Another Word for Nerd

I’ve misplaced my favorite pen, a Fisher “Bullet” Space Pen in shiny blue. Hopefully it’s on my desk at work. If not, it will cost me $20 to replace. 8-(

I got a piece of mail addressed to this house’s former owners the other day, with a return address of the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade.

Wow, is this 1955 or 2005? I never expected to get mail from the 50s when I bought a 1950s house!

It went straight into the shredder, so I never got to see if it was signed by McCarthy himself.

I’ve been a member of the OpenSolaris pilot team for the past six months, and I’m proud to announce that OpenSolaris is now ready for business, with source code ready for download. I’ve setup a SunHELP OpenSolaris page with links to more information and resources.

I finally broke down and bought a stand-alone DVD recorder to archive shows off our two TiVos. I got an iLO DVDR05. iLo is Wal-Mart’s “store brand”; the DVDR05 is actually the same as a CyberHome DVR 1600 (the earlier iLO DVDR04 was a rebranded Lite-On 5001).

The $98 price can’t be beat, and the recordings it makes look good so far. I’ve also discovered that the unit can use DVD-R discs in addition to the DVD+R discs it says to use in the documentation. This is good, as I have a surplus of DVD-R blanks right now.

Being able to put six or eight hours of shows on a single disc will be great for archiving a couple seasons’ worth of What Not To Wear on BBC America. Our original DirecTiVo is more than two years old, and has some recordings on it that are that old as well. I need to get them archived onto DVDs before the 40G Maxtor hard drive in that unit gives up the ghost.

UPDATE: THIS IS NOT A CUSTOMER COMPLAINT FORUM FOR THE DVDR05. DO NOT SEND ME EMAIL BECAUSE YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH YOUR CHEAP DVD RECORDER. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE COMPANY OR ITS CUSTOMER SERVICE DEPARTMENT.

David Wellington’s Monster Island, Monster Nation, and Monster Planet are some of the best online “books” I’ve read in a long time.

The new Ikea catalog is more appealing than the latest Playboy. Then again, Playboy really hasn’t had any attractive women in it since the 70s…

When your SUV gets stopped for speeding, and you have a suspended license, don’t:

- refuse to put out your cigagrette when the officer tells you to
- refuse to get off your cell phone when the officer tells you to
- take a swing at the officer when he attempts to remove you from the vehicle

Otherwise, you’ll get what you deserve. If you watch the entire traffic stop from the beginning, the driver had an attitude from the very start.

(Update - I just had to share this. We were discussing this on a private mailing list, and I made this comment: “She pulls an attitude and the race card. He pulls a Taser. TASER WINS!!”)

like having my Kia Sportage valet parked at Saks Fifth Avenue, and watching the snooty socialites sneer down their noses at me when it gets the same treatment that their Mercedes does.

In fact, the valet left it parked by the door, while their Mercedes got stuck out in the lot. I tipped him an extra couple bucks, he grinned and wished me a nice day.