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For no reason other than I think this page would look better with some images on it to break up all the text, here is a graphic showing the US states that I have visited. I need to get in the middle there, I think.

create your own visited states map

Have to post this article from CNN. At a recent career day at a middle school in Palo Alto, the speaker included stripping as a career choice, saying that you could make $250,000 a year depending on your bust size. According to one student, they were told that every 2 inches added $50,000 to your earning potential. Oddly, the principal of the school says that the consultant may not be back next year.

I bought a bottle of wine Weds night from a 7/11 near Montgomery Fielld airport (premium gas was only $2.06!!!), got it home and was screwing my cork screw into the cork when the metal just sheared in half. It took no effort, I was twisting it and without warning the metal piece just broke in half. I tried all manner of things to push the cork in the bottle but wasn’t able to do it. I put the bottle in the fridge whilst I thought about it some more.

On the way home last night I remembered that I had another corkscrew in the MINI! I found a space in the top of the cork where I could get the corkscrew in, was twisting it in nicely and, bam, the damn thing twisted in half again. So this cork destroyed two strips of metal and I gave up and went alcohol free. I wish I’d had my leatherman tool with me, that horse’s hoof dealie might have been just the ticket!

In other news the world is getting much hotter due to global dimming. No, not the intelligence of SUV drivers, but we’re getting less sunlight apparantly and this is making the world hotter. Go check it out.

Yesterday there was a plane crash at Gillespie Field here in San Diego. The pilot died and his passenger seriously injured. Any plane crash is terrible but to get so close to the runway and not make it is just awful. I used to read a monthly magazine dedicated to NTSB accident reports but had to stop after it became clear just how crazy it is to strap wings and a motor to your back and leave the ground. A large number of accidents occur from which the pilot had no possible chance of remedy, others where the pilot was unprepared and did a bad job, and of course there are very many where the pilot did it all himself. I’d like to think I’ll never fall into the latter category and I have my fingers crossed that when the time comes I’ll be ready for it – but who knows?

Been spending my iTunes gift vouchers and, thanks to U-Pop on XM radio, purchased the excellent Hopes and Fears by British band Keane.

Today was the big day in the Apple Calendar – the keynote speech by Steve Jobs – at MacWorld. There had already been plenty of rumour about what was coming (and lawsuits to boot!) and it seems like they were right. Most interesting to me:

The iPod shuffle: tiny new iPod with no face, upload 240 songs and away you go for up to 12 hours. Only $149, too. Perfect for working out or doing stuff where you don’t care about choosing tracks etc.

The Mac mini: a barebones Mac, add your own keyboard, mouse and monitor. Stylish and ergonomic as one would expect, and only $499. I’ve wanted a Mac in the house for ages but couldn’t justify the price, this just might be the way to do it. With a DVD-burner superdrive, maybe it can become the business machine, though it might not be fast enough.

Amazingly, Apple sold 4.5 million iPods during the 2004 holiday quarter, compared to 733,000 in the previous year’s quarter. Holy cow! Is there anyone left on the planet who doesn’t have one??

Apparantly Ken Lay is paying search engines to display his “I’m innocent” website when you search for his name. So if you feel like sticking it to the creep and making him cough up 5 cents or so, go search for his name and click on his link. NB. It appears he may already have deleted his ad campaign.

We all tend to think of America and Great Britain as technology-aware countries but there are very definite areas where they disagree, or where one is far behind the other. I am always reminded of this at a petrol station. In the UK there is a huge awareness, and campaign about, the dangers of using a cell phone when pumping fuel. The feeling at home is pretty much that if you dial a number within 10 feet of a pump it will blow up. Over here though, that doesn’t seem to be an issue at all. There are no warnings about it on the pumps and most people I speak to haven’t even heard that it might be dangerous to use a cell phone at a petrol station. Given the American sense for over-protection it makes me think that the danger has been over-hyped in the UK though clearly it does exist (there are plenty of episodes of people being set on fire by igniting the fuel when their cell phone goes off), but why is it almost totally ignored over here?

Sigh, I am getting some comment spam again. Not much but enough to annoy me.

I always thought that the penny slots were great for killing time – your money goes a long way – but never for winning anything worthwhile. However, on Monday, a man won $2,065,685 on the “Twilight Zone” penny slot machine at Viejas Casino. So maybe I should play the penny machines after all? Although with such a big win, maybe I need to wait a while for the jackpot to build back up….

I’ve been wanting TiVo for a while now but have always found a reason not to go for it. But their new service TiVo ToGo might change that – download the shows you record to your computer, burn them to DVD if you want. Also schedule your recordings over the ‘net if you connect your box to your home network.

I want, I want, I want!