Recently in Personal Category

...that even on the Internet, your mom still calls you "tommy"... but does she really even have to have me in her address book that way too?

(Mom also doesn't believe in subject lines. The day I get a message from her that is a one-line subject with "n/t", I'll know it's time to prepare for the reckoning.)

I've finally gotten around to the long-overdue task of properly linking to the sprawling reaches of my little Web 2.0 empire from the main page on Karlo.Org. From now on, if you're looking for my Flickr page, or my Facebook profile, or whatever, you can find it in the link of lists on the Karlo.Org home page. If you run into any problem using the new links, let me know -- they seem to work for me, but some services can be a little funny about profile links (I'm looking at you, Facebook.)

It occurs to me that I've never attempted to record or list all the computers I've owned and used over the years. Before my memory fails me, I'm going to commit at least a few down:

1. TRS-80 Color Computer 2 with Cassette Drive (Approximately 1984, Upgraded to 256K RAM)
2. Apple IIGS (1986?, still no hard drive - I bought one but returned it because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with it, and it was way expensive.)
   
3. No-name, 80386-based, 33-mHz tower case PC (1990?-1995, beige, furniture-huge. I ran a BBS off it in high school.)
4. Power Macintosh 8600 (1995-1998, $3000, my first web design and imaging machine)
5. PowerBook 2400 (1997-1998, unbelievably compact, unbelievably awkward to use. My first laptop, bought for covering conventions for Cnet.) 
6. Home built Pentium (1998-2000, I think I just disposed of this a year or two ago as it had a second life at my parents' house.)
   
7. Dell Laptop (1998, Adrian and I bought this for our company. The first day we tested the new -external- wireless modem in Harvard Square, a pigeon dropped a mess right on the pristine keyboard.)
8. Large Dell Laptop (Late 1999, originally my work laptop at iKena but eventually purchased from the company for my personal use for $250 when we were acquired by Net2Phone.)
   
9. AMD "Athlon"-based home-built PC (2001-2004? Slot A based.)
10. Dell Latitude X200 (2002-2004, bought for business school after I dropped the previous Dell at a final exam.)
    
11. 2nd Athlon-based home-built PC (2004-2007, Socket A. Still in use, very occasionally.)
12. MacBook Black, 2Ghz/2 GB RAM (January 2007-Present. I've used the hell out of this computer, it was my only personal PC for a year and is now both my work and personal computer. I'm probably a year from thinking about replacing it as I write this in June 2008 -- my only complaint is it's a few pounds heavier than I'd like, but the MacBook Air isn't quite fast enough yet.)

Yeah, I notice that I'm kind of vague around the PC desktops and laptops I used during the 2000-2007 period. I blame it on the desktops all being home-built systems that often saw a number of CPUs during their lifetimes, and the laptops being those generic black Dell designs that are always named "Latitude" or "Inspiron" with a number that doesn't particularly mean anything. It's also clear that I change computers about every two years -- ignoring the overlap between desktop and PC ownership (which partially relates to playing games on the PC), I've owned about 10 computers in the last 24 years.

I'm definitely done with doing anything home-built any more. The time investment vs. the marginal savings and learning opportunity just no longer works in the current era of cheap computing power. No point squeezing an extra 10% more power out of hardware when you can just spend another $100 or so instead.

(I'm also wondering if I should really put the Playstation, Xbox and Xbox360 on this list -- by all measures they're essentially a computer -- especially the latter two with their internal HDs -- and I'm not sure they should be cut out just because they're specialists.)

Just a little weekend fun with Photoshop. (I'm really more interested in seeing Pixar's Wall-E, but he wasn't going to be as amusing with Mochi's head on him.)

Every day I gently toss a treat (a mini size Old Mother Hubbard "Just Vegg'n" dog biscuit, to be precise) in the hopes that eventually he'll learn to catch it out of the air like other dogs. And every day, it bounces off the middle of his forehead as he watches it fall towards him.

Today I tossed the treat, and he ducked it. I'm not sure that's progress, although at least he's figured out how to avoid getting beaned once a day by a dog biscuit.

(On another note, yesterday the dog day care called M and said Mochi was "a little under the weather -- but he's not lethargic." We had them double check they were calling about the right dog, since Mochi and lethargic are pretty much inseparable if he's not at the dog park.)



Obviously, no second career as a dog whisperer is likely...

Mochi (in the red harness) tears it up with some buddies at the park a few weeks ago.

Mochi on the deserted beach in the Hamptons a few weeks ago.

This was easy a month ago when he was little, but it's getting to be a tight squeeze. Mochi likes to push his toys under the TV and then wiggle under there to get them back... but the words "confined space rescue" come to mind when I watch this clip.

I'd only heard that the family dog Pete had a houseguest over last week, until I saw this photo on Flickr of the happy pair relaxing with a few of their favorite pastimes.

Had an experience with Staples tonight that pretty much typifies how I view the purchasing experience these days in terms of bricks & mortar retailers:

1. Check on Staples web site that they have item (type of pen) I'm looking for
   
2. Make time to visit store in person, since shipping is excessive on a box of pens alone
   
3. Visit store
   
4. Store is out of stock on item (but they may have it in a few weeks!)
   
5. Go home empty handed
   
6. Order online
   

The same applies to clothing purchases (chains don't carry "tall" sizes in-store any more), electronics (retail overcharges), photographic equipment (it's cheaper to order online than take the subway to B&H, which is closed on Saturdays as well), and just about everything (even groceries!) Online shopping changes your expectations -- you believe you should be able to find whatever you want immediately (via searching), compare prices instantly, and shop any time you want.

One way online shopping has clearly affected my buying is that I now tend to have a specific item I want. I'm not thinking "box of pens" -- I'm looking for the particular model I'm already used to, because I know I can get it for a particular level of effort. As opposed to the old days, when the time or travel spent searching for that exact SKU would have been an unknown.

Aside from the most impulsive of purchases, or the biggest (cars, houses), physical stores are a losing game for most purchases.