I have the biggest craving right now for a really good spread of cheeses and crackers!

Just thought you all needed to know that. We really need to go grocery shopping.

I keep thinking about how much I want to share food-related stuff online. I saw a show on the Food Network the other day (gah! I'm hooked on that damn channel now!) that had a "kitchen of the future" demo from MIT. Most of it was pretty over the top, but they had implemented an idea nearly identical to one I had that involved using a webcam to capture an image of food inside the fridge. What I'd really like to do though is catalog/barcode scan all food items, both for publishing purposes and recipe searching. I can't think of a method that wouldn't be tedious and unreliable though... there are UPC databases but I haven't exactly been blown away by them. Not to mention that it wouldn't help with fresh foods. And then needing to keep track of how much you have of something, or when it's been used up. Not a trivial endeavour.

Does anyone know of a good free/uber-cheap server monitoring program/service that will SMS when the address is unreachable? Even better, one that will check and notify you if a certain file has not been updated for a period of time?

Anyone want a giant aluminum hamster wheel type thing? Our neighbour moved out and left it behind. The thing is really damn cool and beautifully crafted but it's like 6' in diameter (was apparently part of some art installation). He was turning it into a bar. Try as I might, I can't think of a place for the darned thing here.

I realized I've been pushing my back too hard. It felt like it was almost better, but I still can't lift anything heavy or move quickly... then I realized how sore and fidgety I was getting partway through the day after sitting. So it's back to getting horizontal a couple of times a day. This seems to be helping immensely again. I'm not miserable by the end of the day if I just take it slow and rest every so often.

Stupid back. My impatience and injuries where you need to "take it easy" don't go so well together :P