Ahh, the personal satisfaction of finally being able to say: I’m caught up reading the RSS feeds. Don’t all of us covering dozens or hundreds of sources daily enjoy this feeling? Or how about when your email box is overflowing and you get caught up with that? Or returning a stack of phone messages (or Skype messages)? So what’s the first thing I’m going to do now that I’m caught up?

Go on vacation again.

This time however it’s only for the weekend and with the whole family. I mentioned earlier this week that I was only semi back from vacation as it was a two-parter this year instead of a long continuous vacation like last year. In the meantime below are the remaining things that made me go hmm out of the 7,000+ posts I filtered through. I hope you find some of them hmm-worthy.

Oh, and Hmmcast #19 will be back next Friday and cover everything from July 29 - August 18, 2006. Maybe by then we’ll be ready for the new features I’ve been hinting at …

Regular blogging here will not resume until mid next week as some serious personal events are happening early next week. I will write more about those details when we get back, but for now, how about some snakes on a plane?

- Have a computer with Samuel Jackson’s voice send someone you know a voice message to go see Snakes on a Plane August 18. Only one more week.
- This week in Consumer Electronics reports that the somewhat mysterious Zune portable device will cost $299, come with WiFi and be available in three colors. Microsoft has not confirmed.
- Limited offer: free Evernote or RitePen software by submitting a handwriting sample. Tablet PC readers might want to tap into this deal.
- Frets on Fire is a freeware game similar to Guitar Heroes for PC [thanks Download Squad]
- Yahoo and MSN suggestive selling their search when ‘google’ query is ran
- reminder link: create photo stories to music with Photo Story 3 (Windows). I used this to create a story out of all our vacation photos taken along with some music.
- A favorable, enthusiastic review of diigo by slacker manager has me interested in this bookmarks service. The bookmarking field is crowded but I installed the Firefox toolbar and have been using it this week.
- Wanna be the William Shatner DVD club fan spokesperson? Just enter this 90 second video contest and maybe you can go where no spokesperson has gone before.
- Will arcade bowling replace the real deal? Never say never.
- stream media including podcasts to the PSP and Xbox 360 with TVersity
- IE 7 will not be called IE7+. I just peeked at recent visitors here with Firefox and the numbers are actually down to 25% since the last time I checked in April 2006 when it was over 40%.
- Get your Sesame Street book for the number 5. AOL is slashing 5,000 jobs, about one quarter of its global workforce and meanwhile is offering 5 GB of free online storage. I think the job security watch for Jason Calacanis at AOL just dropped a couple months. Think I’m already on record for giving Calacanis a max of 18-24 months. I’ll be surprised if he is still with AOL in 2008. I haven’t visited the new Netscape in a couple weeks nor am I seeing links from others to Netscaped stories. Not a good sign. He better hope the top talent he bought changes this trend.
- and don’t forget AOL is now free for broadband users. If you are a paying AOL broadband member and need help on how to switch to the free plan Lori at Blogcritics has the details. In September AOL will offer most of their member-area access for free.
- physical CD sales are at the lowest point since 1994
- Feedpass tries to auction its entire site, database and code on eBay and draws $4,050 max bid. Reserve not met.

• “…More nudity, more snakes and more death scenes.”
• Review: no wimpy Snakes on a Plane
• All aboard Snakes on a Train
• Microsoft Photo Story 3 for Windows
• Hmm quickies #38
• Bad Commercial