I did this with Comcast just this week actually. They dropped my bill (for "triple play" cable/phone/internet) by $60 per month. It is still too expensive, but more reasonable now and I'm not quite ready to drop TV completely. (Haven't convinced the wife yet and don't have time to setup a media server/sick beard/etc.)

I used the online chat and I wish I would have done it sooner, was pretty simple.

If you were black or Muslim you wouldn't be in Friendswood: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendswood,_Texas

Although seriously, ignoring this current story, Friendswood is a really nice city with good schools and I'd happily live there if I could afford it. (I live nearby.)

Well they did drop the price by $100 and you can get the external superdrive for $79 so it is still cheaper than the model it replaces for a much more powerful machine.

The removal of the optical drive also provides room for a discreet graphics card (AMD Radeon HD 6630M).

Walmart has carried CR123A batteries for well over 10 years. You should also easily be able to find them at Target, Radio Shack, Best Buy, etc. Heck all the grocery stores around here (Houston) carry them as well.

From what I've seen the CR123a actually seems to be a pretty standard battery for use in flashlights. I think all of the Surefire flashlights use them: http://www.surefire.com/ Tactical gun lights by Streamlight use them as well: http://www.streamlight.com/product/class.aspx?cid=10

I'm actually going to disagree with you here. I'm a news photographer in a large metroplex and deal with police and crime scenes fairly frequently. Every single "crime scene investigator" I've ever met carries a gun. They are all commissioned police officers and are armed while out collecting evidence and documenting scenes.

Now we may have a slight sticking point between "technician" and "investigator" but in the real world, the folks out at the scene have guns and several of them I know actually out-rank detectives.

He can still purchase the episodes or seasons but will have to do so from iTunes on his computer and then stream the purchases locally to the AppleTV. This may add an extra step he used to be able to do directly from the ATV?

My experience isn't quite so dramatic.

With normal internet usage (web/email/IM/MP3s) my power draw hovers around 210-215 Watts. Same activity with Seti@Home running, processing 8 work units, and power draw hovers around 250-255 Watts so I'm not seeing that much of an increase.

(For reference I have a 2009 Mac Pro, 2.26 GHz 8 core with 8 GB of RAM)

Depends on the time of year.

May through November it is:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

The rest of the year it is Blank.

Crysis! They can't even watch DVDs up there, remember?