Prices of flat panel TVs are expected to drop even more due to overestimated consumer demand.

Good news for someone like myself who is looking to possibly upgrade to a flat panel.

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Our viewing distance is 10 feet and I think we’re going to go for a 42″ or 46″. Nicest LCD I’ve seen so far is the Samsung LNS4692D. Aside from a beautiful picture, we’re really attracted to the swivel stand which would make it really convenient to watch from the kitchen table.

I’ve had ants in my home at various times (including the new home we’ve moved into) and I’ve tried all of the various grocery store solutions like Raid and Combat discs (aside, it just struck me how manufacturers like to name their products in such a way as to make controlling ants sound like a full-on war). None of those things ever really worked well for me. What works amazingly well is this simple little recipe:

1.5 cups water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp boric acid (available in the pharmacy section; poisonous if taken internally or inhaled)

Bring to boil. Let cool. Pour liquid into bottle caps and place bottle caps in the path of the ants. Typically, the sugar will attract zillions of ants and the problem will appear to get much, much worse for a day or two. Then you will find lots of dead ants to wipe up. Then no more ants. Has worked every time that I’ve used it.

Make sure that if you end up with extra liquid and you store it, that you clearly label it as poison. I use my Brother label maker on the largest font and put skull and bones icons all over it.

Yahoo down almost 22% in a single day. Biggest single day drop ever. Yeah, that’s right – bigger than any day during the dotcom bust of 2000.

Given the reasons cited in the press, it seems rather excessive. But this is coming from someone who just lost a lot of potential net worth from this.

Sigh.

Ouch. Hope they get it back up soon. I have faith in the Flickr guys, but I bet a lot of people are freaked out.

I like the fact that they are totally upfront about it and add a nice whimsical touch to have a little fun with it.

Last night I bought some sliding cabinet baskets for the pantry from Lowe’s and installed one of them in the pantry. The good part is that it works and I did not injure myself. The bad part is that the tolerance on the glide is too close and so the basket tends to get stuck and has to be pushed a little to the side in order to clear and tends to scrape a bit against the glide and not glide too easily. I guess that I will install the other three and see if they’re any better. Maybe I just need to exchange this particular one at Lowe’s.

I would’ve hoped that for $50 I’d get a sliding mechanism with rollers or ball bearings or such, but alas, it’s just a simple metal on metal kind of thing. If anyone knows of a better 14″ or so sliding basket, let me know!

Lately, we’ve been getting several calls per day from 702-430-4444, some unlisted company in Las Vegas. Since I’m in California and they’re in Nevada, I figured this is an interstate issue and I should try the U.S. attorney general (in addition to the California and Nevada ones). I sent an email and here’s the response that I got back:

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: ASKDOJ 
To: Marc Abramowitz 
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 11:46:50 AM
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: Annoying Telemarketers: 702-430-4444

I will be out of the office Friday 17. 

Nice. They’ve got a single person handling their correspondence (a rather terse and uninformative person) and by the date, this message is at least 4 months old.

I guess everybody at the DOJ is busy working on defending illegal wire tapping or something.

These dudes call us many times per day.

http://whocalled.us/lookup/7024304444

Time for the TeleZapper?