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Okay, I’m a gadget freak, but anyone that pays $15k for a cell phone needs their head examined: NY Times article (registration req’d)

Also, note to self: There are certain people who hate the word concubine, apt though it may be.

I know, I know…long time no blog. This is amazing, considering the amount of time I’ve spent on my new powerbook in the past week. Today is my powerbook’s first (and, likely, only!) trip to work with me to show off to the guys Saw Matrix: Revolutions for the second time last night at Whitney’s place, and I must say it’s better on the second viewing. After the overblown, quasi-Zen philosphy of Matrix: Reloaded, Revolutions was a let-down when I saw it in the theatre. Mainly, I was pissed-off that Revolutions had wasted 2 hrs of my life, b/c the 3rd picture basically discarded all the stuff from the second. ...

Cue the Hallelujah Chorus, people! Dave’s out sick so BOTH of my rather pointless meetings are cancelled today! I’m feeling random & sleepy, so this might be a *bit* diffuse… There is something just so pastoral and pleasing about making coffee. Granted, here at work, the machine does it all for you, but seeing it created is just…nice :-) So anyway, my weekend: Friday was a totally wasted day at work; Dave’s been out since Tuesday and I’m nursing our server along, looking for bugs popping-up in our log file and logging them as Problem Tracking Reports (PTRs). It’s about as fun as watching paint dry, but if this release is to have any hope of success, we’d better trace-down every bug we can find BEFORE our users get to do that for us. ...

No sleep. been traveling, hanging-out with loved ones, and enjoying my new powerbook :-) Have to get some sleep, but can I just say THIS THING IS SO COOL! :) [ferris bueler]If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up[/ferris]

Piece of “Office Space” fiddle-faddle: Q: How do you know you’ve been working at an office for too long? A: You’ve memorized the numbers on the snack machine and have a Pavlovian response whenever you see those numbers: mmmmm…..33…..Snickers bar….

Well, saw my lovely last night and we went to see Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Thoughts: Why in the world does everyone expect thoughts to be in a bulletted-list? Is this the “POWERPOINT EFFECT”? :D Anyway, I thought it was a decent film, if utterly pointless. I had quite a bit of fun, and there’s more there than the PG rating would imply: Fart jokes, skimpy outfits from the two female leads. Lots of guilty pleasures here, mostly revolving around SMG doing a Buffy-esque fight with the Black Knight Ghost, and Linda Cardellini….well, all of Linda Cardellini. ...

This is me swearing for the gazillionth time I won’t have two cups of Sumatran at 6pm. I’m just about to crash, but I’ve been on a bender from 6 until 12…mind racing, doing housework, blogging, talking on the phone….

Okay, folks, here’s where I’ll be on June 20th: I’ll be in the Northwest Vista watching 30 screaming Formula 1 racers duel at the world’s greatest racetrack. :) nummy.

Behold the successor to the civic as the new tuner standard, folks: That’s right, it’s a Scion tC (née Toyota), it’s got a supercharger-friendly engine, and it’s only 15k. The xA and xB scions are really, weird, but I find this coupe oddly handsome. If it has good dynamics (and it should) I see kids running to ’em in droves. So, when you see one fly by with neon lights on the undercarriage, a wing fit for a b-52, and an exhaust bigger than a Folger’s can, at least you’ve been warned :-)

Looks like the Jeep Liberty is going to have a diesel engine + manual transmission available next year: The diesel Jeep Liberty will be powered by a 2.8-liter common rail turbo-diesel engine produced by DaimlerChrysler. It will be available with a manual or automatic transmission, as well as two- or four-wheel drive. It is expected that the diesel-powered Liberty will have up to a 30 percent improvement in fuel economy, versus a comparable gasoline-powered Liberty. ...

Okay, since I spent most of my childhood flat of my hind-end watching cartoons, this is just AWESOME:

Cold, windy, and I lost. But I had an amazing time at our little (only 54 entrants) autocross today! And the weather is so beautiful and sunny outside, I can’t be sad that I lost. Well, maybe just a little. The morning dawned cold, cloudy and early. What with the time change last night, it felt like I’d barely slept. So, I loaded-up the car, scarfed some McD’s + coffee, and arrived around 9 or so. ...

Kill me, I’m a man: “The Producers” was hilarious and very up-beat. Great fare for a matinee, and our seats were excellent. We arrived late and missed the opening number, but from what I’ve read that’s no loss. My personal favorite: Ulla Basically, a Swedish chick that’s like 7 feet tall, stacked, and, as Whitney remarked, “Do those legs ever stop?” Stole the show, IMHO. * * * Some random thoughts I had for websites or blog topics: ...

Well, I’m offically poor. I finally took the plunge and got myself my gadget-of-all-gadgets, a 15" Mac Powerbook: After using our Dual Processor Powermac at work all week, I just had to break down and get one. I love everything about these things: The operating system is unix-based, so it’s got 25 years of development and tens of millions of man-hours of refinements in it The user interface is unparalleled in its user-friendliness ...

Well, with another autocross this weekend, I guess I should probably talk about the last one: Pics: Got first in my class, but it was a slaughter: No one else had race tires, nor any experience autocrossing. Capture of my times: 40.186(1) 40.604(1) 37.637 37.375 38.955(1) Best time: 37.375 I had the victoracers running at 50/45 psi throughout the first 4 runs, and then had a wild ride on the last run with 40/45 pressures. ...

Seen on a Wendy’s drive-thru window: “Picture menus available on request” ergo, “If you can’t read this message, we have menus you can use.” Another famous one: “Can’t read? Call 1-800-….”

Muhahahaha….PEEPS!

Dictionary.com/quotidian Everyday; commonplace: “There’s nothing quite like a real… train conductor to add color to a quotidian commute” (Anita Diamant). Recurring daily. Used especially of attacks of malaria. “Anglo-Saxon is a livlier tongue than Latin, so use Anglo-Saxon words” (Strunk + White, p77). Still, cool word Laura!

Okay, from the same article: Wow, imagine that– students making rational decisions. So of course policy makers should be worried. Let’s see, you can: a) Work your ass off for 4-5 years in, what is usually, a very difficult academic program. Then you can, if you are super lucky, find an engineering job where your employers will work you to death. You will live under the cloud of being reminded that your salary is 5X higher than those equally talented people from 3rd world countries, any one of which could be brought in on a moments notice to occupy your chair (h1b, L1), should you stumble. Of course, since there is an near infinite supply of technical labor available to US companies, you will have zero salary mobility. Well, ok I’m exagerating, you won’t have *zero* salary mobility– you’ll have some *nagative* salary mobility, which is what is currently happening to most of the engineers I know. ...