I love clocks. In fact, I have a small collection of them. I have several wall clocks, desktop clocks, a mantle clock, and I even have a backwards clock. The one thing I don’t have yet is a grandfather clock.

When we got married and moved into our first house there were two things we wanted for the house. One was a big leather chair and the other was a grandfather clock. We got the chair, but we still don’t have the clock, but that hasn’t stopped my wife from looking.

Every now and then she points me to a site with grandfather clocks and asks me which ones I like. I tell you, when you’re looking at Howard Miller clocks, it’s hard to choose. Of course, I always find several that I like, such as the Howard Miller J.H. Miller Grandfather Clock. Man, I love that clock.

As a woodworker, the craftsmanship on that clock blows me away. The quality of the handcarved rosettes and finials and the Kieninger mechanical movements are testiment to the caliber of clock made by the Howard Miller company. I would love to see that clock standing proudly in my living room.

Did you know that Kieninger and Hermle are the only two remaining high-end mechanical movement manufacturers left in the world? Who would want a non-mechanical grandfather clock anyway? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?

I love looking at 1-800-4clocks.com because they have Grandfather Clocks, Wall Clocks, Mantel Clocks and more. When I hit their site, I get so carried away, it’s almost as if time stands still. That’s a good thing, yes?

So, I was sitting here today, reading my favorite blogs, when I noticed Lisa had upgraded to Wordpress 2.0

Of course, I am not one to be left behind, so tonight, I took the plunge. And everything works! WOOT!

All of my plugins work. They include Akismet, Bad Behavior, Angsuman’s Feed Copyrighter, Counterize, Get Recent Comments, WP-Polls, Simple Tags, Subscribe To Comments, todayAgo, WP Grins, WP-IPAT, and IP 2 Nation.

I have a couple other “plugins and functions” that I wrote specifically for me, that are also running as well.

I cannot stand the WYSIWYG editor, so of course, even though I do not use the built in interface, I am thankful the developers added an option to turn that off. Ya never know when I will have to post using it.

If I ever do have to use it, the new post preview feature is awesome! It let’s you see your post exactly as it will appear on the site. Very nice.

I love the ease in uploading images and the new image browser, but I do not like the fact that the image I uploaded is automatically placed in “wp-content/uploads/2005/12/” folder. When I make a post in September, how am I supposed to remember which month I uploaded the image? Cool image browser or not, that would be a lot of browsing to find an image, when I most likely would already know the name of it.

There are so many changes, I will simply point you to Asymptomatic for a much more detailed list.

After giving this thing the once-over, all I can say is WOW. Great job guys!

Wanna waste some time too?

Some are, some aren’t.

Britney Spears’ mother has had enough with the media trying to paint her daughter as trashy.

Lynne Spears said her daughter has been appearing barefoot a lot because she needs to wear only tennis shoes because of her knee problems and they’re too hot.

I honestly don’t think her feet (or the media) had anything to do with her looking trashy in the picture above. I think she knows exactly what she is doing. You cannot remain popular if you are not in the public’s eye.

Lynne Spears said Britney “is not one that is going to give into the pressures of dressing up every single day in order to impress the paparazzi vultures.”

I honestly don’t think anyone expects her to “dress up everyday”, I think we all just expect her to put SOMETHING on… Anything.

Lynne Spears knows exactly what she is doing. By “creating a controversy” with the paparazzi, it guarantees they will pursue her more diligently.

Two new little moons were spotted around satellite-rich Saturn by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, raising Saturn’s tally of known moons to 33, NASA said on Monday.

The Cassini craft saw the new moons on June 1 from 10 million miles out, as it approached the ringed planet.

The moons are approximately 2 miles and 2.5 miles across, and are located between the orbits of two other Saturnian moons, Mimas and Enceladus, a surprise to scientists who thought such tiny satellites would have been shattered long ago in collisions with comets.

Awesome schtuff.

Eight soldiers flying home from Iraq for two weeks of R&R flew in style instead of coach after first-class passengers offered to swap seats with them.

“The soldiers were very, very happy, and the whole aircraft had a different feeling,” flight attendant Lorrie Gammon told The Dallas Morning News in Thursday’s editions.

But please, do not let yourself believe for a moment that the people here at home love our troops, or that we support them and the reason they are fighting. The anti-war mongrels across our nation could not handle the moral boost. In fact, I think they would all spontaneously combust at the thought.

Tennis has a new superstar. And she’s just 17.

Completing an improbable journey from the far reaches of Siberia to the pinnacle of the sport, Maria Sharapova beat two-time defending champion Serena Williams 6-1, 6-4 Saturday to win Wimbledon for her first Grand Slam title.

She’s the first Russian to win a Wimbledon singles title, the third-youngest women’s champion in history and, at No. 13, the lowest seeded women’s winner since Wimbledon began seeding players in 1927.

Congratulations Maria!

For those who think the world is a bitter place, medical science offers this sweet health tidbit: Chocolate might be good for you.

Not just any chocolate, and always in moderation, said Mary Engler, a professor of physiological nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing. But her new study does find that biting into the right stuff can make arteries expand, increasing blood flow and thus reducing cardiovascular risk.

Milk chocolate won’t do, Engler sressed, because it’s, well, too milky. Look for darker chocolates, because darkness is an indicator of high levels of flavonoids, the chemicals that loosen up the arteries.

And this is one instance where good taste and good health go hand in hand, Engler said.

YUM… I think I will go clean my arteries. Be back soon.