On Sunday most people got their first glimpse of MSN Virtual Earth (well, the PR started Sunday at any rate) and frankly... it’s pretty damn cool.  Imagine the useful features of Google earth… but in a web page... no software installer needed (unless, of course, you’re not running a modern browser, but then you’re probably on a 200 baud modem as well). 

The site is cool for what it is, but it gets better, the Virtual Earth team thought ahead and built in some cool functionality to allow people to create custom maps... so one of our architects did.  To the see the fruits of his handiwork go to the start preview, click the down arrow next to the “start preview” logo and select “MSN Bloggers Map” from the Popular Feeds/Staff picks section.  Voila, a list of MSN bloggers showing their office locations on a satellite picture. 

Think about how fantastic this is; we’ve made stalking accessible to the insanely lazy and clinically agoraphobic.

I don't understand exactly why... but I'm mesmerized by this: http://www.little-planet.net/fun/.

Try grabbing them by the feet.

From high school biology I remember that blue eyes is recessive and brown eyes is dominant.  I have blue eyes… so I have two recessive blue eye genes… should I have children, that’s all I can pass on.  If my wife had brown eyes then I’d know that our children would likely have brown eyes but possibly blue.  My education was useful up to the point I married a green-eyed lady (who here is old enough to remember Sugarloaf? Raise your hand… but don’t pull anything, please).

The other day while discussing genetics and eugenics with Imran my curiosity got the better of my and I did a search for an eye color calculator.  My search turned up a very nice page which happens to be hosted by our local Tech Museum.  My question has finally been answered: 66% chance for green eyes, 33% chance for blue.  Want to know your chances?  Make sure you know your parents’ eye color, your mate’s parents’ eye color, your mate’s eye color and your eye color then go to the Tech’s eye color calculator.  Note, if you can’t remember your own eye color you’re in trouble… if you can’t remember your mate’s eye color you’re in really big trouble.

Now I now the odds for eye color... if I could just find out if they’ll inherit her good looks or my idiocy.

When I was a kid... aw heck, I'm still a kid.

Let me start again, when I was 9 my G.I. Joes used to "hang out" with my sister's Barbie dolls (hey, I was 9, give me a break).  I can't imagine, however, a Jesus Action Figure doing the same thing. 

Perhaps I just need to wait for the Mary Magdalene doll.

After logging in, be sure to visit all the options under Configuration in the Admin Menu Bar above. There are 26 themes to choose from, and you can also create your own.

My DirecTV TiVo died a month or two ago so I went out and bought a new one (well… it was a shelf model but works great).  The old unit I just kept on a shelf, suspecting the problem was one of the hard drives… and since I had broken the seal and added a new hard drive warranty was out of the question.

This weekend I finally got around to taking an extra hard drive, imaging it and sticking it in the dead TiVo.  The process was not simple due to an intersection of no UNIX knowledge and aversion to reading instructions but it worked.  The DirecTiVo is back up again! 

But wait... I had the unit disconnected for over a month and DirecTV no longer recognized it.  I could tune to the help channels but couldn’t get any real channels.  Every channel has the same message, call DirecTV, extension 722.  Crap!  It was Sunday night... there was no way DirecTV employees were going to be around to help me.  <sigh> Okay, time to break down and call DirecTV, wade through thousands of voice prompts and button presses only to get a “call us Monday” message.

Thank you for calling DirecTV.  For English press 1, para Espanol ...
  <beep> 
For faster service, please use our automated phone system for paying your bills or adding services.  If you have a 3 digit code or extension displayed on your TV, please press it now, if...
  <beep><beep<beep> 
One moment while we check your configuration.  Please check your TV...

What?  I turn and look at the TV... the TiVo is reacquiring satellite data and then the picture shows up.  Freaking magical.  I dialed their automatic phone support, it recognized my caller ID, I input the code and it corrected the problem... no human required.  You see, this is the type of thing people like me in the software industry want to do, but it never quite comes out right and then you end up with things like the Comcast PVR (so Omar, can you record a new show yet without a reboot?).

Vegas in July, sounds like a great idea, right?  109 degrees in the shade... tourists in wife-beaters... wondering if the misters use "reclaimed" water.

Scary as it sounds we had a fab-tastic time.  We ate some great food at Delmonico Steakhouse (the waiter screwed up my order... but brought me something delicious... no harm no foul), we watched a great show, Zoomanity (the reviews were mixed on this cabaret-style twist on Cirque du Soleil but Paula and I loved it) and, above all, we had some great company.  It was a great way to spend Mike's 40th birthday.

One fun part of the trip: Dick had never been to Vegas.  Claimed he was never going to go... would have anything to do with it.  Can you guess?  He loved it.  He's going back.  In about a month.  My prediction: he'll go every weekend for a year then we'll need to perform an intervention.

Here's a picture of some of the gang walking through the Venetian... looking very much like a still from a Vegas heist movie.

What's Omar looking at you ask?  I'd wager it's his Treo™ 650 smartphone.  He's the next one who will need an intervention after Dick.

Oh, and yes, the cheese sticks were very good.

In the 70’s I used to listen to my dad’s Bill Cosby albums, in the 80’s I used to watch the Cosby show and in the 90’s I cringed when Bill Cosby would go on one of his inevitable moral tirades against [insert vice here].  Now, the Internet has provided me with a cathartic poke at America's favorite overbearing parent… House of Cosbys.

If you want to enjoy some well produced, animated hilarity, hop on over to channel 101 and check out the first four episodes.  You may want to hurry, however… the Cosby lawyers already have gotten wind of the show and the animators have been served with a cease and desist (and none-too-soon, the show is obviously destroying America's morality... House of Cosbys is without-a-doubt the inspiration for MTV's Jackass, NBC's Fear Factor and the perpetually disgusting Oprah Winfrey).

And now, for something completely different (yet totally related)... my short list of people who take themselves waaaaaay too seriously:
   Bill Cosby
   Bono
   Tom Cruise