homestarrunner.com's Strong Bad and the Environment:

[ Lappy 486 ]

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the Northern hemisphere’s winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or the choice to not practice secular or religious traditions at all…and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contribution to society have helped made our country great (not to imply that our country is necessarily greater than any other), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform or sexual orientation of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration of the original greeting. It implies no promise from the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and it is void where prohibited by law and it is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is expected to perform as expected within the usual application of good tiding for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish a sole discretion of the wisher.

[ Anon ]

Props to my Dad, spelling corrected from his email forward from British to American...

I saw a Blu Ray demonstration while I was there as well and it was friggin' awesome. I'm half tempted to buy a PS3 just for the Blu Ray capabilities. And judging by the selection of Blu Ray discs versus HD DVDs, I can honestly say that I think Sony will win this battle. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[ :: Dueling Analogs :: It's the Thought That Counts ]

I'm in agreement, but not sure I'd qualify it as a "win". At this point the Wii is already a win, the only way that will turn back is if Nintendo drops not just the ball, but 100s of balls, and no more quality games come out on the Wii. That would sink Nintendo like Atari in the 70's. Since the gaming population seems to have grown big time, I'm not sure if we can't have 2 or 3 or even 4 winners. XBox is very popular, especially with networked first person shooter gamers, though the PC is still popular in that category. The PC could sustain itself with World of Warcraft alone. And the PS3 will have the games, and has the Hi Def video, and will eventually return to Sony what they've put into it and more. So I'd recommend to pierski, go ahead and pick up a Ratchet & Clank PS3 machine, is a cheap BluRay player and can play Ratchet & Clank great games too.

Update: Duh. Win BluRay vs. HD DVD... Yeah, I hope Sony wins now, since I dropped a few bucks on a Ratchet & Clank machine PS3.

FusionDebug 2.0.1 is the latest release of one of the most anticipated and essential add-on's for ColdFusion™. FusionDebug 2.0.1 sets new debugging standards in terms of performance, ease of use and integration for todays CF developer.

[ FusionDebug - ColdFusion Debugger | Home ]

Anyone still using ColdFusion? We're thinking about sticking with it and upgrading to ColdFusion 8. My biggest concern is the IDE, I just love VisualStudio and now I'm spoiled.

I know I'm not the only one wondering what the * is for after the Playstation Network's tag line above, but did everyone else have "* Fun not guaranteed and price may change whenever we want" run through their mind?

As recent as ten years ago, these old men made their ice cream from scratch, hand-churning the stuff and peppering the "everything"... with chopped-up bits of atap chee (palm fruit), the chewy "flesh from the young seeds of the mangrove plant Nypa fruticans" that had been soaked in rose syrup. These days, the ice cream is likely to be supplied by commercial ice cream makers Wall's, Magnolia, or King's. If the food gods are smiling on you though, you may just chance upon a vendor who still adds chopped-up bits of atap chee to his "everything." Go ahead and ask, "Uncle, is there atap chee in there?"

[ Serious Eats ]

I don't care much for my ice cream in wonder bread (although that's Yaty's serving suggestion of choice), but I can't get enough Palm Fruit (aka Palm Nut aka Atap Chee [Singapore] aka Kaong [Philippines] aka Buah Atap [Indonesia]) and drenched in rose syrup? Yum-o! Apparently this is a significant ingredient in some people's Halo-Halo [Philippines] which reminds me a ton of Bingsoo [Korea] and even a bit of Es Buah [Indonesia].

The TVersity Media Server lets you manage your Internet and home media and create your personalized lineup of channels, or as we call it your Personal Entertainment Guide (PEG). It then serves this media to a multitude of networked devices in the home or on the go, overcoming their inherent limitations by doing all the necessary conversions on the fly, and thus making your media available anywhere, anytime and on any device.

[ TVersity Frequently Asked Questions ]

Looks like my new PS3 can find this puppy automagically, and then via the magic of Remote Play from the PSP I have partial Sling Box functionality for no additional cost. Sweet. I think I could even figure out how to use TiVo ToGo to port my TiVo programs into the Media Server...

A month after the new Rockville City Council took office, a new majority voted 3-2 on Monday to adopt a weekly refuse collection schedule and scrap the twice-weekly pickups maintained by their predecessors.

«snip»

Marcuccio, who participated in the pilot program, echoed other residents’ objections to weekly service. The trash in her weekly receptacle "stinks to high heaven" in the summertime, she said during the council meeting.

"Just to go to once a week is not lowering the price," she added. "I hope people understand that. It’s simply lowering the rate the price will rise."

The change in frequency is projected by staff to save the city more than $600,000 in fiscal year 2009 and more than $850,000 the following budget cycle. Those savings reflect personnel and equipment efficiencies, but do not mean the $32.70 monthly rate is going to decline.

[ Rockville trash vote overturned ]

Since this appeared to be one of the largest factors in the recent election, the message seems to be heard loud and clear. What I find disappointing is Marcuccio's lack of understanding of the complete issue. It's not all about the money. Reduced numbers of trash collections should encourage all of us to think twice about what we throw away, how we throw it away, and how we can improve our waste management. Personally I have been happy as a lark with the Rockville paper recycling. At first I assumed it was like many places and all I could recycle was newspapers, but I read the recycling page more carefully and what constitutes "Mixed Paper":

• Cardboard/cardboard boxes (Corrugated cardboard)
• Magazines, catalogs, telephone book, computer paper, paperback books, unwanted mail
• Newspapers (including inserts)
• Paper (computer and office and other clean and dry paper)

This now includes enough paper materials that I have about 2 bags every 3 weeks of stuff that would usually just get land-filled. Sure I would prefer to keep my fees down, but more importantly I would like to keep Rockville's land fills empty. Oh, and remember Rockville, recycling is mandatory not optional.

Lunchies!, originally uploaded by cafechimp.

French Onion Soup, Corned Beef, Turkey, and Swiss pressed sandwich, Salt & Pepper chips, and Coca-Cola.

Taking a little bit of inspiration from Panera Bread and their Pick Two Combo, I whipped up a café lunch today. The French Onion is courtesy Pacific Natural Foods, though I did sauté the onion that went in it. A couple of tiny toasts on top and some Gruyère cheese and voilà! The pressed sandwich is on Rosemary Boule and pressed up in my Faux Foreman. Accompanied with Salt and Pepper Kettle Chips and a Coca-Cola and we're talking one yum-o sammy!

Taco Bell [will] introduce... a breakfast menu in the next couple of years.

[ Yum looks to boost U.S. sales using rival's methods - Yahoo! News ]

Yes, I know, you either hate the Bell or love it, and I for one love it. And no I don't want to hear that you think some other Mexican/Tex-Mex/Tejano place is better, I eat at all of them. From Taco Bell on the low end up to Frontera Grill (I hope, some day) on the high end. But breakfast? I usually like a bagel or croissant. I've tried breakfast burritos, but they aren't so easy to come by. But some Taco Bell breakfast? That'd be hard to avoid...