Cash machines, aka ATMs, never the funnest of things are they? Useful, yes, when they're being friendly. Offensive, also, when they're not. And goddamned annoying whenever anyone except you yourself are using them. It should be nigh-on illegal for anyone to perform any transaction longer than a simply enter pin, select cash, no receipt, OK, take card, take money, go. Why they built such inane options in as print statement, or the ability to put your card in twice in a row without receiving a fatal electric shot, only Lord Banker knows.

Anyway, in recent times, they've become more "fun". They speak Cockney, some of them.

Now we live in a world where high-speed Internet access is almost as essential to modern rich-guy life as say water, net neutrality is a potential hot topic. Net neutrality refers to the historic practice of your ISP granting (kind of) equal access to the internet, no matter what you do with that access – subject to legality au naturelle. From Google's – who of course have a vested interest in this – guide:

Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet…the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content.

Wireless networking is clearly a basic requisite for any electrical device these days, now we all live in the future. The Nintendo Wii, for instance, would almost be worth the extra £180 even if it was exactly the same as a NES, but had wireless controllers and the ability to upload your shamefully bad racing times to the world. However, inevitably, the more devices that are on networks, the more security issues crop up; and the more devices that are on wireless networks, well, you don't even have to touch them to destroy them.

It's bad enough that people's computer networks are relatively easy to illegally access, even when certain common forms of encryption are used to prevent it. Generally, this isn't a matter of life or death. When it's hacking into someone's pacemaker though, obviously it is.

There are a lot of nasty bad evil scammers out there, more than happy to take money of desperate vulnerable people. This is of course A Bad Thing. However now and then one comes along with such a incredulous, and perhaps even genius, scam that you have to admire them for their sheer boldness if nothing else.

The Poorhouse's favourite scam along these lines in recent times was that that Stacey and Brent Finley pulled to great success - $US 989,898 no less.

If, like the Poorhouse, you are blessed with a nice slightly old-skool Daewoo DVD9000 S5 DVD player or similar you can easily enough get around the "region" restrictions on it. Yay. DVDs are coded to certain regions; perhaps the most relevant here being Region 1 = America, Region 2 = UK. A DVD player will only play the specific region's DVDs it is set to, presumably to stop UK importing cheap / early release US DVDs and the like. Boo.

However, if you have this specific DVD player you can remove this silliness as below.

Given that, oooh, eleven sixteenths of this pointless site is about nerdy geek-things, and the other eighteen twentieths consists of rambling rants about the evils of the Bush cabal, you will be unsurprised to hear that the Poorhouse quite liked the below video.

Combining the razzamatazz of Apple launching its nine-millionth nigh-on-identical iPod upgrade and the upper limits of American mispronunciation satire, check out the fabulous premiere of the iRack.

Yay for the Nintendo Wii. Now it has its own version of Mario Party there really isn't any reason not to own one...assuming you don't mind the way it plays it part in many vicious and violent injuries. And now even the health-hazard aspect of the gaming glory is at risk.

The far-flung lump of hard plastic known as a Wiimote now comes with a jacket, both to aid grip and lessen the physical imprint of inadvertent blows. Those of us vaguely-earlyish adopters need not suffer though - Nintendo's handing them out like candy.

It's Monday. We need entertainment. Let's start with Brad Paisley, with his country ditty simply entitled "Online". Note guest appearance by the Shat.

Then there's "Dontcha Wish Your Cell Phone Was Hot Like Me?", a version of the Pussy Cat Dolls' classic of course, only this time obsessing over the geekgasm that was the iPhone, rather than filthy hos.

Steve Fossett, adventurer and record-setter extraordinaire in the world of balloons, aeroplanes, boats etc. al sadly went missing early last week. Last seen taking off on what would be expected to be a nice easy little jaunt for him, he has at this point not returned.

As might be expected, a stack of search-planes et al. are out looking for him, but even if you don't have a pilots license, any money, or anything other than a connection to t'internet you can help the effort.

Unhealthily high levels of eating is a serious problem in today's world - and wherever there's a serious problem to be found there's always a solution someone's willing to sell you. Please prepare yourself for the introduction to society of what is claimed to be "America's FIRST Diet Fork" - the inspirationally named Diet Fork.

It might bear an uncanny resemblance to every plastic fork you've ever seen sold for 5p in ASDA over the past 20 years - but please leave your scepticism at the door; it is apparently "the most revolutionary breakthrough in dieting!"