It’s not about speculators.

When gas prices reach the levels we’re seeing now it’s easy and convenient to blame unnamed shadowy “speculators” for the proverbial pain at the pump. The fact is, however, that gas is so expensive because the limits of oil production are being reached while demand is ever increasing.

Weird videos file, continued.

To keep the streak of weird videos going, here’s one entitled Dancing Man Wearing a Horse Mask Cooks Wild Mushrooms. And you know what? It delivers on that title.

Back… for now

I finally managed to unwrangle the mess that WordPress’s database update had left behind (seriously, who could fathom that a database update would cause problems in relation to a graphics file in a theme I had installed and wasn’t even using?). I still think it’s a hell of a mess, but frankly I haven’t had the time to develop my own solution for the time being so at least it’s fixed and I have a means of giving out my opinions to the world again, flawed or uninteresting as they may prove. I do have a number of articles planned but yet-unwritten on a variety of subjects, like the BMW 1-series (which I drove a while back), the Zend Framework (which will be the basis of the blog that will succeed this one), duck (which is a delicious if fatty meat), and lots of other stuff.

This is the weirdest video I’ve seen in at least a couple of days.

Unfortunately, no one can be told what this video is. You have to see it for yourself.

Try as I might I can’t find the weapon information for this game…

In what is sure to be the beginning of a new area of frivolous spending for parents of 8 year old girls all over North America, Sanrio is about to officially launch the Hello Kitty MMPORG. Information on the game is available here. Information on diabetes (which is sure to result from the unrelenting syrupy sweetness of the game) is available here.

Some things you just can’t buy. For everything else there’s Amazon.com.

Amazon.com — the US version, not the scaled-down imitation you get in other parts of the world including Canada — is a pretty wonderful store, and although they’re famous as booksellers they’ll sell most anything. Including, and I did a double-take when I saw it, an artificial insemination kit for your pet. Now I’m not a pet owner or a pet expert, but really, shouldn’t you go to your veterinarian for this sort of thing?!?

Guaranteed to provide you with 100% of your RDA of “cute”.

It must be tough making toasters — exactly how do you improve on a device whose purpose is simply to toast a slice of bread? Well, Sanyo has an answer for you. According to them what toasters need is more panda.

“Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.” -Kettering

Engineers rarely make good graphic artists, as graphic artists rarely make good engineers. Rarely is this truism better illustrated than in this poster for the Manchester Metroshuttle entitled “Making the City Work Together”.

Linksys WRT-350N – thumbs down.

Like any good geek I like to keep my networking equipment current and speedy. So recently I went out and bought a Linksys WRT-350N router. It has great specs — wireless-N support, a gigabit-ethernet wired switch for your desktops, USB storage support — but frankly, you’re better off not giving this one a second thought. It’s like when I try to cook: the ingredients are there, but the end product sucks.

Continue reading “Linksys WRT-350N – thumbs down.”

Tough times for bond insurers.

This is definitely not a good time to be in the bond insurance business. With large-scale insurers Ambac and MBIA — and with smaller players faring no better — one could well think that in the end the lending crisis has brought to light considerable flaws at the very basis of the American — and indeed global — financial sector. (all links above except the first lead to 6-month stock charts).

Continue reading “Tough times for bond insurers.”