DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

It was a day of many errands…

I stopped by the CRC to donate a box of old computer parts for resale and recycling. This batch included a PowerPC 6100 that used to be my answering machine, a CD-ROM burner, a SyQuest drive that used to be my monitor stand (my collection of cartridges went to GreenDisk last year), and a DSL modem that I’d tried to sell on Craig’s List for six months until I finally accepted that the cost of selling it was far higher than the cost of giving it away. Fare you well, tools of my past. You may consume someone else’s garage space now.

Next, I went to Office Depot. I had an old 20'' Apple monitor that had the blues, by which I mean the screen would intermittently turn blue, as if some of the pins on the input cable were not making contact. Normally I would drop this at the CRC, but the CRC cannot guarantee that old monitors don’t end up in landfills in China, whereas HP’s recycling program does.

I was pleasantly surprised to see people taking advantage of the HP/Office Depot computer-recycling promotion… I followed two women with one full computer system apiece into the store. “Oh, you’re back!” said the clerk to the women, and then with a smile, “See you tomorrow!” Office Depot will take only one device per person per day, so if you have an entire office backroom to unload, bring a friend, and visit often. (But remember, it’s only free through Labor Day.)

Finally I went to the Household Toxics Roundup. I didn’t have much to dump this time… some broken CF bulbs, some old paint, and a few assorted bottles of evil chemicals that came with the new house (lurking in dark corners of the garage, where they spawn fresh new unidentifiable chemical offspring over time). Again, I was happy to see the community taking advantage of the service, bringing in old car batteries, hundreds of partial gallons of paint, pesticides, motor oil, lubricants, degreasers, miscellaneous other DNA-kinking nasties.

Then, to reward myself for spending two hours making sure the toxic remnants of my modern American lifestyle don’t further poison the local environment, I went shopping for a plasma television. I figure this is part of the recycling circuit… if I offload a bunch of old plastics and electronic gear, I need to buy some new ones, right? Or else the junk might build up somewhere. That can’t be a good thing.

Thanks to HP and Office Depot, you can unload your junk computers, monitors, televisions, etc., without worrying that they’ll end up poisoning generations of children in rural China:

Free hardware recycling at Office Depot

Note: it’s only free through Labor Day! HP usually charges $20 - $40 for recycling electronics, per item.

Qualifying Products:

• PCs, Mice, Keyboards
• Handhelds/PDAs
• Monitors
• Flat Panel Displays
• Laser & Inkjet Printers
• Scanners
• All-in-Ones
• Digital Cameras
• Fax Machines
• Desktop Copiers
• Cell Phones
• TVs (27'' and smaller only, no consoles)
• TV/VCR combos 27'' and smaller

More terms and conditions are listed at the Office Depot site (link above).

Read more about e-waste.

WordCount™ is an artistic experiment in the way we use language. It presents the 86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonality. Each word is scaled to reflect its frequency relative to the words that precede and follow it, giving a visual barometer of relevance. The larger the word, the more we use it. The smaller the word, the more uncommon it is.

Besides being an “artistic experiment,” Wordcount is an intriguing interactive word-popularity research tool, guaranteed to shave seconds off your attention to the mundane matters of the day. (intriguing: rank 10104; attention: rank 715; mundane: rank 12164)

Hmm, it’s also very likely to crash your browser if you type in too many words. Fortunately you’d be smart enough to not be composing something like a blog entry in another browser window at the time, because that would force you to rewrite the thing twice. (idiot: rank 9547)

[Thanks to Bim for the link.]

Sylvetta is the “new” arugula.

I guess I waited too long to hang the yellowjacket traps this year… in two days I’ve caught about a whole season’s worth.