Posts from — January 2003

The temperature reading on my Jeep read -2 yesterday. It was the first time it went into a negative number. The wind chill made it an even more ridiculous temperature. This morning I was all happy the temperature was 18 degrees. I was like we were having a heat wave.

Got some time to waste? Go to Digital Experiences and have some fun.

This guy has a weblog about gizmos. I love it. I like to think of myself as a gizmo-lover but I can’t keep up with all the new stuff coming out. At Gizmodo you can “get the latest on gadgets along with links to reviews and news clippings.”

The Slammer worm hits the web worldwide. Web traffic was at a crawl Saturday morning and totally down in many places across the globe, and here is the reason why.

Beware, the Teddy Bear hoax is back. There is much email around with renewed warnings about the “Teddy Bear” virus and steps to be taken to purge it from your system. Only problem is this appears to be a repeat performance by a virus hoax that began to make the rounds last year. Take care because if you get the warning and act on it, techies say you’ll delete java programs you really want to keep, and maybe that’s the root of the scam.

“Why postpone joy? Get started on the next 100 addictive, pulse-pounding levels of this puzzling universe known as BLiX.”

The top 10 spam emails from 2002.

Kevin Mitnick he infamous hacker celebrated his first day of Internet freedom on Tuesday. He appeared on The Screen Savers with Patrick and Leo. What site did he choose to visit after his 3 year banishment from the Internet? It was Google.

Under the terms of Kevin’s probation, he was not allowed to have contact with any computer, cell phone, pager or PDA. Think about all the changes the Internet and computing has gone through while Kevin was “away.” And all the cool stuff he missed that we now take for granted.

This comic is pretty funny in showing us what he may be experiencing.

Can anyone tell me what that brain teaser about the 3 words that end in “gry” is all about? The first two words are “hungry” and “angry” and you are supposed to figure out what the third word could be. The answer is “language” but I don’t get it. Check it out for yourself and let me know. I’m missing something here. Wait, this site finally explained it to me.

Explore Mars Now is a fantastic website. They “present plausible concepts for near future Mars missions.” You can explore Mars Base habitat and Rover using excellent flash animation. I roamed around this site for a while and I learned quite a bit about the Red Planet. You will too.

Everyone wants an all-in-one integrated device for their PDA, cellphone and pager. One guy I know has a cool Handspring Treo cellphone/PDA. He seems to love it. It’s nice but I want a Danger unit or what its called now, a Sidekick. This slick device is getting lots of rave reviews. I’m getting very tired of the poor performance of my Nextel i90c. So I’m in the market for something new.

I took the PT Cruiser in for service yesterday. The place has a courtesy shuttle so it would be nice to get a ride to work after I dropped it off. I was told 3 times the shuttle left at 7:30 am. At 8 am, I asked the service tech “what time is it?” She got my hint and said the driver was out back filling the gas tank. Geez. Later that day I get a call from the tech saying the car needed a new power steering pump. They didn’t have the part so she said, “you can just come back on Monday when the part arrives.” Yeah, no big deal. I’ll just go through all that hassle again. I don’t think so.

Well it turns out I left the car there for the weekend and got another car from work. It’s a Grand Cherokee so we’ll be driving in style for the long weekend. I keep saying how cool it is working at Chrysler. This is another example. Whenever I’ve needed a loaner car, the people there always come through and take care of me. Thanks.

Does my story sound familiar? If it does, you’ll remember the same thing happened the last time I took my car in for service. That was another dealership that I vowed I would never visit again. This new one is doing the same damn thing. Now I’ll have to find yet another place to take my car.

The basement project starts in about a month. We’ve begun cleaning and organizing down there to make way for the carpenter. We never realized how much crap we’ve accumulated over the years. Checkout my basement weblog to watch the progess of our project.

1. Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, “I think I’ll
squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out”?

2. Who was the first one who thought that the white thing that came from a
hen’s butt looked edible?

3. Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a
horrible crisp which no decent human being would eat?

4. Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

5. If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?

6. Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?

7. If the professor on Gilligan’s Island can make a radio out of coconut,
why can’t he fix a hole in a boat?

8. Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don’t
point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?

9. Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if they are
going to look there anyway?

10. Why does goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re
both dogs!

11. What do you call male ballerinas?

12. Why ARE Trix only for kids?

13. If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that Acme crap, why
didn’t he just buy dinner?

14. If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

15. If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from
vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

16. If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

17. Is Disney World the only ‘people trap’ operated by a mouse?

18. Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the
same tune?

19. Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

20. Why is it that when someone tells you that there are over a billion
stars in the universe, you believe them, but if they tell you there is wet
paint
somewhere, you have to touch it to make sure?

The show Joe Millionaire has me wondering what construction worker only makes $19,000 a year. He must be a loser. Somewhere I read the average salary for a construction worker in California is about $42,000. I also read Joe comes from a wealthy family. But he has all those girls fooled so far.

Steve Case from AOL stepped down the other day. I remember getting a personal email from him when I first signed up for the service. It was barely 3 weeks old and had very few features but it was cool nonetheless. Then it became too commercial so I stopped using it.

I found a great pop-up ad killer called “Proxomitron.” I’ve been using it for over a week and it does an excellent job of eliminating those pesky pop-up ads that annoy all of us. The best part is it’s free. Plus Leo Laporte lists Proxomitron as one of his top applications to load on a new computer.

In my mind, the televison show 24 remains to be the standout show of this season. It’s packed with excitement, intrigue and great acting. I thought last season’s episodes were good, this year it’s way better. Too bad if you haven’t watched it so far, the plot is very complicated and you’ll have trouble catching up. But if you watch it once, you’ll quickly be caught up in a great show.

Why can’t PC makers come up with cool stuff like the new Apple G4 Powerbook notebook computer with the 17″ display. With built-in Bluetooth, Airport Extreme (802.11g), Firewire 800, DVD/CDRW burner and a sweet Nvidia graphics card, this unit is top on my wish list. All this in a unit 1 inch thick! The new Jaguar OS along with all the included software makes this Powerbook hard to beat. Add an iPOD MP3 player (the best player on the market) and you’ll be all set. It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

Starship Exeter is a great episode you can view online. The files are big so they break them down for easier downloading. Check it out if you have some time to kill.

Thanks for the offer to help in troubleshooting a Palmpilot problem. But you forget who taught you EVERYTHING you know about the accursed things.

Last week I stopped sync-ing my iPAQ with the Lotus Notes network at work. Now I sync at home using Outlook. The thing works so much better and doesn’t have all those damn files hogging all the memory.

This idea is stupid.
Bad Spellers of the World, Untie!

Did you know The Matrix sequel is coming out this year? Did you also know there will be two Matrix sequels coming out this year? One is being released on May 15th, the other on November 7th. Yee-Ha! I can’t wait.

I guess he’s happy now that the troops are going over to Iraq.

Mihi ignosce. Cum homine de cane debeo congredi. (Excuse me. I’ve got to see a man about a dog.)