Today I got my Phidgets from Active Robots. It's a set of sensors and output devices connected to an interface board which plugs into the USB of your computer.
Basically it's my first baby step towards building my own light switches, art installations, cars, robots, space rockets etc. This evening I built this very simple Twitter to LCD thingy, and it's actually surprisingly easy to get going. And dead fun. ;)
I hate the expression but: watch this space.