One thing I love about these new headphones: They block out all the ambient sounds. Someone calling? Who knows?

Got a nice new pair of Creative EP-610 earbuds. Nothing fancy, but nice. Nice, that is, until I moved.

I rolled my chair on the (carpeted) floor and ZAP! — static shocks from the earbuds into my ears. Sizzle sizzle ZAP!

File under double-plus-ungood. (Although the sound is very nice, especially for $25 ’buds.)

My Creative earbuds are trying to kill me!

Switched back to a single monitor. Y’know, it’s a lot simpler this way.

Waiting for the Zyrtec to hit.

This Has Been a Very Long Day

Gosh, we didn’t have this when I was a kid. (NSFW)

The other day, I wrote about a bad experience I had with Newegg.com. Essentially, I was annoyed that I had to pay a restocking fee on a defective item.

I got a note from one Alex at Newegg. He apologized and told me that no, there’s no restocking fee on defective items. However, because the ordering system will add the fee automatically, you need to contact the company to have it waived. (I did point out that this bit of info isn’t on the site, and that there was a 17-minute wait to chat with a customer-service rep.)

Alex waived the fee, and he said he’d speak to the Web folks about making this info clear. (And yeah, I’m gonna keep an eye on that.)

What really impressed me, though, is that Newegg has people watching the Web and Q-list bloggers like me (my PageRank is only 5), and took the time to reply to me. So I’ll give the company another shot. I’ll see if the Web site changes, and I’ll see if I get all my money back or if 15 percent is taken out. For the moment, though, Newegg gets the benefit of the doubt.

What I mean is, the magazine fired let go downsized right sized fired a slew of its long-term columnists, notably Steve Bass, Steve Manes, and Dan Tynan. Why? One can assume it’s that the idea of having loyal, long-term writers with a significant following who helped make the magazine great… well, they’re not needed anymore.

Circuit City did this when it fired it’s knowledgeable, experienced employees in favor of the fly-by-night sales staff. (So, CC, how’d that work out for ya?)

Anyway, the good news is that I heard from Steve Bass, and — like all smart and driven folks, he’s moved on to the next thing — taking his brain (and his column) to a new place.

That new place is TechBite, where you’ll be able to read his column and — well, who knows what else.

But here’s how I see it: You can get buying guides and how-tos just about anywhere. A Google search will find you 50,000 ways to do anything you want. What makes a magazine worth reading is its personality and its features. When you let folks like Bass &tc. go, you lose those things and become just another review site.

So go visit Steve.