I got a new digital camera today and will shortly be giving away my old one to any friend that wants it. Details privately. It's not a big upgrade really, but it was a sweet deal on a new Kodak Z915 10MPX camera and my old one was a 7MPX Sony Cybershot DSC659 which has given me nearly four years of awesome service. So far my only complaint is that the Sony could mount directly on the Mac desktop and the Kodak can't which is a stupid design flaw, but I can fake it using Image Capture (standard on all Macs). While you can use iPhoto it won't let you add/delete pictures from the camera directly.

Paul is once again trying to get me to adopt one of his cats. I turned him down because I am still not ready for many reasons. Enough said. A shout out to Christin Keck who has had her book self-published though Amazon's CreateSpace. I haven't read either of these, but she's a good writer and tells a good tale. So you can check it out if you'd like. Another long piece, by way of John Carney, on the late-night wars which makes some salient points but mostly rambles on far too long. Just trying to give equal time to all sides on this topic. Suzie-Q shares this link which has tons of vintage Apple Computer ads (Apple I, II, IIc, and even one Mac ad. No Lisa, Apple /// or such ads though.) You may find it educational or reminder of your age. View at your own peril, though seeing how some of those people are dressed may be worth a click on your broadband connection.

Here's another cool link from Dan (I think). Someone took a model of a Classic Star Trek Phaser, and then installed a sound oscillator so it makes noise. After that they installed the optics from a Blu-Ray player and, voilà, you have a phaser that really works. This video shows it blowing balloons apart. You can do it at home, too. He's got links to the instructions from his website. Keep in mind that, in theory, weaponizing this, may be a serious crime in your jurisdiction. But the cool factor is awesome. Broadband recommended before clicking the instructional links.

I am so sick of you. That 'you' refers to those of you who continue to forward shit to me that's comprised of lies, mistruths, and so on. Any email that says "send this to XX people" is guaranteed to be a fraud. I always refer people to Snopes.com a fine bastion of unbiased facts on many of the items circulating in your inbox. I also send people to factcheck.org for the more pedestrian items. Sadly, even these sites are victim to the shite covering the internet. Here's a great article on factcheck.org about snopes.com — keep in mind, both sites cite facts with references. Wikipedia is never acceptable as a source of "facts" because there are tons of errors, though it is extraordinarily useful in a general way.

We sat next to a really nice couple who was there cheering on their friend who was a cheerleader. We had some nice football discussions and it was a great time. Way too hot today. We were right next to J-Lo's box and she was there with a bunch of suits and we could see her. The Estefans were there, but we only saw them on the video screens. I don't care about any of them so much, but it's nice that they're making an effort to make it 'exciting' to try and fill seats, I suppose. The Panthers could learn from that, but they're Yormarked and that means they won't.

As I mentioned, today's breakfast and skating ended up being cancelled, so I was home with nothing to do. I did the dishes, went to the grocery store and was avoiding balancing my checkbook. Some time ago, I created a Facebook page for the company where I work, Interstate Screw Corporation (feel free to become a fan, please). We do post updates there from time to time, and posted some discounts today, too. I decided I'd create a Twitter account for the company as well, and I encourage you to follow us on Twitter. I'm not sure what that holds for us, but I figured I'd save the name now while it was still available.

My blog traffic has plummeted over the past few weeks, and I'm not sure why. About 50% to be exact. It's impacting clicks on the ads (feel free to click on an ad if you don't have them blocked) and makes it less fun to write if less people are reading. The Led Zeppelin Sucks (March 2005) thread is still drawing the most traffic followed by My Name Is David (Aug 2007 post). The Led Zeppelin thread is the number one match on Google, and the David posts is top three, so that's probably why.  By keywords, the Led Zeppelin Sucks and the Dell Sucks threads (Aug 2005 and number two Google ranking) are the highest with my Daniel Radcliffe and Terry Goodkind posts following not far behind. Still, all those keywords are still only 20% of the matches.

Lastly, a question for my readers if you happen to have any information. As I mentioned in my last post, I've been looking at a new laptop for work — we don't use a laptop at work much, so it's shared by anyone who needs one for a presentation or trip. I compared a comparable 15" MacBook and MacBook Pro. The obvious different is the MacBook is $300 cheaper and made of polycarbonate instead of aluminum so is probably less durable. Besides that the only difference I can find is the screen quality and trackpad sensitivity. Am I missing anything? Can someone enlighten me why I'd spend the $300 more?

Google still send me 81% of my traffic that's referred and Yahoo is at 11%.

Jimmy is a big fan of the Fins so this is a great fit. It's only a one year deal. Still, it's cool. Maybe we'll get Jimmy doing the national anthem. He did it once at a Heat game before his play "Don't Stop The Carnival" at it was really awesome.

Also up is the most awkward family photo ever:

I almost didn't post this because it was actually embarrassing but the bottom line was I couldn't stop laughing at the absurdity. The levels on which this is disturbing know NO bounds. I am sharing it because I do not want to be alone in having this image in my mind. Also it provides segue for this next story. Yes, that picture actually has the Power of Segue. Hard to believe.

Today was skating: just John, Liz, and me. So Liz and I are chatting and she is talking about her Telenovelas (soap operas). She is telling me about this Romeo and Juliet plot-line wherein the two characters are really brother and sister but don't know it. We were discussing the ick factor of incest and John comes up. I said "Don't bother us: we're discussing incest." He skated away not to be seen for nearly an hour. I never scared anyone off like that so easily. It was pretty funny. In retrospect maybe I shouldn't have said it so loudly but Liz was laughing really hard. I have mentioned this before but Liz and John are really awesome. I am so glad I know them. And good luck with the house!

The below quote and above picture are from my Facebook post Thursday. If you don't have FaceBook, here's the post.

Eric A. Seiden was at work and found a spare fortune cookie on the communal food table. I decided I'd eat it. The fortune said "Your wish is about to come true." I turned bright red. God, I hope so :) A deserted tropical island with some hot babes and unlimited funds perhaps?

On the back is a set of lottery numbers and the "learn Chinese" phrase. The word is "Summer" 夏天 (Xià Tian) That "a" in Tian should have a bar over it, but I don't know how to do that on my Mac. The ã isn't close enough. (If you don't have Chinese characters installed some of this paragraph will not display on your screen.)

Only a fool puts his hope in a fortune cookie's prophecy, but I can tell you I certainly am that fool. We'll see if this will be the best summer of my life or not.

Anyway, I had to blog all this randomness.

A note from the AP Wire: Bay Area fans clad in blue and gold filled all but a few thousand spots in the sold-out stadium, turning the San Francisco Giants' waterfront ballpark into a cross-Bay rendition of Strawberry Canyon with a bowl-record crowd of 42,268. The Bears' campus is roughly 12 miles from San Francisco, yet the team stayed in a hotel in the city during its week of preparation, crossing the Bay Bridge for daily practice in Berkeley.

In local news, I slept like shite again. I do not recommend this hotel for the comfort minded. It's probably okay for those needing to save a few pounds a night, but it's not all that cheap. I'm still furious about my hat. I am going to try and buy a new one today.

The AP reports: Patriots coach Bill Belichick is declining comment on a tampering accusation levelled against his team by Raiders owner Al Davis. Davis said Tuesday that the Patriots tampered with Moss before they obtained him from Oakland in a trade during last year's NFL draft.

It's a very sad day when Al Davis has one up on you. Al Davis is at the bottom of most football fans' list but Bill is fighting to see if he can be scummier. Hats off to you, Bill. You must be proud.

This was the first time I can remember deliberately rooting for a New York team, but the cause was great. And Jimmy Johnson gets to eat crow.

The Patriots didn't win, didn't cover the spread, and I wish to point out that Bill Belichick is all class* — walking off the field before the game was over. I can understand the confusion going on the field because the clock was ticking down towards zero, but he knew it wasn't officially over once he got there because the referees told him. He left the field anyway: a sore loser. Or, in his case just a loser — and a cheating one at that.

* Classy in a Paris Hilton sort of way.

KTFBG.