recommended)

· Video Card: 256 MB DirectX 10.0-compliant video card or DirectX 9.0-compliant card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher (512 MB video card recommended) (see supported list)*

· Sound Card: DirectX 9.0 or 10.0 compliant sound card (5.1 sound card recommended)

· DirectX Version: DirectX 10.0 libraries (included on disc)

· DVD-ROM: DVD-ROM dual-layer drive

· Hard Drive Space: 12 GB

· Peripherals Supported: Keyboard, mouse, optional controller (Xbox 360 Controller for Windows recommended)

Just for interest’s sake I programmed the recommended specs into Dell to see how much you could get a computer for that would comfortably cope with a game that runs fine on an Xbox – and you are looking at around £800.

Now, it’s not rocket science that consoles are significantly cheaper than PCs – the manufacturers often sell them at a loss and recoup the money on the branding of games etc, but this is a game that runs on a Core Xbox 360 which you can buy for £179. That’s one hell of a difference…

Now I’m sure there are some reasons for this disparity – perhaps the graphical capability of the cutting edge cards will make an already gorgeous game truly splendid, for example, or perhaps the developers have struggled to port things from the specialist shaders of the Xbox to the PC world. 

But, I do fear that this is increasingly forcing PC gamers to wonder if it’s possible to keep up with games whose demands are growing at a huge rate. It’s always been an expensive business keeping a PC even within the minimum requirements of the latest games – but I have to confess that my current rig won’t cope with AC.

I fell in love with PC gaming right back when I saw Rebel Assault on my dad’s new 386 and the last time I updated it was to get Bioshock running (just). But I’ve now hit the stage where I look at my Xbox – then cast my glance back to my PC and know that the moment they bring in a decent mouse and keyboard for a console, the latter may be left to spreadsheets and the next great English novel.

Or at least until Half Life 3 comes out.

I've often stated my opinion that the PC is the king for gaming - but as I hit my 30s, justifying the cost of the latest graphics cards or the new mobo or RAM that I need is becoming increasingly more difficult. It's something that honestly saddens me.

I think I can name the games that have forced updates in the past:
Doom
Rebel Assault
Dark Forces
Half Life
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Counter Strike (many times)
Half Life 2
Bioshock

Will AC get on that list? Probably not...

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A slightly brief version of the Friday links. If I said the words 'busier than a particularly industrious bee that has found itself with a particularly large honeycomb building project with the entire hive at stake' then it would be close to reality.

So here are some of the controversial articles I've done this week...

Change the bleedin' record

Why ID Cards are dangerous 

Space Ship Two unveiled

A gaming wishlist

Web links you should look at

Gizmondo makes a return! 

Guardian's always excellent game blog asks 'is this the most ridiculous videogame debate of all time?'. Answer: probably.

C&VG snaffled up one of my interviews as news

Charlie Brooker loves complex gadgets

It's an old one refreshed but 'when internet comments go wrong'

Colbert's Tom Cruise impression is worth a look

Penny Arcade's take on Apple TV

Try typing 'find chuck norris' into google and hitting 'I feel lucky'

Picture: Why this bloke has quit Facebook

Toodles!

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I’m delighted that the ridiculous plan to bring in ID cards has reportedly been delayed; I think the whole scheme is one of the most insidious and potentially damaging things that could happen to British society.

It’s been a week for controversy as far as my writing, but when it comes to Identity Cards, I’m more than happy to put my opinions out there for all to see. I hate them; I think they are dangerous, I think they will leech away our civil liberties and, not least, they will not solve any of the problems they purportedly are being brought in for.

Yesterday I wrote up my objections to ID cards for an article, and although the tragic death of Heath Ledger has pushed it off the main page of MSN for the time being, I believe it will be given a slot later.

It’s actually an area that pushed the boundaries of what constitutes Tech & Gadgets, I’m willing to concede. Over the past 10 days I’ve written about subjects as diverse as vinyl v digital (which will also be published today), Apple’s MacBook Air, the decline of British gaming and now the steady erosion of our privacy.

I won’t go too far into my arguments against ID cards in the blog, because they are all spelled out in the article itself, but during my research, I was reminded of one of the early reasons given for bringing them in.

It’s still available on an old BBC article I found (ahh the joys of the internet), and it says this:

“Enhance sense of community: The government believes that identity cards would create a sense of shared citizenship, belonging and security.”

Now if that isn’t a case of Orwellian double-speak then I don’t know what is.

How on earth will carrying a card help our sense of community? Will you walk around saying ‘I’m a card-carrying Briton’? It’s absolute nonsense; and using it as a ‘pro’ argument is pathetic.

I tend to hark back to 1984 a lot – not least because I think it’s one of the all time classic books – but the parallels that can be draw with today’s Britain is increasingly apparent (Air Strip One?).

The societal problems that are increasingly prevalent are attracting the kind of political responses that smack of an almost arms race mentality. Extreme reactions to situations seem, to me at least, only to fuel the circumstances, and push us ever closer to meltdown.

I’m not attacking any political party – it just happens to be that the Labour government is championing ID cards at this particular time. But I do think that we need to get a grip and not start chucking Draconian measures at society in the desperate hope that it will solve all ills.

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Or perhaps that should be lack of apostrophe abuse.

Would you buy a magazine that didn't sub the front cover?

I'm assuming, as I grabbed this shot from the telly (Sky+ and a mobile phone - apologies for the quality), that this isn't the ACTUAL front cover, but just a mocked up version for the TV.

Because that would explain why the ticker at the bottom repeats the mistake...

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In the current weather, it seems appropriate to mention that there are storm clouds gathering for me this week. Why? Because I am writing an article about vinyl - and the reasons I think it should be allowed to die gracefully.

Ouch.

I quite often wonder if I will get a hostile response to what I have written; let's be honest, much of the time if you are writing a strong opinion piece you'd be more worried if you didn't. But you don't often write an article in the absolute certainty that it will be something that is used to smack you around the face.

To say I'm expecting vitriol would be an understatement...

But, aside from finding out that audio quality on records is reduced the nearer to the inner groove that you get (less space / less detail apparently) one nugget of information on a vinyl site really justified my entire point.

It involved the best way to keep your records from degrading and it said this "The best way to keep your records in peak condition is to digitally record them and listen to that; by not playing your record you will ensure that you do not damage the playback."

That's utter madness isn't it?

I use the line "There are only two things that are keeping vinyl alive, sentimentality and misconception" and I do actually think that's the crux of the matter.

I have to confess that, in writing the article, I did look at the things that I am sentimental about; books. Now I like paperback books and have way too many (as I realise every time I move house). If someone told me I was a dinosaur and I should update all my books into e-books to save on space I know that I would have a few choice words for them.

So what's the justification for me hitting out at vinyl then? Well, I don't really have a go at collectors and the sentimentality of vinyl in my piece - as far as I'm concerned I can understand that side of things.

I came up with the idea not because I think collecting records is ridiculous, but because I had a lengthy argument with somebody who said that vinyl was 'by far the best method of recording and playing back music and always would be'.

I simply think this is wrong. I accept that some people prefer the sound of vinyl, but I don't think that's because it's better I think it's because it's what they grew up with, or, even more depressingly, what they have been told is cool.

I ask the question: "if you ask someone who had never heard recorded music to listen to a vinyl version of a tune and a digital version, what would he prefer?" and I genuinely think it would be the latter. The earliest CDs may well have been sonically inferior to vinyl - but that was then and digital recordings have come a long way since the 1980s.

So, I'll take any vinyl vitriol on the chin. I think the argument is a fair one - and that's the most important thing.

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Links galore this week as we plow through the things you SHOULD have read, watched or poked with a small wooden stirring stick.

My week unrolled thus:

 
Finding a happy medium

Apple announce MacBook Air

Why are we seeking a second life?

Where's 2008's WOW factor?

The decline of the British gaming industry

The best of the web

It's been a strong week for strong links, so I will get right to it and pick out my favourite vids, stories and other stuff

He's not going to be president for too much longer (phew) but we should take advantage of the one good things that Bush brought us - his ridiculous statements.

The Guardian had a great interview online about Metacritic and the downside of collated average scores for computer games

College Humour asked 'what if medical urban myths were true?'

Yahtzee hits Crysis

One of the things that has been making us giggle A LOT in the office is Family Guy 'Blue Harvest' - the Star Wars spoof that is being released on DVD.

The BBC's Tech blog had a nice look at how Steve Jobs' speech translated into real stories at MacWorld. I've made my thoughts clear

Flash game this week is 'Cowboy School'

Leisure Suit Larry is making a return, and PC Gamer gives us plenty of reasons to get excited about 2008

Last, but not least - Henry sent in this LEGO Terminator.

And I'll sign off with a good cause. Richard House Children's Hospice are looking for people to join a London to Paris sponsored cycle. They are an awesome cause and if anyone has the muscles to do some good for kids who really need it then click the pic below for more details.

 
Charity Registration No. 1059029

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You probably get them all the time: "e-mail this to 40 other people and you will get your wish come true" or "If you don't send this on to all of your friends you will die horribly in a freak incident involving an eagle and a small goat."

But I got one today, rather randomly, that was actually not too bad an idea. Called Blood Clots/Stroke it outlined the dangers of a stroke and what signs you should look for to know if someone has suffered from one and how to make sure.

It's a 30 second read, that could actually save someone's life; a little nugget of information that might well stick in my mind and make a big difference.

Apparently:

> RECOGNIZING A STROKE
> Thank God for the sense to remember the '3' steps, STR . Read and
> Learn!
>
> Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify.
> Unfortunately,
>
> the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer
> severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of
> a stroke .
>
>
> Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three
> simple questions:
> S * Ask the individual to SMILE.
> T * Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
> (i.e. It is sunny out today)
> R * Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.
>
> If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call 999/911
> immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.
>
> New Sign of a Stroke -------- Stick out Your Tongue
>
> NOTE: Another 'sign' of a stroke is this: Ask the person to 'stick'
> out
> his tongue.. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the
> other
>
> , that is also an indication of a stroke.
>
> A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10
> people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

Now, I'm not convinced that this is the best method for propagating the information, but it is at least an attempt and it's a rare case of turning something that is largely negative (chainmails) into something that is positive (critical medical information).

Has anyone else had a chainmail that actually did something positive?

Hmm, the blog’s been drier than a particularly desiccated bone this week, so I’m hoping to liven it up with a little bit of comment on the new Macbook.

Let’s make the obvious comment first, this is an Apple product: by that I mean it’s, basically, sex in gadget form.

Sleek, shiny, well designed; if you took this into your local pub you’d certainly attract envious and admiring glances, as well as risk a mugging.

But, and I know I’m not alone in this, I can’t help but feel this was the latest chapter in what has proved to be the most underwhelming start to a year since whelm first crawled out of the protoplasm and decided to be bottom of the enthusiasm tree.

First we had Bill Gates’ sign off in Las Vegas which, despite providing a welter of amusing anecdotes, videos and cameos, didn’t actually provide much in the way of future glimpses, then this was followed up by a CES that seemed to be all about evolution rather than revolution.

And then, finally, the most consistently brilliant man at bringing the WOW factor to the Tech world – Jobs – provided us with…

A thin laptop.

Now don’t get me wrong, if Mr Apple walked up to me and presented me with a MacBook Air, I wouldn’t throw it back in his face (not that it would do as much damage as a heavier laptop might).

It just wasn’t a MacBook Nano.

Last year brought us the iPhone, in comparison this year was a load of hot Air.

I like that line SO much that I’m probably going to write a whole article around the disappointments of January, just so that I can use it.

So far 2007 > 2008. Buck up 08!

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Thank Crunchie it's Friday! Which of course means our retrospective of the week and the bit that you REALLY like best of all - the links from around the internet that you simply HAVE to look at.

So - without further ado; here's the week on T&G.

 
Special report: CES 2008

 
20 ways the future let us down

 
Yesterday's news, today's mistake?

Whatever happened to space tourism?

The best links on the net ever (for this week at least)

It's someone reading out a Dear John - only this is a Dear John from a very stupid person. It shouldn't be funny - but somehow it works...

Henry Biggs - from MSN Cars - sent me this video of the ultimate in rim bling.

In the process of investigating space tourism I found Virgin Galactic's flyer (PDF)

Bradfields sent me this awesome Squirrel Soccer advert

There was a rumour that at the bottom of Beachy Head cliff is a sign saying "couldn't even do that right? Call the Samaritans" which is apparently an urban myth - but this picture shows about the same level of sensitivity.

Gamer doubles - I reckon I could do a more UK centric version

Redone movie trailer - American Psycho as a romantic comedy

Two brilliant flash games for you this week - the first recommended by our soon-to-be Picture ed Antony - it's like multiplayer gaming with yourself. Awesome

And Bubble Trouble - which may remind you of an old classic :)

A YouTube video of a classic Futurama moment - when Fry hits 100 cups of coffee in a day.

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Video: MSN: Mario and Sonic at the Olympics comes to DS

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Funnily enough I've been looking at honeymoon destinations since Christmas and, whilst researching an article on space tourism I think that I may just have found one.

Space Adventures are the company that brokered the trips of all the current space tourists, is offering a moon trip for only £100m.

Of course a more "realistic" option would be the Virgin Galactic flight that is scheduled to launch in 2009 or maybe 2010. You can buy yourself onto that trip for just $200,000. Of course that would mean that you only get to see the Earth from space* and experience weightlessness for a little while before coming back - which I think probably classifies this as a day trip rather than a holiday.

Having made my recommendation, I am now passing the whole matter over to my father-in-law-to-be who I assume will be footing the bill. Thanks Martin.

There are about a million interesting offshoots to writing this story, but one of the ones that made me pause for thought is that all of those widely considered to be space tourists seem particularly annoyed at the tag.

I can understand that being called an astronaut would be cool, and frankly as a child I thought the word cosmonaut may just possibly have been the greatest...job title...ever, but is there really anything bad about being a space tourist?

Okay, so you could have spent the reported $20 million towards ending poverty or bringing worldwide peace, but it's still awesome to have been to space. You don't have to pretend you were there just doing a honest day's toil.

Anyway, the article is linked form the picture and will be appearing on the site tomorrow if you're interested.

*It's 'sub orbital' but crosses the co-called Karman Line which is 62 miles straight up and is the arbitrary** line between Earth's atmosphere and space.
**Because the atmosphere never ends, just gets thinner***
***And you say you don't learn anything on the T&G Blog!

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Every day at MSN we have a news rota - going through a daily paper and picking out the key stories so that the rest of the office can keep abreast of just what's going on. I spent much of 2007 on The Guardian (which suited me fine) but the 2008 draw (out of a hat) saw me go onto The Independent (it could have been SO much worse)

But when I arrived in the office this morning I was a little shocked to find that the edition of The Independent that I had was talking as if Barack Obama had won the New Hampshire primary. In fact, the words "Iowa…Hampshire…America? Barack Obama’s incredible journey" were the major text on the front page and page 3 talked about the ways in which Obama had brushed Hillary Clinton aside.

Now 'flyers' are nothing new in the industry - and the history of papers - which are normally put to press in the early hours of the morning - is littered with some, well to put it kindly, errors due to the editors deciding to go with the percentages.

This one, however, was certainly something that underlined not just the problems with any news that has a cut-off point, but also that the way in which we consume the news has changed (probably for the better)

I wrote up my thoughts as 'yesterday's news, today's mistake' which has received a little coverage on the MSN homepage.

And included a couple of photos from The Independent. I'll put them side by side so you can see the differences - click to enlarge:

Spot the difference? Subtle but VERY different in tone.

Actually writing this was a little bit of a counterpoint to a piece I put up a while ago called 'How technology ruined the news'

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Interestingly Apple have released the specs of their latest Mac Pro - with 4TB of internal storage and a Quad-core Xeon processor, but what makes this even more exciting for Apple fans is that it now WON'T be the big announcement for Steve Jobs.

Jobs likes to make major announcements at the MacWorld expo and his keynote next week has already picked up the usual speculation as to what the company that brought the world the iPhone and the iPod could be.

Stuff magazine provided some mock ups of what they called the 'Mac Nano' a small form factor PC/Laptop with a touchscreen - and this does make a lot of sense.

The iPhone is, essentially, not a million miles away from another stand out hit of last year Asus' Eee - a mini-laptop, and it is fairly certain that Apple will have watched the steady move to smaller, more portable yet usable computers with interest.

The Jobs keyword speech is due at 1am on Jan 15th - it could well be a very interesting talk.

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Apparently yesterday's post was a "load of ." and I'm assuming the full stop wasn't meant nicely so I'll endeavour to make sure I don't screw up today :)

CES is rattling on like a particularly enraged rattle snake, and there have been plenty of announcements (though nothing mindblowing yet).

One of them was the Laser Telly from Mitsubishi. Now nobody has said much about how this works, but the general consensus is that it's all rather spiffy. From the looks of things it's a lot wider than normal LCD and Plasma.

Of course if you are looking for something even slimmer than the traditional flatscreens then the progression of OLED will be of interest to you.

Staying on televisions - the 150" Panasonic behemoth is winning plenty of attention, so I have put together an ever-popular gallery of other super size televisions.

Some of the other big moments of the day were Intel's vision of the future and Sony's future gadgets.

On the Sony Ericsson phone front:
Sony Ericsson expands Walkman range

"Extending the Sony Ericsson Walkman range of phones, the W760 sees the introduction of an accelerometer for tilt-controlled gaming. This 3G-enabled, sliding keyboard phone has a GPS, a 2.2-inch wide screen and is pre-loaded with several games, including Need for Speed: Prostreet .

The new W750 is a dual-screen, 10mm-thick, flip phone that can be used as a standalone music player. Meanwhile, bling lovers may be tempted by the Z555 with its diamond reflective casing, and gesture control, which enables you to wave your phone around to reject calls. Yes, really."

I do kind of love the idea of lazily gesturing my phone when I don't want to bother answering it, although in actual fact I just guarantee that when I end up doing my slapstick 'get the phone out of my jeans pocket when I'm sat down dance' I'll just end up accidentally hanging up.

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Tomorrow's lead article will be an article about all those predictions that we heard as kids that have failed to come off.

Things like jet packs, meals in pill form, flying cars and a few slightly stranger ones make up my list of 20, but I have to confess that coming up with a title for the article has been tough going.

I originally billed the article as "20 ways the future sucks" which sounds good but I was marginally worried that a) it's the present that sucks for not having these things and b) sucks is a bit colloquial.

So I went for a phrase I had used in the original blurb 'tomorrow's world, today's disappointment.'

But then I thought that was rubbish so I changed it to '20 cool things that never happened'.

But THEN I decided that this didn't really fit so I resorted to '20 ways the future has let us down'

Anyway, it's going to be a main slide on the homepage from midnight, so hopefully all the effort won't have been wasted.

Here's the title pane I didn't use for posterity's sake:

Love bringing out that awesome jet pack slide again...

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I'd imagine you are pretty bored with me telling you that it's been a good week to be T&G editor, but I have to confess that this week is DEFINITELY a good week to be a T&G editor. Why? Because the most exciting show on earth (for gadget geeks) has started in Las Vegas.

I'd love to tell you that I am live blogging this from Sin City itself, but that would be a complete lie. However, I will be keeping you abreast with all the big events this week and, of course, we have a team of Tech.co.uk journalists out there on our behalf.

Already we've seen Bill Gates' last ever keynote before he retires this year to concentrate full time on being the biggest benefactor in the galaxy (and good on him, I say). 100 million Vista licences are on the market, apparently, the Zune's renaissance has given everyone a boost and, no shock here, no announcement on a new style Xbox.

Read about Gates' keynote address to CES

Some of the earlier announcements are also arriving,with Hydropak water fuel cells looking interesting from an environmental point of view, and Netgear pushing for super-speed internet for all.

It's going to be a fascinating time. And we'll be here with the latest and greatest news throughout the whole event.

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Hey up chucks! It's Friday (again) and even though most of you (me included) have barely got through your e-mail backlog in 2008 we have a whole weekend to get a fleeting glimpse at how nice all that time off over Christmas was.

We can look back over the T&G week if you want:

 
2008's most wanted games

...and (in the words of Austin Powers) I'm spent.

But fortunately - the internet is an endless supplier of great stuff so here's the coolest links I could track down today.

Let's open with an amazing picture of nano wires exploding. How cool is that?

Secondly, it's not been the best of times for Xbox live arcade - but they are trying to make amends for a patchy festive service with a free game and an apology

Staying with the Xbox for the moment and, as you probably spotted, there are rumours floating round about a new Xbox. I can honestly say I know nothing about it - not that that means much.

Elsewhere, gamerhelp have released their Gamers' New year resolutions

Or you can have the five most annoying programs on your PC from downloadsquad. Surely Quicktime should be in there??

Yahtzee always makes me laugh - here he reviews Super Mario Galaxy

There's a film named Scotch Mist on YouTube featuring Radiohead and their latest album. I'm not sure about copyrighting so I'm not condoning anything* but here's my fave song Reckoner from the album in live form from the film.

Snopes says casinos don't pump in oxygen and the awesome Bash.org (a site that mIRC users will probably already know and love) have a quote from someone unhappy with a search engine

Finally - the flash game I got soundly walloped at by the Mrs and In-laws this Christmas was Bongo Balls.

*ANYthing. Got it?

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