You must realise I'm the one with the knowledge of colour schemes, cross-browser platform issues, typography, navigation, and usability, not you. So why don't you SHUT THE HELL UP, sign me a blank cheque, and learn to appreciate my years of experience and the blood, sweat, and beers I've spent in perfecting my skills—just so I can create a 'new design paradigm' for your sorry ass."

I couldn't have said it better myself, a story by robbie Shepherd published at A List Apart.

So there was a May 5th site redesign movement going on -- in case you missed all of that. I didn't bother because, to be honest, I didn't read about it until it was a little too late. Maybe there will be a June 5th redesign for me.

Your airbox is a consolation prize.

I get a kick out of oddities on eBay. A story on ZDNet today noted that the United States Postal Service now auctions off undeliverable packages using the eBay site. I found a listing of just the "miscellaneous items" that the USPS has to offer. They also have categories for Books, CDs, Movies, and Collectibles. Fantastic.... so if you're missing a Christmas or Birthday gift, maybe you can bid on one.

I can't believe that I finally added a new chip to my PC two months ago for a bit of a performance boost -- an 850 MHz -- and Intel has 1.7 GHz chips on the market. This is out of control.

The wintry season is just about over. Most of the resorts in Colorado shut down this weekend, so I guess that means I can focus on other things that were on the back burner for a while. I think I have to finish my lamp soon -- it hasn't really been mentioned here, but I'll have pictures soon.

"Colonize.com is a leading email publishing company providing unique content publications that are enjoyed by millions of readers every day."

Yeah, sure.

I was recently subscribed to Colonize .... not on my own, however. A good friend of mine signed me up. I think she signed me up for every single newsletter that Colonize publishes.

"Colonize.com is a leading email publishing company providing unbelieveable amounts of spam to your email address and despite initial efforts to unsubscribe, you'll probably be stuck with our crap for quite some time."

My first attempt met a message that read something like this: "Due to the large amounts of traffic that we receive at Colonize.com, it may take up to 3 or 4 days to remove your address from our mailing list." It certainly did. I was still receiving email this morning when I decided to unsubscribe again.

"Colonize.com receives over 11 million unique visitors and sends over 250 million opt-in emails every month."

It's a really good thing that Colonize.com authenticates your email address, because just about anyone could sign up for their service and put your email on the list. Just look at me!

Microsoft just announced today that the next version of Windows (XP) will not natively support the new USB standard, version 2.0. Instead, MS will use the FireWire standard that was developed by Apple. The story was from ZDNet and noted that around the release of Windows 98, a demonstration of USB at a tech show caused Windows to crash while Bill Gates and another MS developer were demonstrating the technology. I looked around today to find a movie clip from the event.

Here is the movie for your viewing enjoyment.

So NorthPoint goes bankrupt, and I lose my DSL service for about a week. I'm not paying for this shit to just break, you know.

I'm finding myself mired in clean-up and maintenance from last quarter. On top of that, I still have to figure out something to do with my taxes.

Some break. How could I not complain about it being to short? (I see a joke coming there.) Vail kicked ass. We had an awesome condo for a couple of days and enough friends to fill it and make it really cheap for each of us. That mountain seems bigger and bigger every time I am there.

So what's up? I go to NYC this weekend.... hell yeah! I should be in a better mood, Copper rocked today while I was there this morning. Your Local Forecast F-ed up again. Last night it was reported as 39 degree high, mostly cloudy. This morning it was changed to a high of 29, windy and 60 percent chance of snow. So instead, it was really about 40-45, mostly sunny, 5-10 mph winds. Sooooooo nice. I guess I'm mostly happy. I have a little something dragging me down. They call it "classes" and they start tomorrow. yuck.

Every 5 minutes that goes by turns up a new appreciation that I have for all of my professors in the past. This is enough work to kill someone.

Grading finals... that's what I'm all about.

no really, I love this. I think I will stay up until 6:30 more often. Hey -- time for speed.

I just love to grade student projects. Everyone I know has finished their quarter and is moving onto new things. I want to get on with my own, but I still have a lot of work this weekend.

I feel really out of it right now. I have a lot of things I want to get to this week, but I have a feeling I probably won't do any of them. I head out to Vail on Monday, so that's definitely a good thing. And in two weeks, NYC for $160. Can't beat it.

OK -- back to work. I'll keep me posted.

Aching aching aching...

So wrapped up in my own life right now I think I light be neglecting some people these days. This quarter is nearly over and it will be nice when it is. Then perhaps I can set up us the bomb.

We're going to Vail.

And soon after that, NYC.

Once again, I have myself worked over a project that shouldn't be that difficult. I'm just making my life harder than necessary -- which is funny because I would much rather ignore the whole thing and enjoy myself for the next 3 days. Even after the quarter is over, I still get to hang around and grade assignments and project from my class. Maybe I'll just give everyone an A and save myself the effort....

.......naaahhhh.

Friends of mine threw a surprise birthday party for me last night. They thought the Titanic was "A Night to Remember" -- but they didn't suffer the 300 lbs. of Big Bad Momma.

Quickly realizing all of the work that goes into teaching. The part about reviewing homework and grading assignments is a time-sink.

I'm going to Vail over break... wanna come?

Documentation of hard drive repair begins now. I've got the hammer in my hand and a can of gasoline just in case the more gentle methods don't work out.