Netflix can be great - if you (ab)use it well. My wife signed up for Netflix about a year and a half ago, and at times, we've enjoyed having three DVDs out at a time, and had the time to enjoy quite a lot of good movies, only to see them replaced with new ones just days after the old films are sent back to company headquarters. Of late, we haven't maximized the service to its true potential - as we've been busy, and during downtime found other ways to be entertained.

Yesterday, we opened one of the trademark red envelopes and saw March of the Penguins, a documentary which chronicles the Emperor Penguins' march across snowy, icy, Antarctica in search of a mate and family-building. The trek is amazing - to see the animals make tremendous sacrifice to extend the population and braving the most harsh conditions on the planet is something to behold. In the US version of the DVD, actor Morgan Freeman narrates and walks us through the journey. I understand the original documentary, in French, has the penguins talking, without the narration, and were I to understand French, that would have been an interesting take as well.

It might not have a 200-million budget, guns blazing, with sex and violence, but it's worth seeing despite all that. Watch it - you might learn something.

It's not that I can't sleep - it's that I don't want to. Sleep is such a waste of time, after all. There's plenty to do, but in theory it's too late to do it. Even worse, I still have to wake up at the same time, whether I go to bed now, or in an hour, so what's the point? Might as well stay up, catch up on things that haven't been getting done, and reduce the sleep element. There's no real good reason to lay stationary and inert for such a significant time anyway - how horribly inefficient!

Speaking of "Insomnia", the very best song ever with the word Insomnia as the title has to be from Faithless.

Download it now on iTunes

Sample lyrics:

Deep in the bosom of the gentle night
Is when I search for the light
Pick up my pen and start to write
I struggle, fight dark forces
In the clear moon light
Without fear... insomnia
I can't get no sleep

The full lyrics here.

Cal wins over Stanford, 65 to 62. Leon Powe scored 32 points, while everybody else scored 33.

A win is a win, but it's always so much better against Stanfurd.

Living in the Silicon Valley, I am surrounded by others who had better timing than me, and managed to make a good bit of money. I pass more BMW's and Mercedes on the freeways and side roads than it seems I do Volkswagens or Chevys. In an environment like this, my green four-door 1998 Mercury Tracer, sporting more than 113,000 miles of history, doesn't really stand out - unless you mean in a bad way. The peer pressure to upgrade my car - even though this one works fine - is enormous. If I don't own a BMW, Lexus, or even a high-end Audi, I might as well not even drive, but should take mass transit and save myself the gas money.

When I bought the Mercury Tracer, I didn't really have any kind of expectation for how long I would keep it. In 1999, I was working as the Web Marketing Manager for 3Cube, and with my boss out on his honeymoon, I had to visit our Web design firm in San Francisco with him away and get us to the next stage. But the Ford Escort I'd been driving between Berkeley and Burlingame for a year-plus wasn't going to make it with me. The engine had cracked, and it had to be refilled with water to and from the office.

That Saturday, I drove it to the Ford dealership and told them they would have the easiest sale ever - I was leaving my Escort there, and would go home with something else. Really didn't matter what. After trying a Ford Contour (too big) and looking at other things, the Mercury Tracer (used, with 28,000 miles on it already) seemed like an okay option. I test-drove it, and it felt remarkably like the Escort. That's really what made me sign off on it - not any kind of research or pushiness from the sales guy. I was an easy sale. Yet the car still works. It's been paid off for who knows how many years, and still gets from one place to another without breaking. The only question is - for how long?