On the home laptop, just after midnight, every night, Mac OS X reminds me that I still haven't downloaded the latest update to my OS, 10.4.7. As if downloading that mere point upgrade were going to change my life or something. Though it's installed at work, I'm just not down with downloading something that may or may not deliver me any benefits, and forcing myself to restart. One of the major reasons to have a Mac and not a PC is to avoid restarts. Unless somebody gives me a good reason to download the darn thing, I may just wait until 10.5 ships to make any changes. Mac OS X is outstanding already.

Listening to ''Ecstasy (Original Airplay Mix)'', by ATB (Play Count: 7)

1. My wife. Before I get things thrown at me, claiming I'm a sentimental sap, it's true. She just happens to be really cute, a fun companion, and smart, too! Though it's not always easy to admit it, every minute of every day, we're both darn lucky we're not single. Anybody who will put up with my other 9 addictions, in no particular order, and still manages to be unique herself, is worth keeping.

2. The Internet. Try and get me to take a vacation that doesn't involve easy access to high-speed Internet... it's not going to happen. I'm on the laptop first and last things each day.

3. My job. At each stop in my career, I've been all-consumed to exceeding expectations. If that sounds like a sorry first line to a resume, so be it. But hardly a minute goes by when I'm not either thinking about a project, or strategizing on where to take the next one. The goal is to make the company bigger and better because I've been part of it, and for them to know I helped.

4. Humor. It sounds generic, but if I'm not actively seeking out witty sarcasm through The Daily Show, The Simpsons, Arli$$, or This Modern World (to name a few), it's me making up the nonsense. I've usually got a crooked grin hiding the fact that something has internally struck me funny, and there's just not a good outlet for it yet. Other times, I let the words go, and so long as it's funny to me, that works well.

5. Competition. Again, generic. But I yearn for it. I hate losing, and I love fighting to come out on top, whether that's in a game of cribbage against my 78-year-old father in law, Trivial Pursuit against my wife, a pickup game of H-O-R-S-E with my colleagues, or in business. Competition stokes the inner fires and pushes me to get better at whatever I want to.

6. Oakland A's baseball. If the game's on, I know the score. Doesn't matter if I'm at the game, in the car, on the road, or at the office. Even if I'm not actively participating in the gameday thread at Athletics Nation, part of my mind is on the game.

7. Techno music. I almost always have some kind of techno beat in my head. Techno and electronic music is why Mozart came and died. This is the end result of all those composers who made names for themselves in history. Techno gives me energy and enjoyment for pretty much any situation.

8. Diet Coke. Now that's traditional, isn't it? In my teens, I simply didn't have enough money required to sponsor my addiction, but by the time I got to college, and into the workforce, I was only too happy to oblige. Good thing I switched away from the full-octane stuff my junior year at UC Berkeley. Otherwise, I'd be even more heavy.

9. E-mail. While you could argue that it's a subset of the Internet, it really has earned its own spot, especially with the advent and adoption of the Blackberry, which brings e-mail with me, no matter where I go. If you ever want to see a businessman fidget, take his Blackberry away. They literally will reach for it, only to see the face fall when their body realizes it's gone.

10. TiVo! Though the summer months don't help me renew my vows with TiVo as often as the rest of the year, this black, rectangular box does my bidding every day, whenever I ask, and it really does wait for me to be ready to spend time with it. It entertains me for hours, and never asks to be taken for a walk (sorry to Molly, our 16-year-old beagle) or reminds me when the mortgage is due.

I'm finding that there is a great deal of blogging about ... blogging. In fact, this self-inspective navel gazing is getting almost as much play as the actual contents that many key bloggers were trying to get around when they put their fingers to laptops around the world - whether they were telling a unique story, or acting as news feeds and commentary for technology, sports, politics or special interests. The Washington Post, after a thorough survey, found that the "typical" blogger was under the age of 30, had a hard time convincing more than friends or family to visit their site, and very few expect to make money from it. That's probably fairly accurate. Like almost any venture, a very small percentage of businesses or sites will make it, while the majority will fail - or become non-profits.

Following Apple's big quarterly announcements yesterday, it's no surprise that a fair number of Apple detractors are trying to find a way to poke holes in the computer/iPod maker's story. Robert Scoble, formerly of Microsoft, and now spinning podcasts at PodTech, says that MP3-capable cellphones are eating into the iPod's market share. Funny thing is, I've never, ever, seen anybody walk around listening to songs on their cell phone, but we can't go a few feet on a crowded sidewalk without seeing white earbuds. Meanwhile, Scoble himself is going to work on podcasts at PodTech, that without the iPod, either wouldn't exist, or would be named something completely different. Amusing.

And do you remember in the late 1990s when two companies would say they had a partnership, even if it were just on paper, and both stocks would jump? And then, do you remember when that all looked a bit silly? Well, Steve Rubel says the "I love you, you love me" releases are coming back, baby!

In case you thought I had missed it, rarely does a tech update go through without discussing Google - the biggest brand out there right now. But if you think about it, and Henry Blodget does on Internet Outsider, less than a decade ago, Google didn't exist, and it wasn't until a few years ago that they figured out how to make money. Somewhere, somebody in a garage is thinking about the next big thing. Or maybe it's taking a medium-sized company just a little bit longer to get there. But Google has accomplished some amazing things in a very short time, and as he writes, that can't be disregarded.

Listening to ''Warung Beach'', by John Digweed (Play Count: 4)

Global warming has graduated from the realm of theory to the level of full-blown, well documented phenomenon. While some in the US media tend to act impartial, straddling the fence on the issue, as if there is still some debate over reality, the heat continues to build, and once again, we see thermometers warning us that we may be beyond the point of no return, especially if people's actions do not change dramatically.

Reuters issued a story this evening that shows the first six months of 2006 were the hottest ever recorded, dating back to 1895. Just this week, the nation experienced 100-plus degree temperatures from California (trust me, we know) to South Dakota and Kansas.

Anybody who hasn't seen An Inconvenient Truth or continues to believe that our actions aren't having serious, potentially irreversible impact on this planet, is fooling themselves. We have got to get more vocal as a society in pushing for change and electing leaders who are willing to take a stand for truth and reason instead of fear and ignorance - or we're toast.

Listening to ''The Love Thieves'', by Depeche Mode (Play Count: 5)