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Because they can
Google has a booth at the big Star Trek convention in Las Vegas this weekend. I found out from [this somewhat entertaining post](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/stardate-081706.html) on the official Google blog. It's just sort of funny to think of a corporation the size of Google going out of their way to point out how high their geek quotient is.
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New Google Talk Client
Google [released a new version of their Google Talk client today](http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2006/08/its-finally-here.html), and it's got some fun new stuff in it. Honestly I have actually been preferring gTalk to the other networks for awhile, which is apparently somewhat unusual. Primarily this is for two reasons: The big one was always #2 by a long shot. There used to be a service (That I can't even remember the name of unfortunately) that performed the same service for the other IM networks by having you configure your clients to point at their proxy server.
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Something else I haven’t used much lately
Something else that I haven't used much lately that is being cut from the budget: World Of Warcraft. Given that I haven't logged in this month yet, I'm not particularly surprised. The last time my 6 month subscription came up this last spring I was sort of getting back into the swing of things. That was pretty short lived, though I did enjoy the bits of [Zul'Gurub](http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/zulgurub.html) that I had a chance to see with my old guild.
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Since I wasn’t really using it anyway
For those of you who care, you can remove my cell number from the list of ways you can get in contact with me. Contributing factors: trimming the budget and I wasn't really using it. Home and work numbers remain the same, but email remains the best way to get ahold of me.
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A vote on voting
The [Minneapolis Observer noted this morning](http://www.mplsobserver.com/node/1080) that there will be a ballot item in Minneapolis this November about instituting [Instant Run-off Voting](http://www.betterballotcampaign.org/BBC/irv) in Minneapolis elections.
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In case you needed proof
Just in case there was any lingering doubt over the likely absence of anything "good" in the announced Marvel Avengers movie, [Bags and Boards says](http://weblogs.variety.com/bags_and_boards/2006/08/avengers_assemb.html) that the person responsible for writing this oncoming travesty will be Zack Penn who has a [decidedly checkered record](http://imdb.com/name/nm0672015/).
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Now Playing
[Listening to: Como Fue by Nachito Herrera and Puro Cubano from the album Live At the Dakota] The Windows Live Writer plug-ins are starting to trickle in. So far I've loaded up the [Currently Listening To](http://jtsquared.net/currently/) and [Flickr4Writer](http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=flickr4writer) plug-ins. I just hope I don't have a long wait till someone puts a Blog This plug-in for Firefox together.
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When I wasn’t looking
I looked at my blog for the first time in a very long time in Internet Explorer just a few minutes ago, and noticed that my sidebar isn't loading properly. Hopefully I'll take some time to fix it tonight, but if I don't get to it soon, just use [FireFox](http://www.mozilla.com/firefox) (like you already should be) and it displays with no problems.
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Build your own solar cell
One of the best things about the net is finding excellent resources for interesting science experiments to do at home. Today's lesson: [Build a solar cell](http://scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/echem/echem2.html). Found via [Gizmodo](http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/homemade-solar-cell-built-right-in-your-kitchen-194038.php) (This post submitted using the new [Windows Live Writer](http://dev.live.com/blogs/devlive/archive/2006/08/14/44.aspx))
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The Horror
I just don't know if I can even begin to be properly pessimistic about the chance that the [newly announced series of Avengers movies](http://blog.newsarama.com/2006/08/11/marvel-studios-overview-avengers-avengers-and-avengers/) is going to be even watchable. Have you seen the travesty that is [The Ultimate Avengers Movie](http://imdb.com/title/tt0491703/maindetails)? It's not even like the recent Marvel movies have been really very good. The decline in quality is obvious, and by the time they get around to this long list it will be [Captain](http://imdb.
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