One of the features that I love about Windows 7 are the many desktop themes that are freely available. If you haven’t found them yet, Microsoft offers a Windows 7 Personalization Gallery that offers many free ones for download. Windows 95 and later offered theme packs for purchase, but if you were cheap like me, you had to look online to find free ones of varying quality.

Example free desktop -- Arches National Park, Utah

I recently read that when Windows 7 is initially installed, default themes are installed based on the time zone you select. For example, when you in the US install it from somewhere between the Eastern through the Pacific timezones, you automatically get the US theme. However, there are Indian, Korean, Taiwanese, South Africa themes and more free as well.

As a matter of fact, Computerworld recently published an article that Microsoft has opened up the development of desktop themes to advertisers. I don’t blame them, and think it’s a great idea. Consumers want high quality themes of their favorite products/movies/shows/etc, and corporations can provide that to them.

Check the link I provided to the gallery, open one that you like, and enjoy. I think the wallpapers themselves are absolutely gorgeous.

On my dayoff, I watched Hancock, the 2008 anti-superhero movie that came out in summer 2008.  Starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Jason Bateman, it came out to mixed reviews.  It’s about Will Smith playing this drunk anti-hero with superpowers, and Jason Bateman as the PR man who tries to resuscitate Hancock’s image.

I’m not big on the anti-hero, as I like my heros….. well, to be heros, super or not.  It wasn’t a bad movie at all, and fairly entertaining. I’m not quite sure why it received negative reviews.  It was definitely nice to see a black superhero.  When’s the last time we saw one of those?  Jon Stewart as Green Lantern?  Luke Cage as Power Man aka the Hero for Hire?

Hancock (2008)

Sounds hot, don’t it?  “Dirty Secrets“?  No, it’s just that while everyone is hot-to-trot about those Black Friday sales, it’s all just a lot of hoopla.  Personally, I’ve never ran to the store in the middle of the night to get a bargain (if that’s what you want to call it), and I never will. Sounds like a plain old scam to me.

Here’s a Black Friday reality check: Of the hordes of pre-dawn shoppers who line up for hours outside stores on the day after Thanksgiving, most will not bag the best bargains that appear in merchants’ circulars.

Look at the fine print that appears next to an advertised “doorbuster deal” at the bottom of the page in this year’s circulars.

It will either say “While supplies last,” “Minimum 2 per store,” “No rainchecks” or “All items are available in limited quantities.”