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Spent a lot of leisure time in the last week or so researching and putting together our little trip to London (in late November). Also spent nights last week watching nearly all of The Civil War on PBS. I'd like to own it, but at a more reasonable price. Guess I'll have to check Costco. Also spent a little time Sunday at the racetrack test-driving the new Mercedes E-Class (I have no idea why we've been invited to these events, but I don't mind).

Posted by jim at 3:15 PM | Permalink

Woooo! 18th row, center!

Posted by jim at 10:21 AM | Permalink

Excellent article at Salon.com about the whole Bob Greene thing. So many people ignore that he was a bad writer.

Posted by jim at 2:46 PM | Permalink

Seen on Slashdot:Self-cleaning glass hits Europe. Can I get this on our car? And in the paint job, too?

At nytimes.com: Nu Shortcuts in School R 2 Much 4 Teachers. The kids these days are using IM shortcuts in their school assignments and don't notice that they're doing it.

Posted by jim at 1:41 PM | Permalink

Item to be added to the list of things that'd be cool to have but I have no need for: Hubzilla.

Posted by jim at 3:49 PM | Permalink

Alton Brown's interview answers are online at slashdot.org.

Posted by jim at 3:33 PM | Permalink

Kraftwerk's on this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot. If they get inducted (I'd like to see the odds on that), do they jam with everybody else at the end of the show on the pocket calculators?

Futurama will be rerun on Cartoon Network starting in January. Now if they'd only come out on dvd, then I'd really be happy.

Been watching Dinner for Five on Monday nights on IFC. Aside from the Marilyn Manson/Andy Dick episode (which guest didn't show up?) they've all been quite good.

Great article about the visuals on Rush's current tour by the company that does them. Worth a read if you're a fan.

Posted by jim at 3:45 PM | Permalink

Looks like a new version (2.5) will be released later this month. I'm glad that search will be an integrated part of it.

Posted by jim at 8:58 AM | Permalink

5-star review of 10.2 at Ars Technica. I'm putting off the upgrade for a couple of months, waiting for iCal and such to be released. And maybe 10.2.1 as well.

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Spent some time in a big bookstore over the weekend and skimmed a couple of blogging books: The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog and We've Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture. We've Got Blog is mostly a collection of articles that exist online, which makes it a bit disappointing and causes you wonder what justifies its existence in book form rather than being a set of pages with links and commentary. The Weblog Handbook offers practical advice and serves as a good intro to what they are and what you might do with one if you're so inclined. Being in book form rather than on the Web, I suppose it serves as a sales brochure as to why you might want to get online and/or what you might enjoy when you get there. It would have worked better online, where you could click through to the cited sites and pages.

Dont' forget: Summer's Over. Need to bring that in this week for some worktime listening.

Art of the day: The Figure 5 in Gold.

Posted by jim at 2:22 PM | Permalink

In no particular order:

Gecko's amazing sticky feet via BBC.

Bought a new VCR (to replace our aging 8+ year old one that has become intractable) over the weekend. A third the cost of the old one (not surprisng) but smaller and feels much less substantial (like there's a couple LEDs, a tiny Hot Wheels motor, and a single computer chip running the whole thing).

Of PowerPoint and Pointlessness via Wired. I'm not a fan of PowerPoint, though I end up using it (adjusting/tweaking others presentations at a very late stage) at work. Giving a person a hammer doesn't make them a carpenter.

Today's art: Empire of Light (L’Empire des lumières). Used to have a framed print of this in my office at t previous job. Magritte's probably my favorite 20th century painter.

Posted by jim at 3:53 PM | Permalink