Andrew Bell has released Series 02 of his popular Android™ Mini Collectables.
With a good deal of luck and perseverance, Monica and I were able to get two cases of these vinyl artworks. Andrew blogged detailed entries at the Dyzplastic Production Blog [parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5]
Artists featured in this collection include Andrew Bell himself, Gary Ham, Google, Inc., Scott Tolleson, Jeff Yaksick (for the Android Team and for Google), and last but not least, Doktor A. If you're interested, check out the Dead Zebra, Inc. Shop or follow Andrew on Twitter.
Raytheon Company [RTN] Stock Certificate
Raytheon is a diversified company that manufactures products, writes software, and sells service primarily to government agencies. Wikipedia has a good write up on their history and all of the various products and services.
I love the name Raytheon. The vignette on this stock is a great graphical depiction of the name ("light of/from the gods" [wikipedia]).
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Stock Certificate
I've never actually owned an AMD processor, but I appreciate a competitive market. I had an early on bad experience with their new graphics card acquisition (ATI). Since AMD took over, I've noticed a sharp increase in quality and customer service.
I'm a nut for small, well-designed machines. Most of my interest in firearms comes from my appreciation of them as small machines that can do a large amount of work.
I don't think many people consider pens to be machines. Just picking up a BOMA Pen by Inkling, Inc. will shortly convince you that they are a machine and a marvel of engineering. I have the pleasure of owning one of the last made D6 BOMA Pens.
Mike Scherer over at Inkling, Inc. painstakingly creates these wonderful things. The tungsten composition of these pens make them feel strangely heavy in the hand. Once you start writing, it just feels good. I've paired mine with a medium point ink cartridge, since I like the bold and deliberate feel of larger tip pens.
Mike spared no expense. The pen comes protected in a cherrywood box with the company logo emblazoned on the side. The top of the box acts as a cradle for the pen when you wish to put it on the display. I bought the multi-balance set which includes three different endcaps of different composition for you to change the center of gravity.
I also had the opportunity to get a BOMA coin. This coin is also made of tungsten and has interesting designs etched in both sides. The coin is fun to play with when you're brainstorming and its also a conversation starter when you spin it.
It looks as though Mr. Scherer has taken a break from making these wonderful machines and only two are left. If you really appreciate well-designed items with a high attention to detail, consider purchasing one of the two remaining pens. You won't regret it.
Finally, I must say that Mr. Scherer does a much better job of eloquently describing the pens, their box, and all of the details of the design process at the Inkling Pen Company web page. I also encourage you to visit the website. As you're perusing the pages, you might think that the narrator has gone overboard in describing the quality of the pen. Let me reassure you, the praise is well justified.
Yahoo! Inc. [YHOO] Stock Certificate
I'm a Google man myself. And I believe the maxim, "Men Are From Google, Women Are From Yahoo."
The stock certificate itself has a nice classic design with a colorful vignette.
Monica bought this for me from OneShare.com for our wedding anniversary. She chose a nice Mahogany-colored frame with a matte plaque that says "A little Yahoo/just for you."
Microsoft is currently trying to woo Yahoo back to his place, but Yahoo secretly wants to hookup with Google. Microhoo spawn scares me and Yahoogle's offspring would just be weird. Just say no, Yahoo! YOU CAN DOOOO IT.
Is a mouse problem giving you headaches? Stop worrying and get the Mouse Assassin!
Packaged in a Yorkshire Terrier frame, but packed with Pitt Bull attitude -- Lexi is the nemesis to all furry rodents that make strange noises throughout your house. Weighing in at 4 pounds dripping wet, the mice think that she's probably just another mouse from down the block.
Our dachshunds are more hunting dogs than Lexi is, but they were bred to be badger dogs. Lexi can slip around corners, up and around with ninja accuracy. Poor little bastards didn't even see it coming.
Starbucks Corporation [SBUX] Stock Certificate
Dear Starbucks, how I love thee. You wake me up every morning, and you taste soo good. From the simplest drip coffee to Iced Quenti Venti Raspberry White Chocolate Mochas, you always please my tastebuds.
Microsoft Corporation [MSFT] Stock Certificate
I thought that getting this stock certificate was important because of the impression that Microsoft has made on the computer industry. My ownership of Microsoft shouldn't be taken as an endorsement by me of their business practices or products.
In fact, as time goes on, the Microsoft Machine keeps cranking out products that do not have their customer's best interest in mind. I could go on for pages about their love for Hollywood and Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). I do have a story to tell about their growing practice of treating their customers as criminals.
Recently, I built a new Core 2 Quad Extreme desktop computer for my house. NewEgg, of course, had great deals on all of the components and offered a great deal on the new Windows Vista Ultimate. I had planned to build this computer to be a dual booter between Windows and Gentoo Linux. I thought, // Why not get Vista? I'll get to know all of the changes that Microsoft made and expand my horizons ... it can't be THAT bad... //. heh.
After building the system and obtaining the bleeding edge alpha Vista drivers for all of my components, I installed Vista. Installation went smooth and the super-alpha drivers worked okay. I went ahead and activated Vista.
Fast forward three months. I'm still staying on the bleeding edge of all the drivers, because it still feels like I'm beta testing Vista for Microsoft. My motherboard manufacturer released a new BIOS that included the recent microcode update for the Core 2 family of processors. Intel also released a big update for their Intel Matrix Storage (internal RAID controller on their 965P chipset). I rebooted after updating, logged into Vista and I was greeted with a very nasty message, basically accusing me of stealing Vista. It said that I had less than three days to activate my copy of Vista, or purchase a new license. It warned that if I didn't do this, Vista would go into reduced functionality mode.
// WTF // I thought. I tried to activate online, and it said that I had an invalid product key and advised me to call Microsoft. I followed the prompts, waited on hold for 30-40 minutes. As I was about to hang up, the call was finally answered by an Indian man with a super heavy accent. He made me describe the entire incident and then he told me that his role in this process was just to verify my product key and hand me off to someone who could help me. After about 30 minutes of repeating things, spelling out things, ("Yes, it's PATRICK... that's PAPA ALPHA TANGO ROMEO INDIA CHARLIE KILO...") he told me that the wait for a technician was two to three hours, and asked if I'd like to stay on hold. At this point I basically told him to shove it.
As I hung up the phone, I sat there. I felt betrayed. I had spent good money (a lot of good money even if NewEgg was running a good deal) to buy this barely working piece of shit. Now they're gonna hassle me like this? Can you imagine if you got your car washed and had new tires put on, then went to start it up -- then DING We're sorry, GM has determined that you have an invalid VIN number. Please call GM and have this VIN reauthorized or buy a new vehicle.
Why does the industry let this bullshit go on? If auto manufacturers did something like I imagined above, there would be riots, lawsuits, and the definite demise of the offending corporation. On top of all that, my daily RSS feeds have been telling me for months that pirates have fully cracked Vista's authentication scheme. I guess I could have stole the damned thing and not have been hassled.
WAKE UP MICROSOFT!
So, back to the point of this entry ... I'm putting Microsoft Corporation on notice. While I have a very small investment in your company, I guarantee that my little shareholder votes will be hostile against any board member and all of their recommendations if that board member supports this anti-consumer, monopolistic behavior. Also, letters will go out to my senator and congressmen on all issues that will stop this kind of bullshit from happening. Finally, if every three months I have to go through this reactivation shit, you will be hearing from my state attorney general, the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, and any other organization that I can get to listen. You've been warned.
Novell, Inc. [NOVL] Stock Certificate
Back in the day (think IPX/SPX and token ring networks), Novell was a force to be reckoned with. Before Microsoft got their act together in the server industry, Novell was the solution of choice for a large number of businesses. Novell has successfully transformed itself over the years and continues to produce impressive products. Recently, they moved into the Linux market segment by purchasing SuSE Linux. With the current version of their server product, they are migrating their customer base into the Linux server world by porting their proprietary software to their Linux platform.
Cisco Systems, Inc. [CSCO] Stock Certificate
Cisco is like The Force if the Internet were the Star Wars universe ... it surrounds us and penetrates us ... it binds the galaxy together. From the backbone to the last mile, Cisco products dominate the networking industry.
Apple, Inc. [AAPL] Stock Certificate
Apple's stock is booming these days thanks to the uberhyped iPhone.
I was fairly disappointed with this stock certificate. While it has an excellent design and color scheme, it has a few things about it that aren't quite right. First off is it's size. They chose the strange format of 8.5 by 11 inches instead of the familiar 8 x 12 inch paper size. The second thing "wrong" with the stock is that it feels like it was printed on a common laser printer using common paper. Most stock certificates feel almost like a crisp dollar bill -- they almost feel engraved.
Hmm... an Apple product having excellent visual appeal, yet failing to fully deliver the whole package... sound familiar?
Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. [RGR] Stock Certificate
Ruger is is one of the biggest firearms manufacturers out there. The Ruger brand is a sign of quality, safety, and accuracy. Ruger long guns and handguns are often used for competition target shooting.
I finally ordered all of the parts for my new desktop computer. With this build, I wanted to build up a machine that was significantly faster than my current computer. I almost "broke the bank" on this machine, but I usually only build a computer once every 5-6 years for my own personal use.
Here is the showcase of all of the parts ordered:
Parts list:
After building:
Thanks to the ginormous case, the build went very smooth. The Tuniq Tower filled up the case with about an inch to spare. Thermaltake's "tool-less" designed worked alright. I had to really work at getting the bigass power supply in it's spot -- I applied a noise dampener gasket to it before I started, so it was more challenging.
The motherboard is well known for it's buggy BIOS. I immediately flashed it to the latest version as soon as I powered it up. I also learned that if you have the BIOS set to control a USB keyboard and mouse, memtest86 (and all other variations) immediately reboot.
After the BIOS was situated, the two 10K RPM hard drives were configured into a RAID-1 mirror, and I installed Vista. I partitioned the 500GB drive in half and installed Gentoo Linux.
It took us a long time, but we finally found a nice television stand that didn't cost an arm-and-a-leg. We found this nice black oak stand from O'Sullivan Furniture. We were having problems finding a stand that was the right size and that had a space big enough for our center channel speaker (Polk Audio CS400i). We also added a pair of speaker stands from Sanus Systems to elevate our two front channel speakers (Polk Audio RT55i).
Silicon Graphics, Inc. [SGIDE] Stock Certificate
This company is a sad story. Back in the day SGI was at the cutting edge of technology. There was a time that if you wanted to do serious animation or graphic design, SGI would be your top choice hardware vendor. As far as I can tell, their extreme niche is what doomed them. They recently declared bankruptcy (reorganization) and their stock is in the crapper.
I wanted this stock certificate to commemorate the time when SGI was a Titan in the field.
Monica and I just got finished installing our new Home Theater. The biggest "new" part is the Sony Grand Wega SXRD HDTV. The rest of the system is a set of Polk Audio Speakers, an Onkyo Receiver, and a custom built HTPC. The HTPC is the brain of our setup. It feeds DVDs, CDs, local television, HD television, and timeshifted video to the rest of the system.
For the geeks out there, the HTPC has the following components:
The most important part of the HTPC is BeyondTV. It is an excellent software package developed by Snapstream Media, headquartered in Houstin, Texas. The developers keep packing in more features with each release. I encourage people who want to go the HTPC route to take a good look at BeyondTV. It kicks the crap out of TiVO and other competitors. You can find more information at the Snapstream Media site, Snapstream Forums, and Snapstream Blogs. You can see other peoples' Home Theaters in Snapstream's blog under the Digital Livingroom category.
I'm not too excited about being an owner of the Walt Disney Company [DIS] stock, but hey -- I got a new stock certificate out of the Pixar acquisition. It's hard to complain too loudly.
Playboy Enterprises, Inc. [PLA] Stock Certificate (Class B)