14 Happy Years

Oh, by the way…
Today was the 14th anniversary of my marriage to the most wonderful, beautiful, intelligent woman that I could ever hope to link up with in this world.
Here’s looking forward to the next 14 years, and more.

Quirky Japanese Site

I work for a Japanese company, so I appreciate the occasional treasure trove of offbeat Japanese culture.
The mission of the site proprietor is to highlight the areas of Japan that are off the beaten path of the typical gaijin tourist.
I know I found this link thanks to someone else’s blog, but for the life of me I can’t remember the source and didn’t note it when I copied the link. So, whoever you are, thanks!

Geek Cred

Via fellow wannabe Owlish.

Scuba Tragedy

Gunner links to an amazing and captivating tale about an extreme diving mishap in South Africa. I could not stop reading until I got to the end.
Others describe the tale as creepy. I just see it as tragic.
Read the whole thing.

Carnival of Music #8

Rob the Llamabutcher has done a fine job hosting the eighth Carnival of Music over at the butcher shop. Drop by and leave some tasty bits in the Llama Butcher mailbag to let Rob know how you liked it.
Next week’s carnival will be held at Musical Perceptions. Check the archive page for future hosts and previous entries in the carnival.

I’m Back

After finally getting through to an executive complaint hotline regarding our dissatisfaction with the 1-week response time Comcast told us to expect, a technician came out to the house yesterday.
It turns out our sprinkler guys had cut a cable, but we couldn’t tell since Plano is one of the few cities still using a two-cable delivery system. We still had TV, but no Internet. The technician was polite and had the problem temporarily fixed in less than an hour. A crew will come out in the near future to bury the temporary cables (which are currently running across the surface of the lawn).
Long story short, the outage was our fault. Apart from dissatisfaction with the initial response time, Comcast handled the situation great.

Connectivity Issues

Comcast is experiencing service issues in our area and I will have limited access to the Internet until it is resolved.
At our old house, we had Comcast cable internet for more than 2 years with only one or two disruptions in service, which were resolved almost before we noticed them.
In our new house, we had one minor issue registering our cable modem after we moved, but until today we haven’t had any other issues. However, Comcast can’t explain the current outage problem. The best they can do is roll a truck to our house, but not until next week. My wife is up in arms and ready to switch to Verizon DSL. Now. Or Yesterday. Substandard technology notwithstanding….
Now, I have a long and deep-seated prejudice against DSL, going back to my early telecom contracting days. Technically, you get a small slice of dedicated bandwidth at $30 a month (DSL) versus a variable slice of monster bandwidth at $50 a month (cable modem).
Anyone have feedback on the relative merits of the two? I can review comments from my work computer at lunch time, so I’m looking forward to some suggestions.
Needless to say, this will cut into blogging around here until resolved.

Carnival of Music #7

This week’s Carnival of Music is being hosted at Podcast Bumper Music. The site’s proprietor, Prent Rodgers, has assembled a fine collection of tuneful bloggy goodness.
Our submissions were still low this week, but we had some late entries that really rounded things out nicely. If you have written or read an interesting post about music, please send the link to our Carnival drop-box. As always, check the archive for future hosts and to browse earlier carnivals.

Thoughts on Immigration

Eric has posted a very good 1000-word essay on immigration. He does a good job laying out a libertarian position on immigration close to my own. Key points: our current illegal immigration situation is a result of the laws of economics and our misguided minimum wage laws and even a police state environment would not be able to keep out illegal immigrants who wanted in. Read the whole thing.

My Battle Cry

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Hark! Who is that, rampaging through the steppes! It is John, hands clutching a mighty sword! And with a booming bellow, his voice cometh: “Ares, God of War, be praised! I shall traumatize the entire planet!!”

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

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Cool, I always liked Mars.
(Hat tip: Michele).