After a really busy summer I am making an effort to get back into a routine which includes posting about some interesting things going on personally, professionally, and otherwise.

I thought a “soft-launch” back into it would be sharing one of my pet-peeves of the day.

The “insult to injury” here is the “Did you find what you wanted?” phrase – because apparently the little doggy did find a lot of things I probably wanted to see, but refused to show them to me.

From a Test-Driven Development perspective wouldn’t you do a simple count of the items on the right and match to the “found” number on the left?

How to Win a Darwin Award: Float a Live Surge Protector in a Pool on a Couple of Flip-Flops

While clearly not nearly as fun as "Talk Like a Pirate Day", this still struck me and kind of interesting.  Some creative ideas at the link below.

My favorite was.....

"Walk up to random people and say 'WHAT YEAR IS THIS?' and when they tell you, get quiet and then say "Then there's still time!" and run off. "

Though this one had merit too .....

"Take some trinket with you (it can be anything really), hand it to some stranger, along with a phone number and say 'In thirty years dial this number. You'll know what to do after that.' Then slip away. "

Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day | Geekdad from Wired.com

Now that's something you don't hear every day.

24 Hour News 8 Blogs » Blizzard Warning!! FOR HAWAII!!

He he - kind of on the "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" theme ...

Too true.

Global Nerdy » Blog Archive » Bug vs. Feature

Yes, I subscribe to one of those "daily quote" widgets - but today's just seemed to strike me as funny (having dealt with health care a lot in the last month, listening to the debates lately, and it is always good to get Scotland into a quote whenever possible).

We Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it.

Dave Barry
US columnist & humorist (1947 - )

Seems to sum up well at least one side of the debate :-)

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/39692.html

I didn't get up early for shopping on Friday, but there were some really good deals (including percent off coupons) that helped buy even the basics.  If you needed a big flat screen TV, a laptop, a GPS, or any other big ticket item then there were deals to be had.  I talked to one guy who got to Best Buy slightly after 3AM (ouch).

I was looking at games (for the kids) and came across something that set me off a bit - enough to warrant a picture.

This is a sale tag from a local mass-market retailer that caught my eye for several reasons. 

First, it isn't a temporary sale tag (i.e. Friday-Saturday only) but a "price drop" which seems like a semi-permanent reduction. 

Second (which should have been first) is that I don't remember operating systems being sold at mass-market chains before, but I guess that isn't too strange.  Everyone should upgrade, right?!?

Third, this is the "Home Basic" version of Vista which lacks many of the coolest features of Vista including the "Aero" user interface, integrated search, etc.  In fact I can't think of a significant reason to go from Windows XP to Vista Home Basic - especially with Service Pack 3 for XP due out early next year (for stability an minor functionality enhancements).

Finally, the "elephant in the room" is obviously the math (see for yourself).  I had heard about some of the math issues in Excel 2007 and early Pentium chips but .....

I laughed audibly when I saw this - had to share.  Some days you just need a little laugh (even geek humor).

Global Nerdy » Blog Archive » If You’re Happy and You Know It…

You have to admit this is clever - probably gets old on day #2, but still helps you remember to live in the present - Bruce

[Link - Original Article]

We knew it was destined for greatness the second it popped it’s shiny little face onto ThisNext. It was unique, new, inspired and completely undiscovered, just what we love so we honored it in our daily email and now the internet is all atwitter trying to decide, do they or, don’t they, like it? What is it? It’s NOW, by Morgan Bennett.

You said it “teaches you to live in the moment. It’s inspirational,” we said, “The simple statement is a reminder to you live in the moment,” and now Oh Gizmo! said it’s “the most accurate time piece ever invented,” Shiny Shiny said it’s “so post-post-post-modern,” and Gizmodo said, “You can’t argue with its correctitude.”