Gadgetry Smorgasboard

Feeling kind of geeky tonight. And linky. I finally got around to looking at the latest ThinkGeek newsletter that I got, I dunno, last week or the week before. :P Lots of very cool stuff. Such as The Zombie Survival Guide. My fave lessons: "Blades don't need reloading", and "Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair". And then there's the keyboards. At first, Das Keyboard caught my eye. Sleek, dark, and oh-so-mysterious — just my style. Thought it would combine well with their neon paints for interesting effects, and be perfect for Dvorak, of course. But then I saw something that blew me away for a second, something I never thought I'd see, let alone ever exist: a $500 keyboard. It's huge, crazy ergonomic, and entirely hand made. The Maltron Keyboard. Great if you have half a grand to blow on input devices, but not too high on the aesthetics scale. And, you know, it's gray. I thought we were past the phase of computers and peripherals being gray? >:P Really I'd go with Das, but I'll still add the Maltron to my wish list. Just in case.

I was looking at a page of Firefox extensions, and came across a string of interesting text. I called my mom in to see if she could read it but she couldn't really get past the first letter. Didn't really expect her to, though, it was just me being mean. Can I read it? Of course. It's a stupid phrase, but amusing nonetheless.
"m45535 4r3 45535 0853553d w/ p45535 ph0r 45535"

It's 1a and my mom is still up. It's amazing. She's obsessively cleaning every bit of the house she can reach, because tomorrow (err, today) her realtor is coming over to do a short walkthrough and get a feel for the house. Which means I have to clean my bathroom. I know, I've only been here a few weeks, but I'm just that good at being messy. Amazingly my bedroom is fairly straight; I just need to make sure there's no undies lying about, as I highly doubt that would in fact increase his perceived value of the house. Hey, maybe it would, but my guess is not.

I found out today that System of a Down is going to be in Portland (a bit North of me) later this year on October 6th. And I thought I had issues not getting to see Slipknot; tickets go on sale August 20 and I better get one, damnit. That'd just be wrong. I'm supressing strong urges to rant about how good I (still) think their new album is. I won't though, because I've been doing that a lot lately. Okay, well one mention. If you've heard "BYOB", know that that song is By Far not the best one on there. I can't seem to stop listening to the songs. Even when I walk away from the computer, I'm humming loudly and singing "It's a violent pornography/Choking chicks and sodomy/The kinda shit you get on your TV". (Yeah, try and keep lyrics like that in my head, so people won't think me daft.) Okay, so that was more than one thing about the album.

I went to Kinko's today to make a bunch of nice copies of the band poster I finished. (Not only am I the designer and distributer, but I'm also a fan!) I must say, Kinko's has changed. What ever happened to coin slots? I miss the coin slots. I had an amazingly complicated time there, and all I wanted to do was take an 8.5x11" picture and copy it into a half-page layout. It took three people to help figure it out. But, one of them was an adorable Asian man with a beautiful voice, whom I just wanted to jump right there in the colour copies section. But sadly he only assisted for a minute; then he went back to his desk. But the poster looks really good so I'm pleased. Now I have no project to work on. Guess that means I should work on my portfolio, which I keep putting off. But a portfolio site is about the designer, which is me, and I know I'm just not interesting enough to be interested in working on it.

Must Download: N.E.R.D.'s "Lapdance". I have a remix by Trent Reznor (also very good), and I didn't realize til yesterday that the song is in Torque. It's playing on the radio in a scene with — guess who — Will Yun Lee. In his leather motorcycle pants. (No, Will Yun Lee in motorcycle leathers really never gets old.)