Been there, got the t-shirt...
I've had the laptop drawer ripped off my Vaio during a particularly exciting and eventful viewing of Monsters Inc., 2p coins fed into the self-loading drive of the PS3 (pulled them out and wiped the innards with an e-cloth and it works perfectly, so that's a plus on the build-quality score of Sony products!), had numerous "substances" wiped on the TV, so I get where you're coming from, but we do use a MacBook pro for things like iPlayer when we're not in the lounge; it's just i'd like them to have offered larger storage in twit box compared to a normal sky+ one, as whilst it may even be twice the size, the programs take up 4 times the space in HD...
(Chad, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 19:45, 1 reply)

CRT tellys are much more child-resistant than flat-screens, too.
I've no need at the moment, but I'm giving serious thought to building at HTPC (any size storage I want, plus and broken bits can be replaced), but only if I can be sure it will pass the family acceptance test.

I'm sure life was much simpler when it was 4 channels and a VCR (toast in the VCR, I suppose).
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 21:45, closed)

I remember...
The nearest thin to science fiction was a mate's dad who had a Bang and Olufsen stereo that could PLAY MUSIC IN EVERY ROOM! It was like Star Trek to us as kids. In some ways, I miss those days. Like, back when only people who knew how to use a computer would own one. When I worked in tech support many moons ago, it was always a joy to talk to the out-of-warranty users on the expensive help line, as the call would be "hi, I tried x, y and z, it still doesn't work after I reinstalled the operating system - can I have the part number for a new motherboard so I can go order one?", as opposed to those post-"Internet revolution", who would phone up genuinely unable to plug the monitor in, despite there being only one VGA port, the cable only fitting one way up and both port and cable being painted purple.

When I were a lad, t'were all fields round 'ere...*sigh*
(Chad, Tue 4 Oct 2011, 18:50, closed)