The Ankle Biter @ Quibbling.net

As seen today at the corner of Rockville Pike and Tuckerman Lane in Rockville, MD. The Sri German and I were on our way to have lunch with a former coworker when I spotted this slogan on the traffic signal. Who comes up with this stuff? Since we were stopped at a light, I just had to snap a shot with the supa-sexy new digital camera.

And yes, that is the camera’s name. I can’t just refer to it as “my camera” or “the new camera.” It has to be The Supa-Sexy New Digital Camera. And it did a lovely job capturing the slogan from some distance away, no?

I took Athena to see the only person alive allowed near her with a screwdriver so she could get her broken latch fixed. (Actually, Tom unscrewed the panel on the bottom of the machine once to install my RAM upgrade, but for anything more complex than that, he also tells me to talk to John.) I had managed to destroy the latch through normal use several months ago, and hooray for AppleCare!

So John did in an hour and a half what it would have taken the Apple “Geniuses” a week and a trip to Cupertino to do, which is replace my screen bezel. In order to do this, a good portion of the unit has to be disassembled, because of the way the screen assembly is attached to the rest of the machine.

When he had finished cleaning Athena up and putting her back together, he handed her back over to me and I took her back to the office.

I booted her up and waited for a connection to the office wireless network. Nada. I click the Airport Icon, which has the “Airport is Turned Off” indicator showing. The menu said, “No Airport card installed.”

Odd, I wonder if this is just a weirdness that comes with being recently disassembled. So I plug in the Ethernet cable, connect, and IM John:

“Mr. John, for why does my computer say that it has no Airport card?”

(There is a pause for a couple of minutes.)

“Um, for because I am a big moron and am holding your Airport card in my hand.”

Like any responsible tech would, he had popped out the battery and Airport card before commencing to disassemble my precious computer. When he reassembled, he left the Airport out. No biggie- I’ll get it back from him tomorrow.

All this is just to say that I’ll likely be offline for most of the evening- I’ll be hanging out at Tom’s where there is WiFi but probably no convenient Ethernet.

But tune in tomorrow, when I post the entertaining photo I snapped today on the way to lunch with my super-sexy new digicam.

Rumor has it that the Sci-Fi channel may pick up Dead Like Me. Go vote in the poll!

Porcini

Originally uploaded by radichietto.

I needed to test out blog posting from Flickr, and I like mushrooms, so here ya go.

I’m playing around with Flickr with the idea of using it to host a distributed family photo album. I told my mom that if she and my dad will get broadband and some wifi equipment, I’ll come set up their network and get online family photo sharing set up to give them something to use the broadband for. We’ll see.

My brother made me a mix CD as part of my Christmas gift (the other part was Jon Stewart’s America, which is itself proof of his awesomeness). I got around to spending the time to tag and rip the tracks into iTunes this morning, so I thought I’d share with you the contents of this most excellent CD.

Revenge of the Playlist: 360 Degrees of Venomous Audio DOOM!

1. Epic - Faith No More
2. Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears for Fears
3. Take On Me - Reel Big Fish
4. Tell Me When - Human League
5. High Enough - Damn Yankees
6. Big Car - Spookie Daily Pride
7. Hitchin’ A Ride - Green Day
8. In the House of Stone and Light - Martin Page
9. Ghost of Stephen Foster - Squirrel Nut Zippers
10. Walking on Sunshine - Five Iron Frenzy
11. Winds of Change - Scorpions
12. Defy You - The Offspring
13. Blue Angel - Squirrel Nut Zippers
14. Cumbersome - Seven Mary Three
15. Awesome God - The Insiderz feat. Five Iron Frenzy
16. My Madonna - Dexter Freebish
17. Ordinary World - Duran Duran
18. Hell - Squirrel Nut Zippers
19. Drink to the Dead - Clutch
20. A Flowery Song - Five Iron Frenzy

I don’t typically make New Year’s Resolutions, simply because they’re too easy to break. I will be getting back on the South Beach Diet wagon next week, but only because right after the holidays is a convenient time to do it, not out of some New Year sense of guilt.

But, like Tom, I am plotting several things for 2005:

- I’ve got a new job!
- Paying off all my debt except the car (I’ve got a great rate on the car, so rather than pay that down early, I’ll probably start investing more in earnest)
- My next international adventure
- Developing some latent and unexplored interests in the arts: martial and visual.

So it should be a good year.

I didn’t get to post a Merry Christmas message before I left, but I hope it was indeed peaceful and restful for everyone, whether you were celebrating a holiday or not.

So, courtesy of my sexy new digital camera (thanks, sweetie!), here is one of the sights of the season.

This is but a fraction of the quarter-acre spread of Christmas lights, which includes Santa and 9 reindeer on the roof of the house, a lit plastic choir (with taped Christmas carols!) in front of the house, and more little lawn ornaments than I care to think about. Although I have had to shrink the 5-megapixely goodness down to post the photo, in the original, you can see his “24 hour Surveillance Cameras” signs posted here and there, meant to deter any would-be pranksters from making off with a wooden snowman or two.

The BBC- the Beeb!- is reporting on how Ben Roethlisberger was passed over for the Pro Bowl.

The Cowboys might call themselves America’s Team, but dem Stillers are the World’s Team ‘n’at.

Remember Deb? The one with the list of things to say to people asking annoying questions that are none of their business?

Well, those people can stop asking those kinds of questions, because Deb has told their very cute engagement story.

Dead Like Me has been cancelled!

WAAAAAAAAH!

We only just started to learn Rube’s story! And I wanted to see what happens to Mason! And how did Daisy die, anyway? You bastards, bring back my show!!