@infmom: "Potential graduate student." You always wanted that MBA, right?

@andrew11: As a government employee who travels quite a bit on business, a couple things I can point out: hotels filling up quickly will "run out" of government rate rooms, and if you already work for government and try to get the gov't rate for non-business and your employer finds out about it, woe to you.

@Preacher iTofu a.k.a. Scammer Money: Wow, I never really thought of my accrued vacation as an emergency fund, but that isn't a bad idea. I can buy vacation days too (1 a month)...might be a good way to beef up my emergency fund.

This is sort of mid-range between what I do and a Moleskine. What I do:

When I was on ATT's 1.5 down/384up, I was routinely getting at or near the max. I recently upgraded to the 3k/614 plan and I get about 2.4k/500. For me, it's still an improvement, but I can't say as I'm happy about it.

@lewisboy: Fitted shirts only work if you have a fitted body.

@AmphetamineCrown: No kidding. I'd say avoid espresso drinks altogether, or get into the very tasty Cafe au lait.

@LANjackal: I'll bet free boxes is nothing compared to the money they could save getting rid of Saturday delivery.

Vote: Friends

@BurkDP: I use xubuntu, and I seem to recall getting TC through the synaptic package manager (but don't know if 7.0 is available yet)

@REO Speedwagon: That would have been the uber geek way to do it. Still, this ain't half bad as analysis goes!

@jamesf3i: *snort.* You need to divorce your ideas of gubmit from politics/politicians. The agencies that represent the day-to-day work of the government, even with all their problems, are far more accountable and transparent than any private enterprise.

Or just skip buying new equipment and make popsicles, er, "pops" in paper cups or, for even less waste, in the ice trays you already own. Helps keep the serving size small too.

VOTE: Paper and pen/pencil.

Why haven't I upgraded from g to n? Cost and utility. In addition to buying a new router, I'd have to buy new cards for the laptops and the home server (cost). Plus, my DSL isn't really fast enough to take advantage of n but it is fast enough for our use, so I don't upgrade (cost, utility). Sure it would be nice to be…

@se7a7n7: Remember? They're still in use all over the place!

This site lets you build mp3 files to use as meditation timers. [www.yourmeditationtimer.com]

@Phoshi: I've dealt with exactly two viruses in my 15 years of computer use. Half of them were on a Mac.

@MaxellDVD: 90 percent of the writing is do is just writing, and I keep a text editor (NoteTab) around for that. Everything else, I mostly do in Google apps (or on paper). If I need more power, I boot up OpenOffice Portable from my USB drive and have all I need.

@Dr. Wedge: I manage five different email accounts on gmail — including sending from three different smtp servers, and it seems to work fine.