When I payed for my dinner at Rubio's this evening, I got three brand new shiny one dollar coins as change. I'm a big fan of the one and two dollar coins, because it seems like every single foreign country I've ever visited has them and they seem, for some reason, to be easier to use. The U.S. Mint keeps making new and different dollar coins every few years, but they seem to give up in frustration when the dollar coins aren't embraced. I'm not sure who hasn't yet figured out that if you want people to use the dollar COINS you need to stop making the dollar BILLS.

This nerdy looking 17-year-old is George Hotz of Glen Rock, NJ - the wonder boy who became the first to unlock the iPhone making it possible to be used by service providers other than AT&T. Currently, T-Mobile is the only other major carrier in the US that is compatible with the phone's cellular technology, called GSM. However, smaller companies use the technology, and it is the primary technology for mobile phones in Asia and Europe. Hotz used a soldering iron to modify the inside of the phone, along with some software hacks. He posted the hack on his blog today, and a second phone which he unlocked was put up for sale on eBay. I can only assume all the bids are bogus at this point, since the price when I checked it was at nearly a billion dollars. The young Hotz spent about 500 hours and most of his summer vacation working to unlock the phone.

Hey! I just noticed that there's now an "Add Video" option on Blogger. I'll have to find something to upload to see how that works.

The song of the day is "Purple Rain" by prince off the 1984 soundtrack album from his movie of the same name. I must admit, I've never been a huge Prince fan, but have really enjoyed some of his music, including this song. I can also say I've never seen this movie all the way through. I doubt it's worth it, but some of you may think differently. At any rate, a great song, from a great soundtrack.