Author: cosmo

03/07/2010

Holy form 1040, Batman!

I’ve finished my 2009 taxes and packaged everything up to send tomorrow, and it looks like I’m actually going to get a refund! After about ten years straight of owing money every time, it’s sure a nice change to get a little back from the Gov. Now I can buy that candy bar I’ve been saving up for…

03/05/2010

I’m in the market for a new Bluetooth earpiece for my phone, and I really like the Motorola one I’ve had for a few years (until it gave up the ghost a few months ago). So now I’m poking around Amazon and reading reviews of the newer models, and found some awesome product photos.

Really. I guess this particular model is a top choice of suspicious-looking secret agent guys, and hot astronauts-in-training who also happen to wear biking gloves.

Sold!

03/04/2010

Talk about a busy day at the office… I worked on 17 different client projects. Not to mention all of the “internal” stuff like new business, a few conference calls, payroll, and fixing some application code.

At least I found time to play some ultimate. 50 degrees and sunny, yeah!

03/02/2010

Topeka, Kansas has officially changed its name to Google. As in, Google, Kansas. The city council voted in favor of it, although the name will only persist for the month of March and will then revert back to Topeka. Does that mean third-grade kids learning their state capitals this month will have to memorize it as Google?

Strangely enough, twelve years ago Topeka renamed itself ToPikachu, in reference to the Pokemon character. Yes, seriously.

03/01/2010

Today’s science factoid:

The Chilean earthquake (among the most severe ever measured) shifted the earth’s axis by eight centimeters and shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds.

03/01/2010

“It’s worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, ‘Yes, this is obviously where I was going all along.'”

— Bill Watterson

02/27/2010

A funny quote from a client (not a client of mine):

I’ve decided that the amount you invoiced us for is far too much. Here’s my thinking: We are paying you to come up with an idea– we’re not paying you for the time you take to think about it. The actual idea must only take about 30 seconds to think about as you come up with it. All these visuals, that’s just typing. I can do that in Word. It would take me 5 minutes. So I only want to pay you for 5 and a half minutes work.

02/27/2010

Inspired by Rob, who has two vertical monitors at work, I finally figured out how to change my triple-monitor configuration so the left one is rotated. That gives me a really tall screen which is great for reading documents or even long scrolling web pages.

Now as I write a proposal today, I have plenty of screen real estate for all of the documents I need to reference for the functionality spec. Woo hoo!