That's a minor overstatement, but I'm sticking with it.

We all know Amazon had trouble shipping things this year, mainly due to the weather. They're big and important, but they don't control clouds, so I'll forgive them that.

I ordered my mum a lovely Kindle, a present she was sure to appreciate. It arrived late (3.30pm on Christmas Eve), despite me paying for next-day delivery. Because it arrived so late, I didn't have time to wrap it, so I planned to do that at my parents house shortly before the big hand over.

So, I opened the City Link delivery bag and this is what I found. Unbelievable:

The box was covered in mud. It was dripping wet, and it didn't smell good. Luckily, it hadn't damaged the Kindle.

Obviously, I didn't give it to my mum in the box. That would have suggested some kind of festive dirty protest.

It seems that some conscientious person dropped the box in a puddle, river or toilet and left it there for a while until it soaked up some extra Christmas cheer. They then decided that "it'll be alright" and popped it in the delivery bag.

Anyway, Amazon, I want a refund on my delivery charge, a grovelling apology, and some kind of voucher.

Thanks in advance and lots of festive love,
Phil Jeffs (Order #: 203-2023868-2649162)

You might have missed it, but hopefully not. Between December 15th and 19th this year Google gave money to charity whenever participating users opened a new tab in Chrome. They found a way for people to donate by doing what they do every day – opening browser windows. Very clever.

All you needed to do was install the Chrome for a Cause extension and it started counting. At the end of each day, you decided which charity to donate your total to. The more tabs you opened, the more you could donate. The nice thing was, you could choose a direct action, not just a charity name. It's nice to know exactly where your donation will be spent:

The cynic in me would call it a "we're not evil, we're still nice" marketing ploy, but who cares. It raised $1,000,000 in 5 days.

Here are the participating charities, and here's a bit more info about the campaign. I expect it'll come back soon, so install the extension and it'll notify you when you can participate again.

I don't usually use my blog to post links to stuff, but this just blew my mind. It blew it right off.

I'm not sure how to describe it other than it's a music video for a Japanese band made from browser popups, Facebook Graph, Twitter and webcam data. Connect your accounts and watch it through to the end.

I'm not sure if it works in rubbish browsers, so use Chrome just in case.

http://sour-mirror.jp/