Don't fear: Captain Boomerang and his trusty sidekick, Private First Class Virtual Boy are here to save the world from terrorists! As far as I can tell, the idea behind the VeraTech Aero Phantom is fairly clever: it's a bodyless helicopter with a camera crammed rather unceremoniously in the crotch...
So, I've had this Alienware Aurora m9700 now for just over two months—and for the most part, the damned thing has been useless. Here's why. It's got an aboslutely brilliant screen on it. WUXGA: 1920x1200, and it's clear and bright and everything you'd like in a nice display. The only...
I don't like most video games. Getting me engaged in some arbitrary plot while making me hamfist my way through an overly complicated set of controls is difficult enough when it's in a topic area I'm interested in—and usually impossible otherwise. Simply put, most video games offer very little (usually...
There are three things I particularly love about this ad.The language is terse and compact. Probably so it's easy to read. You know, for idiots. The women in the red outfit looks like she's either experiencing the wrath of some deity, or has just seen a 2,800 pound cockroach. And...
I'm headed over to the Redhook brewery in a few minutes to join a bunch of coworkers for trivia night. Hooray for food, questions, and beer. My understanding is that the rest of my trivia team is out there solely to, "kick the asses of a bunch of uppity [expletive...
In celebration of actually having a running vintage automobile, I drove it to the office today. Admittedly, a big part of the reasoning behind taking the Mercedes today was that I would already be delayed by a few hours to let the apartment fixit guy in, so I was assured...
I've now replaced a good chunk of the ignition system on the Mercedes—result: much easier starting and far less sputtering off idle. Part of this involved replacing the ignition points which, for those of you without a serious automotive background, are the parts which cause all of the glorious toasty...
The picture at the right is a wee compartment inside the front passenger fender. It's accessible via a panel in the wheel well and, if you haven't yet figured out already: you put your weed in it. The whole reason for pulling this apart was to replace the antenna, which...
And there's no denying it, either—this particular banana hammock was sitting in an aisle of other banana bunch hangars. Um, yuck....
I admit that I was a part of the 1980s, but I was most certainly not around when they were making this schlock....
Any commercial featuring SUPER POTENTIAL is automatically good enough to be featured here. Enjoy a hilariously Japanese commercial for the hilariously Japanese Mitsubishi Starion. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on in the first five seconds of this commercial. What the hell are those, giant floating space buttocks?...
How else could you explain buying a bunny something as awful as a 1975 Subaru? And if you're into reading the quasi-fine print, you'll notice that this particular Subaru is backed by an Unlimited Mileage Warranty—and it's even covered for an entire 12 months! P.S. Ha ha, an entire category...
Weather and traffic are the two most oft-mentioned complaints I've heard about Seattle. And frankly, neither really bother me. The traffic here isn't nearly as bad as Albuquerque when it rains, or D.C. at any time of day. My commute from Kirkland to the Microsoft campus is only 20 minutes...
Continuing last night's comment theme, I figured I'd write tonight about a special milestone I've just met: I've now got as many comments as posts here on /dev/null/. This is sortof a big deal because I've been keeping this journal for the last twenty months and during the entire time,...
Most of you read either this main page, or (I suspect) the RSS feed for this journal. I try to keep it up to date with lots of interesting things and because the new content is usually more relevant than the old, most of the commentary that happens around here...
...so they build "a woman's car." Oversized, hopelessly automatic and dull. It's too bad you can't find ad copy like that anymore. Sigh....
Today's post is a review of the BMW 750i over at AA. It's just so ... heavy....
The second half of yesterday's article is posted over at AA. Enjoy!...
Here's the thing: most cars aren't great. A sizable chunk of the world's cars are fairly mediocre, and it's been that way for a really long time. A lot of them have actually sucked fairly hard. Like the Chevrolet Cavalier. Gah, I hate that thing. And even if some manufacturers...
There is simply nothing manlier than driving around in a convertible festooned with pink breast cancer awareness stickers. I could be John Elway or Sean Connery or Hulk Hogan and still would have swished and sashayed my way through Seattle, had I been driving one of those vinyl-clad pinkmobiles. All...
Sorting through the trip's pictures one last time, I decided that this one couldn't go without posting. Enjoy....
Keeping in line with the ... exciting elevator post from last night, I'm going to talk today about fasteners. I spotted these on the wing of the Airbus A319 which was flying us from Tucson to Denver on Friday. They're tri-bladed screw things, and I've got no idea why they're...
So, this is the inside of the Embassy Suites in Aurora, CO where Layla and I stayed for the last two nights. Of interest here is the elevator. Note that the building is seven stories tall and that the elevator is driven upwards by a big hydraulic ram. You can...
Spotted this saguaro cactus in Layla's mom's back yard. Wooo!...
For the last two months or so, we've had practically no rain in Seattle. In fact, I can only think of one day where it actually precipitated—but holy hell, did it ever rain. Similarly, Tucson hasn't had serious rain in something like eight years. Sure, it'll shower for a few...
In honor of passing 1024 posts a while ago, here's a recap of posts whose index is a power of 2 or a multiple of 128. This post is largely copied from Power of 2 roll call (110). The entire static version of this journal is now 378MB. 10000000000 (1024):...
If English isn't your first language, tell me, how dizzying is this statement (lifted from a ranty post from last week): Learn as much as necessary as quickly as possible After I wrote it, it seemed like it could be damned confusing. P.S. Leaving town. As usual, updates will be...
I can't remember who sent me this picture originally (Justin?) but it's just far too damned funny to not post. Hint: Mustangs are exclusively rear-wheel-drive cars....
It turns out there's been some confusion in my household for quite some time. So, this all stems from the fact that I've got the motherload of all MST3K archives (thanks again, Ryan) and Layla ... hates MST3K. I can sortof understand because a lot of the episodes leave me...
In the latest much-overdue installment of my bonsai series, I'm glad to announce that I've finally picked up a tray and some seeds. In fact, I've got a whole bonsai kit—mostly because it was on sale at Barnes & Noble and because Layla and I still had an unused gift...
We join thirty spokes to the hub of a wheel, yet it's the center hole that drives the chariot. We shape clay to birth a vessel, yet it's the hollow within that makes it useful. We chisel doors and windows to construct a room, yet it's the inner space that...
I'm fed up enough at this point that I feel I need to help educate the world so other folks can be spared the idiocy with which I have to deal. I realize I can't save the everyone on this one—but I can try. So, the problem is set like...
