CSI:Miami is a pretty ridiculous TV show, and one of the things that makes it so is the opening one-liner. Often I will watch just long enough for this before leaving. They’re really cheesy and ballsy—Law & Order usually has the one-liner, but CSI:M really outdoes it. I blame David Caruso.

For a while now I’ve wished that someone would compile just the one-liners—I’d watch an hour of those—and it seems someone has. Without further ado, I present… the Endless Caruso One Liners:

Best thing I’ve seen this week.

Looking at the title of this post, that’s a geeky way of saying how old I am today.

Yes, it’s another birthday. I’m 36 today (in case you don’t want to do the math—which, incidentally, should account for leap years. Told you it was geeky).

Even though I had to work today—first time in a few years I haven’t taken my birthday off—it’s been a good day. Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday online—of course, having social networking apps that remind people of your birthday helps!

And for the beer geeks out there—right now as I write this, I’m enjoying a 2005 Mirror Mirror barleywine from Deschutes Brewery.

I’ve been enjoying Once Upon a Win lately (the cousin to FAIL Blog) and the one thing that’s lacking so far is the Commodore 64. Tonight, though, I came across something even more epic: the Commodore Christmas Demo. Dave writes:

Commodore wrote their famous Christmas Demo in 1982 to demonstrate the capabilities of their new Commodore 64 computer and the upcoming Executive 64 (SX-64) portable. It was included with the test/demo disk that shipped with every SX-64 so dealers could introduce customers to the machines’ advanced (for the time) sound and graphics. Though its character graphics and SID sound seem quaint by today’s standards, the Christmas Demo reminds many Commodore fans of the morning they woke to find a computer under their tree.

1982. I never knew of this before. Click through and watch it.

Best thing I’ve seen online all week. Hands down.

I’m writing this blog post on our new computer. Yep, finally; we order a Dell from a really good online Black Friday deal and it arrived yesterday. Replacing the six-year-old eMachine.

This new computer is running Microsoft Vista, which I was really leery about, but so far there’ve been none of the problem with Vista I’d been fearing from past experience. Some other observations though…

• "Windows Easy Transfer" isn’t. In fact, it rather sucks. I tried it twice, each time it failed. but not before copying over some data. The problem? It copied over stuff and simply re-created the folder structure as on the old computer, which really is not what I wanted. So I ended up scrapping that and copying over stuff myself.
• This computer is quiet. Really, really quiet. It actually bothers me a little that it’s so quiet.
• Browsing the internet in general seems quite a bit faster.
• This Vista is the 64-bit version of the OS, which apparently our Canon scanner refuses to work with. That’s a bit frustrating, and makes me wonder what else isn’t going to run because of 64-bit issues?

In other computer news, I’m being sorely tempted by the Acer Aspire One netbook they have at Costco. Only $350. It’s tiny! But seems like a good price for what you get, and it’s more powerful than the other comparable netbooks out there right now.

Rounding out this holiday weekend, it seemed only appropriate that I do this type of post. So, things that I’m thankful for:

Family and friends – It goes without saying yet it’s never said enough. I have terrific family and terrific friends and you couldn’t ask for more.

A good job – After spending the summer "off" (involuntarily, of course), I’m really grateful that I was fortunate enough to get a job, especially one that I like.

My blogs, and blogging – You might not know it the way I’ve been slacking on this blog, but between this and my two other blogs I’m thankful I have the opportunity and outlet to write and participate in this grand experiment. So far it’s been good to me.

The holidays – I really enjoy this time of year (despite how I complain about hanging lights, or things that go against my own personal sense of tradition) and I’m thankful for everything the holidays bring: vacation, good food, family get-togethers, gift giving, re-living the holidays vicariously through the kids.

Little things, like beer (which I even get to write about and earn a little money for), books (I’ll never run out of things to read), the internet (which I have some ability to tap into), health (not such a little thing, but something I take for granted far too much I suspect).

And of course, I’m thankful for these most interesting times we’re living in.

Halfway through the month, and I haven’t written here yet. Shameful. I guess it’s time to get my nerdtastic geek on.

• The new Enterprise: I’ve been entirely mum on the topic of the new Star Trek movie coming out next year—a prequel to the original series with re-cast young stars and directed by J. J. Abrams—largely because, well, I’m not really sold yet. By and large, I have no problem with the re-casting of the original crew for a prequel—hey, multiple actors works for James Bond—but at the same time, does the franchise really need to re-visit a well-mined concept rather than doing something new?

  However, this week, the new Enterprise for the movie was revealed. And… no, I don’t love it. I’m not even sure I like it. Well, as a standalone Star Trek Universe ship—great. Fine. But as the original Enterprise? Why on earth wouldn’t they go back to the Original Series design? A bit unhappy.

  …yeah, I guess I am one of those Star Trek geeks who gets bothered when they screw up canon. The TV show "Enterprise" really bugged me when they did that, too.

• Also this week I stumbled across New Scientist’s Future of Science Fiction special. It’s a good read, nothing too dense or heavy, but worth the time.
• My brother sent me a link to the Snoopy WWI Flying Ace game trailer. Holy crap, that games look awesome. The Charlie Brown-esque Nazi-looking dudes are great. (Yes, I’m aware that there were no Nazi’s in World War One. I’m using poetic license here.) The game won’t be released until 2010, but it’s definitely going to be a must-have.

Yes, late in the evening but just under the wire. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween!

Last week my company sent me and three co-workers to Simi Valley, California for a three-day training course with Bruce Clay. Bruce Clay, if you didn’t know (and likely you don’t; it’s pretty niche) is a Search Engine Optimization specialist and the training was, naturally, for SEO.

It was actually pretty worthwhile and interesting, despite my skepticism of SEO. But for purposes of this post, it got me thinking as to what search terms my three blogs rank well for on Google. Here’s a preliminary list:

• bandage man: #1 (chuggnutt.com)
• bill gates house: #2 on Google Images (chuggnutt.com)
• matrix name generator: #1 (chuggnutt.com)
• cowboy dinner tree: #2 (chuggnutt.com)
• smoke alarm beeping: #4 (chuggnutt.com)
• pumpkin ale recipe: #1 (The Brew Site)
• pumpkin ale: #2 (The Brew Site)
• budweiser american ale: #7 (it was #3 at one point) (The Brew Site)
• simcoe hops: #1 (The Brew Site)
• best cheap beer and cheap beers: #1 (The Brew Site)
• beer online: #5 (The Brew Site)
• pumpkin patch bend oregon: #2 and #3 (Hack Bend)
• kbnz: #2 (Hack Bend)
• 92.7 fm bend: #1 and #2 (Hack Bend)
• free kibble: #4 (Hack Bend)
• three creeks brewery: #3, #4 and #5 (The Brew Site and Hack Bend)

Since the year is now three-quarters over, I thought I’d post about some of the best books I’ve read so far for 2008. Yes, I’m keeping track (again).

Fiction:

• The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. So, so messed up. Really curious to see how the movie turns out.
• World War Z, by Max Brooks. Really well-done zombie mockumentary.
• Coalescent, by Stephen Baxter. I actually found this book to be in some ways frustrating, but overall I think it was a well-done departure for Baxter. Though he does revert to some of his own cliches too.
• Hornet Flight, by Ken Follett. Very pleasantly surprised by this World War II-era thriller.
• Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. Holy crap this is a most excellent book.
• Spook Country, by William Gibson. I really liked his earlier Pattern Recognition, and the same applies here.

Non-fiction:

• Ambitious Brew, by Maureen Ogle. A history of American brewing, from the mid-1800s onward. Very engaging.
• Cabin Fever, by William Sullivan. Simply a fun book to read.

I’ve read several beer/brewing books this year, but they were more technical and I don’t really rate for that.

Snickers Charged: with caffeine, taurine, and "other B vitamins"—essentially the same stuff they put into energy drinks like Red Bull.

Really? Was Snickers not… I don’t know… "loaded" enough? Next thing you know, they’ll be putting guarana and ginseng and who knows what else into them.

No, I haven’t tried one. There’s a review here, if you’re interested.

FAIL Blog: This is not so much "weird" as "spastically funny."

The horse: I forgot about this til just now. A woman was riding a white horse across the lawn of the Barnes & Noble at 27th and Highway 20 (here in Bend). This was a week or two ago. Right across the lawn and up to the crosswalk at the intersection… waiting to cross, I guess.

Yeah, one of those things I have a cameraphone for, but I was driving, so I didn’t get the picture.