Hello Readers,

It’s been a tough few weeks but I’m getting back into the swing of things so regular posting will continue once again. This is what we have in store for the week:

1. A hilarious tale of karaoke
2. Great pictures from Shaunfest 2010
3. J2′s Mr. Pringles cards

As a start, I’d like to close out the puzzle post from a few months back. Shortly after the puzzle concluded, Kurt sent me his worksheet that he had taken notes on. I love how passionately a few MikeDiDonato.com readers took to the challenge. I think the picture below speaks for itself.

Page 1

Page 2

Ha!

Anyway, thanks to everyone for their patience given the lack of posts.
It’s good to be back.

Yours in Rock,
Mike D.

Longtime reader Ben is looking for some advice from Team D. Ben asks:

How long does a laptop last? How long have you kept your laptop?

Apparently, Mr. Ben has an aging computer and he’s interested in getting a new one – but he’s having a hard time deciding if it’s the best move.

Leave your answers in the comments

In other quick news, I’ll be taking a little more time off from normal mikedidonato.com posting this week. I appreciate your patience.

In the meantime, there will be a Roller Derby recap of Saturday’s bout as well as a highly anticipated review of the KFC double down courtesy of Shaun L. Stay tuned.

Dear Readers,

This week I will be taking a break from posts to settle out some stuff. I apologize for the inconvenience. In my absence, I encourage those of you with accounts to feel free to login and post some content of your own. I will happily post anything e-mailed to me as well: MikeDiDonato AT gmail D0T com

Yours,
Mike D.

For the past few weeks I’ve been working on a massive puzzle project with a few friends. These things are hard core. There are hints in the instructions, complicated multi-meta puzzles, and the requirement for elaborate trivia knowledge.

Well, I decided to make one of my own. And sure enough, with the help of Sarah T and some helpful suggestions by a few others, I have almost completed the first challenging puzzle of MikeDiDonato.com. I’ll be posting it on the website next week.

There will be a prize for the first person to solve the puzzle. Hopefully it will be challenging but not impossible.

Go find your thinking caps. You may need them.

So the previous website layout that we all know and love met its untimely doom in the midst of my wordpress updates. It’s been a few years since I changed the layout around here so I’ll be trying various layout this week and hopefully we’ll find one that can be easily navigated and feels comfortable on the eyes.

I’d love to hear your comments, so if you see a layout that you really like send me an e-mail. You’ll have to e-mail me because at least at this point… comments aren’t working.

UPDATE: Comments appear to be working.

Sigh.

We’ll get there. Thanks for your patience.

I’ve begun preparations for my fast approaching China trip. I’ll be taking a half day at work tomorrow to conclude my work priorities and then flying out of JFK on Friday.

My apologies for the lack of updates in the last day or so, my prep has taken a fair bit of time. Additionally, I’m trying to squeeze in as many extracurricular activities as I can, while I can.

Stay tuned!

Merry Christmas Everybody!!

As a blog writer, I have to take extra care whenever important websites (banking, e-mail, etc) invite me to contribute a security question to reset my password. I’ve written about all facets of my life on this site so first pets and street addresses are anything but secret from the public. If I’m not vigilant than some malefactor could reset one of my passwords without my knowledge and create mayhem galore.

For this reason when given the option to write in my own security question, I dig deeply into the obscure to find truly creative questions. Sometimes, this method fails me miserably.

I present to you exhibit 1.

I set my security question as: “What is your Secure Password?”

Seriously? Why would I do that?

So stupid.