We have a new kitten named Abby whom we love very much but who has turned out to be quite precocious. And she likes to chew things.

I thought this was fine (cute, really) but I noticed today that my headphones were only coming in on one side. Hmm, weird. Hey, what’s this gash in the cord with teeth marks all around it??

Abby!!!!! <Abby makes cute trilling sound>

These headphones are Sony MDR7506s — really nice btw, with a nice long cord. They cost $99, so I really wanted to fix them, not buy a new set just because the cord went bad. I found the service manual online and got the parts number for the cord. I also found the number for the Sony Professional service number. The original part 158079221 would have been $44.95, but it’s no longer available. It forwarded to a new part number 158079213, which costs $82.12. This is a “cord (with plug)”. Isn’t that crazy?

Today is the last day to register for the Linux Plumbers Conf and get the lower rate. I highly recommend you do! I’m very excited about the program we’re going to have. I’d like to thank all the microconf runners and the rest of the program committee for their efforts in soliciting and reviewing talk submissions, and putting the program together. Not only do I think we’re going to have an interesting 2.5 days, I think meeting our goal of actually making progress in a number of these areas is almost a sure bet.

What’s that? It was touch-and-go for a bit there? Yes, but now we can laugh about it!

I’d like to extend special thanks to our web guy Brandon Philips, who has borne the brunt of an overly manual submission and review process resulting in extra work for him. Also a big thanks to James Bottomley for his help in many areas of conf organization, and also the Linux Foundation, who has made it possible to ensure all our speakers are able to attend the conference!