Some thoughts from the last week, as originally seen on Twitter. These posts are roughly presented in chronological order from a week ago:

• Statistically, I should hit ONE lottery number a week. Why is that so impossible lately? Do I look too desperate when I buy one?

• @ihnatko - don’t confound me with your logic in light of my Instant Gratification-fueled need to never HAVE to work a day again in my life.

• Canon has a very easy form to fill out with solid directions on how to ship a lens back to them for repair. Tomorrow - ship it back!

• And, pray Canon can duplicate the problem I’m having. That’s usually how these things work. They claim nothing’s wrong blah blah blah

• Now I really want to buy that new Canon 55-250mm IS lens

• Or the 70-200mm f4 L lens. Mmm…. Maybe I could sell the fixed 28-135 to fund the 70-200? Ack, more decision.

• Doing laundry. Again. Third time in a week. Ugh.

• No Beatles on iTunes in IDOL this week, but Seacrest did hold up an iPhone.

• Watching Isaav Asimov videos on YouTube.

• Another reason to love my blog’s readers: One of them just ordered the Perfect Strangers DVD through my Amazon link. Good taste!

• “Reader” is back as a top line option in Google Mail for me again this week. I hope it stays there this time.

• @ronxo - Watching IDOL last night, I wanted half those songs for Guitar Hero IV. . .

• Last week I had a day with no new podcasts to listen to. Tonight, I just downloaded 3.5 hours’ worth to listen to. I’m done for the week! (And I’m still listening to them on Monday morning, five days later.)

• Optimism is a lie we tell ourselves.

• I wonder how many cavities I’ve missed in life due to my two pack a day Trident habit?

• Taking first steps towards long-term productivity & second career growth. Sounds mushy, I know, but it means a lot to me. 2008 is REFOCUS. (Yes, this includes this very blog.)
  

• As a Victor Borge fan, I prefer “Inflationary Language” over “Phonetic Punctuation.” But they both make me laugh out loud many times over.

• There’s nothing happier than hearing that your Amazon delivery was just packaged up and sent out today from a warehouse 30 minutes away.

• Looks like the Canon 55-250mm IS lens will be the compromise between lens power and budget. I really wanted to justify the 70-200 f4, tho. (Now someone has pointed out the 70-300mm IS Canon lens. Very tempting.)

• Heard on TWIP today that Adobe is planning an announcement next week. My guess: Lightroom 2 Open Beta (Nope, got that one wrong.  Photoshop Elements 6 for the Mac was announced today.  See above.)
  

• Attached the remote trigger thingy to my Canon’s neck strap and the tripod to the camera bag. Now if only I had a mountain to climb . . .

• @duncan - I’m having a similar problem with a lens I just sent back to Canon for fixing. It arrived Thursday. No word. Friday holiday?

The Stranger might just be Billy Joel’s most successful album, both critically and commercially. It won him a Grammy, and many of the songs you know him best for came off that album — “Movin’ Out,” “Just The Way You Are,” “The Stranger,” “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” “Only The Good Die Young,” “She’s Always a Woman” amongst them. “Vienna” has become a favorite in concert in recent years, too.

Phil Ramone has remastered the album and there are two editions available of it now for pre-order. The first is a two CD set. The first disc is the remastered album. The second is a Carnegie Hall concert recording from just before the release of the CD.

The second release is a deluxe edition that comes with both of those CDs, another CD recording of a concert from that time, a DVD of BBC’s “Old Grey Whistle” recording from the time (I think I have an audio bootleg of this somewhere), and a 48 page booklet featuring pics from a photo shot from the album and liner notes from a Rolling Stone Magazine editor. That “Old Grey Whistle” video includes favorites like “Ain’t No Crime” and “Root Beer Rag,” which is an incredible little piano ditty that you’ve likely never seen before.

It’s $40 for the latter, $17 for the former at Amazon for pre-order today.

Billy Joel will be appearing on Oprah Monday for the first time to promote it.

I am very excited. This is a great case of an edition you don’t want to just download off Amazon or iTunes.

Leaf in rainy puddle, originally uploaded by AugieDB.

This hike happened the day after a big rain. There were big puddles in several spots. I noticed this one was filled with leaves, but with one lone leaf still poking its head out over the water. Zoom in and take a photo!

Yes, this feature is supposed to be up on Fridays, but the Apple TV review took up too much time.. Sorry about that. Back to the questions now.

Josh has a computer purchasing question:

I have been flirting with buying a Mac as a second computer to tinker around with. What is your recommendation for a first time Mac buyer (other than the Mac Mini)?

The MacBook. Especially if your primary computer today is a laptop, I think you’ll be impressed with the speed and power of the MacBook for the price. (About $1200.) If you’re more of a power user, then you could go with the current Mac Pro set-ups, but they tend to start at $2000. They’re very powerful and expandable (four drive bays!), but I imagine you won’t want to start your Mac life on such a large investment. (I did, but I was nuts in those days. Thankfully, it paid off handsomely and I’m still using that computer daily, 3 years later.)

On the other hand, you’re stuck using a non-Mac monitor at that Mac Pro point, so an iMac would be a worthy investment if you prefer a desktop. It’s obviously not as expandable as a Mac Pro nor as portable as the MacBook, but it’s a pretty standard Mac computer that has a stunning monitor that won’t cost you an extra grand. Really, those screens are HUGE on the current generation iMacs. (Sadly, you’ll be paying for the screen AGAIN the next time you buy an iMac.)

Is that too mushy? What kind of computer set-up do you have today? What do you use your computer for? Is lots of storage a key point for you? Are you just using your computer for e-mail and web surfing? Do you just want a multimedia system that’s easy to use? These are all things that could swing my vote one way or the other.

Hope that helps.

Paul C. wants podcasting answers:

Did the idea of doing the Pipeline Podcast come up out of the blue or had you tinkered with the idea a couple of times before getting around to it? Are you surprised it caught on and that you have lasted this long in doing it in, more or less consecutive weeks? Have you ever thought about adding in any new features to it like a top 10 worst sounding books of the week or reader’s mail/questions?

I had toyed with the idea of doing Pipeline Radio a year or more before the podcast began. The idea was to record a minute long thing once a week that we could post on Fridays with some short review/thought/something or other. It didn’t go very far because I didn’t have the time to pursue it past writing up a couple of scripts, one of which I turned into an early Pipeline Podcast. That was more along the lines of an Andy Rooney style editorial piece. I was also worried about bandwidth consumption at the time. Broadband wasn’t so pervasive, and even a minute of audio would be a slow download in those dial-up days.

When I read about podcasting in December of 2004, I knew I had to jump in. I did college radio. I did local radio up until about a year and a half ago, as a matter of fact. I wanted to use that training to do a podcast, and so I started the Various and Sundry DVD podcast and The Pipeline Podcast at the same time - Christmas Break, 2004. I had the time that week to set up a system to produce two weekly podcast shows. Once I started, I was hooked.

Eventually, the DVD podcast faded away. That was due to a lack of time and, honestly, a decrease in DVD and movie viewing habits. While I still enjoy the weekly discussions here on the blog for new DVD days, I didn’t feel comfortable TALKING about a bunch of movies I wasn’t familiar with for ten minutes a week in a podcast.

I’m not surprised the comics podcast has lasted this long. I’ve never been able to give up on comic things. Pipeline is coming up on its eleventh anniversary now and I have never ever once missed a week. Never taken a week off. I’ve been late a couple of times, I’ve pre-written things a few times, but I’ve never missed a week. I don’t think there’s another comics columnist on-line who can claim that.  I doubt there’s a print columnist who could say that, either.  This next Pipeline is the 563rd or 564th edition. I ain’t giving up on it. The podcast comes secondarily to that, and I’ve never hesitated to just skip a week when I had to. I missed a couple of weeks due to illness and one or two weeks due to scheduling and technical troubles.

The main problem with the podcast is that it’s a timing thing. The new comics release list comes out late on Monday after my chance to record a podcast. I have to record it on Wednesday, or else it’s dated by the time Wednesday night comes around. If I miss that window, I’m sure lots of people just skip over it.

I would like to do more with the podcast. Honestly, I would. I even get requests about that all the time. Oddly enough, most of those requests thank me for doing a show that’s so relatively short to the rest of the comics podcast world, but then ask me to add more stuff into it.

The simple fact of the matter is that I don’t have the time to do more than I am doing right now with the podcast. I do it because it’s not a huge hassle to spend a half hour on Tuesday nights recording and publishing the thing. Sometimes, I can even pare that down to less than 20 minutes. Even the monthly PREVIEWS podcast can be tricky to schedule out with Jamie (as it is turning out to be this month - sorry, Jamie) and finding a solid hour to an hour and a half of our lives to record.

Finally, Ezekiel asks:

What do you think of the new Hulk trailer?

Haven’t seen it. If it doesn’t show up on the Apple TV in HD, I’m not watching it. I imagine it’ll show up in there eventually, though. I hope. I do want to see what this thing looks like.

That’s it for this week.  Post more questions below, please!  I’d love to answer them in upcoming Q&As.

I’ve had my Apple TV for two weeks now, and it has changed what I watch on TV.

For starters, I watch less broadcast or cable television shows. The shows I’d watch as filler have gone away. I won’t bother skipping around channels anymore to see if there’s anything interesting on. If it’s not already on the DVR or on the Apple TV, I’m ignoring it.

Second, I’m watching more video podcasts. Much more. What were once novelties of the web and YouTube are now viable television show replacements. Sure, they often look cheap or amateurish, but that’s all part of the charm. The content is king. The set dressing is secondary. And with Photoshop User TV airing late nights on the FOX Business Channel, there’s a certain merging of the two forms happening, anyway. In both directions.

But I find myself watching Mahalo Daily while doing the ironing, or a photography tutorial from TWIP while eating a snack, or an iFanboy video podcast while waiting for some show to be on network television that I want to see. Or Cranky Geeks while cleaning around the house. My TV is all content, all of the time. No commercials need be seen, aside from GoDaddy’s at the beginning of a few video podcasts.

There’s no better way to watch Pixel Perfect with Bert Monroy than in an HD video feed on an HDTV. The screen grab looks crystal clear on the television screen. Gone is the slight muddiness or the text that’s too small to make out. On the HDTV, it looks like my laptop screen, only much larger. (40 inches versus 15 or whatever the MacBook uses.) It’s beautiful to behold.

Also very nice, though not free: The Luminous Landscape Video Journal. I downloaded the most recent one, including an hour-long tour of Jay Maisal’s NYC studio, and an hour long video of a recent Antarctic photo trip.  Fascinating, very cool, and very nice in HD.  Not exactly PLANET EARTH-level video quality, but very nice.

Though I’ve long held that I’d never do a video podcast, myself, being able to so easily watch video podcasts on my TV is slowly changing my mind. Now, it’s only the lack of proper equipment (an HD camcorder) and time to do proper editing/scripting/staging that keeps me from doing one. I’m not morally opposed to it, just lazy.

Third, I’m watching movie trailers again. I know I’ll likely never get out to see the movies, but having the option to preview what’s at the movie theater now in high definition at home on my 40 inch TV screen is huge. The WALL-E trailer from PIXAR is beautiful. The SD trailers aren’t bad, but it’s the HD ones that shine. I compared HD versus SD for a couple of movies that offer both options and you CAN tell the difference. It’s there.

Fourth, the photo slideshows turned out to be a huge hit with my two year old niece. She likes to see herself on the TV now.

The only negative thing I can say about the Apple TV is the finer points of control. Fast forwarding and rewinding is annoying. You can press the FF or RW button once to jump a minute (30 seconds? Minute and a half? I can’t tell.) in either direction, but you have to press and hold down on the buttons to straight-up fast forward or rewind something, and those controls aren’t very fine. It’s like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly. I can’t ff through to a certain spot. It’s awkward and clumsy. I let the commercials play, just because it’ll take less time than attempting to fast forward and rewind all over the place.

Installation was a breeze. I just hooked up an HDMI cable, plugged in a code to my iTunes, and away I went. I don’t have a surround sound system at this time, so I can’t vouch for how well that works. Nor have I rented a movie yet. Given how nice the trailers look, though, I have high hopes. I need to download TRANSFORMERS one of these days.

I’ve chosen to watch most video podcasts synched up from the iTunes account on my laptop. That’s just so I can easily keep track of the specific shows I like to watch. I have, however, streamed some shots through the Apple TV to sample them first. The delay to start watching them, like with the movie trailers, is miniscule. My Wi Fi connection is only 802.11g, too, not 11n.

In fact, my habits are starting to change now. This weekend, I labeled my favorite video podcasts as “Favorite” so that they’re kept in a separate sub-menu on the Apple TV. I can check an episode list and download a show direct to the Apple TV through there now. I’ve deleted gigabytes’ of video files from my laptop, which is always a good thing. As a bonus, I don’t have to go back and delete podcasts I’ve already watched from iTunes later on.

My Harmony Remote 880 accepts the Apple TV as a DVR, more or less. The buttons map out as you’d expect them to on the Harmony, but I honestly don’t use it. I use the small remote that comes with the Apple TV to control it. It doesn’t feel right, otherwise. I can use the Harmony, but I choose not to. I don’t need a remote with dozens of buttons to control a device whose native remote used six.

In the end, the Apple TV is a glorified podcast viewer for me right now, but I do take advantage of the other bits to a lesser extent. The YouTube interface is easy to work, but I don’t use it. Most videos look blocky and low-fi on my computer screen. On my HDTV, they look positively awful. When YouTube goes HD, perhaps then I’ll start using it more. Right now, it’s a minor bullet point on the list of features for this box.

I’ve also successfully transferred files over to the Apple TV from the movies directory of iTunes. (These were not commercial files. They were HD podcasts that are too new to be on iTunes yet.) I think they’re MP4 files. They look great and start up quickly.

Right now, the Apple TV is my video podcast machine. I have some movie files that I play on there, but I haven’t yet worked with the rental feature, or even the Buy From iTunes feature. That’ll make it something that could be more useful for my wife, say. And when we miss a show and the DVRs fail to record it, I look forward to downloading a show straight from iTunes to watch it on the Apple TV. We’ll start with small steps here.

And, yes, it is a very hot box.

The promised Friday Q&A will be delayed to the weekend.  Stay tuned. . .

• Wow, another piece of my childhood explained: YouTube video of the Making Of the HBO introduction video. It took months, and could probably be remade by a college kid with a low-end Mac in a week today.

• Photoshop Disasters is a new blog dedicated to pointing out the silliest atrocities committed via Photoshop from real life advertising, editorial, etc. (I may have linked to this before, but I don’t care.  It’s just that good.)

• The writer may poo-poo it, but I’d love to see this Carl Barks art exhibit.

• Guitar Hero for the DS. I kid you not. It looks painful. Or am I old?

• Forget Bear Sterns: Toshiba plans on losing over $1.1 billion on the HD-DVD burn-out.

• The naughty shennanigans and hidden meanings of the classic, “What’s Opera, Doc?” Once again, I kid you not.

• This is one embarrassing hockey missed block. Oh, it was the Islanders?  Now it makes sense. Nevermind.

Worst. Beatles. Medley. EVER.

And what was up with Amanda? Does she have laryngitis? She sang one line in the entire thing, and the rest of the time was barely lip synching. As soon as her lyric was done, the whole group immediately came to the front and her mic was silent again.

Carly in the bottom three?!? That makes no sense. Paula and Randy are right — America got it wrong. She is one of the best singers on the show. She can’t go home yet. With a field still including Ramiele and Kristy, she should be safe.

So Ryan asks David Cook to respond to Ryan calling him “smug.” And what answer does David give? A smug one.

Kristy is cannon fodder. She’s in the bottom three, deservedly so.

Jason is safe, despite that awful performance last night. It was campy, but. . . UGH.

Ramiele is in the Top Ten, which means my prediction’s toast once again. I don’t know who’s voting for her, but not Carly. . .

It’s time for Viewer Questions! UGH.

Oh, and now we have a questioner who’s vamping past what she was supposed to ask.

Ryan’s introducing Kellie Pickler, “who’s grown in so many ways since leaving us.” Oh, Ryan, you lovable scamp. Coincidentally enough, Ryan also announced this week that Dolly Parton is a mentor this season.

Neil Diamond, Andrew Lloyd Weber (fresh off last year’s judging appearance on GREASE: YOU’RE THE ONE THAT I WANT), and Mariah Carey are also mentoring.

If I were an IDOL contestant, I’d want to go country. They take care of their own down in Nashville. Even Bucky has an album.

But let me sum this up: Kelly’s singing about her red high heels. Kat McPhee has a song about open toed shoes. By this time next year, Kristy Lee Cook should be recording an ode to her Uggs.

Wow, that leaves us with Amanda and Chikezie, neither of whom deserve to leave. Randy is rushing along here.

Amanda joins an all-girl bottom three. Ouch. If Kristy doesn’t go home in a minute, then this is an upset.

Whew, Carly is safe. America, you had me worried there for a second.

And I just said, “Wow” out loud three times. Amanda is out. Maybe we’ll find out now if she still has a voice. She doesn’t deserve to go. I don’t think she was going to win it all by a long shot, but she had something unique that I thought would carry her through a few more weeks, probably to the Top Six or so.

Maybe Simon is right — one of these little kids is going to win it all this season.

And Amanda is now stumbling her way through the song. . .

Oh, well. I better check — has VoteForTheWorst taken credit for Kristy Lee yet? I think I know what’s going to happen with Kristy, though. She’s going to finally break through and have a great week and that’ll be the week she goes home. We shall see.

De Blieck Out!

Forget the Beatles.  This would be very cool, indeed, if it actually happened:

Apple reportedly mulling all-you-can-eat iTunes | Coop’s Corner : A Blog from Charlie Cooper - CNET News.com

The Financial Times may have nailed one hell of a scoop Tuesday evening. According to the paper, Apple is considering an all-you-can-eat plan in which users would receive free access to iTunes “in exchange for paying a premium for its iPod and iPhone devices.

I really like the idea of paying extra up front and not dealing with Yet Another Monthly Fee.

What’s up with Ryan’s hair tonight? It’s not flat-ironed. It’s semi-fauxhawk, practically.

Isn’t it a little early to talk about their favorite moment of the show?

Amanda Overmyer - “Back In The USSR” - Good song choice for her. Billy Joel did it justice on his Kohuept live album, too. Good news — she’s showing life in her eyes this week, which she didn’t do for me last week. I liked it. I don’t think she’s going to win this whole thing this season, but this worked for her.

And then she delivers the greatest response to Simon ever. Not sure she should be pushing the local dive bars on a family friendly show like IDOL, though.

First commercial break — no Beatles on iTunes. But the Kitchen Nightmares commercial looks cool!

Kristy Lee Cook - “You Got To Hide Your Love Away” - Judging by that dress, we knew it would be a ballad. Her voice sounds very weak tonight. Nice song though a bit repetitive. You could hear her struggle with wrestling a couple of those notes to the ground. The last note was good. Simon will find it boring and Paula will tell her how nice she looks.

Yup, Paula said it’s the best she’s ever looked. But Simon is right — she has no showmanship.

“Blow you out of your socks” is not fit for a family show. And Ryan and Simon can’t get around it. . .

David Archuleta - “The Long and Winding Road” - Did they really need to show him blow his lyrics from last week again? Wow. That’s harsh. In any case, I remember this song best from the Tiny Toons album. Heaven help me. This song is in his wheelhouse, though. So long as he remembers the lyrics, he should be safe. And he is. If not spectacular, he’s at least solid. He could have done MORE with the song, but the fact that he got through it will be enough. Simon thought he was amazing. Am I expecting too much now?

I know I say it every week, but I need to say it again: IDOL is beautiful on a high def TV screen. Ah, bliss. . .

Second break. No iTunes commercial. Wait - Ryan is pulling an iPhone out of the crowd. Crap, it’s just an Idol on iTunes ad. Like that chick wasn’t planted. . .

Michael Johns - “A Day in the Life” - Starting out with the mic too low. Corrected it pretty quickly. That falsetto is tough to hit. He needs more of his accent in this song, I think. Some of those notes are tough to hit. Not sure it’s a great IDOL song, but I think he did it justice. Crazy arrangement. He fell into the trap of picking a song he liked rather than one that fit him. And Randy is all over him for that.

Paula just mentioned the monitors in the contestants’ ears. Back in the day, they were only allowed to have them if they started off stage in the audience. I guess the stage is so big nowadays that they’re mandatory.

And Simon hated it. He’s right that Michael needs to nail more songs. He is starting to coast a little. He’s a better contestant than this week.

Ouch, he’s not wearing an earpiece. Paula is lost. Whoops.

Mac Book Air commercial time. Ah, well. The dream is dead for another night. For once, I’d like ONE prediction of mine to go right. At least we don’t have Mariah Carey sitting in as a guest judge. That rumor proved false.

More after the break, including the closest to a crash and burn we had this week, and my Bottom Three predictions:

(more…)

Arthur C. Clarke, Science Fiction Writer, Dies at 90 - New York Times

Arthur C. Clarke, a visionary science fiction writer who won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died Wednesday in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, an aide said. He was 90.

He’s probably the last of that generation of science fiction writer, isn’t he?  Isaac Asimov will forever be my favorite, but it’s sad to see the generation end.

It’s that time again! NEW DVDS!

• I Am Legend

This is the Will Smith wannabe-blockbuster from a few months back. I think it did pretty well in the box office, so good on them all. The DVD features a new ending that has been getting better reviews than the theatrical release, which is good news.

• Enchanted

This is the Disney live action princess/prince movie that will no doubt be the best-seller of the week. It’s family friendly and features that hunk from that doctor show with all the whiney people in it.

• Atonement

It’s an Oscar-nominee, you know, so it must be good.

• Bionic Woman, Volume One (2007 version)

But will there be a second season? I don’t think it’s looking too good on that.

• Battlestar Galactica: Season Three (modern version)

Hard core fans have been waiting for this one. . .

• Love in the Time of Cholera

With a title like that, I had to mention it. (Sadly, my Amazon search plug-in can’t find the DVD, so I can’t show you the cover art. Sorry.)

Next week: Wings, Season Six! (Hey, I liked that show!)

Rolling Stone : Paul McCartney Divorce Settlement: $48.7 Million

The divorce saga between Paul McCartney and his estranged wife Heather Mills has finally come to an end, with Mills receiving £24.3 million, or $48.7 million.

Last week, the pundits disagreed with me. They dared to say my prediction that the Beatles catalog would wind up on IDOL that night was bunk. They said I didn’t know what I was talking about. Everyone knew, after all, that it couldn’t and wouldn’t happen until after McCartney’s divorce was finalized.

The divorce is now a done deal. And IDOL is doing a second Beatles week this week. The timing couldn’t possibly be better, aside from Yoko Ono casting a spell to bring Lennon back from the dead to perform a duet with David Archuleta.
I thus renew my prediction — the Beatles are coming to iTunes tonight. You’ll see the announcement in an ad during the first half of the show. Bring it on!

And if it doesn’t happen tonight, then it’ll happen on the results show tomorrow night. If it doesn’t happen then, I’ll come up with a new excuse. . . Eventually, you know I’ll be right!

(Let us all just hope that rumors of Mariah Carey acting as a guest judge tonight are horribly horribly wrong.  I know she has a new album out to pimp and all, but — Mariah judging Beatles covers?  No.)

Yeah, this is being posted REALLY late in the day, comparatively speaking. And I still have to prep the new DVD release list next. Whoa, boy.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about over at Twitter in the last week, with italicized updates:

• I find it odd that I glance at the clock nearly every day at 9:11. Sometimes a.m., sometimes p.m. Just bizarre.

• @Ihnatko - Like any good internet pundit, I plan on wrestling this prediction to the ground, no matter the facts that prove me wrong. (This was about the Beatles-to-iTunes rumor. Given the divorce hearing ended today, I’ll renew my belief that it’s happening on Idol THIS week now!)

• I have ZERO new podcasts to listen to on the way to work tomorrow. Must I listen to music now? UGH (Things, thankfully, have since picked up.)

• Which is a lesser waste of time? Refreshing my knowledge of PHP, or Ruby on Rails?

• Considering the Tamrac Aero 80 as a camera bag. But is it too big? Has room for camera, lenses, future additions, AND more storage. (I ended up buying it, but I had to order the tripod straps separately through Adorama.)

• Still can’t find my Leopard DVD now that I’m ready to install the $^%&ed thing. UGH

• @mikesterling @mescutia - thanks for the podcast recommendations. I wound up with Inside Digital Photo Radio. Yeah, bit of a left turn there

• I admit it — I’ve never “gotten” Madman. Doesn’t do anything for me at all.

• @leolaporte - Will you be using Lightroom 2.0 in Tazmania? (No, he never answered. =(

• Why haven’t I won the lottery yet? Why do the fates conspire against my brilliant life plan so?

• Statistically, I should hit ONE lottery number a week. Why is that so impossible lately? Do I look too desperate when I buy one?

• Need to learn to stop doing things because they seem like fun at the time, and start DIRECTING those energies towards something. (A few days later, I’ve successfully made it through many levels of the new video game I’m playing. ::sigh:: )

• I must be the only photo enthusiast to loathe the “Dave Hill look.” It does nothing for me. http://www.davehillphoto.com/

• I have to go to work again today? Are you kidding me? Whose bright idea is this?!?

• Researching places to go take nature pictures this weekend. There are a few parks in the area I never knew about. I grew up here!

• Wow, John Buscema’s Savage Sword of Conan art was beautiful. Imagine if he drew Spider-Man in that style? Cognitive Dissonance!

• New favorite HD video podcast: “Play Value.” History of Tetris episode was really cool. Loading up the C=64 ep now to relive good times. (It was NOT a disappointing episode.)

• Hmm, this lens doesn’t like the autofocus sometimes. I had to point it straight at a lamp to get it to restart. Hrmmm (I’m looking up how to send it back to Canon now. It’s just broken. It’s not New dSLR User error.)

• I thought I wasn’t using my camera enough, but I just noticed I’ve taken 2400+ pictures with it already. Nevermind.

• So frustrated by bad weather ruining my planned photohike today that I took pics of the birds hanging out in the supermarket parking lot. (Sadly, they weren’t very good. Lack of Autofocus meants imprecise focusing by hand gave me soft shots.)

One of the reasons I like the tech of hybrid cars is that they don’t tax the power grid. You use gas to get them going, but they create extra energy (actually, save lost energy) by the proper use of technology when you brake.

For some reason, lots of people want a plug-in car, instead. I never got that. An electric car just means you need more electricity, which is something we don’t have an awful lot of. Nobody wants an electric power plant in their backyard. They’re not cheap.  We’re just replacing one problem with another.
Well, now we have a study that shows a sharp rise in hybrid electric cars could present a problem:

Will plug-in hybrids stress the grid? | Green Tech blog - CNET News.com

Plug-in hybrids are coming. General Motors, Tesla Motors, Fisker Automotive and Toyota are all coming out with gas-electric cars that can be charged from a socket.The question now is can the grid handle it. The latest voice on the debate, Stan Hadley of the Cooling, Heating and Power Technologies Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, says it won’t be easy. Hadley examined 182 scenarios on how plug-ins might be used in different regions in the U.S. between 2020 and 2030. Hadley assumed a 25 percent penetration of plug-ins by 2020.

In a worst case scenario, Hadley postulated that the U.S. would need 160 new power plants to handle the requirements of these cars. The worst case scenario, though, assumes that the millions of plug-in owners would want to charge their car at 5 p.m., the tail end of peak power demand.