Your facts will not stand in the way of my wishful thinking.

So will all the books be $2 plus shipping?

Like Nethack?

Last 2 times I have flown afternoon flights on Continental from Newark to Charleston, SC...

Now there's your problem. As for it being "on-time", does it mean on-time arrival? Philly/New York flight times are padded by 60-90 minutes. So if you plane takes off less than an hour late, it will probably land "on-time."

according to the article, about $1/carat.

Echo the Virtual CloneDrive suggestion. How else do you watch DVDs?

Picasa defaults to change your IE search to Google.

The only thing that would make New Jersey nicer is less New Jerseyans.

Strong acid plus alkali produces a lot of heat.

Despite being at the forefront in almost all areas of number theory, Kummer was renowned for being very poor at elementary arithmetic. (A number theorist who was poor at arithmetic!) One story has him standing at the blackboard during a lecture, unable to compute 7 times 9. One mischievous student suggested 61, so Kummer wrote this on the board and started to continue. Another mischievous student shouted out that it was 69 not 61. At this, an exasperated Kummer, said "come on gentlemen, it can not be both". Later, it was rumoured that he told colleagues, he should have known the answer since it couldn't be 61 or 67, because 61 and 67 are primes and it couldn't be 65 because 65 is a multiple of 5, and he should have realized 69 was too large because 7 times 10 was only 70, so the only odd number left in the sixties was 63.

5 is not divisible by a power of 2 (duh, its prime)

Interesting way to see if 5 is divisible by 2. I think the same way:

What is 9 times 7? Well, it has to be less than 70 because 9It has to be odd since 9 and 7 are odd.
61 and 67 are prime so they're out.
65 and 69 are square-free and 9 is a perfect square.
So, 7*9 = 63.

(apologies to the actual (and funnier) version that I read but can't quite remember in Symmetry of the Primes)

I haven't heard of Sentinel or Empire, but Populous is one of the earliest I remember playing. Add to the list Scorched Earth and Deathtrack. I remember getting a 286 and not being able to play Deathtrack because it was too fast :)

I really, really thought it was "ULZARD"...

So, I just set the phone down and watch tv...picking it up occasionally to say "uh-huh" and throw in an occasional "I understand". That last one goes a LONG way on brownie points, and keeps you from having to listen or care....

Don't forget "I told you that bitch crazy."

In general, taking debt leverage out of the equation, we contend that companies should engage in share repurchases only when they have strong cash flow and when internal projects are insufficient to generate a comparable rate of return.

If you have the viewpoint that MSFT is becoming a utility then the above quote from your S&P article describes them exactly.
As for board members buybacks, Gates has been systematically selling is MSFT stock for a long time.
Also, if a stock buyback raises the stock price, it has tax advantages compared to a dividend.

You make good points and I don't necessarily disagree with you. I am just making some counter points.