The Ciba Vision Clear Care product is the only, repeat only, contact solution that ghostfinger enjoys, recommends, and uses without qualification. Unfortunately, we can’t find it in the stores around here.

Luckily for us, there’s this intertube thing:

Seriously, she loves this Clear Care stuff. And if it’s ghostfinger-recommended, you know it has got to be good.

Update: ghostfinger informs me that it is not enjoyable or really recommended, it is simply the only solution to which she is not allergic. But hey, non allergic response counts for something, right?

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My multimillion dollar patent idea… has already been worked out.

US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players without wires.

The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.

Figures that would happen 2 weeks after I think of it. Boo.

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Interesting… and a bad investment

Stocks, bonds or Steen? That’s a question that 19-year-old Ron Steen of Anaheim Hills,Calif., hopes investors will wrestle with.

In August, Steen put himself on eBay (Charts) to pay for his college education, offering 2 percent of all future earnings to the highest bidder, with a minimum $100,000 bid.

What with Steen having to average 1.5M/year until age 65 to match a 6% investment, I’m thinking he’s not going to have any takers. Bonus points for audacity, though.

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Ghostfinger’s doing this project about violence and computer games, which got me thinking… man, I love games! And when I buy games, I go to GoGamer (all the way back to the day when it used to be called CompuExpert).

Being forced to use a laptop as my primary machine has really killed off a lot of my favorite games. Well, that and having all my free time sucked up elsewhere, that is. In any event, I recommend GoGamer highly if you’re in the market for some games.

… if I was shopping for myself, I’d get Neverwinter Nights 2

Neverwinter Nights 2 DVD

(since they’re apparently never going to freaking release Jade Empire). If you’ve got to play on a console, you can’t go wrong with a Madden Football (consoles are the only time football is acceptable)

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During my 7 hour, yes 7 hour (6:30p to 1:30a), 30 mile trip from my home to ghostfinger’s last night, I had the following thoughts:

1) Fun! What a remarkably enjoyable experience! I was especially enjoying the part where I neither went to the bathroom nor ate before I left.

2) I freaking love my car. I will not trade it, I will not sell it, not for all the diamonds in the world. The boomoblile not only never slipped (in a way that would be her fault - there was a point where we were caught on an elevated cloverleaf freeway entrance and all the cars started sliding to the guard rail. From a dead stop. FUN!), but she was the only car that seemed to make it through everything OK. If you’ve got the Boomobile on your side, then you’re in good hands.

3) FUN!

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out of town, working. You know, that stuff.

Anyway, I missed making more gift recommendations for Black Friday. Which is OK, since I’m more into the Dont’ Buy Anything Today Friday aspect of things. Besides, it’s easy to find a deal for Black Friday. What’s hard is finding one on the third Tuesday in November with a red bow and zombie repellent throwins.

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I can’t think of a better consumer guide to top notch cameras than Flickr’s new Camera Finder utility.

Looks like the Canon EOS Rebel XT is the hands-down winner. The others are the Nikon D50, Canon EOS 20D, Nikon D70, and the Canon Digital Rebel (non XT version).

Guess where I’m looking first when I get my digital SLR camera?

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Following Henry’s following of Jim Henley’s following of Adrienne Aldredge’s meme:

What authors have you given up on for good? And why?

Now, we’ve got two people saying Dan Simmons so I can’t use him. Which is unfortunate, since he certainly deserves to be on the list, both because of the GWOT malarkey and his horrible second-novels in each series he’s done. So… here’s my list of authors that started off great. Our relationship was perfect and my love for them burned brighter than two suns … only to fizzle when they kept publishing past their expiration date. These authors are dead to me, our love a dry, barren, scorched earth of place where only the unlikeliest of seeds may take root henceforth:

Chuck Palahniuk. Invisible Monsters, Fight Club, and Survivor were fantastic. Choke was good. But Diary, Lullaby, and Haunted were all empty nothings that lacked the energy, vision, and genius of his earlier work. I was pretty sure I was done after Diary, but I’m certain I’m done after Haunted.

Neal Stephenson. There, I’ve said it. Quicksilver was such an awful book that it overwhelmed the truly awe-inspiring works of Snow Crash and Diamond Age. and I liked the Big U, Zodiac, and Cryptonomicron as well. Interface… not so much (it was a long way to go just to get a black woman as president). Visionary, meth-and-death-metal fueled genius… toppled under it’s own weight and affectation of writing three massive tomes longhand.

Orson Scott Card. Three of his works were fantastic - Ender’s Game, Seventh Son, and Red Prophet. Some were pretty good (like the first two in the Homecoming series), but every book after the second in each of his series was just awful. The returning to former glories with Ender’s Shadow and the like is just pathetic. The well is dry, Orson. That and the freaking incessant pounding of the Mormon mythology drums just gets tiresome.

On the bubble: Neil Gaiman, Greg Bear, George R. R. Martin, Jim Butcher, Stephen King
Definitely on the list, but too trite to mention: J.K. Rowling, Robert Jordan, Michael Moore, Anne Rice

Update: Just found out about OS Card’s warporn book. Feeling very secure with my pick there.

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I just saw the teaser poster for Hot Fuzz:

The guy on the left? That’s Simon Pegg. You know, that hilarious guy from Spaced and Shaun of the Dead? The guy on the right? That’s Ed from Shaun of the Dead. Ed!

I’m psyched for Hot Fuzz just based on Pegg’s involvement, though I really think they need to get working on Day of the Ed.

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Newegg is currently carrying a smoking hot deal for a Samsung 941BW, a 19″ widescreen LCD (4ms refresh rate) for $190.

If I was using anything besides my laptop, I’d jump all over that deal - great size, good brand, great response time and specs. You could even get two and dual screen them. That would be awesome.

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I have two DVD-specific rants. One, concerning the technology itself, where the designers have prohibited you from going directly to the menu and you can’t reauthor the DVD because of that egregious violation of our fair use rights known as the DMCA.

But today… today we’re going to talk about something else: DVDs for television series that do not place their chapter marks right after the opening credits. Yeah, I’m talking to you Stargate SG-1 and The Wire (and the early seasons of The Sopranos). After you’ve seen the credits once, do you really need to keep on seeing the menus the next 12-21 times you watch the series? And you can’t even find out that the chapter points are set at ass-random times until after it’s too late.

So here’s to you, underthinking DVD designers! Give us freakin’ appropriately-placed chapter points.

Oh yeah, and another thing, the DVD people who are putting only 2 episodes per DVD like, oh The Wire, designers… you’re severely cramping our Netflix enjoyment/throughput (well, the throughput would be fine-ish if they didn’t throttle our service).

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Hey, did you know that Terry Pratchett as a new book out? Because he does. It’s called Wintersmith. And the Nac Mac Feegle are in it too!

FSM, I love the Nac Mac Feegle (what are they good for? Drinkin’! Drinkin’ and what? Drinkin’ and fightin’! Drinkin and fightin and what? Drinkin’ and fightin’ and stealin’!). Don’t know who Terry Pratchett is? Why, he’s only the wittiest, funniest, satirical writer in like… ever. His most famous and successful construct is a fictional universe called Discworld. It’s a flat planet that sits on top of four giant elephants who stand on the shell of the great space turtle A’Tuin. The series is inspired storytelling and genius disguised as satire. I’m such a fanboi, I’ve even reviewed and provided capsule summaries of all 30-something Discworld books, feel free to peruse at your leisure. But comment so I can feel some lurve.

Anyway, books are always cool gifts and Pratchett is good fun for the whole family. So he’s going on my wishlist as well as the Deals n’ Gifts list. Pratchett and Susanna Clarke’s The Ladies of Gracie Adieu are the books I’m most looking forward to these days. Well, that and the next 3 from Steven Erikson.

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Here’s a new idea (for me) for gift giving this year - wine! Now, I’m no oenophile or even a connoisseur, but in the under-$20 reds category, I’ve got some decent experience. Interestingly enough, wine.com has a category just for that (though they include whites too. Apparently, some people like it sweet), which makes my choices a lot easier.

We’re generally a shiraz/syrah house, but I’ve heard good things about the Folie à Deux Ménage à Trois Red ($9) and the Cantena Malbec ($18, 90 rating). Of shiraz’ I know and like, they have the Fat Bastard Shiraz for $11, though I can’t seem to find my favorite cheap deal find of the year, the Lindeman Padthaway shiraz 2003 (they don’t appear to carry Lindeman at all. Oh well) and that screwtop Pinot Noir $11 thing that was awesome but who’s name escapes me at the moment. Sigh.

Wine.com also offers glassware, of course, and they have their own most popular gift suggestion ideas as well.

Coming from what is essentially a teetotaler family, the idea of gifting alcohol on the holidays is new ground to me, yet appealing. This year, at least. And remember - a glass of red a day keeps the heart healthy!

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Well, the BoSox are paying $51.1M to talk to the best free agent pitcher available this offseason. Is he worth the 80-90 million he’s going to cost? Quite possibly. When you add together that his translated stats are better than Clemens’ over the past 3 years and the increase in money from Japanese marketing and that he’s only 26 and can still improve… I could see the deal working out. It’s possible that he tanks or gets hurt, of course, but I think from a business standpoint, he’s at least a break even proposition (and that’s not even getting to the marginal monetary value of the wins that he brings to the table).

A Matsuzaka-Schilling-Beckett front three would be pretty impressive (if flyball heavy), especially for a team that has poor OF defense. We don’t know who the Sox are going to put in the corners, but let’s assume Manny and a slugger leaving mediocre+ Crisp in center. That’s… somewhat troublesome, but not overly so for such a K-heavy top three.

Anyway, who cares about that. Let’s see how he pitches!

Slider:

The infamous gyroball:

If you’re in a fantasy league next year, I recommend trash talking and comparing him to Irabu. Then picking him up on the cheap.

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I price checked the Toshiba 32HLC56 at my normal haunting grounds and it’s going for $850-900 plus shipping. Today, however, TigerDirect is running a special of $750 with free shipping.

I’ve had good luck with Toshiba hardware in the past and the price on this LCD display is hard to beat. Add in free shipping and you’ve got yourself a sweet deal right here.

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