Another quiz

On Boxing Day, I went to Best Buy. I bought a phone, a phone jack, and something my receipt calls "Ferret in Box". What is that?


The answer to that last quiz was a jellybean dispenser in the form of a moose. Load the jellybeans in its neck, push on its back, and it poops a jellybean or two.

A word from the dog

Crash here. Webs is busy cleaning up so I'm writing this for him on his iPod.

Webs and the tall lady put me in the backyard twice this morning because the weather is mild and I like to frolic in the snow.

The tall lady left and Webs did too soon after, I think to go grocery shopping. I sort of saw them embrace but definitely heard her wish him a happy birthday so I decided to take advantage of my time alone to get some birthday presents ready for him.

I don't remember the exact sequence of my efforts, but here's what I did:

- I dug several holes in the new flannel sheet on Webs's bed.

- I tore off a toenail while doing that and left it on the bed.

- I peed copiously in the kids' bathroom.

- I left a solid poop in the adults' bedroom.

- Unimpressed with the banality of the previous gift, I also left some diarrhea on their carpet.

All that in 90 minutes. Webs is so proud of me! Happy birthday, Webs!

Bonus pet news:

My friend Momo the guinea pig lost his faculties on New Year's Eve, went to the vet, and never came home. The boy was sad but seems to be coping.

Two great tastes

I've talked about LogMeIn before.

I still use and love it. My only qualm is that it is vulnerable to a second user. I have LogMeIn installed on my user on my Mac, but I have also set up a user for my kids. If the kids user is the active on on my Mac, I can't use LogMeIn to access my user on the Mac from my PC laptop, say.

The free version of LogMeIn does not allow you to transfer files between the distant computer and the one you're using in front of you, so what I have done if I need to get a file is e-mail it to myself on the distant computer and retrieve it locally in Gmail.

Recently, I discovered a fantastic service that works in tandem with LogMeIn to provide a complete experience. Dropbox is a combination of network and software. It acts like a folder on your hard disk, but in reality it is free FTP space that's as easy to use as a folder on your hard disk. You can share files with anyone you choose - and of course that includes through a Web interface, yourself on another machine, even on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

You get 2 GB with every free Dropbox account. You can pay to get more.

I've used it to transfer PDFs to my iPod and to share episodes of House with my daughter. Combined with LogMeIn, I have a fantastic and free communications tool that does just about everything I need for a home network or during travel.

Bonus question:

Does anyone have experience with Megaupload or similar services that appear to be easing torrents out of the picture?

A quiz for 2010

Child Three received a gift for Chanukah. These are the instructions:


To answer the quiz, tell me what the gift was.