So I’ve had several posts floating around in my head - and haven’t had a chance to make them.  So I’m going to take a page from The Wife’s book and post a bunch of random bits.

  • Last weekend The Boy and I want on an outing to the city.  So we went on a hunt to locate M5 Industries which for those who don’t know is the special effects shop owned by Jaime Hyneman and where much of Mythbusters if filmed.  It wasn’t hard to find - the address is on their website ;) and at least from the outside the shop looks surprisingly small.  We didn’t try and go inside - they don’t give tours.
  • Spudtroopers keep monsters away.  So The Boy’s latest fascination is Stormtroopers, I’m guessing it has to do with the amount of Lego Star Wars we’ve been playing.  Anyway, he had been telling me about how they are bad guys, I was going to try and explain that really stormtroopers are just working stiffs trying to earn a living for their clone family and make ends meet under the burden of oppressive Imperial  income taxes, but I figured the message would be lost on him.  Instead I explained that Stormtroopers are actually very good at keeping monsters  (his other “fascination”) away.  The trouble is that we don’t have any Stormtroopers - we did however have the Mr Potatohead Spudtrooper which appears to be doing the trick.  He’s been stationed outside of The Boy’s room on “Monster Watch,” The Wife has pictures which one day she might post on her blog.  Oh, and we have reinforcements ready if need be - Darth Tater is waiting in the wings.
  • I went to Macworld on Tuesday.  Overall I think I was a bit unimpressed.  First off there was the chaotic process to get my badge.  I won’t go in to the entire drama - however after 40 minutes of being packed in with a crowd of a few thousand folks to get my badge show organizers decided to just give up and announced that they would let folks in with our without a badge as long as they had pre-registered.   The badge process was disorganized at best and outright dangerous at worst.  As for the rest of the show - I think I just expected more based on the hype I had heard.  Overall it was just a computer trade show - albeit one with a startling number of booths peddling iPod cases and accessories.  Oh and Veronica Belmont wondering if the Apple banners around the Moscone Center that read “There’s something in the air” was eau du fanboi - hysterical.
  • Did anybody get the registration of the truck that ran over me?  Something must have hit me on Wednesday and if it wasn’t a truck it sure as heck felt like it by the end of the day.  I’m thinking it was either Norovirus or food poisoning, The Wife has been dealing with it as well.  It was so bad that I called in sick on Thursday - and I almost never call in sick.  I’m better now.
  • Not learning from history.  So if you haven’t heard, the President and Congress are working on an economic stimulus bill that includes tax rebates that will have the government writing checks to taxing paying adults for $600.  The thought being that we’ll take this new found money and spend it on something frivolous which will help the economy.  Going by past history (and my own personal thought) it won’t work.  If people went and used the money for some frivolous purchase it would work - but they won’t.  When similar rebates were paid in 2002 most people used the money to pay off existing debit - not for new things.  While lenders do want us to pay them, they don’t want us to pay off our debits, when we do that the lenders don’t make any money.  It’s going to take a lot to reverse the slide that the economy is in.
  • Still not a twitter.  I finally went and signed up for twitter.  Not to post but because a few bloggers I read use twitter and had referenced tweets and I felt like I was missing stuff by not following their twitter feeds…  After subscribing, I’ve realized a few things… First knowing that much about what people are doing feels very stalkerish to me.  Second, I really don’t think I care that you’re at the Big Boy having a burger with Ed.  As I’m following these twitter feeds, I can’t help but think that this is more detail about these people’s lives than I really need or should know.  In some ways I almost think I know more about these folks daily life than I do about my own wife’s.  I don’t need that kind of detail about what my wife does, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that much detail about somebody I’ve never met in person…  I guess it’s ok that you want to share that much information, but do you really want to share that much information?