Planarity, redux

Planarity.net has vanished.  But you can find Planarity here on dumpalink.com, or you can actually download the Flash application directly here, save it locally, and play it on your own machine.  This version automatically ends the level when you win, but doesn't have the Shuffle Nodes button (handy to get started at the higher levels).

"Adult Friendfinder" ads on the dumpalink.com page may include non-work-safe photos.

False pretences

Capsule summary: the American Hunters and Shooters Association is a fraud, a gun-control front group.  I'm not going to wate time and bandwidth retyping; the link goes to the original post on guns.

Happy birthday ttocs

Hope it was a good day.  We'll have to do something later.

Costco 1, Linens'n'Things 0

We ran out for some quick shopping today that was going to include a Dyson vacuum from Linens'n'Things.  We had one of their 20%-off coupons that brought the new Dyson DC15 (that's the one with the ball instead of wheels) down within $10 of a DC14 from Costco.  Those new DC15s rock, by the way -- I've tried one out in the store, and its ability to bank on the ball really does let you steer it almost effortlessly with just a twist of your wrist.

Only ... turns out the Linens'n'Things 20% Off Any Single Item In The Store coupon is actually 20% Off Almost Any Single Item In The Store ... there's a list of exclusions in the fine print.  You cannot use it on Krups, Capresso, Sharper Image, iJoy, Dyson, Nautica, Al-Clad, J.A. Henckels, or Tempur-Pedic products.  That probably takes out a major chunk of the big-ticket items in the store, yet oddly enough, by no means all of them.

So I guess we'll be buying our vacuum from Costco instead.  Matter of fact, I guess Linens'n'Things probably won't be getting any major sales to us at all, because anything else major they have that we want, we can get as cheaply at Costco without a coupon as we can get it from Linens'n'Things with one.

(On the other hand... for your reference, it is now official Linens'n'Things chain policy that you can use those 20% Off coupons for 60 days -- but no longer -- past their printed expiry date.)

In other news, the torchiere lamp we got from friends a while back from some gift catalog just ate its diffuser shade.  The portion of the bowl diffuser under the clamp ring baked and crumbled, then the now-unsecured diffuser tipped up in response to Thundering Smalls and melted against the bulb.  I guess we'll be looking for a replacement diffuser -- a GLASS one -- or maybe just replacing the whole lamp.  The torchieres we got from Wal-Mart are better than this one, and even they were only something like $14 each.  I doubt we could buy a glass replacement diffuser for that.

Boom. Boom boom boom. Boom!

Flash flicker flicker boom.  Serious thunderstorms here tonight.  A different kind of "Boom today."  The power's dropped momentarily several times.  Oh, it's nice to have uninterruptible filtered power to all the working CPUs.