Glad Jen Isn't One!

A NYT story called It's The Economy, Girlfriend is both entertaining and revolting reading.  I'm not sure if I should feel sorry for the guys or not, as they would have known what they were getting themselves into with these women.

A brief few lines from the NYT story, to give an idea of the content:

In addition to meeting once or twice weekly for brunch or drinks at a bar or restaurant, the group has a blog, billed as “free from the scrutiny of feminists,” that invites women to join “if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life.”
Theirs is not the typical 12-step program.
Step 1: Slip into a dress and heels. Step 2: Sip a cocktail and wait your turn to talk. Step 3: Pour your heart out. Repeat as needed.
About 30 women, generally in their mid- to late-20s, regularly post to the Web site or attend meetings.

It's a quick 2 page read, go check it out and barf.

The Snuggie is a Hit

We first saw ads for this shortly before Thanksgiving.  It was in heavy rotation on Thanksgiving itself -- we saw it many times while at Jen's parents.  The Snuggie is basically a fleece blanket with arms, one size fits all.  The infomercial has plenty of images of whole families sitting around in Snuggies, looking very much like a cult.

USA Today has a piece on it: Snuggie Gets A Warm Embrace From Pop Culture

I should order one for Jen (which means ordering one for me too, since you get 'one for free'!)

Screws Galore

In trying to look for an obscure screw online (I think a stainless #6, 1/4", beveled Phillips head; I need it to replace the one I stripped at the bottom of my shower door), I came across a page detailing all of the different types of screw heads.  I though Phillips was Phillips.  Wrong, apparently.  There are a ton of variations, along with some exotic ones that I've never seen or heard of.  

When A Phillips Is Not A Phillips

I would have guessed pretty different precentages..

I came across this Microsoft-supplied graphic in a Lifehacker story yesterday:

Microsoft says that the above is the relative proportion of power sucked up on the typical Windows laptop.  I think I would have guessed that the panel uses the most (I wonder how much LED backlighting changes this?), but I wouldn't have guessed the chipset would use more than twice what the CPU uses.  Perhaps this is due to the SpeedStep (Intel)/PowerNow (AMD) CPU throttling?  I also would definitely not guessed that the chipset sucks up 4x the power of the hard drive (I might have put that 2nd or 3rd when guessing)..

Year In Review

This longish Dave Barry piece at the WaPo today is hilarious (and probably more true than satirical): The Year In Review

Prop 8: The Musical

This is awesome.  Jack Black as Jesus...and it even has Doogie. It has a lot of people, actually!

Python 3.0 Has Arrived!

I hadn't noticed this myself; it was from a post shared (via Google Reader) from Brandon that I learned of it.  Python 3.0 ('Python 3000') was first talked about (2000) not long after I was still using Python a lot (1999)...and it's finally here.  This is the long awaited release that is intentionally not backward compatible with previous releases, meant to clean up some language cruft.  Guido's summary of the changes: What's New In Python 3.0