A friend e-mailed this today telling me he thought of me when he saw it.

I think I resemble this comic.  So what if I own an unspecified number of computers manufactured by a certain company that will remain nameless?  It was a good deal.

No, I can’t help myself. With Conan giving NBC the middle finger and the Second Late Night Talk Show War poised to begin, Conan simply must be liveblogged tonight. I can’t promise I’ll cover the whole thing, but I’ll at least cover the opening monologue.  Updates are forthcoming.

[Read more…]

Amid a bit of fanfare the Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson’s new donor-funded conservative answer to the HuffPo, opened for business today.  Overall it’s not bad, but I have to ask who did the design.  A few quibbles:

Who on earth approved this masthead?  Arguably, scooping up Jim Treacher was one of Tucker’s better ideas for his fledgling site; Treach’s (or whatever his real name is) victory lap(s) over getting tapped for this gig was actually how I heard about DC in the first place.  Certainly somebody could have given him something a bit snazzier.

And somebody needs to tweak the stylesheet already (click for bigger):

Overall, these are just blemishes, and having overseen a few site launches, I can totally understand opening day jitters and all that.  But overall, the site is just…meh.  Maybe viewing one too many websites has rendered me permanently jaded, but the front page layout doesn’t do much to excite me.  I will say the deeper section pages are a bit more inviting, but the front page just feels a bit pedestrian.

There does seem to be some decent original content good for a launch, and here DC is again following the HuffPo template (tiny headshots in the thumbnails, some all-stars in the mix in the form of Ken Blackwell and assorted politicians).  But frankly, I’m just not interested in hearing this or that legislator bloviating or spinning; I can get that elsewhere.  That stable of reporters Tucker has assembled?  Show me what you got.

I really do want to like DC.  I’ll probably visit regularly for my Treach fix.  But don’t just repackage wire stories, and don’t just act as a platform for the latest Republican apologist.  Give me something I’m not likely to get anywhere else, and I’ll happily visit you regularly.

Right Wing Prof has passed on.

My beloved companion and dearest friend fell asleep in the Lord at 1:45 this morning, after a short struggle against an overwhelming foe, with the sweet acceptance that has characterized his gallant witness through this entire ordeal.

I’ll have more thoughts tomorrow.

As indicated in my last post, I just acquired a Macbook Pro. For web development needs, I need to install an emulator and Windows so I can run dual platforms. I went through this exercise a year ago, buying a copy of XP Home Edition off eBay. Price at the time: around $90.

Here we are a year later, and Windows 7 has dropped. Price for XP Home Edition on eBay is now hovering around $50. I can’t find a complete install of Win 7 (well, a version that looks trustworthy, anyway) for less than $100.

In fairness, I didn’t even consider installing Vista last year. But if Windows 7 is having the opposite effect of Vista on demand for XP – which is what appears to be the case, if my experience is any indication – it would seem Microsoft really did get it right this time.

(As a side note, I’m obviously a Mac guy at home, but I’m on a Windows machine at work. They upgraded me to 7 shortly before Christmas, and I must say I’m very, very impressed.)