I Don't Know If I Want It THAT Much...

There is currently running on eBay an auction for a Sony ECM-51 telescoping microphone. While they've labeled it a "Bob Barker" microphone (Barker used one, but didn't extend it that far), I know it as a "Gene Rayburn" microphone. I've seen some places that say Rayburn actually invented and patented this microphone. Anyway, I put a bid on it, but I've been outbid. It's currently sitting at more than $200.

I'd like to have one of these microphones. Besides being able to recreate the show that much better, that is a very handy microphone, well suited for reaching across desks to contestants and panelists. But I'm not sure I want to spend more than $300 (including shipping), which is what I expect I'd have to do, to pick up this microphone.

A Surplus of Hard Drives

I've put in a request to Dell technical support to see if they'll replace the hard drive that failed while I was in Oregon. That was the largest of my hard drives, at 80 GB. The second-largest (60 GB) was in the backup computer on which I'm running now. Besides those, I actually have two 40 GB drives left over from older, retired machines. I've put one of those 40 GB boxes into one of the computers and am runing a CHKDSK on it to make sure it's okay, and then I'm going to do the same thing to the other 40 GB drive later or tomorrow if possible. (It's possible the other 40 GB drive was never formatted, though.)

My two Inspiron 600m laptops are identical, other than the older of the two is slightly more worn. (The backup machine wasn't used that often.) I might move the working 60 GB drive from the backup machine into the "main" machine and redo the profiles, espeically if Dell won't replace the defective drive (I think it's still under extended warranty, but I'm not certain).