Defrag This!

Every year some relative gets my kids a "cool" computer toy that plugs into the PC to get to the Internet. The shit is made in China, and for $15 now much computing power can be in the damn thing anyway.

So each year I spend the couple days after Christmas cleaning up the computer form all the stuff the kids did to it over the year trying to get the piece of shit toy to work.

This year the speakers were not working, so installing the latest drives fixed that problem, then I decided to "defrag" the hard drive.

What a load of crap. I launch the standard software that comes with windows and off I go down a path of pain-in-the-ass. The thing does not defrag crap!

The first issue is that it wants 15% of the drive in free space. You know how much that is when you have a 250Gb drive? Shit, if I have a 1Tb drive it would want 250Gb just to do some house keeping! Tell Bill to pound salt and get out of bed with the hardware vendors.

Being the nice corporate citizen that I am to Microsoft, I clean up a bunch of old crap to the to the 15% and then expect a nice packed in no fragementation drive when it's done. Bullshit! It's just a pretty graph and shakes and moves some colors, but nothing happens. How can you not defrag a 15Mb file that is in 562 pieces into one file when you have 25Gb to do it in?

This is crap, I need to go off and find a better utility.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure that defrag adds that much performance, again just trying to be a good corporate citizen.

OJ Simpson should have gotten probation!

I'm really concerned about the judge giving OJ a sentence that requires at least nine years in prison. Now who is going to continue the search for the killers of Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman?

Now this is a credit card I need!

You gotta click on the back of the card to see the details.

BCS vs. Playoffs

Gotta love the fact that Oklahoma jumps over Texas and gets to control their own destiny for a shot at the national championship. What does Texas have to do? Sit on the sidelines and root for Florida and Missouri.

Think Oklahoma is a lock against #20 Missouri? Think Pitt vs. WVU last year -- it can happen.

Would a playoff system make a difference? I don't know but if I had to handicapp it you would see the same match up Alabama vs. Oklahoma if they both win this weekend.

Got RAC?

AC/DC Bit Rate Up?

I just go the new AC/DC album in the mail and as I import it into iTunes to get it to the iPhone, I noticed that the Bit Rate is all over 1,000 kbps where some of there other albums are in the 700 to 900 range.

I guess it is the technology that captures the sound better, because I doubt that Angus has gotten any better with age!

Can your iPhone read the code below?

There is some new software out there called NeoReader that allows you to take a picture with your iPhone of a bar code and look it up on the internet. If you scan the above code it brings you right to this web page.

You can also scan bar coddes on books and go to the order page on Amazon, or you can scan the code on a product and shop the internet for the item. It's pretty cool!

Apple iPhone power options suck!

There are two things about the iPhone that piss me off and that is how you power and charge the thing.

I left my little square power block that came with the phone at a bar in the Boston airport, not that big of a deal, I have a bunch of them at home. NOT! Apple has decided to use all four connectors when you only need two of them to recharge the device. So you need to buy a new one from apple or one from a company like Griffin. The one that I bought at Radio Shack cost be $35 with tax and that is over 10% of what I paid for the phone. Imagine buying a $2,500 TV and paying $250 for the plug -- bullshit!

The second issue is why did they not just use a standard USB cable? I have bunch of them and other phones seem to use them fine. I have not done the research, but the last time I checked you only need two wires to charge a battery.

So to net it out, you can't use 90% of the wall to USB adapters that are out there, and the cable that you use is not standard either!

What do I do after golf?

Jason Gore who plays on the PGA Tour was recently participating in an interview.

Q: What would you be doing if you weren't a pro golfer?

A: Four hundred pounds. Maybe a beach bum. I really don't think I'm smart enough to be employed by anyone. Actually, I guess if I got a regular job I'd be okay. I've always loved music, but that's an even harder industry than golf to break into. But I have a degree from Pepperdine, so I guess I could come up with something.

Get your booze on!

Getting something to drink at a football game or concert besides the Coke you can buy at the refreshment stand has been a challenge since prohibition was repealed many years ago. It's not that hard to put a small airplane bottle in your pocket, but when it comes to bringing in a fifth, you might need some help.

I don't think this idea is new, but they packaged it up and at $15 counting shipping, the price is good enough to give it a try.

Booze Belly

Hotels charging for things you don't use

I spent the night at the Laveview Resort in WV over the weekend and when I was checking out there was a charge for $1.00 for the in room safe. I did not even know that there was one in the room until I saw the charge.

The only time I ever used the safe in the room was Las Vegas since I took some extra cash with me.

I started to do some math in my head to see how much money the hotel was making. They have 187 rooms and even if they only run at a 50% occupancy rate that adds up to 34,000 nights a year.

I took a quick look on the web and the "key" operated safe that was in the room and I can't even find them for sale, so I suspect that they have been there for a long time. Even a new digital safe can be had for under $150 and if you allocate $35 each to have them bolted to the wall your cost comes in around the $34,000 they bring in the first year.

I guess it's only a dollar, but I would rather seem then roll it into the room rate and not spell it out on my bill.

Airport Delays

For those of you that travel a lot it's important to know when there are delays at airports. You can go to the faa.gov site and see delays, or you can grab this little application for the iPhone called AirportStatus.

It's not real fancy, but a quick click and you have the data.

You want Duck Lard with that Steak?

Bacar


San Francisco, CA


From: Maxim's August 2008 Magazine.

What separates executive chef Robbie Lewis' prime rib from the meaty pack? A nice, long relaxing bath..... in duck blubber. The mesquite grilled rib eye steak ($34) is first slow-cooked in a low-temperature pool of herbal-scented Daffy lard. It's yanked from the puddle as the steak reaches rare, and is quickly finished off on a mesquite grill. "You get the best of both worlds," says Chef Lewis. "The flavor of slow-cooked meat, charred and grilled over smoky mesquite." And he's not just blowing smoke, friends.

It's located 448 Brannan Street in San Francisco.



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What song is that playing on the radio?

How many times have you been listening to the radio and a song comes on and you don't know who it is? You wait for the DJ to tell you, but he is more interested in plugging some product to earn a few bucks.

If you have a newer car radio, they scroll the artist and song on some of them, but not all stations provide that data with their broadcast signal. Or you might be riding in your friends piece of shit Vega with an AM radio.

Anyway there is a cool new application for the iPhone that does this for you called Shazam. You can get it from the Apps Store by searching on the name and it's free! Or you can click this link to go right to it.

You hold your iPhone up to the radio for five seconds or so and then it vibrates to tell you it's done and there you go -- artist, song, album, links to videos in youTube, etc.

I am not sure of the database it draws on, but it says it searches four million songs. It's VERY cool!

Waiting for FedEx

I am sitting here in my home office waiting for the FedEx truck to show up with my new iPhone. This pisses me off that I cannot go out for lunch because if I miss him he won't leave it in the door.

It's not that bad since it's a 3G iPhone.

But this has me thinking, why can't they set it up that they have a better window than "sometime today up till 6:00pm" -- they know the route they are going to follow. They don't just drive around and drop off a package, go in the back and grab another box, drive somewhere else. They have a preplanned route so that they can be as efficient as possible.

They could even come up with something that sends a text to your cell phone when they get close. They know the packages that they need to deliver and the order they are delivering them in. They could page me with 5 homes to go, or they can even look at their GPS and calculate the time left to get to my house.

Maybe i'll send my ideas to the CIO of FedEx.

Can't even pick your own sauce.

The family decided to spend Saturday night out at Dave & Busters for some dinner and an evening out with the kids. I was having trouble picking something from the menu and was holding up the whole order. One last look and the fried shrimp seemed to jump off the menu at me, so there you go, fried shrimp it is.

The drinks and the kids food came first to keep them happy and then came my shrimp platter. This is where the issue came up. The shrimp came with some crappy Chipotle-honey sauce that they must have thought was good since they were including it with the shrimp vs. traditional cocktail sauce. The sauce did not even look good with some off orange color and some green flecks.

I called over our waitress to ask for some cocktail sauce or maybe even the hot sauce they put on the chicken wings if they did not have any cocktail sauce. She was ready to help for $0.50! What's up with that? How many times have you ordered shrimp and had to pay for the cocktail sauce? I asked to give back the shitty sauce for a $0.50 refund to apply to the $0.50 for the cocktail sauce.

As you can guess I was not able to get through to the waitress my issue and asked to talk to the manager. Now $0.50 is not that big of a deal as I was going to walk over to a game and spend a buck for a couple minutes on a game. It was the point. I dropped $75 on average quality food and drinks for four people and had to pay for the damn sauce!

They are pretty much the only game in town so it's hard to say we won't go back, but you can bet that the next time we will stop and eat on the way.

Consolidated Financial Statement

I originally started down the path of looking for a way to keep track of frequent flyer points and frequent hotel award points. I'm not sure what search words I used in google, but ended up finding a site called Yodlee.

This sight allows you to select one of over 5,000 partners that they work with to consolidate and report out on all of your accounts on one dashboard. The dashboard can show a view of frequent flyer/stay points, net worth, and even credit card charges and investment account trades, divedneds, etc.

I have been using this site for a few years now and it is pretty much straight forward with a more functional front end than one that looks good.

While on an airplane this week I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal that talked about a new site www.mint.com and is "powered" by the yodlee engine. Since I already use the yodlee engine and it has all the security in place I decided to give the mint site a try.

The first thing that amazed me was how much nice the user interface is compared to the yodlee site. It also has an easy feature to bucket all your credit cards into budget categories and you can then see how your month over month spending is trending. I wish I had it in place for the past few years to see how the gas prices have been impacting my budget.


Anyway if you want to see all your financial accounts on one dashboard, give www.mint.com a try. If you want the frequent flyer/stat programs you need to go to www.yodlee.com.

Alabama vs. Mississippi

Lawyer runs a stop sign with his new Corvette in Mississippi and gets pulled over by a sheriff's deputy. He thinks that he is smarter than the deputy because he is a lawyer from Alabama and is certain that he has a better education than any Mississippi cop. He decides to prove this to himself and have some fun at the officer's expense!!

*****
Officer says,' License and registration, please.'

Lawyer says, 'What for?'

Officer says, 'You didn't come to a complete stop at the stop sign.'

Lawyer says, 'I slowed down, and no one was coming.'

Officer says, 'You still didn't come to a complete stop. License and registration, please.'

Lawyer says, 'What's the difference?'

Officer says, 'The difference is, you have to come to complete stop, that's the law. License and registration, please!'

Lawyer says, 'If you can show me the legal difference between slow down and stop, I'll give you my license and registration and you give me the ticket. If not, you let me go and don't give me the ticket.'

Officer says, 'Sounds fair. Exit your vehicle, sir.'

The officer takes out his night stick and starts beating the ever-loving shit out of the lawyer and says, 'Do you want me to stop, or just slow down?'

He must have really pissed someone off!

Who's Gonna Wash My Shirt?

Are the Flyers Fans that Dumb?

I was watching the Flyers play the Penguins and they decided to take a page out of the Penguins book and dress their fans all in the same color. You see the Penguins do a thing they call a "white out" where they give every fan a white tee shirt to ware and along with that they all wave white towels. It can really get the team going.

Well, some dumb ass in Philadelphia decided to dress their fans in orange shirts. The big problem with that is in the arena the Penguins play in the seats are orange, so it looked like they were playing in their home arena with a few fans watching. The Flyer fans are so lazy, they just sat there and added to the "I'm a seat" effect.

Well I guess the series standing of 3-0 in favor of the Penguins speaks for it's self, and we will see if the Pens can take them out 4-0 tonight.