You wanna know how big a geek I am? This story at Engadget made me drool: Silverstat7 Zigbee-packin’ thermostat to debut this fall for $600?

Some of you who have been reading for a long time over at Eclectic Mind, know I declared war on the kilowatt five years ago and since then have lowered our home electric bills more than 20%.

Lordy, can you imagine how crazy I could go with a thermostat like that?

Okay, so I picked up this battery charger a few days ago: Duracell Value Charger With 4AA Pre Charged Rechargeable Nimh Batteries, CEF14DX4N. Here’s the deal. My housemate and I use these little hand-held radios in the house in place of an intercom. I bought them for us back in 2001 when we were going on a vacation. They work great — and eat batteries like ravening beasts.

She can turn hers off and on, but mine has to “listen” for her signal. I had a set of rechargeable batteries that I gave up on two or three years ago because they didn’t hold up. I knew the technology was developing rapidly and resolved myself to buying cheapie AAs in the meantime. Of course, that’s horrible for someone who tries to live green and it’s expensive. This charger, when weighed against battery purchases, will pay for itself in a month.

So far, I’m reasonably satisfied. The batteries will power the radio all night, but they drain down when she calls me one time. Again, I’m not sure this is a commentary on the batteries so much as the device itself. I’d willingly upgrade to newer models, but I couldn’t be sure my gadget-challenged housemate would be able to make the change. In our situation, it’s better to stick with something she knows how to use.

The answer is going to be buying two more rechargeable AAs. The radio takes three, so three need to be charging at all times. They’re pretty cheap, so I think my goal of saving money will still be met in a month to six weeks. That being said, and depending on the power needs of the device in question, I think this is a good value buy.

Men’s Fashion | Skirting the Issue – T Magazine Blog – NYTimes.com

This morning I was sitting here working, watching The View, when they trotted three of their male staff members out in skirts. Not kilts. Skirts. This is apparently the latest masculine fashion trend.

I’ve been to Scotland three times and I can tell you that I have seen young Scot businessmen on the streets in kilts who transcend “hot.” There’s nothing feminine about a kilt and the more rugged the man wearing it, the sexier it is.

These things? (Click the link, there are photos.) Just look ridicuous, since apparently strange socks and or tights seem to go with the “look.”

Not seeing this catching on down here in Texas. Thank God.

Incorporating a netbook into my daily work habits has proved to be an easy fit. The machine’s limited screen space and multi-tasking abilities make it a more focused venue for writing projects that, um, don’t hold my attention all that much, but that need to be done in the quest for filthy lucre.

The machine is also great for working in bed at night and for some strange reason, my housemate is not offended when I bring it into the kitchen in the evenings while we watch TV. She fairly bristles at the sight of the MacBook.

The other thing that has changed is the sudden importance of a thumb drive in my life. I’ve always kept two or three lying around, usually to house critical back-up files, but now I’m actively using one to use two machines to work on the same files. It’s had me thinking back to the last time in my life when I routinely worked on multiple computers.

The journalism department at SWT when I was a student there relied on TRS-80 Model III computers. I had my own box for 5.25″ disks (a snappy little leather number with a velcro flap). I carried that around and used whatever computer was available in the news room or computer lab. At the time I thought the solution was small and convenient.

Yeah. Right.

I’m looking at a 4 gb thumb drive that’s smaller than a pack of gum. Those 5.25″ disks were circa 1981. In my own human chronology, that doesn’t seem so long ago. In tech terms? We’re talking Paleozoic.

Well, Engadget is still writing about ebook readers at CES and it does look like they’re wading knee deep in the things out there. I’ve been casually keeping up with the different form factors and following the debate over what constitutes a “tablet” over a “slate.” From what I can tell, most of these devices are pretty much for straight reading and potentially some light browsing. At one time I wouldn’t have seen a reason for a machine like that, but I get it now.

Two years into my experience with the first generation Amazon Kindle, I admit I wouldn’t mind being able to browse with it. There is an “experimental” browser, but my phone does a better job. The line is now thoroughly blurred between real world and online content and there needs to be a machine that accesses that in the same way we used to pick up a book as a form of relaxation. I’ll bet half of these don’t survive the year, but it’s a fascinating genre to watch in evolution.

Bold new e-readers grab attention at CES – CNN.com

Okay, wiping the drool off the keyboard now. I love my first-generation Amazon Kindle and use it every day, but look at that thing! I really think display devices of this sort could save the newspaper industry. It’s not the layout and the form factor that are the problems, it’s the waste of paper, the expense, and then having to dispose of the dang things. I’d read a newspaper or a magazine on something like that. No problem.

There’s a lot of technology on display at CES to bring the Internet to the dashboards of our cars. The distracted driving folks are going nuts. (And they have every reason to.) But it’s all had me thinking about my Aunt Elizabeth.

She was the whacky aunt. The one who danced the Charleston and married far too many men. She painted and took speed reading classes. She wore clothes of which my mother did not approve and bleached her hair blond.

And she showed up one year with a television in her car. Now, bear in mind it was huge by today’s standards and the screen was about 2 inches wide. She was driving from Odessa to Central Texas, so the chances that she was actually picking up a signal were lower than nil, but that was Aunt Elizabeth.

I’m guessing this was about 1968 and Aunt Elizabeth was just the kind of woman who, in 1968, would have a largely non-functioning TV set in her car. Of course, I was fascinated.

I’ve owned a couple of hand-held TVs, none of which will now work since the switch from analog signals, but it was fun. I used to prop one up beside my laptop at Starbucks in the days before streaming online video and catch the afternoon talk shows while I worked.

Would I drive a car with a TV or a computer in the dash knowing it was a potential distracted driving hazard . . . uh, yeah, I would . . . and Aunt Elizabeth would totally approve.

I wonder sometimes about picking up a cheap stand-alone word processor like the AlphaSmart Neo. So far today I’ve written six articles and managed to multi-task through answering emails and telephone calls at the same time, pausing long enough to get R. up, make her breakfast, grab a bite of lunch, and clean up some stray cat regurgitation.

But I do wonder if I could work faster if it weren’t so easy to get distracted by all the enticing interestingness in my browser. For instance, Engadget is posting the latest news from CES, and there’s always that black hole that is Facebook.

My first laptop was a Radio Shack Model 100 slate computer that ran forever on AA batteries. In theory it could do other things, but what it really excelled at being was a distraction-free word processor. I still have it, but have never been able to initiate a file transfer with the Mac although others claim to have worked this mojo. I suspect there’s a dead port on the Model 100, which is now at least 25 years old. But, pop some AAs in that baby and on she powers, begging to be used.

It does make me wonder about the productive potential of simplicity.

The rumors, like this one from BusinessWeek abound: Apple Said to Plan Tablet PC Introduction This Month Update2 – BusinessWeek. I really don’t know why I want it to be true so badly. I seriously can’t afford anything. Maybe I just want to revel in the pure geeky wonderfulness of its existence. Le sigh.

And then there’s also the fact that I was one of the 12 people who actually owned an Apple Newton back in the early 1990s and got the vaguest glimpse of what life with a tablet might be like.

But a tablet based on the iPhone and the Touch? We’re talking Star Trek TNG here people. (Excuse me, I just need to wipe the drool off my chin.)

Darren Rowse is, to my eyes, one of the deans of professional blogging. I enjoyed his article “How to Make $30,000 a Year Blogging” because the mode of thinking he describes — breaking down your goal into more manageable chunks — is exactly what I’m trying to do.

I’ve been blogging on the main site for eight years and I’ve never come anywhere close to supporting myself. Darren’s article did prompt me to do the math and figure out that I did make $1275 from blogging last year. Let’s call it roughly $3.50 a day. That’s on the right road, better than a poke in the eye, and worth increasing.