This Saturday we’re participating in a multi-family garage sale here in Roscoe Village. Hopefully beery Retro on Roscoe festival-goers will stumble by and lighten their wallets. Update: An address might help. Stop by 3537 N. Leavitt between 8am and 2pm, Saturday, August 4.

Garage sales in the city have always seemed odd to me, given that garages are in the rear on the alley. But I do like them, having grown up with a grandmother pathologically addicted to scouring them. But then, who doesn’t enjoy sifting through their neighbors’ detritus? Socially-acceptable dumpster-diving.

In advance of the sale I figured I’d offer up some of the geekier goods we hope to offload. Consider it an early-bird special. Let me know if you want more detail or photos or if you want to make an offer.

SOLD! Harmon Kardon HK3270 Receiver
Basic stereo receiver. 65w/channel, A/B speaker switching, five stereo inputs. Makes a great second-zone or audio-only amp.
$45

SOLD! Sony VHS-C Camcorder
Includes extra battery, recharger, carrying case, and VHS adapter.
$35

SOLD! Audiotron [Note: A friend of mine has two units he’s willing to sell for the same price each, if you are interested.]
Network audio player. Scours network for playable audio files and offers a variety of ways to access them for playback through your stereo system. Mint condition. No moving parts. This is a choice piece of hardware. More info here.
$45

Roku Photobridge (formerly HD-1000)
Network media player, akin to Audiotron but for photos and video (including HD). Includes image packs. Also mint condition. More info here.
$45

SOLD! Canon Powershot G1
3.3 megapixel camera. Includes 1GB microdrive. You may have this camera, but you may not have the love in my heart I have for it. More info here.
$65

Sony Wireless Stereo Headphones
Infrared-based, 40′ range. For use with stereo or television at home.
$15

Gateway VX1110 20“ CRT Display
1600 x 1200 max. resolution. It ain’t flat, but that’s still a lot of screen real estate.
$75

Nokia 447Xi Plus 17” CRT Display
1280 x 1024 max. resolution. Best CRT I ever owned.
$50

Pronto TS1000 Universal Remote
Screen-based, highly-configurable universal remote. Download templates for your A/V components from the web. More here.
$20

Been in a funk all day. But the funk has broken, so to speak.

I was playing tennis with my brother, getting my ass handed to me on a platter on a crappy public court (massive weed-strewn fissures down the hardtop, sandstorm-grade dust blowing over from an abutting dog track — nice design there, city, net two cranks too low) and it was freaking hot. Perfect to maintain my stroppy disposition.

But then I see a couple near a park bench. One or both of them is deaf because they are signing like mad. Not sure if they were arguing but whatever they were saying it was intense. And then one of them gives the sign (I’m guessing here) for “Screw this, let’s SMS” and they pull out identical smartphones. They regain composure, sit down and start texting back and forth, right next to each other, happy as clams.

It was the most beautiful thing. I think I broke my brother’s serve after that.

In a bit of a mood today so here’s my chat annoyance list.

When status says “not available” or “do not disturb.” I have never understood this. If you are using a chat application but not accepting messages what’s the point? Log off.

“I just e-mailed you.” Yes, thank you I see your note sitting right here in my inbox. This is only slightly less annoying than people who call you to let you know that they’ve e-mailed you right after clicking send. E-mail is asynchronous, people. Look it up.

“On the phone” or, worse, “otp.” Yes, that’s why I chose to ping you instead of ring you. And if you can’t do two things at once, why are you on chat? IM isn’t for uni-taskers.

When people treat IM like an e-mail. “Dear John, I am writing you to follow up on the matter we discussed … [18 lines later] … Sincerely, Mary.” Nice selection of medium there, Mary.

“Are you using [insert app here]?” This would be like asking people if they are using Outlook before sending an e-mail. Who cares?

And the obverse:

When you know someone is typing (“Mary is typing …”) and it takes forever. People, put down the Strunk and White and hit return. Chat. Not oration.

OK, all done. Damn you, Mary.

Buzzed my hair down to the scalp today. Up yours male pattern baldness!

Update: Best comments on new buzz:

“Did you get lice in Russia?”
“Overclocked brains require better heatsinks, right?”
“Your back hair is now officially longer than your head hair.”

Your co-presenter says the following things during set-up. Let’s call this person a she. Let’s call her Pauline. Let’s also call her my boss.

• In establishing a wireless network connection she said “Oh, we’re not connected.” The status said connected 100% and it clearly was. I looked at her funny. She said “See, the little lines aren’t making it all the way across.”

  

  That’s eye-candy, Pauline. An animation. To make users feel warm inside. It means nothing. But that brick wall there, that really does exist. Best way to keep out viruses is to run your connection straight through solid brick. Kills ’em right off, I tell you.

• I ask her to find an empty spot on her desktop and drop a file there. She responds “There are no empty spaces.” Wha? Looking over I see she’s right. Not a single square of available space. I think everything she’s ever downloaded is crammed onto this single screen. Half of which are the executable installs for the very program icons that follow them. And, since Windows often uses the same icon for installs and for the program itself she reinstalls apps about as often as she means to run them.
• “Wow! How did you just switch programs that fast?” Um, I clicked on the other window. (No Alt-Tab sorcery here folks!) “I didn’t know you could do that,“ she says. ”If I need to go from one program to another I just close the window and open a new one.“ Hello, MS-DOS!

I’m doomed.

I’m sure there are some readers sick of the baseball and genealogy posts. Suffice to say that my blissful month of no travel (OK, not much travel — I’m in NYC right now) is coming to an end. This means new posts on things like Russia when it don’t go dark, travels with Oprah Winfrey, certainly a trip or two to China, and a few other new destinations.

My loss, your gain.

No moving parts.

Imagine what the tape looked like when I finally got it out.

Update: You know this whole thing reminds me of the hell of getting my data out of Outlook a few years ago. People care about the data, not the app. Same goes for hardware. I didn’t think twice in destroying a videocam in my pursuit of a stuck videotape with Christmas 2006 on it.

See also: Canon Fodder.

OK, got some questions I want to inject into the Googlesphere in the hope they will one day be answered.

• Does anyone know when Feedburner will support splicing Twitter feeds? Any other good solutions?
• Is there a way to convert webcal feeds to RSS?
• Does a Firefox extension exist to prevent a single tab (say the leftmost) from scrolling off the screen when you have many tabs open in Firefox?
• OK, I use Lotus Notes for Mac. Laugh for a moment … now here’s the question. Does anyone know how to enable Chinese character display in Notes for Mac?
• Lastly, how can I make money quickly by helping millionaires in west Africa, specifically, Nigeria?

Thank you.

On a recent trip to visit my parents I drove by this Burger King and it immediately came back to me. This spot, this very location, is where my mother explained to me the concept of human intercourse. It is burned into my memory.

We had just grabbed some BK to go and, apparently, mom thought discussion of sex was an appropriate topic to share over french fries. I believe I was mortified and intrigued and that I lost my appetite.

And before you ask, this little life event was decades ago, not in the last few weeks.

This doesn’t happen very often.

Update: But this does. Ouch.