nooksack

Blue Jeans vs. Monster

If you're in the mood for a good stickin'-it-to-the-man story, check out this letter from Kurt Denke, the proprietor of Blue Jeans Cable, in reply to a cease and desist his company received from Monster, Inc. alleging intellectual property infringement. What Monster apparently didn't know is that Kurt is a retired lawyer with 19 years of litigation experience. His response, especially the last few paragraphs for us non-lawyers, is priceless.

After reading this I couldn't be more happy about my decision to place a big (for me) order with Blue Jeans a couple of years ago. Go Kurt!

Didn't see this coming

Microsoft is acquiring Danger. Imagine my surprise. Now we wait for the next shoe to drop: the financial terms of the deal. I don't expect much, but if I see a buck a share after all is said and done, I will be ecstatic.

Stormy Weather

The storm that has rolled in over the last day or so is living up to the
hype. It has already knocked out our power. The hiptop is now my
internet lifeline. If the power is out for an extended period, getting
ready for London could be...interesting.

In other news we discovered that some mice had infiltrated our
bird-feeding peanut stash. We placed some live traps and have now
relocated no fewer than six specimens. Ugh.

Awareness

I just had one of those lucid moments of awareness, or maybe I became aware of a moment of lucidity. I suddenly became aware of my life, and all the things in it, and how remarkable it all is. I know it sounds absurd when I put it that way. I was standing in my workplace bathroom, of all places, and just for a moment my brain expanded, and then it was gone, and I began to reflect on it. I even wrote this blog post in my head right there, I knew I had to post it because of the Escher-like recursion it creates.

I bet that's what enlightenment feels like, only bigger, but just as fleeting.

The Film Crew

MST3K lives, sort of. I was just thinking how much I miss these guys as I was watching a bit of MST3K: The Movie, the other day. Now Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy are once again riffing on bad movies, this time sans robots. Their site has some samples, and they still have it, but I do miss the rest of the crew. I remember enduring their cinematic torture and feeling quite rewarded by the cut scenes in between. I'm not sure if I could manage to sit through an entire craptacular feature without a break.

Home again

Got a new MacBook Pro on Saturday. It was just about time, ya know? I haven't been using a Mac regularly since 1996ish. It feels a bit like coming home again, except that someone completely redecorated the place, and things don't look strangely smaller like they did the last time I visited my old high-school. The last system I used was version 8 or 9? I can hardly remember it, other than it crashed a lot in those days. Now, thanks to Yooniks, not so much. This machine is also the first laptop and first unix box I have owned. I'm liking it on both counts.
As for what I plan to do with this thing, right now it's serving as a portable WoW and web browsing station. I may start lugging it to work, but the daily jostling on the motorbike might be a problem. I installed the developer tools, so I might poke around with them a bit. I plan to do some more blogging (yeah, right!), and I might move all my picture processing over here too. Hmm, maybe I can mooch a discounted copy of Aperture from my friends at Apple.

The Prestige

I missed it in theaters, so I only just watched The Prestige on DVD. Wow, it did have me guessing most of the way through. I definitely need to see it again to pick up all the cues I missed. Maybe not quite on par with The Usual Suspects, but damn close. Nice twists, a convincing performance by Jackman, Caine, and most others. I have to say I thought Bale's performance felt a bit forced early on. It was good to see the cameo by Ricky Jay too.

Product Music

O M G

This music just makes me want to consume! My favorite by far is Tractor Driving Man, although I wouldn't be caught dead on a Ford.

Avast!

Just a friendly reminder that Talk Like a Pirate Day is coming up on September 19th.

Google Reader goes mobile

This might be old news, but I just noticed that Google Reader is now available via a simplified HTML interface suitable for mobile access, like say a heeptop. Since Danger will probably never release a real RSS reader for the device, this makes a handy substitute.