Greg

How to slow down your typing speed

For the past five years, I've essentially been using the same keyboard.  I have one(s) for work as well as one at home.  When my keyboard finally dies or just gets too gross, I get a new one.  Unfortunately, Microsoft (yes - makers of the best keyboards and mice that you can buy!) has essentially discontinued my old keyboard - the "ergonomic pro keyboard".  Yesterday I got the the new Keyboard 4000 - seriously, I couldn't make a name like that up - which has the new "enhanced ergonomic design".  I don't doubt that there's been a lot of research explaining why the slightly tweaked layout is better for my wrists/hands.  It also means that the keys aren't quite at the same spacing / etc. that I'm used to.  So I keep making typos or just have to type slower.  Arrrrgh.

Now once I get used to this keyboard properly I'll need to replace the one at home too :)

Oh, and I ugraded from "generic Microsoft IR Mouse" to the all new "High Definition Laser Mouse 6000" when I swapped out my keyboard.  That's right - between my keyboard and mouse I have 10000 units of input goodness.  Whatever that means :)

When personalized advertising would come in handy

I'm very torn on "personalized advertising" and whether I'm for it or against it.  It's a little creepy that there are databases with that much information about you and your purchasing habits and interests that they'd be able to customize the ads you get.  And if you take it to the extent of some futurists predictions (and sci-fi movies set in the future) where billboards & small radio-ads change as someone approaches - it's even creepier that that data would be available in a way that it can stream to the relevant ad-centers.  Having said that I'll probably end up working on this sort of technology in the future and will be telling everyone about the benefits and how we've solved all of the privacy concerns.  And it's not like search-engines & webpages don't already have this of sorts. 

The reason I'm thinking about this is the beneift of not having to listen to any more political ads for the rest of this voting season.  Yep - I've already voted using King County's wonderful "permanent absentee voter" option!  Dropped the ballot in the mail on Monday.  Now if I could just find a way to not put a filter on my radio and TV so that I wasn't subjected to ads for the next couple weeks :)

Let's go Cardinals!

Ducked out down to St. Louis last weekend for NLCS game three Mets v. Cardinals.  We ended up going largely because we were able to get there by redeeming airline miles and I had already planned on taking the Friday off.

In a lot of ways, it was weird to be walking around campus again at WashU - it's amazing how much construction has happened while I was gone, and how much is in progress right now.  At the same time, the main things I remembered were still there and the character of the campus seemed pretty much the same.  We did end up going back to some of the old haunts, but were a bit early for some of the others (the pub at the Cheshire hotel - home of the best burger in St. Louis).

The critical portion of the trip, of course, was the game :).  We ended up finding tickets on the street very easily.  New tip when trying to get into an event that you don't have a ticket to - find the old man who looks really uncomfortable about trying to sell tickets.  He'll very quickly give you tickets and not try to rip you off :)  The game itself was great - Cards won handily.  Great pitching (and hitting) performance by Suppan.  Excellent atmosphere all around and particularly in our section with folks leading cheers right in front of us and the screamer right behind us.  "The screamer" was a lady with the highest pitch yell I've ever heard - my bet was she'd be hoarse by the 3rd innning.  To my shock (and much of the section's dismay) she was going strong until she left in the bottom of the eighth inning...

Eating with strangers

Went to Sitka and Spruce for dinner last night - this is the second time that we've been there now, and the second time that we've eaten in a "communal table".  The resturant is on of the mostly highly talked about new places in Seattle over the last year or so - every review I've read is raving about how good it is, etc.  The weird part is that there are literally 5 tables in the place - 4 4-seaters and one larger table.  This larger table is usually "communal" - there will be a group of 3, a couple couples, etc.  Last night the large table was reserved (the only way to get reservations is for a group 5 or larger, then they will save the big table for you) - and all of the 4-tops had people sitting at them...  What I didn't realize that when I said "yes, we're ok with a communal table" was they meant to put us at a 4-top table with another couple.  It actually was a lot less weird/awkward than I expected - though I guess it's sort of similar to if/when you go to a dinner party and are sitting next to people that you don't already know.

Anyway, to the important part :)  The Food.  This place is quite good, shockingly so if you take into account the setting (random strip mall between a Subway and a teriyaki joint).  I got the brisket (again) and it was excellent - falling apart tender and incredibly flavorful.  Clodagh had guinea fowl which also was really nice - to me it was the perfect mix of done/juicy.  Next time I'll get something other than brisket, I swear :)

Cross-blog pollination

I read something the other day that the kids these days look at email as an "old person's thing" and that schools (colleges) are looking for new ways to spam them to get them interested in that school.  Which is really funny because in my day regular mail was the big thing and the sheer volume of mail you got from some schools was astounding.  Yet seemingly effective.

Where am I going with all of this?  There's apparently another trend trend in communications - cross-blog pollination(sp?) :)  Lisa posted today that she's doing sailing lessons this upcoming summer - the funny parts are: a) she's a whole lot more likely to pull it off then we are :) b) part of the post was specifically aimed towards me and that portion of the topic was spurred by reading this page in the past...  I guess we're going the opposite direction of the young people these days ;-)

And yes, I am using "young people" and "kids these days" reasonably firmly tongue in cheek...  Reasonably, not completely.  By the way, Aaron, you should post more often.