Our old house (6) on 33rd Street is finally empty (1-5). We sign it over to the new owners later next week; then things will be blessedly quiet until June 24th when we close on the new house in Wheaton, MD. New construction continues a couple blocks away on Charles Street on the Barnes & Noble multi-purpose building (7) and expanded Tamber's Diner (8). After next week, the value of our old house will keep climbing.

- mike lee - baltimore

I got my $15 TV-B-Gone (1) from Amazon this week. TV-B-Gone is a keychain-sized (2) infrared transmitter that beams a stream of 209 different manufacturers' TV turn-off codes over a 69 second period. Within that time the device will turn off virtually any model of TV. Imagine the fun that can be had in front of a wall of TVs at the department store electronics section or Best Buy! I successfully tested the device on a flat panel TV in our bedroom tonight (3 & 4) and may do some *cough* testing elsewhere this weekend. Note that the Sidekick II camera is sensitive to IR emissions, so you can see the IR pulses on the live preview (5).

Other related info: Wired article, Disguise TV-B-Gone in an old cell phone shell, TV-B-Gone blocker, Adbusters TV Turnoff Week.

Lastly, another misfiled post from this morning:

Dressed To Play

- mike lee - langley park, md

The Offering


Mommy And Daddy Are Home!

Well the last of our boxes are being extracted from self-storage this morning by a Mayflower crew to be merged with the rest of the stuff from our house that was picked up yesterday. Final stats: 279 pieces (boxes of books mostly & furniture) weighing in at 13,000+ lbs. I just signed nine pages of inventory forms. The crew leader says the "typical" family goes through two pages. Yup, we LOVE our books.

- mike lee - baltimore

Easy come, easy go...

While packing, I found a box of stuff from 1999 which brought back memories of a time when virtually everyone thought that we would be able to pave the streets with gold from doing business on the internet. Ha. Pictured: A NetFlix DVD wrapper from October 1999 (1); Printout of my support web site for the "Digital Web Design I" class I was teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art--I wonder what happened to students Leigh Conover, Michael Cooper, Alba Hollister-Ruiz, Jennie Lobato, Peter Martin, John Welker, Carlos Nunez and Deborah Stalford (2); Photoshop User magazine special issue on Photoshop 5.5 (3); Macworld on the [then] new Apple iBook (4).

- mike lee - baltimore

Cianna and I are enjoying this morning's glorious weather one last time on our new deck before I go into overdrive today to finish packing the house. The movers come on Tuesday to take the last of our stuff into storage. We close on this house in Baltimore on 5/30, and take posession of the new house in Wheaton, MD on 6/24.

- mike lee - baltimore

With all the talk here on hiptop Nation about AKB's posts of photos of booth babes at E3 Expo (thousands more here), I thought I would toss in a link to the new and growing Flickr set of my glamour photography. Enjoy...

- mike lee - baltimore

I was involved for a good part of yesterday at work preparing for, and participating in a lunchtime commemoration of Asian Heritage Month supported by our orgaization's Office of Diversity. In addition to the ever expanding social mission, the mandate to honor cultural and racial diversity is another reason why I love where I work. The bottom line isn't about cash profits.

Yesterday's program was called Taste of Asia. Our Chief Diversity Officer (4) along with our president and others (including me) delivered opening remarks. Then came cultural performances, including Burmese Dance, Kung Fu (5) and Indian Classical Raag. Asian foods were served up at 1pm, while the hundreds of guests experienced chinese brush calligraphy, henna tattoo painting demonstrations and more.

My mom and Cianna came along for the show too (7). They toured my offices and met a bunch of staff before going down to our main auditorium. Cianna cried for a second during our president's speech (oops), but then fell asleep in my mom's arms. She was one of two babies who got a lot of attention.

All in all, the day was a satisfying diversion...

- mike lee - washington, dc

Instead of waiting in a long line in Union Station's food court, where even this late at night there were construction crews working on major renovations, we were able to lay claim to great seats in the auditorium 90 minutes early.

At precisely 12:01am, the house lights dimmed to start the typical train of previews. The glimpses of Batman Begins, Fantastic 4 and War of the Worlds looked good. Then finally, after the 20th Century Fox fanfare, the last two hours of the 28-year journey to complete the Star Wars saga began with the familiar 10 words.

Without spoiling anything, I'll say that this episode felt like the most concentrated and textured look into the Star Wars universe. The acting was predictably wooden, with the actors spewing some pretty idiotic dialog. But the climactic light saber duel and parallel plot resolutions over the last 30 minutes kept me at the edge of my seat even though it was 2am by then. After the not-cheerful ending, the credits rolled to a very satisified me.

You must go see for yourself--or wait until the DVD release in November.

- mike lee - washington, dc