"What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs, And makes a slinkity sound?" A Slinky of course! At my desk at work I have a small slinky collection (about a dozen). Last night Rachel and were browsing the Target Company Store. I have a Target-branded self-stirring mug that is gradually wearing down. I was looking for a replacement (which I could not find) when I found a Target-branded Slinky! I sprung into action and ordered one.

I switched to Vonage several months ago. It is about half the cost of using the local land line provider. Since voice mail is a free feature, I no longer have to use an answering machine. Of course, since my cell phone now rings simultaneously, I can answer calls that I would have otherwise missed. I also like that my monthly bill amount is fixed. In addition, as it is extremely easy to view my call history online, I do not even receive a paper bill.

As a software developer, I spend an inordinate amount of time pounding away at my keyboard. Recently, my wrists have started to bug me while at work. Several years ago, I got a couple of natural keyboards. I finally brought one into work. It should help to alleviate my pain as well as increase my typing efficiency.

I just received the following e-mail from Dell about a TV we had purchased from them a few years ago:

We have determined that your W2600 Dell LCD TV is included in a limited number of Dell TVs that may exhibit a no power issue. The no power symptoms are no video, no sound, and the power indicator is off. The no power issue does not affect general television use once the TV is switched on.

I hope that every one is having a fun and safe Halloween tonight. Rachel and I decided not to hand out candy this year. I did hand out candy at work though. Usually we see a large crowd. But, we have only seen a handful of kids.

Typically, when I get to work, I follow the same routine: Dock my laptop, get something to drink, change the date on my calendar, etc. Today, my routine fell apart.

I have a self-stirring cup that I love. However, when I tried mixing my morning cup of hot chocolate, the motor choked and froze. I grabbed a stirrer and went along my way. I figured that either the blades were stuck, or the batteries had died. At any rate, I could not properly diagnose the problem until my cup was empty.

As always, I hope that everyone had a safe holiday yesterday and that you did not lose any fingers and toes. When I was in Pennsylvania last week, I was tempted to bring home some fireworks. But, without money, it is hard to buy fireworks.

Rachel and I went to her mother's house for some food. I probably ate enough where I will not have to eat for the rest of the week. And, even though we did not light any fireworks, Rachel and I still had a good time. We played badminton for a while. We do not use a net or keep score. We just try to keep the shuttlecocks off the roof.

I am an eccentric music lover. At last count, I had about three thousand songs in my collection of MP3s ripped from CDs. I could listen to my collection twenty-four hours a day for over a week before the songs started to repeat. The big problem with my collection is that at just over ten gigabytes, it takes up a lot of real estate on my hard drive. As my currently MP3 player can only hand a handful of songs, I figured it was time for an upgrade.

I thought that I would post some links to that people have been asking me about it. The first is a link to the final Harry Potter book. The deluxe edition is also available.

The second is a link to the digital picture frame I have on my desk. The picture frame holds about sixty pictures, but it can take memory sticks. Several of my coworkers have commented about it.

Yesterday was an interesting day. The roads were mostly clear. Two packages greeted me when I got home. The first package contained a SanDisk 4 GB Cruzer Micro with U3 thumb drive. I have a 512 MB thumb drive that I use for work. But, I wanted something a bit larger. Also, with the U3 technology, the thumb drive can autoplay. This means that I can have it run a syncing program when I insert it. I can also install applications to the drive and run them directly off the drive.