The Daily Ping

All About Pigeons

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Pidgins can help you instant message.

But don't ever let a pigeon drive a bus.

Dollywood is in Pigeon Forge, TN (where I once stayed, by choice!, overnight based solely on the town's name). It's a pretty gawdawful town of strip mall after strip mall, but we got a suite at a hotel next to a river for $35 a night (in 1997 dollars).

If you have nothing else to do, you can always do The Pigeon:

First Ticket

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0400

In my life I’ve been pulled over a total of four times. I’ve gotten two speeding tickets and one ticket for driving on a park district road that wasn’t really a road; my first ticket, however, is one I will always remember.

I was 16 years old with a fresh driver’s license in my hot little hands. At that time I didn’t have a car so I had to borrow my mom’s car: a mid-80s Dodge Charger whose color we affectionately called “Bohemian Beige.” In reality it was a pale yellow cream color. Oh, and Dodge Chargers back then were 2-door K-car hatchbacks. Yep.

One afternoon in the early fall I wanted to pick up some lunch. I asked for my mom’s permission to drive her car and soon I was on my way. I was driving up East Avenue when I approached a standard 4-way intersection. A cop had pulled up to the opposite stop sign. I was young but not (yet) stupid: I was going the speed limit, making incredibly full stops, and being a model driver. Once I checked all directions I proceeded through the intersection and came up to the speed limit. About two blocks later I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the cop turning around. My heart jumped into my throat.

Within moments he pulled me over. I was terrified. I had only been driving for a few weeks after all, and here’s a cop? What? I kept calm while the officer got out of his car and came up to my window.

“Hello, officer,” I said politely.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” he asked. Even at this point I knew this was one of the dumbest questions I’d ever heard. How could I possibly know?

“No, I don’t know,” I said.

“Well,” he said, “your car has tinted license plate holders. We can’t see through them clearly. Now, that’s illegal.”

I was stunned. Tinted license plate holders? Really? Someone needed to make his quota and chose a vulnerable young driver to make the city a quick profit.

After handing him my license and registration, followed by an agonizingly long wait, I had a ticket for thirty bucks. When I got home that evening I told my parents the story and, naturally, handed over the ticket to my mom.

Another Reason the Newspaper Industry is Screwed

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

A couple of months ago, we started getting copies of our regional/local newspaper. Free. We haven't paid for it, we don't want it, and yet we get it.

I can't help but think this is a desperate move. At least I can recycle the thing.

Your Unreasonable Fear

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0400

We all do stupid things because of some irrational fear that we have. Or, I sure hope we do because I'm going to share one of mine with you and I hope you'll do the same.

Before leaving on a trip of longer than a day, I tend to get paranoid about making sure things the house are turned off. I'll make sure the burners on the stove are off, that the heat is turned off (or turned low enough to only come on if it gets really, really cold), and that the computer is shut down. But the really paranoid part kicks in with the toast. For some reason, I have to unplug the toaster. Apparently, my subconscious thinks that the coffee machine is going to walk over to the toaster while we're gone and turn it on. Maybe the coffee machine will also decide to burn a piece of toast. And you know, that could cause a fire. All because the stupid coffee machine had to have a piece of toast, but it's just a coffee machine, so it doesn't know the proper procedure for making toast!

I am pleased to say, though, that my paranoid has paid off: never has our toaster spontaneously turned itself on and burned the house down while we're on vacation.

Return of an old friend

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I may not agree with Congressman Frank Wolf on pretty much anything, but I can certainly agree with the stock photo females he associates with:

Auto Tune the News

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I can't help it: I think every single edition of Auto Tune the News has been fantastic in some way. I present the latest episode as an example:

TripIt

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I don't travel by plane very frequently, so when I do, I like to try out all the nifty new travel sites with their shiny new options. Last time, it was whatever that site was called before it was rolled into Microsoft's Bing Travel. This time it's TripIt.

What is TripIt, you ask? Imagine a service that you simply forward your confirmation e-mails to (flight, car, hotel). The service then parses the e-mails for all the pertinent details of your trip (times, locations, confirmation numbers, costs) and then lays all the information out in a nice timeline for your trip. Just like that you've got everything you need, all in one place, ready to roll. Plus I think it can do stuff like track your frequent flyer miles, too (not a selling point for me since I've never once had enough miles to cash in for anything more than a free pencil or keyring at the game counter).

Anyone else used TripIt?

Hotel Bidets... with Zach Galifianakis

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I dedicate this SNL sketch to Paul:

Incidentally, wasn't this weekend's SNL the best one in recent memory?

Computers from 1999

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

This morning I was rifling through old documents on my computer - located in the "Old Crap" folder - when I found a mockup for an ad. An old mockup.

Back in the late 90s I worked at a local computer store, Maha Computers. Under new ownership it became The Byte Shop without prior knowledge of the legendary California computer store (opps.) We held our own against a nearby Best Buy and Circuit City, but it was damned hard to compete on price to be honest with you.

One of my ideas back then was to have a subbrand of computers. Under Maha they were called "mcpc" (get it? Maha Computers? MC?) but under The Byte Shop they were just kinda "our PC line." While we excelled in custom-built machines we also wanted to offer pre-selected configurations just to make things easy.

Looking back at the specs now is, as you can imagine, a laugh riot. Ready? Here we go.

Orion: $879
AMD K6-2 333MHz CPU with 3D-Now!
Nobilis NB5AX Motherboard
64MB PC100 SDRAM
Western Digital 4.3GB Hard Drive
Actima 40X CD-ROM Drive
Sony 3.5” Floppy Drive
AOpen 56k PCI Fax/Modem
AOpen FX-3D+ 3D Sound Card
ATI Rage IIC 4MB AGP Video Card
Sun 690 Amplified Speakers
Premier 718 ATX Mid-Tower Case
104-Key Windows 98 Keyboard
IBM PS/2 Two-Button Mouse
Microsoft Windows 98
NobleView 14” SVGA Monitor
Two Year Limited Warranty

Man. 14" monitor. 333MHz. A whopping 4.3GB hard drive and... what's this? A floppy drive! All for 900 bucks.

Now, most of the PCs' specs were just modifications here or there. Some had awesome video cards (4MB of VRAM) and some had increased memory (128MB.) But the top of the line unit was the Atlas for $2509. With that you got:

Intel Pentium III 500MHz CPU w MMX
Asus P2B Motherboard
128MB PC100 SDRAM
Western Digital 10.2GB Hard Drive
Creative Encore 5X DVD-ROM Kit
Sony 3.5” Floppy Drive
AOpen 56k PCI Fax/Modem
Creative SB Live! Value Sound Card
Matrox Millennium 8MB AGP Video
Sound Image Lite Speakers
Premier 718 ATX Mid-Tower Case
104-Key Windows 98 Keyboard
IBM PS/2 Two-Button Mouse
Microsoft Windows 98
NobleView 17” SVGA Monitor
Two Year Limited Warranty

I'm a little scared to think about what that'll buy you today. Upgrades available on all machines included a Zip drive (awww,) a DVD-ROM drive, or NT 4.0. Astounding!

Anyway, it was a fun trip down memory lane but I'm really pleased that computer technology has gotten way better.

Lazy Ping Day

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

You know, I'm late with today's Ping and I have absolutely nothing to write about. So, shall we go with a video of Bob Barker being creepy, courtesy of fourfour?:

Save the Dolphins, but Don't Show a Sign During the Oscars

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

By far one of the weirdest moments of the Oscars, for me, was when the winners for Best Documentary (The Cove) took the time to display a sign telling people to text DOLPHIN to 44144. It was bizarre because, clearly, one of the producers had rolled up this sign and stored it somewhere in his tuxedo.

ABC cut away nearly instantly the moment the sign was shown. Lots of boring audience shots ensued.

Incidentally The Cove looks really interesting. And if you were wondering where you'd seen Fisher Stevens before it was either Early Edition or, more likely, the Super Mario Brothers Movie.

Undercover Boss

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Here is the formula for every episode of Undercover Boss:

1. Boss announces to his board that he's going undercover in the entry-level jobs of his (always his) company. Board looks SHOCKED.

2. Boss works undercover and finds one job he simply cannot do, one job with an employee supporting a family of 13 on minimum wage, one job with an employee with an inspiring attitude despite some physical hardship, and one job with a manager that needs an ass-whipping.

3. Boss "learns a lot" and tells his board that "a lot of things have to change."

4. Things change, at least for the people featured on the show.

5. Boss and company end up looking very good.

Buying Eyeglasses Online: Go for It

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Friends, I'm nearsighted. (I blame it fully on years of squinting at computer monitors.) Thus I've had to wear glasses and contact lenses for quite some time. I switched to contacts back in high school and while I still have glasses, they're mostly for nights and whenever my eyes are tired.

The pair of glasses I had were outdated, old, and pretty crappy to be honest with you. I got them for a song at America's Best, one of the few eyeglass chains not owned by Luxottica. (Seriously - they own so so much.) But again, I needed new ones to match my slightly updated prescription.

My wife had had a positive experience ordering online although her first pair didn't quite pan out. She still got a nice pair of frames for super cheap after I had told her about Glassy Eyes and Matt Haughey's experience. I decided to go for it too.

After I had my annual eye exam I asked my doctor for a written eyeglass prescription as well as my pupil distance, or PD. As Matt says once you have those two items you're ready... mostly. It's also good to measure your existing pair of lenses very very carefully, as I discovered. Once I did that I shopped around and found a nice pair at EyeBuyDirect. I placed my order using my FSA and within a week and a half, I had new glasses.

Unfortunately they were way too big for my face. I thus got to experience EyeBuyDirect's customer service which was fine, but not stellar. I was able to return the glasses with no problem but I was out the shipping costs round-trip. It ended up costing $10.

While I had planned to exchange my eyeglasses at EyeBuyDirect I found another pair I liked more at 39DollarGlasses. Sure enough my pair was, uh, $31... because I had a coupon. Ordering was easy here too and in under a week I had glasses.

The end result is very good! The glasses fit well and I really like the way they look. They came with a good quality hardshell case, cleaning cloth, and mini repair kit. I only have two small quibbles. First, the frames are painted plastic and I can see very small imperfections around the lens. Not enough to notice from even a reasonable distance luckily. And second, the right lens doesn't fit as snugly as the left lens. Much like the paint it's such a slight thing that it's not even noticeable; I could easily take it to a optometrist to get it tweaked but since these are limited-use glasses, I likely won't. If these were $50 or $100 glasses I'd be peeved but, really, I can let it go at this price.

All in all I'm quite happy with my purchase. I remember back in the olden days that I couldn't imagine buying, say, shoes online but now I do... so why not eyeglasses?

Pizza Pieces

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

When enjoying a non-deep dish pizza, I enjoy seeing my pizza cut up into squares instead of triangles. Squares are a nice size: easily portable and still super tasty.

But there's one dilemma: those darn center pieces. You know the ones - the ones without any crust at all. It seems that whenever we have a pizza, we get stuck with a bunch of the middle pieces. They're good and all but, really, the edge crust is important. (I wonder if the inventor of the no-middle-squares brownie pan could get a pizza sheet going?)

What's your favorite piece? And if it's the middle, be prepared to defend it.

Roger Ebert Tries Micropayments

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Roger Ebert, a national treasure who recently got his voice back thanks to technology is rolling out The Ebert Club. For $4.95 per year you get a number of members-only benefits for his site and, of course, get to pay the guy for the work he's done. Here's the signup page.

Ebert also wrote up a blog entry on the whole idea of micropayments.

I remember with what glee Gene Siskel and I once pondered [Nicolas] Negroponte's book [Being Digital], with its speculation on whether users would pay two cents to read two of our reviews. Negroponte actually used us as an example. Gene and I pounded on the office calculator: 250 reviews, times two cents, times 10,000 users, or 50,000 users, or three million users...wow! If three million people paid two cents for our reviews, there'd be $15 million for us to split! But, hey, even if 5,000 users paid two cents for half our reviews, we'd gross $12,500. Nice.

I think anyone who has run a hobby website has had similar calculations run through their heads. It becomes, "If I want to make a little money on this, how much would people pay? A dime? A quarter?"

Ebert's price point is a good one, I think. His timing couldn't be better what with his impressive media exposure and widely-recognized writing quality. It's a good experiment and to be honest with you, I hope it works.

Britney Spears, News Anchor

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

A dream I had the other night:

I was in New York, walking around as I am wont to do. I walk past a news reporter talking into a camera and notice that it's Britney Spears. Apparently, she's now a CNN correspondent. She's soliciting passersby for their comment on a random question. Given my good luck in situatons like these, I stepped up.

Her question, "Why do you think it's so windy out?"

My response, "I blame President Bush."

Millennials Quiz

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

This morning I took the Pew Research Center's Millennials Quiz, which basically tells you if you're an old fart or not. I scored a 28/100, which places me at the tail end of the Baby Boomers, about ten years before I was actually born. Apparently, I'm an old soul. Or something.

What's kind of neat about the quiz (BTW, it's short, only 14 questions and takes just a minute or two) is that after you take it, you can modify any answer and see how it changes your score. What surprised me was that when I changed my answer for "In the past 24 hours, did you watch more than an hour of television programming, or not?" from Yes to No, my score went up, meaning that millennials are watching less television than adults (presumably spending that time looking at different sorts of screens). Also surprising was that when I changed my answer to "How important is a having a powerful, high-paying career?" to "Not at all," my score dropped and when changing it to "Very" it increased my score. I would not have expected a high-paying career to be more important to the younger generation. I've gotten the impression that while gadgets, etc. are still important to them, that being happy was overall more important than being rich. I guess not.

Let us know what you score and how closely it matches your actual age.

3D

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

So, I finally saw Avatar today. And, yes, yes, I saw it in 3D. And, yes, it was pretty cool and 3D is improving, no doubt. But I have just three thoughts to share about 3D in movies:

1. Not every damn movie that comes out needs to be in 3D. The fact there are enough 3D movies coming out to take up the entire set of previews shows there are already too many 3D movies. Most of them the third part in a series (gee, thanks, Friday the 13th, Part III!).

2. Most movies in 3D may look good, but will suffer in other ways. Even in Avatar with a director as talented as James Cameron, there were some really awful performances and sections of the script seemed to exist solely to show off 3D crap.

3. The best parts of Avatar weren't the scenes where sharp knives or bullets are coming right at the viewers, but the parts where the 3D is so subtle, it's barely noticeable. This is where it really enhances the moviegoing experience. The whole stuff-coming-at-you thing is neat the first time, but the 50th time, it's like, "Yeah. We get it."

Browser Check

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

A quick Ping for a Friday afternoon: which browser are you using?

I've got Safari 4.0.4 for the time being. Just had a nice stint with Google Chrome, but it's not quite my favorite.

Help Find Boner!

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

The title is a joke, but the topic is serious: Andrew Koenig is missing. You'll naturally remember him as Richard "Boner" Stabone from Growing Pains.

"Andrew has recently been despondent and his family and friends are concerned for his well-being," a police statement said.

The Koenigs are reaching out for public help, but their son's disappearance is too painful for them to appear on camera to talk about it, Walter Koenig said.

"I tried it once, and it was just too difficult," he said.

I also never put two and two together to notice that Andrew is the son of Walter Koenig, Star Trek's Pavel Chekov. In any case we at the Ping hope for good news from this young man soon.

The HydroRight Dual Flush Toilet Converter

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Friends, I've gotta tell you that I've been less than impressed with one aspect of my homeowning experience thus far: plumbing. While our house isn't terribly old (only about 40) the plumbing has had sporadic issues since we moved in, some major and some minor. One minor problem that always bugged me was our toilet - namely, the flapper.

Our flapper started leaking last year. As a bonus the handle broke a bit so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and replace them both. Since then it's been nothing but trouble. While the flapper did fit the valve fine, it just didn't work as well as that old flapper. I adjusted the chain countless times, had to reset it often, and just thought the whole system was flawed. I mean, am I really still just pulling a chain to flush a toilet in 2010? Really?

Nevertheless, this week I finally had it and set out to get a new flapper. But then I started wondering if there were alternatives. My trusty sidekick Amazon told me that there were. While I had initially settled on a more sophisticated flapper system I then discovered the MJSI HydroRight Dual Flush Converter. It was about five bucks more than the other flapper system I was looking at - twenty bucks.

This really intrigued me. First, it did away with the stupid flapper. Good! Second, no handle. Great! And third, a dual flush mode so that small, ahem, loads would use significantly less water than full ones. Perfect! I read the Amazon reviews - noting that the bad ones were really bad but were still in the minority (ie, the GOP) - and decided to go for it.

I did the install yesterday. They aren't kidding when they say it takes 10 minutes, but for me it was 15 due to operator error. Didn't need any tools, either. I popped that sucker in and only had to adjust the light flush amount a bit in order to get it going. But that was that - super simple. And now I'm just that much closer to realizing my dream of having a perfect toilet.

So far so good... and anything that uses less water is a plus in my book. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take my weekly 12-hour shower.

Steam Cleaner Haiku

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Steam cleaner, cleaner
of carpets, of gross pet stains,
Oversized, but loved.

Olympic Madness Rerevisited

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

We've talked Olympics™® before. Have you been bitten by the Olympic bug this year?

I admit that due to my limited television choices in my current situation I've been watching more Olympic events than usual. I watched figure skating with The Wife, and found mogul skiing and snowboarding to be oddly fascinating. Shawn White is really good. Who knew?

I can't say I'm into the games but I have a little more appreciation for them this year. And the wipeouts are fun to watch.

The Eric Clapton T-Mobile My Touch Ad

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

All I can say is, I'm really really glad that the AV Club also thought it was horrible.

Do watch!

Lazy Revolvers

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Every day I have the pleasure of using revolving doors. While they can often lead to hilarious results more often than not it's just a way to get from one side of a place to another.

However.

Yesterday I was entering a revolving door on one side and a woman entered the other side. She made it in first. And instead of moving forward and pushing the door, she appeared to just grab the handle and wait for me to do the revolving. This, of course, gave me little incentive to move forward with force so I too gave it a weak push. In the end I was in the revolving door for over an hour and missed 8 meetings.

I exaggerate a little.

It's entirely possible that this person physically could not push the door, I give you that. But my first inclination was to label her as a lazy revolver - a freeloader who just wants to have someone else do something for her. Worse, nothing she did indicated otherwise.

Let's hope this isn't a trend.

Signs You've Been Out of Town for a While

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

1. You come home to a DVR with just one hour of free space.

While we were away for the past few weeks, our DVR had decided to record a whole mess of Colbert Reports (16 in fact,) along with a number of other shows we don't particularly need anymore. Will I really watch three episodes of Jeopardy! now? Probably not.

But I tell you, it's nice to come home to our DVR after suffering through the hotel's lousy channel selection. And stretching out SD as HD, one of my pet peeves.

Moondog Spot: Super Awesome Great

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I wanted to take a moment and highlight one of my favorite wrestlers of the 1980s. And it's not Junkyard Dog (what can I say? I loved jobbers).

Giant Painting of Famous People

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

This giant painting of famous people is really awesome but made even awesomer by the fact you can click on the individuals' faces and go to their Wikipedia page.

Customized text-to-speech and Roger Ebert

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

You've probably seen the pointers to the Esquire article about Roger Ebert. If you haven't read it, you really must.

I just wanted to pull one part out of all of this that I found particularly interesting. Ebert, as you know, hasn't been able to speak for several years. Among his many communication tools is a text-to-speech engine. What I didn't realize is that there are companies that can customize the voice in a text-to-speech application for people who have recorded enough of their speech before, say, an accident or surgery. Fortunately, Ebert was certainly a well-recorded individual, so soon he'll be able to speak using something resembling his own voice:

Ebert is waiting for a Scottish company called CereProc to give him some of his former voice back. He found it on the Internet, where he spends a lot of his time. CereProc tailors text-to-speech software for voiceless customers so that they don't all have to sound like Stephen Hawking. They have catalog voices — Heather, Katherine, Sarah, and Sue — with regional Scottish accents, but they will also custom-build software for clients who had the foresight to record their voices at length before they lost them. Ebert spent all those years on TV, and he also recorded four or five DVD commentaries in crystal-clear digital audio. The average English-speaking person will use about two thousand different words over the course of a given day. CereProc is mining Ebert's TV tapes and DVD commentaries for those words, and the words it cannot find, it will piece together syllable by syllable. When CereProc finishes its work, Roger Ebert won't sound exactly like Roger Ebert again, but he will sound more like him than Alex does. There might be moments, when he calls for Chaz from another room or tells her that he loves her and says goodnight — he's a night owl; she prefers mornings — when they both might be able to close their eyes and pretend that everything is as it was.

Pretty amazing, really. And for purely selfish reasons, I would kind of like to hear Ebert's voice reciting a movie review again.

Ebooks and Libraries

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

So like a lot of you, perhaps, I'm intrigued about the way ebooks are shaking out. Amazon, Apple, Sony, and other vendors are on one hand making it more convenient than ever to read books. On the other hand they're resetting our expectations on the medium itself... and that's a little scary.

Consider this: libraries offer thousands and thousands of books, newspapers, magazines, and other things for free. Right now. The barrier to entry is very low - there's next to no technology involved, but you have to be able to get to and from a library branch in your town or city. You'll need a library card too. But that's about it.

Ebooks change that whole dynamic by eliminating the idea of free books and attaching varying degrees of cost (and thus, social status) to books. You want a book? You can get it now, but it'll cost you ten bucks or thereabouts. Oh, and you need a reading device, be it an iPhone, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, or a computer. And you need an internet connection. And you'll probably need a credit card.

As my wife mentioned all of this to me, particularly her concern about the future of libraries, I admit that my interest in ebooks shifted a bit. I wonder how libraries can compete with this.

To tip or not to tip

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

There's one grocery store that I shop at occasionally where the employees insist on helping you to your car with your bags. They'll even load them into your car from your cart unless you specifically ask them not to. It's really helpful and the kids (because they almost aways are kids... compared to me, at least) are very friendly. Yet, I've always felt a little strange. I haven't tipped them in the past because I had convinced myself that since they insisted on helping, that they were probably told not to accept tips. It would be kind of pushy to insist on helping and then expect a tip, right? Today, though, I decided to try tipping just to see what would happen. Especially since one of the guys was carrying a 45 pound bag of dog food.

I'm happy to report they refused the tip (not with a "no thank you" but a "we're not allowed to accept tips"), so I can let that slightly nagging guilt be assuaged. And now I can happily accept their help, knowing that it's what they're being paid to do.

Valentine's Day Haiku VIII

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

This Valentine's Day
the baby is number one.
And boy, can he poop!

Now Approaching: Black Hole

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I've gotta say, one of the cooler nerdy things I've seen recently is this black hole simulation. Have you ever wondered what it would be like approaching a black hole? Now you can find out, you know, without dying and stuff! "Using todays high performance graphics hardware, we have developed a Qt application which enables the user to interactively explore the stellar sky in the vicinity of a Schwarzschild black hole. For that, we determine what an observer, who can either move quasistatically around the black hole or follow a timelike radial geodesic, would actually see." I've always wanted to move quasistatically!

If you don't want to download the application to follow a timelike radial geodesic, there are some movies you can view that will provide you with the experience.

(via Kottke)

The Pep Boys Got Me

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I don't mean it in a good way. Really, is there any good way?

I was listening to a stream of a Chicago radio station yesterday - one with the most annoying DJ - and the host came on and gave a station ID. The stream then cut to a pretty jangly rock song which sounded vaguely familiar. Then I started hearing part of the chorus: "When the light comes on... just come in..." and I started freaking out a bit. Where have I heard that before? Wait... the Pep Boys commercials? That short jingle? I didn't hear the next couple of lines but kept the song on.

The song - well over a minute at this point - continued. I started to think that the song from the short Pep Boys commercials was now an actual song from a 70s or 90s rock band. This was a long, flowing song. But then the lyrics came back to the commercial's core lines: "Pep Boys has everything for less!" At that point I realized that, yes, I had been gotten. The Pep Boys were playing a two-and-a-half-minute commercial disguised as a song on this station.

And now you can hear this song too. MUST... BUY... MOTOR OIL....

Heinz Dip & Squeeze

nospam@example.com (Paul) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Friends, have you been waiting for a new innovation in ketchup? Something bigger than, say, making it green?

Heinz has heard your pleas - and has ignored them! Instead they've designed a new replacement for ketchup packets. It appears to be a small tray of ketchup which narrows at the top to emulate a real packet. And just like that, your ketchup problems? No more. Apparently it's a big deal, and executives from Heinz have cited the packet as a very big deal. I mean, I had no idea I could put ketchup on things other than burgers and fries!

I'm seriously interested in checking this out. But like a commenter at the National Post I'm concerned about the environmental impact too. I'm going to guess that these things don't biodegrade in any way and probably aren't recycleable plastic. Which means instead of seeing ketchup packets everywhere, we'll see dip & squeeze trays everywhere. Hooray?

(On a side note, I am glad to see Heinz roll out a version of its ketchup without high fructose corn syrup. That's nice!)

The Pain of Upgrading

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I made the decision recently to upgrade our XP machine at home to Windows 7, also upgrading the memory and primary hard drive while I was at it. Little did I know what a headache it would be.

First, I had to figure out which version of Windows 7 to buy (Starter? Home Premium? Professional? Ultimate? 32-bit? 64-bit?). Then I needed to find out if I could buy an upgrade disc (I could, but would have to do a clean install). THEN I needed to find a way to install Windows 7 upgrade on a fresh hard drive and not one with an existing XP installation. Lord.

I upgraded my memory from 1 gig to 4 gig, but then realized I had to change a setting in the bios so that the motherboard would see all of the memory.

The hard drive's been the biggest pain, though. Turns out I bought a drive that can only be used in SATA-II configuration, despite the fact the manual says otherwise. And I only found this out after several hours of trying to figure out why my motherboard was telling me that "The BIOS does be not installed." My motherboard only supports SATA I. So I ordered a SATA PCI (but NOT PCI Express!) card. BUT I ORDERED THE WRONG CARD. I'd misread something and simply ordered a SATA I PCI card. Freaking irritating.

After all this and all the time I've spent, I'm still sitting here where I was a week ago. The upgrade hasn't happened and now won't happen for a few more weeks.

I should have just bought a brand new machine.

Where's my Youtube?

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

It's 2010 and TV offered by all the regular suspects (Fios, cable, satellite) is pretty much the same as it was a few years ago, except maybe with a few more stations. What I want to know is: where's my Youtube? If I can buy a TV that offers Youtube and Netflix streaming, why aren't cable, etc. providers offering it?

It's like they're trying to turn people away.

Pajama Jeans

nospam@example.com (Ryan) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Some glorious days, Pings write themselves. Like today. Where all I need to do is point you towards Pajama Jeans, show you this video, and point out that the way she says "pajama" makes this all the funnier.