Another Word for Nerd

It was good (and humorous) to see that the Borders bookstore on Westheimer in Houston had placed the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster with the *non-fiction* paperback books.

I was behind a Houston metro bus on the way home. At one stop, a guy got off the bus.

He was apparently blind, and was doing the standard “sweep back and forth” in front of him with his red-tipped cane while walking down the sidewalk.

While talking on a cell phone.

I try to avoid Wal-Mart whenever possible, but now I have yet another reason. This lady got thrown out of a Wal-Mart for trying to buy green, yellow, and purple ribbons (Mardi Gras colors) because Mardi Gras is “morally corrupt”.

The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been released. All Hail his Noodly Appendage!

After reading the Waiter Rant weblog, I’m really glad that we’re regulars at all of the places where we go to eat, are welcomed by the staff, and that I always tip well.

We recently bought a Samsung ML-2010 black and white laster printer to replace our aging HP LaserJet 6L. It was on sale at CompUSA during one of their “Midnight Madness” events for $69.

We got it home, hooked it up, and it works great. REALLY fast (20 pages per minute) printing text, and the print quality is great. However, we found out tonight that the included toner/drum cartridge is only rated for 1000 pages at 5% page coverage. In other words, without using the “Toner Save” feature you can put a single ream of paper through it before you have to start shaking the toner cartridge for better coverage.

The “replacement” toner/drum cartridges sold by CompUSA and others are rated for 3000 pages – THREE TIMES the amount in the “starter” cartridge. They’re also $70 – as much as the printer cost us to begin with. I never thought that laser printers would reach the point where it was cheaper to just go buy another printer than to buy a replacement toner cartridge! Inkjet printers hit that point about six years ago (anybody else remember the HP-offbrand “Apollo” printers where the printer cost $40 and the replacement ink cartridge was $50?).

Fortunately I’ve found a vendor that sells the ML-2010 replacement cartridge/drum for $50. I’ve ordered one and will see how it goes. In the end, I may take the original “starter” cartridge and see how well it works with a cheap toner refill (using the existing cartridge and drum). That would take the cost per cartridge down to less than $10, and I can refill each cartridge two or three times.

I give it a year or two before laser printers are completely free, but they come with a toner cartridge that only prints 100 pages before you have to buy another.

Update: I’ve discovered that holy men like my printer! I can buy a refilled toner cartridge from the LaserMonks for only $91.50!

Reading exchanges like this make me really, really glad that I left Oklahoma ten years ago.

I expect the City of Tuttle to have a new City Manager soon….

I broke down a few days ago and finally bought Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 (since CompUSA didn’t have any copies of X-Plane in stock) and dug the Saitek ST90 joystick out of the closet.

Instead of going for a combat simulator, I went for the realism angle and am going through all of the tutorials. So far I can take off and fly around in a Cessna, I haven’t tried landing yet…

I’d love a Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar, but can’t afford or justify $300 for a joystick.

I used to get progressively bigger and bigger bedside LCD/LED alarm clocks so I could see them across the room – at one point my biggest one had 3″ digits.

These guys have me beat, with 24″ digits on a 12′ wide clock.

I got my 5mW Green Laser from AtlasNova in the mail today.