Proud Geek

This one is for you, Alli.

Starting in 2009, Mercedes Benz cars will have communication, navigation, and in-car maintenance systems designed by Apple Computer. Yes, Apple. Perhaps Mercedes Benz cars would run on Mac OS X (or whatever the operating system’d be called in two years)!

Brings to mind an old joke I heard several years ago, back when most computers were still running Windows 98. Some choice lines (thanks to Performant Systems for the joke):

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

• Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
• The airbag system would ask, “Are you sure?” before deploying.
• Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the antenna.
• Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
• You’d have to press the “start” button to turn the engine off.
• Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive — but it would only run on five percent of the roads.

Thanks, Techcrunch and FourSprung!

For his birthday, I got my true love a … Baker’s Edge Edge Brownie Pan!

(Yes, if you watch this graphic long enough on my blog’s homepage, it changes from one recipe to another.)

But just what is the Edge Brownie Pan?

Ah, some people — like me — love brownies with edges. The middle portions (without edges) are often too dry to satisfy me, while brownies with an edge is a lot more satisfying. (Now, brownies with middles that are simply melting — now that’s heaven. But that’s not the point of this blog post.) The people behind Baker’s Edge were innovative enough to create a baking pan that makes it easy to have brownies where each portion has at least two, count ‘em, TWO edges to it. Yuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The webpage even comes with a list of yummmy recipes, from regular dense brownies to rocky road brownies to different types of bars. My mouth’s salivating.

Now, some of you might be wondering — how can it be a birthday gift to my partner when it’s actually to satisfy myself? Well, he’s going to make some brownies using this pan later this week. He’s happy baking, I’m happy eating, we’re happy together.  Our kids?  Always happy to have some chocolate.

And it only costs $34 to achieve domestic tranquility. Worth it.

(Note: when I first tried to order it, several months BEFORE my partner’s birthday, it was sold out. A new shipment was finally ready several weeks before the birthday date, and I only just got the package a day or two before his birthday. Whew. That’s how popular it is.)

Want little fishes swimming around watching you while you do your business with the toilet? No, I don’t mean little fishes in the toilet bowl. I meant little fishes in your toilet’s tank. Yes, WATCHING you do your business; how disconcerting.

With an Aquariass by Elseware, Inc., you get a toilet with a glass aquarium tank built in. And no, when you flush, the water that the fishes does NOT go down. I’m sure there’s a separate and smaller chamber behind the fish tank for the actual toilet water, but I can’t figure it out.

Let’s hope you don’t get performance anxiety. Would hate to stand there trying to take a whizz, and having all the fishes look at you.

The website doesn’t say how much the Aquariass is, but I think it goes for $1100 or so. Fishes not included.

Elseware, Inc. also makes an ingenious water door. I’ve heard of running into screen or glass sliding doors, and so I’m kinda leery of getting one of those doors. Wonder if you can just jump through the water, or if there’s a glass partition in between. Water door comes cheap at $2000. Fishes not included.

I love staying at Marriott hotels — especially their Residence Inn properties. Plenty of room for my kids and my partner and myself, plus a kitchenette and a small living room (sometimes separate from the bedroom, sometimes not).

And now here’s a reason for me to like Marriott even more.

The plug-in panel pictured above will eventually be made available in all Marriott properties, along with elegant flat-screen televisions capable of split-screen video (especially useful for showing your laptop screen on one side and the latest Desperate Housewives episode on another side).

Very, very useful. Four electric outlets for me to plug in and recharge my Palm Treo, my work Blackberry, my partner’s personal Blackberry, and our kids’ portable DVD player. (Of course, that means we still need more plugs to plug in our laptop, our flashing baby cry alert device, etc., etc. But, ah, four right there without having to crawl along on the floor looking for those.) An Ethernet outlet for those wifi-less hotels. Several video / audio in jacks to hook up that camcorder or digital camera to the television. More jacks to hook up a laptop or gaming system to the TV, an MP3 device to the TV’s sound system, or a high-quality connection with your portable DVD player.

Nice. Now, I need to go see my boss about that raise so I can afford to visit even more nice Marriott hotels that has got those plug-in panels …