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From Stupid Evil Bastard, we get an Easter egg in today’s Foxtrot strip.

For the lazy, the binary in the strip is 01011001010011110101010101001110010001010101001001000100. Relavent tool here. I bow to Les’ geekiness on this one. And Bill Amend’s.

I missed Family Guy last night (damn you WoW). I did, however, manage to catch the new episode of Battlestar Galactica on Saturday. So, of course, due to my proclivity for having everything backwards, I can get that episode of BSG through iTunes the day after it airs but I can’t get Family Guy at all. Fox, please pull you head out of… wherever you’re currently storing it… and get on board. Note: I don’t even have an iTunes with video (I have a 3G) and I still want to buy Family Guy. Getting this?

I would have posted this regardless of the last post, but, in another move that shows Yahoo “gets it”, they have acquired Webjay, a very cool social music playlist site (and excellent source of free, legal, MP3s). Expect much gnashing of teeth in the indie/emo/overly-committed music fan crowd (ala Flickr), and then, hopefully some cool investment from Yahoo (ala Konfabulator cum Yahoo Widget Engine).

BetaNews | Yahoo Buys Webjay Playlist Community

I needed the affirmation today. Apparently, I may have just won a contest, this one to be precise. The author of Yahoo! Hacks, Paul Bausch, asked “In what month/year did Yahoo! publicly launch their Search Web Services?”. Yahoo! dutifully searved up the answer via their Yahoo! Search blog as Feb 28, 2005. The prize is a copy of Paul’s book, which is getting great reviews on Amazon. Is it wrong that I’m geeking out over winning a book about hacking Yahoo!? (And can we drop that exclamation point, eh Yahoo?)

Edit: It’s true, I really am a winner!

I read this article twice looking for the joke, then realized there isn’t one.

…IRS advisers specializing in the arcane field of barter income recently offered the opinion that any trade of one virtual item for another–gold pieces for thick leather, uber drops for plat–could very well constitute a taxable, income-generating exchange according to the IRS’s rules on barter.

This is insane. Just because some people sell these things on eBay doesn’t mean that I should have to pay tax on a virtual item, given to me for free by a virtual character and sold (at below market value) to a virtual, non-playable character. I don’t buy or sell MMO items, why should I be taxed on them? And how exactly am I bartering with a virtual NPC? The NPC is not open to bartering; it’s programmed to give me the equivalent amount of coin for the item that the same code gave me for free. Isn’t that a gift?

But, government being how it is, it will take years and millions of tax dollars (in the form of salaries, trips, and meals for IRS staff) to find out that, in fact, it is not feasible to do this. Either that, or the questions in TaxCut are going to be hilariously sad. “Has your MMO character increased in experience level more than 10 levels? If so, please refer to page MMO-34 for a table that calculates the relative worth of the increase in level.”

Terra Nova: The Taxman Cometh?

Buried in the announcement about Google Video content being available for sale (see the last sentence in this article) is the fact that Google either created its own DRM scheme to “protect” the videos. And the fanboys are suffering from some serious cognitive dissonance issues right now. This thread at Digg is hilarious as the apologizers and excuse makers start to justify Google’s use of DRM when they comment about how easy they hope is will be to break.

The day after Anil Dash lays out the Dos and Don’ts for beating Apple at their own game, Google follows the path of least resistance. Boo to Google; no evil indeed.

This may be a dangerous fusion of two, too-large, geeky aspects of my personality, but it made me laugh.

Note: Large GIF file ahead, requires l33t and previous viewing of LoTR. If you don’t know what any of those acronyms mean, skip the link.

Link [via Screenhead]

I almost neglected to put up The Christmas Post; my apologies. (And, my apologies for all the semi-colons tonight; that one was on purpose.)

Christmas was wonderfully dull. After opening our gifts at home (and after smoked salmon and capers on cream-cheese-topped crackers), we got ready to head out.

We were supposed to have the day to ourselves in our new house, but we got invited to J–‘s folks place at the sort of last minute and headed over there around lunch. In the long run, it was a good thing because, as J– remarked, Christmas doesn’t feel right until you have to schlep your way to someone else’s house, which is so true it makes you want to laugh.

So, we do the parent thing, complete with uncomfortable conversation and then head home.

J– outdid herself again this year, blowing past our pre-set limits without nary a glance at the total line. Not that I’m complaining, but I think the limit thing is starting to look like a Michigan speed limit: merely a suggestion. And with what wonderful item did she heap shame upon my head for not having gifts in king? This puppy: the I’m-Such-A-Nerd, Alton Brown edition Shun 8″ Chef’s knife. The blade is at a 10 degree angle which is supposed to be an effort saver, but I have to relearn the knife anyway after the disaster my knife skills have become after years of using my other set, so the angle isn’t any more strange than having a good knife again would have been. But boy, is it going to be nice to have a good blade again; I had to cut an onion just to try it out and it was.. ok.. you know what.. I’m geeking out on a knife. Had I even the skill to work under a chef, I would have something to stand on, but I don’t so, this is just kind of sad, actually.

I also got a lump of coal in my stocking. Not sure what to make of that.

But, a good Christmas around here. The pets did well; Froggie has destroyed two of his three new toys already, which is a record even for him. We go to the West side over New Years. Can you feel the excitement?

I have also turned comments back on, with moderation. If it gets too bad, I may just switch back to WordPress; I’m hearing good things.

I am now in the league of happy surburbanites who have a) a house and b) an SUV. Tonight, we bought a 2003 Jeep Liberty. It’s the Sport edition, which is the low end, but it halved the milage on our primary vehicle and lowered the payment by almost $80 (I got shafted on my last car purchase).

So, the maroon Jeep now rests comfortably in the driveway, waiting to be insured; everything was closed today. First impressions are good and range from “drives more like a truck” to Happy Dancing in the dealership parking lot. All in all, pretty positive marks for a used car.

Tomorrow: tying up all the loose ends (title, insurance, extra keys and such). Oh, and thanks to the guys at Motorquest of Jackson. Ask for Dennis; he put up with our crap and managed to smile through it (three and half hours in the dealership).