So yeah, I went to the Modest Mouse concert.  How could I not?  I never saw them back in Seattle, the least I could do is catch them when they travelled all the way to Okla-friggin-homa to see me.  I had to contribute to our monthly scheduled maintenance on Friday night, so the timing wasn't great, but thanks to my being 2 hours ahead of the rest of our datacenter team I had about 3 hours to kill before the maintenance started.  That should be enough, right?  Not so much, it turned out. They had 2 opening acts, “Love as Laughter” and...

I'm sure WowWee fully intended this press photo of the recently-released RoboPanda to solicit many smiles and comments about how cute this robotic playmate is. Some us aren't so easily fooled however.  If the glowing eyes weren't enough, just picture the monster wearing a kimono and those outstretched hugging arms holding a pair of swords.  It's not so hard, is it? Nope, I'd get no sleep with that thing in my house.

So during my morning ritual here in Oklahoma, which consists almost entirely of trekking down to the local Starbucks to get a chai, I glance over at the notice board on my way out of the coffeeshop and stop cold when I see this: Modest Mouse.  Playing at the local campus theatre.  Modest Mouse, who is from a place 2000 miles away.  A place known as Issaquah.  A place I just moved from a month ago. Sur-friggin-real.  I mean, I know Modest Mouse isn't the closely-held Seattle secret they used to be, but Jesus, they just happen to be playing the college campus...

One of my closest friends from my bsquare days (and beyond), Mixa Nguyen, just had his first child with his long-time wife Pam.  Pam and Max are reportedly doing well.  Congratulations you two.

To the people close to me I announced my impending departure to Oklahoma sometime in the first quarter.  Since then: Robert and Anabel sold Su Casa and left town The guys that started JaK's Grill have sold out and the new owners have jacked up the prices The barber that I've gone to for years now called and told me she's leaving Issaquah for some new place downtown. REI announced a new store opening in Issaquah Damn.  Had I known Issaquah was going to fall all to pieces when I left town I'd have been more discrete.  Sheesh.

So in my new office in my Oklahoma house I have 5 flat-panel monitors attached to 3 systems (2 desktop systems and a laptop).  The monitors themselves don't take up much room, but the real estate I had to devote to mice and keyboards was getting out of hand.  But KVMs are a bitch, having to switch back and forth all the time. So I was explaining this to a colleague at work and he turned me onto an open source project called Synergy (http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/). Synergy allows you to use a single keyboard and mouse as if all the screens on your...

I've gotten a few of these over the past couple of weeks.  Everyone knows this is a phishing scam, right? How many phishing flags can you spot here?  Unexpected email:  Check.  Offering me money out of the blue:  Check.  Link goes somewhere OTHER than where it claims:  Check.  References bogus law (I'm pretty sure the 19th Amendment to the Constitution didn't address IRS refunds).  Bad grammar: Check.  Do we need a refresher on Phishing?

Dear Starbucks, When you ask me if I want a receipt for my morning chai, and I respond “No, thanks”, why do you still print out a receipt (and then toss it in the garbage)?  Wouldn't it behoove the world at large to simply *not* print out a receipt, rather than print out one that will go straight into the landfill without a soul looking at it? Kindest regardsThe Guy Who Drinks Soy Chais in Oklahoma

I've been in computers for a long time now, over 20 years.  That's a long time by my reckoning. The thing that astounds me, when I look back at the technology I was using then (my first computer was a Radio Shack with a single 3.5” floppy drive and no hard disk, for the record) the thing that boggles my mind is the growth of storage more than anything else. In my early years as a computer geek, I was helping a local consulting firm build “monster” workstations for running AutoCAD for architectural firms.  These were beefy state-of-the-art boxes made by Everex. Hell, AutoCAD...

Wal-Mart made big news lately by introducing a $199 computer in its stores, enabling even the poorest family to get a computer some said.  Still need a monitor though, and last time I cruised through a Wal-Mart the cheapest monitor I saw was $110, so that $199 computer is suddenly costing you over 300 bucks before you can actually use the thing. Regardless, I don't know what the big deal is.  I've been buying Linux-based computers like this for years, for $179 down at Frys.  Box and everything.  This web site runs on one.  Yeah I put Windows Server on it. ...