At work, there's this calendar with all these neat little "tips" for happier living for each month. I don't know if the calendar is put out by the Church (or which one, if so) but they're good tips, and I thought I'd share. If you do just one of these things, you'll probably be happier in general.
1. Don't stop the parade to pick up a dime.
2. Fill out customer comment cards.
3. Never miss an opportunity to go fishing with your father.
4. When a friend is in need, help him without him having to ask.
5. This year, visit two or three of your state parks.
6. Include a recent family photo when writing to a loved one.
7. Hold a child's hand when crossing the street.
8. When in doubt, smile.
I don't agree with some of these. The first one was obviously coined (pun fully intended) before gas prices quadrupled since Mr. Bush took office. As for the third one, I can't - my father passed away six years ago, but when we have kids, I'd love to take them fishing.
But some are good. I love filling out those customer comment cards. I figure if a business cares enough to want to know what their customers think, the customers ought to tell them what they think (good or bad). If you have something bad to say, use constructive criticism - if you just cuss them out on the card, they'll just toss it. And then what good did you do? As for family photos, I'm big on that. Holding a kid's hand as they cross the street? Usually kids don't like that (I remember, I didn't) but when crossing a street, it does wonders for their self-confidence. (So does darting out in traffic, and surviving - I remember that too - but also cars stopping for pedestrians and walking in front of them, it does do wonders, and it helps them to trust their parent, aunt/uncle, or guardian.)
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Bad water leads to panic, charity
As you all know by now, I sleep all day, so if something "major" happens during the day, I don't usually hear about it until much later, which makes for some really interesting surprises.
So Wednesday night, I go grocery shopping, and I think I noticed the increased traffic. Not sure on that - Greenville can be pretty funny at times. But then I got to the supermarket, and that's when I noticed it. I like to shop at night on weeknights, because usually it's not as busy, but this Wednesday night might as well have been a Friday or Saturday night, or hell, a weekday around 6pm. It was slam packed.
It didn't take long to figure out what was going on. The first clue I got was, I overheard another customer asking an employee if they were giving away any more water. Giving away water? Indeed, the water shelves looked pretty bare - see the pic below - and the store had what looked like at least a dozen pallets of Deer Park 24-packs. What the hell?
Turns out E.Coli was found in the water, and all of Greenville was "infected" with this "bad water". Greenville Utilities has since rescinded their "boil water" alert as of this evening, which was a pretty quick cleanup if you ask me, but if they say the water is now safe, I believe them. (They're in enough hot water (if not legally, in public opinion) as it is, so rushing and botching the cleanup would be even worse.)
Water is all sold out at the 14th St. Harris-Teeter in Greenville, NC.
What I thought was more amazing, though, was that the same grocery store, local to North Carolina, shipped out two truckloads of water within an hour or so of the "epidemic" breaking out. Better yet, the water was to be given away, free of charge, to Greenville residents for whom tap water all of a sudden became unsafe. Read the press release here. Now of course, there are a few cynical ways to spin that, but it's much easier to assume that every now and then, a company does what seems to be the right thing as opposed to just looking at the bottom line. (Of course, they had a killer sale on those Deer Park 24-packs, $3.99 each, and they were flying off the shelves. But still.) I didn't even know they sent out a second load, but there it is on their website.
I don't know if any other stores gave away any water. I didn't even hear about this on the news (the local news only reported the bad water) so naturally I had to come up here and share the good news, since it's bad news that tends to get reported (and read) more.
So Wednesday night, I go grocery shopping, and I think I noticed the increased traffic. Not sure on that - Greenville can be pretty funny at times. But then I got to the supermarket, and that's when I noticed it. I like to shop at night on weeknights, because usually it's not as busy, but this Wednesday night might as well have been a Friday or Saturday night, or hell, a weekday around 6pm. It was slam packed.
It didn't take long to figure out what was going on. The first clue I got was, I overheard another customer asking an employee if they were giving away any more water. Giving away water? Indeed, the water shelves looked pretty bare - see the pic below - and the store had what looked like at least a dozen pallets of Deer Park 24-packs. What the hell?
Turns out E.Coli was found in the water, and all of Greenville was "infected" with this "bad water". Greenville Utilities has since rescinded their "boil water" alert as of this evening, which was a pretty quick cleanup if you ask me, but if they say the water is now safe, I believe them. (They're in enough hot water (if not legally, in public opinion) as it is, so rushing and botching the cleanup would be even worse.)
Water is all sold out at the 14th St. Harris-Teeter in Greenville, NC.
What I thought was more amazing, though, was that the same grocery store, local to North Carolina, shipped out two truckloads of water within an hour or so of the "epidemic" breaking out. Better yet, the water was to be given away, free of charge, to Greenville residents for whom tap water all of a sudden became unsafe. Read the press release here. Now of course, there are a few cynical ways to spin that, but it's much easier to assume that every now and then, a company does what seems to be the right thing as opposed to just looking at the bottom line. (Of course, they had a killer sale on those Deer Park 24-packs, $3.99 each, and they were flying off the shelves. But still.) I didn't even know they sent out a second load, but there it is on their website.
I don't know if any other stores gave away any water. I didn't even hear about this on the news (the local news only reported the bad water) so naturally I had to come up here and share the good news, since it's bad news that tends to get reported (and read) more.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Wired wirelessly with Bluetooth
I've always had a little bit of spite for those Bluetooth headsets I see everyone and their brother using, but I finally got one.
I remember our last vacation, in the Atlanta airport, this guy was looking right at me and talking. I answered back, but then realized he was on the phone. He wasn't holding a phone - in fact, I couldn't even see his phone. But he had a little contraption on his ear which blinked every few seconds, which was connected wirelessly via the Bluetooth technology, to his cell phone.
It wasn't the first time I'd seen one, of course, but it annoyed the hell out of me. I thought I would never own one. Part of the reason, though, was the cost. I'd looked at them at the US Cellular store (my wireless carrier), even Walmart, and you can't get one for less than $50. They used to be around $75, so they have come down... but a guy I work with said he got one for about $30, shipped.
So I did some research online. I started with Amazon.com, because if you spend $25 or more on certain items, the shipping is free. However, I couldn't find one under $30 I liked. They all had some problem or other. So I went to Newegg.com, where I've spent close to $3,000 over the years in computer hardware. That's no exxageration, either, and I'm almost ashamed of the total. (I spent just under $1,000 at one time buying the parts for this computer when I first built it, and I've probably dumped another $500-$750 into more parts for this computer. The rest must just be miscellaneous purchases.) Anyway, Newegg didn't really impress me with its sub-$30 earpieces. (For the record, Newegg has the least expensive one, at $13.) So I looked a little higher.
Plantronics is a name I know and respect from a few jobs, I know they make corporate-level headsets and speakerphones, but most of their products are too expensive for the casual consumer to own. So I was surprised when I found a Plantronics earpiece for about $25. I wasn't interested though, because it got mostly bad reviews. So when I started looking at slightly more expensive Bluetooth earpieces, their Plantronics Explorer 370 caught my eye. It looked better than their entry-level unit, and only had one review, and it was good. So I Google'd the name, and found more positive reviews on various blogs. I decided to go for it.
$41.98 shipped - it was a little more than I wanted to spend, but still less than the cheapest one at Walmart. And I have the confidence of knowing that I did my homework and found one that is generally well reviewed.
Now that I have it, I have a few complaints, but overall I'm satisfied. It's not a very good fit, for example. It has a molded piece which fits inside the ear, and it's tricky to insert. Once it's set up, it's not entirely comfortable. It's not bad, but I feel it could fit better. By contrast, my coworker's earpiece doesn't have the molded piece, just a speaker, and he says he can't really feel his on his ear. And his is a Motorola, which as he points out, you really can't go wrong with. I've never had a bad experience with Motorola technology, but the Motorola earpieces I researched were of low quality (and I could not find the one he has). Also, the instructions say that if you receive a call and press the "call control" button on the unit, it will accept the call. I tried that when Jen called, and it instead rejected the call. So I have yet to learn all its features.
As you can see, it's kinda discreet, but not as discreet as perhaps some of them. It's also kinda neat-looking, dark blue with a rugged black rubber grip. I had selected the basic 370, which was black and silver, but for some reason Newegg.com upgraded me to the Sport version, which I considered but did not choose because I didn't like the look. Still, I'm not going to complain about the swap - at least it's not yellow and black like some of those "Sport" electronics. (If it were, it would have been sent back unopened.)
Overall I'm happy with the unit, though. I talked to my mother for about 5 minutes, and she hates when I put her on speaker or use a handsfree solution (wired). She claims it sounds bad and complains until I "take her off the speaker". Well, after 5 minutes of talking I finally said "you don't even know I'm using a handsfree do you?". She admitted that I sounded a little different, but she said it wasn't enough to complain about. Also, when Jen called me, I left my phone on the desk and did the Verizon-patented "Can you hear me now?" test. Even in the bedroom, about 30 feet away, she could still hear me fine. But when I laid on the bed, she said I was starting to break up, but it got fine as I got off the bed. So if my phone is in the bathroom or something (where I have the charger) it should be fine. At work I carry my phone in my chest pocket and the Bluetooth in another pocket, and when I take calls I take them on the Bluetooth, so it's within a foot of the phone - shouldn't be a problem then.
Next step - to pair my Bluetooth with my PC and use it as a microphone, e.g. for voice chat.
I remember our last vacation, in the Atlanta airport, this guy was looking right at me and talking. I answered back, but then realized he was on the phone. He wasn't holding a phone - in fact, I couldn't even see his phone. But he had a little contraption on his ear which blinked every few seconds, which was connected wirelessly via the Bluetooth technology, to his cell phone.
It wasn't the first time I'd seen one, of course, but it annoyed the hell out of me. I thought I would never own one. Part of the reason, though, was the cost. I'd looked at them at the US Cellular store (my wireless carrier), even Walmart, and you can't get one for less than $50. They used to be around $75, so they have come down... but a guy I work with said he got one for about $30, shipped.
So I did some research online. I started with Amazon.com, because if you spend $25 or more on certain items, the shipping is free. However, I couldn't find one under $30 I liked. They all had some problem or other. So I went to Newegg.com, where I've spent close to $3,000 over the years in computer hardware. That's no exxageration, either, and I'm almost ashamed of the total. (I spent just under $1,000 at one time buying the parts for this computer when I first built it, and I've probably dumped another $500-$750 into more parts for this computer. The rest must just be miscellaneous purchases.) Anyway, Newegg didn't really impress me with its sub-$30 earpieces. (For the record, Newegg has the least expensive one, at $13.) So I looked a little higher.
Plantronics is a name I know and respect from a few jobs, I know they make corporate-level headsets and speakerphones, but most of their products are too expensive for the casual consumer to own. So I was surprised when I found a Plantronics earpiece for about $25. I wasn't interested though, because it got mostly bad reviews. So when I started looking at slightly more expensive Bluetooth earpieces, their Plantronics Explorer 370 caught my eye. It looked better than their entry-level unit, and only had one review, and it was good. So I Google'd the name, and found more positive reviews on various blogs. I decided to go for it.
$41.98 shipped - it was a little more than I wanted to spend, but still less than the cheapest one at Walmart. And I have the confidence of knowing that I did my homework and found one that is generally well reviewed.
Now that I have it, I have a few complaints, but overall I'm satisfied. It's not a very good fit, for example. It has a molded piece which fits inside the ear, and it's tricky to insert. Once it's set up, it's not entirely comfortable. It's not bad, but I feel it could fit better. By contrast, my coworker's earpiece doesn't have the molded piece, just a speaker, and he says he can't really feel his on his ear. And his is a Motorola, which as he points out, you really can't go wrong with. I've never had a bad experience with Motorola technology, but the Motorola earpieces I researched were of low quality (and I could not find the one he has). Also, the instructions say that if you receive a call and press the "call control" button on the unit, it will accept the call. I tried that when Jen called, and it instead rejected the call. So I have yet to learn all its features.
As you can see, it's kinda discreet, but not as discreet as perhaps some of them. It's also kinda neat-looking, dark blue with a rugged black rubber grip. I had selected the basic 370, which was black and silver, but for some reason Newegg.com upgraded me to the Sport version, which I considered but did not choose because I didn't like the look. Still, I'm not going to complain about the swap - at least it's not yellow and black like some of those "Sport" electronics. (If it were, it would have been sent back unopened.)
Overall I'm happy with the unit, though. I talked to my mother for about 5 minutes, and she hates when I put her on speaker or use a handsfree solution (wired). She claims it sounds bad and complains until I "take her off the speaker". Well, after 5 minutes of talking I finally said "you don't even know I'm using a handsfree do you?". She admitted that I sounded a little different, but she said it wasn't enough to complain about. Also, when Jen called me, I left my phone on the desk and did the Verizon-patented "Can you hear me now?" test. Even in the bedroom, about 30 feet away, she could still hear me fine. But when I laid on the bed, she said I was starting to break up, but it got fine as I got off the bed. So if my phone is in the bathroom or something (where I have the charger) it should be fine. At work I carry my phone in my chest pocket and the Bluetooth in another pocket, and when I take calls I take them on the Bluetooth, so it's within a foot of the phone - shouldn't be a problem then.
Next step - to pair my Bluetooth with my PC and use it as a microphone, e.g. for voice chat.
Monday, May 26, 2008
No longer supporting terrorism
It was perhaps too harsh, an ad which ran shortly after the 9/11 attacks; I don't know who sponsored the ad, but it basically said that buying gasoline was the direct equivalent of supporting terrorism. The backlash was huge, the ad got pulled - but dammit, it had a point. We have to buy gas - unless you live in Chicago or New York City or a few other cities where public transportation can be a viable alternative to driving, you must use a car to get to and from work, to do so many things that have become a part of our daily lives. And the gas, of course, comes from the Middle East. Or... does it?
There's been an email going around, also as a bulletin on MySpace and other social networking sites, and other blogs have posted it as well. It claims to be from a petroleum-industry insider who's "fed up" with high gas prices and sits down to share some tips to save money at the pump. Sounds too good to be true... well, it is. It's chock full of lies. What's true and what's not I don't know, but when it said who buys their gas from the Middle East and who does not, I found an error. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it prompted me to head over to the Department of Energy's website. That site is a bloody mess, but after about 30 minutes of research, I found the list the email promised I'd find: A list of all the major oil companies, and how much (if any) oil they buy from the Middle East. That proved the email a hoax, because many gas companies (like Hess - what we call "Trade Mart" here in the South) were listed in the email as not buying gas from the Middle East, while the Department of Energy clearly states that they do.
There are two gas companies around here which, according to the Department of Energy, do not buy any gas from the Middle East: Shell and BP. So, as of a month or so ago, I decided to buy my gas exclusively from Shell and BP whenever possible. (When you're on the road, sometimes your choices are limited.) I've found that there are Shell stations right on my way to and from work.
Now, whether buying gas from the Middle East constitutes supporting terrorism is highly debatable - and I'm certainly not saying that everyone who does get their gas from a station that buys from the Middle East is supporting terrorism, I'm just saying that I'm now sure that I'm not supporting terrorism. I spend about $200 a month on gas, that's about $2400 a year, and I've decided to take that $2400 away from the Middle East and give it to, well, I don't know who, I just know it's not who we're currently at war with. It might be a country that doesn't like the US much, whatever, but it's not from a region in which American troops are being killed or injured on a daily basis.
Some would argue that most of the Middle East gas comes from Saudi Arabia, and that the Saudis are our friends. They may be on good terms with us, but just last week President Bush went to the Saudi king and told him how gas prices are hurting the American people, and asked if he could please take action to get the prices lowered. The Saudi king politely told Bush "no". Again, I'm not entirely sure and I'm not saying that the Saudis are supporting terrorism - I don't know nearly enough about the region and its politics to make that kind of call. (And for the record, I harbour no ill will towards Arabs, living here or over there - unless, of course, they're fighting American troops.) I'm just making a safety call and buying gas elsewhere.
And some would argue that the high gas prices are not a result of the Gulf War II aka the War on Terror, but look - gas was under $1 a gallon before 9/11. I can understand inflation - $2 a gallon is fair, I suppose. But nearly $4 is ridiculous, and anyone saying the prices more than doubling in the last 12-24 months is not a result of our country's actions overseas is overlooking something. I know there's a lot about the fuel industry I don't know, but I know gas prices have doubled as the War on Terror has (more or less) turned in our favour. Call it coincidence - I sure don't.
I don't urge my readers to buy from Shell. That would put me in the same boat as the con artist who wrote the email forward. Rather, I urge you to hit up the Department of Energy's website and find that list yourself, and make a list of gas stations who don't buy from the Middle East, and then strike out gas stations which aren't in your area, and then only buy from those gas stations. In World War II, women back home (this was, of course, before women were allowed to serve in the Armed Forces) supported the war effort by, among other things, taking up their husbands', brothers', and fathers' jobs back home, kept the economy going. Nowadays, those of us (of either gender) who aren't serving in the Armed Forces can support the war effort, by buying gas that doesn't come from the Middle East.
There's been an email going around, also as a bulletin on MySpace and other social networking sites, and other blogs have posted it as well. It claims to be from a petroleum-industry insider who's "fed up" with high gas prices and sits down to share some tips to save money at the pump. Sounds too good to be true... well, it is. It's chock full of lies. What's true and what's not I don't know, but when it said who buys their gas from the Middle East and who does not, I found an error. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it prompted me to head over to the Department of Energy's website. That site is a bloody mess, but after about 30 minutes of research, I found the list the email promised I'd find: A list of all the major oil companies, and how much (if any) oil they buy from the Middle East. That proved the email a hoax, because many gas companies (like Hess - what we call "Trade Mart" here in the South) were listed in the email as not buying gas from the Middle East, while the Department of Energy clearly states that they do.
There are two gas companies around here which, according to the Department of Energy, do not buy any gas from the Middle East: Shell and BP. So, as of a month or so ago, I decided to buy my gas exclusively from Shell and BP whenever possible. (When you're on the road, sometimes your choices are limited.) I've found that there are Shell stations right on my way to and from work.
Now, whether buying gas from the Middle East constitutes supporting terrorism is highly debatable - and I'm certainly not saying that everyone who does get their gas from a station that buys from the Middle East is supporting terrorism, I'm just saying that I'm now sure that I'm not supporting terrorism. I spend about $200 a month on gas, that's about $2400 a year, and I've decided to take that $2400 away from the Middle East and give it to, well, I don't know who, I just know it's not who we're currently at war with. It might be a country that doesn't like the US much, whatever, but it's not from a region in which American troops are being killed or injured on a daily basis.
Some would argue that most of the Middle East gas comes from Saudi Arabia, and that the Saudis are our friends. They may be on good terms with us, but just last week President Bush went to the Saudi king and told him how gas prices are hurting the American people, and asked if he could please take action to get the prices lowered. The Saudi king politely told Bush "no". Again, I'm not entirely sure and I'm not saying that the Saudis are supporting terrorism - I don't know nearly enough about the region and its politics to make that kind of call. (And for the record, I harbour no ill will towards Arabs, living here or over there - unless, of course, they're fighting American troops.) I'm just making a safety call and buying gas elsewhere.
And some would argue that the high gas prices are not a result of the Gulf War II aka the War on Terror, but look - gas was under $1 a gallon before 9/11. I can understand inflation - $2 a gallon is fair, I suppose. But nearly $4 is ridiculous, and anyone saying the prices more than doubling in the last 12-24 months is not a result of our country's actions overseas is overlooking something. I know there's a lot about the fuel industry I don't know, but I know gas prices have doubled as the War on Terror has (more or less) turned in our favour. Call it coincidence - I sure don't.
I don't urge my readers to buy from Shell. That would put me in the same boat as the con artist who wrote the email forward. Rather, I urge you to hit up the Department of Energy's website and find that list yourself, and make a list of gas stations who don't buy from the Middle East, and then strike out gas stations which aren't in your area, and then only buy from those gas stations. In World War II, women back home (this was, of course, before women were allowed to serve in the Armed Forces) supported the war effort by, among other things, taking up their husbands', brothers', and fathers' jobs back home, kept the economy going. Nowadays, those of us (of either gender) who aren't serving in the Armed Forces can support the war effort, by buying gas that doesn't come from the Middle East.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Know your rights during a police encounter
Hey all, I know it's been a long time, but I've been busy. This month marks one year this blog has been up, and I'd like to get into posting more stuff. Natually a lot of it will involve video, whether created by me or found online, as online video is one of the best perks of having broadband (overlooking the world of BitTorrent, that is).
This video falls into the latter category, found online. Not sure how I found it - one minute I was looking at Deus Ex videos, next thing I know I came across this - and watched all 45 minutes of it. (I thought YouTube videos could only be 10 minutes, guess I was wrong.)
Watch and enjoy... and pass the link along to your friends and family. Also remember what the video says: laws vary from place to place, so make sure you know your local laws as well.
This video falls into the latter category, found online. Not sure how I found it - one minute I was looking at Deus Ex videos, next thing I know I came across this - and watched all 45 minutes of it. (I thought YouTube videos could only be 10 minutes, guess I was wrong.)
Watch and enjoy... and pass the link along to your friends and family. Also remember what the video says: laws vary from place to place, so make sure you know your local laws as well.
Monday, March 10, 2008
First video blog
You know, I've been on broadband for almost 3 weeks now, I think, and I have only just made my YouTube account today. Click the link, if you'd like to go to my YouTube profile, which should contain links to all my videos, not sure what all it'll have at this point as it's still pretty new to me.
So without further adue, here's my first video blog:
And the follow-up to it, which is incomplete, but provided anyway:
My sincerest apologies to those on Dial-Up. Trust me, I feel your pain. I used dialup for about 2 years before getting on DSL. If you can get on broadband, trust me it's worth it. Even if you don't use filesharing (BitTorrent, e.g.) just the fact that your pages load quicker and you can take full advantage of sites like YouTube and other video-powered sites, it's worth it. And these days you pay about the same; if you don't mind, a little shout-out to my ISP, Embarq; for about $65 a month (first bill hasn't come yet) we're getting 3MB DSL and home phone, which is awesome compared to $55 a month for basic home service PLUS $22 a month for Dialup - as you can see we're actually saving money by getting broadband. If it's not available in your area, you need to hound the cable and DSL providers in your area. They want to make money, so they need to know about potential customers.
So without further adue, here's my first video blog:
And the follow-up to it, which is incomplete, but provided anyway:
My sincerest apologies to those on Dial-Up. Trust me, I feel your pain. I used dialup for about 2 years before getting on DSL. If you can get on broadband, trust me it's worth it. Even if you don't use filesharing (BitTorrent, e.g.) just the fact that your pages load quicker and you can take full advantage of sites like YouTube and other video-powered sites, it's worth it. And these days you pay about the same; if you don't mind, a little shout-out to my ISP, Embarq; for about $65 a month (first bill hasn't come yet) we're getting 3MB DSL and home phone, which is awesome compared to $55 a month for basic home service PLUS $22 a month for Dialup - as you can see we're actually saving money by getting broadband. If it's not available in your area, you need to hound the cable and DSL providers in your area. They want to make money, so they need to know about potential customers.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
May 2008 Check-In (misc. stuff)
Wow, it's been a while since I've wrote up here. Well, a lot's changed, got a lot to cover. Kept meaning to post, but never got around to it. My normal practice would be to write 4-5 separate blog entries, but what ends up happening then is, one gets written and the rest get forgotten, so here goes.
So far I've lost about 25 pounds, in a little over a month. I gained about that much after the holidays, and I've worked hard to get rid of it. I had a bit of a panic at the end of January; after eating a whole pizza to myself, I weighed 330 pounds. I now weigh 305 and I'm losing about 1-3 pounds a week between a lowfat diet and regular exercise. Oh, and those Alli pills Jen takes, but I'm not so sure they work so good into my plan as diet and exercise alone. Maybe they are, maybe not. I pretty much replaced regular soda with Coke's "Zero" line, drinking more water, etc. When I do eat candy, it's the lower fat ones. There's a big difference between a 3 Musketeers (7g/fat) and a Hershey's chocolate bar (13g/fat) and a York peppermint pattie is better still (4.5g/fat). And I've sworn off seasonal candy starting with Halloween last year. No candy corn, no Christmas candy, no Necco hearts for Valentines Day, and no creme eggs for Easter. I put back an embarassing amount of that stuff the last couple years. I'm not really on a diet, I'm just making better choices. It's a gradual process but I am making progress.
We got DSL the week before last, and it's awesome. We're paying Embarq for DSL and home phone about what we were paying the local phone company for just the home phone service, PLUS we were paying EarthLink $23 a month for dial-up internet. So we're saving money and our Internet is about 100X faster. Maybe more maybe less, but about that. I've downloaded a ton of cool stuff, and we can watch video on YouTube without waiting.
We've been playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band over at Jen's brother's place, and getting into it. I downloaded Guitar Hero III on the PC, and it's crap. Just a really bad game, and people with computers twice as good as mine have the same problems. It skips, it lags. We were borrowing my brother-in-law's guitar (he has an extra one), but we bought Guitar Hero III for the Xbox 360, so now we have our own guitar, and when we get out 360, we'll already have one game for it. And we can delete the download. I feel sorry for anyone who paid for the PC version. It was shipped broken, and shame on Aspyr and Activision for selling faulty software. It's fine on the 360 and the PS2 and PS3, all inferior technologically to my computer, so it should play on the computer just as well. The only thing we can do on the PC is play on Easy - Medium difficulty is unplayable because the extra notes lag the game to the point of making it unplayable. This is a common problem over on the GameFAQs board for GH3 on the PC. People with godly computers have this problem. Everyone's saying at least get a cheap PS2 and play it on that. Well, we're getting a 360 anyway (Jen says by the end of March we can afford it) and we have the 360 version of Guitar Hero III, so we're set.
I was a complete idiot and cut my finger, bad. I was crushing soda cans at the same brother-in-law's place, ripping the pop tabs off and saving them (apparently they're worth more recycled as they're purer aluminum or something) and then crushing the cans. Well, I got some Mountain Dew on my fingers (it's practically all he drinks, heh), and went to pop a tab off, and my finger slipped in, and hit the lid of the can at a bad angle. Blood everywhere and it wouldn't stop bleeding. Almost a week later and it's not quite healed. I'm not even sure it's closed up! I've had band-aids on it, I've even been doing chores, even though every impact hurts like hell. I just did the dishes, luckily we have finger cots to keep the soapy water out. I can put rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide on a cut, but I can't put a cut hand in dish water.
Back on the topic of Guitar Hero, I helped our four-year-old niece play bass guitar in Rock Band. If you've been living under a rock for the past four years, Guitar Hero is a beat-synchronization game where you press colored buttons in sync with colored lights that appear on screen, travelling down a "road". When the colored light goes under your "fret bar" you hit (or be holding) the colored button that matches it, and strum the guitar. It doesn't have strings, but it does have a switch you can flip up or down to simulate strings. It's not an easy thing to do, and it's harder to master. Rock Band is the same thing but with two guitars, a drum set (4 drums and a foot pedal), and a microphone to sing into - you have to match pitch and tone with your voice. Anyway, I traditionally play bass. I put bass on easy; lead guitar, drums, and vocals were all on Expert, I think. I sat her on my right leg and let her strum (when I told her to) and I handled the colors. That worked OK for one song, but for the next two she sat on my left leg and held the colors I told her to, and I took over the strumming. On the third song, we got 90%. Not bad for a 4 year old being helped out by an adult.
The tradition of me doing the laundry continues for the third week in a row. Jen and I used to do the laundry together, on Sunday, but now on Monday nights, I go to Greenville and do it myself. I have a routine down and everything. I thought that we would do it yesterday, as Jen took the day off, but she stayed at her brother's place to play Rock Band (and drink) while I went off on my own and did laundry alone. On one hand I wish she would have been there to keep me company, but on the other hand it's my time alone and I have fun.
So far I've lost about 25 pounds, in a little over a month. I gained about that much after the holidays, and I've worked hard to get rid of it. I had a bit of a panic at the end of January; after eating a whole pizza to myself, I weighed 330 pounds. I now weigh 305 and I'm losing about 1-3 pounds a week between a lowfat diet and regular exercise. Oh, and those Alli pills Jen takes, but I'm not so sure they work so good into my plan as diet and exercise alone. Maybe they are, maybe not. I pretty much replaced regular soda with Coke's "Zero" line, drinking more water, etc. When I do eat candy, it's the lower fat ones. There's a big difference between a 3 Musketeers (7g/fat) and a Hershey's chocolate bar (13g/fat) and a York peppermint pattie is better still (4.5g/fat). And I've sworn off seasonal candy starting with Halloween last year. No candy corn, no Christmas candy, no Necco hearts for Valentines Day, and no creme eggs for Easter. I put back an embarassing amount of that stuff the last couple years. I'm not really on a diet, I'm just making better choices. It's a gradual process but I am making progress.
We got DSL the week before last, and it's awesome. We're paying Embarq for DSL and home phone about what we were paying the local phone company for just the home phone service, PLUS we were paying EarthLink $23 a month for dial-up internet. So we're saving money and our Internet is about 100X faster. Maybe more maybe less, but about that. I've downloaded a ton of cool stuff, and we can watch video on YouTube without waiting.
We've been playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band over at Jen's brother's place, and getting into it. I downloaded Guitar Hero III on the PC, and it's crap. Just a really bad game, and people with computers twice as good as mine have the same problems. It skips, it lags. We were borrowing my brother-in-law's guitar (he has an extra one), but we bought Guitar Hero III for the Xbox 360, so now we have our own guitar, and when we get out 360, we'll already have one game for it. And we can delete the download. I feel sorry for anyone who paid for the PC version. It was shipped broken, and shame on Aspyr and Activision for selling faulty software. It's fine on the 360 and the PS2 and PS3, all inferior technologically to my computer, so it should play on the computer just as well. The only thing we can do on the PC is play on Easy - Medium difficulty is unplayable because the extra notes lag the game to the point of making it unplayable. This is a common problem over on the GameFAQs board for GH3 on the PC. People with godly computers have this problem. Everyone's saying at least get a cheap PS2 and play it on that. Well, we're getting a 360 anyway (Jen says by the end of March we can afford it) and we have the 360 version of Guitar Hero III, so we're set.
I was a complete idiot and cut my finger, bad. I was crushing soda cans at the same brother-in-law's place, ripping the pop tabs off and saving them (apparently they're worth more recycled as they're purer aluminum or something) and then crushing the cans. Well, I got some Mountain Dew on my fingers (it's practically all he drinks, heh), and went to pop a tab off, and my finger slipped in, and hit the lid of the can at a bad angle. Blood everywhere and it wouldn't stop bleeding. Almost a week later and it's not quite healed. I'm not even sure it's closed up! I've had band-aids on it, I've even been doing chores, even though every impact hurts like hell. I just did the dishes, luckily we have finger cots to keep the soapy water out. I can put rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide on a cut, but I can't put a cut hand in dish water.
Back on the topic of Guitar Hero, I helped our four-year-old niece play bass guitar in Rock Band. If you've been living under a rock for the past four years, Guitar Hero is a beat-synchronization game where you press colored buttons in sync with colored lights that appear on screen, travelling down a "road". When the colored light goes under your "fret bar" you hit (or be holding) the colored button that matches it, and strum the guitar. It doesn't have strings, but it does have a switch you can flip up or down to simulate strings. It's not an easy thing to do, and it's harder to master. Rock Band is the same thing but with two guitars, a drum set (4 drums and a foot pedal), and a microphone to sing into - you have to match pitch and tone with your voice. Anyway, I traditionally play bass. I put bass on easy; lead guitar, drums, and vocals were all on Expert, I think. I sat her on my right leg and let her strum (when I told her to) and I handled the colors. That worked OK for one song, but for the next two she sat on my left leg and held the colors I told her to, and I took over the strumming. On the third song, we got 90%. Not bad for a 4 year old being helped out by an adult.
The tradition of me doing the laundry continues for the third week in a row. Jen and I used to do the laundry together, on Sunday, but now on Monday nights, I go to Greenville and do it myself. I have a routine down and everything. I thought that we would do it yesterday, as Jen took the day off, but she stayed at her brother's place to play Rock Band (and drink) while I went off on my own and did laundry alone. On one hand I wish she would have been there to keep me company, but on the other hand it's my time alone and I have fun.
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