Shangri-La

When I die, if I've been a good boy, this is where my soul is going to go.

http://flickr.com/photos/soyburger/sets/72157594228629049/show/

14726.

Sometimes when my boss is leaving my office, I point my pencil at his back and whisper to myself, "Wingardium leviosum."

Nothing yet, but I keep trying.

6459.
When someone rudely leaves their shopping cart in the middle of the aisle and walks away for a bit, I'll put other items in there. The more embarrassing the better, like Depends or Compound W.

6654.
It makes me mad when I can't find something - like my shoe or my wallet or my checkbook. So when I do eventually find the missing item, I hurt it. I'll grind into it with my boot. Or I'll slap it around a bit. Sometimes I'll even spit on it. Anything to cause it pain and humiliation.

But these items never seem to learn the lesson. They always go missing again.

cavecanum.com

25 greatest PCs

Very cool article here.

Although they left a very important one off: the Commodore 64. The C-64 was easily the most successful personal computer of the 80s and I still have a few lying around. We even have a 128D set up and ready for Mechtron stomping at the parents' house. (Is it tiiiiime?)

Lappy update

Saturday morning I picked up my laptop from the service center, after paying $370 (ouch!!) on a new internal CD drive. The seller agreed to send me a hundred bucks to help offset the cost of service, which I thought was sporting of him. So, round of applause for ebay seller Gabe. Anyway I didn't intend to spend this much on this little guy but at least now I have a fully functional little unit, and can now send my other computer in to have it serviced under warranty.

I have to say, after carting this little guy around for a while, that I'm really blown away by how small it is. It goes anywhere and weighs nothing. The screen is pretty small, of course, but I got an adapter for it that allows me to plug in my 20" screen on my desk at home, so it will serve just fine.

One more week of summer before class starts. Three classes this semester: Thesis Seminar, Strat Crisis Management and Strat Com Practicum (which I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing). Should make the rest of the year go faster, anyway.

Too attractive for her own good

Beirut under attack!

REUTERS - Our intrepid reporters and our finest photographers on the scene in Lebanon captured the most destructive attack yet unleashed by the Israeli army ..

New Lappy update

So last Thursday I get my new 12" Powerbook and I'm all excited, it came in its original box, with almost all the goodies (I had to buy a monitor adapter: $18, no biggie) and wow is this thing small. I was very very pleased .. until I got it home and tried to start installing software on it. It would not read any of my CDs! Kinda makes it hard to install software, n'est-ce pas? I tried booting it into firewire drive mode and installing from the 15" Powerbook, but that would not work. I then considered getting an external CD drive, but I decided that I didn't want another piece of hardware lying around for years .. I wanted a working SuperDrive. So, irritated at the extra expenditure, I took the laptop in to be serviced and angrily emailed the seller about the problem. He wrote back saying he was surprised by the hardware problems.

Oh, and the other problem is the audio-out jack. It's "flaky". The speakers on my desk don't like it at all, but the Logitech speakers on the file cabinet seemed to work just fine in it. When I brought it in to get the SuperDrive serviced, I asked them to check the audio-out jack. They called me Friday evening and told me that to fix that, I would have to replace the motherboard, and that's another $750+ there. No freakin way.

They also told me, to my continued frustration, that they had no problems with the SuperDrive. They even got it to burn a CD. I told them it would not work for me at all, and they said they'd look into it further. So who knows.

I haven't left feedback for the seller yet, but I guess it's possible he was not aware of these problems. That being the case I guess I should leave positive feedback for him, but maybe I'll leave neutral feedback because now I've had to pay a lot more than the original purchase price for the unit. Errgh.

That irascible Darth

Five Years

So I'm editing the bio of myself for my personal Web page tonight, and it suddenly struck me .. today is August first. On this day, five years ago, I got my business license for my second business venture, Choreomedia. Originally I conceived of the business being a design contractor for other Web developers, but in spite of an enormous amount of planning, spending and effort trying to make a business around that concept, it never gelled. But what did come to fruition was a pretty respectible little company that makes good Web sites for small business here in Columbia, and I think after five years I've developed a fairly decent reputation in this community, a few awards I'm proud of and a lot of really great relationships with people I've had the opportunity to get to know and do business with.

Happy birthday, little dolphin!