It fits in a mailing envelope, and weighs three pounds less than my current Powerbook G4. Mighty tempting. Mighty. Tempting.

Just after Christmas, a family member and I went to Orchard Supply, which was advertising storage boxes for $5. These were the right size for me to move around, unless I filled them with books, which I am doing today, even with the upper respiratory. Because the ‘putting away’ frenzy is on.

We found three boxes and no tops. The clerk called a superior, who reported that there was a glut at their other store ten minutes away. We didn’t have the ten minutes to spare. Life, you know.

Fast forward to last week, when Target had the same boxes advertised for a lot less. Thursday night, another family member and I tried to access the ones on a high shelf. After failing, then getting a clerk’s attention, we learned they had plenty of boxes, but no tops.

Do people walk out with extra tops? Is there a higher authority somewhere in the supply chain that decrees, we’re going to send them 100 boxes and 70 tops? Do I have to run out Sunday morning after the ads appear to get first choice?

We got the last ten at another Target. The contents of the garage will be indigo blue. But they will have tops.

Now then. What to do with all the VHS tapes of X-Files and Simpsons that the kids taped years ago.

According to the Beeb, one trader bought 1,000 barrels to bring the price up, then sold it immediately for a loss. Just to be able to say he bought oil at $100/bbl.

I tell ya, it gets crazy out there.

I made a call this morning to a company back east.

Me: Your item X (family members read the blog, cannot reveal product) in medium is out of stock. Will you get more in in time for Christmas?
Salesman 1: It’s showing up here as being discontinued.
Me: Can’t be. It’s a very popular product.
Salesman 1: Right, okay now it says later in January.
Me: So there’s no chance for Christmas at all.
Salesman 1: You can call back in a couple hours and talk to the guy who can ask the buyer.

Two hours later.
Me: Do you plan to get in X before Christmas? I was told you would talk to the buyer and find out.
Salesman 2: (brusquely)Who told you that?
Me: I don’t know his name.
Salesman 2: (loudly) Why would he tell you something like that? It says here clearly not available till January.
Me: He said you would talk to the buyer.
Salesman 2: I don’t need to talk to the buyer. I know it won’t be here till January.

I call a rival company, same product.
Me: Will you have, etc. etc.
Salesman 3: Sometime in January.
Me: Early January?
Salesman 3: Yes. Does this person you’re giving it to plan to gain a lot of weight over the holidays?
Me: (giggle) Well, there’s Christmas dinner.
Salesman 3: We do have the large and extra large in stock.
Me: Afraid not. Medium.
Salesman 3: Or maybe he’s tending some toward anorexic? We have the small. In both colors.
Me: (chuckle): Sorry.
Salesman 3: Are you a returning customer? Phone number? Ah, (my name), yeah, early January.
Me: I’ll order it online then.
Salesman 3: Nah, (my name) I can do that right here, take two minutes.
Me: Paypal.
Salesman 3: Oh. Can’t do Paypal over the phone.
Me: It’s okay. I got it.

From time to time, I find one in an Asian store deli. Over the summer, as a matter of fact, I spotted a glorious one. (I am always looking for photo subjects.) Alas, there is a language barrier. The proprietor failed to fully understand my meaning, perhaps. I certainly failed to grasp why anyone would pay the price I thought he suggested. The transaction was not to be.

This morning, another head rested in a metal pan next to the ducks and assorted cooked meats. For $5, it was mine. I nodded. Before I stopped nodding, I heard a CHOP! Then another CHOP! I waved my arms wildly, No, No, I want it whole! Stop!

He stopped, the head was wrapped, I paid. I pictured a split down the snout, and thought, with a little luck, maybe I could Photoshop it all back together. The family member accompanying me said he thought the ears had been removed.

The chopper and his friends were smiling behind the counter. We asked for the ears. He looked blank, then waved over a counter person who spoke English. Ears, I said. I need it all for a picture. Ah, she said, and the chopper located the charred ears from some unseen location.

Tomorrow, with a few toothpicks, possibly duct tape, I will try to reattach the parts. There might or might not be a photo posted.

Yes, yes I know online shopping is best for people like me. But then I’d miss all the drama.

I got some at the farmers’ market bakery, and they were attractive and, uh, delicious. We wound up eating several, and by photo time, only three were left. They were bendy in the middle, and didn’t have quite the look I wanted, being made of puff pastry.

Friends had told me some time ago about a local restaurant famous for its breadsticks. I stopped by tonight, waiting patiently while the man behind the counter took an order by phone. When he finally looked up, I asked how many breadsticks came with an order to go.

Man (very Italian): You want side order or whole?
Me: Not whole, I want just the breadsticks to go. How many per order?
Man: Three. But that not what you want.
Me: (Raise eyebrows)
He staples the phone takeout order to another piece of paper, and turns to the cook in back. They confer. For a long time. The place was deserted, but I think it was closing time, or very near. Finally, he turned back.
Man: Now, what you want again. Breadsticks.
Me: How many in a side order?
Man: That not what you want. No. I tell you why. You order side of bread, you get three piece. Cost $8.00. You want big whole order.
Me: No I don’t. I want the small order.
Man: No no. Come, I show you. (He goes over to a refrigerated case full of small tubs of a yellow substance.) You see that.
Me: Yeah.
Man: You order side of bread, you get three small piece and the little bitty tub of cheese spread.
Me: I just want to take photos of bread sticks.
Man: (long-suffering look)
Me: So I only need a few.
Man: Come with me. (He goes to another refrigerated case, and takes out a round of dough cut into wedges.) You see. You buy for a dollar more, you get all this, and the really big tub of cheese spread.
Me: (tempted) I’m sorry, I really thought you had the bread in sticks.

All the way to the car, I kept thinking I should go back and buy the whole thing and the big tub, and just plan a meal around it. Maybe Sunday.

The Naz is up over 80 points. I must be having another stock dream, although this one is a bit more positive.

So you think your workspace is cramped and airless. (Mine has termites chewing through the ceiling above my head.) Check out the 12 winners in the Wired News Saddest Cubicle Contest.

The Andy Rubin phone perhaps.

An NYT look at the career moves of the man at the helm of the Google phone development .

I needed a few things, which came to $11.62. I had the ten out, and was reaching for the rest when the clerk (who appeared to be in his 50s) volunteered that I needed two more bucks. Thinking I wasn’t really that slow, I handed over the dollars plus two cents.

He froze. After he put the money in the register, the change thing at the top said .40. He fumbled around, rattled the change drawers, sighed, looked at the growing line.

Clerk: Okay, you gave me two cents.
Me: Yes.
Clerk: I owe you change.
Me: Yes.
Clerk: How much do I owe you.
Me: 40 cents.
Clerk: 40 cents?
Me: Yes.
Clerk uncertainly puts a quarter and two nickels on the counter.
Me: That’s only 35 cents.
Clerk: What do I need?
Me: A nickel.
Clerk: Oh.

I can relate to his confusion. We had a play store in second grade, and somehow I missed the lesson on making change. I would just dump a handful of play coins in kids’ hands after they bought something. Very quickly, the teacher came marching up.

But I had an excuse. I was 7 years old. I wondered what kind of horrible day this man had on Sunday at a major chain store, and how long he could last before someone came marching up.

Perhaps you heard about the turmoil in the stock market over the past few days (weeks). If you own stock, maybe you got sick to your stomach. I spend huge amounts of time staring at numbers, and yesterday, for a long while, I took those numbers off my screen. Went outside. Looked at the tomato plants, deadheaded some flowers. Dropped my camera.

The Feds did their best to soothe matters. When they massage the market, they do it with lots of bucks, $78 billion, in fact. So what exactly does that mean, putting billions into the economy? This is the internet, we have the answer.

When the Nasdaq almost hits -100, there’s nothing more to do but polish my Bejeweled skills. And wonder if tomorrow will be more of the same.

A painting in her husband’s collection from Bacon’s Pope series will be up for auction this week. Christie’s expects a tidy sum to be raised.

A real possibility, according to Briefing.com, citing AppleInsider.

For models Qosmio, Tecra, Dynabook, Satellite and Portege.

Possibly swayed by the compelling nature of this recent incident at LAX , IBM and Lenova this morning announce the voluntary recall of 526,000 laptop batteries.

For a reasonable amount of money, a college student can purchase a pretty good paper. The NYT puts the concept to a test, then submits the results to a few professors.

Some interesting finds: possible intentional misspellings and curious syntax suggesting that the professional writers might hail from foreign countries. The latter might be useful unless the student is not from abroad.

If you feel you are lord of all you survey, then it’s likely you will have a selective eye. Virtual Earth sees neither Apple headquarters in Cupertino nor the place of alien autopsies.

I often joke that my Powerbook can double as a cooking device because it heats up so much. Now Apple announces that it is replacing the lithium-ion batteries in the G4 12-inch iBook, 12 and 15-inch PowerBooks.

But not the 17-inch.

When AOL goes looking for gold bars in suburban backyards, it comes up with some heavy duty loot. The kind of stuff most of us see only in caper movies.

Users of the service will be the ones with a chance at the gold, the vehicle and $75,000 in cash.

With four million Flickr users and their 200 million uploaded photos, that’s quite a database of images. But will customers be lining up to buy?

The sexy look of a high heels plus the comfort of a flat. In one shoe. You’re kidding, right?

An idea whose time has definitely come, and one that should be implemented on the majority of high heels.

Why you shouldn’t give a striped tie to a business associate in the UK, why a light-colored suit is a no-no in Japan and tips for the job-hunter whose potential employers take him out to a meal.

Such a meal can be a minefield of etiquette testing, and one applicant loses his chances when he wads up the foil around his baked potato and leaves it on the table.

So what exactly is the right way to deal with the foil other than bouncing it off the salt and pepper shakers?

I generally eat breakfast and lunch while working, and have so far managed to keep the keyboard relatively free of crumbs and other debris. Now there’s a product to make juggling food, drink and typing a bit easier. Well, for some anyway.

Seems to be fine for conventional desktop work, but maybe not so great for laptop users since the tray, while transparent, will still block part of the screen.

The new version of LuckyOliver rolled out June 1. It’s not your stodgy, old-fashioned stock photo place, but a peppery, high-energy and somewhat irreverent site where you can sell or buy photographs.

Is this a commercial? Well, yeah. If you like my photos, some of them, possibly many of them will be up at LuckyOliver.

When we first moved here, it was Alpha Beta. Then it changed to a Lucky, which became Albertson’s. I still put ‘Lucky’ on my grocery list because it’s shorter than ‘Albertson’s’.

Now, there will be nothing.

While See’s is well known in the Bay Area, nationally it’s not. Buffett wants to change that.

While nothing else comes close in search, Google’s attempts in other areas fall short of expectations.

Baseball or watchcaps with LEDs powered by 9-volt batteries are a great idea out of Finland.

The Dow is down 170 pts, the Nasdaq down 44 pts as the market sells off yet another day.

I think I will go plant some petunias.

Out of Kansas, a new approach to search with a social aspect.

Yahoo and eBay are helping each other out, and now Google and Dell are doing the same. Who’s next?

Researchers have succeeded in generating hydrogen using waste materials from a Cadbury factory.

The day is approaching when traffic will be more bearable.

Users noted with some alarm that the Russian music site seemed to be down for much longer than usual. Rumors began to circulate of its possible takedown by no less than Putin in his new concern for intellectual property.

The site now seems to be operational, enjoying double the visitors it had before all the fuss.

If you spend long hours at the computer, as many of us do nowadays, there’s a compelling reason to get up and move around. Recent research shows that deep-vein thrombosis is not confined to jet travelers.

There have been five incidences, all involving Motorola phones. A spokesman for the company warned against using cheap replacement batteries.

A patent for gesture control of devices has been filed. The day is fast approaching when we can simply wave a few fingers in the direction of our increasingly intelligent small machines to direct their functions.

Google: Stop it.
Microsoft: Who, us?

In the world of search and online ads, Google’s growth rate was 80% and Yahoo’s 36%. Microsoft, chafing at its 7% showing, is rolling up its sleeves and planning to spend big.

Last fall, I mentioned the Orion search engine. Yesterday, Google bought Orion.

This one is from China. It’s the creation of Professor Yan Lei of Peking University, and is powered by the sun. When will it be ready for serious flight? Look for it in a couple of years.

Back in January, I posted about Geoff Hatton’s saucer.

From Briefing.com: Google is set to launch its music downloading store.

How much to this rumor of a possible offer to backup users’ hard drives? Google won’t say.

‘Fun’ products coming out next Tuesday. What could they be? Not too many rumors out this time.

One of my sons said to keep eyes peeled for the prizes to be awarded to the 1 billionth buyer of iTunes. Too late for me to win. The milestone has been reached.

It is accusing Adidas of stealing the technology behind some of their shoe designs.

Adding three DaimlerChrysler hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles to its fleet.

It is the dream of artist Heinz Julen, this project to build a hotel almost 4,000 meters up. An observatory is also part of the deal. His hope is that the hotel interior will be pressurized to ward off altitude discomforts.

He is currently seeking financing.

Massachusetts state regulators have ordered Wal-Mart to make the morning-after pill available. The retail giant said it was considering stocking the drug at the rest of its pharmacies nationwide.

Earlier, Wal-Mart had refused to dispense the pill for reasons it did not wish to divulge.

Now at 11037, highest since June 2001. Via Briefing.com. Naz at 25.50.

11,002 at last check.

Ordinary grass, sun-dried in pellets, can be used like wood pellets, but at about half the cost.

The makers, Ugobe, Inc., took their inspiration from a one-week old Camarasaurus. Pleo expresses happiness, fear, aggression, and sadness. He can also sneeze, sigh, cough, snore, hiccup, and yawn.

He is engineered to learn from his environment. If only he had been around when my kids were small.

It’s cheaper than conventional methods of air conditioning. The Hokkaido region expects to ship 4000 tons of ice to Tokyo to relieve the ‘heat island’ effect.

While ethanol may be one of the better answers to our fuel needs, producing it from corn takes enormous amounts of energy. As researchers look for ways to streamline the process, the cow looms big in at least one method.

Google punishes BMW, who tried to manipulate search results, using tactics frowned upon by the search engine.

BMW’s website PageRank has been demoted to zero.

Based on recent job ads for dark fiber experts and bits of information from companies in talks with Google, this article suggests that there are industry-shaking ideas in the works.

They’re working on a vehicle navigation system said to be 3-D, very realistic looking, emphasis on city driving, with accurate size ratios between car and surrounding buildings.

Via Briefing.com.

To the tune of a $1 billion - iPod belts, iPod skins, iPod speakers, iPod docking stations, iPod-friendly strollers and furniture.

A 575-foot tanker will a full load of crude has run aground, and sits on silt. No reports of any leakage so far.

Guess who wins. In Alberta, small male birds such as the ovenbird are not being heard by females due to the industrial din of compressor stations belonging to oil and gas interests.

In Cape Town, baboons have been annoying citizens by overturning garbage bins, and checking the food choices. Retief Krige, an industrial designer, decided to do something about it.

The challenge was to come up with something that kept the animals out, while allowing garbage trucks to empty the trash. In addition, Krige worried that small children would climb into the bins and not be able to get out.

His solution is described here.

It closed at $432.66, but after falling below expected earnings results, it is currently at $377.

If you don’t know about it already, maybe you should.

Described as SUVs with wings, the little jets cost half as much as business jets. The worry among major airlines is that before long, these affordable planes will jam up the airspace around major cities.

Shown at the 2005 Detroit Auto Show, the hybrid’s hydrogen supply will go for 300 miles.

The major players are seeking ways to speed up their services. How? By making their menus less wordy, showing your order on a screen so you can eliminate mistakes, and by using call centers instead of a teen at the window.

Nah. What we need is an in-car touch screen with menu choices of our favorite burger and pizza joints. Imagine what that would do to obesity rates. Because if the technology arrives for that, then TVs will come equipped as well.

Ophiocoma wendtii, a brittlestar, is covered with tiny lenses that are distortion-free. Researchers hope to capitalize on lessons learned from studying the creature, whose unique eyes may influence the design of optical computers.

Four nations stand behind it - Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. Here’s a picture gallery, and at this site, there are mission games and a chance to design and test your own jet.

Last year, faber-castell turned 100. At this site, you can see sculptures made from sharpened castell 9000 pencils. Chairs, tables, and lamps bristling with extremely well-sharpened pencils.

Less than a day after Disney bought Pixar, the creative chief of Pixar, John Lasseter, killed the Toy Story 3 project. Despite Pixar’s opposition, Disney had forged ahead with plans for the sequel. Lasseter has creative control over all the animation from both studios.