I’ve now moved into the twenty-first century with my Internet habits, because yesterday I set up my home both for broadband and wifi. So I’m now happily blogging away from my laptop in my bedroom, no wires attached. Which is great fun, though the installation process wasn’t, since when I tried to network the computers in the house together, the Internet connection cut out, and I spent all afternoon getting it working again.

So what have I been doing with my new zippy-fast Internet connection?

• Watching film trailers

In particular, the one that looks absolutely Lord-of-the-Rings-scale fantastic is the trailer for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It’s so amazing, I think I’ll watch it again now…

…just done that, and doesn’t it look great? Lucy, stepping up slowly, wonderingly, to the wardrobe, and stepping though into the snowbound world beyond… pure magic. And that’s just the start – all sorts of creatures: fauns, dwarves, unicorns and so on, plus the Witch herself, and her nemesis, the Great Lion himself, Aslan. It looks like it has some of the same beautiful and epic scale of Lord of the Rings, but is brighter, more vivid, a bit larger than life. Forget Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – well, don’t, since it also looks pretty good, but on my Excitement-o-meter it clocks in far lower than the first of C S Lewis’s brilliant series.

• Listening to Adventures in Odyssey

Adventures in Odyssey is a Christian family radio drama, and it’s really fun. It’s set in the small town of Odyssey, and concerns a gentlemanly inventor, John Avery Whittaker, known as Whit. He runs an “ice-cream parlour and discovery emporium”, which is full of displays and inventions. The series shows the lives and adventures of those who come to his shop and who live in the town of Odyssey. One of his inventions is The Imagination Station, a kind of virtual-reality machine that allows people to experience the past through their imaginations, and so as well as “slice-of-life” episodes, the series does time-travel stories, as well as mystery, comedy, sketch show, thrillers, romance… it runs the whole gamut of genres and emotions.

It’s good enough for both adults and children to enjoy it, and has been running for years. I was a big fan of it when I was younger, contributing reviews to fansites like AIO-HQ, and although I don’t follow it with the same fanaticism, I still enjoy listening to the odd episode now and again. That’s all the easier now that I can play episodes on demand on my laptop over the Internet!

• Playing Chess against Becky on Messenger

Now I can be online on my laptop, while someone else is online on the desktop, so we can do stuff like this. A bit pointless since we’ve got a chess set, but fun to give it a go. On our first game, I beat Becky in only around 8 moves or so. She fell right into my trap without seeing it coming – bwhahahaha! (Becky claims she wasn’t concentrating because she was watching Coldplay and talking on Messenger – that’s her excuse!) I need to get in practice because I’m helping run the Chess tournament at Contagious.

• Downloading new applications and extensions like Firefox Cymraeg

Yes, that’s right – Firefox, the open source browser which is the program of choice for the discerning Internet surfer, is available in Welsh, as I saw at the Eisteddfod. I also downloaded the Firesomething extension which randomises the program name. At the moment, I’m using Mozilla Supersalmon!

Now, with all this new tech, Nuzzink in ze vorld can shtop me now… (from wasting loads of time online, that is!)

Tags: Broadband Entertainment Technology Movie trailers Narnia Harry Potter Adventures in Odyssey Adventures in Odyssey radio drama Firefox Welsh