Free Barack Obama Desktop Wallpaper

Download this free Barack Obama desktop wallpaper in all its 1920x1200 pixel glory and save the world with a single click!

Did You Buy HD-DVD? Sell! Sell! Sell!

If you, like many in the early-adopter crowd, happened to shell out some hard-earned cash on an HD-DVD player and a small library of compatible movies, you probably feel a little down these days, knowing that your chosen side in the Video Format War 2.0 is dying a quick and painful death to Sony’s Blu-Ray format.

Never fear. I’m here with some soothing ointment and a Band-Aid for your boo-boo.

What’s a frugal techie to do now that she’s burnt a hole in her pockets with little to show other than a machine and some occasionally entertaining but semi-expensive coasters that will take up increasingly non-utilized space in the living room?

Well, she’ll get to eBay, that’s what she’ll do.

There’s still time to sell your HD-DVD player and HD-DVDs for only a slight loss, before the format plummets into the annals of “also ran,” joining such valiant competitors as Betamax, cardboard LPs, and Laser discs.

If you lack a conscience, you can take advantage of the dearth of information about High Definition video that the average eBay consumer has, and make a decent return on your investment. With each day, the value of your HD-DVD purchase decreases, so there’s no better day than today to start an auction, and set a decent “Buy It Now” price ever-so-slightly below the deal you got on Amazon this Christmas.

Sell that Toshiba and that Planet Earth boxed set. Close your eBay account. Leave the country. Save up for a PS3 or other Blu-Ray player. Cry just a little, perhaps.

And in the meantime, you might also try trading your HD-DVDs for a box of Girl Scout cookies, before the value drops below that of a single 75-calorie(!) Tagalong in all its crisp and creamy chocolate and peanut-buttery goodness.

Mmm...anybody know some Girl Scouts in NYC?

Hating Valentine’s Day

Why does it seem that so many people so loathe Valentine’s Day? Is it only single people who hate this holiday? Doesn’t seem that way. So what explains it? And why is Valentine’s Day singled out among all holidays for such vitriol (especially evident on social networks and blogs)? Every explanation I can think of fails the smell test. So I’m bringing this to you to help answer.

Do you hate Valentine’s Day? If so, why? If not, why do you think other people have such a problem with it (and not other holidays)?

And just for kicks, if you will, what is the most romantic thing you’ve ever done (or experienced)?

iPhone Owners Really, Really Like iPhones

That is a really, really high percentage of “very satisfied” iPhone owners, so high that I would estimate the overall satisfaction rate to be somewhere in the 90% range. I would love to see the raw numbers - especially the “very dissatisfied” percentages. There is a big difference between “not being very satisfied with Palm,” and “hating Palm with every last breath.”

What kind of phone do you have? And how satisfied are you?

From ChangeWave. Seen on Engadget.

Yahoo Says No.

This morning, Yahoo officially rejected the proposed buyout by Microsoft, as was rumored last Friday. “Not enough money, Honey.” seems to be the reason, and I can’t help but think that this makes Microsoft look a little silly. The very public, very large, and seemingly hostile offer has exploded in their face. Yahoo plays Hardball. Who woulda thunk it?

Talk has been flying that Yahoo will go to Google for help, or even merge with AOL. The Times is saying that analysts predict Microsoft will scrounge up an additional $5 -12 billion (between seat-cushions) to match Yahoo’s wonderfully confident self-valuation, or take the bid directly to Yahoo shareholders, who will have a hard time turning down cold, hard, Monopoly money.

Interesting and interestinger.

Hulu Invites Up For Grabs

Who wants one? Who needs one? Leave your email address in the comments (or send me a email) and I’ll hook you up.

Hulu's ambitious and never-ending mission is to help you find and enjoy the world's premium content when, where and how you want it. We hope to provide you with the web's most comprehensive selection of premium programming across all genres and formats – television shows, feature films, clips, and more. Additionally, we want to give you more choices of when and where you can enjoy your favorite programming, while creating innovative experiences that let you watch and participate in online video in new and exciting ways.

Read more about Hulu here.

What Is Graphic Design?

My entry in the “What is Graphic Design?” poster contest on Veerle’s blog.


The actual entry doesn’t have the fancy drop shadow.

View all of the entries here, on Flickr.

In Hartford? Go See This Play.

If you’re in the Hartford area tonight or this weekend, you should take a trip to Trinity College to see a production of Eugène Ionesco’s “Frenzy For Two, Or More” directed by my beautiful and brilliant girlfriend, Tina Nikolova, as part of her senior thesis for the Theater & Dance major.

Showtimes:
Thurs, Feb 7th at 7:00
Friday, Feb 8th at 9:30
Saturday, Feb 9th at 4:30

Blurbyness:
The noise outside gets louder: the shouting and gunfire that could be heard vaguely in the distance have gotten nearer, and now can be heard beneath the window. HE, on the point of reacting violently to her insults, suddenly stops, and so does SHE. Featuring a massacre of 72 plastic Barbie dolls.

Sounds pretty sweet, no?

Oh yeah, and it’s totally free.

Here’s where it’s at:
Austin Arts Center at Trinity College
300 Summit Street
Hartford, CT 06106

Call (860) 297-5122 if you have questions, or you can shoot me an email.

Election 2008: Racism Still Exists

This morning, two of my coworkers asked me who I voted for in last night’s primary. Upon hearing that my support went to Barack Obama, they responded with absolute horror. No, not just incredulity. Horror. Shock. Disgust. I’m serious.

“What do you think is going to happen to America if that guy...you know he’s black...you kids don’t know...you don’t know what it was like...when that black guy was Mayor of New York - Dinkins - do you think that was good...I’m telling you right now, white people are going to have a hard time...I would never vote for him...” and on and on.

Effectively what they were saying was that electing Barack Obama as President would turn the United States of America into the United States of African-America, a place where blacks hold uncompromising power over whites and other minorities.

To which I say, quite frankly, “What the fuck?!”

These women - one is from Russia and the other from Peru - both U.S. Citizens now (interesting, perhaps, though I’m sure that has less than nothing to do with their feelings) - just shook my faith in the American electorate. Not because they want someone other than Obama to win (one of them didn’t even vote, and hundreds of thousands of other people want someone else, too), but their (lack of) reasoning for it. I mean, I’m not asking other people to carefully consider the policies and qualifications of the candidates. I guess all I’m looking for is a shred of rationality - even merely a little excitement about one candidate in particular - a sense that the motivation is rooted in something other than being strongly against (and especially for racist, sexist, or related reasons) the others.

I tried to argue that just because they didn’t like New York City under Mayor Dinkins (and here my other coworker piped up to say that he liked Dinkins), that didn’t mean that America under Obama would be remotely similar. The assertion that not all black people are exactly the same, just as not all white people are exactly the same (duh) fell on deaf ears.

One of these women actually indicated that if Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic race, she would, without a doubt, vote for “that other guy” - a politician on the “other side” whose name she didn’t even know.

I have never - never, not once, ever, in my entire life - personally experienced the expression of sentiments like those to which I was a witness this morning. Never.

How naive of me to think that we had somehow moved past this kind of hateful, hurtful stuff. The way they said to me, “You want a black man to be President?” with such disregard for the possibility that I might have black relatives or close friends - just an assumption that I was somehow betraying my “race” - really hurt. And it was really disappointing. I really hurt for them, too.

One thing I agreed with: “You kids don’t know what it’s like.”

Nothing could be more true.

And, given the taste I got this morning, nothing could be more welcome.

iPhone Earbuds: Important Information

Let’s face it, the earbuds Apple ships with iPods and iPhones are kind of crappy. I don’t personally have a problem with them fitting in my ears like many seem to, but they inevitably give out on me after about six months. A couple weeks ago - right on schedule - the earbuds I got when I first bought my iPhone back at the end of June decided to take a rest. The left earbud stopped working entirely, and the overall volume was down dramatically. On top of that, the mic (which really is one of the best things about the iPhone) seemed to be having issues.

As I’ve done when my iPod earbuds have crapped out in the past, I started looking around for a replacement pair, and just as I was about to settle for the $29 Apple variety (mostly because of the mic, which in other models I’ve seen has been implemented poorly. Apple also seems to be the only company that knows how long to make the cord.), I had a brilliant thought:

What if these are covered under warranty?

Well, it turns out they are. A quick call to Apple and a replacement pair was on its way - overnight shipping, mind you - no questions asked, no hassle, and a perfectly pleasant customer service representative apologizing for the “long” wait (3 minutes on hold! Horror!).

They came yesterday, and I popped the old pair back in the postage-paid package, which I will drop off at DHL later today.

Good stuff. Make sure you take advantage of this before your warranty is up.

Microsoft Wants Yahoo

Everyone is talking about the $44.6 billion that Microsoft has offered up to purchase Yahoo, so that means I’m obligated to add my two cents.

Stowe Boyd has a good take that I pretty much agree with:

Personally, I think the Microsoft and Yahoo matchup is like two tired swimmers who bump into each other and then wind up drowning each other in their scramble to survive. But Yahoo will be the first to go under in this embrace.
...
Just smells like this decades AOL/Time matchup. It will go through. Microsoft will remove one competitor, but it won't work. It won't be enough to stop the future.

The big question I have is, “What will happen to the many overlapping services like Mail and Search?” Will they be combined, will both continue to exist, or what? What I haven’t been able to figure out from what has been written about this merger is exactly what the nature of it will be. Both Microsoft and Yahoo (especially) have suffered from the inability to focus their online offerings - spreading themselves thin, and expanding their services with little rhyme or reason - in my opinion. What happens to stuff like Flickr and Del.icio.us when Microsoft buys Yahoo? That worries me a little. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Does Google have anything to fear if this deal goes through? A little bit, sure. They’ll lose some Search market share, have a harder time gaining traction for Google Apps (if MS Office Live ever happens), become slightly less of a de facto standard in online advertising. But it seems to me that they have their eyes on something else entirely, and are gradually moving into a new, uncharted space that no one has figured out just yet.

My impression is that Microsoft and Yahoo are competing with Google, but Google is looking elsewhere, competing only with “Possibility.”

And keep your eye on Amazon. They just doubled their profit, announced they are buying Audible, and their web services division is rapidly becoming hugely important to modern internet applications and services.

Man, 2008 is going to be fascinating. Welcome to February. Don’t get too comfortable.