There were a lot of changes here at robbecker.com in 2006. Most apparent was the complete redesign of the site, pretty much from the ground up. Behind the scenes I also moved the site to a new host server and transfered all of my domains to GoDaddy.com.

Of course, all these things cost money, and because so, in 2006 I also joined the Amazon.com Associate program. I added up all the numbers today, and thanks to your support, my earnings from Amazon.com covered 25% of my site expenses for 2006!

So, in the immortal words of those Bartles and James guys, thank you for your support!

This just confirms what you kind of knew already: NYCers pay the highest taxes of any large-city dwellers in the US.

We all thought that East Germany ceased to exist with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but — whoops! — we missed a spot.

Consequently, this is the first place I would look for Ice Nine.

I had a snow day today, my first in who knows how many years.

The great thing about a snow day is that it sneaks up on you. You wake up one morning and are handed a free day to play with, without the opportunity beforehand to plan something “useful” to do with the time. It’s like a sick day without the sick part to keep you down. Like winning the lotto, except your prize is hours instead of dollars.

I couldn’t help myself.

I had told myself that I wasn’t going to try to fix my computer, that I didn’t need it or the headache that would certainly ensue, that I would just let it be until I had time to futz with it.

But last weekend I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t just look at my beautiful PC sitting there like an expensive paperweight and do nothing. So I partitioned, I formated, I installed, I updated and I got it running.

Running,yes. Running well, not so much. It was buggy as heck. Booting up took a little too long, shutting down took way too long. I was getting blue screens and odd errors (but nothing that took down the whole system like last time). Oddest of all, I couldn’t drag and drop in Windows (WTF?!). I was holding my breath every time I used it, but the little guy kept chugging along … for three days.

Today my computer died again. I am now the not-so proud owner of one very expensive new paperweight.

Photos from the 2nd Annual Hunter Mountain Ski Trip are here!

Last week when Microsoft released Windows Vista, I jokingly wondered if copies of Windows XP around the world would mysteriously start crashing. Tonight,tired after a long day of work and school, I turned on my computer and was greeted with the blue screen of death. Windows completely crashed. Done. Dead. Finito.

I’m reinstalling XP on my desktop right now (I’m online with my laptop). Only 31 minutes left to go. Some thoughts about the XP installation while I wait…

… when I started the recovery process, Windows told me to insert my system recovery disk into my floppy drive. That Windows can’t tell that my computer doesn’t have a floppy drive really makes me shake my head.

… Your computer will be faster and more reliable, so says the Windows Installer. This is just making me resentment you all that much more, Windows.

… The Windows Installer goes on and on about the wonders of Windows XP while windows installs. They really should design this software to detect when Windows has just crapped out and instead of extolling the virtues of Windows, just have it apologize over and over.

Well, I’ve installed a fresh copy of Windows alongside my corrupted installation and I’ve backed up all my important data. Mission accomplished for now. Maybe sometime when I have a free weekend to kill I’ll wipe my hard drive clean and re-stage my computer. Because I so often have a weekend with nothing better to do than sit around trying to get my computer to work.

I hate you Windows.