eBay has a PowerBook 5300 that’s been moved to a neat little Lego case that he built himself. There’s other articles about it here, one hosted by the PB in question here, and another over at theBBC.
I’ve got one of these units at home, and a ton of Lego – perhaps I’ll do the same thing!
The Smoking Gun has a copy of the police report, and the King County Journal has a bit more of the story.
The long and short of it is that the owner had it locked up, but someone snagged it anyway. They don’t have the key, so it won’t work at all, and they can’t sell it for parts since all the parts have serial numbers – so whoever stole it didn’t do any research, apparently.
When you go to a restaurant, what are you there for? Food. So you expect it to come out of the kitchen hot and tasty.
What you probably don’t expect, unless you’re ordering fajitas, is a plate so hot that touching it will fuse your skin to the plate. When I eat, occasionally I have to move the plate – either to get at something on the table, or maybe to re-situate things before I dig in. This is much harder to do when you’re hand is stuck to the plate, or you’re afraid it will so you don’t want to touch it.
Along the same lines, then, I have to wonder why these same restaurants insist on serving my childrens meals on the same piping hot plates. If one of the kids touches the plate, there’s going to be screaming and quite possibly a lawsuit – I don’t care what their reasoning is – the plate is too hot.
And let’s just think about it for a second, shall we? How often do you think a full-grown adult orders a plate of grilled cheese from the kids menu? Or a plate of hot dogs and macaroni-and-cheese? I’m thinking not too often. It’s not like the kids plates are even the same size as the adult plates – they’re usually smaller, and quite possibly of a different material that’s less likely to break when dropped. But they stick those in the plate heater just as readily as the ones for my appetizer, my main course and my dessert. Yes, the one with ice cream on it. Whatever.
We do they do this? Is it to cook the food just a little more while bringing it to the table? Is it to make the food tasty just a little longer? No-one has been able to explain it to me, but I certainly would appreciate it if someone could.
The main reason that they keep the plates hot is to prevent the food from chilling too much due to the (often excessive) air conditioning in restaurants.
But I agree with your gripe about kid plates: they shouldn’t be kept at infernal temperatures. I think that a talk with the restaurant’s manager (and a letter to corporate HQ, if it’s a chain/franchise) is in order.
ThinkGeek :: R/C Hovercraft
I always wanted a Tyco R/C hovercraft, but they stopped making them. Here’s my chance to own one again – or maybe someone wants to buy it for me…. 
:jen: signed us up for a free trial of the Connecticut Post. We’ve been getting it for a few days, and have decided that it’s not that great, and it doesn’t add value to our lives – we already get the New Haven Register, and that’s plenty, considering we don’t even read all of it all the time.
Yesterday I tried to call up and cancel the subscription – only to be on hold for about 10 minutes before hanging up in frustration.
Today I called up and finally got someone, only to find that instead of a trial subscription, it was apparently entered as a weekly subscription. That’s right, it was a free trial that we were paying for – what fun!
On top of all that, about 2 weeks after Jen told them to start the trial, we weren’t receiving it – and since we thought it was free, it wasn’t a big deal. Then we got a call from the Post again, offering a free trial – when I told them that I had already signed up for one and that it hadn’t started yet, the woman I was talking to simply hung up on me.
I have a feeling this is why I was going to be charged for the paper…
Anyway, this is consistent with the Post’s behavior of the past. Many phone calls for a paper we don’t want. Repeated calls offering a free trial, even though we had just cancelled our subscription. And abuse when you actually talk to them, whether they’ve called you or you’ve called them. And if you ask for a supervisor…. you get hung up on.
penny are discussing.
penny 08:08 on 2003/05/21 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Now why didn’t you think of it first….?
Lee 00:57 on 2003/05/22 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Oh, a silly case to go with the silly interface, all those icons and little bubbles that cause cavities just from looking at ‘em … and don’t legos come apart? Or do you have to glue them together?
adam 09:36 on 2003/05/22 Permalink | Log in to Reply
If you were building Babar for, say, the YNHH Children’s Hospital, you’d glue them together. But for this, you could leave it the way they are – they’re pretty sturdy and hold together well.
I like the idea of having extra pieces there, so when you have to reboot, or you’re bored, or stuck for an idea, you could build something on top of the computer, or expand on something you have there – it’d be kinda neat.