I'm supposed to be on my way to Portland by now, to meet up with the youth group for a evening thing, Christmas shopping and stuff.

Supposed to be. Just one minor problem.

My truck's sitting out there in the driveway, with my laptop, camera, phone, and everything else I might possibly need tucked inside. The engine is all warmed up, the heated seats are turned on.

And the doors are all locked.

And the extra key? Yeah, let's not even go there.

To solve this problem, after failing miserably at the Magic Wire Coat Hanger Method, I brought out the smallest Yellow Pages book in the United States and looked for a local locksmith.

I'm starting to see why there are times when it's easier to live in or near the city. My first call was to a guy who, it turns out, is over in the state of Washington. Another call or two went unanswered. My next call was to a guy three-quarters of the way to the city, and he said he'd be heading my way. That's about 30 minutes away.

Days like this make me happy I have that Hemi V8 under the hood, what with the truck sitting there in the driveway at fast idle for the past hour and all.

But hey, with the PC laptop locked up in the car, at least I can be glad to have this Mac sitting on my desk in the corner over here. And I can be glad I have time to apply the gazillion software patches and updates I apparently missed since I last used it who-knows-how-long-ago.

I just hope there's enough gas left by the time they guy gets it unlocked to get me to the closest gas station.

Okay, I'm done. How's your weekend?

Philippe Cheng made a rare couple of posts on his weblog this weekend (yeah, that's a friendly little jab right there, did ya catch that one?). He's spent the last, ohhh I dunno, 20 years or so building a new Chinchilla condominium. I guess that explains the light blogging activity. Looks like the family has grown a bit during the intervening time:

Heh. Sorry, couldn't resist. Philippe's a coworker and he likes to make furniture and other non-digital stuff on the weekends, which is cool. Check out his blog. He writes now and then about interesting development stuff, too.

"They all hold signs."

Dressed in ratty clothes, one guy stood on a busy corner with a cardboard sign inscribed with an offer to give away free Linux CDs. As you can imagine, the number of takers was not all that many, nor was it a quick process. How do you think the people this man encountered acted?

It was an interesting day of observation and insight for the man, and the end if the story is - well, you should just go read it.

[via Digg]

Writely is a web-based document authoring and collaboration tool. You can create new documents or upload existing documents of popular formats (Word, Open Office, text, HTML, etc). Once you've started a document you can collaborate with others on it - even in real time, as the page will refresh to include changes made by the other person every few seconds. And it's all done in the browser, with no software or controls to install. Slick stuff.

Once you're done, you can publish your document and share it with others (email notifications are also built in), or use Writely to post the content to your blog - which is exactly how I authored this particular entry (with some minor glitches along the way, but it's a beta).

Interesting and very web-two-oh-ish. Word processing, collaboration, and it's completely deployed online. One to watch, for sure.

I have been awfully busy lately, with lots and lots of work projects, travel for work and personal purposes, and all the rest of life on top of that. As a result, there are over a hundred interesting tidbits of info I set aside with hopes of writing here about them.

But since I know in the real world that won't ever happen, here are the 48 random things that caught my eye ad attention long enough for me to save each one - These fall mostly in the tech category:

New digital camera chip slashes power consumption 50x
Cingular To Offer Free Webcast on 8700c Development
Photon, the next version of Windows Mobile
Mobile WiMax standard gets IEEE seal of approval
Ian Holsman/Feh! v2: What is 99% uptime anyway?
Wireless IP PBX from Samsung
Google Local Now Available for the Blackberry
PetCell GPS tracker phone for dogs
Cingular launches their 3G BroadbandConnect network
USPTO rejects yet another NTP patent
Ask Engadget: What's the best home projector? (part II)
makezine.com: MAKE's Mostly Under $100 Gift Guide 2005!
Dr Divx 2.0 Released!!!
Configure WMCE for HDTV without a full-time NTSC tuner
Alternative PDF viewer
And what would you do with an extra $430?
The World’s Worst IT Organization
Blackberry 8700 Examined: Themes
Beginners Guide to Securing a Pc
SPS Sites Navigator
IPTVshows
SharePoint: Web Part (Status Report)
99 Useful Run Commands
How To Write Unmaintainable Code
The Ultimate Guide to Google Services
Design Your Own Blackberry Theme
Really Simple Sharing
Microsoft and Open Text announce new strategic relationship
DIY Steadicam Camcorder Stabiliser
VoIP Telephony with Asterisk
Xbox 360 Media Download Center Available for Download
Is a Hybrid Worth It?
Windows Workflow Foundation Beta 1.2
Is Microsoft's Sparkle the new Flash?
Build a Google Maps service
Windows Desktop Search Loses Toolbar
Steve Rubel/Micro Persuasion: Ten Blogging Hacks
Circuit City selling Xbox 360s 3.5 days early?
Think AWK and GREP sound funny? Try SPLUNK!
Record anything with "Silent Bob"
Microsoft Looks to Scrum to Speed Development
One Bad Apple Spoils the XPod 360
Flowfinity Wireless Launches Blackbird
Arming administrators with full client control
A change in URI parsing between IE7 and IE6
McAfee's end-point security beta on the way
JPEG iFilter - Index your images
American Science and Surplus

Everyone knows XBOX360's are in very short supply, and the ones that are available are being swept up as soon as they hit shelves. So, it makes sense that a few web resources have appeared to help you find one.

• http://xbox.clambert.org/ - Best Buy stores in the US will be receiving fresh inventory next weekend (the 18th). This site lets you enter your ZIP code and find out how many will be arriving at a store(s) near you.
• http://www.notify360.com/ - Sign up for a free or premium service that will notify you when online retailers have XBOX360 consoles available to purchase.

Sounds like there will be opportunities to find one before Christmas. Rumor on Friday was that there were Costco stores with large shipments at that time in some areas.