It turns out that buying a laser printer for your house is not like buying an inkjet printer for your house. First off, you don't so much buy an inkjet printer as find it slipped into the packaging for some other major purchase you've made, like a Cracker Jack prize. [They are also like Cracker Jack prizes in that they are worthless pieces of crap, except that you need to keep feeding them $40 of ink every 150 pages.]

But when you buy a laser printer, even if it's just going to end up in your living room under a stack of papers and dirty laundry, Xerox sets you up with an account manager. I was not prepared for this. I emailed a question to, like, sales@xerox.com and got a response that said, hey, give me a call and we can chat. OK, spaz.

The punchline of this post is that since I use Gmail, Google's algorithms have determined that the following advertisement is somehow germane to the differences between the Xerox Phaser 6120 and 6180:



- Z

More than it is reasonable for a man to despise any faceless corporation, I hate Radio Shack. Every Radio Shack store I go into is uniformly terrible, and yet each Radio Shack shopping experience is more frustrating than the last. Do not mention Radio Shack in my presence unless you are prepared to explore the depths of human loathing in intricate, painful detail. It multiplies my bitterness tenfold to realize that there are times you cannot avoid them no matter how hard you try. When I have no choice but to go to Radio Shack I clench my teeth, storm up to the nearest high-pressure sales associate, and demand in the stilted timbre of a madman: "BNC Connectors!" I must not say another word until after I have left the store, lest I unleash a tsunami of spiteful invective never to be quelled. Radio Shack is bad, man.

I have a bit of a problem: I need to run 250ft of video cable all over the roller rink. I was able to buy 500ft of RG-6 coaxial cable at Home Depot for $40, but I still needed ends. (e:ih8gates) was awesome enough to lend me his crimper and seven BNC connectors, but I needed one more, and some BNC-to-RCA adapters. I went to no less than five Radio Shacks through Hell and high water and could find only one BNC connector between them. It should be mentioned at this point that BNC connectors multiply in drawers the way coat hangers multiply in closets . Last night we discovered that the one connector that was provided by the combined efforts of a half-dozen Radio Shack outlets - had a short.

At some point I decided it would be a perfect business model to run a chain of stores exactly like Radio Shack, except where Radio Shack was terrible, these stores would be the opposite of that. This is no longer necessary. There is a place you can go where they know what you are talking about, they have what you need, and it is not gold plated for maximum markup. There is a weird little building down by GM Powertrain with a sign that says 'Radio Equipment Corporation - Public Welcome.' The public does not feel welcome - the parking lot is around back, there are no windows, and the door does not say 'Entrance.' One gets a sense from the Radio Equipment Corporation that buying BNC connectors is akin to buying weapons-grade enriched plutonium, and thus should be carried out hush-hush. But when you get inside, it nearly looks like a store, with rows of cardboard boxes full of stuff you could never possibly need, because you never know. The weird dude behind the counter assumes you know what you're talking about, because he does too. I get the feeling that if you didn't know what you were talking about, he could still help you. I told him if I ever have to go to Radio Shack again I'd murder someone. He understood.

Radio Equipment Corporation - 196 Vulcan St - 874-2690

- Z

This buffalo totally has a wang.



- Z

I think it would be great to start a 'political cartoon' of sorts with no actual commentary or talent - just a picture of today's top headline with googly eyes. You probably think that's stupid, but I bet the comment threads would be incendiary enough to generate and maintain significant traffic. How many steps does it take to get from 'Alberto Gonzales has googly eyes' to ' (e:zobar) is an America-hating fascist?'

- Z

[Geeky, slight popular appeal:]

I have begun a perverse new project which I call Billustrator, a simple drawing program with a familiar interface:



It is written in Java, and thus runs on Mac OS X and Linux as well as Windows. It will be small and lightweight, so that users can do simple editing quickly. The architecture is extensible by design, and so it is not limited by its own assumptions. I think it would be keen to be able to embed it into web pages as an applet, and thus enhance the graphic capabilities of this 'Web 2.0' nonsense. [Along the lines of the (e:strip) chalkboard, only more so.]

(e:dragonlady7) thought I was cracked, until this afternoon when she said she needed to crop & scale an image and had to resort to Photoshop. I guarantee that Billustrator could have had the job done before Photoshop had even finished launching.

The main UI is nearly done, and all the commands and tools are stubbed out. Even the builtins are implemented as plugins, so the plugin architecture is coming along as well and should end up very robust. More details [or not] as they become available [or don't].

- Z