We had rather a nice surprise on Tuesday. We had Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off work, because we were going to see An Evening With Andy Rouse on Tuesday night, and since I had plenty of holiday left, figured we'd take a bit of time around it.

On Tuesday morning, just as we were wondering what to do with the day up until we went to see Andy, my mobile rang. It was my mum, just calling to check that she had the right mobile number for me, and delete the other numbers she still had lying around from phones long since gone. Oh, and while she was talking to me, would we do something for them while we were off? Would we mind picking out our Christmas present for this year? Any car we wanted, with a budget of up to £10,000.

Ford, GM and Mazda are working with Apple to integrate iPods better into their cars. It's a nice idea, but I'd be much more impressed if these people were working on some sort of standard, so any music player could integrate with any car, rather than using a car as a sales pitch for an iPod.

How about a USB cable in the glove box, and a car stereo that mounts any USB mass storage device, and plays MP3s it finds there? It wouldn't even need to be a music player then, just a card reader and card full of music, or even an external HD. That would be pretty neat.

Oooh, pictures of the Princess Kitty i,, a special edition of the i, concept car (it's really called "i," - a lower case letter i and a comma? Well, there's a stupid concept). It's pink and very Hello Kitty. Looks quite similar to a Smart, so the pinkness and Hello Kitty logos aren't all that unexpected, really, but I don't care. Go see the pics, and see if you care.

Yes, I know it's an old one, and I know it's Photoshopped, but Cute Overload reminded me, and it's too Cute and Unexpected to not post here :)

Actually, the Ferrari is a Photoshop job, but the exhaust thing underneath looks real, and looks very cool. Would it look very silly on a Corolla?

• Hello Kitty Ferarri

This one is pretty cool - nice and subtle. Making the whole car pink would have been too obvious. There's just a Hello Kitty on the bonnet, and a pillow inside. It's cute because it's Hello Kitty. It's unexpected, because this isn't a Fiat Panda - it's a serious rally car.

• Hello Kitty Subaru Impreza