"If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue."

- Sears, Roebuck, and Co., Consumer's Guide, 1897

Posted in many other places, but still very amusing.

I spent most of tonight watching 1.5 Phillies games, more later.

For now, why don't you buy Houston by Dean Martin from

.

Scobie shares some geek dinner tips.

I wonder why Philly doesn't have some kind of blogger/geek get together. Perhaps there is one and I wasn't invited.

I do tend to think of myself as Philadelphia's most influential blogger; the real trick is getting others to think that as well.

The best day ever!

As many of you know there is a 22 page book of rules for the Presidential Debates agreed on by both candidates.

Chris Buckely somehow got a copy and shares some of it with us:

Paragraph Forty-two: Language. Candidates shall address each other in terms of mutual respect (“Mr. President,” “Senator,” etc.). Use of endearing modifiers (“my distinguished opponent,” “the honorable gentleman,” “Pookie,” “Diddums,” etc.) is permitted. The following terms are specifically forbidden and may not be used until after each debate is formally concluded: “girlie-man,” “draft dodger,” “drunk,” “ignoramus,” “Jesus freak,” “frog,” “bozo,” “wimp,” “toad,” “lickspittle,” “rat bastard,” “polluting bastard,” “lying bastard,” “demon spawn,” “archfiend,” or compound nouns ending in “-hole” or “-ucker.”

stevenf is a PDA addict, so his reviews are well thought out, and entirly grounded in a geek's view of the perfect PDA

Read it here:

I finally got my grubby little hands on my Sidekick 2, and have had some time to fiddle around with it. For those of you who are curious, here are some observations. It is easiest to define the Sidekick 2 relative to the previous version, so some familiarity is assumed.

InfoWorld: Oracle attracting MySQL users:

"MySQL is a very rudimentary database. It’s missing many of the basic technologies that you need like triggers, and so on," Shimp said. MySQL plans to add triggers, stored procedures, and database views to its product in early 2005, according to MySQL.

MySQL CEO Marten Mickos acknowledged on Thursday that Oracle is more feature-rich than the MySQL database, but said migration happens in both directions. Oracle, he said, is a great product for anybody who has plenty of money.

According to the Columbia Spectator Online Apples Are In:

When Jordan Ledy, CC '08, went shopping for a new computer, it took a little prodding from his mother for him to consider a Macintosh.

He'd used Windows-based computers for much of his life, and he was a little concerned about leaving the PC world. But now, after having his new Apple Powerbook for little over a month, he's enthusiastically joined the bandwagon.

"Macs are the shit," Ledy said. "They're the easiest to use and Apple's interface is just so slick. [By comparison] XP looks like Fisher-Price." Ledy isn't the only one who's fallen in love with Apple. According to market tracker IDC, in 2003 Apple sold 193,000 Macs to people in colleges and universities, a jump of 17.7% over the previous year. If you only consider laptops, the computer of choice for most new college students, Apple sales to higher education grew by 58.5% in the same period.

Have you ever looked at your iPod and thought, 'Hmm, the only way this could be better is if there was a laser point attached to it.'

Well, dream no more! The Griffin Technology's iBeam is for you!

I am willing to bet I would get much less than $15000, but it is worth a try.

The Tao of Mac has a great article about switching to the Mac:

Quasi-religious beliefs that any platform is better than another are not just irrelevant, but plain childish and stupid. Before maligning the Mac, Windows or Linux, make sure you know what you are talking about - most people in the IT business have "pet hatreds" towards one platform or another out of sheer ignorance, and more than a decade in the business has shown me that anyone who only has bad things to say about any given platform probably doesn't know what (s)he's talking about.

This is a nice balanced look at the whole situation, of course with a Mac slant but how can you write and article called 'HOWTO/Switch to the Mac' without some bias?

Daring Fireball has a good post about PC security:

New Windows updates, new anti-virus software, new ad-blocking software — regular people are starting to realize that the cycle never ends, that they are never going to successfully secure Windows, and that the easiest and best solution to the Windows security problem is not to use Windows at all.

The masses are restless.

It is just getting worse. Buy a Mac!

Sun wants to take back the campus:

"I was back in my office today for the first time in over a week, and was very happy to find 24 boxes each containing a Sun Java Workstation in the mailroom waiting for me. Well, they aren't exactly for me, they are for the program I discussed last week (see below). I've had so much positive feedback from this program that I decided to expand it, with a slightly different take. What we are going to do next is donate 200 workstations, 20 each to the ten universities that come up with the best proposals for using 20 new workstations. If your from a top school and have a great idea on how you can improve the world (OK, I'll settle for something more basic like how you'll teach a better Computer Graphics class using Solaris and a Sun Java Workstation), talk to your Sun sales representative and ask him or her about our "Campus Take Back" grants. Our marketing folks haven't all figured out how to blog, and they might take a few weeks to get information about this program out to the world, so if you get a funny look back from your sales rep, don't be shy, go ahead and drop me an email and ask about it. You might even end up with 20 boxes in your mailroom next month!"

Maura, of Notmyself.com, asks: "Are there any boy blogs out there? There are too many girls on my link list."

At the risk of stating the obvious, I am a boy (or man, depending on who you ask) and I read Notmyself.com, and I even link to it from time to time.

Why David Weller loves the new "Star Wars: Battlefront" Game...

They even include an Ewok getting shot in the commercial.

I have an almost clinical lack of short term memory, but I do enjoy planning things. Since these two traits tend to be at loggerheads I try to use various lists in order to keep me on track.

I LOVE task lists, and TaskEdit looks like a wonderful program:

TaskEdit is a unique and highly capable information management and navigation tool. TaskEdit is designed is to manage tasks and details and to manage the details of projects.

And check out the screen shots. Crazy man!

I might have to give it a test drive, and let you all know what I think (since I am sure you are all dying to know what I think about this).

According to the Buffalo News Nellie McKay isn't 19, but rather she is 22:

During an interview with McKay for a Sept. 10 Gusto article to preview her concert at the University at Buffalo, News Pop Music Critic Jeff Miers asked her, "How the heck did you figure all of this stuff out by age 19?" In response, Miers wrote, "McKay only laughs - something she did often during our conversation, in a delightfully infectious manner."

It seemed too good to be true.

It was.

McKay, who has charmed interviewers across the country with colorful stories about her unconventional 19 years of life, was actually born on April 13, 1982, making her 22, according to her father, London-based director and author Malcolm McKay."

Dear God, what is the world coming to?! An entertainer lying to the public? Shocking.

Go check out her album, Get Away from Me, on iTunes.

Oh, wait a second, no they didn't. Jillian Myers found out the hard way.

HP lures you in with their commercials and then besmirks your iPod (and notice Jillian's iPod isn't an Apple iPod from HP, so maybe the stickers weren't compatible).

David, a fellow D list blogger, has noticed that the 'A listers' all seem to share some good blogging qualities.

I say, revel in your D Listiness. Maybe we should have a t-shirt or something, 'D lister and I'm proud of it,' or 'D Lister - No one reads what I write and it doesn't bother me.'

Hmm... friends, I think we just found out why I don't write t-shirt slogans for a living.

I am, of course, without the authority to officially welcome you to the Mac Web, Mac Geekery, but I feel this little old website o' mine has enough Mac content to qualify as a Mac website.

Now, Mac Geekery is your usual run of the mill mac-o-phile site, not with posts like RAM Disks Made Easy and HSF+ Reconstruct Using fsck, however, it is a welcome addition to the geekier side of the Mac Web.

I wonder how many times I can use the phrase 'Mac Web' and still maintain my sleek sheen of coolness.

Five major changes in the 'Star Wars' DVD as reported by CNN.com:

George Lucas made several changes in "Star Wars" when the film was re-released in 1997. With the "Star Wars" trilogy on DVD, he's tinkered a little more.

None of them are all that earth-shattering, if you ask me. Of course, if you ask me Star Trek kicks Star Wars' butt.

Boing Boing offers Moment of Buzz Aldrin/Emmy Awards Zen:

My favorite Buzz thing-- aside from the time he busted that guy in the chops for asking him if the moon landings were fake-- was when Letterman was sending him out and about in the world for a while. He went to the daytime emmys in his astronaut suit and did red carpet interviews.

Which would go like this:

Buzz: Hi there! Who are you?
Soap Star: I'm Mr. Soap Star, and I'm nominated for best hooha in a thingy.
Buzz: That's great. I walked on the moon.
(very awkward silence)

I would love to watch that; now that's television!

Sketch a move may be the most exciting thing to happen to Matchbox cars since Crashzilla.

Where do I sign up to get some?

Good luck to One Good Bumblebee in her quest to get into a writing program.

It is a little known fact that I was seriously considering getting a MFA in Creative Writing as soon as I graduated from Lehigh. I applied to some of the top programs in the country, under the adivsing of my creative writing professor, and I was soundly rejected from almost all of them. I did get into Emerson though, which is nothing to sneeze at.

When I relayed to the results to my creative writing professor he replied, 'Oh, that's about what I expected.'

Say wha?

I do believe he should have told me that before I spent a couple hundred bucks on application fees.

As much as I would have loved to have gone to Emerson, it just didn't make sense since I received no financial aid and, let's be honest, MFA's are not usually 'pulling in the mad benjamins,' as the kids say.

Oh, cruel reality, you are a saucy wench.

If you aren't using a
Mac (and why aren't you?) you should download Firefox post haste. In fact even if you are using a Mac download Firefox. I must say that I do prefer Safari overall but Firefox is sneaking up on it all the time.

Check out Spread Firefox to read about some people very excited about a browser. You don't see that kinda thing happening for Internet Explorer.