Pajamation

I cannot begin to express...

how brilliant a 7th Tour win is for Lance Armstrong. Any words I may attempt to orchestrate will certainly fail in capturing the sheer magnificence of his accomplishment. He is the quintessential composition of an athlete and a true champion; I can offer nothing but congratulations.

I was thinking of...

putting a full list together but after running a quick search I realized I'd be here all night. Do dads just not care at all or do mothers have entirely too much time on their hands (yes, yes, I'm sure I'll receive hate-mail for that one but I'm letting the incredible list do my talking). Just hit this and you'll see what I'm talking about.

A compliment in the direction...

of Microsoft is not exactly a compliment once the full details are properly disclosed. Let me explain: I was attempting to pull off some addresses out of MS Access to import into Apple's Address Book but the export file just was not playing nice -- or rather the Excel export file wasn't playing nice. I was able to initially export a .xls file out of Access, but Excel just wouldn't export a workable file for Address Book. I utilized the "Save As" command trying Text (Tab delimited), CSV (Comma delimited), Text (Windows), and CSV (Windows), but nothing would work. I even resorted to importing into Yahoo's Address Book but that whole idea went sour fast after Yahoo required the file to be in its "approved" .csv format (it wasn't and ended up crashing the Yahoo Address Book code -- very cool indeed). For some reason Apple's Address Book fared no better and refused to complete the final step of importing; the import window just refused to respond. Solution? You guessed it (or maybe you didn't)! How about importing into MS Entourage and exporting back out as a proper .csv file. Yeah, exactly. Well done Entourage on possessing the "smartness" to efficiently distinguish between the various fields and allowing me to assign each label to each respective heading. One import and one export later I'm back in Apple's Address Book ready to import -- and we are golden, like a charm, and not a worry lingering in the air. Apple: make Address Book more flexible. Microsoft: stop engineering your software in such a proprietary way that only your applications can play nice together. It's not funny, no one's laughing, and I don't like it.

Take your pick...

of any technological site in the know and you'll be hard pressed to find one NOT poking a bit of fun at Microsoft's new "Vista" campaign. Lovely, here we go again with more bit/byte stupidity.

Thinkandask.com has...

an informative page regarding the ownership of all major media outlets. And you wonder why all the worthless and unintelligible babble gracing our airwaves and pages seems to resemble... well, itself.

I'm absolutely fascinated...

by these dogs and their ability to be so incredibly controlled regardless of outside influences and/or distractions. I was fortunate enough to play witness to a gorgeous German Shepherd guide a woman around the buildings near where I work and am amazed at how intelligently disciplined these animals remain in all situations.

The quarterfinals were today...

with Mexico vs. Colombia (2-1 Colombia and that was quite a game. 60,050 fans in attendance) and Panama vs. South Africa (1-1: 5-3 Penalty kicks). An absolute blast attending these two days of games; national teams should come to Houston more often -- WAY more enjoyable, exciting, and entertaining than this other "football" nonsense that's soon to play weekly.

Great games tonight...

at Reliant Stadium featuring South Africa vs. Guatemala (ending in a 1-1 tie) and Mexico vs. Jamaica (1-0 Mexico).

Yesterday, I stopped by...

this convenience store to grab a tasty beverage (among other things) and use up what I thought to be the remaining balance on my Simon Gift Card. I figured I had about $10 or so and the total purchase price was only $7.44. Got it covered right? Yeah, not so fast. She comes back with that wretched "sorry-tough-guy-your-card-was-declined-and-you-can't-pay-for-a-measly-$7.44" face. I respond to the face with, "Wait! It's a gift card! It's a gift card!!" Sorry, no dice. It was a total George moment -- "I was in the pool! I was in the pool!" Anyhow, I pay and while exiting I start to wonder what IS the actual balance on the card? And that's how they get you. Only an anal individual (ok, ok, everyone stop pointing fingers) would actually take the time to find out the balance and work out a purchase to fully utilize the remaining flowage. True, like most gift cards I could "reload" it with additional funds but just wait for the punchline. The card is good for one year and reloading is certainly an option. However, the back of the card states: "An administrative fee of $2.50 per month will be deducted from your balance beginning with the seventh month from the month of card purchase." That's just wrong. It's my card and I'll save if I want to. What if I reload? Do they still deduct $2.50 even though the funds are not actually directly related to or derived from the original source funds? To further complicate the issue the card continues: "This Giftcard expires on the date listed on the front of the card, except where prohibited by law." What you mean "except where prohibited by law? Either it expires or it doesn't. There's no maybes depending where you live. Oh yeah, the remaining balance is $7.14.

To ensure my sizable...

investment is insured I decided to add Safeware to my life. With a zero deductible and everything from a natural disaster to theft to someone unintentionally harming my device, I'm pretty much covered under all circumstances. I'm normally not a huge proponent of extended warranties and insurance on things -- unless it's an electronic device you use everyday and you use nonstop. Stereo insurance? Not so much. PDA phone insurance. Obviously. I also finally added Applecare to my Powerbook (a good investment for Apple computer users simply because their support is second to none -- and if something can go wrong it will go wrong. Better to have three years of lovely help on your side). Hard to believe it's been almost a year since I received this little gem.