Another Word for Nerd

Hurricane season is coming up, so I ordered a few “Super-Bright 9 LED Heavy-Duty Compact Aluminum Flashlight” from Amazon in black, blue, and gunmetal colors. They were only $5.50 each, so I ordered five of them to qualify for free shipping.

The package arrived today, and I proceeded to de-blister-pack all of them.

Click for bigger pictures.

Then I noticed the disclaimer on the back:

I think these may qualify to be the World’s Most Dangerous Flashlight, and an example of overkill on a warning label. I blame California.

I just read that George Carlin has passed away at the age of 71 from heart failure. I remember spending hours in front of my mother’s stereo listening to her Bill Cosby and George Carlin 8-tracks, and then buying a lot more of his works when I was in college.

The humor of Carlin and Dennis Leary let me laugh at the world during my formulative years, and the works of Bill Hicks tempered them once I got out into the “real world”.

Rest in peace, George. Give em hell up there.

Added two handgrip rails, a vertical foregrip, a Hogue rubberized pistol grip, and a BlueForceGear Victory-series two-point tactical sling.

I’m ready for the paper target zombie hordes!

One of the houses down the street (the same folks responsible for the driveway big-screen football game about a month ago) has put up their annual display of Christmas lights.

Amy and I tend to refer to this house as “Vegas”, because the first year we lived here I said “Wow, their light display reminds me of a Las Vegas casino.”

Anyway, here’s the 2007 Extravaganza. I’m sure our neighbors are great people, and their display may not be much compared to some I’ve seen, but it’s excessive for our neighborhood. Click the thumbnails for full-size photos.

First, the overall view:

Driveway lights:

Blue snowflakes and a giant inflatable “JOY”:

Wrapped columns and trees:

Finally, the giant inflatable Santa Claus and “JOY”:

They seem to have retired the giant inflatable Frosty the Snowman they had out last year.

They sell uranium ore, but what’s even stranger is the “Customers Who Bought Items Like This Also Bought” section - mouse traps, anal douches, panties, personal lube, electronic field meters, and goat milk.

It boggles the mind.

It appears that things featured in Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash are coming to life - specifically, someone is trying to build The Raft:

HONOLULU — A coalition of community groups in Hawaii is hoping to convert a retired Navy ship docked at Pearl Harbor into a floating homeless shelter.

I got Wordperfect 5.1 running in DOSbox under OSX.

Now I just need to find a DOS-native version of Lotus 1-2-3 and a copy of DBase III+, and my quest will be complete.

Update: Borland has made Turbo Pascal versions 1.0, 3.02, and 5.5, as well as Turbo C version 2.01 and Turbo C++ version 1.01 available here.

I’ve now got a multi-floppy-image of a later version of Lotus 1-2-3, but I’m still looking for a 2.x version and a distribution of DBase III+.

I woke up (highly agitated and paranoid) from a very strange dream earlier this evening.

I dreamt that I was on a boat that was a cross between The Love Boat and Deadliest Catch.

On one end of the boat, women in bikinis were getting tans. On the other end, men in orange survival suits were catching crab.

I should probably stop eating Burger King before I go to bed, and have Amy stop watching Deadliest Catch while I’m falling asleep.

From the April 1993 cover of UnixWorld Magazine: “Does Steve Jobs have a future in software?” and it refers to NextStep for Intel.

(click for a bigger version)

14 years later, I’d say he definitely does.

Let’s break things down into tiny pieces!

Watch It Shred:

• Refridgerators
• Printers
• Appliances
• Computers
• (complete list)

Will It Blend?:

• Toy Cars
• iPod
• Glass-Bottled Beverage
• Coke Can Smoothie
• (complete list)