Hi everyone, happy summer solstice!  Yep, the longest day of the year, and whew, easily one of the hottest.  Today we had the fabulous annual Aperio picnic...  nothing like playing bocce ball in 100^o+ heat.  It was fun though, Meg and I played as "momentarily confused".  (She even made an awesome tee-shirt.)  We didn't win, which was kind of a plus because we could sit in the shade and watch the finals :)  Anyway it was a great way to celebrate the official start of summer...

Megan pointed out something really interesting; why is it that driving with kids qualifies you for a diamond lane?  Seems like only having other drivers in the car should count.

Boo.  The Russians upset the Dutch, knocking them out of Euro 2008.  Just when I had become a soccer fan, they take away my rooting interest.  Oh well, Go Italy!

This is pretty interesting, the Mayo Clinic has launched a YouTube channel.  Well anyway the idea is interesting, but I'm afraid the channel itself is not; relentless marketing of the Mayo brand, without much actual content.

Last Wednesday Ottmar Liebert posted two thoughts, one of which was how horrible all-you-can-eat buffets are...  as an instance of all you can X (cell phones, electricity, etc).  I don't know about X, but in the case of food I think all-you-can-eat actually saves food; the portions of most restaurants are way larger than the average person would eat.  Leaving you with a choice, eat too much, or waste food.

PVRBlog links Gizmodo: the history of the Tivo remote.  A great TUI, perfectly matched to the great GUI.

BTW in case you're wondering, yes, I love my TivoHD.  I can't imagine what I was thinking, when I thought the Moxi was "good enough".  The Tivo UI is massively better, and much more responsive.  You click and bloop bloop, it happens.  The HD picture is wonderful too.  Another bonus; the unit runs cooler than the Moxi; I was able to unplug a box fan I had installed in my A/V cabinet to keep things cool.  It wasn't loud, but it was "there", and now it's not!

Russell Beattie fights conventional wisdom and believes in Yahoo!  Huh.  Okay, I believe they'll continue to be around for a while - they are profitable, after all - but I also believe they have relegated themselves to also-ran status.  Getting the leadership position back will not be easy.

Every once in a while you see a product, and you think "wow, I could have thought of that".  Or even "wow, I did think of that".  And so it is with the Intempo Rebel, a radio which records songs from FM, strips out chatter and ads, and rips them into MP3 files.  I wonder what the RIAA will make of this?