I finally got to play with a kindle in person. (Amy bought one for herself — to celebrate my birthday no less!) I think I really like it. The print and fonts are really very good. I loved the ease of downloading a book and the integration with nownow, service where you can ask random questions is pretty cool as well. It’s still expensive, but I can definitely say I wish I had one now.

If you have children like mine — hungry to build things and “experiment” you should check out Howtoons. It is chock full of small, fun projects to build. Some are quite simple like the safety goggles made from a 2 liter bottle. I wish I would hire the authors to create technical manuals for me at the office.

Search Commands, originally uploaded by timbu.

I’ve recently switched to the newest version of office. I don’t hate it other than the fact that once again everything seems slower. One thing that I can’t stand is the fact that there are a few commands I can’t find with the new sorry excuse for a toolbar. Hope this thing from office labs helps. I’ll let you know.

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus – Here Comes Everybody via kwout

Seriously 200 billion hours squandered watching TV. Now Jeannie pointed out rightly that the people watching all that TV and the people writing long articles on the wikipedia might not be the same people. Meaning that if we were to all give up TV simultaneously the world wouldn’t likely jump up and start to do useful things. Holy crap 200 billion hours of TV blows my mind.

Decor Craft Inc., originally uploaded by timbu.

If I bought this keen cup I would probably break it by throwing it in the waste basket accidentally. It’s still cool.

The Economist has a great style guide online. Of particular note is the section on Americanisms.

“If you use Americanisms just to show you know them, people may find you a tad tiresome, so be discriminating. Many American words and expressions have passed into the language; others have vigour, particularly if used sparingly. “

I am from here, I can’t help myself.

Warren Buffet isn’t always right, but this Fortune article titled, “Squanderville versus Thriftville” from 2003 was dead on in some respects. I can’t say I favor his solution of tarriffs, but it is still an interesting read.

That link reminds me of this presentation on the sub-prime crisis that I found informative.

If that didn’t cheer you up try this one, “The Pentagon Strangles Our Economy: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke“.

I ran into a weird citation of my blog on an academic paper. Implicit Structure and
Dynamics of Blogspace written by Eytan Adar.

Last Sunday I spent a chunk of my day in the oddest places. First I went to a gun show. In this case it was show for collectors of older guns. I was wanting to get a little more information on the guns my grandfather had and figure out how to best care for them. I was pretty amazed at the things I saw and did. For instance I have never walked around at the Minnesota State Fair grounds with a couple of rifles. It’s an odd experience. The oddest thing though was how friendly the people were at the gun show. It’s one of the few times in Minnesota where a lot of people have walked up to me to strike up a conversation.

After I left the gun show, I drove home and realized I was passing a store that sells comic books in addition to d&d supplies and other odds and ends. I decided I would stop in to get a few comic books for Matthew. I don’t frequent stores like this so I was totally unprepared for either the patrons or the diversity of worlds that were presented to me.

I wondered about the overlap between the people who attend gun shows and also attend comic book conventions. The people who might be packing heat, but the “heat” is highly collectible and should not fired.

I also thought a lot about writing a short story. The idea is this, a woman thinks she is gong to a speed dating event only she accidentally shows up at the gaming table. It’s called “Roll of the 20 sided dice”. After thinking about it more, I think I was actually writing a bad sitcom in my head.