He may be the monster at the end of the book (spoiler!) but Grover was always my favorite Sesame Street Muppet.

Grover is less than secure, self-conscious and frequently injures himself. We'd get along great.

Tacos and fries, what's not to like?

The nearest Del Taco is in Newark, almost thirteen miles away across the Dumbarton bridge. Thirteen miles is not a lot in an urban/suburban setting, but it's out of my comfort range for fast food, plus the bridge toll would make it a pricey trip.

Growing up in Southern California there were Del Taco locations everywhere, and while it's definitely "fast food" it's an order of magnitude better than Taco Bell.

The last time we had Del Taco was in May, at the one across from our hotel in Anaheim.

My new Palm Pre is randomly powering off. There doesn't seem to be a
pattern and I can't actually make it happen on demand, but it's
definitely not an isolated incident. It started a week or so ago and
has increased in frequency to the point of happening four times
yesterday. If you have a Palm Pre, have you seen anything like this?
The symptom is that it will power completely off (not sleeping, where
any button press will wake it up) and require the press-and-hold of
the power button to turn back on. I've actually seen it happen once,
when I was in the Messaging application and suddenly the screen turned
pink and pixelated and then faded out. All the other times I've picked
it up and tried to wake it from sleep, only to find that it's actually
off.

I went to the Palo Alto Sprint store and talked to the Lead Retail
Consultant, who seemed very knowledgeable and competent. He advised me
that some early runs of Pre batteries had problems and, though mine
was not in the production range that had the reported problems,
swapped out my Pre's battery. He also told me to call him if the new
battery didn't solve the problem and he'd replace the device with a
new one; I'm still in the 90-day warranty period and have the Sprint
insurance plan so the replacement would be a free exchange.

Well, the problem continued this morning. I called the Sprint store to
get the ball rolling on the replacement but was told that the Lead
Retail Consultant I talked to yesterday and whose business card I took
will be out until Monday. The person I talked to seemed less sure of
himself, suggesting that I could get a returned/reconditioned
replacement at the store or wait until Monday to talk to the person
I'd spoken with earlier. He did also suggest that I call the Sprint
support line and find out if they'd order me a new replacement device.

Needless to say I was disappointed. I had hoped to simply drop by the
store and swap out my apparently-defective Pre with a new one, but I'm
not willing to take a returned/reconditioned unit, and I really don't
want to go through the whole explanation again with Sprint's phone
support; it was a series of three calls that eventually led to my
calling the Sprint store for some local assistance in the first place.
I suppose this means I will have to wait until next week to replace my
Pre, and I hope the power problem doesn't get any worse over the
weekend.