Now be good.

Work-Life balance has come up a lot  the last while. Apparently, it’s also the #1 New Year resolution for 2007.

Excerpt from the Reuters story:

Striking a better balance between work and play, taking more exercise and avoiding disastrous relationships top resolution lists around the world this New Year.

Global research group ACNielsen surveyed consumers in 46 countries and found from the United States to Vietnam that more than half of those interviewed wanted work to play a lesser role in their lives in 2007

To:
Evan Hansen
Editor in Chief
Wired Magazine
CondeNet, Inc

Re:  Horse Vs. Cart

Sir,

I recently subscribed to Wired.  I’ve yet to receive a copy of the magazine.  This didn’t surprise me much and I wasn’t particularly concerned about it.

However, I recently received an invitation from you to EXTEND my subscription for another year, presumably because I’m so happy with the magazine. 

Hmmmm.  Shouldn’t you get an actual copy of the magazine to me FIRST, then see if I’d like to extend.

As it stands, I’m, um, er, let’s say, I’m reticent to take you up on your offer.

Sincerely,

Robert Ouimet
Wired-less in Vancouver BC Canada

My grandfather used to use something similar to this when he was working in the shop on the farm. Not as fancy mind you. From Grand Illusions

In the Medieval period, artists and scribes often used a metal stylus in order to draw on a specially prepared paper surface. Generally known as Metalpoint, or Silverpoint when the stylus was made of silver, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer and Rembrandt all used this technique. www.silverpointweb.com gives a lot of information about how it works.

The pens we sell are a modern version (and do not use silver). The solid metal ‘nib’ consists of a metal alloy, that leaves a mark on most types of paper. If you use the sort of paper typically used in printers and photocopiers, the pen leaves a mark that looks as if it was made by a pencil. However the line will not smudge, and cannot be rubbed out.

Just the kind of thing I’d love to have handy in my Tom Bihn bag, but darn, I didn’t ask for one for Christmas. I think this would make a lovely New Year present though

And sometimes love hurts.

Matthew and Garnet needed iTunes 7 for their new video iPods – we were running v. 6 on their kitchen computer.

Repeated attempts to get version 7 from Apple failed, we couldn’t get a connection off apple.com. Apparently we were not alone. via ABC news

Frazzled users began posting urgent help messages Monday and Tuesday on Apple’s technical forum for iTunes, complaining they were either not allowed into the store or were told the system couldn’t process their request to download songs and videos.

We kept trying and by late afternoon on Christmas day the boys were happily loading songs from their library onto their new 80 gig vidpods.