The Houston Chronicle debuts a new feature on its puzzle page today: Sudoku puzzles. It’s an interactive puzzle that you can solve right there in your browser. Or if you’re like me and you prefer to solve your Sudoku the old fashioned way with pencil and paper, you can print out the puzzle.
(What is [...]

The big plan this weekend was to reinstall Windows XP and all my applications onto a new, larger hard drive. The drive is an 80 GB Western Digital that came out of my linux file server when I migrated it to SATA disks last year. Previously, I had used an 18 GB SCSI-160 disk as [...]

This morning I checked my email. All comments and trackback links to my Chronicle blog get emailed to me for approval before they appear on the site. This morning I noticed that the spammers have discovered my blog. Actually, the spammers probably discovered my blog as soon as it started, but the Chronicle’s anti-spam software [...]

Yesterday we learned that Curt Gowdy had passed away. I don’t know anything about Mr. Gowdy, but in reading his obituary, I learned that he modeled himself after Radio Hall of Fame announcer Red Barber. The mention of Red bought back a flood of memories. I never heard Red Barber call a game, but I [...]

This morning this email showed up:
michael@vlogdir.com
to jim.thompson
A new vlog has been added at http://vlogdir.com.
Videoblog Name: homestar runner
Category: Comedy
Category URL:
http://vlogdir.com/index.php?action=displaycat&catid=19
Description:
Strong Bad answers real emails from real morons!
Some of the material looks to be recycled, but it’s still great to get it in podcast form. Strong Bad is Strong Funny! The feed URL is
http://podstar.homestarrunner.com/podcast.xml

Remember a while back I wrote about people who could solve the Rubik’s cube at amazing speed? Well, just the other day I found a video of someone named Gan demonstrating his speed-solving technique. In this clip, Gan solves a scrambled cube in 16.5 seconds!
In other Rubik news, TechEBlog is reporting something called the Touch [...]

This is cool: NES Alarm Clock
This is cool: Domokun iPod
This is cool: Tiki Fireplace

According to Measure Map (which was recently gobbled by Google), these are the five most popular posts at jimthompson.org:

Aerial Sightseeing Around Texas: the Battleship and the Monument
April 9th, 2005
542 visits

Houston Hybrid
July 23, 2005
482 visits

Slugs!
July 4, 2005
377 visits

Google, Microsoft, and the USGS
April 8th, 2005
322 visits

Sue and the Monster
July 13, 2005
316 visits

How strange. How very strange.

Last night we almost found out what happens when that counter reaches zero. It looked scary, but I’m with the doctor – I don’t think anything happens. It’s just a mind game. Opinions?

My hosting provider, csoft.net, is moving to a new data center, and upgraded its servers over the weekend. Most of the databases had problems, and some of the older ones, including mine, were corrupted. As a result of the database problems, all of the weblogs I host were down most of the day yesterday, and [...]

Has it been 18 years already? Leigh Ann says yes.

This is a travesty. This is tragic. This is absurd. This is a disaster of Biblical proportions: Krispy Kreme is closing its Houston stores. I repeat: Krispy Kreme is closing its Houston stores. You may now run about in panic!