Hydrolix

Because I don’t have an original bone in my body, I’m copying Sean & Brian in creating my list of cities I’ve spent at least one night in during 2008:

Portland, OR
Eugene, OR
Bend, OR
Lincoln City, OR
Buck Lake, OR (camping)
Phoenix, AZ
Snowden, WA
Seattle, WA
Orlando, FL
Steamboat Springs, CO
Lake Tahoe, CA
Union, CA
Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Kingaroy, QLD, Australia
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Sunshine Beach, QLD, Australia
Maleny, QLD, Australia

I think that’s it. Hope I can improve on the tally in 2009.

I hope I never go there.

I like to think I’m pretty easy going. Not much gets me all riled up. For some inexplicable reason though, corkage fees at restaurants really tick me off. Especially when restaurants charge upwards of $35 per bottle. For starters, I was bringing a bottle in order to save a little money but still enjoy the restaurant, this screws me over. If my bottle was so special and expensive that it’s worth more than $35 then I’m going to feel extra ripped off that I have to pay another $35 on top of my already expensive bottle of wine, that the restaurant likely doesn’t even have.

So a colleague of mine sent me a link to Cuil, a new search engine start-up founded by former Google employees and backed with $33million of capital. It looks nice and promises a lot and it is early days having only launched on July 27th. However, curious to see if BootsnAll was ranked under ‘travel’ I found myself faced with this page (click on the image for a larger view):

Not so Cuil

Admittedly this is actually a bug. I found this by trying to click on page 7 of the results page. But it’s still pretty funny, I think. But I also found, on page 6, USA Today listed as a result for ‘travel’. Not the travel section, the home page of USA Today. Is that really the most relevant you can get? If so, this search engine won’t be around for long.

After my accident on Sept 22nd which wrote off my previous vehicle (Sylvia - I did not name her), I’ve been hunting for a ‘new’ car. I had my heart set on a Mazda3 cos I’ve liked them for ages, then my eyes were diverted to other options (thanks, Mika). Currently I’m all excited about a Subaru WRX wagon. It looks all family friendly but it pins you to your seat from the line. Other options include a VW Golf (GTI’s and TDI’s) or a Volvo of some sort.

Now if the bank would just return my calls about some money…