House shopping: Dollars and sense- April 27, 2008 After a few days to recover from last week's stress we're back seeing available properties which may meet our needs and budgets. Our Realtor did send over an interesting house, this time one which needs no serious work, and we'll see how that goes.What I've been thinking about this week, in the aftermath of ContractorGate, is how differently people view expensive and inexpensive purchases. Houses and cars compared to, say, food or toiletries. People have completely different, conflicting mental.http://billsaysthis.com/2008_04_01_blog_archive.phtml#9006022144692274693 Bill's Summer 2008 Movie List- April 27, 2008 A tip o' the fedora to Rob... though as seven of these are sequels, updates or remakes I wonder about American cinema.Iron ManMay 2Speed RacerMay 9Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal SkullMay 22Kung Fu PandaJune 6You don't mess with the ZohanJune 6MongolJune 6 (limited release)The Love GuruJune 13Get SmartJune 20Wall-EJune 27WantedJune 27HancockJuly 2The Dark KnightJuly 18The X-Files: I Want To BelieveJuly 25The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon EmperorAugust 1Pineapple ExpressAugust 8The...http://billsaysthis.com/2008_04_01_blog_archive.phtml#5901982249062778874 House shopping: The cold splash of reality- April 20, 2008 So straight after I published last Saturday's epistle our Realtor called to see if we were interested in any of a few listings he sent over. There were two of interest, three bedroomtwo baths though both on the small side for our taste, but we met him in the afternoon to see them.(Ed. Note: I misunderstood the situation regarding that bid last week. The listing agent did respond, with a verbal no, and told our's the seller's bottom line was about $840k.)The first was a short block in from...http://billsaysthis.com/2008_04_01_blog_archive.phtml#6721043195882662253 Silly Internet Meme that I don't quite understand- April 16, 2008 But hey, all the cool kids are doing it.Here's mine, from my work MacBook:MacEto: blazar$ historyawk 'a$2++ ENDfor(i in a)printf "%5dt%s n",ai,i'sort -rnhead 23 ls 18 curl 14 cd 11 ssh 10 ps 6 svn 5 open 3 rm 3 ping 3 kill Yes, be jealous, I have a MacBook at work. Cool bosses.http://billsaysthis.com/2008_04_01_blog_archive.phtml#6016214852890602541 Way Cool: Peter Hamilton at Books Inc today- April 13, 2008 TS1, the Big guy and I turned out to see Peter F. Hamilton, one of my favorite SF authors, at Books Inc. in downtown Mountain View this afternoon. Peter read a few pages from The Dreaming Void, took many questions and then signed copies of his books.Hamilton was very good natured, I'm sure he's heard all of the questions we asked dozens of times over, but for sure wasn't at all surprised when the first (by me) was has he finished The Temporal Void, book two of this trilogy, yet. Unlike earlier..http://billsaysthis.com/2008_04_01_blog_archive.phtml#273937587828776096 Hunting... Houses Again- April 12, 2008 Three years have passed since TS1 and I sold the townhouse over on Gladys Ave, apparently not a terrible choice as Zillow's estimate of the current value is $25,000 less than what we got. The last few weeks we've been going out with a real estate agent to see what's available.Our requirements are straightforward:Location: Mountain View, preferably within 1.5 miles of the Castro St.California Ave. intersection so TS1 can walk to work. I've lived in MV for eleven(!) years and she for nearly six...http://billsaysthis.com/2008_04_01_blog_archive.phtml#1035376051363997069 Where did Web 2.0 go- April 2, 2008 Okay, this is perhaps a small complaint and not all about Web 2.0. Still, every major JavaScript UI library includes an auto-complete function so why don't major sites such as IMDB have it on their search boxes Marketo, of course, has it on every user input widget where it can work. If we can do it, why can't Amazonhttp://billsaysthis.com/2008_04_01_blog_archive.phtml#8549542810425608461 |