I found this neat little image while looking for an at&t logo for the previous article:

The way I figure there’s really only at&t, Qwest and Verizon left as the larger local phone carriers (ILECs for you telco geeks). Sure, there are little mom & pop LECs out there but I swear we’re on the way back to Ma Bell (who knows how much longer Qwest can hang in there).

From this article on the Wired Blog Network.

I know at&t isn’t exactly Ma Bell (but they are headed that way with all the acquisitions) but I have officially ditched them in favor of Cox Communications (yep, the cable TV company) for my landline service. I know, some of you think landlines are so 20th century but we like having one.

The phone portion of my Cox bill should be about the same as my old at&t bill plus our long-distance bill combined. We got a calling plan that includes our whole county for free and 90% of our LD was in-county calling so we should be okay with the default 15 cents/minute for other LD.

It’s been a while since I did a speed test at DSL Reports and I was happy to see just over 6Mb to Los Angeles but surprised to see this to Palo Alto:

Now I’m as big a fan of VR hardware (goggles etc.) as the next guy but I think this helmet is going a bit too far.

One giant step for home entertainment?

Okay so it was a worm/trojan and not a virus but I wonder how many of these poor people even know what hit them?

Winners of 10,000 MP3 players given away in a Japanese fast-food promotion got more than they bargained for, as their prizes contained a worm. If they connect the music players to their computers to fill them with songs then the worm, WORM_QQPASS.ADH, can infect the computers and steal personal data.

Worm eats its way into McDonald’s MP3 player promotion

A friend of mine (thanks Darana!) steered me to Monoprice.com for inexpensive yet quality cables. I’m taking back the $40 component video cable I bought at Fry’s and I’m buying a premium video component cable with integral stereo audio for only $22 from Monoprice instead.

A friend at work sent me this link to a page about the 2005 Edwards AFB air show.
B-2 Spirit @ Edwards

His main site is interesting, check the bottom left for links to airshow and aircraft museum links.
Flying Kiwi

So I picked up a Creative Zen Micro 5GB music player last week and I love it. I’ve barely started loading stuff on there so I have plenty of room to spare.

Sadly the FM reception on the Coaster (the coastal commuter train) is spotty at best but otherwise I’m very happy so far. It does pick up the FM station from my desk which my el cheapo desktop radio doesn’t (except for Friday when it was drizzling outside.)

I really wanted the dark blue one but I had to use my Best Buy gift cards and al they had was black. Good enough, better than those boring white iPods.

Product Info Page

Newegg kicks ass! I ordered my ATI 9600XT video card on Sunday and it arrived on Tuesday! I was able to install it and try out the Battlefield2 demo and it was fun even in single-player. I’m really looking forward to playing online with my buddies this weekend (especially using voice-comm).