01.01.08 marks 25 years of the Internet

January 1, 1983 marks one of the key milestones of the Internet: On that day about 400 computers connected to the ARPAnet (a network sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense) were made to communicate with each other using a set of protocols called TCP/IP. This set, which stands for Transmission (or Transport) Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, is the set of standards upon which today's Internet still runs.

The open architecture of TCP/IP enables computers of all different makes to communicate with each other smoothly (well, most of the time, anyway).

January 1, 2008 marks the 25th anniversary of the January 1, 1983 milestone.

Life is full of disappointments...

...just ask my parents.

Saw three movies today...

The Water-Horse -- pretty good family movie: Fun for the whole family...touching...good fantasy action.






AVPR -- The worst movie ever: Totally inconsistent with previous movies...Pointless killings of babies and pregnant women...bad filming (too dark to even tell who was fighting who in most scenes)...No focus or explanation of the predalien...Complete and total disappointment!



National Treasure: Book of Secrets -- Great sequel to the first movie: The wife and I had to see another movie after AVPR to get it out of our minds. This movie was a great choice. Well done, Well filmed. I'd say the 1st one is the better of the two...but, this is a good film.

Borg people are silly

You know who you are...

I don't think I need to say anymore.

Get Simpsonized!

www.simpsonizeme.com

I made an iMix at iTunes

Funny read about Windows Vista

Fixing Vista by upgrading to XP

IKEA isn't all it's cracked up to be!

Yeah, IKEA is cool European styling and relatively low prices...but, you do have to put most of it together yourself -- and what's your time worth? I spent about 3 1/2 hours this evening putting together two BREKKE beds. They're cool...B U T ! ! There is alot of screwing to get them together...and not only was I screwing together the beds...but, IKEA was screwing me too!

Both sets of beds came with a bag of all the hardware (screws, wheels, etc.) to put the beds together -- EXCEPT -- neither bag contained enough parts to make two complete beds!!

I followed the directions to the letter on the first bed which means I checked all the inventory and counted every screw -- according to the manual, I had everything I needed. I get to the last step, screw the caster wheels to the bottom of the drawers and guess what??? The screws listed in the drawings were not part of the parts check on page 3 of the manual...And, I've used up all the screws they gave me! Oh yeah, I also was given one completely thread-less screw for putting together the drawers...so, one drawer only got 3 screws instead of 4.

Oh, well! This must be a coincidence I say and we pop open the next set of BREKKE parts -- Wow! There are all the necessary screws for a complete installation of caster wheels plus three extra screws. There where two other sets of screws that had an extra -- so, I was able to finish that last drawer from the 1st bed too.

This time, however, I built the drawers first...because I had luckily bought an IKEA package of screws from their window treatment department and noticed that I had enough screws from that...combined with the caster wheel screws of the second bed...to get all the wheels installed on all the drawers. So, I got that done and I felt much better...until!!

I began putting the 2nd bed frame together and realize I'm short five screws for the mattress rails!! What!! Son-of-a!!! Curse You IKEAAAAA!

I made do with a few extra, old, and a little rusty set of screws I had in the garage.

Man, that sucked.

I will think twice about my next IKEA purchase. They will be getting a letter from me.

Elf Yourself(tm)...I did!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1283254736

G.I. JOE "Now with Kung Fu Grip?"...NOT

We just bought our two youngest twins a couple G.I. JOE Action Figures. I noticed this afternoon that there's a sticker on the front of the package that says "Now with Kung Fu Grip!"

What do they mean now...like this is new technology? I remember when Kung Fu Grip came out in the 70's...My G.I. JOE had that cool rubbery hand that rapped around anything and gripped strong and long. The Kung Fu Grip on these toys is a hard plastic spring-loaded hand...this isn't Kung Fu grip...they're not real enough! The "real" Kung Fu Grip was like a true prosthetic hand that truly grabbed hold of things. These hands don't hold anything but the cheap little plastic weapons that come with the figures. With the old Kung Fu Grip your action figure could hang from the edge of a table etc. But these new hard plastic hands can't do that...they just slip off and your dude falls to his death.

Dove advice...

When two hearts

race, both win.

from Dove Chocolates

Some favorite war movies of mine

633 Squadron and Mosquito Squadron were both done by the same studio...watch them back-to-back and you'll notice several of the flight scenes are the same footage.

























And Flyboys is just awesome...I can watch this one over and over again.