I used to love Steve Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar in BYTE magazine. He used to write about all of these hardware/software projects to control your house or other gadgets you could make for yourself. The funniest column however, was how he accidently locked himself out of his house with his homebuilt alarm system activated and a souffle in the oven. You can see a version of the story by searching for "Computer On Guard".

Pepe's in New Haven, CT is the Best! How many pizza places are there where people are willing to stand in a line just to get a pizza? Try the white clam/garlic pie if you go there --- it's to die for!

When I went to college, it was just before calculators became smaller than typewriters and cheap enough so that I could afford one. So when I'm feeling "Old School", I like to fire up my copy of Caveman's Calculator: http://students.washington.edu/bsteph/XoeduskSoftware/X.S/Downloads.html

It' really the Democrats, with the feckless consent of the Republicans who are to blame for starting this in the first place. They were the ones who changed the lending laws during the Clinton Admin. to allow sub-prime lending to people who couldn't qualify under normal requirements. No money down, no credit checks, no proof of income, that sure makes for a great loan. Then they forced the banks to make these loans or they would have been labeled racist or discriminatory against the poor. Then to ensure the money flow, the Fed kept interest rates artificially low, which encouraged lenders to go hog wild. Then their greed set in and it became a pyramid scheme, where they kept selling bundled sub-prime loans to the securities markets, to get enough cash to write even more bad loans. Well the pyramid is falling and the taxpayers are going to hold the bag. We need new blood in D.C.; vote against all incumbants and party hacks NOW! Forget Obama and McCain, we need Sarah Palin for President! Ahh, I feel better now!