Archive for October, 2006
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30 Oct 2006
I decided I'm not going to regret not doing National Novel Writing Month this year. There's no telling whether I'll regret not winning (that's what they call getting to 50k words). I'll know that on November 30.
Update: I now realize that they way I said it above is more likely interpreted as "I'm not doing it", and the image just made it more confusing. I meant that I'm not going to regret not doing it because I am going to do it. I'm in.
Discuss (2) -
16 Oct 2006
On the side of a non-descript road in sleepy Cumberland, Rhode Island is a little bar with a tiny parking lot. From the outside, it looks like the kind of bar you've driven by a hundred times: dark, walls grey with pre-ban cigarette smoke, exactly three taps of American rice-heavy beer, NLCS playing on the fuzzy television in the corner. The name — Pitcher's Pub — is even a beer/baseball pun. But despite its unassuming outward appearance, this bar is different. You sit down, yes, next to the Golden Tee game. You shout your order to the waitress over, it's true, the Tom Petty cover band that non-traditionally includes a banjoist. But when you start scanning the twenty-some taps and realize you only recognize half of them, you're willing to admit that your first impression might have been hasty. And the orange bottled-beer menu packed with microbrews, barley wines, and bocks makes you glad you didn't judge this book by its cover. In fact, you realize dizzily, you can only think of one bar in Boston with such a broad offering.
I felt the need to opine this morning because there's not a lot out there about this hidden gem. There are some moderately positive reviews on Beer Advocate that convinced us to give it a try.
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2 Oct 2006
I am in need of a product that I am virtually sure exists. I can't, for the life of me, seem to find a place that sells this product — although I suspect that's just a difficulty with putting my thoughts into search terms. I also am even having a difficulty envisioning what it might look like. So I ask for your help. I need some way to easily keep all of my different USB cables (iPod, Palm, phone, camera, video camera, et al) as easily accessible and not-ugly as possible. Requirements:
- A hub, or at least some way to not have to reach around my tower to get the right cable plugged in. I only have six USB ports, and including my keyboard, mouse, and printer, I have far more devices, so there currently ends up being a lot of juggling.
- Some sort of cable hiding solution. Cable ugliness is the number one cause of premature death, followed closely by the goddamn Nihilanth.
- The cables should be easy to remove, so that I don't have to spend fifteen minutes pulling one out just to bring it to a friend's house.
Just a simple USB hub that I can plug things into solves the biggest part of the problem: the pain of juggling. But I still have to keep the cables neatly tucked away in a little bin next to the desk. Is there a better solution that I'm missing? I can't be the only person with this problem.