Links
Photo Album
Administration
Journal
Travel
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My Stuff
I recently upgraded to a
Blackberry 8700g.
Email, cellphone, web
access, and PDA all-in-one.
I love Canon digicams.
I had an S330, then an S230,
now an SD400. They're solidly
made, they take great pictures,
and they're ultra-portable.
I've gone back to the dark
side. I once again have an iPod.
This time it's a 60gb iPod Photo.
The Dell Latitude D620
is my current work laptop.
It's a cleanly designed
Centrino Duo machine with
amazing battery
life and a nice screen.
My home laptop is a
15" Apple MacBook Pro
dual-booting both Mac OS X
and Windows XP. Hooray for
Boot Camp!
I recently upgraded to a 20"
Dell 2001fp LCD. It has great
image quality, and convenient
USB ports on the side.
My current PC is
a P4 system based on an Intel
D915GAG motherboard in an Antec
Sonata II case. 200gb Seagate
SATA hard drive, nVidia GeForce
6600GT video card, SB Live 5.1,
and NEC DVD-RW drive.
Just like with digicams,
I like Canon inkjet printers. My
i860 is quiet, fast, and produces
first-class color prints.
Not much to say here.
If you're an aviation enthusiast
and you have a fast PC,
go buy FS2004 now.
If you get hooked on
flight sims like I did, you'll want
a good flight controller. The
CH Products Flight Sim Yoke USB
is probably the best all-around
flight controller out there.
It ain't cheap, though....
My Current Reading List
Eastward to Tartary:
Travels in the Balkans,
the Middle East, and
the Caucasus
by Robert D. Kaplan
Falling Off the Map
by Pico Iyer
Great Bridge: The Epic
Story of the Building of
the Brooklyn Bridge
by David McCullough
The Polish Way: A Thousand
Year History of the Poles and
Their Culture
by Adam Zamoyski
Best of Europe 2006
by Rick Steves
| Aviation and Flight Sim | |
| Airliners.net | A giant searchable database of airplane photos -- every possible plane, location, airline, etc. |
| AVSIM | The flight simulation site for which I was a reviewer. Flight sim news, a nice file library, and the occasional aviation news item. |
| FlightAware | An awesome Ajax-powered flight tracker that lets you track flights by number, airport, aircraft type, etc. |
| Flightsim.com | A flight sim site known primarily for its giant file library (and maddening login procedure). |
| FSGenesis | Justin Tyme's excellent site for FS200x terrain and scenery upgrades |
| Picavia | A site similar to Airliners.net, but with fewer, better quality photos. Emphasis on photos taken in France, or of French aircraft, since most of the photographers are French |
| Cars and Driving | |
| Acura-TSX.com | A TSX enthusiasts' site with good discussion forums |
| AudiWorld | Yes, I know I sold my A4, but it's fun to see what Audi and Audi owners are up to these days. |
| Autoblog | Blog that aggregates automotive news from all over. |
| CarsDirect | Find out exactly how much that brand new Hyundai Accent will cost |
| Edmunds Group | Great site for car reviews, comparisons, pricing, and information |
| Molested Cars | Making fun of how people manage to ruin their cars with crappy aftermarket add-ons |
| VW Vortex | With a VW in the household, this is a useful site |
| eCommerce - Hot Deals | |
| Amazon.com | Books, electronics, clothing, cellphones, gourmet food, kitchen equipment, hardware, etc. Seattle's own. |
| American Express | My favorite credit card. Miles, miles, miles... and great customer service. |
| AnandTech Forums | Hot deals forum at AnandTech.com. Slightly more emphasis on tech deals, and no coupon codes allowed. |
| DealNews | This site has a nice design and good organization. While their deals probably show up elsewhere, too, I find myself coming back to this site regularly. |
| FatWallet Forums | One of the two big hot deals forum sites that I peruse regularly. This one allows coupon codes, so it's a little more exciting than the other.... |
| My eBay Page | A link straight to my "About Me" page at eBay |
| NewEgg.com | My current favorite vendor for PC components. A nice looking site, great customer service, and fast, reasonably priced shipping are hard to beat. |
| TechBargains | Deal aggregator site that doesn't have the most hot deals, but the ones they do have are usually first rate. Features previews of upcoming Sunday ads for the big electronics store chains. |
| Music - TV - Radio | |
| BBC Radio Console | Listen to any of the BBC's many radio broadcast stations |
| Metallica | Metallica! (Said with fist in the air) |
| Queensryche.com | Official site for the progressive metal band Queensryche |
| Simpsons Archive | Archive of Simpsons-related information. Episode guides, quotes, etc. |
| TitanTV | Online television guide site, serves as the EPG for many PC TV tuner cards |
| News - Sports - Weather | |
| BBC News | British Broadcasting Corporation's excellent news site. Great coverage of the important stories from all over the world, without all the crap and sensationalism. |
| ESPN | Online presence for the "worldwide leader in sports." |
| Joplin Globe | My old hometown newspaper. Lots of stories about meth labs, trucking companies, and Nascar drivers. |
| MLB.com | Official site of Major League Baseball |
| MSNBC | Joint venture of Microsoft and NBC. Among the better national news sites in the US. They keep the crap and hype to a minimum. |
| The Olympian | Hometown news for Olympia and the South Sound |
| This Is London | News site from the Evening Standard |
| Tuesday Morning Quarterback | Amusing analysis of the NFL, from a very intelligent perspective. |
| U.S.S. Mariner | One of the better Mariners 'blog sites |
| Weather Channel | The Weather Channel's page for Olympia, WA |
| Stuff | |
| Acts of Gord | The trials and tribulations of a video game store owner in Canada |
| CyberSchroeder | Jeph's website. Notice the similarities between his site and my site. Hmm.... |
| Fark | Site that aggregates weird news stories, photoshop contests, and pictures of women not fully clothed |
| Homestar Runner | "...homestarrunner.net... It's dot com!" |
| Plastic | Current events discussion site |
| Slate | I almost put this under News, but it's really just editorializing and opinion. Very readable, though. Thought provoking, even. |
| The Onion | Satirical news weekly. America's finest news source. |
| Tech Stuff | |
| Akihabara News | A site with all the latest news about cool gadgets headed to market in Japan. Some of them might even find their way stateside.... |
| AnandTech | The hardware news and reviews site started by a med school student in North Carolina. Home of the similarly named forums. |
| BBHub | The Blackberry weblog |
| Digital Photography Review | The most detailed, authoritative reviews of digital cameras I've ever seen. |
| Engadget | Another tech-oriented 'blog, started by the guy who left Gizmodo, or the guy who started Gizmodo. Ah, who knows, really... |
| Flickr | A way cool online photo sharing/storage site |
| Gizmodo | The gadgets weblog |
| Slashdot | Snarky linux dudes bragging about grepping their tarballs |
| The Inquirer | No, not that one. British I.T. news site started by the founder of The Register (after he left The Register) |
| The Register | British I.T. news site with extra sarcasm |
| Wired | Online presence of the only print magazine that I read from cover to cover |
| Travel | |
| Bidding for Travel | "The Informed Priceline Bidding Forum" helps you figure out what bids will and won't be accepted at Priceline. |
| CheapTickets | While not always the cheapest, they do have the cool graphical flight tracker that used to be at TheTrip.com. |
| DB Railway Timetable | German national railway timetable. Good for planning train trips all over Europe -- not just Germany. |
| Europe by Air | Specializes in a $99-per-flight pass system that is good for connecting some of the more unusual European destinations. |
| Expedia | Nicely designed travel site that I use quite often. |
| Flyertalk Forums | Site devoted to the discussion of ways to maximize the earning and use of frequent flier miles |
| Gadling | A new blog for adventure travel. Not all of my travel is this adventurous, obviously. |
| Michael Palin's Travels | Website for one of my travel role models, Michael Palin. (Yes, the same Michael Palin that was in various funny movies....) |
| Orbitz | This airline ticket site is apparently owned by a consortium of airlines, but it still seems to have some good deals now and then. |
| Rail Europe | Purveyors of rail passes and point-to-point train tickets |
| Rick Steves | European travel guru from Edmonds, WA. Is "militantly optimistic," according to his own words. Great hotel and restaurant recommendations. |
| Rough Guides | Website of the British-published budget travel guide. Very good coverage of historical and cultural information. |
| Travelocity | Travel site that is great for finding the lowest airfare if you aren't picky about the exact date. You can find the cheapest fare, then see what dates are available. |
| Yahoo Travel | A listing of the best fares available from SEA to ??? |