my friend, who i'll call bookguy, compared opening his newly purchased ipod to undressing a beautiful young woman. if we respect this assessment, it is safe to say that unwrapping the 17 inch powerbook could be likened to undressing 100 women who are all jennifer love hewitt.

i think i'm going to need a moment. you'll please excuse me.

it's shipped! it's shipped! my new powerbook o' sex has shipped! once received you may look, but under no circumstance touch. you may envy from afar or up close, you pick. but it has shipped and i will be living on the fed ex tracking page for the next several days. tragically it is sitting in some Taiwanese port en route to indianapolis so it will not be as immediate as i may like.

and i haven't gotten any takers on the current powerbook, not counting the guy who wanted to trade sexual favors for this morsel. while i respect the initiative, unless he signs his checks Brad Pitt, no deal. and for those who may not have taken me seriously in the first place (as i'm learning with the taos ski trip) it is a legitimate offer. although if i have to explain the merits of the hardware to you, perhaps you should be at dell's site instead.

friday i had a to present an intranet design to my groups' primary client. all went well but the two-hour affair left me a touch on the spent side. so i left work a little early as to get a small nap in before the girls got home, only upon arriving home i found that my dsl provider severed my internet connection a full 10 days before they were supposed to as part of an 'upgrade' they are mandating on all customers.

16 hours later i was able to raise a web page again. i then went to check my mail only to find it equally disabled. i called them next. it would seem some moron was trying to send me a 260mb email. after further investigation it was discovered that that moron was me. at the end of every month i have my monthly logfile detailing this site's web activity emailed to me. this file is usually around 15mb, but after being linked to by jason kottke, metafilter, usa today and a south dakota 10 o'clock news show, this single text file came in at 260mb, which in itself exceeds my full web space allocation. and this does not even account for the rest of my site. ultimately this single large-ass item was rendering my mail file completely impotent. after 8 calls to my host, 6 attempts to kill the individual message, and three full deletions of my mail file, i can again receive mail.

the bad news is anyone who sent me any mail between friday afternoon and sunday evening will have to resend it should they want me to see it. the worse news is because of that mail fiasco which turned my 30mb mail file into a 1.5gb frankenstein, i have 25 days to get a 1.8gb daily space average down to under 250mb or else my usual $25.00 hosting fee will more resemble a meager $1800. and, i hope it goes without saying that the everyman prizes next year may suck worse than this weekend if i don't get that squared away on the quick.

and, i have a favor to ask of someone. if i prove unable to reduce this billing amount, i need someone to tell marty for me. someone who is big and strong and can run like the wind. a lesser man may not survive the deed.

anyone want to buy a laptop? i wanted to and did. i'm sure we've all, by now, heard of apple's latest offering. i won't disgust you with my gushings about my current powerbook which i bought just over a year ago. suffice it to say i didn't think i'd ever love a machine more, until i watched apple's state of the union on tuesday. when jobs introduced this new machine i sat in front of my computer and laughed hysterically, maniacally one might even say. i'm embarrassed to admit that i in no way cared how much this metallic piece of sex was, i knew it would be mine.

so that's the good news for me. the good news for some lucky and as of yet undetermined technophile is i will be selling my current laptop. i haven't yet decided on an exact price but they seem to do quite well on ebay, unsurprisingly. although, should you be someone i like you may find me to be a persuasive soul. and this being the machine that facilitated my switch from windows to the ever elegant mac os, before "the switch" was made vogue, i may be even more conciliatory to a potential switch candidate.

for any serious window-shoppers, the specs follow:
titanium powerbook G4
550mhz
40gb hard drive (upgraded)
756mb ram (upgraded)
brand new battery (purchased 12.02)
vga port
slot-loading cd/dvd player
and all the other published amenities
this machine is obviously in immaculate condition and comes with all original packing materials, documentation and software.

note that i won't be selling this until i receive the new one and get my life transitioned over. according to the order confirmation, they are already back ordered and the projected ship date is 7-10 weeks out (major suck!). so you'd have a little time to sell your blood, soul, sperm and body before having to make payment.

this article more than summarizes how sad and stagnating today's pc market has become. hp is greatly hyping a new line of machines that can also act like a tv. now let's put aside that fact that anyone can tv-enable their existing pc for under a hundred dollars, could have for the last 5 years. let's also put aside the fact that HP is #1 in computer sales. certainly they have only the best intentions with your hard-earned dollar and will settle for nothing less than the most talented and skilled innovators in crafting their technology. but, sadly in the end this is the best our greatest pc manufacturer can do. oh, but wait a minute, this just in, "The PC can also store digital photos and play DVDs." Now that changes things. i never thought a computer would be capable of such grandiose and robust functionality in my lifetime. i mean how do they reach such heights in this nubile year of 2002. man, the people at HP sure are on it.

meanwhile, on the microsoft front, their latest ad campaign was debunked earlier this week. it seems that they were going to use apple's own Switch movement against them and have ex-mac users talk about how windows has released them from the bonds that tied them. only problem was the picture of the woman claiming this epiphany was purchased from a stock photo site and she, a freelance writer, was hired by microsoft craft this sincere account. now while the pr machine that is microsoft doesn't fumble often, it sure is fun to watch the ball fly loose every now and again. because when it comes down to it, we all know that microsoft is simply an advertising company that dabbles in computers.

sorry, you'll have to forgive me because i know it's old news but it happened while i was away and i must speak to the sony music protection debacle (which i was moaning about back on 04.16.02). let me just take a moment to say HAAAA HAAAA AAAAHHH HAAAA HAAAAA (gasp for breath) BAAAA HAAAA AAAAHHH HAAAA HAAAAA.

keep up your ground-breaking and bullet-proof innovations sony because you WILL win. we all know it.

have you heard the latest? in attempt to quell the music sharing revolution, music companies are now selling cd's that not only won't play on a computer but will, by design, actually crash the computer if attempted ... like halting a computer mid-processing is some innocuous and meaningless matter.

before today i kept my napster, limewire, morpheus and other music sharing avenues to a moderate minimum before, out of respect of the abuse factor. it is now my intention to download every song sony music has ever produced and make it easily and readily available for any and all who may be so inclined to do the same. and if those dollar whores at sony and the other record companies think that the geeks on this planet will not break, crack, destroy and annihilate any safeguards they may take, they are thicker than the prophylactic measures they employ.

crash _my_ computer in the name of your profit margin. yeah, right. bite me sony.

Last night Man Who Screams Like Woman (MWSLW) and myself went to our local apple users group to see what they had to offer. We were thoroughly excited and had largish expectations of what we would find. Upon arriving at the session and nabbing some seats, we quietly took in the scene with sullen faces. After several quiet minutes, MWSLW leaned over to me and whispered, "So what do you think?" I responded, "I think we somehow have landed on the set of Cocoon."

Everyone was over sixty but us and this kid in the back row whose speaking voice greatly resembled the synthesized computer guy from War Games (Do you want to play a game?). I almost asked the facilitator to just point me to the shuffleboard lanes so I could get my stick on before the rheumatism set in and I'd have to settle for pinochle on the veranda with professor plum, floyd the barber and one of the gabor girls.

But, as karma would have it, during our dejected departure from the meeting and in the middle of our mutterings, we found a gay magazine, the adult variety, in the street that seemed to have been specially crafted for that lonely trucker away from home. And, as luck would have it, that's me. I mean that's us. I mean that's the most surreal evening I've had in some time. Come to think of it, the only thing that would have made the evening more surreal is if said magazine had catered to elderly gay truckers.

just in case you call a cave your home, computers changed again yesterday thanks to our friends at apple.

get yours now here.

and i actually listened to a geek slap fight yesterday regarding this product. i personally felt the death blow came when the guy defending the new model said the following to the guy who wanted to keep his beige rectangle because it looked normal.

As far as the design, well, I understand. Some people just can't let go of their Members Only jackets neither.

i so love verbal warfare.

i was going to get one of these for marty this christmas until i read this help desk posting. freaky as that is, it's not as bad as the tickle me elmo doll i had that would grope and diddle himself whenever he got dropped.

someone once told me that you know you're fluent in a language when you dream in it. last night i was up unitl 5am, or roughly 4 hours ago, working on my java lab final. when marty tried to wake me up this morning, she said i was muttering in some sort of "dork nonsense."

if i was able to successfully figure my lab out, i may think that i'm fluent, but since my Frequency Analysis pretty much never got out of the blocks, i think such mutterings are simply a sign of jello-head, akin to the shivering, pale guy who came a little too close to the supernatural.

i'm glad i get to 'go' to college but equally glad that i don't 'have' to go to college anymore. i feel as though i'm competing about as well as i would in a game of one on one with a college athlete, and if you're wondering, I wouldn't have stood much a chance even when i was supposed to be in college.

first, a retraction
i'm just going to come up for air long enough to tell you that i may have spoke to impetuously the other day (11.06.01). as life surely emulates, i tried to fight the good fight in reference to sticking to my tried and true mac os, but only lasted two days before leaving the reliable and steady woman (os 9.2) for that young and lithe hellion (os 10.1). she kept whispering in my ear, telling me of the exotic life we could share. shut up, i would say, audibly might i add, but in the end i found myself gazing into her eyes. her dazzling, binder-blue and feature filled eyes until i did not have the internal wherewithal to fend her advances any longer. sorry 9.2, marry another, my heart has been stilled by this young and fresh damsel i have named desiree.

second, another retraction
multiple people have requested that i raise the allowable entries in the everyman contest from one to more. i initially had it set to three but changed it right before i published because in the event only one person entered the contest, it didn't seem fair to pay them all the jack (for one entry), even though i said i would. bookguy suggested that i raise the number of entries one can make, but say that each person is only eligible to win one award. couple that with my newfound confidence that i should receive at least three separate contestants, i'm ok with raising the number of potential entries. so i'm returning it to three photos per entrant. please feel free to dig deeper and better your chances of selection.

lastly, yet another retraction
while i may not be a photoshop guru, i have used it enough to spot an obvious fabrication. such was the case with the first photo entry received in this years contest. granted a strong clue was left in that i've been in the house where this photo was taken and am pretty sure don knotts has not holiday'd there. while i do not want to stifle any creative ambitions here, blatantly doctored photos may not be the strongest of candidates ... i hope.

It's here! It's here. It's finally here. After missing an incredibly early morning delivery attempt which forced a late night run to the inconveniently located fed-ex office I cracked the impressive packaging to my new titanium powerbook. Marty put it best when she saw the box and said, "I'll see you in a week, have fun." Did I score or what with her?

Pre-loaded with two operating systems, os 9.2 and os X (aka aqua), I knew my work was cut out for me. I will admit that I have adored mac's classic os so much I had problems envisioning what sort of obscene things os X would do to me. I shouldn't have worried. Like most brand new operating systems, this doesn't seem quite baked just yet. After my initial glimpse into it, I can honestly say that it seems as though I'd be leaving an intelligent, centered and reliable spouse of twenty years for some buxom and randy coed whose conversation would smack of Tori Spelling high on juice boxes (it's the straw, it's the tiny straw). So for the moment, I think I will stick to the classic version, using the newer one situationally. You got to leave something on your plate for tomorrow. Regardless of the os drama, this machine is exquisite, simply exquisite.

I'm done with microsoft. One too many virus alerts, unrecoverable windows errors and misleading (outright untruthful) marketing campaigns. Few people recognize that this company has not made any significant changes to their suite of applications, outside of tweaking the interfaces, since the release of Windows 95.

My exodus began after acquiring a dated apple computer about six months ago. The machine is 10 years old and with $300 worth of upgrades the box outperforms my greatly beefed up intel machine running bill's latest and greatest os. Since this not modest discovery I began eyeing apple's line of products. Obviously, I drifted towards their high end laptops but they were simply too costly to justify as a third computer. Until a few weeks ago when they released their new line of chips and the $3500 model plummeted to a more respectable $2100. As I like to say in regard to such matters, they're giving them away.

Since ordering my titanium badboy nine days ago, I've visited their order status page about 4 times a day only to be met with a Being Assembled notice. Apple, I need my machine and I need it now. Please complete me.

Doctor Stevie stopped in town last night on his way to San Francisco. He claims to be going to a medical conference on infectious diseases, but he looks rather suspicious about it all.

In a conversation between he, Marty and I, the term PDA came up in reference to a young couple. I admitted to not understanding the meaning of this inference. They looked at each other in that 'are you kidding me kind of way' and explained that it stood for "Public Display of Affection." Thinking they were joking I asked what it really meant and after exchanging sideways looks again, the mocking began. What do you think it means, personal digital assistant, they asked. Well yes, I replied. They then informed me that I shouldn't wear my dork badge so loudly on my sleeve. A lot they know, we carry them in our wallet.

I had every intention on posting updates to my sight while away last week, but one thing stood between me and my site, all sites for that matter, the ever-advertised and always talked about JUNO. Until attempting to use their service via my parents' pc, I had never contemplated the meaning of their moniker. But after spending 20 minutes trying to get connected on three separate occasions and getting the warning from my mother that you can only connect after 11pm did I realize that juno stood for "JUNO nothing about the internet if you use this service." The sixty minutes I invested in trying to get connected to the net took five years off of my life, easy.

I spent the last several days goofing off with Mr. Bookpimp from the big NC. A good block of our time was spent investigating the latest lead on a Napster replacement, and I'm pleased to announce that we do have a winner. MusicCity's Morpheus engine is leaps and bounds above its closest rival. With incredibly fast downloads, sophisticated interface, great selection diversity and reliable receipt of files I recommend any looking to sate the void left by our late friend Napster to visit and use Morpheus.

And as an added bonus, it does music videos too.

I think bell has finally gotten their act together. Some may recall my previous tirade(s) regarding how they treated me when I called them and wanted to give them my money. After they said they would be at my house between 8am and 10pm on three different occasions and never showed up, I decided to go with another company.

Since then, every few months I get a phone call from some hyper-perky girl named Becky or the such inquiring as to the status of my pending order and wondered if it had been installed yet. No. Do I still have interest in it? Sure. What day will work for you? You pick. She picks some random date three weeks in the future? I'll be here. Ok, and thanks for choosing southwestern bell as your internet service provider. Ok.

I then tell Marty to clear out on that day or at the least to not answer the door. I initially justified this arguably unethical behavior as payback for the three times they left me hanging. The fourth and fifth times were questionable and I've yet to see if we will rank a sixth time, but I'm fearful of making the right decision because there is something oh-so satisfying about that yellow "Sorry we missed you sticker" on the door when I get home from work. Some people call it pettiness, I call it retribution heroin.

Someone visited my site from a web TV. I didn't know that anyone actually had these. I thought they were a joke. I'm sorry, what I meant to say is that I know they are a joke and I didn't realize that there were people out there who did not know they were a joke. They must have fallen victim to that strong ad campaign.

This device accomplished in 15 minutes what I could not in two weeks; share a single ip address among all of my home computers (win2000, win95, mac) to grant web access across the board. Sometimes you just have to pony up to get the job done right. And, not only did it fulfill my need but my visiting brother-in-law was able to wirelessly use my web connection while hanging out downstairs in the dining room with about two mouse clicks from his apple iBook. Now how sexy is that?

In order to keep your geek card, one must engage in some overly nerdish act at least annually. To fulfill my obligation this year I took a PowerMac 7100/66 (circa 1993) and brought it into the modern age. After upgrading it to a 300 mhz G3 processor, adding 64 megs of ram and tossing a 4 gig hard drive into it, I suddenly have a mac on my desk that outperforms my primary windows workstation. Not bad for a couple of hundred bucks and a weekend. So until next year when I?m asked to again converse in geekenese I bid you good day.

Oh, and by the way, does anyone know how to use one of these things?

if you lived in my world you would know that i just don't post enough geek humor on this site.

You never know how much you love something until it's gone. I experienced said angst when the DVD in my computer went south on me. I soon discovered that 95% of the work I did was conducted with American Beauty, The Matrix or Aliens running up in the top right corner of my monitor. A friend suggested I call Creative Labs to complain about the short lifespan of their device. I reluctantly did only to hear, "shoot it to us and we'll get a new one out to you." A few short days later I was greeted in my mailbox with a brand new and functioning replacement. Anyone who facilitates my 97th viewing of Lester Burnham and Ricky Fitz scores mega-points in my book. Kudos Creative.

Below are two files that I've had several people ask for which I've delivered to approximately none of them. Since I cannot remember who asked for what, I'll just post both of them and anyone who wants them can have them. NOTE: Right click on the file to download.

The first is a home-made CD jacket sleeve (25kb) for any who may have heard of Napster and make their own cds. This is a word doc and has information for a bloodhound gang cd which you would, of course, modify and print. I'm not sure if non-laster printers can handle the lyrics side of the document. If not, just delete them.

This second file is a shopping list (131kb) that Marty and I use to track our food needs for our next trip to the market. Again, you would modify this as needed according to your own dietary habits. and if your half as anal as myself, you would set it up to correspond to your route through the store. This is also a word doc, and any printer should be able to handle it.