andersonfam.org

Both Meghan and I have realized recently that we’ve been tending to spend time in the evenings on our computers instead of doing more intellectually-stimulating activities like, say, reading. We’ve agreed with each other that we’ll try to encourage each other to spend time with our respective noses in books instead of browsing teh intarweb. So…following in the footsteps of Mr. Anderson and Ms. Bergstrom, and as a way to keep myself accountable to this goal, I’ve decided to make a list of what I read during 2007. I’ve started a separate page for the list. It’s available here:

Reading List ’07

I was browsing our company’s MSDN subscriber downloads page this afternoon and noticed that MS has Internet Explorer filed in the “Operating Systems” section of the downloads tree. That’s right…Microsoft puts their Internet Explorer web browser in the same category as the venerable MS-DOS, the ubiquitous Windows XP, and their newest shiny (DRM-laden) OS, Vista. Quite telling, isn’t it?

For those of you that are thoroughly confused at this point, I’ll refer you to two informative Wikipedia articles:

Web browser
Operating system

The short version is that a web browser is a (relatively) simple application that allows one to view and interact with web pages. An operating system, on the other hand, is an incredibly complex system that “runs” your computer. Web browsers and Operating systems *should not* be classified in the same category.

So I’ve had this CD on my Amazon.com wishlist for many months. As you can see, it’s an import from Britain, and as such, is quite expensive. $35 expensive. For one CD. Hence the reason it’s been on my wish list for so long – I just couldn’t bring myself to pay that much for one CD.

This afternoon, I happened to glance at the reviews of the CD that are posted on amazon. One of the reviewers recommended purchasing the disc from the British Amazon site, amazon.co.uk. So I check it out. The CD was available there for £0.14. Yah – that’s $0.27. Add international shipping onto that, and my grand total was about $6.50. It’s being shipped airmail and should arrive late the first week of February. W00t.

…as seen by a hilarious (and often insighful) web comic:

Oh man, don’t I know it…

Here’s the subject line of an email that just slipped through our spam filter at work into our webmaster inbox:

I hardly ever commit genocide, for instance, and my facial hair is marginally less silly looking.

Now *that’s* funny.