h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yeah, for cables and whatnot, I always check Amazon and Newegg.

Unless I just feel the need to buy that Monster Cable at 4000 times the price of a the original manufacturer's prices. Monster Cables make the 1's straighter and the 0's rounder.

I've bought almost all my PC needs from Newegg, usually when there's a deal. I looked there first but they're around $18. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would go on sale, but hey, you know how these things work. If their tracking figures out it's me that was searching for it perhaps it'll suddenly show up in the daily Newegg email I get

Right?! I'm always amazed at how many ads I see for what I just bought.


Anyway, Amazon is a good source for cheap cables because of all their associated vendors. Check the "new and used from $2.05" link.

Y'know, I think I need to write one of those books.

One of those books that always have a subtitle and the same generic cover, like self-help books. This one won't be a self-help book, it'll be more like those books that tell businesses how to work more efficiently (and ten years later, in another book, refute everything they said). I'll relate how targeted ads and their real-life version - "Are you finding everything?" "Do you need any help?" "What else for you?" - are counter productive.

How, after you buy something, you get ads for what you just bought.

How, when I visited that shop, I declined the offer of being shown where the $5 item I wanted to buy was before I'd even got both feet in the door, and browsed instead, thus spending an extra $15 on other items I wouldn't have seen had the assistant led me by the hand to my desired purchase.

How, if I get asked "Are you finding everything okay?" more than three times in five minutes I won't go back to that shop unless I have no other alternative.

How I've probably just blown my publishing fortune by giving away my ideas

Update.

The waterfall is no more Late last week they started chopping down more trees Then they dug a channel where the waterfall was. I came home from work after dark yesterday so I didn't see what they'd been doing all afternoon, but this morning I can see a bed of... oh good grief, another word I can't remember. They've laid a bed of rocks that are bigger than railway ballast but smaller than boulders. About the size of a teapot I'd say, looking at it from 50 yards away, and they've a done a bit of landscaping that looks quite nice. The trees it's replaced were much nicer, though.

They haven't actually done anything in the space between the outlet of the site's storm drain and the new channel, which used to be a thick stand of trees and brush, and after a little rain earlier this morning it's now a big pool of water with a few trees sticking out of it. That's not such a bad thing in some ways because anywhere that rainfall can sink into the earth and find its way to the aquifer is welcome, but come mosquito season...

Rockery?

I think he's looking for the word for those size stones.


Cobbles?

Cobble-sized, yeah I think that's about right, but rough rather than dressed. Presumably there to stop the water washing away the mud. There's going to be a pretty good flow of water there during a Texas thunderstorm.