The other 2/3 of my department is at Burning Man, leaving me here alone. To begin the week, the phone system decided to die. Fun. Plus, I'm operating on about 90 minutes sleep. I don't see how people turn to energy drinks at times like these; I'm dead tired, but I'm also jittery. The worst of both worlds. Also, a killer headache.

For the lat few weeks, I've been waking up with songs in my head. A single, different song each day. And it's always something I haven't heard in awhile. It's usually gone by the time I get to work, but still unusual.

This morning: Jukebox Hero by Foreigner
Yesterday: Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn

I attended orientation at the local public access station tonight. It was mostly boring (basically going over all the rules and getting waivers from us), but we got a tour of the facilities, and the studio is pretty nice.

Yes, just macaroni and cheese. I always loved baked macaroni and cheese as mom would make, but could never get it right as an adult. She even sent me the recipe, but I could never get the roux right. The flour would burn, or I'd use too little flour and cook it too long, resulting in too little thickening and a sort of macaroni soup.

However, the great Alton Brown has shown me the trick to getting it to come out right. (For those of you who still don't know, Good Eats is on the Food Network, and is basically what would happen if Bill Nye the Science Guy started a cooking show.) That trick is to temper a beaten egg into the sauce before combining. The egg's thickening power helps the existing thickening of the roux, and adds no taste difference (as far as I can tell).

Also, for years I had been buying "regular" elbow macaroni. This week "large" elbow macaroni was on sale, so I got it instead, and I will say, I like it. More room for the sauce to get into.

The following is a combination of my mom's and Good Eats' versions:

Baked Macaroni And Cheese That Can Be Made By A 20-Something Bachelor In His Hot Second-Story Apartment In The Middle Of Summer, Did I Mention It's Hot Because It Is

Macaroni:
1/2 lb elbow macaroni
pinch salt

Sauce:
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
1 tbsp powdered mustard
2 1/2 c milk
1/2 tsp paprika
1 large egg
9 oz shredded cheddar

Toppings:
3 oz shredded cheddar
2 tbsp butter
1 c bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350. Boil macaroni in salted water. Drain and rinse enough only to cool, to stop cooking. Set aside.

Melt sauce butter in a large pan over medium heat. Whisk in flour and mustard and keep whisking until it reaches the consistency of a light paste. Reduce heat to medium-low and add milk. (To avoid burning, whisk some of the paste into a bowl containing 1/2 cup milk, then whisk the mixture back into the pan to temper.) Keep whisking until mixture is hot, then temper in the egg. (Whisk egg into the same bowl you used before, add several spoons of the milk mixture into the egg bowl while continuing to whisk, then whisk the bowl back into the pan.) Add the 9 oz cheese and whisk until fully combined.

Combine macaroni and sauce in a 2-quart casserole dish. Add the remaining 3 oz cheese directly on top of the casserole. Microwave 2 oz butter and combine with the bread crumbs. Add the bread crumb mixture to the top of the casserole. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove and cool for 20 minutes.

As usual, every time I step inside a Bloodbath & Beyond store for a $5 item, I walk out $100 poorer and less manly. Today? In for a bread pan, out with an 18-piece Pyrex cookware set.

The BBC World Service slogan is, "Wherever you go, you're with the BBC." Every time I hear it, I expect them to say, "Wherever you go, there you are."

I had a dream about them Friday night, and thought, "Well, they haven't been around lately, so I should blog about my experiences with them". But, right on cue, they came back Sunday, so it's even more relevant.

I only lived in the Bay Area for about 2 years, but I didn't feel an earthquake in that time. There were two decent sized ones during my time there, a 5.2 in Napa (which I slept through, living in Richmond at the time), and a 4.4 in San Jose (which I was out of town for, and probably wouldn't have felt it anyway).

When I moved to Reno in 2002, I didn't think anything of earthquakes, though apparently Nevada is the #3 state in the union for earthquake occurrence (the other two are California and Alaska). In 2005, there was a 4.8 just outside Truckee. It was apparently enough to wake me up, but I didn't realize that was the reason I had woken up (I put 2 and 2 together later in the day). After the news surrounding that, I found the University of Nevada's Nevada Broadcast of Earthquakes web page. This is the information that feeds into the USGS for Nevada and Eastern California earthquakes. At the time, I was curious where exactly the epicenter of the earthquake (and its aftershocks) was. The NBE site didn't have Google Maps links at the time, and while I could throw the co-ordinates directly into Google Maps, it was cumbersome. I used that as an excuse to make my first Google Maps application, a map of all earthquakes listed by UNR.

Now, note the "North Lake Tahoe/Truckee" link in my app. There are no earthquakes in that area. That is the "normal" mode of operation for an earthquake on a previously inactive fault: main quake happens, aftershocks happen for a few days/weeks/months later, but eventually die out.

On February 21 of this year, a 6.0 earthquake hit Wells, Nevada, a small town about 400 miles east of Reno. To this date, a few aftershocks have been happening per day, though very few have been over 3.0. However, a peculiar thing happened just after the Wells earthquake. Small (less than 2.0) earthquakes began happening around Mogul, a suburb northwest of Reno (again, 400 miles away). These were basically impossible to feel unless you were very close to the epicenters. (For reference: I live about 10 miles away from Mogul, and I work about 15 miles away.) They were small, but the trend was growing, both in number per day and magnitude.

There were a few 3s in the next few months, but I didn't feel any of them, due to either sleeping through them, or being at work when they happened. I was rather frustrated and excited to feel one, as it's one of the few natural disasters I haven't experienced yet. Sounds a bit odd, yes, but I wanted to feel one, dammit.

On April 24, I was walking down the hall at work when a coworker said, "Did you feel that?" "No?" "That might have been an earthquake." Sure enough, we checked the USGS a few minutes later, and it was a 4.2. Barely feelable in the South Meadows (and not feelable at all to some, *ahem*), but must have rattled a few things up in the Northwest.

That night, I was just getting ready to go to bed, when I felt a "thump". I can't find the event to grab the magnitude, but it was probably around 3.5. I did go online to check the report and talk on IRC about it, though:

2008-04-25 01:51:54 <%fo0bar> woot! I finally felt an earthquake!
2008-04-25 01:52:01 <%fo0bar> ... it was quite disappointing
2008-04-25 01:55:26 <%fo0bar> the best I could describe it was if I was in a mobile home, and somebody kicked the wall
2008-04-25 01:55:46 <%fo0bar> a single side motion and some associated creaking

I went to bed, and was woken up by another mid-3 earthquake sometime after 6AM. There were a handful of 3s throughout the day, as we were following the news at work. Oh, let me clarify: these are just the 3s I've been talking about. By this point, there were over 100 earthquakes per day happening in Mogul (yes, really, 100), but most of them were 0s, 1s and some 2s. The technical term is and earthquake "swarm". The following conversation after I got home sums up the day:

2008-04-25 18:51:01 <%fo0bar> damn, a 3.6 hit while I was driving home
2008-04-25 19:28:26 <%fo0bar> the city emergency management office held a press conference today. unfortunately, "freak the fuck out" wasn't in their list of recommendations
2008-04-25 19:30:51 <%Screwtape> fo0bar: It seems earthquakes are being observed more and more frequently in your location. Do you think they're preparing for an invasion?
2008-04-25 19:31:29 <%fo0bar> Screwtape: apparently we've infiltrated their ranks, and will know soon
2008-04-25 19:34:27 <%fo0bar> what's a little scary is there wasn't one big earthquake and a lot of smaller earthquakes. the little ones started happening a few weeks ago, with one or two 3s or 4s per day. this increases the chances that they could be foreshocks, with a larger quake coming
2008-04-25 19:35:22 <%fo0bar> the chance of a large quake happening is still between "immediately" and "never", but the pattern puts it closer to the "immediately" side
2008-04-25 19:35:51 <%fo0bar> also, "foreshock" is a cool word
2008-04-25 19:36:03 <%fo0bar> it's like foreplay, but without the chance for happy ending
[The politically incorrect humor goes on for a little while longer. Suffice it to say, it involved race stereotypes and Blondie references.]

Throughout the evening, a few more earthquakes happened. At about 10PM, I decided to go into work to work on Finnix for a bit (lots of computers available at work makes for good Finnix testing). At 11:40PM, a 4.7 hit that "felt" significantly larger than anything previously felt. I was in the systems/storage room at work when it hit, and equipment and racks were swaying around for a few seconds (even though the earthquake itself just felt like 2 "thumps"). Again, this was 15 miles away, and probably felt even more impressive if I were at home, or even closer to the epicenter.

The quake caused some minor damage, but nobody was injured. It did make the national news cycle because, well, Reno doesn't normally get earthquakes.

After the 4.7, the swarm continued, but quickly died down from hundreds of quakes per day down to dozens, then just a few tiny ones by the end of May. Looking back, you could analyze the activity as a swarm that built up foreshocks into the 4.7 "main" shock. I went on with my life, with a little caveat. That is, it's spring in Nevada, which means high winds. That, combined with moving into a new apartment with its own little settlings and creaks, meant every time a "thump" hit the side of the apartment, I would think, "wait, was that an earthquake?"

Which brings me to this weekend. Friday night, I had a dream involving earthquakes. I don't remember what it was about, but I remember them being prominent in it. I was up late Saturday night/Sunday morning, and at about 3:15AM, I felt a thump hit the house. "Was that wind, or an earthquake?" I thought, and made a note to check UNR/USGS in a few minutes. Sure enough, it was a 3.2. At this point, let me remind you that every earthquake I'd felt until that point had also been "thumps". It definitely wasn't like the movies where you're swaying back and forth, and there was definitely no rumbling. Just "thump" (or sometimes "thumpthump"), and then stuff inside the room would sway once or so. The thumps would definitely be harder or softer depending on the magnitude, but they were very short events.

Anyway, I thought it was a nice little anomaly for an otherwise "ended" swarm, and went to bed. Sunday morning I got up, but was still in bed in the "don't wanna start the day" pose, when the room started shaking. And shaking. For a good 3 seconds, I could feel the building being pushed back and forth. I got up and grabbed the laptop, and started going to UNR to look at the webcam, which is available nearly instantly, as opposed to the automatically-generated reports, which take a good 10 minutes to come in. However, about 2 minutes after the first earthquake, it started shaking again, this time harder and for a good 5 seconds (which of course felt a lot longer). No damage, but it was definitely... different.

My mind linked "more shaking time" with "bigger" and hence "more magnitude", and I guessed 4.2 and 4.8 respectively. I was disappointed when the final word came in: 3.6 and 3.9. Still, they were more impressive; closer to what I expected as "earthquakes" before all of this.

I don't know if this is indicative of a new swarm, but there have been more tiny earthquakes in Mogul today than before this weekend. I haven't been able to feel any of them from my home yet, though.

In celebration of Bike to Work Day, last Thursday I bought a new bike. However I wasn't actually able to bike to work on Bike to Work Day (I was on call and needed to haul some equipment that day).

The last time I bought a bike was in 2002; a $30 bike from Target. I rode it a little, but in general I got exactly what I paid for, and its main use became a Burning Man bike. Moving to the top of a big hill in 2004 didn't help matters. But now I live closer to work (and more importantly, it's a relatively flat ride to work), and, inspired by pdx6's post, I dusted off the bike and saw if I could make it to work and back (this was at about 10PM, mind you). I could, but my body didn't like me for it.

However, I did feel like I could do better with A) more exercise, and B) a better bike, particularly one with a seat that wouldn't kill my butt. After a little research and a few recommendations (all conflicting of course; the bike community are basically as vocal and opinionated as Linux nerds, see jwz's post on the matter), I bought a 2008 Giant Sedona aluminum from High Sierra Cycling.

After a weekend of breaking it in, the difference between the old Target bike and the Giant is like night and day. So on Sunday afternoon I took the plunge and tested riding to work during the day. I still ache and was a lot more winded from the heat (about 95F), but it was definitely a better ride, especially in the posterior region, if you know what I mean.

Oh, BTW, it's about a 5 mile route from my home to work, each way. Here's the route I take.

Now, I just have to keep this up. I won't be riding tomorrow, since I need to drive (ugh) more equipment downtown tomorrow morning, but I plan to ride to work Tuesday. The day of rest should be good.

Boom Blox is coming out today, and looks absolutely awesome, and has been getting rave reviews. But it's made by EA, so it's going to suck. You can see my dilemma here...

Yet another earthquake I didn't notice. Damn.

Okay okay, I'll blog. I've been telling the story enough that I may as well put it on paper. First, watch this Top Gear video on the Prius:

Now, I love Top Gear, but most of the things Jeremy Clarkson says are wrong (though I suspect a few are specific to the UK version, as I've never heard Toyota claim 66MPG in the US). What I do take offense to is him declaring the Prius (or "Pry-us" as he called it) "unsafe" because it didn't feel right or something. Witness Exhibit A:




That's me (going about 5MPH through an intersection) getting T-boned from a guy running a red light at about 35MPH. The impact spun the car 120 degrees counter-clockwise and set the side curtain airbags off, but I was OK. I did have some neck pain, so the paramedics took me to the hospital for some X-rays, but it turned out just to be minor cervical strain (whiplash). I got some NSAIDs and painkillers, and the pain was gone in a couple days.

Both insurance companies are working well with me. My deductible with Progressive is $500, which I should get back pretty quickly from State Farm (the other guy's insurance). The estimate for repairs is over $13,000, ouch. My emergency room visit should be $100 co-pay (I've got very good health insurance) with $10 for prescriptions, but I believe that gets rolled into my Progressive claim.

dannf * r11018 /dists/ (sarge/ sarge-security/): sarge support has ended

I took a small nap in the evening, and as a result I stayed up way too late. However, it's been a productive night. I am working on the Mobile Rickroll Appliance 6.0. It's... well, more info will be coming soon, but here's a teaser trailer to give you an idea of what it is. (Yes, I made a teaser trailer.)



Be very afraid, people.

For the longest time, the towers of Circus Circus Reno have had 2 floors per tower with neon lighting to spell out:

--------
 CIRCUS
 CIRCUS
--------

The lighting was animated primitively, usually in the order: top row, bottom row, both rows, off, repeat.

This evening I noticed something different. Physically it was the same layout, but it looks like the program has been upgraded so the letters move down or up one at a time. So now you have something like:

--------
   RCUS
 CI
--------

That inspired me. I hereby announce that if I ever become a billionaire with a flashy casino, the towers shall be built with neon lighting on EVERY floor, so I can play a 40-story-tall game of Space Invaders.

Hi hep.

I'll be moving next month. Starting April 1, my address will be:

4959 Talbot Ln. #262
Reno, NV 89503

For those of you taking notes, that's Redfield Ridge, behind the Wal-Mart/Sam's Club off South McCarran. Here's the breakdown:

Pros:
* Much closer to work
* Washer/dryer in unit!
* Walk to Albertsons/Wal-Mart
* Upstairs unit (no 27 frat boys with pacing problems living above)
* Larger kitchen
* Wood fireplace
* Community amenities (2 pools/hot tubs, small exercise room, commons building, tennis court)
* Seems quieter from when I've been there

Cons:
* Upstairs unit (getting furniture up there)
* More expensive
* Less overall space (no walk-in closets, only one porch)
* Living room is laid out oddly

I've built up a collection of junk from the last 4 years, and this weekend I have been clearing stuff I don't want to move. I put a couple of pieces of junk furniture out by the dumpster, took a photo, posted it on Craigslist along with the address, and within a half-hour they were gone. Craiglist is nice for that; I did the same thing when moving from the bay area to Reno years ago.

I still have a few pieces of furniture I want to give away, but figured I'd let my friends and coworkers have a shot at them first. They are:

* Ikea Bestå shelf unit, black-brown. 3 (mis-measured) large holes were cut in the back because I wanted to use it next to the TV, but they didn't turn out well and look rather bad. You could take some matching color fabric and put it over the back wall to hide it.
* Ikea glass coffee table. I don't see it on their web site, and it was bought about 2001. The base is silver wood with 4 compartments (2 on each side), with a heavy glass top raised a few inches above the base.
* Large foof chair, blue denim fabric. A foof chair is a bit like a bean bag chair, but is made of thousands of pieces of foam, instead of beans.

Oh, and a 19" ViewSonic CRT monitor. Hopefully I can be CRT-free for my next move.

I rarely post YouTube videos here, so bear with me. First, watch this:



It looks to be a great game, but that's not why I posted it. First, let me introduce you to my Grand Unified Benny Hill Theory. It states that anything instantly becomes funnier when sped up and played to Yakety Sax. If I ever get around to it, I plan on testing this theory against CSPAN house debates.

However, the Left 4 Dead trailer is an awesome candidate even without speeding up. As it turns out, someone thought the same and did it up. As it turns out, it syncs up PERFECTLY. I actually lolled.

If you're a United States citizen, you're probably aware of the bombardment of information regarding the DTV transition. Everywhere you look, you're being reminded that analog TV will go dark on February 17, 2009. News flash: that's exactly 1 year from now. The $40 coupon program has been taking applications since January 1, 2008, but the converter boxes themselves have been "coming soon" for ages. Well now one is available. I filed for 1 out of 2 eligible $40 coupons back in January, but haven't received it yet. However, I was willing to spend the $59.99 retail to give you this EXCLUSIVE UNBOXING. That's right, nobody else has one of these, except for anyone who happened to walk by the big stack of them at Best Buy for the last few days and buy one.

DISCLAIMER: Please note that while the physical unboxing is primarily meant to be funny and mocking of the whole "unboxing" meme, there's also useful information scattered throughout the post. Yes, unfortunately you may learn a thing or two.

First, let's pretend this is Montel Williams and give you the "before" shot:



That's right, this little lady is the best technology 1992 had to offer, in the $50 13" variety anyway. Genuine NTSC technology, jaw-dropping mono sound, convenient RCA front inputs (as long as your source was also mono sound), and state-of-the-art cable-ready coaxial input in the back.



But there's a catch. You see, this television will literally BURST INTO FLAMES unless you buy a $60 box in the next 366 days (yes, it's a leap year). Yes, literally! Burst! Flames!



I could have bought Season 3 of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. But noooo, I bought this instead. I honestly heard the 37" LCD in the living room snicker at me as I carried this bag back to my office.



Every unboxing seems to be required to include the receipt, to prove that the unboxer didn't travel back in time to give you the report. Seems reasonable.



And here is the star of the show. You know you've got quality when English and Spanish text get equal billing rights. The box prominently advertises that it is eligible for the coupon program.

(Yes mom, I did accidentally take that mason jar glass from you when I was moving out 10 years ago. No, I didn't think enough to consider stealing the set, so instead it holds pens and whatnot.)



The bottom of the box is equally sexy, with... nothing. But hey, that 1970s green does stand out, doesn't it?



Flaunting all logic (and probably the law), I did not see a sales associate to get details about this SPECIAL RETURN POLICY. I could probably go back and ask someone.



NO! SCREW THAT! WE'RE PLUNGING FORWARD! MAN THE BATTLE STATIONS! FIRE THE SHATNER TORPEDOS!



Aaaaaand.... The unboxing! Yaaaaaa! The unit, manual and remote control are clearly visible. I wonder what's under the manual. Cash, I'd guess.



Oh, it's just cables. RCA and coax, specifically.



The converter has been installed, and works fine. Good night, everyone!



After removing the approximately 87 plastic bags (I gave them to the neighbor's baby to play with), we're left with this.



Not only does the front cover have power, channel up and channel down buttons, but it lets you stare into INFINITY.



As we all know, instruction manuals are for losers. In retrospect, it may have saved me some time.



While my 13" TV came with an antenna, I was pretty sure it was mostly for show. So I also spent the big bucks ($9.99) and bought an antenna at Best Buy. The box advertised "Off-Air HDTV Broadcast Compatible". I was hoping for On-Air, but I couldn't find any of those, so this would have to do.



Here's the completed setup. The antenna bone's connected to the DTV Receiver bone, the DTV Receiver bone's connected to the Cheap TV bone... and that's it.



Now all I have to do is tune to channel 3 on the TV, turn on the receiver and...



THE FUTURE IS HERE! Well, a setup program at least.

What follows is a set of pictures of the setup, taken from a tripod without flash. Don't worry, the text gets readable once the black background goes away. The display quality looks a LOT better than these photos, but I've got a sub-par camera and bad lighting in my office, so please bear with me.



"WELCOME / Thank you for choosing INSIGNA. Before starting, be sure that the TV antenna is connected."

Check.



"Menu Language / English"



"TV Aspect Ratio / 4:3"



"Searching for Channels... / Press * to start channel scan."



At this point, it scans for channels. It found most of the 13 channels relatively quickly (within about 20 seconds), then sat there for another 2 minutes or so.



"13 channels found"



And now the lowest channel, 2-1 is displayed in the background.

It knew what time it was right away. I'm not sure if all channels are required to send the time, but at the very least I'm willing to bet it got it from one of the three PBS channels. All I had to do was set my time zone (it defaulted to Eastern).



The DTV receiver is honestly delighted that I completed setup.



Here's the DTV remote, to the right of the TV's remote.



The DTV remote has a decent number of functions, most of which I will go through below.



The simplest function, channel up/down. This can be done from the remote, or the buttons on the front of the unit. The channel number and name are displayed briefly as you change. It takes about 1 second before video is displayed upon channel change, which is about normal compared to native DTV television tuners I've seen.

Just a reminder, DTV channels are in the format "X-Y", which X being the main channel, and Y being the subchannel. In many cases, X-1 is the "main" HDTV channel, X-2 is the station's 24-hour weather channel, and X-3 could be the SDTV version of the X-1 channel, a separate Spanish channel, etc. In the local PBS station's case here, 5-1 is the "regular" station (SD), 5-2 is "Create", a Martha Stewart-ish channel, and 5-3 is a 100% dedicated HDTV channel, with completely separate programming from the main 5-1 channel.



If you want to input a specific channel from the remote control, just start pressing buttons. There is a "-" button, so you could put the entire channel in, but if you just enter the main channel, it gives you a list of subchannels. Press the up and down buttons, and select a specific subchannel.



The "guide" button gives you an on-screen guide that you can browse through. It will show you what's currently playing, and the next program up. However...



... if you haven't been to another channel in awhile, it will not show you anything. Once you go to that channel though...



... the data shows up in the guide, and will remain there for the next 2 shows' worth.



The DTV receiver has its own Closed Captioning display. In addition, it will pass through CC to the TV. They can also be on separate CC streams. For example, the receiver's CC could be on Spanish while the TV's CC could be on English, though the TV's CC tends to completely overlap the receiver's CC, which makes that rather useless.



If the channel is broadcasting in native widescreen, the "zoom button" allows you to cycle through a couple zoom settings. Notice this situation, where the station is broadcasting in 16:9 HDTV, but the source content is 4:3. In this case, there are black bars all around the picture.



By using the "cropped" setting, the picture zooms in to fill the screen. (Reminder: the poor image quality is mostly the camera's fault.) If you had a native 16:9 show playing, you could use the "cropped" setting to chop of the left and right part of the display, essentially a poor man's pan-and-scan. There is also "letterboxed" (native) and "squeezed", which just stretches out the picture to fill the screen.

If the channel is broadcasting in native 4:3, the "zoom" button has no effect.



The "display" button brings up information about the current show. A quick browse of available channels here shows that most give you the show name, and a few give a detailed description.



The "signal" button brings up an on-screen signal bar for each channel, along with beeping. The better the signal, the faster (and more annoying) the beeping.

Using this setup, I am able to get almost all local channels, with very good receiption. The only exception is Fox, which doesn't even show up on the channel scan. Odd.



The "menu" button. This is the "setup" tab. It's hard to make out the white-on-white there, but you've got "Auto Tuning", "EZ Add", "Channel Edit", "Manual Tuning", and "Output Channel: Ch.3".



The "option" tab.



And the "lock" tab, with a multitude of ways to block Janet Jackson.

--

So that's it. This is what $60 (or $20 if you wait for your government handout) gets you. The future is here, people.

The new bed and nightstand set was delivered today. Previously, the boxspring and mattress was pushed up against the wall (which, as a result, was turning new and interesting colors), with a $10 wal-mart rolling side table pushed next to it to serve as a nightstand.

I like it. But at best, it makes the bedroom look a lot smaller. At worst...

<SpaceHobo> nice bed. Did the hotel room come with it?
<fo0bar> oh come on, I haven't even bolted the rented art to the wall yet

Be wary, Be wary
It's the 31st of January
The Boston Bomb Scare
Arrested for a hoax
But treated as a joke
They answered with "70s hair"

It's been just over a year since I bought a ThinkPad T60, and it's still great. Normally a laptop will not last more than a year for me, so the fact that it still looks like it did when I bought it is a testament to its strength. It's survived several falls, and has even been sat on (twice, don't ask). The keys all still have their paint on them, and no paint has worn off (indeed, except for the key lettering, none of the plastic is painted). Even the Little Rubber Feet are still all attached.

The hardware all works great with Debian. Actually, that last part wasn't true until last week. The 3945ABG wireless controller with Linux's ipw3945 driver didn't work well, but was enough to be "usable". But 2.6.24's iwl3945 driver replaced ipw3945, and it's been working great since I installed it.

The T60 was the first ThinkPad sold by Lenovo (and even still had the "IBM ThinkPad" logo everywhere), so hopefully they didn't screw up too much in later models. And of course some people just don't like the ThinkPad design ("butt ugly" is often heard), but at this point I'm very glad I bought the T60 instead of a MacBook. My only regret was getting the lowest-priced processor, which did not have VT/VMX support.

I saw these at 7-Eleven this morning. SRSLY.

...when you're watching "make ARCH=um SUBARCH=x86_64 arch/um/kernel/ptrace.o" fail over and over. It's 5:30AM, and I have been hacking UML kernels all. night. long.

Don't I know how to spend a Saturday night...

I have a fear... of band saws. I can't bring myself to use one (not that it comes up that often), and I always cringe when I see someone else using one (as they do a lot on Mythbusters, for example). "No, you fool! Get your thumb away from that! You're going to cut your hand! Aaaaa!"

It's only band saws though. Hand saws, circular saws, jig saws etc are no problem for me.