Pardon me if I smell a bit like a hamburger today. A friend of the show lives just outside Chicago and stopped at White Castle this morning for a sack of Whitey-One-Bites before driving down to Champaign. At approximately 9:34 a.m. Central Daylight Time I enjoyed two room temperature Belly Bombers – my first in over a year. I did not swallow the Sliders whole, however. Rather, in a sort of slow-motion sequence right out of The Matrix, I pulled the Gut Bombs from their sack, slid them from their cardboard homes and allowed them to dance in my fingertips before nibbling, slowly, through their spongy, oniony, barely-meaty goodness.
If only for Heath Ledger’s brilliant performance as The Joker, go see this film. The story becomes a bit tough to follow, but this is the kind of flick you’ll gladly see a second time. One tip: The Dark Knight is just over 2-1/2 hours long. Throw in a bunch of trailers before and you’ll be wishing you’d skipped the large drink.
Stressed? Pissed? Over-caffeinated? Settle down and cheer up with a warm and fuzzy story about a Spokane, Washington, office worker saving a family of ducks from duckicide.
The next time my day begins with a lost button or no hot water, I’ll try to remember this poor guy:
John O’Brien began his day yesterday with his pants around his ankles, scrambling for cover as a fountain of sewer water and waste erupted into his bathroom. “I was doing my business, sitting on my toilet, and the toilet blew sewer water into my butt,” he said.
The reason behind the bathroom blast? During a routine sewer cleaning, pressure built up in the line and exited through O’Brien’s toilet because the house has no vent pipe, which prevents pressure build-up.
The State College resident started his day the way he always does. He woke up, drank a cup of coffee, grabbed a book and relaxed on his porcelain throne — “The toilet is where a man does his best thinking,” O’Brien said.
He was shocked by the fountain of water and sewage erupting from his toilet.
The economic downturn is having an unusual side affect: because we’re eating out less and brown-bagging it more, your break room fridge is getting more crowded (and probably more smelly), according to the Chicago Tribune:
Brown-bagging is on the rise, according to a recent study by the NPD Group, a consumer and retail market research company that has an office in Rosemont. “It was trending up even prior to the economic downturn,” said Kim McLynn, senior public-relations manager. “Economic concerns are joined by health and nutrition issues,” she said. “You can control what you put in your lunch bag.” What about the office fridge at NPD? “There’s only a certain amount of refrigerator real estate,” McLynn said. “I come in early, so I get a choice of the territory.”
Olive Riley has died. I’m not sure if there’s a Guinness World Record for oldest blogger, but it’s been assumed by many that she owned it. Olive, who blogged from her nursing home in Australia, was 108. She started late but Riley had posted over 70 entries to her blog, or as she jokingly referred to it, her “blob.”
A St. Louis TV station tried to do the right thing by giving both tennis and baseball fans what they wanted, and now they’re getting complaints…
The rain Sunday at Wimbledon put a damper on the mood of many St. Louis television viewers. KSDK officials had thought the Wimbledon men’s tennis championship match would be over well before the Cardinals-Cubs game was scheduled to begin more than six hours later. But when rain delays at Wimbledon totaled nearly 2-1/2 hours, plus a full five-set match ensued, tennis overlapped baseball by more than an hour. That led to Channel 5 splitting the screen to carry both.
To the sports fans in my home town: Stop your griping! Read the rest and see a screen cap here.
While not as flashy as an iPod Touch, your college kid will thank you one day for getting them a subscription to an online backup service. Services like Carbonite and Mozy (my favorite) can ease the pain of a crashed hard drive or stolen laptop. The backups are automatic and unlimited.
Got friends in San Diego, California? Warn them to get out! With just the right amount of colored text, this site says July 8 is “major judgement” day for San Diego.
Kim Flores’ ordeal began at the Walgreens at the corner of Indian Trail and Illinois 31 in Aurora on Jan. 12, 2007. Flores handed her Mastercard to the 21-year-old cashier there to pay for the T-shirt and a couple of trinkets. Seconds later, the cashier told her the scanner was down, so Flores offered to write a check. A couple of weeks later, she returned from work and found a note sticking in her door from Aurora police, asking her to go to the station. Flores complied — and was caught off guard when the officer read her Miranda rights, then asked her to confess to using a stolen credit card in five different transactions that totaled close to $240. The cashier had identified Flores as the same woman who had come in to Walgreens a week earlier and purchased two cartons of cigarettes with the stolen card. Flores wasn’t about to confess to something she didn’t do — she’d never smoked a day in her life. Nor did she admit to credit card fraud a week later when police took her in for a second round of questioning. A few months later, a warrant was issued for her arrest.
But wait! As any fan of Law & Order knows, the police could clear this up by viewing the Walgreens surveillance tape, right? Wrong. Read the rest of Flores’ ordeal.
So here’s the deal — I’m cheap. I’m a (satisfied) Verizon customer who uses his phone only for voice and texting. And as much as I’d like to be able to check my email or surf the web with it I don’t want to pay for some fat data plan.
Can someone recommend a phone that will work with Verizon and has built-in WiFi? This way I can get by with paying only for calls/texting and have access to the web (Gmail, etc.) when I’m within WiFi range.
The phone doesn’t have to be the latest and greatest, and I’m more than willing to buy something used off of eBay.
I’ve written a couple of times about author Craig Johnson and his Walt Longmire books. I’ve just finished re-reading the first three and will soon crack open the latest, Another Man’s Moccasins. Well today some good news landed in my email inbox – Craig says he’s finished the fifth in the Walt Longmire series and has started writing the sixth.
I just read that, worldwide, 210 billion emails are sent each day. But Seriosity says it has the solution, at least for the corporate world. As for your aunt who keeps forwarding the same 15 jokes… good luck.
By the way, in case you missed it, be sure to read my post on writing better email subjects. The New York Times called it a “mastery of genius punctuated by sheer giddiness.”
I flipped on NBC this afternoon right as an announcer seemed to be making an apology for something Tiger Woods just said. He (the announcer) uttered something about it ‘not being the best way to start the broadcast’. At least a couple more times during the U.S. Open playoff I heard/saw Tiger say something not appropriate for children, yet no one seems to call him on it. His star is so bright that I’ve actually read articles defending his potty mouth.
So Steve, you’ve never used a bad word in public? Yes, I have, and I’ve been embarrassed. Around friends and family there are bad words I can get away with, but I can’t imagine using them on TV.
When Tiger’s playing he’s ”in the zone” and under some sort of crazy pressure I’ll never experience (though it’s probably similar to driving in my hometown of St. Louis). But doesn’t he know he’s a role model to the millions of kids/teens/adults watching? I didn’t see Rocco Mediate uttering the nasties. Tiger, you’re darn near perfect in every other way — how ’bout watching your mouth when you’re on TV?
This morning, for the second time in under a week, I couldn’t get anything Google related to come up. No Gmail, no Google Apps, no Google search. After the usual testing of my home office setup (reboot modem; reboot router; reboot all computers; direct connect laptop to router; direct connect laptop to cable modem) I phoned a fellow Comcast user across town. They had no access to Google’s products, either.
Comcast support (a very friendly Patrick in Winnipeg) had me ping some sites and together we confirmed an issue at their end. It was a goofy problem, but I was happy it wasn’t anything with my setup. By the way, it appeared to be an issue only for Champaign-Urbana Comcast subscribers.
When I asked Patrick in tech support where I could find some sort of system status link on the Comcast home page, he told me it doesn’t exist. This is dumb. Companies like Internet Service Providers, email providers, web hosts, banks, etc. would better serve their customers by providing a one-click, no-login-required ”system status” blog on their sites. Instead of calling Comcast every couple of hours to ask about the Google situation and when it might be cleared up, it would’ve been much easier to visit a system status blog on their website.
One of television’s best has died far too early. From MSNBC.com:
Tim Russert, NBC News’ Washington bureau chief and the moderator of “Meet the Press,” died Friday after being stricken at the bureau, NBC News said Friday. He was 58.
Russert was recording voiceovers for Sunday’s “Meet the Press” broadcast when he collapsed, the network said.
He had recently returned from Italy, where his family was celebrating the graduation of Russert’s son, Luke, from Boston College.
No further details were immediately available.
Russert was best known as host of “Meet the Press,” which he took over in December 1991. Now in its 60th year, “Meet the Press” is the longest-running program in the history of television.
My opinion? The subject line is probably the most important part of an email. Imagine the time saved each year if every email subject were so descriptive it pretty much said it all. Here are some example of bad email subjects:
Hi
Report deadline
Brainstorming meeting
Question
Wanna go for a run?
Some examples of good email subjects:
ABC Consulting report deadline: March 8
En-R-G soda brainstorming meeting: Nov. 2, 10am
Want to run Saturday at 8:30 a.m.?
Question about food for Joan’s going away party
Like the opening paragraph in a good newspaper article, the subject should pretty much say it all. And since a lot of people use their email inbox as a catch-all/to-do/reminder list, descriptive subjects can help a lot.
Want to save your email recipient(s) even more time? If everything can be said in the subject, do that and then put (EOM) at the end. Example: “Can’t make lunch today - I’ll call later (EOM)”. EOM = End Of Message. As in, No need to open this email … I respect your time … You can click ‘delete’ and get back to what you were doing before.
I’m not sure this means anything, but since I’ve not posted in awhile I’d like to share that my Gmail spam folder hit 7,777 this morning…
And since I brought it up, of all the webmail services out there (and I’ve tried them all) Gmail does the best job at taking care of spam.
You’ll notice in the image above that I’ve got Gmail Labs going on my account. Of all the new features Labs provides the best, in my opinion, is Superstars, which gives you more than the standard yellow star for flagging an email. (I hear you can ‘force’ Gmail to upgrade your account to include ‘Labs’ by logging in, then entering this in the URL bar: https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=1#settings.)
Tired of high gas prices? Experts say a weak dollar, the lack of new U.S. oil wells and refineries, increased worldwide demand, and taxes are a few of the reasons we’re suffering. But Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama thinks imposing a windfall profits tax on U.S. oil companies will take care of things. Obama said Monday, “I’ll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we’ll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills.”
He didn’t explain how, exactly, that money was going to end up back in your pocket. Maybe Chuck Norris can offer Barack some advice.
One of my favorite authors, Craig Johnson, is out with a new book, Another Man’s Moccasins. I discovered Craig’s first book by accident on one of those ‘Employee Picks’ racks at a local bookstore. I read a few pages, got hooked, and took it home. His first three books — starring Sheriff Walt Longmire — are nail-biting mysteries full of great characters. I can’t wait to read Moccasins.
Every single Presidential candidate is promising that he or she will make our lives better if we elect him or her to the White House. He or she will give us change, offer us hope, make our breath sweeter, make us more prosperous, more productive, happier, better educated, and healthier if we cast our votes for him or her. It’s a fun show but inside The White House, there is no Santa Claus.
Presidents simply cannot change much for most of us. For the huge majority of Americans, how much we earn, how healthy we are, how well our kids are educated, that’s all up to us, not the federal government. No government program will make us middle class or rich if we don’t get educated in some way and work hard. No government program will make us healthy if we eat too much or smoke or drink too much, or don’t get exercise. The government cannot provide a lavish retirement for us if we don’t save and invest well. Oh, and all of that money the candidates promise to spend? That’s your money, not their money, they’re spending.
In the free society, what we are and who we are depends on us, except for the very most poor among us, where the government can indeed make a difference. But for the huge bulk of us Americans, no matter what any Republican or any Democrat promises, it’s up to the people in our house, not The White House. For most of us, what the politicians say is just sideshow barking. When the circus leaves town we have to get back to basics: work, save, and teach your children well, and enjoy the political show. But it’s just show business, not real business.
Our local cable TV/Internet provider changed hands at the start of the year, from Insight to Comcast. All was fine in the beginning. Now it seems I’m having weekly issues.
A service tech has been out twice to fix problems which kept me from having Internet. Things worked OK for a short period after each visit, but two weeks ago I lost Internet again. I called Comcast and begged for a tech to come that afternoon. No luck. It was either the next morning or days later. I informed the phone tech I wasn’t going to be home the next morning so she said someone would call the next day to discuss the ongoing issues. Well guess what? A tech showed up the next morning anyway (leaving a “sorry we missed you” tag on the door).
And, of course, the phone call to discuss my ongoing problems never came. However, thanks to a little investigative work I deduced I was still having weak signal issues. I pulled a splitter from the whole setup, which gave me Internet again — but cut off television to one of my TVs.
So last week my service went out again. I thought it was another weak signal problem but this time it was much simpler: termination of service due to non-payment. Hmm… the bank shows the payments have been made, so what gives? Turns out that during the transition from Insight to Comcast a payment vanished. It went to the same address, but what they did with it — “they” being Insight-turned-Comcast — is a mystery.
I convinced the Comcast billing rep to turn us back on, but she played dumb about the missing payment. I suggested that since Insight is now Comcast, there had to be someone who could track down the missing money. “No, we’re not Insight,” she told me. “No, you are Insight,” I replied. ”You’re simply under new ownership with a new name. And since you’re the company that bought Insight, their money is now your money.”
No dice. However, she did give me the phone number for an Insight/Comcast office she thought could help. Nifty! Too bad it was a Comcast business customers support line. Too bad, also, the guy on the other end was stumped.
So now where are we? In Comcast no-man’s land, that’s where. I’ve ordered my own booster to help our weak signal problem, but I’m guessing by the time it arrives we’ll have been cut off for non-payment again.
UPDATE: Within an hour of this post going live I was notified of two comments awaiting moderation — both from Comcast reps saying they were sorry to hear of my troubles, and both encouraging me to contact them for help. That’s nice. (At least someone’s reading my blog.)
UPDATE #2: A local Comcast rep called Monday, but I wasn’t home. I called her Tuesday, emailed her a PDF of my bank statement showing we paid all our bills. She said she’d be fixing the problem so it looks like the Comcast billing issue is resolved. Since I’ve already ordered my own signal booster, I’m hoping to fix the weak signal issue on my own.
“Whining Americans” has become a regular topic of discussion on the radio show. The economy has slowed and prices on gas, milk and energy have gone up enough that those on the edge are truly hurting. But most Americans are fine. In fact, a lot of folks “feeling the pinch” have had to move from very comfortable to just plain old comfortable. And that, apparently, is hard. Push them out of their comfort zone and they whine. The newspapers and TV morning shows are loving these people.
Like the woman who’s had to switch from organic to regular milk and has stopped buying the convenient single-serve juice bottles (she’s reached “a tipping point”). Ouch. Or the woman who’s using her BlackBerry to send herself reminders of sales on bottled water. Ouch. Or the private plane owner who’s not flying as much because fuel prices have gone up. Ouch again. Or the couple who’ve scrapped plans for a 12-day European vacation this summer and instead will be slumming it by renting a vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard. Ouch, ouch, ouch!
My schedule is such that I don’t need to carry a calendar, paper or electronic. Google Calendar has me covered. But for to-do lists, note-taking, small projects, grocery lists, etc., I can’t live without my Moleskine Cahier Pocket Ruled Notebooks. They’re small, thin, flexible and durable. And you can get 3 for under 7 bucks. I only wish they came in more colors!
I know you. Each day you fire up your browser, head to this blog… and then surf away, dissapointed. “Why doesn’t Steve update his blog more often?” you ask. “He’s so funny! So damned insightful. I just wish he’d post more often!”
Yeah, I’m full of it. Sure, I’d like to be a more regular blogger, but I have a few other things that take priority each day. In a way I’m glad, as too much blogging could be bad for my health:
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment. … Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December. Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
In the little town of Raymond, Maine, some elementary students have been challenged to go 21 days without complaining. According to MaineToday.com, the idea for the challenge originated in 2006 with a pastor in Kansas City, Missiouri. Wanting to encourage the habit of gratitude in his congregation, the Rev. Will Bowen asked them to go without complaining for 21 days. Neat!
So this morning we dialed up the school for a radio interview. We thought it would be a warm ‘n’ fuzzy to talk to the teacher of the students.
Wrong.
Here’s how it went down when I got the teacher on the phone:
Me: “Hi, I’m with a radio station in Illinois and we read an article about your class going 21 days without complaining. Would you interested in going on-air with us to talk about it?”
Her: (Dead silence for 5 seconds.) “Um, I don’t think so. I wasn’t real happy with the article and I’m a little shy about talking to more media.”
Me: “Really? The article was great.”
Her: “Where did you say you were from?”
Me: “Champaign, Illinois.”
Her: “I don’t understand how you heard about this.”
Me: “Uh, we read an article on the Internet.”
Her: “I don’t think I’m interested. Besides, how do I know you are who you say you are?”
Me: ”Well, I could give your our website address and you could email me from there and I could reply to that email.”
Her: ”I’m a little leary right now, so I don’t think so.”
Gmail has introduced something called Custom Time. Using an e-flux capacitor, you can now send email to the past! What will those guys at Google think of next? This day, April 1, will always be remembered as the day Google gave us Custom Time.
After hearing this bit of news, the Mary Ann or Ginger debate is over. Busted for marijuana possessions at age 69? Hey, she’s 69 — leave her alone. The rule should be that once you hit 65 you can do whatever you want as long as you’re not harming anyone else.
RiverBrew is a place where believers can come “to worship God through appreciation of his creation” and “to resume the Church’s historical role as making the finest beer in town.”
Imagine Pretty Woman starring Molly Ringwald. Or Raiders of the Lost Ark with Tom Selleck as leading man. Did Mark Wahlberg miss his chance at an Oscar?
In all, 32 million people tuned in for the Oscars this year, the lowest number ever. Entertainment writers and bloggers are having a field day with this tragic news, but Hollywood doesn’t care. In the end it’s their night, not ours, and the TV ratings don’t do a thing for what matters most: The bottom line.
Before going forward I should mention that I’ m okay with Hollywood making lots of money. Hollywood is a business, with owners, managers, and employees all trying to pull in a paycheck. Their jobs are to make money, just like its your job to help your company make money. What I’m saying is the Oscars telecast has very little to do with making money.
What matters is the hype that starts in early fall and runs into March. It’s a well-run machine that every talk show, news program, blog, radio host and newspaper can’t avoid, and it works wonderfully in helping Hollywood accomplish its goal of making more money. (Again, making money is OK, for it puts food in the mouths of George Clooney, his hair stylist, and his gaffer.)
Any movie, or person, just nominated for an Oscar gets pushed into the living, breathing mainstream for six months in the hopes that you and I will pay to see it, or them, at the theater, on DVD, or on pay-per-view. Like all awards shows, the idea is get the most publicity for your movie, or star, prior to, or after, the show airs. The studios have already made millions upon millions on movies like Spider-Man 3 and The Bourne Repetition; they need the pre- and post-Oscars hype to sell more shiny discs of No Country for Old Men.
Even Hollywood knows the Oscar telecast offers little in the way of entertainment. It’s an awards show, which are generally all pretty boring to anyone not getting an award. (When you went to your company’s last awards banquet, how many times did you check your watch? Now imagine if it had been spiced it up with a few songs and a marginally funny host. Yes, you’d have been checking your watch twice as much.)
“But 25 years ago the Oscars had, like, 45 million viewers!” Yes, and 25 years ago the average household had maybe 30 channels and no high speed Internet. Let’s face it: Compared to what’s on your TiVo, on your iPod Touch, streaming in your web browser and coming down the satellite, the Oscars can’t compare.
I like ice. (Not this ice.) A full glass — crushed, please — with a bit of lemon and water filling in the gaps. Some companies are trying to make and sell the most chewable ice. There’s a place online for ice lovers. And I’m currently reading a book about ships caught in the ice.
Someday your Valentine’s hard drive will crash. Show them you love them by putting in place a backup plan:
1) Buy an external USB hard drive. Portable storage is cheap and backing up to an external hard drive takes seconds. Most come with programs that automate the process for you. Newer versions of Windows offer built-in backup software, but I like the free Karen’s Replicator.
2) Figure out what’s irreplaceable and back it up often, at least weekly. I’m talking about documents, digital photos, tax records, emails, etc. You don’t have to back up your entire hard drive since programs and music files can be reinstalled and replaced, either free or for a price.
3) Don’t store your only copy of something on an external drive. If your computer’s low on hard drive space and you’re tempted to move photos and videos to an external drive, that’s fine, but be sure that drive is backed up by another drive. You always want at least two copies of the stuff you’d hate to lose. Which brings us to a great option…
4) Consider a virtual hard drive. Online backup services have gotten cheaper, easier to use, and more secure. Services like Mozy and Carbonite have been rated well and give you unlimited, off-site storage for just a few bucks a month.
(Sure, buying an external hard drive for your sweetheart may not be her idea of romance, but it could fall under the definition of “choreplay“.)
