I have to start with a disclaimer. I am writing this rant after going to RS and buying a fix for a technical problem that left me unable to work effectively.

That said, the forces that killed Circuit City should turn their attention to Radio Shack. A few moments of comparison shopping on Amazon.com (i.e. I needed somethings immediately) and then going to the Shack, left me stunned to find out that prices are approximately 10 times higher at the Shack.

An RJ-45 coupler that would delivered to my house in two days was $.50 on Amazon and $7.50 at the Shack. A 100ft Ethernet cable on Amazon was $17.50 and $70 at the Shack.

I would hardly begruddge Radio Shack a decent margin but this is outrageous. I don’t care what I need at this point, I am going anywhere but the Shack for my future needs.

Stay tuned for my next rant re: Best Buy. I am sure that I’ll have a similar experience.

I love this time of year. The Northwest has an amazing number of outdoor venues. And the lineup this summer is pretty good. I am looking forward to Chris Isaak, Sheryl Crowe, Al Green, Melissa Etheridge, and Pink Martini.

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The geek in me can appreciate how hiding behind the non-confrontational aspect of email could benefit a relationship. But there is a key element missing from email - emotional content and context. Have you tried irony in an email? It usually is misinterpreted with disastrous results. And I know from past experience that love and kindness are not always obvious participants in an email conversation - despite one’s best efforts.

But there is something useful about having the conversation recorded for review and discussion. Email also allows time for contemplation and making a logical argument (not that logic is always appreciated.[See how humor barely works in print?])

I wonder how one’s comfort with technology works for or against using email to discuss relationship issues. For me, this is a sword that has cut both ways. We’ll see what the future holds.

Love & Devices | BlogHer: “At the same time, asynchronous communication makes active listening possible. My friend Marissa and her husband Greg have a whole set of separate email accounts where they discuss the operational aspects of their relationship, household, and kids. Asked about this, Marissa says ‘I think email has saved my marriage more than once.’ What does she mean? ‘Greg and I are able to say things to one another via email, truth to power and all that, that would be really hard to share face to face, in real time. We rely on our email as an important supplement to real-world conversations.’“

(Via Susan Mernit’s Blog.)

Art Buchwald, Sigmund Freud, Marilyn Monroe, Ted Turner, Greg Louganis, Alanis Morissette, Lionel Aldridge (three-time Super Bowl winner and sports broadcaster), Abraham Lincoln, Leo Tolstoy, Mike Wallace, Georgia O’Keeffe, Roseanne, Sir Isaac Newton, Franz Kafka, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Carrie Fisher, Tipper Gore, Jackson Pollock, Barbara Bush, Kitty Dukakis, Congresswoman Lynn Rivers, D-Mich., Phil Graham (owner of The Washington Post), Abbie Hoffman, Robert McFarland (former National Security Advisor), Winston Churchill, Ilie Nastase (tennis player), Jimmy Piersall (baseball player and broadcaster), Buzz Adrin, Stephen Hawking, Salvador Luria (Nobel prize winner/bacterial genetics), Francis Ford Coppola, Patty Duke, Alvin Ailey, Dick Clark, Drew Barrymore, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf, Irving Berlin, Axl Rose, Cole Porter, Sarah McLachlan, Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain, Hector Berlioz, Sting, Robert Schumann, Sheryl Crow, Ray Charles, Brian Wilson, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, Vincent van Gogh, Mark Rothko, Michelangelo, Edvard Munch, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Downey Jr., Dick Cavett, Spalding Gray, Vivien Leigh, Margot Kidder, Mariette Hartley, Ben Stiller, Jonathan Winters, Larry Flynt, Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), William Styron, Danny Bonaduce, Bobby Brown, Rosemary Clooney, Connie Francis, Graham Greene, Phil Ochs, Tony Orlando, Darryl Strawberry, Phil Spector, Noah Wylie, Naomi Judd, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Chopin, Truman Capote, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Jim Carrey, Jane Pauley, Lorraine Bracco, Brooke Shields, Amy Tan, Anne Rice, Billy Joel, Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Adam Ant, Robin Williams, Drew Carey, Mandy Moore, Rosie O’Donnell, Uma Thurman, Harrison Ford, Terry Bradshaw, Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Boris Yeltsin, John Denver, Marie Osmond, Princess Diana, Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers, John Kenneth Galbraith, Napoleon Bonaparte, Agatha Christie, Cary Grant, Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, Mozart, Cara Kahn (MTV’sReal World), Aristotle, Francesco Scavullo (photographer), Elizabeth Taylor, Anne Hathaway, Charlie Pride, Evan Dando (Lemonheads), Robin Williams, Thelonious Monk.

Oh, and me.

This article brought a smile to my face even though it speaks to a set of experiences that are indirectly tied together that have taken a very long time to even approach with any objectivity.

There is a truth here that any Silicon Valley entrepreneur will relate to. Or at least those singles out there. The irony is that like any good entrepreneur, I am off on to new “startups”, both personally and professionally that are starting to bring back all those fun feelings - excitement, possibility, mystery, and risk.

Startup Love: What Starting a Company Reveals About Launching a Romance by eHarmony Advice: “Startup Love: What Starting a Company Reveals About Launching a Romance”

QuickSilver is one of the unsung heros of power Mac users. This incredibly flexible utility sits behind the scenes waiting for its opportunity to make your life so much easier.

My favorite new tricks (among the hundreds you can find online) include:

Scale an image - I figured out recently that the Image plugin for QS supports percentages. So I was able to resize a web graphic in about 10 keystrokes without opening a single application.

Run Later - I first read about this trick a few months ago. Load an action in the first panel and use the Run at time or Run after delay. I use Run at time to remind me of things I need to do - i.e. return a call, move laundry to the dryer, take a pill. Today I used Run after delay to automatically open a url to the results page at Broswershots.com before the results expired.

The sad part of this story is that the original developer has released QS into open source and frankly the project suffers from a number of issues, including: lack of developers, spaghetti code, and non-existent documentation. But those of us who love QS will have to nurse it along with each OS release. Maybe I’ll brush up my C# skills and try to help clean up the mess.

Update 4/14/09; via Seattle PI - An error editing the universal catalog caused the uproar (ignoring the ham-handed PR move of announcing a cause before the facts were in). Please go about your business.

Update 4/14/09: via Publishers Weekly Amazon is claiming that it is a glitch. My observation is that they must have some pretty fine programmers to be so selective about which books loose their sales ranking. I’m not buying it.

The blogosphere erupted today with the observation that Amazon was selectively removing books from its sales ranking system (and it has been asserted from search results) based on some notion of not offending customers when the salacious title appeared in best-seller lists. As with most censorship campaigns, you can’t count on computers to do all your work so someone has to go in and make that final decision of what is and is not offensive. Surprise of surprises, the results, at best, are uneven and, at worst, biased.

Now the logic of this is interesting - one, it presupposes the book is so popular that it would appear in a position in the best-seller list as to notice by and offend someone. So can I infer that a lot of people are buy an “offensive” book and therefore, the book must not be offensive if a lot of people are purchasing it?

Plus you’d think a company that was founded on the very concept of the First Admendment - i..e the World’s Largest Bookstore might be a little more sensitive than most to the very concept of censorship.

If this change is due in response to some external pressures, then Amazon grow a pair! If this is some internal idea, then fire the idiot who approved because it seems clearly a policy in diametric opposition to the sharing of ideas that Amazon has built its business.

Bellingham, Whatcom County Local News | Bellingham Herald: “It is nice to have good news for a change - not that he died was good news, but the report on his life was nice. Thanks.”

Ok, this comment on an obituary in today’s newspaper had me in stitches. And yet it works since as it happens the obit for a famous comedy writer with ties to Bellingham. But too funny.

Everything I needed to know about culture, I learned on television

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Case in Point:

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It was kind of bitter-sweet but in the long run, like prunes, it is going to be good for me.

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