Bob building his new PC – like me he is driven by gaming performance. His woes at fry’s – http://www.bobsplanet.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/72-Frys-Slimy-Practices-the-Bobsplanet-PC-project-continues.html – personally I have given up on Fry’s, they have acres of stuff but never the exact part I need.

I’ve been on a modern mystery/suspense jag:

* “Ten Second Staircase”:amazon by Christopher Fowler. Very inventive and engaging mystery. 3rd in a series featuring a pair of superannuated london detctives working on bizarre crimes. A lot of fun, I’d pick up more in the series. Though good luck finding anything by Fowler in any of the big chains, they just don’t carry much by him. Pity. * “13 Steps Down”:amazon by Ruth Rendell. Twisted little tale of obsession and murder. Nicely crafted tho hard to really connect with the book as the main characters are not very sympathetic. Still, much better fare than most mysteries. * “The Hard Way”:amazon by Lee Child. Another great romp featuring jack reacher. These books feel like graphic novels written as prose – reacher is a classic modern day anti-hero – emotionally scarred, seemingly indestructible. A lot of fun. * “The Janissary Tree”:amazon by Jason Goodwin. My favorite of the bunch. I’ve never had a hankering to visit Istanbul, but after reading this period mystery I am ready to go, and I am ready to read goodwin’s historical work on the ottoman empire. A great setting, great main character, good supporting cast. Definitely recommended.

Vinyl Lettering, Custom Signs, Vinyl Banners and Vinyl Decals at SpeedySigns.com – I love these guys – aluminum signs made in any size you need with any kind of message or graphic. I’ve used them several times now and been happy.

Ipe Wood Outdoor Furniture - Ipe Furniture for Patio, Garden, Porch and Deck – these guys took forever to deliver, and it required some prodding from me, but the furniture seems nice. We will see how it weathers.

• Andy’s posting again – welcome back – stuff he is reading. Oh and the importance of urgency and agility
• Alex bosworth on Swik’s first birthday
• Bob on Melodeo launch, press re launch, and camera tripods (photography being his avocation)
• An older but good post from John Zagula on segmentation
• Rich points me towards an explanation of photo histograms. Also, BIOS beep codes demystified and the classic ipod reset instructions
• More recently, Rich on how to reinstall XP easily.
• Martin on the BOINC client

• The greatest musical rivalry, and of course the Buckeyes win.
• A big play breakdown of the Buckeye’s Fiesta Bowl win over ND – there is nothing quite like watching your rivals gnaw on their heartbreaking loss all year.
• CSTV launching ipod-based tool for players and coaches – this thing is way under-marketed, fanatics would pay for this service for their favorite team.

Welcome to BostonCoach – ok this is not the cheapest way to get around, but Buston Coach has been rock-solid for us over the last several years. The service has been flawless – always arriving on time, always courteous, scheduleable on relatively short notice, works well in major metro areas and more remote areas. We are huge fans.

OK our first 360 bit the dust. locks up 1 minute after booting. 7 months into owning it – just out of the warranty phase. so $129 to get it fixed – this must be the microsoft strategy for making money, $129 every six months…

I considered buying a new one at the msft company store but they don’t seem to have them, and i am not sure the discount would be anything special.

the real pain is the amount of time to get it fixed. they are shipping us a mailing box, it will take 3-5 business days to arrive. then another 3-5 to return to them. then 3-5 to fix and 3-5 to get back. so a month gone. during summer vacation high season. not good.

Clever bastards – Ross Parker has discovered that on at least one website prices differ depending on how you ask your search to be ordered. In particular, if you ask for prices to be listed from lowest to highest you get lower prices, on exactly the same hotels, than when you ask for highest to lowest prices.

So much to read on virtualization these days – here’s a nice blog – virtualization.info.

Put me to wondering – what if it were free to bring up VMs on your machine? Where “free” means very inexpensive in performance terms.

I wonder if we wouldn’t architect our OSes very differently. Why jam all the advanced support for graphics hardware, and the attendant instability, into mainstream Windows? My web browser and mail client just don’t benefit from it. Wouldn’t I rather just bring up a separate VM that has all my xbox-like features and nothing else?

I really wonder if in the face of cheap virtualization, you wouldn’t design OSes very differently. Rather than having a general purpose OS with all the features needed for every class of app, perhaps you would instead design for very special purpose VMs with a smaller set of OS features – this VM profile for games, that one for productivity apps, another for running all your firewalling and security goo, etc etc.

Looking at some cars to add to the household – the sweet spot is the $32K sedan.

The Volvo S60, Subaru Legacy, and vw passat all seem like great choices. Good interior styling, good safety, good handling and performance. And all seem like good values, you get a lot for your dollar.

We wanted to like the Toyota Avalon but the handling just wasn’t there – this thing wallows thru the turns. Styling and features are decent but not handling. We wanted to like the Chrysler 300 also and it handles nicely, has a great powertrain, and looks good on the outside, but the interior styling and fit-and-finish are 10 years behind.

And the Cadillac CTS – what an embarrassment. A salesperson who hasn’t heard yet that Cadillac no longer is the pacesetter; overpriced, and underfeatured. I would feel stupid buying this car.

* mutli-channel player – sned sounds over individual channels of a 5.1 setup. pretty useful for running multiple sounds off a single pc. Also a random tip on this page – “Want a “dead ringer” for Halloween? Run a string from a grave up to a bell mounted on the tombstone!” – I might try this. * Another random good tip I read – used rotisserie motors make great prop animators * Electronic Goldmine for random electronic and control supplies * What to do with an old CRT?? Make it into the world’s heaviest strobe light of course. * Article on 4-bar linkage design * Fittings Depot -- for pneuma fittings. Awesome. * Great article on how to use a Shiatsu massager as the basis of a prop. * EFX-tek prop controllers.

* The blockbuster bestseller is dying. “…the evidence shows we are moving away from a winner-take-all society, not toward it” * Solar powered flickering candles. Ordered for Halloween * Great lens guidance from bob and rich. I now know infinitely more. * Netgear launches powerline 200. Exactly what I need for connecting up the Tivo to the net. * Quikmaps via iunknown – easy way to markup maps. Nice. * podcast of ted videos. Subscribed. * Cellfire mobile coupons via techcrunch. Tried to sign up but doesn’t support the blackberry, darn. * Some Aspects of aging are out of our control.

EDSBS ? TAUNT-O-NOMICS: THE PHYSICAL LAWS OF TAUNTING – oh my gosh hilarious. Proves what we all knew about West Virginia fans. Too many funny slams in here to list them all. Though I am partial to “Indiana…The Oklahoma of the Midwest” for taking out Indiana and Oklahoma fans in one swoop.

My close-in park of choice for quick hikes is Cougar Mountain, but Soaring Eagle looks like an interesting choice too. Thanks to Steve for the tip. And thanks also to King County for their killer online trail maps and info