Bite-Sized Blogging

In keeping with the title of the blog, I'm going to post some Randomly Generated nuggets from the past 24 hours...

1) The computer I sold for $75 to a lady in the neighborhood has a videocard issue and rather than split a new one 50/50 she wanted her money back. The only problem with the videocard was a scrolling issue. It's pretty bad, I admit, but duh... there's a reason I was selling it for $75.

2) Spent a while on the Alaska Ferry website yesterday (again!) and was shocked to see how much money it costs to take a ferry from Ketchikan to Homer -- roughly $1,000! Then I looked at my world map and saw that Homer is as far away from Ketchikan as Seattle is. D'oh! I have more to write about travel planning tomorrow.

3) Was walking the dogs and smelled natural gas near the park across the street. Told a neighbor about the smell and, I think, caused him to fear a leak in his outdoor gasline going to his grill. Turned out that one of the houses behind me had a bad leak and the firemen and police had to come and shut down the road and alley for a little while. No explosion, thankfully. I still remember the day a house around the block from my childhood home blew up from a gas leak. I don't know what was scarier: hearing the blast or seeing the instant pile of rubble where a house once was.

4) If you haven't had a cup of coffee brewed via the Clover method, you have to try it. The new Zoka coffee shop really aims for the coffee connoisseur crowd and they have a Clover brewer which sucks the water through the grounds rather than letting the water drip through. It's a couple bucks for a single cup of coffee and I thought I'd finally try it. Holy cow, it's worth it. First of all, the mug they give you is enormous. Easily the size of 2-3 regular cups of coffee. But the coffee is phenomenal and almost creamy in the texture. Definitely worth it.

5) The X360 faceplate that came with my copy of Eternal Sonata is beautiful. The artwork on it and the quality of the paint and clearcoat on it is truly outstanding. The game is pretty darn good too, but I have to play it more to form a proper opinion. Speaking of Eternal Sonata, I pre-ordered it from EBgames.com and selected the super cheap 5 day shipping they offer for $2.99. The game arrived at my door the day after it released. Don't overpay for shipping, the cheap options may surprise you!

6) I think Microsoft is going to make a small bit of headway in the Asian market with the Xbox 360 thanks to Project Gotham Racing 4. Whether it was intentional or not, I don't know, but three of the 9 cities in the game are all in the Far East: Macau, Tokyo, and Shanghai. I used to enjoy the Gran Turismo games just because of the chance to race by landmarks in Seattle. Featuring three prominent Asian locations such as those could help with console sales in that market. And at this point, every little bit of help they get will certainly be appreciated.

7) Halo 3 released at midnight last night and I don't give a damn.

8) Does anybody want to buy a surfboard?

9) Or some PC games or a computer? Or what about a packaged surround sound system? Or another PC with a monitor? Or some bookshelf speakers? Or a DVD Recorder? I'm really trying to unload some stuff we haven't used in a long while. Please email me if interested, as it's all for sale very cheaply.

10) One of my editors called me at 9am this morning (I was still sleeping) to tell me that my next project may have just been bumped up by three weeks. I was going to be starting work on it today at a rather leisurely pace. Now it looks like I may need to have it done by yesterday.