Gypsies In The Palace: Jimmy Buffett Concert Review This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

I saw the 2010 Summerzcool Tour final date at BankAtlantic center last night (27 Feb) with Evan, Brenda, Greg, Gaby, Mom, and Karen.

We started at Renegade for and early dinner. We were there at 515, Karen followed two minutes later, John and Liz right after that. Evan and Brenda brought up the rear. I've only reviewed Renegade about ten times in my blog and it's still just as good as ever. John and Liz attended dinner with us while Greg and Gaby didn't. I had the Native Plate this time and while the ribs were excellent and tasty, they were a tad greasier than usual. I managed to finish my entire meal, something I usually can't do there because the portions are so big. Everyone but me had take-home bags.

Mom and I got to the BAC and the lot was damn near full. If you've ever been to Buffett you know most of the people got there at 2pm and have been drinking heavily ever since. I ended up finding a spot near A52 because someone had packed up their tailgating stuff to go in. It was around 715pm. $30 for parking if I didn't mention it.

Mom hadn't been to this type of Buffett show before so the parking lot was a bit overwhelming for her, I think. It's like a huge football tailgate where people are having twice as much fun and ten times as drunk. One guy had put together two igloo coolers, two sets of wheelbarrow wheels, a pair of bicycle handlebars, a motor and made a train. He was riding the first cooler and drinking from the second. I do not believe this is legally qualified as 'drinking and driving'

You've all seen the closet alcoholics who have the funnels with a tube that forces booze down their throats, right? This crowd had then but the funny one was where there was a uniformed Sunrise police officer pouring in the bottle of booze (Vodka or Gin as it appeared to be or maybe crappy white rum?) for the guy because he couldn't do it himself.

Karen -- who came in elsewhere -- saw someone come out of the bushes. I won't share what they were doing but I'm just saying on the "A" lot maybe you don't want to walk through the bushes ever again.

We passed all the Margaritaville stands which were handing out free samples of food and drink. Nice. We were way too full to partake.

We went in and the rocket scientists had the ticket collection booths so far in they were blocking the swag line and it was causing issues. We checked out our seats, took a lap, and then finally (20 minutes later) the rest of the lot began showing up.

The whole time before the opening act, there was the usual platoon of people throwing t-shirts, playing with beachballs, using the bamboo basketball hoops, and otherwise having fun. The set was minimal. You've seen it before. Stage, bamboo beach theme, three large screen displays -- two on opposite sides for the people in the cheap seats, and one for backdrops.

Promptly at 8pm his Holiness, the Head Parrothead, came out and introduced Ilo Ferreira who did a fifteen minute opening set. He was excellent. From me that's high praise because I'm usually critical of opening acts. How good? He's a male Nadira Shakoor. Really.

The beachballs continued, as they did throughout the first half of the show, as Parrothead in Chief, Buffett took the stage at 817pm. He spent the whole show running his songs as part of the "Summer School" scene from class to graduation to diploma, and so on. Some of the connections were really weak, but it wasn't the point.

He also talked about this being a hockey arena and how he was playing on ice. He had a few words to say about Tea, USA along with some video clips of the Olympics hockey. Apparently he's a fan.

The most entertaining part of the show wasn't the show. It was the "lady" in front of us who was quite literally too drunk to stand. She got up, swayed about, and fell back down into her chair, usually with the help of her seatmates. In spite of this she continued to drink more and more. Long about mid show she lost the ability to keep her head upright, and like a newborn, it just lolled from side to side and front to back.

Post show, there was beer on my jacket. Lots of it. Dry cleaner for that. Courtesy of the guy behind me. Ass.

We left at the end of the first encore because we knew there was only one song in the second. Normally I don't do that but this was one of the drunkest crowds of any show I've ever been to and we didn't want to be on the road with them. Greg and Gaby were first out before the encore. The rest of us were out as Brown Eyed Girl wrapped up.

Evan provided me a link to Buffet World (I'd never heard of it) to get the missing songs from the set list below. I wasn't able to remember them all or in order.

OPENING SET:
01 Lage Nom Ai
02 License to Chill
03 Summerzcool
04 Pencil Thin Moustache
05 Conky Tonkin’
06 Son of a Son of a Sailor
07 Boat Drinks
08 Volcano
09 Cheeseburger in Paradise
10 Come Monday
11 Wings
12 It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere
13 Rhumba Man
14 One Particular Harbour
INTERMISSION (Short one, too!)
SECOND SET:
15 My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink and I Don’t Love Jesus
16 Cuban Crime of Passion
17 Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes
18 Last Mango in Paris
19 Let Me Love Again (an Ilo Ferreira song)
20 Gypsies in the Palace
21 Surfin’ in a Hurricane
22 Southern Cross
23 A Pirate Looks at Forty
24 Margaritaville
25 Fins
FIRST ENCORE:
26 Nobody From Nowhere
27 Brown Eyed Girl
SECOND ENCORE:
28 Tin Cup Chalice (Solo Acoustic)

One of Jimmy's most underrated songs is Gypsies in the Palace which he did. The first bit he did in the "style of Leonard Cohen" and it was a very interesting take. I'd like to hear him do the whole thing like that. This concert was good, classic Buffett. Welcome home, Jimmy. Don't stay away so long next time. (His last visit here was 2-19-2005 which I also attended, I believe.)

You all saw Google's awesome SuperBowl ad about a guy falling in love. One of the better ones in terms of actual art in years. Someone's done a brilliant take on it involving computers. Same music, same concept, different search terms. Check it out.

Suzie-Q blogs this item. It's a real excerpt from a sex education article for girls from the 1960s. Yeah, the 1960s. It's not that old.

I don't have words to describe how amusing I found this. Does anyone know where this woman is or how I can find her? Nice laugh. Thanks Miss Q! :)  A larger version by clicking, full size on her website. Go take a peek and give her a comment of thanks for that great bit.

Stan hasn't made my blog before. I've known Stan for decades. It's his first appearance but this video is the funniest commercial of its kind I've ever seen. It's by Axe body wash and called "Wash Your Balls" which should give you all the warning you need.

Once again, the Miami Herald made an IT'S error in today's print story about last night's horrible Heat game. The Herald really needs to hire some editors who know grammar. This is a regular occurrence, but I no longer write and complain because last time I did they wrote back and argued with me that they were right. They were not right. Period. Now, I just mock them. (Sorry, Rob, Dave, and anyone else at the Fishwrapper, but your paper has some flaws that continue to get worse.)

If you use Open Source programs from Linux to Open Office to Gimp to Drupal to Wordpress to anything in between, you really need to read this article because you could be affected. It's from London's Guardian newspaper, a reputable source. In it, "an influential lobby group is asking the US government to basically consider open source as the equivalent of piracy - or even worse .... the International Intellectual Property Alliance, an umbrella group for organisations including the MPAA and RIAA, has requested with the US Trade Representative to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil and India for its Special 301 watchlist because they use open source software .... Special 301 [is] a report that examines the adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights around the planet - effectively the list of countries that the US government considers enemies of capitalism." I was going to write a long analysis and then add that here, but I don't think that's necessary. This is just obviously insane. One recommends you do not take this lightly and keep a careful eye on developments.

Killer Whales are not Whales. Dammit. Orcas. This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Before I get to the interesting stuff, I want to follow up on a post from yesterday. I taught the management company my HOA employees a valuable lesson. My final message to them was that if I didn't hear back by 10am I was going to file a formal complaint with the State Department of Professional Regulation. I did so at 10:04 today via fax. At 10:37 the lady who handles our community called, I lit into her like there was no tomorrow. She's coming to "reinspect" the property Tuesday. I may have one of the neighbour's dogs come utilize the back yard so she has something to step in. They can't fine me: I don't have a dog. Anyway, I told her I had sent the complaint in. Some ten minutes later her boss called and asked what transpired, I gave her a slightly friendlier version of the treatment. I also told her that I had sent in the complaint and told her to learn a lesson. I don't make threats. I make promises. Actions (or lackthereof) have consequences and your broken cel phone doesn't relieve you of those consequences. It's not over yet.

Once in a blue moon Microsoft does something good. Yesterday they shut down a huge bot network responsible for 1,500,000,000 pieces of spam e-mail every day. I have not noticed any major change, sadly. While I applaud their efforts, I am still reminded that their operating system flaws are what made that network possible.

I rarely post jokes in my blog, but this one's a riot: Mark McGwire said he's saddened his estranged brother wrote a book that chronicles their use of performance-enhancing drugs and reiterated his claim that he only took them to heal from injuries. Oh, wait, that's a serious news story. Mark McGwire so needs to get over himself. Nobody believes you. You are a stain on baseball. I don't much care about baseball as I'd much rather watch the grass grow because it's far more interesting, but all my baseball friends think you're an embarrassment, though many of these same friends seem ready to forgive Pete Rose, so that makes them suspect.

From Sue, there's this video which you should watch. If you own any four-wheel motor vehicle manufactured by Toyota in the past decade, these are instructions on how to stop your vehicle in the event your car's accelerator gets stuck. The odds are low, but it's your life. Spend the few minutes and watch it. 

Daniel Radcliffe's a decent person. I'm always surprised at such revelations as I harbour secret suspicions about celebrities that they'll turn out to be raging assholes like Mel Gibson. And the one's that aren't assholes tend to be a mess like Amy Winehouse. He just did a PSA for the anti-suicide Trevor Project and it says this in the article: "I have described myself as being 'gently eccentric' and slightly different as a person just because I've had a very different set of influences growing up than anybody else in my peer group did," the 20-year-old Radcliffe said. "I've always felt very lucky to have the life that I've had."

Failblog makes another appearance here. This sign made me laugh. Move along, now.

Josh called me yesterday (yay) but I was asleep and less than coherent. He wrote a post on his blog about Tilikum the "Killer Whale". They aren't whales, you know. They're called Orcas and they are big, mean dolphins. Seriously. They aren't whales. They're really ornery versions of Flipper. Look it up. Learn something.

Josh's blog entry says, "there have been four deaths from killer whales in the last forty-eight years. How many has Tilikum been a part of? Three of them." What do they expect? This is just like the occasional lion keeper who's eaten by the lion. I don't know why people are surprised. These are large predators and you look like an appetizer to them. It's no different than a house cat who looks at you and decides you've outlived your usefulness. (All cat owners have experienced this moment in time where you realize that the cat has designs on you and they aren't pleasant.)

I think the cross-project BOINC thing is working and TEAM CMOT should now appear everywhere. I hope.

JD Salinger Buys an iPad. Not. This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

First, RIP to legendary author and recluse Jerome David Salinger who died today. In an AP story today humorist John Hodgman was quoted as saying, "I prefer to think JD Salinger has just decided to become extra reclusive." Mr Salinger was most famous for introducing world to Holden Caulfield.

Next up, a quick nod to all my Lost fan friends who will appreciate this link that I got from Sue. It pretty much sums up all of our questions. Not only is it done to the tune of Petula Clarke's Downtown making it very catchy, but it's very cleverly done. The complete lyrics can be seen in the "more info" section of the video's description. I love Lost and am excited about its return.

I have been listening to music today. First Monkey: Journey Into The West which was done by the same people as Gorillaz. I still want to see the play in spite of the fact I cannot say I enjoyed the music thoroughly. It was a like a watered-down Cirque production. I am now in the middle of TSO's overwrought Night Castle which I am enjoying a lot more though it's very uneven. After such a long wait, I expected more. This very well could be my favourite album of theirs. After a second listen, I'll know for sure. Then again so did people who bought Guns-N-Roses Chinese Democracy.

I have no new news on the Nucor front but had to share a link to this post about a prospective Nucor job-seeker. It's all to be taken with a grain of salt but this quote stood out "It's a stressful, fast-paced, and dangerous culture driven by greed more than anything else, so be careful if you do get on."*

The buzz about iPad iTampon continues to be mixed and the buzz about the name continues to be universally derisive. However, there's a new survey that portends ill for Apple. You can have a great name and make a lacklustre product do well. You can have a poor name and a great product break free. But can you have a horrible name and an average product and expect to do well? Not likely. Before you click on the link keep in mind that this site is populated almost entirely by Apple's most loyal and faithful customers: people who are predisposed to by the iPad. Only 54% said they would be getting the iSlate, er, iTablet, er iPad with a full 46% giving a flat-out no answer. This might be an Apple failure in the making, like the Apple TV which has yet to penetrate any market in any noticeable way.

And for my friends with a fascination for all sports Canadian from hockey to curling and the CFL, here's an official Canadian government website with a collection of links.

Reminder: if you like this blog and wish it to continue, your help is needed in order to get us transitioned to new blogging software. Otherwise I cannot guarantee this blog will continue.

* Fixed punctuation, spelling, and syntax.

Hockey Hubris, The Florida Panthers, the iPad (iTampon?), and Avatar This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

I am using the word hubris only because Murphy used it in his recent blog entry. It's an unusual word and if he can use hockey and hubris in a blog post, so can I. I am going to talk about hockey as it turns out.


EASTERN CONFERENCE (NHL: National Hockey League)
These are based on statistics as of the close of business Tuesday, 26 Jan 2010
1. Capitals 74
2. New Jersey 69
3. Pittsburgh 67
4. Buffalo 67
5. Ottawa 62

6. Flyers 55
7. Rangers 55
8. Panthers 55
9. Canadiens 55

10. Bruins 54
11. Thrashers 54
12. Isles 54

13. Lightning 52
14. Leafs 44
15. Hurricanes 39

If the playoffs were held right now, my team, the Florida Panthers, would be in it. Yay, team! Had they lost last night against the Canadiens, we'd have been in 13th place instead of 8th place -- eighth being the final playoff position. That tells you how close the standings are. The Panthers are in a four way tie for 55 points (tiebreakers control the order teams are listed) and there are three more teams just one point behind us. That's a total of six teams that can win today or tomorrow and be ahead of us in the standings. Further, tonight, if the Lightning versus the Canadiens game is won by the Bolts, they'll be in that second group with fifty four points, adding a seventh team to the mix.

Hockey Point System For Non-Fans: If you're not a hockey fan, a regulation win gets you two points. So if you have 54 points, win a game, you have 56 points. If you go into overtime you get one point -- something that is really fucking stupid -- even if you lose the game. Ties were abolished in favour of a shootout -- proving the NHL could fuck up a wet dream. But, I digress. 

The saving grace is no matter what happens this season, we'll not finish in the final two spots (14 and 15) because we're better than that. And we're only a seven points out of fifth place and five points out of thirteenth place -- that may be a record for tight grouping nearly two-thirds of the way into the season. All this assumes nobody in front of us wins which is an absurdist condition. Our divisional record is an abysmal 6-7-2*. To avoid sounding like a Pollyana here, I must point out the only reason the Panthers doing so well there are seven teams (basically half of the conferfence) within two points of us.

(A brief word on the West: if you take out the anaemic Oilers pretty much every team in the Western Conference would rank at or higher than the Panthers. Even Minnesota, which is the subject of ridicule, has 54 points to keep it all in perspective.)

The Panthers are a team that has huge potential. But we're not using it. Our destiny is in our hands. We stand on the brink of a golden opportunity for the future that lies before us or on the brink of a chasm from which we may spend a decade returning. This lies within the hands of the players themselves. It's not coaching (DeBoer is a good coach), it's not ownership (hmph), it's not the referees fault (they suck anyway), and it's not even the fan base's fault (speaking of sucky fans welcome to Sports Hell).

The Panthers have made their bed with some spectacularly bad collapses, lazy efforts, and all around suckitude, and let's be clear: I'm not happy where we are. So many blown games are the primary reason we're not a top point team. But that's the difference: good teams don't consistently blow multi-point leads.

We beat Toronto a few nights ago because Toronto sucks worse than we do. But it wasn't an enjoyable game to watch. It was like watching you play your lazy older brother who wasn't really even trying. Our effort had we played a better team would not have resulted in a win. Let's not even mention the goalie, Tomas Vokun: he's the only reason we're not behind Carolina sucking up last place.

Honestly, it all comes down to consistency. That's not something you can coach. That's something you do as a team. Which road will the team take? History is not on our side but I hope (HAH!) this is the year we take our own destiny into our hands. This differentiates the bad, the average, the good, and the great teams. It shows your character. The Panthers have a date with destiny. The question is, will the Panthers show up?

To quickly change the subject, this video is a riot. We have the TSA and now Rick Mercer has this security video mocking(?) Transport Canada's security:


It's a short video and well worth your time if you need a good laugh at the expense of airline 'security'.

Next up, I must mock the iPad. I love Apple. I am a Mac-head. The iPad, when I first heard the name some time ago, is poorly named. I assumed it must have been a joke. I mean, seriously, why would you name a product after a feminine hygiene product? I thought my amusing comment was original but apparently many people besides myself got the same wrong idea. This (thanks FailBlog) is what happens when people are afraid to stand up to Steve Jobs:

Let me be honest. When I heard they were coming out with a feminine hygiene product tablet, I was sure they'd call it the iSlate. A great name, conveys what it is, and there's far less room for rude product names. Or maybe even the iTablet. But no: we have the iPad. The worst product name Apple's ever come out with.

The iPad is well designed from all appearances, meeting Apple's awesome visual standards. It's easy to use because everything Apple does is easy to use. I will admit that I have no idea why this product exists. I don't know who the market is outside of the geek set who will want it because it's new and cool. I love technology, but I really do need it to serve some sort of purpose. I love books but I don't want an e-reader. I don't have a Kindle and this doesn't make me want one. It's a computer of sorts -- but with limited functionality -- and quite frankly, I'd rather have a laptop. Add a touch screen to a laptop or netbook and that's what this is. What is the revolution? Why does iPad exist? Listen, can we just call it iTampon because Steve Jobs apparently was having his period when this was designed? Would that offend anyone? No? Good.

A little bit of news on Avatar. It has officially become the highest grossing film ever, passing Titanic, a record nobody thought was beatable. The news article is here. Only I'm sure you'll all remember a few days ago in my blog I pointed out how that the real champion remains Gone With The Wind. The article, happily, acknowledges that. Earning $189 million when tickets are averaging a dime is far more impressive than earning $1.3 billion when tickets are averaging $15 per admission. Avatar still impresses at equalized dollars, but it's at 26 on the all-time list by that standard. I have nothing against Avatar and enjoyed it (see review elsewhere in this blog), but it's being made to be bigger than it really is. Seriously, use the equalizer link to see how movies really rate (2009 domestic dollar version).

Lastly, I mentioned Dean before. I have been officially Simpsonized by him:

I will post a full-sized, full-resolution version soon. This tiny preview is for your amusement. This is the second draft. He's amazingly good and the only changes we made were my hair colour and changing shoes to skates. We made a slight alteration to the jersey neckline because it's supposed to be yellow but the shade matched the avatar's skin so it was adjusted for practical reasons. I am deeply pleased with the results and you'll be seeing more of Yellow Me around.

* or 6-7, as I deny the existence of the 2 in accordance with my beliefs that shootouts are bad.

Blogger --> WordPress (Do you need a job?) This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

This blog is published using Blogger (a Google company) but hosted on my own website so I can make sure things operate the way I want and not they way they want. This includes being able to fix individual files and graphics when they go wonky and such.

In March, just 60 days away, Blogger will no longer support FTP blogs hosted offsite. This means I need to find a second solution (also see this post from Blogger). Maybe someone out there knows how to make what I have (Dreamhost) work with their new hosted plan, but I am at a loss how to make it happen. I'd prefer it just because it's way less work, I keep all my Google rankings and traffic.

That solution needs to include:

• Moving the complete blog to a new blogging format but keeping all posts and comments
• Keeping the same URLs that already exist (to preserve page rank)
• Keeping the blog's look about the same

I can actually install WordPress on my site. That's easy. I'd just set it up to run in a directory called "q2" until we had it working, then we can swap directory names. What needs to be done is:

• A custom Wordpress theme
• Conversion of all posts and comments
• A lot of hand-holding and cleanup until it's debugged
• Maybe help with some other stuff (scripts, etc)
  

The blog has over 800 posts representing nearly 100MB worth of files, and well over 1,000 comments (many of which are on just a few threads). This blog appears to be larger than the conversion tool Wordpress provides can handle. I've Googled extensively on this and it's overflowed with problems and there's questions as to whether it even works at all any more. Keep in mind you'll need to make sure it's a recent post as in early 2009 they changed how it all works. I don't really like Blogger so much any more but changing at this point seems to be quite a chore.

I need someone who's really good at what they do, and someone who is experienced at WordPress (and Blogger too ideally). This job will pay. I'm not asking for a freebie if we go the conversion route. Just let me know what's involved and what you think it would cost.

Hopefully someone out there thinks this blog is worth saving and can help.

Blu-Ray Phasers and Classic Advertising This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Today is laundry day. And it's also a football weekend. The Cowboys lost and that is an awesome thing because I hate them but on the other hand it was to Minnesota, who I used to like. Until they got Brett "Whiny Bitch" Farve, who I can't stand. The Jets and Colts both won and that sucks because I hate them. Arizona lost to New Orleans and I just don't care.

I got a new digital camera today and will shortly be giving away my old one to any friend that wants it. Details privately. It's not a big upgrade really, but it was a sweet deal on a new Kodak Z915 10MPX camera and my old one was a 7MPX Sony Cybershot DSC659 which has given me nearly four years of awesome service. So far my only complaint is that the Sony could mount directly on the Mac desktop and the Kodak can't which is a stupid design flaw, but I can fake it using Image Capture (standard on all Macs). While you can use iPhoto it won't let you add/delete pictures from the camera directly.

Paul is once again trying to get me to adopt one of his cats. I turned him down because I am still not ready for many reasons. Enough said. A shout out to Christin Keck who has had her book self-published though Amazon's CreateSpace. I haven't read either of these, but she's a good writer and tells a good tale. So you can check it out if you'd like. Another long piece, by way of John Carney, on the late-night wars which makes some salient points but mostly rambles on far too long. Just trying to give equal time to all sides on this topic. Suzie-Q shares this link which has tons of vintage Apple Computer ads (Apple I, II, IIc, and even one Mac ad. No Lisa, Apple /// or such ads though.) You may find it educational or reminder of your age. View at your own peril, though seeing how some of those people are dressed may be worth a click on your broadband connection.

Here's another cool link from Dan (I think). Someone took a model of a Classic Star Trek Phaser, and then installed a sound oscillator so it makes noise. After that they installed the optics from a Blu-Ray player and, voilà, you have a phaser that really works. This video shows it blowing balloons apart. You can do it at home, too. He's got links to the instructions from his website. Keep in mind that, in theory, weaponizing this, may be a serious crime in your jurisdiction. But the cool factor is awesome. Broadband recommended before clicking the instructional links.

I am so sick of you. That 'you' refers to those of you who continue to forward shit to me that's comprised of lies, mistruths, and so on. Any email that says "send this to XX people" is guaranteed to be a fraud. I always refer people to Snopes.com a fine bastion of unbiased facts on many of the items circulating in your inbox. I also send people to factcheck.org for the more pedestrian items. Sadly, even these sites are victim to the shite covering the internet. Here's a great article on factcheck.org about snopes.com -- keep in mind, both sites cite facts with references. Wikipedia is never acceptable as a source of "facts" because there are tons of errors, though it is extraordinarily useful in a general way.

The Struggle Of A Blog Entry This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Many days I have nothing to blog, so I don't. Usually when I have something to blog, it's hard to know what post to start with. Officially, I don't care who reads or not, but I still feel obligated to be interesting. As a writer, you want to grab people with the first thing you say, so they want to read the second sentence, then the third, and ultimately suck them in so they read your whole post. If you're good, maybe they'll come back or even click on some of your related advertising. I don't care about the money because I couldn't even miss a week of work with what this blog has paid in my lifetime. Mostly, I try to entertain. Sometimes, I try to provoke thought. And occasionally, I try to antagonize because I'm spiteful like that.

Today, I'll start with something I find interesting, and a few others will find interesting, but most of my readers won't give two shits about. In London's Farringdon Station, a remarkable thing happened. A station worker was reprimanded by his supervisor for not communicating well enough with his customers (passengers). The results are fantastic. There's the news story which focuses on the fact he suggested the passengers kill themselves (not seriously), and one intrepid passenger even managed to record a bit with his mobile phone. I find this interesting because (1) it involves a subway -- the tube in this instance, (2) it involves an unusual reaction by an employee to his supervisor's reprimand. Honestly, this story is funny in a very quirky sort of way. But few of you will 'get' it and that's okay because it's here because I like it. If someone else likes it, that's good too. If not, I'm okay with it.

A Day in the Internet is a great graphic which puts things in perspective. Each day: 210 billion emails, 5 million tweets, 3 million photos posted on Flickr (that's 41 petabytes of data or to put it another way one petabyte can hold 500 billion pages of text, and 5000 petabytes will hold every word ever written since the dawn of time), and so much more. This is a fun exercise in numbers that are beyond the comprehension and visualization of most people. Perspective is important. My first hard drive was 10 Megabytes. It cost $999 and was called the Sider II for the Apple II series. I thought I'd never fill it up. On my current 4.5 TB of storage, I have single files that are larger than 10MB. My 2TB drive was under $200. I have under 2TB remaining of storage out of the 4.5TB. A decade from now, I'm sure I'll be writing about my 1PB drive and laughing at how I thought I'd never fill up the 1TB drive. If you dig through my blog, I did indeed make fun of that first 1TB drive I bought not very long ago.

I have to thank Dave Higgins for posting this to my message board. Have you ever seen silent monks singing Hallelujah (Handel's not Cohen's? Hard to believe but here it is:




This is one of the most awesome videos of all time in term of just being clever. You will be amazed at the creativity of the kids who did this. It's amazing how petty some of the idiot commenters are. I suggest not reading them.

I love Lego® and so do you. So does everyone. I haven't owned any in three decades or so, but I still like to play with them. I never bought them because, well, I never can get kits made the way I want with the parts I want. Along comes this software which Lego themselves have produced (Mac and PC). First, you can play with Lego on your computer to your heart's content. For free. Forever. But if you build something you really like, you can get a custom Lego kit with your parts delivered to your door. And there are extra colours, and parts, and damn it's fun and addictive. I'm going to try and build a subway or something and then order it and try to re-create it.

Google Maps. I'm sure you all have used it at one point or another. You've probably searched for a company or a restaurant. The company where I work is listed, and we even keep our listing relatively up to date which is more than I can say about many companies. I really never kept specific track of it, lumping it all in with standard Google traffic. It is cool because there's click-to-call where people can call right from the listing. Today we got this letter in the mail from Google:

It came with a very awesome window decal, now on our reception window, and the letter. The letter has been edited to remove some personally identifying details but is otherwise unaltered. Getting real mail from Google is weird and cool at the same time. Being named "A Favorite Place" on Google is very cool. I'm not sure how they determine it, but it's not on traffic unless nobody clicks through on Google Maps. I suspect it's by business category. (Speaking of Google, the GooglePhone rumours continue with the new one that the phone will be distributed by Google leaving out the mobile people all together.) Our page still uses MapQuest by default but we do have a link to GoogleMaps now.


* Fact check here: http://www.whatsabyte.com/

Gordon Ramsay and The Secret Diary Of Steve Jobs This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

This article about Gordon Ramsay's restaurant empire is a good read. It's weird because tonight on BBC America's Late Night With Jonathan Ross, who was the guest? Gordon Ramsay, discussing his recent facelift. And tonight on Jay Leno? Gordon Ramsay. (The BBCA show is one week behind, so we get last week's show a week later here in the USA.) The article discusses how his empire almost went bankrupt but he saved it. What it doesn't mention is many critics say the reason his restaurants started to falter and fail was that he didn't spend enough time in them because he was so busy with his shows: Hell's Kitchen (USA), Kitchen Nightmares (US and UK), and The F Word (UK).

Fake Steve Jobs today has a rare serious type post: a discussion with Randall Stephenson of ATT. This is satire mixed with a serious statement on the state of the American corporation: a real business lesson.  I don't want to spoil it all for you but there's some revelations in there. But I'll include a very small excerpt:

... When I say that “we” have a hit on our hands, I’m really giving you way too much credit, because let’s be honest, the success of iPhone has nothing to do with you. In fact, iPhone is a smash hit in spite of your network, not because of it.... An American company creates a brilliant phone, and that company hands it to you, and gives you an exclusive deal to carry it — and all you guys can do is complain about how much people want to use it. You, Randall Stephenson, and your lazy stupid company — you are the problem. You are what’s wrong with this country ... There was nothing on the line. Silence. I said, Randall? He goes, Yeah, I’m here. I said, Does any of that make sense? He says, Yeah, but we’re still not going to do it. See, when you run the numbers what you find is that we’re actually better off running a shitty network than making the investment to build a good one. It’s just numbers, Steve. You can’t charge enough to get a return on the investment.

That is a sad but true statement of corporate America. And it'll be why Apple doesn't let ATT have the exclusive anymore.

I will continue to ignore Tiger Woods in my blog. His sole contribution to society was to make golf interesting to a wider group of people, to which I say: yawn.

765th post This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

According to Blogger we're at 765 posts and counting, this one included. It includes all posts whether or not consequential so if I made two posts in one day that are short, they're still two posts. But you don't care about that, and neither do. I'm waiting on 1,000 :) 

I'm at 247,000 hits and counting. That's more interesting to me. My income from this site is well under $300 since inception over 5 years ago 24 October 2009, so it's good I never intended this as a source of income.

Xmarks. It's still awesome. I've figured out how to keep my personal items (financial) off my work machine and vice versa. You have to do it from your account on their website by clicking share, and selecting which computers see which folders. Then, you have to remove the offending folder from the machines in question. They answered my email and said they do take donations at this URL, so I immediately sent one.

For all you security-minded people who are into biometric scanning as a way to prevent people from scamming your payroll or homeland security systems, I direct you to this article in which a Chinese woman managed to enter Japan illegally by having plastic surgery to alter her fingerprints, thus fooling immigration controls, police claim. So, that means our multi-billion dollar system of fingerprinting everyone who comes into the USA who isn't a citizen is worth how much? Zero. Yes, fantastically secure, isn't it? So much for stopping terrorists.

This article will expire in a few days, becoming paid instead of free. Read it while you can. Many of you will have bought from this company called Oriental Trading. It's where many of the members of the Umbrella Hat Society got their hats. (You should join -- it's free.) Anyway, the owner of the company is bankrupt and facing felony fraud charges after losing $127 million ($127,000,000) in a casino chain -- accounting for 5.5% of their earnings -- and defaulting on most of that debt. In Nevada defaulting on a gaming debt is a very, very serious crime. In many other states, gambling debts are not even legally enforceable. It's a great read if you have time. If the casino has to write that off, it'll be a significant downtick on next year's earnings. I find it interesting that Wynn Casinos stopped the guy from gambling there because he had a problem. Casinos are required by law to stop inebriated persons and persons with clear gambling problems from playing. Wow. Drunk people gambling in Vegas. Never seen it. Ever. As if. Half the people who play are three sheets to the wind, so if you get stopped you're truly toasted. Thanks to Paul for sharing this.

I've been on many tube trips in London over the years. Hundreds. I've seen dogs, pigeons, mice, rats, and flies in the trains, tunnels, and stations over the years. One station has a resident station cat. What I have never seen is a fox on an escalator. That's just silly. Foxes don't ride escalators in tube stations. Apparently this fox did not get the memo. The photos alone are worth clicking through.


Oh, and I broke 900,000 Work Units on Seti@Home. Steve has over 1.8 million. Rat Bastard. Susie has over 400,000 and Adrian over 700,000.

Autographed Cards, Windows Woes, and more... This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

First, the last in my series of NHL collectible photos was posted at Flickr today. I have plenty of more stuff, but this is all you get to see. This photo shows the NHLPA Binder, NHL certificate of authenticity, and one page of nine cards. There are many pages and this is a complete set of hockey cards and every single card in it is autographed. It's the 1995-1996 Upper Deck Be A Player set. It's pretty cool to have an entire set of mint factory cards autographed by every player.

I have no idea what it's worth. I've never even considered selling it. But one day when I die, I know who gets it. That's what's happening with most of my collection. Any of my hockey friends who don't predecease me, and I think will appreciate it, is getting a piece of this collection. Some stuff is valuable and some isn't. But it's not about the money, but about who will like it for what it is. (Sort of like that Concorde model Murphy gave me -- it may not be worth a fortune, but I love it just the same. It's a true example of the thought really does count. And it's one reason why I'll never forget him.)

Windows Seven has experienced its first full-on disaster. FSJ isn't much for real news, but every now and again, he surprises people. I actually feel bad not only for Microsoft but the users affected by this problem. He also makes a nice point: "... in the U.S. consumer space, we sell one out of every five machines. One in five. Mercedes and BMW each get about 2% of the U.S. auto market. Just saying."

I also pulled my friend Andy's ass out of the fire today and helped him recover his Windows Vista PC over the phone after it got eaten by malware. Remember, if you're using a PC and don't have something like Norton (or such) you're courting disaster. And if you haven't installed it and you get a window offering to remove the infections, you're being scammed -- same as if you get a message saying your credit card information is being transmitted. Think of Norton (or such) as a condom for your Windows PC. Using a Windows PC and the Internet is like having unprotected sex -- sooner or later, you will be infected.

Speaking of Apple and Psystar, they have not come to a decision legally, but they have pre-settled the case. That means, the case will go to trial because each one wants to be proven right. However, if Psystar loses, and they very well may, they have agreed to pay $2.1 million in damages. The company doesn't have the money and is already in bankruptcy. I find this confusing as all hell.

I had more of the clotted cream Karen brought me. Yesterday I had some with scones. Today I had some with raspberries. And I've got enough for a third round. Yay, me.

Lastly, for a good laugh, here's a great photo of an unfortunate Twitter Billboard.

You can read about it here. Clicking on the image will make it larger.

Burning Dinner This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Let's start with an admission. I can't cook many things, but a few things I can cook and cook them well: Steak, Burgers, Chicken and Rice, and Spaghetti with various sauces (marinara, garlic and butter). So it pains me to say I bought over the weekend a $16 one pound filet mignon. I've cooked a lot of steaks in my time, some in the broiler, some in the pan, and some on a grill. Anyway, I heated the pan, threw the steak in, and ran up stairs to boot my computer, and ditch my work clothes. And then I got distracted and suddenly, *sniff* *sniff*, what's that smell? What's burning? OH! SHIT! It's dinner. So, I had blackened steak for dinner. It wasn't very good. I'm an idiot and figured I'd man-up and share that so you could laugh at me.

A special shout out to WJM who right now needs one more than anyone I know. Hang in there, guy.

I'm working on updating my will and am not pleased with the progress of collecting contact information. I suppose I will have to get more motivated. Blech.

Work was boring today though I spent some quality time with Xmarks.  Xmarks is a plug-in for Firefox, Safari, and even the lowly Internet Explorer. I didn't mention it in yesterday's post because I was skeptical of the performance and usefulness of it. Right. I first installed it on my Mac Pro (home) and PC Desktop (work). I set it up on my Mac and ran it, and it was intriguing. I did some tinkering with settings and such, and finally gave up on it for the night. The next morning (that's today) I was a bit bored at work and decided to slack off. I installed it at work, clicked 'synchronise' and let it do its work. A word to the wise, take all your bookmarks on the second machine and move them to a sub-folder called "machine two" because my sole complaint is that it put stuff all over and it took me forever to find it all and re-organize it. But damn, it worked well. I made some changes, came home and my machine at home was updated. (On Firefox you can synch passwords too but if you do, you make DAMN sure you set Firefox's master password on all machines.) I then installed it on the work laptop MacBook Pro (my user account) and it worked great. You have the option of storing the synch data on your server instead of theirs, which I fully intend to do this weekend.

When you're done, on one machine, go through all your bookmarks using CheckPlaces 1.6.3 which I mentioned yesterday, and you'll find more duplicates and errors than you thought you had. Together, these two utilities are awesome. CheckPlaces only needs to be run on ONE machine because when you do, all the others update when you start the browser (or click synch). Both are free, but I'm sending Xmark a donation since they ask. After one day, I've already decided they deserve it. By this weekend it'll be done unless something blows up. (The first few times you synch, you may find it slow as it has so many changes to make, but that went away after a while. Also moving bookmarks around moves a bit slower, but since I've got over 400 that may be the problem.)

I have a small quibble. It would be really, really nice if it could have on each machine an 'excluded' folder. I don't, for instance, really want my personal finance folder on my work machine. That's something I do only at home. And on my home machine, I really don't need the link to my customer and vendor websites, and I'm terribly uncomfortable with having my work's bank URL on my home machine. For some people this may be a deal killer.

Some updates on my private blog for those keeping track.  Rumours of the GooglePhone continue to swirl. I may or may not care. I like the G1 and keep thinking I might buy it, but this intrigues me. I still dislike the iPhone because of the keyboard issue.

Happy Thanksgiving... This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

... to those celebrating it. That's three dots, not four. Get it right. :)

Thanks to FSJ for this article: Microsoft, the largest bastion of evil outside of Yormark's office, hosted an conference on Windows Mobile technology called Mobius 2009. There were 25 people in attendance. Picture one shows the presentation being done. On a Mac. Maybe it's because of the 25 people they invited -- see picture two -- 13 of them were using Macintoshes. Way to go Microsoft. This is a blog of a very pro-Windows person of all things. It's fantastically amusing to me. I am not sure he appreciates the irony of his post.

Thanks to Sue for this bit. It's the complete history of the internet in a nutshell. For this article, it' not true. It's pretty interesting, very informative, and entirely geeky. And that's all good. (There is a saying that anything that can be put in a nutshell belongs there. It's often called Whitney's Postulate and is listed as a corollary to Murphy's Law. This quote was stolen by Sydney Harris and is used all over the internet in various forms.)

As you may or may not be aware every SMS (text message) you have ever sent in your life has been stored by your mobile phone company. Theoretically the archives are reserved for law enforcement and national security purposes. Many, many SMS were sent in the immediate aftermath of 911. Those SMS were posted in their entirety by WikiLeaks on the web. Here's the NY Post article. The article has the link if you care to follow it. I won't put the direct link here because (a) I read a few and some will crush your soul and spirit (b) they violate every personal privacy ethic ever written as they include UNEDITED full names, phone numbers, and more. If you were in New York on 9-11 and sent an SMS it is posted here. If you sent someone your phone, your address, or anything else. It's here. That is completely unacceptable. There are tons of them and unless you like reading both the mundane of unaware people and the misery of people finding out things nobody should ever have to hear, just read the article and skip the link. (The article has more than enough to give you an idea) Nobody should ever have their privacy invaded like this. This isn't journalism, the public's right to know, or anything else. It's fucking disgusting and those at WikiLeaks should die slow, painful deaths.

Special thanks to my season ticket representative Mario Durant of the Florida Panthers for his efforts in securing us nine ducats for a special event. If you ever want season tickets for the NHL's Florida Panthers, call him and tell him I sent you. He'll hook you up. This guy comes through and he's awesome. I'd tell you more about the special event, but you'll have to wait until next year.

A special frown to people who think nearly a decade and a half of friendship should be discarded without at least saying something and providing a reason or even discussing it. Cowardly. And enough on that subject.

So, yesterday was quite the challenge. I left work early to visit the attorney as I do from time to time. Part of my job is making sure things that need to be signed are signed, and everything is in order. If you checked yesterday's weather report, you will know we got damn near 5 inches of rain in some areas and had floods and flood warnings all over the area. I left the attorney's office around 430 to meet everyone for dinner at 515 at Lucille's. The idiot light on my car came on and said my tire was low on pressure. I figured because it was cooler, the pressure had probably caused it to get low (this stupid BMW is sensitive like that), so I stopped in the light drizzle, added air, reset the sensor, and made it almost a quarter mile before it came on again. I stopped, the rain a bit harder, and checked the tire again. Indeed it was leaking because it was low on air again. I inched the car forward and found a very large screw in the front passenger tire. I filled it up again, knowing there happened to be a BMW dealer about four miles from where I was. The car has run-flat tires. While it's good because you're never stranded, there are some downsides. First, you get about 20 to 30 miles of driving if you keep your speed under 30. Second, BMW doesn't give you a spare since you don't need one (as if). The deluge started as I got on I-75 to go one exit (hazards on in the right lane) to the dealer -- Lauderdale BMW of Pembroke Pines. I made it there at 448pm. I walked in and it was damn near deserted in the service department. I explained my situation (and that I was 35 miles from home) but they said most of their mechanics were already gone as they were closing at 5 due to the holiday. (The special tires for the X5 are not readily available at most tire outlets and have to be ordered -- with Thanksgiving looming tomorrow, that was a Bad Thing.) They guy was nice and called every mechanic that was still in the shop seeing if anyone there would do the tire but they all said no as it was quitting time. I was resigned to limping home and missing dinner, the game and everything else.

I thanked the guy (Cal), who was way more helpful than anyone at South Motors would have ever been. My service guy, Donny Rizzo of South Motors, doesn't even return phone calls or emails reliably. How that dealership is in business, I will never know. And of course BMW doesn't care about their customers as my previous interactions indicated (see previous blog posts.) As I was getting ready to walk out the door, a mechanic, Josh, who was sitting in the office (not in the garage) came over and said he'd do it. What a nice guy doing this on his own time to help me out. Sadly for me, the tire warranty company was already closed so I had to pay for the tire at the dealer's rate. (If you worked where I did, you'd have a warranty too for tires that cannot be patched and must be replaced at $300 each.) I paid for it on the company credit card, and I'll file for reimbursement Monday. I give this dealer an A, and will return her for scheduled service even though it's farther from my house than South Motors. To hell with South Motors. BMW will get a nice letter about Cal and Josh, though they probably don't care about that either judging by their previous replies (or lack thereof).

I left the dealer at 550pm, called Karen and found out they were all running a bit late due to weather and were just ordering so I gave them my order over the phone. Got there 615ish, and we ate. About 90 minutes later neither Karen nor myself were feeling very good. So much for dinner. And the Panthers lost in OT.  Came home, returned dinner from whence it came and felt much better. So, all in all, today (yesterday now) sucked.

A Brutally Long Post With Serious Stuff At The End This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

I am not a Carl Hiaasen fan. Sorry, Carl. I'm just wildly indifferent about his writing, but Dave sent me a link to the latest Hiaasen column and it's priceless. This is what I call a WIN. Well done, sir. Well done. Bravo! A nicer piece of mockery I would be hard pressed to find. Speaking of mockery, Fake Michael Yormark continues to write scathing bits in his/her blog, though I am not nearly as entertained by his/her Twittering; it appears just to be there to send traffic to the blog. All my Panther buddies would do well to keep FMY in their RSS feeds. I do.

Over at my Flickr page, I posted some photos of a few of my authentic game-worn collectibles. I thought it might be interesting to for people to see this stuff. We've got two Brett McLean items, a pair of Trevor Kidd items, and a Mario Lemieux item. I've got tons of pucks and jerseys none of which are pictured -- though a number are listed on my for sale page. Prices for friends negotiable. To see the Flickr pictures, just click the Flickr button on the left sidebar. I got the McLean stuff from Matt Redmond formerly of the Miami Matadors (where I was briefly 'employed' as the volunteer webmaster). He's got some great authenticated game worn stuff. If you're interested, contact me and I'll put you in touch.

The Tube has changed the route of the Circle Line. It used to be a circle, and formed (more or less) the boundary for "zone one." It was called the Circle Line because it went in a great big (one hour) circle. I am all for progress usually, but I kind of think that maybe the should rename it since it no longer makes a circle. Here's the re-route, and the most distinguishing thing is it has a start and end whereas originally it was a circle with trains running clockwise and anti-clockwise. I'm just objecting to keeping the name.

To my Facebook friends, there is a way to add a Dislike button now. You need Firefox to do it and anyone else needs Firefox to view it. Here's the add-on. I've installed it and it works great. This is Facebook's most requested feature, and it's the least likely to arrive. Here's your answer. You have to tick the "add experimental add-on" button but don't be afraid. Quit your browser and restart and you're golden.

A few of you aren't going to like this one, but I am greatly amused -- and keep in mind that I am opposed to Obama's proposed Health Care Disaster Reform. To sum it up, an ultra-conservative magazine published an article about the alleged "death panels" and used as its example in their editorial: “People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.” Um, yeah, hello? Stephen Hawking who they claim wouldn’t have a chance in the United Kingdom was in fact born in the United Kingdom, has lived his entire life in the United Kingdom and lives there still today. Hawking himself responded, “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.” Like I said, a favour a plan. I just don't favour the current plan. Go read my previous commentary from my 31 October post.

You all know one of the largest peeves I have is the inability of people to use apo'stro'phe's properly. From it's/its to atrocities like their's and banana's, I get apoplectic over it. Someone else clearly does and has posted this awesome graphic. I wish all my readers would read it.

In college I watched and liked the original mini-series "V" -- though I will be the first to admit it hasn't aged well and going back and seeing those episodes on DVD (I own the whole series) is painful.  I recorded the pilot of the new "V" on my DVR (aka TiFaux). I watched with some trepidation because I didn't think there was much chance it would be any good. I knew everything that was going to happen, right? Is it great television? No. Will it be a hit? Yes. I liked it. It was entertaining. They made some major changes to the plot to keep it a little more interesting and a lot more plausible -- and that same thing opened up a gaping credibility hole. I won't spoil it for you by spilling. The bottom line is I'm going to watch next week's episode too.

I'm sure you're all sick of hearing about Hippo Burger, aka Hippopotamus Restaurant. I don't care. I've got a little more to share with you. First here's the actual menu is here thanks to the same guy who scanned the cover. He can be my friend because he made me really, really happy. And more importantly he's an old photo of the actual restaurant he mentioned to me.

Lastly, a very serious topic. This is where you need to pay attention. I'm going to talk about Google and Privacy (with a capital P). You all use Google. I'm betting I don't have one reader who has never used it. We all knew Google stored a lot of information about what we did on-line and what it shared and with whom. If you use GoogleChat (which is part of GMail) every chat you've ever had is saved forever by default. Forever is a long time. Most people have never turned it off. Everything you've ever searched for on Google while logged in is saved. Everything. Forever. That search you did seven years ago for 'hookers with big tits' is still there. You betcha. Even if you use private browsing, if you are logged into any Google service, it's all recorded. They know more about you than your spouse and parents. At first I thought I was exaggerating to make my point, but after looking through it I'm not sure.


Google has always let you manage your search history, but almost nobody knew how. Me, I never really cared -- a little convenience goes a long way to making me happy in exchange for a little bit of privacy. But what I saw upset me more than a little. I have a Picasa account. I didn't even make one. When I registered for Blogger and created a profile picture, Google made one for me and put my picture there. No shit. Blogger, YouTube, Google, Alerts, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Docs, Friend Connect, Gmail, iGoogle, Orkut, Picasa, your master Google Profile, Google Reader, Google Talk, Google Voice / Grand Central. Those are all applications you can now control what information is stored, who it's shared with. You can also delete stored information. Those, BTW, are all applications which I have supposedly used and/or set up accounts with. Some of them I know I've never used -- like Picasa -- that i assumed are set up by other Google products. At the bottom of my screen it says "and 12 more applications" and those are ones which it's not possible for me to control. That list is equally disturbing. And to those of you have something to hide, it's even worse. I don't much care -- and I went through all of it, and you know what? I deleted barely a half-dozen things: mostly my medical searches. I don't feel that's public or should be.

You need to here  http://www.google.com/dashboard and you'll probably have to log in. There should be a link under your accounts tab if you prefer. You need to go look at what's there and change what you don't like. Allow an hour or more. And prepare to be shocked, appalled, or possibly embarrassed.

I am not picking on Google at all. They've made no pretence of hiding what they're doing or why. And they've given us (way too late) the means to control what's collected. Yahoo, MSN, and everyone else does the same thing.Google has gone boldly first in giving something back that shouldn't have been taken away to begin with.

An Enormous Post This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Fake Steve Jobs (aka Dan Lyons) wrote an amusing piece in his blog today. As you may have seen, Microsoft was planning to sponsor an entire episode of Family Guy. It was to be 30 minutes and sans commercials. The payoff for them was having all sorts of Windows7 references built into the show. Microsoft, aka The Borg, has pulled out. Fox claims they've got a new sponsor -- it would be ironic if it were Apple. 

I continue to not "get" Twitter. In my last blog post I wrote "I still find no point at all to Twitter. Do I have one? Sure, but I don't use it much. Does one really need to delve into the minutia of someone's life to the minute." My friend, Daniel Haun, left a snarky comment about that on Facebook. He said, "The point to Twitter is ego masturbation." I liked the comment so much I Twittered (Tweeted?) it. I think that's a bit ironic.

Another friend, Liz, commented "If you really still think that about Twitter, you're definitely not following the right people I don't know who else you're following, but you're following me. Don't I post interesting stuff?" Yeah, a lot of your stuff is interesting. But that's not the point. It's the insane minutiae that people post on a daily basis. I figure at least half the posts most users make, shouldn't be made. I don't care, nor does anyone, that you've been waiting in line for dinner for 5, 10, 15, 20, etc minutes. Yet people insist on posting stuff like that. I don't "get" it.

In regards to commentary (again on my previous blog post), I am going to start correcting my posts when there are errors. Broken links, I'll just fix when people point them out via email. If they're pointed out by comment, I will still fix them but post a comment that it's been corrected. Simple typos will be fixed. But if anything needs to be corrected correcting and it's significant, I will use the time honoured strikeout feature. As always, any new commentary to an old post (a rarity) is clearly marked with the date added. To be clear, I always appreciate corrections to the blog, through prefer e-mail. Comments are for comments and discussions.

In news almost nobody will care about, I've added a classifieds section on the PHMB but it's in the members only area. Because I was feeling contentious, I called it "YormarksList" (as in CraigsList) because everything in the topic is for sale -- and that's Yormark, everything is for sale. These are all advertisements of a sort and what better name than his? If you're a hockey fan, please take a moment and join the board. I really do think you'll enjoy it. When the official board changed to the new format about a month ago, our traffic spiked. Bad for them and good for me: they forgot the one thing that was most important. They forget "know your customer and what (s)he wants" and their activity has plummeted from what was in the off-season. Yeah, the season started and traffic went down instead of up. Censorship and a bad user interface is a guaranteed fail.

I have been thinking of taking up a collection to get a Panther jersey with the name "Yormark" on the back and "666" as the number. With everything it'll be around US$160. Everyone who contributes will be allowed to wear it to games. As John mentioned if we all take turns wearing it, at some point he'll wonder how many of them are out there, even though it'll be only one. The point will be at every game, someone will have it, wear it to the game and take at least one lap of the lower bowl before the game, and at each intermission. I will keep the jersey in the off season and be responsible for care and cleaning -- if you want to clean it during your possession, that's up to you. I'll have to get XL so everyone can wear it. I might be able to squeeze in a L if nobody needs the XL. In the corner where the "C" for captain goes, we'll have the official logo of Yormark (for which I will pick up the cost.) If there are leftover funds, they will be donated to Habitat For Humanity -- in Mr Yormark's name -- and everyone who donates will be given a full accounting of every last penny. If I do not collect enough, your money will be returned.

Dave sent me this link about the New Facebook (which is replacing the old New Facebook.) Users are totally up in arms. I really hate it, but just don't have the energy to do anything about it. You know, the bottom line is if they want to fuck up their service, let them. I don't like it because Facebook now unilaterally decides which posts you see from which friends. You can block someone, but if someone's not blocked, you don't see everything they write. If you go to their page, you'll see you've missed stuff. Of course you can use the live feed which picks up more, but even if you select it, it eventually returns back to the new news feed. Which is what everyone hates.

In regards to my Saturday post about AvMed. I got my prescription today. It's amazing what a very firm, demanding, and polite but threatening letter will do. I demanded a written apology, told them I am their worst nightmare and will dog them relentlessly as long as their 'staff' feels they know more than my doctor. I told them every time they fail to comply with my doctor's orders, I will file a formal written complaint with the state (and you all know I will, too). They, as I said, figured out that they should go bother someone else. Again, I am not asking them to do anything that I asked: I am asking them to do what my licensed medical doctor asked. I do not feel anyone that has not personally examined me and my case has the right to override what my doctor says. And this was stupid. The new pill costs half of what the old one cost. Seriously. How stupid can you get? Oh, and the lady never called me back as predicted. As a side bonus, the pharmaceutical company that makes the new drug picked up the tab on this first order (well, all but $5 of it).

I wasn't going to post Nucor news, but there is news and it's on the company Facebook page. I have no comment on an individual level. I only say, we're working on a filing if we can meet all the technical requirements. I've never seen anything so complex and confusing. No wonder those lawyers charge $2k or more per hour. Our corporate WiFi is working well (still) and from a technical standpoint the Vista and Windows7 laptops (our employees property, not ours) work with the least problems, though I am loathe to admit it. The Windows XP systems running XP Home are the worst.

I had mentioned visitors by country to the Interstate Screw Corp web page. Here's a summary from 1-1-09 through 26-10-09. There's an Excel version which is cooler because each country has the flag in front of it, but there was no practical way to post that here. I can e-mail it if anyone is terminally curious.

Countries		Pages	Hits
United States	us	54,820	355,033
Russian Federation	ru	4,470	5,330
China	cn	2,895	12,822
Japan	jp	2,325	2,839
Spain	es	1,542	2,612
Romania	ro	1,424	1,802
Canada	ca	1,402	6,782
Germany	de	1,159	1,885
Taiwan	tw	695	4,561
Great Britain	gb	524	2,533
Ukraine	ua	493	587
India	in	429	2,439
European country	eu	419	934
Chile	cl	419	3,567
Peru	pe	378	3,005
Jamaica	jm	345	2,461
France	fr	324	769
Colombia	co	314	2,037
Latvia	lv	310	353
Hong Kong	hk	304	1,136
Argentina	ar	297	1,891
Venezuela	ve	271	2,364
Mexico	mx	260	2,081
Netherlands	nl	252	493
Malaysia	my	216	1,534
Cayman Islands	ky	182	1,845
Sweden	se	171	590
South Korea	kr	165	1,082
Aruba	aw	163	1,395
Ireland	ie	162	2,190
Israel	il	158	712
Australia	au	139	996
Brazil	br	137	754
Panama	pa	131	1,138
Costa Rica	cr	129	1,351
Singapore	sg	128	762
Bahamas	bs	123	1,000
Antigua and Barbuda	ag	118	952
Turkey	tr	115	734
Dominican Republic	do	115	1,112
Italy	it	102	488
Austria	at	102	273
Guatemala	gt	100	636
Barbados	bb	98	686
Ecuador	ec	97	1,075
Thailand	th	97	536
Puerto Rico	pr	94	900
Egypt	eg	76	598
Ghana	gh	73	679
Hungary	hu	70	211
Suriname	sr	70	1,039
Greece	gr	69	529
Former Czechoslovakia	cs	66	192
Poland	pl	61	325
Portugal	pt	59	231
Haiti	ht	58	402
Philippines	ph	53	351
Trinidad and Tobago	tt	53	431
Czech Republic	cz	51	151
Iran	ir	47	264
Switzerland	ch	44	261
El Salvador	sv	44	324
Virgin Islands (USA)	vi	41	429
South Africa	za	41	189
Indonesia	id	39	207
Uruguay	uy	37	637
Finland	fi	36	245
Anguilla	ai	35	213
Turks and Caicos Islands	tc	34	287
Pakistan	pk	34	282
United Arab Emirates	ae	32	277
Denmark	dk	29	160
Nigeria	ng	28	196
Saudi Arabia	sa	27	101
Belarus	by	27	72
Moldova	md	27	27
New Zealand	nz	26	68
Qatar	qa	24	24
Bulgaria	bg	21	99
Belgium	be	21	136
Vietnam	vn	20	141
Nicaragua	ni	19	158
Norway	no	19	153
Guam (USA)	gu	18	138
Belize	bz	17	149
Guyana	gy	13	156
Slovak Republic	sk	11	68
Lithuania	lt	9	32
Slovenia	si	6	44
Angola	ao	5	15
Malta	mt	5	23
Luxembourg	lu	5	5
Senegal	sn	5	15
Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivoire)	ci	4	4
Kuwait	kw	4	15
Bahrain	bh	4	4
Croatia	hr	4	39
Jordan	jo	4	13
Estonia	ee	4	13
Yemen	ye	4	64
Bolivia	bo	3	31
Georgia	ge	3	15
Cuba	cu	3	36
Namibia	na	3	3
Saint Kitts & Nevis Anguilla	kn	3	38
Lebanon	lb	2	2
Cyprus	cy	2	2
African Regional IPO	ap	2	2
Netherlands Antilles	an	2	12
Bosnia-Herzegovina	ba	2	10
Paraguay	py	2	12
Myanmar	mm	1	1
Syria	sy	1	1
Tunisia	tn	1	1
Bermuda	bm	1	1
Uzbekistan	uz	1	10
Afghanistan	af	1	11
Gabon	ga	1	1
Iraq	iq	1	1
Kazakhstan	kz	1	27
Morocco	ma	1	4
Ethiopia	et	1	1
Liechtenstein	li	1	1
Armenia	am	1	30
Algeria	dz	1	2
Sri Lanka	lk	1	10
TOTAL VISITORS -->		80,788	454,208