Number Three

I just surfed over to ESPN's web site, and saw this headline:

I'm shocked.

While I wasn't a die-hard racing fan by any means (I didn't even watch yesterday's Daytona 500) I normally watch a few races every season.  My dad got me into watching, though at first I was going to dismiss it as a sport.  I was intrigued by the strategies involved in NASCAR racing, the risks of running another 2 laps before stopping for fuel, the jockeying for position, and the speed. 

For those who don't know, losing Dale Earnhardt means losing the biggest star of NASCAR, and his death will cast a dark cloud over the sport for years to come...

Slim Jewels

Like Leia, I too have received some free one-cent stamps from Amazon.com.  I think I used up all my thirty-three cent stamps already, so what do I do with these ten one-centers?  The little note from Jeff Bezos was nice.  All I ordered were three of these slim jewel case 25-packs...

Snow, snow everywhere

Brent has an intriguing tale of mendacity on his weblog today...

I've spent most of the afternoon working on this proposal, for an Intern to be funded by the University.  It won't pay well, only $7/hour or so, but I don't intend to make the person do much real work, it's intended to be an educational experience for them, and if they were smart, they'd get class credit for it too...

Here's a funny bit about users that was passed along to me today.  They left out the user who refuses to think, and refuses to learn, and is unable to handle even minor version changes in their software.

Just what we needed, more snow!  It's a full-fledged blizzard outside, we've already gotten two inches this morning, from my estimation...

Slip-Sliding Away

I had a meeting this afternoon, about job duties and things falling between the cracks regarding my coworker, myself, and the central IT people for the University.  I was about to be criticized for not performing everything listed as my job duties, when I pointed out that I'd never been informed of my job duties.  I went on to state that I'd never been given a single piece of documentation relating to what was expected of me, except for the original job posting when I turned in my application.  There wasn't much they could criticize me for after that...

I've added the new macro to my weblog that provides a link to the XML stream from this site.  Unfortunately, none of the actual content seems to appear there.  Syndication is turned on, and has been for a long time.  Any of you XML/Manila gurus want to tell me what I'm doing wrong? 

If you look at my webcam today, you can see my nifty new glasses that I bought this weekend.  I got them at Lenscrafters for $99.  I dropped off my prescription, picked out the frames, and went back a few hours later to get them.  As I was putting them on, the manager said "Those were made in 45 minutes!"  and waited for a reaction of some type.  I just stared at him with a "Yeah, so?" look on my face, until he mumbled something about them liking to tell everyone how long it takes...

Dell has confirmed that they are replacing a lot of GX200 motherboards due to a video "smearing" problem with the integrated graphics chip.  We don't have any of the GX200 machines here, because they use the expensive RAMBUS memory.

It's a dangerous day to be a pedestrian, I nearly fell three times just between the parking lot and my office.

No work and all play...

Classes were canceled at ISU today also, but John was still expected to show up.  I don't understand that logic, that employees who live many miles away are expected to come in, but we can't have classes for the students who live on-campus?  I think it's class discrimination against university staff, as the faculty don't have to show up if they're not teaching. 

The Buy.com deal of the day is a Panasonic KXP-6500.  It's a laser printer, going for only $135!  I haven't used a Panasonic printer since my old KXP-1124 dot matrix, but that's a great price on a laser printer...

No work for me today!  The University has canceled both classes and work for the day, due to the weather.  I'm going to watch some movies, do some baking, and play some computer games.  I don't even think I'll go outside, except maybe 3 feet to get my mail from the mailbox, when and if it is delivered.