Why anyone would search Google for "Windows XP is Shit" is beyond me, but I'm glad to know that I'm the top link there. Heh.

If you haven't figured it out yet, the more I post, the worse the economy is doing (or my personal life, depending on the times of my posts). Read into that what you will. Look at my calendar for the past two weeks and you'll see a pattern. Not a good one, let me tell you. Well, on the other hand, my personal life is going splendidly! Heh.

RageBoy says there is only one Angel. Wrong. The other one is in my possession. Which explains why I'm getting offline now at 5:09 p.m. Pacific Time. Have an angelic time!

Isn't this why we all hate politicians? Take a stand. Flip on an issue. Then blame your opponents for taking the same stand. By the way, it looks bad for the privatization of Social Security right now, but over the long haul the stock market does a lot better than if you just put your money into the Social Security scheme (which, if you haven't yet figured it out) is really not an investment scheme. Why do I say that? Cause my paychecks are going straight into the pockets of people who already retired.

If Social Security was really set up right my cash would stay in an account for me to use when I retire. Of course, the government never does things the way you and I do. Why? Greed and politics. Just like the ones laid out in this article.

It's also stupidity. It's pretty easy to protect your money. The advice is out there. Just don't be greedy. Be happy getting 10% returns on your money every year (and take the 30% return to the bank if you get it one year like investors did three years ago).

Of course, I have no clue how I'm going to save enough to retire on. My salary just doesn't go very far and I made some bad mistakes which will take another 10 years to recover from. At least I have 30 more working years in me (if everything goes well). Some people made bad mistakes with their money in their 60s (tell me why, again, someone in their 60s who is preparing for retirement, was taking risk by holding most of their life savings in Enron? I have a hard time feeling sorry for people like that.

Any Motley Fool can see that.

Hey RageBoy. What a hoot. Hey, I've learned a few things in the past few years. First of all, guys aren't babe magnets. No matter how good looking we are. What is? How about puppies? Get a box of puppies and wait to see how many babes show up. What else? Babies. Babes dig babies. My son Patrick had more babes drooling over him than I've ever had since I was eight years old. What else? Cash is king, what can I say? I notice that rich people never have trouble getting babes (even ugly rich guys get babes).

It's pretty obvious that RageBoy is in love and that his lover doesn't want him to talk about her (I assume it's a her, unless all this "babe stuff" is a front for some other sexual passion).

I am jealous of RageBoy -- not because of his skills in the bedroom either. I wish I could write like him.

Oh well, I'll just keep typing along while others write real art onto my grid of liquid crystals.

Hey, the OS-X'ers are in town. How about a blogging dinner on Tuesday evening? I live about a mile from the convention hall. Or maybe a breakfast? I know there's an Ihop over there. I'm up for anything fun. Hell, someday I just might be a Mac bigot again.

PC Magazine choses the NEC PowerMate eco for its editor's choice award in the "innovative PC" category.

Well, I survived my second move this year. Hopefully that'll be the last for a while. I highly recommend "All Reasons Moving" -- they work the Silicon Valley market. Fast, efficient, funny, and didn't break a thing.

I know things are slowing down in Silicon Valley. Why can I tell? Well, AT&T setup my cable on Saturday and they were on time! With only four days notice, too. This is the best experience I've ever had with AT&T.

Oh, and on Friday I called the DSL company I'll be using -- Noment Networks -- and they were friendly, helpful, and will be out tomorrow morning to setup my DSL. What the heck? I remember when PacBell used to take months to come out to give you a DSL line.

So, there is an upside to the bad times in the valley. Those who can stay are getting cheaper rents (my moving company told me about one apartment complex that tried to raise rents and half the complex moved out) and better service from companies.

Oh, did anyone miss the fact that as part of the settlement the record companies will distribute free product to schools? Heh. I can hear the execs laughing now. "Yeah, we'll dump all our excess and obsolete product on them and that way we'll save the costs of griding it up and recycling it." I wonder what all the schools are gonna do with two-year-old Britney Spears CDs, especially now that most school systems have killed their music programs. Isn't this shit wonderful?

This article about pricing fixing makes me wonder how the record companies have the gall to call +us+ thieves? Geesh.

By the way, I know all sorts of industries that use "minimum advertised pricing" policies to keep prices high. Start with Sony and their Audio/Video lines, then look at speaker companies and companies like Denon (even Consumer Reports couldn't find a discounted Denon receiver). Then look at many of the appliance companies. Of course, now that most of the smaller stores have gone out of business, it's a lot easier to hide practices that keep prices up.

When I worked at a camera/AV discount store I saw it all the time. Denon pulled its line out of our store after they caught us discounting it. If anyone cares, I'll go into this practice in more detail.