Since 1985 Super Dickmann's has been the biggest among the chocolate foam kisses.

Who doesn't know the slogan "Man, they are Dickmann"? Under this motto Super Dickmann's from Storck quickly became Germany's most popular chocolate foam kiss.

[ Storck - Part of Your World - Super Dickmann's ]

Not the oddest candy around, though:

• Oddly Named Candy on Candy Addict
• Stupid Candy on Stupid.com (note: site will cause seizures)

And if Japanese candy is still your thing, head over to the Japan Candy Blog, or just Candy Blog in general for all sorts of candy goodness.

And let us not forget the Candy Cam, which is how I got on this digression in the first place.

Grossberg brings up a good question:

So now that the old Pentium II box is my third-string computer, what should I do with it?

[ What To Do With Old Computers? : Joe Grossberg ]

In the DC area you can have Turtle Wings do the dirty work for you, and rest assured that you aren't polluting the environment.

Over 40 million electronic pieces become obsolete every year. These pieces are filled with materials that are hazardous to the environment such as lead, cadmium, lead oxide, barium and mercury.

We Pick Up and Recycle Electronics

• Pickup and removal of all unwanted electronic equipment
• Security cleansing and identity theft protection
• Certified data destruction
• Certification of recycling and good citizenship
• Excess inventory programs

• computers
• monitors
• printers / copiers
• mainframes / hubs

• cell phones / telecom
• fax machines / plotters
• stereos / microwaves
• battery back-up units, etc.

The site says that there is a nominal charge, but what price can we put on the Earth?

Damn, the Japanese are lucky! For the Nintendo DS Lite's Touch Generation line, they have something called the Cooking Navigator. Not a video game, but an instructional program. A chef inside barks instructions at you so that you can cook by hearing

[ Nintendo DS Lite could make you an Iron Chef - Slashfood ]

Seems like a great idea, but I wonder how tunable it is to experience, skill level, etc. Does it only do a set number of recipes? What about food aversions, allergies, and the like? Is it WiFi enabled?

Personally I don't think so. Master Pages are very similar to the system I had devised in ASP.NET 1.1, but with the added benefit of integrating nicely into VisualStudio and ASP.NET. I find them very easy to understand and straight-forward. However it is nice to have a good page that explains them.

A professional web site will have a standardized look across all pages. For example, one popular layout type places a navigation menu on the left side of the page, a copyright on the bottom, and content in the middle. It can be difficult to maintain a standard look if you must always put the common pieces in place with every web form you build. In ASP.NET 2.0, master pages will make the job easier.

[ Master Pages In ASP.NET 2.0 ]

Master pages are seriously flexible too. The only bug I've found so far is that not all HREF or SRC attributes of controls that are "runat=server" will allow you to use ~ to home them, so far I've found that the <link> tag requires you to leave off the ~/ to do the same thing. Rather odd, but it is what it is.

Headed out of town this weekend, and I wanted to make sure I had connectivity no matter where I go. I know that theoretically my phone could be used to provide access for a PC, but I had never looked into it. This article has all I needed to know, for the most part:

It is not the ambition of this article to answer all your questions regarding the use of a Pocket PC as a modem but rather to show how to configure HTC Wizard and other devices that you need to connect to the internet[sic] over it. If you possess the same devices and follow the instructions, you should soon succeed. Considered strong similarities between all Pocket PC devices from HTC, it is likely that the same procedure would apply to in other cases, too.

[ PDAgold.com :: Article :: HTC Wizard as a modem (USB, Bluetooth) ]

I discovered this article by googling and finding this thread on "HowardForums". Later in that thread "Berniemac23" points out that on T-Mobile the APN is "wap.voicestream.com" and not Internet. I successfully connected via Bluetooth and USB cable, I'm sure both will prove useful at some point.

Next up is trying to power the laptop, and therefore the phone too, from my Jetta, thus allowing me to work anywhere I get GPRS/EDGE coverage.

A guy trades up a red paper clip for a house.

He traded a red paperclip for a pen, which he traded for a doorknob, which he traded for a grill, which he traded for a generator, which he traded for a keg and neon beer sign, which he traded for a snowmobile, which he traded for a trip to Canada, which he traded for a van, which he traded for a recording contract, which he traded for a year's housing in Arizon, which he traded for an afternoon with Alice Cooper, which he traded for a KISS snow globe, which he traded for a role in a movie, which he traded for a house in Saskatchewan.

[ Red Paperclip: Success : Joe Grossberg ]

I'm curious if he actually owned the paper clip or just swiped it from work. Could that potentially mean that his employer could sue him for the house?

God of War PlayStation2 Sony Computer Entertainment Mature

The first time I played this I was very unimpressed. Critics everywhere were heralding it as the greatest game since the bread slicer, but I found it to be trite, gimmicky, and a big hard to stomach.

I gave it another chance. This time I played it a bit farther than last time and found that the "hack and slash" play that dominated the first part falls away quickly to a "hack and slash and solve puzzles" game dynamic. Sure there was still tons of blood and gore and a bit of gratuitous nudity, but once you look past that, this is a really good game. After having to put up with dozens of GTA rip offs, I'm actually looking forward to a slate of God of War ripoffs...

Forgot to update this after my last trip:

create your own visited countries map

And I'm so jealous of some people:

• Chilln' Travel
• Democratic Veteran

I'm sure there are more people to be jealous of, I just can't seem to find them. Perhaps they are too busy traveling to make up these maps...

You cannot resist the über-cuteness of Hello Kitty! Cuteness factor 10, full ahead! She'll surf into your heart, and surf away with your money. Bow down and kowtow to her eternal cuteness. You think you are cute? You can't handle the cute!

Seriously, it's like printing money. And now they are combining 2 of the 3 great loves of 11 year old girls everywhere, Hello Kitty and Build-a-Bear Workshop. If they can tie in to Libby-Lu's, we're all up the creek.

Example:
:args *.[ch]
:argdo %s/\<my_foo\>/My_Foo/ge | update
This changes the word "my_foo" to "My_Foo" in all *.c and *.h files.  The "e"
flag is used for the ":substitute" command to avoid an error for files where
"my_foo" isn't used.  ":update" writes the file only if changes were made.

[ Vim documentation: editing ]

This one item is the timesaver that is my "killer app" for using vim above all other editors. If you combine this with searching in windows for all *.html files (or some such) and then right-click and "edit in single vim" you can set up the args to be all the files in a webroot or somesuch. Perhaps for changing links everywhere.

spent the day picking lemons and pruning back the lone lemon tree in my friend cyrano's backyard. we picked over 500 lemons--something like 8 milk crates of citrus.

[ meet me at the corner of third and fairfax.: lemony thicket. ]

Apparently after picking that may lemons, you can then make lovely delicacies like this:

 

Props to Slash Food.

Get downloads for Internet Explorer 7, including recommended updates as they become available. To download Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 in the language of your choice, please visit the Internet Explorer 7 worldwide page.

[ Internet Explorer 7: downloads ]

It seems to dislike the Google Toolbar, or the IE Developer's Toolbar, or both.