When I first saw your price on the syllabus,
I couldn’t believe it was serious

“The TI BA II + Professional is required for Finance”
And it costs more than a meal in France!

I thought “$70 dollars for a stupid calculator?”
I would soon eat my words for being a hater

Our first couple outings left me less then impressed
I got the wrong answers no matter what buttons I pressed

(I know that last rhyme is pretty lame
but those words are not technically the same)

After a few classes,  I began feeling more comfortable with you…
And against all odds – we formed a friendship, pure and true

Suddenly mortgage schedules were simply a joke
And PV/FV? Just a single key stroke

We tore through annuities and destroyed cash flows
We became more than friends – we became bros

As our relationship progressed you noticed Excel
A being of 100% pure awesomeness and well…

It’s not really fair to compare the two of you
One is rubber, the other glue

After a lot of arguments and misty digital eyes
I think we’ve worked to a fair compromise

The most difficult stuff goes into a spreadsheet
I’m sorry buddy, but those formulas are totally sweet

But as for other calculators -  don’t worry your pretty little head
Your are my calc 4 life – if I stray let the Lord strike me dead!

raytek3, originally uploaded by nate_marsh.

I won this little fellow, the Raytek MiniTemp MT by entering some contest (I am pretty sure it was not the grand prize). It’s an mini infrared thermometer!

What does it do? Well, it’s for measuring the heat of things that you might not want to touch, and it works at nearly any surface I’ve pointed it at. It has a little lens that focuses the, uh blackbody radiation and converts it into temps! Sortof dull?

Well, the geniuses at Raytek Labs knew they needed to add a bit more pep to this device and mounted a sweet LASER for “aiming purposes” onto the unit. This, combined with a 10′ range, makes it awesome for just about everything.

It is actually pretty useful – how hot is a normal cup of coffee? How’s 133F sound, I just tested that! Wonder how cold it is outside? How cold is the bathroom floor? How hot is the radiator? Amazing!

More glimpses of this wonder:

His Last Moments…, by nate_marsh.

$2.50 to wash & dry
How much does it cost to cry?

Oh N75 – you were not always clean
but I hope you know I did not mean
To launder you without a care
Amongst my shirts, pants & underwear

You certainly made me easy to reach
Sadly, you could not survive Tide with Bleach
You let me check my gMail 24/7
How many bars can you get in heaven?

I made a mistake, I left you to die
You’re texting with the angels now, finally dry…

;(

Translated from French by N.Marsh

I bought two gadgets recently that I love & use everyday. That’s why I am sharing them with you, which is basically me when I read this later.

1. 
   iRiver Clix 2gb
   This is a fantastic little mp3 player. I guess I am a bit of an iRiver fanboy – I really enjoy their design and UI – this is the 4 iRiver mp3 player I’ve purchased. I am a big fan of the look of this player, a simple small rectangle with no visible buttons on the surface. In fact, each side is a button, so you navigate by pressing the sides of the surface. The UI itself is simple and quick. I really enjoy its ability to display album art with mp3s. I rarely buy albums anymore, so it is great to see the cd covers with the music. I am trying to encode all my mp3z with album art from iTune through the geeky process described here. The clix gets bonus points for it’s ability to display photos and movies, both look great. One downer is that it only supports Windows Media Player or MediaMonkey. Also, you have to plug it into a computer to recharge unless you buy their special charging cable.
2. 
   Samsung SyncMaster 205BWThis precious baby I purchased a month ago. I decided to get rid of the mammoth 22″ Dell CRT monitor I had and to purchase a nice LCD widescreen monitor. This monitor was one of the cheaper models of this scale. I never used a widescreen monitor before, so I was pleasantly suprised to discover how much real estate it gives, it’s native resolution is 1680×1050 – very nice.
   The biggest bummer I experienced with the monitor was that one blue pixel was stuck. With a white or complex background, it is impossible to see, but if the area is black, a bright blue pixel sticks out. I thought that was a dead pixel and just sucked it up, one out of 1,764,000 is not bad but it irked me from time to time. Today, I discovered through my readings that it was actually a stuck pixel, and a simple free java program called JScreenFix could, by rapidly alternating the pixel colors. Sounds like snake oil, but after letting it run for 30 seconds, my pixek is cured! Praise the Lord!!!