Bill Canaday, hisself

My GEO Metro (Chevy / Suzuki) got 52 mpg out of the box and ran fast enough to get a speeding ticket on any road in America and all but one in Europe. Later, with about 100,000 miles on it, it still got roughly 40 on the highway and 32 in the city.

So why can’t I buy one today? (more…)

I am testing the new and improved ScribeFire blogging editor and associated advertising arrangement. There really is no other reason for this post. If by some chance you want to learn more about this deal, cruise on over to Scribefire.

So far, I’m not certain what the deal is. Based on an earlier invitation to beta-test, I was expecting a change to the editing interface with a tab to insert the ads. But that’s not what I am looking at. Excuse me for a moment while I scratch my head and try to figure out what the deal is.

I’m off for a camping week alone. Well, more like Wednesday through Sunday. Except that my wife and possibly some guests will be here Friday night. My wife will be staying until Sunday morning. Or until the mosquitoes drive her away. The woman is mosquito bait.

Oh no, no, no, no, no … don’t get me wrong … I’m not complaining. When she’s not around, the mosquitoes target me. When she’s nearby, they don’t. Just another reason to love her, I guess. (more…)

The quote rotator now has nearly 300 400 exactly 367 quotes rotating through randomly, with enough additional material already sitting on my desk to take it just short of 500 entries. Although posting these is semi-fun, I was going to call a halt around the 500 level. By then, even my cousin Andy will get tired of reloading just to see which quote comes up next … especially since they are programmed to display randomly. (Yes, he’s blond.)

But then, I said to myself “Self … why not ask other people for the quotes that tickle them?”

If you have a quote or two that you would like to have included, now would be a good time to post it in a comment. I’ll move it to the quote rotator along with proper credit for it. And voila! You’ll be famous in no time at all. Maybe.

Each quote is visible for about 20 seconds. That’s not quite an “Andy Warhol” minute, but what the heck … the cumulative exposure could be considerable and is likely to last longer than poor old Andy.If the quote is exactly original with you AND appears on your blog or website (I’m going to check!), then I’ll also post your provided URL.

This timing is long enough for me to read them but I don’t know if this interval will work well for others. Please let me know if you would prefer them to remain on screen longer — or not.

I really can’t see taking them down any faster.

That said, I’ve also bought a new Sauder desk that I want to review for you. The genuine simulated cherry finish is doomed, but the thing seems well enough made to give years of use in a SOHO. I also bought an external HD (1 Terabyte) that seems just amazing to me.

I can still recall being excited when I got my first HD … a Seagate 40 meg job with MFM encoding.That was back in the day when I could afford to trick out my XT computer with a faster (10 mHz) CPU and a 2 megabyte extended ram card. That hard disk replaced a dual floppy disk design. I’m still partial to the flip-top case design.

Today, 1 Terabyte takes about the same room as that 40 meg job and is orders of magnitude faster. So watch for my review of it, too.

(revised 08/04/08)

A cottage industry has arisen in our midst. This is a direct adaptation of the Nigerian 419 scam … but look at its source:

lisadoudou77@yahoo.co.jp

Dear,
I am introducing my self as LISA DOUDOU   , 21 years old and only daughter of Late Mr. NICOLAS DOUDOU, I wish to request for your assistance in a financial
transaction., And I wish to invest in Manufacturing and real estate management in your country. or possible any good lucrative business you know much better then me.

Whattaya wanna guess that the last name of our mythical heiress is pronounced “doo-doo”?

Is it an urban legend or do people actually fall for this scam?

(Actually, I’m posting the email address here in the hopes that it will be picked up by screenscraper software and get added to someone else’s spam list. It takes some thought, but yes, you CAN fight fire with fire.)