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Happy New Year! Ok, this is becoming somewhat of a tradition — I did it for 2005 and 2006.. Here’s a little list of the cities that I’ve spent at least one night in… This year had my Thailand trip, so that bumped up my city count a bit…

As per the previous lists, this is in somewhat chronological order of the first stay and *s indicate multiple stays…

West Hollywood, CA
San Francisco, CA*
Las Vegas, NV
Truckee, CA
New York, NY*
Ithaca, NY
South Lake Tahoe, CA
North Hollywood, CA*
Bangkok, Thailand*
On an Overnight Train, Thailand
Krabi, Thailand
Ko Phi Phi, Thailand
Phuket, Thailand
Pigeon Point, CA
Hillsborough, CA*
Princeville, HI
San Diego, CA

Wooo.. that’s a nice little list… and it’s awesome to go back through the year and remember everywhere I’ve been… and shudder at just how quickly it all flew by.

Happy trails, everyone.

So Jason and I were discussing cars the other night, and we decided to start a lil’ top 5 meme.. Who knows if it’ll actually continue, or if it’ll die right here, but whatever, it’s fun.

He asked me, “if money were no object, what would my top 5 cars be?”

Jason posted his top 5: a 2006 Lotus Exige, 1991 Acura NSX, 1990 BMW e30 M3, 1998 Porsche 993 911 Turbo, and a Spoon Honda Fit race car.. Interesting… all great cars, it’s obvious that J wants speed & handling from his cars… Someone likes to drive fast.

Hmmmmm… so, without further adieu, here’s my list…

1. Lotus Exige 265E
   
   Yah, J has the 2006 Lotus Exige on his list. But, I want the Lotus Exige 265E. Why? the 265E runs on e85, so it produces 44 more bhp, and 70% less carbon dioxide emissions… So, I can go fast AND be nice(r) to the environment. Al Gore would be proud. That’s a lot of responsible get up and go.

   Also, it’s handy if you’re ever being chased by an Apache Helicopter..

   Damn, I want that car.
   

2. 1988 Camel Trophy Land Rover 110 and/or a 2008 Range Rover Sport
   
   I’ve always loved Land Rovers, especially the old Series ones.. They’re so bad ass looking, and you can do an engine rebuild in the middle of the African desert with only a 3/8″ wrench. The Defender is the last of the line of Land Rovers in that whole series, and while I do really like the Discovery, the distinct character brought on by the boxy lines died with the Defender. So, as long as we’re in the “money no object” category, I don’t want just *any* Defender.. I want the one that raced in the 1988 Camel Trophy race through Sulawesi.

   Ok, ok.. if I can’t find a 1988 Camel Land Rover in decent condition (since, as seen in this video, they sure did go through a lot of abuse), I’d settle for a brand new 2008 Range Rover Sport.. That thing has real offroad cred, AND you look bling’in rolling up in it. After all, it’s handy if you’re ever chased by a tank. (ed: I did not mean for this post to be a running homage to the best car show on TV, Top Gear, but I guess it’s kind of turning out that way..)

   Oh yah.. one last thing. For both the Rovers and the Lotus above, left-hand-drive please..
   

3. 1974 BMW 2002 Turbo
   
   So, originally I was going to put the 2002tii on my list (and actually, for this slot, I almost put an old Austin Mini Cooper too). I love the old 2002, and the tii is the most desirable.. But, since this is a “money is no object” list, I think I’ll go with the 1974 BMW 2002 Turbo.

   Only 1,672 of them were ever made, I believe it was only available in the classic Alpina White with the BMW blue and red decals (hot 70’s styleeee). I love that “TURBO” is written on the air dam in mirror-image, so that it proudly announces who it is as it zooms up behind you in the rear view mirror.

   HOLY CRAP!! There is one for sale on craigslist right now for $40k. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…

   (sound of gears turning in my head)
   

4. 1966 Lincoln Continental Convertible
   
   Check it out.. an American car in my list. Woohoo. Kennedy was a fan of them, and the boys from Entourage can be seen in one in the opening titles of their show. The ‘66 Continental was a huge car (almost 19 feet long), a gas guzzler, and rode like a sofa on wheels. I love that it has 4 doors, 2 of which are suicide.. So frikkin’ cool.

   Aha.. craigslist strikes again.. Here’s one for sale for $23k…
   

5. 1991 BMW Alpina B10 Bi-Turbo
   
   Yes, yes.. I know.. I already have a Bimmer on the list, but I guess I just like them or something. I love the E34 M5, and the Alpina B10 Bi-Turbo was the fastest of that breed… So… yah, that’s what I’d like. 360hp in a four door sedan is quite a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and it’s awesome to be able to share that power with four friends.

   And, here’s a video… I don’t think it’s Top Gear, but the dude has a British accent, so it’s kinda like it..

So yah… that was a little difficult to come up with this list, but I think I’m pretty happy with it. I’ve got quite a range of cars for everything from the track, to the mountains, to roadtrips.. There are a ton more cars that I really love (like a Porsche 993 Carrera 4, an old 60’s Mustang, the EV1, an Audi S8, and a ‘97 RX7) , but these are my five.. for now, at least.

Neat.

[hat tip, willo]

Ali and I headed down to the Valentine’s Day Pillow Fight yesterday — along with 1,000 other pillow-wielding people.. It was pretty fun, kind of silly, and very, very feathery. On the Muni ride over, I looked around, and like half of the people heading down to the Embarcadero were holding pillows. C’mon people, you’re supposed to at least try and hide it a little, no? I got there a few minutes before 6, and people were milling about.. At 6pm precisely, the entire plaza erupted into a huge pillow fight, and after about 5 minutes of pillow pummeling, feathers started flying. Feathers were everywhere, it was insane.

So, anyway… my PR folks must be working overtime, cuz I’m in the news again. And, they say that I’m “incredibly attractive.” Well, they said that everyone that went was “incredibly attractive,” but I’ll take it anyway.

The latest meme going around is this Blog-Tag thing (you basically list five things that people don’t really know about you, and then “tag” five people to continue the chain). So, I guess it finally made it around to me — Thanks John.

Anyway, here are five things that you may not know about me.

1. Although most people that know me know about my Who Wants to be a Millionaire appearance a few years back, it wasn’t my first appearance on a television game show. In high school, I was on our local television quiz show, Academic Challenge. We came in third place (out of three teams). Ouch.
2. My senior year of college, I worked as a snowboard instructor at the local hill, Greek Peak. Lessons at the time were “free” (included with your lift ticket), and I was only tipped once during the whole season. But, I didn’t really care since I got a free season pass.
3. I got started in networked computing in 1986, when I signed up for an account at the Cleveland Freenet. My friend Ryan and I used to send email to each other and then call each other hours (or sometimes days) later to report when the email arrived. Good times.
4. I dj’ed one radio show with my friend Audris. Mike usually hosted “Ithaska” on WVBR Saturday nights, but he had to study for a prelim or something, so we hosted it instead. I had no idea what I was doing, and when someone called in requesting a “shout-out for Mark”, we obliged by literally shouting out.. “MARK!” on the air. I was never asked to host another show.
5. On February 18, 2000, my friend Korby and I circumnavigated the Bay Area on public transit. It was a non-trivial task to accomplish at the time — the trip took over 12 hours and spanned 10 different public transit systems. Kept abreast of our progress via Blackberry, Pius documented the day online. Six years later, I finally posted the pictures. Korby is also known for instigating the “hey, it looks like we can drive to Alaska” trip.

And.. that’s it.. Now it’s my turn to tag people.. Hmm… Mike, Cherry, Penelope, Jason, and Dana. You’re it!

Happy New Year, everyone.. got back today from my roadtrip to LA with the gang, and it was a blast.. pics & stories, tk.

I did this last year, so I thought it would be fun to do this again… here’s my list of cities that I’ve spent one a night in (*’s indicate multiple visits) in.. in rough chronological order:

New York, NY *
Hoboken, NJ
San Francisco, CA *
South Lake Tahoe, CA
Truckee, CA
Philadelphia, PA
Las Vegas, NV
Los Angeles, CA
Chicago, IL
Chelmsford, MA
Chatham, MA
San Diego, CA
Avon, CO
West Hollywood, CA

Hmm… not as many as I would have hoped.. This year’s travel was severely limited by my broken ankle, which basically meant that I really didn’t leave 94102 for like 5 months.. Perhaps 2007 will have travel in the cards…

Woohoo.. another blog meme wagon to jump on.. Willo put together a list of cities that she visited in 2005 (cities in which you’ve spent at least one night).. I guess this meme was really kicked into high gear by Kottke last week.. hmm… 7 days to reach me, that’s a little slow.. oh well.. here’s my year in cities.. It was quite a travel-y year, it seems.

In rough chronological order… Entries with *’s were visited multiple times…

Beijing, China
Shanghai, China
Hangzhou, China
Hong Kong, China
San Francisco, CA *
Hillsborough, CA *
On a ship between Miami, FL and the Bahamas
Chelmsford, MA
Providence, RI
Hanover, NH
New York, NY *
Las Vegas, NV *
Stateline, NV
San Luis Obispo, CA
San Diego, CA
Tucson, AZ
Van Horn, TX
Austin, TX
Sulphur, LA
New Orleans, LA
Hot Springs, AR
Guymon, OK
Vancouver, BC Canada
Hatch, UT
West Yellowstone, MT
Cody, WY
Salt Lake City, UT
Twin Falls, ID
South Lake Tahoe, NV

Wow.. that’s a lot, but I guess I did a lot of travelling last year.. new years in China, and then 2 roadtrips, plus the multiple birthday trips.. woo! This year has started off with New York, Hoboken, and San Francisco already, so already I’m on my way to another banner travel year..

Ok.. Om started a little meme this week by listing his 10 favorite mac apps, carlo followed suit… and now I wanna play, but I’m not a mac guy, so I’m just going to list my 10 favorite windows apps in the same vein… c’mon, just cuz I don’t have a mac, does that mean I’m not as cool? Anyway.. on to the list.. these are my 10 favorite apps.. When setting up a new computer, these are the apps that I make sure are installed before I start to do anything…

• TextPad is my text editor of choice — much, much better than Notepad, which is just awful. For editting HTML, config files, SQL, or anything text-y, it’s awesome.
• ACDSee is what I use as my default image viewer. It’s super-fast, lite, does lossless JPG rotation, and even opens PhotoShop files.. The publisher now has a new, fancy version, but I still install the “Classic” version since it’s got exactly what I need and nothing more.
• PuTTY has won out over SecureCRT (which I used to use and love) only because I’m a cheap bastard and PuTTY is free.
• Konfabulator rocks. Apple Dashboard basically stole the whole idea, so I think that’s why they ported the whole thing to Windows since Apple kind of screwed them. Yahoo! just recently bought Konfabulator, so I hope they don’t F it up. I run a whole suite of widgets that run the gamut from clocks to wifi indicators to MLB scores to earthquake monitors.
• Yahoo! Messenger. I run five instant messaging clients. In order of personal preference, they are YIM, Skype, AIM, MSN and Gtalk. I’ve been using YIM the longest, but I do prefer its interface, overall feel, features and.. yes, smileys. I tried using meta-clients like trillian, but I hate them. And the reason I run so many IMs? Different people are on different IMs, so until interop actually happens, I’m stuck.

Hmm.. that’s only five. But that’s really it for me… Sure, I could list Firefox, Outlook, iTunes, and Excel but now we’re getting out of the realm of “apps” and moving into full on applications, which I think is out of scope for this little bite sized meme.. So that’s it.. If you have any suggestions of any other apps I could use, please let me know…