If you go into a casino thinking you'll do anything BUT lose money, you're a fool. A trip to the casino is no different than a night out with an expensive dinner and a movie - it's an entertainment expense, nothing more. Occasionally you'll get lucky and come out with more money than you started with, but you have to go in looking at it as an entertainment expense.

Same here, but I also know that I sometimes get legitimate calls from unidentified callers (doctor, wife's office, etc). For me, the following works perfectly:

- home phone is call-forwarded to a GrandCentral number
- GrandCentral is configured to send certain callers to my cell phone, wife's cell phone, or both. Unknown callers, "spam" calls, blocked calls, etc., just never ring through.
- an added benefit, voicemails get delivered via email

"I had to start the car once at -24F this year" - only once? I remember two consecutive mornings (SW metro) back around mid-January when the thermometer in my truck said -24 at 9:00am.

"all traces of George W. Bush disappeared from the White House website"

And this is bad, why?

I just finished the switch from Comcast to Qwest (20Mbps DSL went live last Friday, dropped modem off at Comcast this morning). I too have had short, random disconnects with Comcast, annoying when gaming or VPN'd to the office. I had daily disconnects at 10:30am, modem wouldn't lose sync, but I would have 100% packet loss for 20-25 minutes. The connection was also weather-sensitive - during the last two extreme cold snaps here in Minneapolis, the connection was essentially useless.

Qwest was a snap - placed the order with a few mouse clicks, the modem showed up 2 days later. Ran their QuickConnect install, plugged my router in, and I was up and running. Ping times are roughly half of what I saw with Comcast (27ms vs. 47ms avg, measured with Smokeping). More importantly, it's consistent. Looking at the 30 hour graph for Comcast, the line looked like a sine wave. The equivalent graph for Qwest is perfectly flat. Gaming seems MUCH smoother, web sites are much more responsive (using OpenDNS, did the same on Comcast).

It's only been a week, but I'm a happy Qwest customer so far.

> The chassis is an up-scaled car chassis

Ummm, no, the Explorer (at least the ones I've owned) sits on a twin I-beam frame/suspension, the same one used on the Ford Rangers. The Ford ESCAPE sits on a car chassis, but not the Explorer. As for mileage, my current one has 187,000 miles on it, runs like a top, uses no oil, no leaks of any kind. I've driven this one for almost 2 years, and aside from changing the oil and putting in gas, I've had to do nothing to it. The previous one had 208,000 miles. It blew a head gasket one hot summer afternoon, and I couldn't justify the time or expense to fix it.

*I* use the same password for everything, thanks for telling everyone, you insensitive clod!

I drive an SUV, a 10-year-old Explorer that I paid $2000 for. Before that, I drove a 13-year old Explorer that I paid $1800 for. They hardly qualify as luxury vehicles. I bought them for two simple reasons - they're easy to work on/maintain, and they're capable (and fun) in the snow. I don't consider them intimidating. Tough? Maybe, I do tend to abuse them, hauling all sorts of crap (stuffed 20 bags of mulch into one over the summer) and they never complain, does that make them tough?

I have a strong dislike of the "luxury" SUV's, the Escalades, Yukons, etc. They seem to always be driven by women, you always see them trying to back into a parking space while talking on the phone, and they never, ever haul anything but kids and groceries. I see them as nothing more than a status thing, but it's their money, they can spend it however they want.

This doesn't explain why my Comcast connection goes down for 20 minutes, every single day, at 10:30am. Without fail. You can set your watch by it. Modem doesn't lose sync, but I get 100% packet loss from 10:30-10:50, every morning. My assumption is that somebody on my cable segment is running a scheduled transfer or something...

I wondered why rush hour in the Twin Cities seemed worse than normal this morning. Now I know why. Some folks found out about this and donated early.

Most people in central Ohio (hell, all of Ohio) only know stars as being "them thar shiny doohickies up'n that thar sky". Thankfully I escaped 10 years ago to another state.

Added to Google Reader - I look forward to reading every word!

Just received mine today, and I gotta say, I love it. My computer is in the bedroom, and I tend to stay up after my wife has gone to bed. It's a real pain in the neck trying to type in the dark. Not only is the backlighting awesome, but the keyboard has an excellent feel, and is very visually appealing.

Since Jan. 1st, 2008, I've spent over $1200 at Amazon, not a dime has been on a credit card. My debit card works just like a Visa, and I have that tied to Amazon's one-click feature. Combine that with Amazon Prime, I can have nearly anything I want delivered to my door step in 2 days. In fact, my new Logitech illuminated keyboard should be waiting for me when I get home today. For me, Amazon is the ultimate shopping vehicle. I have a Best Buy store less than 3 miles from my home, right next door to a large shopping mall, and I'm ten minutes away from the Mall Of America - but I rarely go to any of them. A trip to Best Buy means traffic, a crowded parking lot, pushy salespeople, and dealing with the "herd" in general. Anything I want from Best Buy, I can get from Amazon, usually cheaper, as easily as clicking a button. I can take my time, compare features, etc..

Both of my kids know what DRM is - my son uses several "no-cd" cracks to play various games. They both have iPods, and my daughter is getting an iPhone for Christmas. In spite of my best efforts to get them to purchase from Amazon, they both insist on buying from Apple. Reasons I've heard:

- it's easier
- I'm never going to play them on anything buy my iPod anyway
- I'm not going to give my friends music that I paid for. That's illegal anyway.

So... They understand the restrictions, they understand that they're married to Apple, but "the system" works for them. I don't like it, but I can see their point...