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Steven of Panic talked about iPod engraving and I made the comment that mine was engraved, well, as you see to the right. I'd previously owned a 5 GB model (no engraving) and sold it for a fairly paltry sum to upgrade to the 20 GB model. 20 GB is a lot of music, so in order to prevent myself from ditching the 20 so easily to get the 60 (or whatever there may be, maybe?), I had it engraved with my name and a little humor. It narrows the list of potential eBay buyers down to those named "Erik."

It's surprisingly incredibly fun to drop by the Apple Store and engrave your own iPod. Just preview it, change it, preview again. Take screenshots of the funnier ones. I can't recall how many I tried out, but I remember trying things like "Thanks for all the cool ideas - Steve" and "Man, you make me feel like a woman! ~ Shania" and "This iPod contains only crappy music." Steven's post has a few good ones:

Property of RIAA - chiller
This end up. - JP
©2003 Microsoft Corp. - z0mbi
01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011 - August

Frankly, though, I'm surprised at how weak the entries are. Surely you people have some imagination! When iPhoto first came out, some friends and I were tempted to put the face of a certain Steve in some porn scenes and try to order 4x6 prints of the resulting Photoshopped JPEGs, but never got around to it. After all, it's all automated, so surely we'd just be wasting our $0.49. Right?

Anyway, maybe Britney really did give me an iPod…

The funniest thing I've seen today by far.

With digicam in hand, master grabs puppy, opens Vaio, and places one atop the other. As master says "Stay" and takes aim, the puppy recalls the only trick he's learned so far, and does the same.

That "trick" was of course to pee whenever being picked up and placed somewhere. The picture at the end of the article is priceless. Good boy! 🙂

I've given some more thought to my idea of starting a Florida Blogs directory site. Mainly, in the absence of finding other regional ones (call me lazy, sure), I've come up with a list of what I feel the "requirements" for the site should be. I've listed them below. Please comment (preferably via email) and I'll append to and modify the list as necessary.

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Christina Aguilera's Stripped CD has gotten a lot of playtime lately and she's taken a lot of flack lately for being, uhhh, shall we say more "out there" than other pop stars (Justin, Britney, Jessica, Mandy, Avril, Kelly, Norah, Alicia, etc.).

Christina's first album and her song on Mulan showed the world that she could sing, with a stronger voice and a bigger range than Britney. Stripped reveals her artistry and songwriting skills a bit more. From the clubby, eager "Can't Hold Us Down" to the obnoxious and sex-laced "Dirrty" and the kick-ass girl-power "Fighter" we get a sense of Christina's energy. From "I'm OK," "Walk Away," and "Infatuation" we get a sense of her sensitivity and songwriting skills.

In fact, "I'm OK," a song about her abusive father, was recorded in one take while Christina lay on her back. It contains some powerful lines:

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Wired has their Wishlist for 2013 up, and the top item is an Apple-made wristwatch PDA, phone, MP3 player, sous chef, and… well… watch. The other items include thin, flexible OLED displays, space-age contacts, and smart earplugs.

Said Jamie:

Jamie: oh geez
Jamie: wish list for 2013... ha
Jamie: at this rate.. they should have added the 17" powerbook to that list

Never underestimate the dry wit of a Mac chicky. 🙂

Last night I had another wonderful time with a cute, fun, intelligent girl. I'm always excited when I meet someone new. She's sarcastic (a good thing), she's geeky (a great thing), and she's adorable in the mature-but-still-energetic-and-spontaneous sort of way. Well, and other ways too. I'm absolutely looking forward to the next time I get the chance to see her. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, of course, but I've definitely enjoyed the time we've spent together.

The man behind, or rather, right in front of Rent My Chest .com has added TrackBack to his blog. Not much more to say about that at this point. As for sugar, well, I like it!

According to my Googlism:

erik barzeski is the editor of apple wizards
erik barzeski is a bit tense about some of the things being said by mac fans and writers

I'm not sure how it works. I was the editor of Apple Wizards. That ended in 2000. And of course I'm tense about the main tool I use to forge my livelihood, you're damn skippy! 🙂 I'm just glad "erik barzeski is a coke-addicted sexaholic" didn't pop up. Damn that would have been embarrassing. (I wonder if typing that out like that will lead to it eventually showing up… eek!)

Try it yourself: http://www.googlism.com/. Incidentally, "bill gates is satan" and "steve jobs is full of shit."

X vs. XP is a topic that's recently been discussed on a mailing list to which I subscribe. Someone quickly pointed out X vs. XP the website, a well-designed, simple guide. However, I thought I'd collect the list's responses and organize them for our own little "master list." It's important to take stock of where an OS is, so after the "things it gets right" list, we'll tackle the "vice versa" list: what XP does better than X.

Nearly none of the below are my words, though I have tried to edit to remove duplicates and condense items where possible.

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Another week of Survivor, and another entry from me. I'll link to - and read - Nick's commentary later. No dreams about it last night, nobody cleaning the steps in a jungle, and no large black men. In fact, having just said that, Survivor is an entirely white game now: Daniel is gone, Religious Bitch is gone. Of course, there were only those two to start, but still… Let's review what happened this week.

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Some of the banners at BlogStickers.com are pretty funny. Among my favorites, "I blogged your mom" and the one you see to the right. I've put the one to the right in my "critical info" section on the left for shits and giggles.

If you're a fan of what that site has to offer, and want to flex your creative muscle and get "in" with at least a few bloggers, perhaps you can take over the site. It seems that's what the current owner is looking for…

Everyone and their brother's got a blog now, and when I was starting out, I had to learn some things the hard way. So, I've compiled a few of the best tips I could find into a couple of hints. Many of them deal with MovableType, but they can be applied to any CMS or blogging package. They're the tips I wish I had when I was starting out, and I hope that you find them helpful as well.

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I've got a bit of time and the necessary skills: I want to start a "Florida Blogs" directory site. I've seen some others - I think Texas has one, New York has one, etc. I'd like to start a Florida blog. You could find people nearby with zip or area codes, by name, by interest, stuff like that. I'd use it to find out what people do for entertainment around here, to get a finger on my local buzz (perhaps that buzz is just the whine of the old people's respirators, I don't know).

Are there any Florida bloggers who would like to help? I don't want to make the site all "my ideas" because, well, my ideas are only the ideas of one man and I'm quite positive the more ideas the better. IM ("iacas" on AIM) or email me (click "iacas" below). Or post a comment, if you must, but leave a valid email address.

I'll host and develop the site if that's required. Anyone interested?

I noticed that number five in the top Ten Reasons to Love France was "the food." French food - rather, food named "french" - has been in the news lately, so I thought I'd share my take on French food.

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I guess this isn't what they meant by getting ahead in school…

Mount Clemens attorney Robbie D. Lang has filed a lawsuit against the Lake Shore school district in hopes of getting his client, a 14-year-old eighth-grader at Kennedy Middle School, back in classes. Lang said the boy was "victimized" Feb. 6 when a female student performed oral sex on him during a science class.

Full story can be found at Supermodels are Lonelier Than You Think.