Day: December 22, 2006

It was a cold, dark, dreary, rainy day.

It’s not very often a story about Phoenix starts that way, but that’s what it was like today.

I had to go out at lunchtime to try to find a DVI cable for my new monitor. I also needed to get an Apple mini-DVI to DVI dongle for my MacBook. With a little luck, I thought perhaps Fry’s Electronics would have both the cable and the dongle. I was sure they’d carry the cable, but the dongle was more of a question mark. They carry Apple products and a few accessories and apart from the Apple store, they were the only place that might carry it. (I knew the Apple store wouldn’t carry the DVI cable.)

Fry’s only had the cable (and 135 people in line in front of me) so I had to make a trip after work to the Apple store. The city was practically gridlocked, between the holiday traffic and the rain, it was brutal. A trip from my office to the Apple store normally takes 10 minutes, today it took an hour. The parking lot was a log jam, and the Apple store was doing a ripping bit of business.

The guy ahead of me was buying eight 30Gb iPods!

I wish I had that kind of money for XMas (or even Saturnalia) presents.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blog, Christmas, xmas

My wife is so thoughtful. She goes out of her way to try to surprise me Christmas. I really bad when it goes wrong… but on the other hand, as those wise sages, Morecambe & Wise, once said, the secret of all great comedy is timing.

Last night, my wife had to go pick up the ham. (I refused to pick up the ham because of last year’s tale.) Ten minutes after she left, someone showed up at out door. It was the UPS guy, which surprised me because I wasn’t expecting any packages. He was holding a small box from Amazon.com and he held out the electronic clipboard for me to sign.

I signed my name and reached for the package, which he pulled back to indicate he wouldn’t give it to me. Instead, he just pointed down at the ground next to the door, where I saw this: A new Sceptre 20“ wide screen monitor. (The one I thought I wasn’t going to get because I had already found my XMas gift and it wasn’t big enough.)

There wasn’t much I could do, it was packed just as you see it, so I couldn’t leave it outside and I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know what it was.

Still, it’s a wonderful present and it leads me to my next post…

Technorati Tags: Blog, Christmas, xmas

Every year, the neighbors on the corner put up the ugliest nativity scene ever!

You can practically see the fleas leaping off the mannequins, and they’re always at least one or two wise men short. Joseph is often missing for days on end. (Well, what with the baby crying all the time and their marriage is a bit strained since he isn’t the father – who could blame him?)

I think this year, they got a new lamb and may have re-upholstered the donkey. Either way, my main complaint isn’t the display, it’s the fact that this is on the corner of a major thoroughfare and when you’re coming off our street (heading left in this picture) you cannot see the oncoming traffic because of that damn manger.

(They did move it back from the street some this year, which does help.)

Technorati Tags: Blog, Christmas, xmas

The new server got put into place yesterday, and hopefully there’s nothing too wrong with the site. A few of the backup files may have been corrupted on upload, so if anything doesn’t appear to be working, let me know.

Technorati Tags: Blog