My Blog
Eyes Rolling, Rolling, Rolling
Saturday, June 25, 2005 at 1:04 am
K-mart. They're the ultimate Wal-Mart wannabe. The only difference is that K-mart advertises special sales, where Wal-mart advertises its regular prices. I didn't think they'd sink so low as to copy Wal-Mart's commercials. Apparently K-mart is trying to make a comeback or something, but I saw a commercial advertising....tents. They used the song "Rawhide" in their commercial. Ok, I don't know the song, and apparently it's a tv show theme song. Anyway, it's the same song that Wal-mart changed the lyrics to and made it their rollback song for a while. Keep those prices rolling. I can't believe they did that if they knew - and how could they miss that? I dunno. Too crazy for me to understand.
Twisting the facts
Thursday, June 23, 2005 at 5:45 am
Remember when Sierra Mist came out? While Pepsi was saying it was the height of refreshment, I was saying it had already reached the height of its popularity long ago. I remember proving this to a friend at some fast food place, maybe a Taco Bell. I dug at the corner of the shiny Sierra Mist sticker on the fountan and peeled it back just enough to reveal "Lemon-Lime Slice" undernearth it. I'm surprised nobody ever noticed Lemon-Lime Slice slipping off the shelf and into its cocoon. Not to emerge as a butterfly, but to come out as a middle-aged man after a makeover. Nothing new, but at least it looked better. It was about then, that I also said that the other flavors of Slice weren't popular enough and that they, too, would experience the same fate.
Fast forward a couple years or so, and that brings us to today. I bought gas for my car today and was in the mood for gingerale. I went inside, and not only did they not have any, they didn't have anything in cans, either. I hate to say it, but I really could have gone for something in a can - I can tell the difference in flavor. Instead, I saw Pepsi's new Tropicana Twiseter Soda. First of all, Tropicana Twister was a favorite of mine a long time ago - particularly the Strawberry, Orange, Banana. And if memory serves me correctly, that variety probably had close to 30% juice in it. Today, that same brand name represents a soda with 1% (that's ONE percent. In a 20 oz. bottle, that would be about 1.2 teaspoons!). Memory doesn't serve me very well for sure, but all I could find is the average Tropicana Twister juice drink variety has about 13% juice, which at least puts it above Fruitopia. Anyway, as I was saying....Tropicana Twister Soda - Orange IS almost beyond the shadow of a doubt - Orange Slice. Tastes the same. For someone who's into pseudo-juices, keep in mind that it has several times as much refined sugar in there as there is fruit juice.
I watched Herbie: Fully Loaded tonight. One thing I can say for sure - the theater wasn't fully loaded. I was one of 7. 4 of these were female. I know it was a late showing on a weekday, but it's all I have to go on. It was a great movie. It really was reminiscent of what little I've seen of the earlier Herbie. As far as Disney movies go, it ranks pretty well even if it stars one of their template stars. By template star, I mean a movie pretty much built around showcasing one of their stars. It's pretty sad though - Lindsay Lohan is going to OWN Disney remakes. She was in a Freaky Friday remake AND a Parent Trap remake too. I bought a child size popcorn. Ever realize that the child size is bigger than a bag of microwave popcorn? If you were at home, wouldn't you think that even a whole bag of microwave popcorn might be a bit much at one time? Somehow, people get tricked into buying the bigger sizes. Don't worry, it's not the biggest scam in theater concessions.
Need something fresh? Stop on over for some purified water. I found out it would be so cheap to use a Brita filter for my water needs. Only concern is that it wouldn't taste as good as what came in the pre-filled jugs. I haven't decided yet. It tastes kind of like the tap water here, except with a lot less chlorine flavor and a little plastic taste. Not bad, overall - I give it a 7. I know that the placebo effect is supposed to take over the rest of the taste differences, but that didn't work on me. I'm stuck seeing it for what it is - a cheap substitute that I'd better believe is good enough for me, because it means I'll drink a ton more water....in a year...if I did the math right. Know what? I don't have room for 20 gallon jugs in my apartment, and every time I re-fill this one, I get fresh water. It's a matter of space as much as anything else.
I sure did spend a long time in consumerland today. I bought 3 novels at Wal-Mart today. I have no idea how to start reading novels, but I realized that it sure is a lot cheaper than a DVD and it lasts more than an hour and a half. I'll let you know how it goes.
2 years of blogging!
Sunday, June 19, 2005 at 6:34 am
Blogdor, as this blog was once called is now carried on to its third web site. Back when I started it, there was obviously a trend started since I used software that was made for the job. It wasn't really my only blog ever. During Cornerstone '98 and '99 and shortly after, I posted my daily journal of the weeks on my web page. There wasn' t much to them and they were hard to read, but I still like the idea of taking the credit for blogging only 2 years after the Internet really hit mainstream.
As I write today, I'm going to quickly reflect on an ongoing theme I've had with this blog. That is, I see a great new product only to be disappointed because I thought of the idea a couple years before. Today, I saw a V-tech cordless phone with a color screen. I never thought of that, but that did get me to look at the box. When I got hold of it, I saw that you could connect it to your computer to record a greeting for it. In my thoughts of how the digital home should be, I thought of one that actually used a standard memory card, though, that kept answering machine MESSAGES as well, so you could pop it into your MP3 player and listen to messages on the go. They didn't do that so at least I can still feel superior.
That's about it for my post today. I wanted to wish my blog a happy birthday. :-)
VoIP BTU LMNOP
Thursday, June 16, 2005 at 7:38 am
I've decided to stop measuring my computer usage in Watts, and start counting in BTU's (British Thermal Units) instead. I decided a couple days ago to start putting my computer to rest from the time I go to bed at night until 5:00 p.m. when I get off of work. I did this to hopefully offset the energy costs of running my air conditioner. So far, I think it's working - but not at all as I thought. When I came back to my apartment today, it was considerably cooler than it had been. In fact, I didn't turn on the AC one time the entire evening. There are several words and phrases that define the types of people who run their heater in the summer and the air conditioner at the same time. A few of these names follow: stupid, rich, very short people, very tall people, and almost anyone who regularly watches Fox. What do you know? I just joined a big club.
In other bad luck with technology this week, I finally decided to call technical support at Lingo to resolve my problems with my virtually nonexistent VoIP service. They are the worst-rated well known Voice over IP phone service provider. It appears that I'm much happier paying $22.09 per month for their worthless service than I am paying a $35 cancellation fee and switching to Vonage. The logic goes something like - if I want to break even switching to a more reliable carrier, it will cost me the equivalent of about 2 months of service - I don't want to pay double price for bad service - Therefore, I'm much happier paying regular price for lousy service.
So today I decided to take the leap. I tried to call their technical support. I wanted to tell them that since my long calls to them the first day I got hooked up, I have had consistent drop-outs every couple days and that every time the service goes down, I ahve to physically go to my closet and reset the device. The last few days I've had even worse service. Today I had a dial tone for a full 10 seconds. One thing I've gotta give to them - there was no hold time. They hire so many "level 1" support technicans that there are low-paid, often quite irritable techs ready to answer at any time - 24 hours per day, 7 days per week ("level 1" can be roughly translated to: they can read a list, mostly full of ways of keeping really stupid people from reaching level 2 support at all, but have no idea how the hardware or protocols actually work) .
The first technician was mad right from the start. I di something to set him off I guess, which I think was asking him a question that must have been mentioned on a later page of the script he was reading from. About 20 seconds later we mysteriously got "disconnected."
Technician number two was actually quite a friendly guy - still probably using a script/diagram sheet of questions, but he actually listened to me and went to right where I left off (which actually was where I was BEFORE technician #1 because he just made the problem worse). I spent about an hour on the phone with this guy. True that it was only 25 minutes or less into the call that I realized that it was something that either he couldn't handle or it was faulty hardware (which he wasn't authorized to determine). By the end of the call he had a pretty good hunch that it was bad hardware, and said that it would be passed on to level 2 support (finally!) .
I almost asked at the beginning and lied that I was already waiting on level 2 support. As it turns out, I probably didn't lose any time. Level 2 support was now supposed to contact me within 24-48 hours. Try to compare that with hold time. Not only do I have to babysit them and make sure that they do call ( the level 1 guy VERY specifically mentioned the steps to follow if I don't hear back within 2 days as if it's a common occurrence), but it is also on their time basically any hour of the day(s). He did put into his notes the time that I preferred a call-back.
Wow - so you might think that's enough to make me cancel. No - I'd much rather see firsthand just how bad it can get and stick with it until they get it right. At least in 200hrs. of phone support time, I might have cost them any money they've made on my account.
Looknig at the random post title I thought I might as well justify my throwing "LMNOP" in my list of acronyms. Ok, here goes.... "Lingo Means NOP." NOP is an assembly language command that, for no real other reason than taking upspace actually does "No OPeration." How fitting that I randomly typed that in. For any of you Googlers out there, not many people read this site, but I want to be there for anyone who searches for "Lingo bad service" - and that's now pretty much guaranteed since the phrase is actually on this page. At 2:38 a.m. after all my rambling....good night.
Two and a Half Times 10
Wednesday, June 08, 2005 at 1:34 am
Wow - as if everything couldn't be free...it seems to be so. I just watched Hot Shots! tonight - which was FREE because I bought a TV at Best Buy and got $30 in rewards points. That movie is one of the other genius creations by the same guys behind the Naked Gun movies, Wrongfully Accused, Airplane, Top Secret, and more! In this movie, Jon Cryer plays alongside Charlie Sheen as Jim 'Wash Out' Pfaffenbach, a pilot who suffers from Walleye Vision. In a split-second I recognized Jon Cryer as the person who plays alongside Charlie Sheen in the current sitcom Two and a Half Men. WOW. Pumped up I go to the IMDB to look it up and of course I'm right about it. I ended up wandering - signing a petition to have Police Squad (the six-episode sitcom behind the Naked Gun movies) released on DVD, and checked on the price for Macgyver Season 2 on Amazon.com.
Enough links for one paragraph. I found out that if I got an Amazon.com credit card, my next $30 in purchases would be FREE!! Well - the second season of Macgyver was $27.29 so I added a small book to the purchase that ended up being half-free and it all shipped for FREE!!! This is only weeks after getting a video camera on a loan through a credit card where the first year is interest FREE. It is only months after getting a TV on credit, two years interest FREE!!!! Free is good, and free is what I got. My day has gone well.
