art supplies

Yeah, I just made my first purchase from an art supply store. Why? Because I needed to.

The one thing that did really bother me though was how crappy those web sites are. Poor product descriptions, poor layouts, and a most buggy purchase flow I've seen in years. Really, it got so bad that in Firefox it thought that the continue button was the same as the button that toggled between US address entry and International address entry. For whatever reason I actually switched to IE, redid my shopping cart, and then checked out. Bleh...

And no, I'm not going to art school. Going to business school.

which brings me to my next point

If people are so pissed off about the price of oil (which is a commodity that is priced the same regardless of which station you buy from), think about this outrage:

Today, millions of consumers are buying food at artificially high prices. How high? About 70% more than they should be paying. You would think that people would be outraged at this anal rapage of sorts. But no, they're actually wearing broad smiles when they are being ripped a new one. Chances are, you're one of them.

So where's your Bonus Card when your grocery store charges over $3 for a gallon of skim milk when it's sold at Sam's Club every day for $1.75? And what's the advantage of the Giant Eagle Advantage card when you have to buy apples at $1.69 a pound when they're sold at the discount store at the other side of the strip mall for $0.99 a pound? If these stores can "save" you $30 each time you make a grocery run, imagine how much you'd save if you were buying your chicken breast at $2.59 a pound instead of a ridiculous $4.59 a pound?

Yes, you should be outraged. But unlike the stupid gasoline thing, there really is a solution. With the gas thing, you buy gas at some other station for the same price. You save nothing. Here, you can buy your groceries elsewhere and save money each time, while simultaneously pressure grocers into more consumer-friendly pricing schemes. Sure, it may not work, but you can at least know that you're not the one paying the extra 70% for your groceries.

Did I ever mention that I hate Giant Eagle? Yes, I do. But at the same time I'm not exactly impressed with any of the other grocery stores around here either.

do you seriously believe this will work

If it wasn't for the last pathetic attempt (not buying gas for a day), this would the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. It is kind of funny to see how desperately creative people can be. Definitely more interesting that the "don't buy gas for a day... that'll show them!" thing that was attempted previously, but flawed nonetheless. It's like saying that we don't like how cars are expensive so we'll stop buying Toyotas because they sell the most vehicles. Toyota may lower prices, but the other companies can artificially inflate prices to take advantage of this new "market force" of blatant retardation.

Ultimately it comes to this. As consumers, if we find it expensive, we'll find ways of using less of it so that we can save money. From a corporate standpoint, why not keep jacking up the price if people are dumb enough to keep buying? Right now, gas is still cheap enough for most people to tolerate, which is why people keep buying fuel inefficient cars and keep buying gas.

Besides, we're not the only consumers of gasoline (trucks, fleets, etc.), and gasoline is not the only product that's dependent on oil.

This might be worth a try and it certainly won't hurt to test out this
theory:
GAS WAR - an idea that WILL work

This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola
executive It came from one of his engineer buddies
who retired from Halliburton. It's worth your
consideration.

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit
close to $ 4.00 a gallon by next summer and it might
go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We
need to take some intelligent, united action.

Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes
MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain
day" campaign that was going around last April or May!
The oil companies just laughed at that because they
knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by
refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience
to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever
thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can
really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at
about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently
$2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the
oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us
to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at
$1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to
teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace..not
sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each
day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we
are going to see the price of gas come down is if we
hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their
gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.
How?

Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop
buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if
we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T
purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies
(which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not
selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their
prices. If they reduce their prices, the other
companies will have to follow suit. But to have an
impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon
and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now,
don't wimp out on me at this point...keep reading and
I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of
people!!

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us
send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and
those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 =
3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches
the sixth group of people, we will have reached over
THREE MILLION consumers.

If those three million get excited and pass this on to
ten friends each, then 30 million people will have
been contacted! If it goes one level further, you
guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people.
That's all!
(If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million
and all you have to do is send this to 10 people....
Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician.
But I am . so trust me on this one.)
How long would all that take? If each of us sends
this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of
receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be
contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you
didn't think you and I had that much potential, did
you! Acting together we can make a difference.

minoriteam is terrible

Need I explain? Not funny, stupid plots (if I can even call them plots), bad voice acting, and it looks like it's a comic book on TV -- as in hardly any animation outside of panning still frames. Please kill this show.

Samurai Champloo, on the other hand, is awesome. Good story, great animation, and great visuals.

i dreamt i was with someone else

I'm sorry, but I dreamt that I was with someone else... while grocery shopping. Or more precisely, that I was grocery shopping with someone else. It's ok though! I didn't really buy anything! I just got like three things!

Yeah. This is silly, but I guess this is what happens when I go to sleep after grocery shopping and I also talk with certain people about produce and groceries on a surprisingly regular basis.

Anyway, it's not like I made a booty call or something. That's a totally different incident and I politely turned it down.

Unlike this crappy Netgear router, I generally behave myself. Generally...

boo silverstar

You know those Sylvania Silverstar headlight commercials? Yeah, the one where there are two incredibly stupid bicyclists riding in the middle of the road in complete darkness without any of the standard reflectors? Yep. I'm not sure if "regular" people pay attention to such ads, but my dad and I as DIY auto mechanics certainly remember the product. Well, during the past two weeks, both my dad and I needed new headlamps. Here's our story.

My dad needed headlamps first, and I was lucky enough to get them from the store for him. I was actually there to get something for myself (I think?), but before leaving I forgot to ask exactly which ones he wanted. I called him up from the store and asked him which type he wanted. There were basically three choices, the standard halogens, some extra bright halogens, and the Silverstars. Prices were $8 or so for a standard halogen, $11 for a long life halogen, and $24 for the Silverstars. Knowing that he wanted something the provided more light, I told him the Silverstars would be brighter, but would cost more. As I predicted, he went with the Silverstars. We put them in and he's happy with them.

But here's what we didn't know... My headlamp just burned out. And as a guy who hates bright headlights, I wasn't particularly interested in the Silverstars. However, I did come across a great deal on the Cool Blue headlights (also by Sylvania). Instead of being $15 a bulb, they were a ridiculously cheap $5.50 a bulb - even cheaper than a standard halogen. But should I get this bulb? I didn't want one that was insanely bright. So I decided to do some research. I went to Sylvania's site to check out their products. I remembered seeing such a chart at Murray's (our auto parts store), so I expect to find *something* online, and I did.

Looking at the comparison chart, I saw that the life of most of their higher end bulbs were inferior to that of the standard halogens. But by how much? If the Cool Blue's were half the price of a standard halogen, they's still be worth it if they only had half the life. So I dug further.

On the standard halogen lamp's web page, it proudly stated that the bulbs have a durability rating of 1000 to 1500. Cool. However, that piece of information was missing from the pages for all the other lamps. Fine. After a bit more digging, I was able to find what I wanted. And here's what I found:

• Standard Halogen - 1000
• Long Life Halogen - 1500
• Cool Blue - 200
  
• XtraVision - 850
  
• Silverstar - 150

Basically, the Cool Blue's last only 20% as long as the standard halogens. No go. What was even more disturbing was that the Silverstars, which Sylvania is so heavily promoting (and which also cost a fortune), last only 10% as long as a long life bulb. What the hell. After taking bulb life into account, here's the cost of each per year (based on the life of my recently deceased standard halogen which lasted 4 years and 3 weeks - yes, I kept track):

• Standard Halogen - $1.97/year
  
• Long Life Halogen - $1.81/year (8.4% cheaper)
  
• Cool Blue - $6.76/year (3.4 times as expensive)
  
• XtraVision - $3.62/year (1.77 times as expensive)
  
• Silverstar - $39.41 (almost exactly 20x as expensive!)
  

So basically, the Silverstar is a ripoff. If you want a bright headlamp, go with the XtraVision. It has the letter X in it, so it's inherently better, plus it would cost only one tenth as much. Is it really worth that much more? I doubt it.

alternate identity

I've been hiding it all these years, but I'll now expose my true identity. I am not Paul Ip. I am....

Alan Jones

OK. Seriously. I'm not Alan Jones, but apparently that what they *thought* my name was when I ordered this part at Murray's. I love Murray's, and I'll still shop there again, but this just doesn't make any sense.

So here's the story. I called into Murray's on Monday to check the price they had for a part. They had the lowest price by a few dollars, so I ordered the part by giving my credit card number to the guy. The part usually gets in overnight, but I didn't drop by till tonight (Thursday night).

When I got in the store, I went to the bin to see if the part that I ordered was there. It wasn't. It wouldn't have been there anyway, since that isn't where they put those parts (probably a good thing), but either way, I couldn't find what I was looking for. So I ask the guy working there, RJ.

After helping a couple of people that got there before I did, RJ went to the back of the store to look for it. He couldn't find it. It didn't make sense to either of us. He then checked the logs of parts that have been ordered. He couldn't find me. After asking what the part was, he did find the same part ordered for Alan Jones. It wasn't clear if it was for the same car though. Probably just coincedence.

I then mentioned that perhaps I ordered it at another store by mistake, and RJ went to check to see if there were any parts being held for me at all the Murray's stores in Ohio. Again, nothing. Disappointed, I asked him if he could just order me another part. He advised me against that since if I gave my credit card number, chances are it was charged, and I wouldn't want to be charged twice. I left empty handed.

Getting home, I checked my credit card statement. Sure enough, my card was charged for the part. Not only that, but it was charged to the store that I had just visited. Great. What the heck is going on... I call them up.

I talk to another fellow on the phone. I ask him to double check to see if my part is in. I did explain the prior difficulty, so he goes straight to the logs. "Are you Alan Jones?" he asks. Of course not, I reply. The funny thing is, Alan Jones also has a 1993 Honda Accord, just like mine. I volunteer the last 4 digits of my credit card number. Bingo! That bastard used my credit card!

It would have been simple if that was all. But he wanted to see if the other info matched up. Daytime phone number? I forget what he said it was, but it sure wasn't my phone number. I think the credit card, part, order date, and car were enough to convince him though. He told me that he wrote my name on the order so I should be able to come and pick it up the next time I drop in. At this time I ask if the part will be in the bin at the door, or if it would be behind the desk. He replies by telling me that these parts are always held behind the desk so that they are given to the right person. But what if Alan Jones comes in? "There is no Alan Jones," he replies. I'm not totally convinced. But if Alan Jones comes in and takes my rear left brake caliper bracket, I'm going to be a little pissed.

site of the day

Ever wonder how the big water treatment plant at the top of Fairhill (er... Stokes Blvd.) was built?

Answer: With horses and steam shovels. Heck yeah!

Specifications

random link of the day

You know, everyone does it...

branding,part deux

Samson brand hair care products. Why? Because what's more important to Samson than his beautiful hair?

Of course, I'm not the first person to think of this.

...

I can't take this anymore. This movie with Sandra Bullock and Emilio Estevez is terrible.

Spy Game is crap too. No one would be so foolish to mess with China. Plus it's an "encore," meaning I just saw it once already.

fun with insurance

To date... still haven't gotten the bill for the followup exam.

Cost after insurance: $436.58
Cost before insurance: $4060.00 ($935 for anesthesia... who needs that?)
Savings to date: $3623.42

Total cost of insurance: $782.34/year before tax... or about $460/year after tax. Deal?

news from iraq

At least for me, the most interesting, non-biased source of news from Iraq is from the Digital Journalist.

Example:
http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0603/dis_calaf.html

car payment

I am saddened to report that I will need to make my first car payment of the year. I have *yet another* bad anti-lock brake sensor, a fouled oxygen sensor, and also a busted exhaust.

ABS Sensor:
It appears that these just die on my car. This is the third one that needs to be replaced. Granted, it's the rear one that is very easy to replace. Total cost of the repair: $111.92. Total savings from doing it myself: ~$200-$300 (extra $45 parts, plus an hour of labor).

Oxygen Sensor:
I replaced this recently, but it died because of a design flaw. Bosch makes the replacement parts come with a wire that's about 3" too long. What happens is that the wire is so long it bends up towards the oil filter. Consequently, some oil got on it the last time I did an oil change, likely damaging the sensor. I considered buying an authentic Honda part this time, but I couldn't bear paying the extra $100 for the part. Total cost of the repair: about $60. Total savings from doing it myself: ~$260-$360 (extra $160 parts, plus an hour of labor).

Exhaust:
This was replaced 2 years ago by the shady folks at Midas by Golden Gate. Not only do they coerce me to do extra work, but then they didn't connect the exhaust right, denied it, then eventually fixed it because they saw that they really did manage to screw it up. Now the pipe towards the rear has completely broken, with a 2" gap between main line and the muffler's pipe. The break is on the muffler side, which makes me wonder if this is covered under warranty...

yay!

Yay! I have been authorized to borrow up to $40,611 for next year! Oh wait... borrow, not free money. Well, here's to being debt free!

And did I ever mention that I didn't like the recent changes to the federal student aid programs?

interesting conversations

Excerpt from what I heard on the way up the elevator just now... (and when I say excerpt, I mean everything that was said).

Players:
Girl 1 -- Late teens, early twenties female, dyed blonde hair. Presumably the elder sister of girl 2
Girl 2 -- 10 year old gir. Brown hair. Wearing a shirt that read "Blondes have more fun."

Girl 1 leans against the side of the elevator, with hand to her mouth. In her hand is her mobile phone.

Girl 2: Why are you always biting your cell phone?
Girl 1: (Annoyed) I'm not biting it.
Girl 2: Then why do you always have it in your mouth?
(Pause...)
Girl 1: Because I'm in love with it.

random

You know how in ads they often have beautiful photos of random places? I was dorking around Canon's site and wanted to take a look at a night shot from the camera to see how it compares to the ones I've taken with the same camera. Oh right, the photo.

While look at this photo, my first reaction was that my night photo came out just as well, of not better. With a 30s exposure, I found that the stars move quite a bit (ok... enough to be noticeable on this kick-ass camera). Sure, most of my night shots sucked. But thankfully I was mindful enough to take a number of shots at varying ISO speeds and shutter timings. My best shot was at 30s too, but at 100 ISO so that you can tell what's stars vs. what's graininess in the photo. This shot was taken on Mt. Fuji in the middle of the night. It was incredible how many stars there were (though not as many as in the southern hemisphere).

But back to the point... I was taking a close look at the photo on Canon's site, and I realized that it looked vaguely familiar. No, not because I looked at the photo earlier in the year when I was deciding if I should buy the camera. What caught my attention was the odd windows on the church. I've seen those somewhere before. On The Church of the Good Shepherd at Lake Tekapo in New Zealand to be precise. I looked up the church, and yep, it was the same one in the Canon photo. Heh... and I remember thinking the first time I saw the photo how it must be some random place in Scotland or something. Little did I know...

You may be wondering if I have my own photo of the church. I don't. I *do* have a photo looking towards the lake from the rear of the church. d=

radioactive fun!

Recently my mom decided to pass on to me some of her photography equipment that she has when she was a student. Included in it was a Staticmaster brush. It came in a oversized clear plastic case, but more importantly, it has a caution label proudly declaring the following:

caution Radiation from polonimum is dangerous if the solid material is ingested or inhaled. Do not touch strip under grid. Keep away from children. See instructions. Guar. until:
SEP 74 B
MODEL NO. 1C 200
NULCEAR PRODUCTS CO
EL MONTE, CALIFORNIA

Nice. Needless to say, I was a bit curious as to how radioactive the thing was. After a quick google search, I found that the element Polonium has a half life of 138 days. Since it's been about 33 years since the manufacture of this brush, that calculates to about 87 half lives.

Remaining Polonium? How about 6.46 x 10^-27 percent of the original amount. For those not familiar with scientific notation, that would be:

0.00000000000000000000000000646%

Does that make the brush worthless? Absolutely not. It's still a nice camel hair brush, useful for cleaning all sorts of stuff (like my fancy screen). Does the radioactivity help? Maybe. But also consider that this product was first created in the glory days of radioactivity... similar to how today is the glory days of trans-fat, carbs, the letter X (Xtreme!!), and the letter i (iPod, iTunes, iRobot???). Want an example? How about some sweet radioactive spark plugs? Sure, deionizing air in the combustion chamber may help a spark travel through the air/fuel mixture, but probably not. And just ignore the fact that the Polonium would be 75% gone in less than a year after production (not installation). Isn't marketing fun?

mmm.... beer....

Came across this randomly. I would totally rent a car from this company (not)...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/90642970@N00/110454074/

surprise!

Apparently Yale has some pretty insane athletic facilities. What's up with having a pool on the 3rd floor of a building? Or a totally enormous weight room? Sure, I can continue to question why, but to be honest, I have no issues with it... unlike the major issues I had with CMU's total lack of greenspace.

And thanks for littering the overused intramural fields with rocks. As if the fact that we only has a field the size of a baseball diamond for the entire university wasn't bad enough...

CMU

I just filled out a loooong survey for CMU where I got to express some of my discontent with the school. Yes, I know I'm in the minority, but I was also in CS. Isn't that enough of a reason?

I guess to sum it up, my beef is that once you're in CS, it's like a trap. You can't get out. You think you can, and you see ways to do it, but there are surprises at every corner to hold you back and put you in your place.

Yes, I met a ton of cool people at CMU, but you know what? I didn't really get a chance to meet many of you till Junior and Senior year. And yes, I still feel cheated. Cheated that the way the curriculum is structured I got to hang out with the same dull CS crowd 80% of the time. It wasn't till senior year when I was taking almost all HCI classes (as my CS electives), that I actually met some cool people in class (who coincidentally weren't CS major. funny, eh?).

Then there's the fact that even with those HCI classes, it seemed like the school was more interested in cranking out hard core CS students and less interested in crafting the curriculum around the students. Yes, I am a computer science major. Yes, I can program like a star if I wanted to. But guess what? I signed up for HCI so that I could learn more about the design and pyschology aspects of creating computing solutions. I didn't sign up so that I could be thrown into some bullshit class to learn how to make my own Java classes. I learned how to do that in my CS classes. And if I wanted to learn how to program some more, then I guess I would have taken another straight CS class. Let me take the prototyping class if I want to dammit. (they did change this policy, but only after I had to take the class) Oh, and not only was the class "teaching" us to use Java, but it also seemed ridiculous what we were doing. Creating a UI set using an existing UI library. Brilliant!

OK. I'm done. Perhaps when I get my other degree I can stop venting. And I didn't even get into school spirit...

--------
Glossary:
HCI - Human Computer Interaction
CS - Computer Science
CMU - Carnegie Mellon University. No hard feelings, Central Mich

Confirmation

Me delivering the news to Laz, the one person from Chicken Bowl I that voted KFC's fried chicken superior to Popeye's.

paulip88: From the New Haven Restaurant Guide on Popeye's
paulip88: "They serve much better chicken than KFC"...
RedhawkLAZ: DAMN IT
RedhawkLAZ: fucking biased whores
paulip88: On KFC:
paulip88: "A standard fast-food place... that loses the fast-food fried-chicken battle to Popeye's"
RedhawkLAZ: you are a bitch
RedhawkLAZ: stop ruining the colonel for me

makes a great gift

I decided to explore craigslist today. As usual, there's always something strange o'er there. This time it was in the garage sale section. Not sure how it made it there...

http://cleveland.craigslist.org/gms/137173036.html

terrible mapping experiences

So I've been trying to locate a few things using online mapping tools tonight. I started by using Google Earth, which is great for visually plotting locations. I then fell into the trap of using its search function. I was initially impressed by its ability to locate the things that I was looking for.

Some background: Someone I know is going to be moving to New Haven, CT this fall, and since they aren't any good at doing anything without my help, I'm looking for stores that we can go to to get stuff. You know, move in stuff. So basically a Target, Sam's Club or Costco, Home Depot or Lowe's... that sort of thing.

So somewhere along the way I decided to see if Google Earth missed any. Basically I was disappointed/surprised to see that the closest Sam's Club was 12 miles from downtown New Haven. So I check out the Sam's Club Web site. I could find the locate store function fairly easily, but it took me about 5 minutes to figure out that it would only work in IE because it uses a strange variant popup (aka "bastard popup").

The first online mapping horror: Sam's Club's map's inability to zoom out
As someone not familiar with New Haven, it would be nice to zoom out to get some orientation of where the place is in relationship to the city. No can do here. And what's up with the black and white Mapquest map? I thought they've always had color maps.

The second online mapping horror: Google Earth sucks
You know how I mentioned that Google Earth told me that the closest Sam's Club was 12 miles away? Apparently the location that Google Earth found and plotted was nowhere close to where the real Sam's Club really was. It was off by about ***8 miles!*** The worst part? I need to recheck everything that I've found so far. And you know what that means... more fun with store sites... ugh....

The third online mapping horror: Home Depot's stores disappear
I was happy with this to start. It was easy to find, and unlike Sam's, it actually worked on my browser. Always a plus when things work. At least I thought it worked. Try zooming in (so you can actually see where the two locations are). Note that the first location is in North Haven and the second is in Orange. Also note where these points are on the map. Click on the North Haven location, then hit the back button. Say you want to re-submit the data. After all, submitting the same ZIP again should yield the same stores, right? Kind of... What's the second store now? Wallingford? What happened to Orange? It's still on the map, but Wallingford is actually about 15 miles to the north of New Haven, not to the southwest as the map indicates.

Fourth online mapping horror: Costco's crap print map, now online
Try finding this location on a real map. Seriously, give it a shot. Here's a map from Google Maps. Note that Costco insists that I-95 runs straight north and south. As far as I can tell, I-95 goes northeast and southwest, with a smidge of northwest southeast. Actually, there is not a single point in the entire state that goes north-south, and definitely not when it intersects with Boston Post Rd. Oh yeah... even better, the map says that Boston Post Road goes northwest/southeast. In reality, the entire road goes perpendicular to what the map says. Very nice... The fact that the map sucks so much makes me not want to shop there. At least Google Earth found this one right.

after dark

Reminiscing... I'm about to go across the room to read something, but I'd like to keep track of this upload so I know when to upload the next file... However, I know that before it's done the screensaver will start going. This means that either I'll have to disable the screensaver, or get up every 18 minutes to flip it off.

I remember a time when I had a screensaver that had this feature that would be great for this situation. The screensaver software was After Dark, the ever-popular screensaver for the Mac back in the 1990's. It had this feature where it would do different things if you moved the mouse to a corner of the screen. For example, if I moved the mouse to the top right of the screen, the screensaver would instantly come up. Similarly, if I moved it to the bottom right corner, the screensaver would never come on. Something that I could certainly use right now.

<grumble>

Oh... and for those of you who are wondering about the random scream, it doesn't mean anything. It's just a random scream. Bad habit, I know.

aaahh!!!!!

<scream!>

followup

I have my followup appointment with the surgeon today. Hopefully I get the all clear and everything is going well. Wish me luck!

stool softeners

Yet another post of poor taste...

But these stool softeners are amazingly consistent in how they operate. If I take them before bed, the results come at 11am the following morning. This is after 3 days of observation.

Definitely more effective than the Percocet. That neither had the painkilling effect, nor the narcotic effect. The generic was probably a placebo (at least that's the story I'm sticking to). Well, it's about that time....

wish list?

My dad asked me about getting a "Jump Drive" today. Personally, I'm not a fan of calling those things "Jump Drives" since it's a brand name that is completely dead to me. Does anyone actually own a "Jump Drive" branded USB drive? For those who also have never heard of "Jump Drive," it's neither a drive nor does it jump. It's one of those small USB devices that you can save stuff to. Often accompanied by a lanyard or something.

My dad's request did get me thinking... perhaps I should get one. I'll add it to my list of potential toys to get prior to going to school.

Here's the initial list:

• Portable USB drive - as big, cheap, and portable as possible. Current contenders: LaCie Carte Orange (8GB, 6mm thick, size of a credit card, and cheap!), Imation USB wristband (weak at 256MB), anything that can get perpendicular, another iPod?
• Laptop - specs TBD. Something with a big screen. 1400x1050 minimum! No way I'm going back to anything smaller (unless um... money).
• Desktop - maybe.... probably not. Faster CPU is the only thing I might need... to support my crack-like photography habit.
• Clothes - I will need new clothes at some point, right?
• PDA - may not be necessary if I find a small enough laptop that can boot up quickly... combining it with a phone may actually make it practical, but I like my phone. It's small, gets good reception, and the battery remarkably still kinda works. No crackberry though.
  

update.... plus the stupidest web blunder of the year

I'm alive. I made it through surgery. I can walk around, but my back hurts and it seems like my body doesn't want to stand up straight (yet). I do get to finally take the bandage off this afternoon and take a peek, so maybe that's something to look forward to. And I'm really really really bored.

It's only Friday, so maybe I'll feel good enough to go watch the Super Bowl on Sunday. However, the thing that scares me is Laz. If he tried to tackle me like he did Greg right after his surgery, I will have to kill him. Maybe I should get a restraining order first. It would be *very* unpleasant to re-open a wound that (or any other night).

So... you're wondering what the stupidest web blunder is? Try going to American Express' Web site. Seriously. Try it!

If you're like many people, you probably typed in "www.americanexpress.com." But any luck? Probably not. Let me tell you why... The idiots at American Express decided that they're special and that they're going to use the URL home.americanexpress.com. That's perfectly fine and good, but you should at lease make www.americanexpress.com work too, for all those people who might think that you guys would support the same www. subdomain that everyone else in the world seems to support. I wonder how many people will miss payments because of this...

i am no fun

**WARNING**
Some of the content of this post is excessively descriptive. Really... I'm putting this here for a reason.
***************

So, does anyone want to do anything this weekend? Sorry, I'm busy Friday and Saturday night. Want to do something for Superbowl Sunday? No, I can't make it. When will I be able to hang out? Um... maybe March?

It's not that I don't like you (well... maybe), but I'm going to be busy. Busy doing what? Busy having a nurse shave my balls. (-; Literally.

Yeah, my insides are falling out and the doc needs to patch me up with a plastic mesh to keep my innards *in*. No, I'm not kidding!

I have a hernia and I need to get it fixed. Not familiar with hernias? It's when your intestines find a way out of the abdominal cavity. Mine is an inguinal hernia, meaning that it's protruding out of my crotch. No, that extra mass down there isn't a good thing! No sex for weeks afterwards! (not that that would really matter anyway...)

No, it doesn't really hurt. It definitely feels unusual. Unusual how it occassionally feels like something is putting pressure on a third testicle down there that I don't have. Oh... and when I fart, or have bowel movements, I can feel it move sometimes. (-; Don't you ever wonder how you can have a lot of gas but you don't look visibly bigger? Well, with a hernia, it's almost like a little window. You can't see inside, but you can feel as your lunch (or dinner) moves through while you're sitting on the can. (-; Jealous, huh?

Want one of your very own? I don't really recommend it, but you can try to get one by smoking a lot to develop a good smokers' cough. You can also try to lift really heavy stuff. Uber-constipation also helps. Or, you overachievers out there can try to smoke, cough, and lift heavy objects while trying to force constipated poop out of your rectum. Your body, you do what you want.

As for me? I'm not really sure how I got mine. I'm sure my cough at the beginning of January certainly didn't help. Or maybe it was me propping up my bed to help my cough... or the combination of the two? Either way, I don't smoke and I'm pretty sure it's not constipation.

If you have read this entire post up to this point, give yourself a pat on the back. Was it the morbid curiousity, or do your *really* have nothing better to do?

almost queen, part deux

Almost Queen was in town again today, and I was there again to witness it.

Different set, but still an awesome performance. Unlike the last concert, this time it was packed. I even saw a few people from work there. They were impressed as well.

I'm not going to write a ton on it again, because I already did it before. They still rock. Here's my previous post.

must feed

In theory, cooking your own meals at home is cheaper than going out to eat. I put that to the test today...

$4.60 Strip Steak
$0.55 Onion
$1.99 Mushrooms
$0.72 Tomato
---------------------------
$7.86 Total from Heinen's

Add to that the probably $1.00 worth of lettuce, oil, dressing that I used. About $8.88 or so. Pricey for a home-cooked meal, but still cheaper than eating out and getting something similar. Only problem is that I overcooked the steak. :-(

Next time I'll do better.

political commentary of the day

My comments from signing the moveon.org petition to have an independent investigation of domestic wiretapping activities:

I can understand the justification of reduced civil liberties in a time of war. However, what is troubling in this situation is that our fight on terrorism is one that has no clear end.

If we can foresee an attainable definition of victory, then it would be justifiable to reduce civil liberties temporarily for the purpose of preserving our nation and what it represents.

However, in the present situation, it appears that there is no clear end to the war on terrorism. This creates a scenario where our civil liberties can become permanently suspended. If this is the case, then the terrorists would have effectively destroyed what makes our society unique.

While I do not protest the use of executive power on the grounds of being in a state of war, I do have strong objections to using this justification as a means to permanently reduce our civil liberties.

these guys are awesome!

So I was reading my new favorite newspaper, the International Herald Tribune (more on this later), and spotted this article on NFL quarterbacks and their facial hair. Halfway through the article, there was a quote from the captain of Beard Team USA. Needless to say, I had to check it out.

And what did I find? Wonderful, wonderful beards. Not in your wildest dreams would you find such bountifully abundant moustaches and beards. Check the world champs.

So back to the International Herald Tribune... I've been using news.google.com more recently, and I've noticed that iht.com was by far the easiest online news to read. I poked around their site some today and learned that this is the very same newspaper that I like to steal whenever I'm in Chicago's O'Hare airport. Good articles, good broad coverage, and none of the tabloid crap that's so common nowadays. Sorry. I'm not a huge fan of gossip.

ridiculous link of the day

Third post of the day. Lordy, this is getting excessive. But I had to share. :-)

Thanks to Scott, who referenced carrier pigeons in his e-mail about moving back to Houston, I was presented an ad for a "Pigeon Loft Organizer."

"What on Earth is a Pigeon Loft Organizer!?," you might ask. Some choice snippets from their site:

• Do you need to upgrade from an obsolete, "legacy", pedigree program?
• Pigeon Loft Organizer software provides a quick and easy way for you to manage all your pigeon data.
• Create pedigrees incorporating JPEG images of the object pigeons and parents
• Identify all sons & daughters of a selected cock or hen
• Analyse your racing results by Club, race point, year, pigeon
  

nucular

I've just been playing with local.live.com for a bit. Nice aerial photos. None of downtown Cleveland though.

But who needs downtown Cleveland when you can get a great pic of the Perry Nuclear Power Plant?

Yes, I can see this from my window. Obviously not so close (or maybe not so obvious?).

dreaming of the mbta

Um.... strange, but it's been the second time in a week when I've had a dream that involved the MBTA (Boston's subway system, to be specific). Must be those spare passes I keep seeing in my wallet.

Dream #1:
I was trying to catch the red line to Kendall Square (MIT Sloan reference I'm sure). But instead of the current system of trains, they had this huge two story platform like it was some sci-fi movie or something.

Basically there were two sets of tracks so that twice as many trains could run. I decided to try to bottom tracks.

As I got to the bottom platform I noticed that my train was just leaving. Crap. I raced back up the ramp to try to catch the one on the upper platform, since that's where the next train would arrive.

As I neared the upper platform, the train arrived. "I got it" thought me. I ran to the car closest to me, but the door closed just before I got there. Crap again.

Knowing that I can't make it back down to the bottom platform in time by running, I stood frozen for a few moments trying to decide what to do. I heard the train coming in the bottom platform.

Without thinking, I climbed over the fence and dropped down to the bottom platform. I landed on the platform just as the train was slowing down. I had made it.

Do not *ever* try this. It's what I would call stupid.

Dream #2:
I was about to enter one of the subway stations when I realized that I didn't have any tokens and only the blue line seemed to take the passes that I had. As I backed away from the turnstile I looked around for the guy who sells the tokens. Nowhere to be found. I looked around some more and noticed that another entryway did accept my pass. Score.

The funny thing is that the slot for the pass was above the doorway. Since I have crazy hops, I was able to get it in on the first try. I passed through.

As I was walking in, I started wondering whether I needed to get the pass back. When I used the pass before the turnstiles would always give me that pass back even though it didn't have any value left. As I was pondering, I noticed a beep coming from the door. I turned around and saw a light flashing and I knew that I needed to go back and get it.

However, someone else saw this and started running for it. I gave chase. We got there at the same time and jumped up to snatch the pass. Like a going up for a rebound or jump ball in basketball...

I managed to get the pass even though the other guy was much taller than I was. I then called him a bitch for trying to take it.

As I walked back towards the subway, I began to think that maybe something else had happened when I was caught up with trying to get my pass. I then noticed that my watch was missing.

I darted back towards the other guy.

Eventually I caught up with him at a mall where my foot speed allowed me to catch up to him and knee him in the sternum. He had my watch. That bastard.

At this time, security came along and sorted things out. I told them that it was my watch and that I could get the serial number to prove it.

My brain decided to skip the following boring part. I got my watch back and I drove to work.

On the highway, I noticed that I was behind the guy who stole my watch. He was driving a black car with a vanity plate, similar to mine. But instead of IP 88, he had his full name on there along with some numbers.... something to the effect of 7.13.1983vPAUL_IP or something really retarded. Some combination of possible birthdate, then his name, which coincidentally was also my name.

Also coincidentally, he worked in the same place as I did. Not just the same place, but one row over from where I sat. We exchanged some dirty looks....

links of the day

Ever wanted to be a trucker?

link of the day

Link of the day

random thoughts

A rambling of some of the thoughts that have been running through my mind:

• "I'm getting nothing done"
  Clearly... you're writing in your blog. You haven't done this in an entire week. Clearly procrastinating...
  
  
• "Maybe I should buy a Mac. For some reason they actually seem somewhat affordable now."
  Um... you may have no choice what computer you'll end up getting. Either way, it probably won't be a Mac, unless you go photo crazy. Get some L glass first, then worry about the computer.
  
  
• "I should go buy software"
  
  
  
• "Should I get a new battery for my iPod mini?"
  No. It technically still works. It's just a little tempermental. How often do you use the battery anyway? Suck it up and deal with it.
  

jump starting the 2006 travel season

OK... that's a complete misnomer... especially since this is a one day trip and I have no firm travel plans for the rest of the year. But just you wait... there might be some extensive excursions!

Right?

Oh right. I'm flying to Boston in the morning, and coming back Saturday. If weather permits, I may be at the Progressive Direct Year-End Event (yes... Year-End Event Jan 7th!).

compare and contrast

Not to be totally insensitive... but...

Coal mining deaths in the US
Coal mining deaths in China

Nation mourns 12 deaths from a single event, vs. no one really talks about the average 16 deaths/day in China. Same compare and contrast for US military fatalities vs. Chinese mining fatalities. Then again, there are a lot of Chinese people, right?

i'm super cool

Yes, it's been a while. I've been busy distracting myself playing Realmz. Old school game for the Mac that I used to play when I was in middle school. Sadly, one of the few games that allows you to create your own party of characters. All I have to say is that TC Chau is a badass.

On a lighter note, I stayed up late last night for a stupid (or brilliant) reason. I was in the bathroom drawing on the mirrow. What was I drawing?.... facial hair. Not just one rendition, but several versions -- including one with a old school Chinese hero beard... complete with a section erased so that I could put my hand there as if I were stroking it. It's fantastic... trust me. ;-)

merry xmas!

Question: Since "Xmas" is an acceptable abbreviation for "Christmas," does that mean that "Jesus X" is an acceptable abbreviation for "Jesus Christ?"

Slogan:
Jesus X - bringing Xianity into the 21st century.
(read: "Jesus Ex, bringing Christianity into the 21st century")

more weirdness

Dream #1: Stolen presents

I was in someone else's apartment in a big city (like New York or something) and I had my Xmas presents for my family on a table by the door. Randomly two kids appeared who tried to steal the present that I got for my mom. I pursued the kid into the kitchen. I wasn't too close behind, but as he turned around the kitchen table I jumped across it and landed a kick to his face. At that point I could have left him alone, but I was pretty agitated at him doing what he did, so I slapped him a few times on the face. I usually don't do that, so I explained to the guy how I've never done that to anyone before, but that he deserved it. After that, I let him go.

When I went back to the living room, I noticed that the kid snatched one of the other gifts on his way out the door. That really pissed me off. Not only did he steal again, but he stole the present that I got for the dog, which is a dog toy worth $2.99. What a pain in the ass. I ran downstairs to the street and saw the kids in a Hummer parked across the street. I ran across the street and in a moment of brilliance jumped onto the hood of the car. They must have been expecting that (for reasons unknown) because the car was covered in grease. It was like holding on to an exhaust hood at a restaurant. I slipped off as he accellerated away from the curb and I found myself flying through the air.

Once I was on the hood I realized I was in trouble. There was no reason why the kid wouldn't start the car just because I was there. My worries were confirmed as I flew through the air in what seemed like slow motion. As I flew, I glanced around to see if I would get hit by any oncoming traffic. I saw a few cars, but I could tell from the looks of the drivers' faces that they saw me as I flew. I soon noticed that it didn't just *seem* like slow motion, it really *was* slow motion. The cars were still going normal speed, though they slowed down to see the random guy floating in the air.

Fin.


Dream #2: Flickr taken over!

In this dream Flickr, the awesome photo site, became part of Rob Galbraith's site, an awesome photography site. I was pretty pissed off since I like flickr and Rob Galbraith has no business taking it over. Not only that, but they completely changed the name. All instances of the flickr logo were replaced by a robgalbraithsets.com banner with the same logo as robgalbraith.com. At this point, I realized this was too crazy to be true and that I must be dreaming.

do i really live here?

I looked back at 2005 today and counted up the number of days I was out of Cleveland. Guess how many days...

Not totally sure, but it's somewhere around 62 days, give or take a few. Yikes! (happy "Yikes!")

good news!

Looks like there is a 100% chance I'll be moving out of Cleveland next year. Where to? Don't know yet. But I know that I'll be at least going *somewhere*!

beautiful greymouth...

Day 3 - Greymouth
The wonderful Top 10 Holiday Park at Greymouth. Note that there are 50 such parks that are in the Top 10. Yeah... We count good.
Originally uploaded by paulip88.

No better way to finish day 3 than gagging over the car parked next to your cabin.

cheapest trip ever

Typical trip cost: US$1000 per week
Estimated trip cost: US$3285
Actual trip cost: US$2370

An awesome trip that's 30% under budget? Even more awesome!

Day 2 - Hamner Springs
View from the top of Conical Hill
Originally uploaded by paulip88.

i'm alive!

Hey all! For the record, I'm still alive. I haven't had internet much recently, but thanks to Samsung's free internet kiosk here in Sydney I can make my first post in three weeks.

The trips been awesome so far, but all good things come to an end and I'll be back in the States in a few days. Yes, complete with my golden tan from my extra couple weeks on summer this year. :-)

I'll have some more updates and commentary too. Expect to see a few new photos posted as well. You know I took a bunch. Maybe 7GB worth?

Till next time...

and i'm off!

And at 3am in the morning, I start my journey. I'll be there in 36 hours! Yeah... it doesn't really take that long to fly to New Zealand, but I'm spending most of today in Los Angeles. Going to check out the Getty!

You'll probably hear from me again before I return. Check back?

erg...

I just checked United's schedule for "entertainment." Allegedly I have to watch a movie about two 11-year-olds who fall in love. Please tell me this is some sort of joke...

Thankfully Qantas will bail me out with a slew of 6 movies on the trans-Pacific flight. I might even get 7 on the way back. That may be a new record for movies. Sure beats the super combo of Like Mike, Juwanna Man, The Tuxedo, Garfield, and (probably some movie with Jennifer Love Hewitt, basketball, kids, or all of the above) that I got to see on the flight from Chicago to Hong Kong.

2 more days

Friday
Saturday
gone...

Apologies to everyone for being so busy. Grad school applications is incredibly time consuming. I need a vacation. :-)

Plans for when I come back? Aside from working my butt off, there's a NEOUPA/Web Association event the night that I get back. Heh heh... nothing like a night out to cure jet lag?

And I really need an MP3 player that has a 30 hour battery life or something. Not sure if I'll have any chance to charge up between my 7 hour transit to LA, the 3 hours on the bus in LA to the Getty Center, and the flight from LA to New Zealand. I'm really counting heavily on in-flight movies. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on the way to LA (oh wait... that's not the name of the movie... jerks...)

i'm back!

I made it back! Nothing like driving 1400 miles in two days.

Yesterday I had the fun adventure of driving through Boston. Drove down stretches of the Jamaica Way and the VFW. Fun with rotarys. ;-)

So after about 22 hours on the road in the last two days (wow!), here are some of my observations:

From driving over the Appalachians:
Both types of drivers have a tendency to go slow up hills, and fast down hills. For trucks, I understand because the truck is heavy and full of stuff. Sure, it may be annoying, but they can't help it. Cars on the other hand, there is no excuse. There's nothing more annoying than some jackass who passes me down a hill going 90mph then crawls up the next one at 70mph. Pick a speed and stick with it. You'll get better gas mileage that way.

There is also the variant of people who slow down when passing people. Yes, you heard me right. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Usually what ends up happening is the cars just sit side by side for a few miles before some other event breaks up the stalemate (usually other traffic). Note this people, to pass, you must go faster than the other car. If you slow down, that defeats the purpose.

From driving at night:
High beams. Some people just don't understand how to use them. Specifically, some people leave them on ALL THE TIME! Thanks for trying to blind me.

From passing 99% of the cars on the road:
People respond differently to faster traffic. The ones who have good road awareness stick to the right when not passing and move over when they see someone coming up from behind them. I thank these people. They make my life a lot easier. On the other hand, there are those who hang out in the passing lane thinking that they are the speed king. Often, this isn't the case. If they move over, that's still cool. If they don't then I'll have to be a jerk and pass them on the right.

The nastier variant are those who get in a position to pass, but then sit there, leaving about 5 car lengths between them and the car they are in position to pass (note that they aren't passing). Here, I'd typically hold up and start the countdown, waiting for them to see me and move over like a gentleman. If they don't take the noble way out, I'll be forced to pass on the right and slip over in front of their slow self to get in front of their ill-conceived roadblock. Not the nicest thing to do, but I gave them a way out.

Once I did this, complete with a full suite of turn signals (as always... ;-). Apparently the guy had no idea what was going on (missed me sitting behind him, missed me passing him, missed my turn signal), honked at me, and tried chaging me down. Yeah. Thanks. You should have sped up before. Plus you wouldn't have thought I was cutting you off if you were actually paying attention to driving.

From being on a road full of trucks:
Trucks have a certain driving etiquette that makes them generally predictable and courteous. They generally stick to the right (90%+) and they often even wait for cars to pass first, knowing they accellerate slower. Another things that I've noticed is that when a truck has passed another truck, the slower truck signals with their high beams when it's clear to move back to the right lane. The passing truck often responds by flashing the hazard lights briefly or flashing the lights (low beams) to acknowledge. If only regular drivers had such training.

Cops:
Connecticut - decent number of cops. Not sure what they were doing.
New York - One cop in the median with lights out. Not sure if it was really a cop.
Pennsylvania - No cops anywhere to be found.
Ohio - Typical cop hanging out near Lordstown. No cops at the highway patrol ramp or by SR44.
Massachusetts - As far as I could tell, people just went as fast as traffic permitted. No cops.

Random sight of note:
On I-84 in New York I had the pleasure of seeing a Target truck pass a Wal-Mart truck. Yeah. Take that, Wal-Mart!

branding

Quick post.

Good name: Bar Mitzvah
For a bar in a Jewish neighborhood (like Squirrel Hill, the Heights area in Cleveland). Or for a celebration for someone like Laz passing the Bar exam. Laz, I'm disappointed that we didn't take up this opportunity.

Bad name: Seaman brand Clam Chowder
Just say it a few times. It just sounds wrong.

one more state down?

For those who don't know, I've been working towards the goal of hitting all 50 states. I've made good progress, thanks to a few road trips with my parents, but I'm still short a few.

I just realized that this weekend I'll be checking another state off the list: Rhode Island. No, I'm not stopping, but I'll be driving across the entire state Monday morning. Woo!

Maybe I'll visit Mark in the spring and cross off Delaware too. Those small states are tough to come by! Luckily, I have managed to get some difficult ones out of the way already, such as Alaska and Hawaii. ;-)

States left:
Wisconsin*
Missouri
Arkansas
North Dakota
Kansas
Oklahoma
Montana*
New Mexico*
Idaho*
Oregon

The ones with asterisks I've come within 50 miles of, but still managed to miss.

sprained ankle month

Yep. It happened again. I twisted my ankle. Unlike last November (or was it two years ago), I can still walk. We'll see if I can keep it up tomorrow. As long as it doesn't jeopardize my tramping abilities....

Glossary:
tramping - Kiwi term for hiking

update

It's been a while since my last update, but fear not. I'm not laying down the pen (er... keyboard) after doing this for a year. I'll keep it going... keep it fresh.

The short of it is that I've been busy. Went to DC last weekend to visit Darin. This weekend I'm heading over to Chicago and New England. No, not because they're not close to each other. More like that's my last weekend (eek!) here for a while, so I have to cram everything in. Yes, I need to be in these places. No joke.

After that, I'll be off on my merry ways exploring new continents. Literally. :-)

2005 Capsule:
2/21: Ellicotville, NY
3/18 - 3/21: Alexandria, VA
4/16 - 4/17: Pittsburgh, PA
6/26 - 7/1: Montreal, Quebec
7/1: Seattle, WA
7/2 - 7/3: Vancouver, BC
7/3: Victoria, BC
7/4 - 7/5: Olympic NP, WA
7/6: Mt. Rainier NP, WA
7/7 - 7/9: Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean
7/9 - 7/17: Japan (Hiroshima, Miyajima, Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, Kiso Valley, Kyoto, Nara, Himeji)
7/30: Niagara Falls, ON; Toronto, ON
9/24 - 9/26: Boston, MA
9/27: Hanover, NH
10/6: Durham, NC
11/4 - 11/6: Alexandria, VA
11/10 - 11/12: Chicago, IL
11/13 - 11/14: Somewhere in New England
11/20 - 11/22: Somewhere over the Pacific
11/22 - 12/2-ish: New Zealand ("ish" from the International Date-line... and my Alzheimer's)
12/2-ish - 12/12: Australia
12/13: Christchurch, NZ

The rest of the time I was in Northeast Ohio or en route to someplace.

o'er there?

Is that my mom on top of some mountain? Oh yeah... I brought her there.

lost?

nate clements

Clements, regarded by many in the NFL as one of the league's top five cornerbacks, and just 25 years old, is eligible for unrestricted free agency after this season. The five-year veteran has strongly hinted that he expects to be the NFL's highest paid cornerback, and Buffalo will probably have to use the "franchise" marker, at a cost of roughly $9 million for the qualifying offer, to retain their 2001 first-round draft choice.

Yes, this makes up for him being the only person to beat me in the shuttle run in elementary school.

east cleveland

East Cleveland is a messed up place on so many levels.... from the block busting that happened in the 50s/60s to the substandard housing, the low income, high unemployment, to the fact that over 30% of kids have been exposed to lead paint.

Somehow I stumbled across the master plan for the city. Interesting, depressing...

Note how almost the entire city is highlighted for substandard housing... and lead paint... Especially sad considering how much character the buildings in the city have. It's a shame.

moving is annoying

You know how it always seems like you miss that one important thing when you pack for a trip? Or you need to use your fingernails the day after you cut them?

I'm experiencing the same thing many times over while moving. Some examples:

• needing to reference my copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, which I just moved after not touching it for almost a year
• needing to reference my Modern European History textbook, which I also just moved after not ever reading it since I bought it
• needing my Office 2000 CD so that I can install the grammar checker, which was in the first box that I moved since I *knew* that I wouldn't be needing it

Yes, I know. It will only get worse.

counting crows

I want a new Counting Crows album, dammit.

If this isn't the right way to go at it, I don't know what is. Clearly this post will work, right?

er.... this is getting out of hand

There's just a bit too much craziness going on here. Writing 23 essays is crazy enough. Tack on a 3 week vacation and some huge projects at work. Then tack on some more craziness with being forced to move in the middle of all this. Not being able to go to NYC for Queen (which would have been more OK if not for the craziness with Darin).

Now I'm trying to figure out how to show up in Hong Kong for a week before the year is out. Grandma's not doing so well so I should pay a visit. I looked at changing my itinerary for LAX, New Zealand, and Australia.

From Sydney on Qantas - About 900 USD
From Christchurch, NZ on Air New Zealand - About 900 USD
From Los Angeles on Cathay Pacific - About 900 USD
From Cleveland, OH on United - About 900 USD

What the hell? They're all the same price! The first three are about the same distance and would cut short my NZ/Australia trip. The last one is a lot more distance, but I have to use more vacation time. None of them are cheap (all very average prices).

gasoline

Any idea how much gasoline we use? For the record, a few hours ago I pumped in the 2,000th gallon into my car.

At today's prices, 2,000 gallons would cost about $5,000. Yes, $5000! That's more than my car is worth!

Sounds like a lot doesn't it? How about looking at it this way... During that time I drove about 46,000 miles in my car. Overall, I'm getting 23.75 miles per gallon. Pretty decent by US standards - totally unacceptable to the rest of the civilized world.

Now imagine if I wanted to "Grab life by the horns" and drove a sweet 2001 Dodge Durango (I bought my car in 2001) with an estimated 13 mpg city / 18 mpg hwy rating. My car gets an estimated 22 mpg city and 28 mpg highway. Needless to say, as a Cleveland Heights resident the last 3 years, I'm almost never on the highway. Anyway... back to the sweet Dodge. At 15 miles per gallon, I would have used a little over 3,000 gallons of gas by this point, compared to my 2,000. Fantastic! I've never wanted a Dodge Durango more!

Yes, I have a graph of my gas usage. And yes, you can tell when I went on vacation by looking at the gaps where I didn't buy gas for a few weeks.

An analyst would be quick to point out that my gas mileage is cyclical... actually, I believed it was cyclical through anecdotal evidence and then proved it with said graph. The graph also proves that Michelin MXV4 Plus tires do not improve your gas mileage as advertised. Air filters have also done nothing.

The only thing that affects the trend line is my travel schedule. Road trips result in a healthy uptick. Three week trips to Montreal, Vancouver, Washington, and Japan over the summer of this year caused the this summer's uptick to never show up in the 6 month moving average.

Surprising, it seems like garaging my car in the winter helps. I had the use of the garage for the winters of 2002/2003 and 2004/2005. No garage in 2003/2004. The 2001/2002 winter should be ignored since the crappy winter gas mileage is hidden by the road trips back home from Pittsburgh for various holidays, as well as road trips for mid-semester break and spring break. Note the high peaks and low valleys.

Yeah... I'm a dork. Go amuse yourself by looking at some photos (see right nav).

embark sucks

Not sure why Kellogg uses them, but apply.embark.com is by far the most unreliable online applications system I've seen.

I was definitely annoyed when the entire system was down for an entire weekend when I started the application. Now, I'm just getting irritated by the fact that the system is being really flaky with taking in uploaded documents.

I did everything two nights ago to make sure that I wouldn't get any strange errors. Apparently I didn't do a good enough job. While everything went great the first time uploading, the system was having some severe problems today. I'm not sure if it's because the system was overloaded, or if it's just broken, but it started complaining that it couldn't recognize the Word documents that I was uploading. Granted, I have made some updates since Wednesday, but how does that explain why it took an RTF file, then refused the exact same file immediately afterwards (I was testing it).

Eventually I was able to upload everything using the document manager. At least that worked. Phew!

crazy essays

So for grad school applications you're supposed to write essays with the goal of painting a complete portrait of yourself. That's what I'm trying to do. But have I gone too far?

Some topics that I've managed to hit so far:

• An entire essay on ultimate frisbee
• An entire essay on fixing my car
• An entire essay on Romance of the Three Kingdoms
  
• Mentions of Laz, Jeff Mann, Maia
• Mentions of rebuilding a kitchen, building computers
  
• Lots of random references to travel and photography
  

more flights!

I finally redeemed some airline miles! Spent 20k on a flight from Christchurch, New Zealand to Sydney, Australia. What a deal!

With that, I'll cover 13 airports, 5 countries, 3 continents this calendar year. Or... 15 airports, 6 countries, 4 continents between mid-December 2004 and mid-December 2005.

Border crossings - 12:
Montreal (YUL)
Cleveland (CLE)
Vancouver (car)
Port Angeles (boat!)
Osaka (KIX)
Honolulu (HNL)
Rainbow Bridge/Niagara (car)
Peace Bridge (car)
Auckland (AKL)
Sydney (SYD)
Christchurch (CHC)
Los Angeles (LAX)

So who's up for Almost Queen in January?

thanks, ohio

If Ohio is good at one thing, it taxing its residents. Nothing like paying federal income tax, state income tax, high sales tax, and municipal income tax... TWICE.

Somehow I'm not surprised...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1214944

almost queen, part deux

Last post was short. So here's a longer one. ;-)

A few months I wrote up this post raving about the cover band Almost Queen. This weekend I was going to go with Greg to see the real thing in NYC (sans Freddie Mercury of course). However, since I have a ton of stuff to do (read: grad school applications), I surrendered my ticket to Greg's gf.

So now Almost Queen has new meaning when I see them when they return to town on January 20th. ;-)

Be there or be square.

You all are a bunch of squares.

pine ridge

Moving to Pine Ridge in Willoughby Hills. First half month free plus $1500 credit towards rent. I'll take it!

gates murders towers

Since renamed Gates Mills Place...

My top reasons for not wanting to live there:

1. Location - At Mayfield, SOM, and I-271, it's a traffic hellhole. Good luck getting through there at any time during the daytime... especially rush hour.
2. Apartment towers not cool - Something about waiting for elevators and having to drag groceries across the parking lot, down the hall, up the elevator, and down another hall just doesn't appeal to me... especially considering that I plan on moving myself. Ouch!
3. Murder - We don't call it Gates Murders Towers for no reason. And it's not "Murders" just to make it a better replacement for "Mills." It's plural just like the murders themselves. Nothing like neighbors who keep trash cans on their balcony filled with acid and body parts. At least the other guy was considerate enough to toss the body in the trash.
4. Bosnia/Rwanda - aka Building B from what I hear from past residents. I've also heard some choice remarks about some of the people.

Top reasons to consider living there:

1. Cheap! - Cheap rent for a big well maintained apartment!
2. Close to work! - At least for me (note the traffic hellhole)
3. Close to shopping! - If you're not facing the river valley, you're facing the Target.

End result? There's plenty of places in the area that don't have cons #1, #2, #3 and #4... with all the pros. I'll let y'all figure out the rest. I'd still rather live in Cleveland Heights.

fav restaurants

Hong Kong: The restaurant at the bottom of Aberdeen street for lunch. Awesome. Yeah, I know the name, but I'm not going to try to spell it in English. Two words, second word is Hong (same as in Hong Kong). They make good moon cake too.

Tampa, FL: Bern's Steak House. It's more than dinner - it's an event.

Florence, Italy: This place at the NE corner of the marketplace (the one that's actually still a marketplace, not the old one that's considered a tourist attraction. Not sure what it's called, but I do remember it's closed on Tuesday (or was it Thursday?).

Toronto: For lunch, this place in Scarborough. No, I don't remember the name! But if you go on 401, you get off at the second street past Kennedy, go North for a while, and it's in the shopping mall on the right towards the back. For dinner, there's this place in Chinatown towards the North end. On the east side of the street, but before it gets dead. It's the one with a big back room. Front room looks nondescript but has a big serving station on the left that's almost the size of a bar. Yeah... this description sucks... made it really hard to find it last time.

Montreal: Lots of good food. Vargas has a great prime rib. It's downtown by the Reine Elizabeth Hotel.

Las Vegas: Bellagio Buffet. It's worth it.

Vancouver: I'm not sure you can go wrong with any restaurant in Vancouver.

Japan: OK... not a classy joint, but there's this chain of curry joints that's the Japanese equivalent of Skyline Chili. In other words, it's like crack. There's one in Kyoto two or three blocks south of the train station on the right.

Newark: Um... really shady neighborhood by the Greyhound station. There's this place right by it called Forno (oven in Spanish). Classy and tasty. Makes a great Xmas eve dinner if you happen to be stranded in Newark's Airport with a bunch of fresh friends you are escaping the city with.

Boston: I've never had bad food in Boston. But Legal Seafood is good for (you guessed it) seafood.

Fried Chicken: Popeye's will destroy KFC any day of the week. There's a reason Popeye's is the chicken joint of choice in airports such as Hotlanta, Raleigh/Durham, and !Hong Kong!.

Cleveland: Italian - Geraci's at Warrensville and Silsby in University Heights. Chinese - dinner at Siam Cafe. Yes, Chinese food at the place which has a Thai name, Vietnamese employees, and Cantonese food. Oh... and in Chinese it's really names "East China Sea." Sushi - Matsu at Chagrin and Farnsleigh in Shaker Heights. Milkshake - Banana milkshake at Tommy's on Coventry in Cleveland Heights. Thai - Mekong River in Cleveland Heights on Lee at Superior.

Places to avoid: Mongolian Barbeque. Only go if it's to see off a *good* friend or to join a group to celebrate something for a *good* friend. Never go if you don't feel obligated to attend as a social function. Guaranteed to overcook your food. MacDonalds - Ever since they started microwaving their burgers around 1998 it's been an insult to the culinary arts (as if they ever cared). Did I mention the "bacon" that was not only perfectly rectangular, but also perfectly flat... with perfectly straight and parallel lines of "fat" that had the exact same texture as the rest of the "bacon?" Any Chinese food place in Pittsburgh - it would either be really bad, really inconsistent, really slow, or really over-rated. Chinese people drive to Cleveland for Chinese food .

- Yes, this is a more tame topic after I heard some remarks about my last post. But hey, at least people are reading!

yet more travel...

Yes, you heard me correctly. I more travel! No, not totally vacation time. More like visiting more schools. I'll be in Chicago November 10 through November 12 visiting schools. Thanks to John for letting me crash. I'll do my best to bring over some Boddington's. ;-)

defective underwear

Marc's is a great place to shop, but sometimes it takes a bit of courage to get the most of the place. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking about buying "slightly irregular" products. Generally, Marc's has undergarments for sale, but the prices aren't anything remarkable. However, if you're lucky, you'll go to Marc's when they have some in the closeouts section. The caveat is that these garments didn't pass QA and are sold with bright blue brand on them indicating some shortcoming.

So what might go wrong? For undershirts, I've gotten tons without any issue. Needless to say, it boosted my confidence a bit. Never will I spend full price on undershirts again! Then I decided to continue my exploration and dive into the world of defective briefs... mistake?

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a total mistake, but I've definitely noticed some differences. The one that would bother me the most is the low cut front. No, this is not by design. Sure, it has plenty of room "down there" for a cold day, but I worry that it won't do so hot if I were in a "warmer" situation. The other problem is that there's this extra cloth by where my ass is. I don't think I have a small butt, but apparently these briefs will accomodate a booty that's a few inches bigger than mine.

In conclusion: Undershirts are safe. Briefs - if you have a big butt and a small package, it's your (one and only) lucky day! Otherwise, buyer beware.

netgear update

An update on the Netgear drama...

After the surgery, there was a brief scare when the network adapter lapsed back into being retarded, but it's condition has since stabilized. Although it sports a significant scar (not to mention the huge heat sink protruding from it), it's doing well. Aside from the one relapse the day of the operation, it's been doing well ever since.

Hurray!

fin

So sometime towards the middle of last year I bought a large quantity of books. I finally finished one of them. Yes, four volumes of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is now done. Although I might read it again at some point. Despite the enormous number of characters, poor editing, and plain old biased perspectives, it was a great read.

So what's next? Um... I think I'm going to focus on writing for the next couple of months. Then I'll shift back to photography, and then maybe I'll do a bit of reading. :-)

damn

You know how I've moved every single year since I graduated from college? Finally this year I was able to stay put for over a year (been here since June 2004). I was going to stay here till August 2006, but it looks like things aren't going to work that way. Real bummer, especially considering that I'm trying my best to focus all my time and energy on grad school applications. These essays aren't going to write themselves, you know!

american cheese sucks

I just ate some, but I stand by my assertion that American cheese sucks. Brie is so much better for anything that American cheese is good for....

Although I've never tried Brie on a hamburger... couldn't imagine it being worse though. More fat and cream = better, right?

damnit netgear

Damnit NetGear... you made me do it.

For almost half a year I dealt patiently with your crap hoping that eventually you would end your rebellious stage and behave like a good network adapter.... but no.... you made me do it.

You could have worked flawlessly, or at least only die on me only periodically. But instead you chose to be fickle. I gave you your chances you bastard. I gave you more than your fair share of chances. But no, you had to be a pain in the ass.

My trials with your retarded behavior remind me of dealing with Sprint PCS. Months and months of crap with nothing to show. But finally, I decided to do something about it. I'm not proud, but it's not my fault... you made me do it!

You forced my hand. I wanted to leave you alone, but no. You forced me to whip out the surgical blade, slice you in half, then pry you apart with a screwdriver. Sorry... I didn't use a sterile blade... didn't give you any anesthesia. But hell, you deserve to suffer a bit after all the crap you put me through. Besides, it's for your own good, motherf*cker.

Now you sit in your normal spot, but you look a little different. Where's you're shiny grey jacket? Oh? Gone? What's that there in it's place? I see... a heatsink that I stole off my dead computer. Yes, your friends will all laugh when they see you. "What the hell is that wireless adapter doing with that gross heatsink on it?" they'll say as they point, appalled at the sight they see.

To be honest, I don't know why you need that thing either. Perhaps your true parents (yeah, you're adopted, bitch!) dropped you as a child. Or maybe it's just a birth defect. These things happen these days.

My intentions were good, I assure you. Maybe after you go a few weeks without passing out from the summer heat you'll realize that I'm really trying to help.

You had your chance. I saw you stumble, but I gave you a chance because I thought you could learn to walk on your own. Alas, I was wrong.

travel time

Yep. I just got more plane tickets!

Here's what's going on....
September 24-26: Boston
October 15-17: New York City
November 20 - December 13: New Zealand and Australia (and maybe even a little bit of LA)

Non-plane related travel:
September 27: Detroit
October or November: Alexandria, VA

speechalist

So there is a method behind the madness?

http://video.gprime.net/media/video/presidentialspeechalist.wmv

rsnrx

Yesterday I officially doubled my one of my investments. I had $2,200 invested in the RS Global Natural Resources Fund, and it's now appreciated by over $2,200. Not to brag, but that is simply amazing, especially considering I made that initial investment at the end of 2003, so it hasn't even been two years yet.

Do I feel bad that I didn't invest more? Absolutely not. Sure, it's doing great, but I wouldn't want to put everything I have in some risky sector fund. But heck, this is what I want out of my sector funds!

Am I going to put more money into it? It's tempting, but considering it's already performed so well, not only would it be naive to think it would continue, but the mere fact that it doubled already makes it a fair chunk of my portfolio. So no, I'm not. At least not until I have *a lot* more money.

craziness

Despite what you hear from the mass media, it looks like there's a whole 'nother ugly side to the nightmare by the Gulf that we don't even hear about.

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2005/09/hurricane2.html

excerpts from the bible

With our given biblical names, these are the conversations that result....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul: he has speakers
he wants bigger ones.... he doesn't need them
unless you get a hammer to hook up to it that would just pound the floor
....or his crotch.

Joseph: lol

Paul: feel the bass!

biz school websites

This is what I would call a rant... but here goes.

I've been looking at web sites of various biz schools to try to get a better feel of what they offer, etc. etc. Some are good, some are bad. Yes, they're full of surprises.

So far I've looked at Kellogg, Fuqua, U Chicago, Tuck, and Yale. So which one's outstanding?

U Chicago - Great school with a great reputation. Yes, everyone knows you, but you could really put some effort into your site's content. It tells me the most obvious things. Yes... great faculty, looking for diversity, great education. Of course! I challenge you to find a biz school that *doesn't* say any of those things. Would it be so hard for you to do a little bit more and work off the Chicago brand and try to differentiate yourself from all the other top schools?

Tuck - Awesome site. Provides a lot of information that really tries to give the essense of the Tuck experience. None of it was really new to me, but it certainly helped reinforce my image of what life at Tuck would be. The comraderie, the random sports, and the quality of the alumni network. Chicago GSB, you could learn from these guys. Anyone applying to either Chicago or Tuck is clearly looking for a quality program with great academics, diversity, etc. What us prospective students want to evaluate is fit, and other stuff that sets schools apart from each other. Tuck does an excellent job with this. Chicago fails.

Yale - Amateurish site. Not to talk smack, but I really expect a top notch school to have a site that's somewhat up to date. The Yale site has second class graphic design, poor organization, and poor communication design. The pages are a chore to read. The content is dry. It reads like a course catalog. How about something that would lead me to believe that this is a school that real people actually go to? The rational mindset brought me to your door. Now please try to use the emotional aspect to make me feel that it's OK to even consider stepping across the threshold... or at the very least, don't make me feel like turning away!