8/3     A week into my trip to Oregon and having a fairly good time, but
        tonight is my first night in Portland. What a shithole. I don't
        feel safe here in downtown. It's like Berkeley, but without the
        crowds of people to make you feel safe. There are meth addicts
        everywhere and the news was full of reports of stabbings and a
        homicide just tonight. Can anyone familiar with Portland tell me
        what areas are safe to be in or which to avoid? I went to Powell's
        tonight and while the immediate few blocks were okay, walking
        there from my downtown hotel was scary.
        \_ it's a good heroin town, Portland
        \_ This is from a friend of mine:
           the pearl isn't bad - there's some stuff around 10th and couch
           by the brewery blocks that's open late and can be entertaining.
           it can get a bit marina on the weekends, but it's fun.
           23rd st around glisan's usually hopping, too.  it's not far from
           downtown.  it's sort-of more cow hollow/fillmore-ish.
           in core downtown there's a cool bar downtown called 'departure'.
           it's right on pioneer square on top of macy's, on top of this
           cool hotel called 'the nines'.  it looks like a cross between the
           concorde and 10-forward. there's also clyde commons, the
           restaraunt/bar in the ace hotel on 10th and stark.
           if he's in for a trip to the east side of the river the doug
           fir is a great music venue with an awesome bar.  and hawthorne
           st from 23rd and up is also pretty fun.
        \_ 15 years ago it was nice, there was a park we'd all eat at for
           dinner during nice weather. public one, just people hanging out
           and eating supper together as the sun was going down.

8/3     The 9-yr-old PS2 is selling better than the PS3.
        link:www.yahoo.com/s/1109604
        \_ no duh! PS3 is over-priced for the average consumer. While PS2 was
           like the affordable Wii it is today, the PS3 is for hardcore
           gamers who are much older (hence want more hardcore stuff).
        \_ my 9 yr old IBM thinkpad is better than the new lenovos.

8/3     VMWare + Windows XP + Validation question. I need to test stuff with
        Service Pack 3 installed. I have a valid key that I own (yeah yeah I
        actually *bought* a copy, please don't flame me for supporting evil
        M$). Is it possible to register the key once, and then duplicate it
        for testing purposes?  Will Windows or Microsoft detect copies and
        disable the rest the copies?
        \_ don't put them online on the same LAN at the same time and you'll
           be fine.
           \_ Is there any way to get around this?
              \_ Use the "host-only" option in the Ethernet setting for your
                 VMs.  -- !PP
                 \_ Actually when I did the physical-to-virtual disk
                    transition, it asked me to validate the OS again. F***!
                    Forget it, I guess I need to buy multiple copies of WinXP
                    \_ use the cracked copy on torrent
                       \_ well the problem is I need service pack 2 and
                          all the ones out there are SP1 and when I need
                          to get SP2 it needs validation. By the way I only
                          need it for QA purpose, I don't plan to use it
                          for reals hence the VM. On the other hand, M$
                          wants you to pay regardless...
                          \_ you can *download* sp2 the installer exe by
                             validating *a* copy of windows, rather than
                             getting it through windows update