So I’m at the grocery store a while ago minding my own business. And I look up & see Bill Wiist. He speaks first:
Hey you’re Larry Robertson!
Yep he remembers me. He wants to know if I’m on Facebook. He wisely surmises that I am NOT. I instinctively reach for a business card but then I realize -I’m at the grocery with NO PANTS. Not naked but you know when you run for what is supposedly a quick trip to the store and you’re still wearing your comfortable “no one will see me that I know clothes”? For me this is a pair of black shorts and a really soft gray t-shirt. The shorts have NO POCKETS. So I leave the wallet, business card holder and cell-phone in the car. I have some cash stuffed in the shirt’s breast pocket and I’m carrying my car key, pen and list in hand. So I quickly scrawl LRPCTech.com on a sliver of paper ripped from my grocery list & hand it to him.
A little background here. Bill Wiist was a high school friend of mine. We were pretty tight back then. Granted it WAS 24 years ago but we have had a few “run ins” since. Each time we speak but he doesn’t tend to ever follow up. Last time it was at BAM (Books-a-Million). I gave him my contact info and he never emailed or nothin’. I documented the encounter on my old blog.
So I guess the point of this silly post is simply to call him out.
HEY BILL! I added you to ComicBase. So if not for me you would not be indexed in the Worlds Largest ComicBook Database. So the least you can do is email me and say thanks.
To be fair I should point out that Rush does this the least of the three & Hannity does this the MOST. It’s REALLY sick how much Hannity does it. All three of these conservative icons were some of the harshest critics of McCain and rightly so. McCain is NOT a Conservative. McCain is NOT our friend. McCain is NOT the answer for the country and is certainly NOT the answer for the Republican party. Rush, Sean and Laura were all against McCain’s awful amnesty bill and were certainly instrumental in it’s defeat. We all thank you for that. But just because the Republican party has turned it’s back on Conservatives and put up McCain as the nominee does NOT mean he is our “only hope”.
This is a swanky keyboard with many advantages. It does have a lot of extra BS keys but they are up and out of the way and never interfere with the normal keys. And the “normal” keys are all layed out “normally”. The ENTER key isn’t L-Shaped (I hate THAT). The INSERT/HOME/END/DELETE are all aligned in the traditional 2×3 row block. The keyblocks are all STRAIGHT not curved. As for the BS keys -I actually use some of these -most notably the “slider” -I use for Photoshop zoom in and out…the media volume keys I use all the time and the little calculator button is nice. The color scheme is great too -all silver and black it matches my Dell monitor and Antec Solo case quite nicely.
This is great little board. It’s very compact yet has a NUM pad. The keyblocks are all straight and the ENTER is normal size/shape. It has an interesting laptop like key depth and is really easy to type on. All of this make it ideal for when I have a client box parked under my desk and I need a second keyboard in my lap as I multi-task on my main rig. But using it as primary I quickly discovered all the negatives. The biggest problem for me was the compact layout of the keys. Everything is shoved closer together and I found the arrow keys way to tight against the delete key for example. Also the INSERT/HOME/END/DELETE keyblock are in a non standard 3×2 layout that I found annoying in the extreme.
This mouse uses Microsoft’s High Definition Optical Sensor that features 1000 DPI and tracks quite smoothly on most any surface. It has a tilt wheel that allows for horizontal scrolling (and yes I use that on really wide images and spreadsheets and such). This is a fantastic mouse that works great out of the box and even better after installing the Intellipoint software. Microsoft’s Intellipoint is the Gold Standard of input drivers. They just plain ROCK. Microsoft gets some stuff wrong there is no doubt but boy when they get it right they really knock it out of the park! Such is the case with their mouse/keyboard drivers. The magnifier thingie is one bit of awesome that has to be experienced to be truly understood/appreciated.
The good – feels GREAT. The soft rubber side panels are wonderful and provide good grip. The wireless dongle thingie works really well – no weirdness with that. In fact it worked great without having to load any drivers. And that’s a REALLY good thing as the Logitech Mouse driver software called SetPoint is not anywhere near the quality level of the slick MS Intellipoint stuff. The Bad -the side buttons are insanely easy to accidentally press. I could never get used to that. YUCK. Also it is worth noting that although this is a Laser mouse rather than an LED based unit like my MS Comfort it still “only” manages 1000 DPI. Odd huh? Back to the store it went.
This mouse feels GREAT in my small hand. It has the same great shape as my number one backup mouse the Logitech MX300. This is a 2000 DPI “gaming mouse”. Now I’m not much of a gamer but I thought maybe the extra DPI might help me when editing/cropping huge images in Photoshop. It didn’t. Also the silly thing can’t actually do 2000 DPI unless you install and continuously run their stupid SetPoint drivers! LAME. In fact you have to run this glitzy little Gamer App part of the driver to enable the 2000 DPI as a step in the scale offered through the mouse top button (just below the wheel). I could have quite possibly lived with this arrangement but there is NO DISPLAY of the current DPI on the mouse itself OR in the driver applet! You just have to “feel” for it. This is utterly ridiculous! This mouse is going back to the store shortly after I post this rant.
