My wife's last job, she worked at home and had a computer and printer to use, so we used that printer for personal stuff as well. Before that, all the printers we have had have been broken by one kid or another. Anyway, we need a printer. Not badly, as we don't print much stuff these days (seriously, I think I could live the rest of my life without needing a hard copy of anything), so I look around at printers occasionally when I'm out.
So today, I was at Wal-Mart and I see a printer for $44, and I think that seems pretty good, then I wonder how much it will cost to replace the ink, so I look at the cartridges necessary for the $44 printer and find out that to replace both ink cartridges, it will cost about $55. So, if I buy this printer, when I run out of ink, it would be cheaper for me to buy another one than to replace the ink. What the fuck?
Anyway, then I noticed that they had a couple of printers for under $30. Now, these didn't come with a black ink cartridge at all, but it would still be either cheaper or as cheap to buy a new printer than to replace the color ink that comes with it.
Something tells me these ink cartridges are way, way overpriced, or the hardware in a printer costs almost nothing to manufacture and distribute.
I found this interesting as I have had some relatively minor symptoms of RLS since I was in college. It's odd now that RLS getting so much attention, although I'm sure that's primarily due to big Pharma pushing their new wonder drug of the day. For the longest time, I figured it was just some freak thing and nobody else would even know what I was talking about if I tried to tell them.
I first time I remember any symptoms was my freshman year in college. I was lying in bed and started having a nearly uncontrollable urge to move my legs. I see now that people try to describe it, but I really think it defies explanation. How do you describe what an urge feels like? It'd be like trying to tell a eunuch what it feels like to be horny. Fortunately it went away, but over the years it would come and go. It never got bad enough that I was tempted to try to get help, but apparently others aren't so lucky. In fact, I don't believe I've ever mentioned it to anyone, even my wife, and I tell her everything.
I see that the Dartmouth guy in the story (gotta have that balance, heh) believes the diagnosis is overhyped. It may be, but I can't imagine how. If someone has ever experienced it, they'll identify with the commercials right away, if not, they probably don't have it.
Apparently I was one of only 5 or 6 people in the country watching this show. First the bad news, I'm all wrapped up in the show now, and I find out it was basically canceled before it even started. The good news is, unlike Reunion, where the network there gave the finger to everyone who watched it (yeah, fuck you too, Fox), they actually let the producers wrap the storyline up. So instead of a possible ongoing show, what we basically got is an 8 episode miniseries.
Which is all too bad, in the grand scheme of tv. Ok, you can certainly pick out problems with the plot, the implausible evidence that just happens to be in the right place at the right time, but that's not the point. It's a fun show about a couple of decent guys on the run from a massive govt conspiracy. It's fast paced and fun with a lot of twists and turns, explosions and bad ass rogue agents. What's not to like? I've DVR'd plenty of shows over the last few years that I just never cared about watching, but I've been watching Traveler as soon as it's recorded each week. If you get a chance to get the 8-episode run on Netflix, I would recommend it.
Apropos the post below, I ran across this on CNN just a few minutes ago. It's a good rant. One thing that I especially liked was her comment about the 200 pound barrier. Listening to a lot of sports radio and reading sports blogs (believe it or not misogyny is still rampant in sports, who knew?), I see and hear a lot of disparaging comments about fat women and how gross and disgusting they are. Often reference is made to 200 pounds as some kind of obscene number. There are a whole lot of 200+ pound women out there, and believe it or not, many of them are actually attractive. For one example, watch the video.
I think it's great that she lost all this weight, and I hope she can keep a good bit of it off, although we've been hearing recently that it's very difficult to do. What I found interesting about this story were the comments about her husband -
Adding to her misery, Twitchell says her ballooning weight was also wreaking havoc on her 31-year marriage.
"We were literally just co-existing together, like roommates," recalled Twitchell.
"Friends asked my husband to e-mail them a picture of us. Later, I discovered that he had sent them an old photograph taken when I was much smaller. Even though he loved me, he was embarrassed at how much weight I had gained."
...
How has this changed her life?
"I have a marriage again," says Twitchell, who recently retired and relocated with her husband from New Jersey to their new home in the mountains of western North Carolina.
"When I finally reached my goal (weight), my wedding ring was two sizes too big. I had already had it resized twice and the jeweler was hesitant that I might lose more weight. Rather than resize it, my husband bought me a new beautiful diamond ring and when he gave it to me he said this was a renewal of our wedding vows," she recalled.
Twitchell says her husband keeps telling people that he's got his wife back. This August, the couple will celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary and they couldn't be happier.
Ok, so I know that's not exactly an astonishing revelation, but I'm not talking about a general hatred for Wal-Mart and their poor business practices, this is more of a specific complaint about a Wal-Mart in Orlando. I shop at Wal-Mart at home in Jacksonville all the time, just because it's easy and cheap, and I don't give a fuck if the store is cluttered or the people working there know anything about what they're selling. So, we're on vacation at Universal Orlando, and decide that if we want a snack, we don't want to pay $12 for a jar of nuts, or $5 for M&M's, and we need a few things to wear when going on the water rides, so we decide to make a quick trip to Wal-Mart. Now of course at home, you can't drive 10 minutes without running into a Super Wal-Mart, but here we turn the wrong way and drive for an hour before eventually finding one.
So, we get there and go in, and of course all Super Wal-Marts are laid out almost exactly the same, but that doesn't help me from feeling like I'm in the Twilight Zone any time I go into one where the groceries are on the right instead of left like I'm used to. Anyway, we get some snacks, and some water shoes and stuff, and we go the register, wait in line for about 15 minutes, then finally get to the front of the line. When the cashier gets to a bottle of wine my wife was buying, she asks for ID, and I start to show her, but then she points to my 16 year old daughter and says "No, her ID." So we explain that she is 16 and the woman says she can't sell us the wine. Of course we're flabbergasted and try to explain that we're not giving her the wine and she tells us that Wal-Mart policy is that everyone in the party must be 21 to purchase alcohol.
Now, I don't know if that is actually Wal-Mart policy, or if it's just their local policy or just that particular store's policy or what. I do know if it's Wal-Mart's corporate policy, every Wal-Mart I've ever been to has the good sense to ignore it. And I don't mind anything that discourages underage drinking, but this policy is so asinine that's it's unbelievable that anyone could have ever thought this was actually a good idea. Mostly, because it's so easily circumvented. Anyone who knows about the policy will simply leave the underage people somewhere else when paying, and the people who don't know about it will simply take the alcohol to a different register after finding out about it. The only people that will be dissuaded by it will be people like us who are legitimately purchasing alcohol and just say fuck it when confronted with their retarded policy. Anyone who actually wants to give underage people the alcohol will just do one of the things I mention above. Also, I could understand this a little more in a liquor store or some kind of smaller store where they had any chance of enforcing, or at least where underage people had no business going anyway. But this is a store that sells everything from tires to toothpaste, and where I'm likely to buy a bit more stuff and shop in a more general fashion.
Anyway, the fact that I actually was motivated to post this should show you how irritated I was with this crap. Anyone else ever heard of this ridiculous policy at their local Wal-Mart? Or any other poicies you want to bitch about?
Oh, and otherwise, we're having a great time.
This is kind of interesting.
Yes, I realize I'm just posting links to shit lately. But that's better than nothing. I haven't got much to say lately and my contributors don't seem to pick up any of the slack.
Some of these are pretty neat. Some of them give me a headache.
I'm sure this makes me a bad liberal, but I just don't get hate crimes legislation. Now, I'm 100% completely and totally in favor of rights for everyone, including any and all minorities, and even "enemy combatants" (though that's another topic). What I don't understand is why a hate crime is any worse than the exact same crime committed for different reasons.
If someone is stabbed or shot or beaten because they are black, a woman, gay, or whatever, that's terrible and I think the person who did it should be punished severely. However, if I get stabbed or shot or beaten, just because someone wants my wallet, or my car or whatever, I think that's just as terrible, and I want the person who did that punished just as harshly as the person in the first case.
I hate to agree with Republicans, so I must be missing something. Someone please explain it to me.
Great show, maybe the best on TV. Tonight's episode was great, with a lot of cool stuff and good information. However, much like anytime people start messing around with time travel, I think they may have fucked some things up. Either that or I just missed something. First, if future Hiro hadn't yet traveled back in time and told Peter to save the cheerleader, then why does Mohider still remember it. And now with future Hiro dead, does that screw up the past timeline that we've been watching all this time, since it seems that he never did get around to going back to meet Peter? And more importantly, if Claire never did get killed by Sylar, then how did Sylar regenerate when future Hiro stabbed him, since he obviously never got Claire's power? And how is it going to help now that they've saved her, if she was never dead to begin with? Also, when did Isaac get around to drawing the future 9th Wonder comics? Especially since he apparently did versions set in each of the two timelines, one of which happens five years after his death. Did he write 5 years worth of comics before he died?
Also, NBC ran it over by I don't know how long since my DVR cut off when Ando told Hiro he believed in him, so I don't even know exactly how it ended. Though I assume Hiro was able to get back to the past somehow.
Well, this should be good. Ever since I saw that banana video with these two geniuses, I've been questioning being an atheist, I'm sure this debate will make me a believer once and for all.
I hope when he's done proving the existence of god, that someone remembers to quote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' "'But,' says Man, 'The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
I haven't really paid any attention at all this season to the NBA. That wasn't surprising considering the Lakers suck, and Georgetown was very good this year which made me focus more on college basketball. But, even when the Lakers aren't even in the playoffs at all, I've always been able to enjoy watching them anyway. But so far this season, I've seen nothing that interests me even slightly. I tried to watch several games over the weekend, and was bored by all of them, including the Lakers. I have a mild interest in the Heat because I like Shaq, but other than that, there's no team out there that is compelling to me, and no individual players that really pull me into a game just to watch them play.
Any NBA fans want to tell me about something great that I'm missing? Because I just can't get interested.
Stupid articles like this one make me want to repeatedly bang my head against a wall. What is this fascination we have with naming generations anyway? It's a pretty vague thing to use for distinction, but once you put a name on it, then people seem to want to try and apply hard and fast rules to each generation.
More annoyingly, in this article, they decide to use two stupid names for the same generation.
Millennials — also known as Gen Y — are typically described as those born since the early 80s.
Haven't posted much lately, and these things are always good when I can't come up with anything interesting to say. Saw it at TwoGlasses and Laughing Wild
1. How tall are you barefoot?
About 5'9"
2. Have you ever smoked heroin?
No
3. Do you own a gun?
No, guns kill people
4. Who's your best friend?
Mike
5. Do you get nervous before "meeting the parents"?
My parents? I don't remember, but I doubt I realized I was going to meet them. Ok, I guess this is about my wife's parents. No, I didn't get nervous, but when I met my mother in law, she didn't say a word to me and looked at me like she wanted to beat meet to death with her bare hands. She loves me now, of course.
6. What music are you embarrassed to admit that you listen to?
Nothing, I'm not easily embarrased, and I don't listen to a lot of music.
7. What's your favourite Christmas song?
The one with the wind, and the sheep and the king and all that.
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Chocolate Milk
9. Can you do push-ups?
Not many
10. Why does one question always disappear?
I have no idea what the fuck this means.
11. What's your favorite piece of jewelry?
My wedding ring. It's the only jewelry I wear, though it would probably be my favorite anyway.
12. Do you like painkillers? When I'm in pain.
13. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex?
My wife's kids read this occasionally, so I'll spare them having to read about it.
14. Do you own a knife?
Who doesn't? Not like a crazy killing knife or anything. Just regular knives.
15. Do you have A.D.D.?
No
16. Middle Name?
Randall
17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment?
Who the fuck cares about three random thoughts. I'm embarrased that I'm wasting time on this stupid meme that probably started on some preteen girl's MySpace page. The Sopranos was kind of lousy this week.
18. Name the last 3 things you have bought:
Coffee, Milk, Coke
19. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink:
Kool-Aid (actually Great Value flavored drink mix, I'm cheap), milk, Mountain Dew
20. What time did you wake up today?
7:45 a.m.
22. Current worry?
I usually only worry about money
23. Current hate?
Whiny bitches
24. Favorite place to be?
Skiping my first choice for reasons mentioned above, I'll go with at home, just because I'm too lazy to put any thought into this.
25. Least favourite place to be?
Church
26. Where would you like to go?
Rome, New York, probably a million other places
27. Do you own slippers?
No
28. What shirt are you wearing?
Black Nike T shirt
29. Do you burn or tan?
Both
30. Favorite color(s)?
Blue
31. Would you be a pirate?
I don't think so. Why would I?
32. Last time you had an alcoholic drink?
Sunday
33. What songs do you sing in the shower?
I don't.
34. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child?
Burglars
35. What's in your pockets right now?
Nothing
36. Last thing that made you laugh?
My son, he's funny
37. Best bed sheets you had as a child?
What the fuck? Even if I was weird enough to have favorite bedsheets, I sure wouldn't remember them anymore.
38. Worst injury you've ever had?
Dislocated thumb.
40. How many TVs do you have in your house?
Five. For three people, seems excessive, but what am I going to do throw away perfectly good TVs?
41. Who is your loudest friend?
I don't keep track of my friends by volume.
42. Who is your most silent friend?
See above.
43. Does someone have a crush on you?
I seriously doubt it.
44. Do you wish on shooting stars?
No
45. What is your favourite book?
I'm not good with favorites, there are a lot of books I really like.
46. What is your favorite candy?
Miniature Reese's peanut butter cups.
47. What song do you want played at your wedding?
This reinforces my thought above that this came from some girl's MySpace page. I already had my wedding, we played All My Life by K-Ci and JoJo along with a lot of other songs.
48. What song do you want played at your funeral?
What the fuck do I care?
49. What were you doing at 12 AM last night?
Sleeping.
50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up this morning?
I have no idea.
I wasn't going to say much about Jeff Green's disappearing act in the Final Four, because they're just kids, and even with all that talent, can't always come through. But then I read the quote below, and it almost made my head explode.
"I wouldn't change anything," Green said. "I didn't want to force anything. ... You've got to credit their defense. They had great weak-side defense. That made it tough on our teammates to try and throw the ball down to me."
I had heard just a little bit about this show but had never watched it. Then a few days ago, I caught just a brief little bit of it. When I had heard about it, I assumed it was the kind of obscure crap that you learn in fifth grade, but isn't important enough to remember, like the chief export of Brazil, or the capitals of Canadian provinces or something. However, during the time I watched, some obscenely stupid woman went from $150K in winnings up to $300K by answering how many months had 31 days. The saddest part about watching was her methods to get to that correct answer. She did the little rhyme to come up with 4 months with 30 days, then added on February to get to 5. Then she fucking counted on her fingers, saying "one from twelve is eleven, two from twelve is ten, three from twelve is nine, four from twelve is eight, five from twelve is seven." As sad as that is, at least she came up with the right answer.
Next, she had a chance to get a half a million dollars. If she missed the question, she would only get $25K. Or she could walk away with the $300K, but she had to say she wasn't as smart as a fifth grader or some bullshit. The question? "What continent is also a country?" I was prepared to forgive her for not immediately answering, thinking they had told her to string the drama out or something. But then she went back to her fingers. Why, I don't know. I guess she was counting the continents in her head for some reason. After some hemming and hawing, and chit chat with Jeff Foxworthy, who I can only assume was able to restrain himself from openly laughing at her only because he was getting paid for this, she decided to walk away. So, when Foxworthy asks what her answer would have been, I'm still hoping she will give the correct answer, and just is nervous on TV, and her head isn't clear enough to risk $275K for any reason. But then what she comes up with is "all of them." All of them. And some nonesense about how North America is a country, and the audience (thankfully) laughing at her. Then instead of looking suitably ashamed when given the correct answer, she instead seems to be giving herself credit for being smart enough to walk away.
I can only assume that either these two questions are not represenative of what is normally on this show, or that they make the contestants take some test to prove they are adequately stupid. Otherwise, this show would be giving away a million dollars everytime it airs. I wanted to stick around to the end to see how I could get on this show, but I had to go tell my wife about the stupidity I had just witnessed, and how it was rewarded with three hundred thousand dollars.
I remember Coke seemingly tasting better when I was a kid. Up until fairly recently, I figured it was just the glass bottles. Then I discovered that since around 1984 or so, they've been making it with corn syrup instead of sugar, which many people on the internets (always believe everything you read on the internets) swear is a million times better.
So, last week I was in Winn Dixie and saw some Coke which was advertised as kosher for Passover. Not knowing what the hell would make Coke kosher or not, I looked it up on the aformentioned internets and apparently the Passover Coke is sweetened with sucrose, instead of corn syrup. So it's supposed to be more like the good stuff, though still not as good as Mexican Coke, which uses cane sugar (again according to the internets). So I bought some (it has a yellow cap), and I'll see how it tastes when I get home. If it really does taste better, then I'm going to be pretty pissed at Coke for using corn syrup all this time.
UPDATE: The verdict is in. Not much difference. If anything, it's slightly worse, flatter. Unless I got a bad batch or something, I'm unimpressed. Still look forward to trying the Mexican Coke with real sugar sometime.
Over on Flickr there's a copy of the Codex Seraphinianus, which is fascinating if you've never been able to find a copy. The illustrations are at once beautiful,amazing and disturbing. The Wikipedia article gives a pretty thorough explanation of the history as well as the mystery around this fairly recent piece of artwork.
We're ending our 3rd day in London which means we're halfway done with our trip :(. But we're having a great time. I plan to do a Toast-like travelogue, but until then, I want to put up a quick review of Wicked while it's fresh in my mind.
I had heard the Broadway cast recording of this show, so going in I knew some of what to expect. I thought I would enjoy it, but I wasn't sure how much, as the music was pretty good, but hadn't grabbed me like say, LesMis did when I first heard it.
We got to the theatre which is right outside Victoria station in downtown London. I love the giant signs they put up for these shows. It really builds up the atmosphere, not to mention the throngs of people everywhere. London is a bustling place, especially at night.
The staging was great, as you would expect from a London or a Broadway show. The dragon was a nice, if unnecessary touch, and the stairs along the sides let the characters move around nicely. The style with the cogs and gears seemed to fit right in. The crowning moment was just before intermission when Elphaba (the wicked witch) rises up above everyone and is surrounded by her dress, which has expanded to fill the entire stage behind everyone.
I knew some of the story going in from the cast recording, but not all. Unlike some of the sung-through musicals, you don't get everything from the songs alone. I thought the book for the musical was very well-done. For this musical to be successful, you really have to believe in the characters and come to care about them. I thought they did a good job outlining the two main characters Galinda (Glinda) and Elphaba, and showing at a realistic pace how they change after they meet each other. Likewise with Fiyero, who changes quite a bit after he's first introduced. Once Elphaba finished "The Wizard and I", which is early in the first act, I was completely captivated.
All of the cast were outstanding. I believe we did see the main performers, Helen Dallimore as Glinda and Kerry Ellis as Elphaba. Helen Dallimore did a great job with her part. Of course, I had heard Kristen Chenoweth from the OBC as Glinda, and she has a great, strong voice. Helen Dallimore's wasn't quite as strong, but she made me forget about Kristen Chenoweth anyway. Glinda's part isn't the easiest, I don't think, as she has to be both shallow and lovable at the same time. Kerry Ellis was spectacular. Her big songs "The Wizard and I", "Defying Gravity", and "No Good Deed" gave me chills. Songs that I had heard on the CD and kind of liked really knocked me over here. It reminds me why I love live theatre so much. The rest of the cast shone as well. The Wizard and Madame Morrible were both in great form musically and in their characterization.
To use the Toast movie scale, I would say I had expected a 7, and actually got a 9. The whole family really enjoyed it. And it's a good thing too, considering we spent over 100 pounds plus the tickets after all was said and done. But it was well worth it. I would do it again tomorrow if I could get Michelline to go along.
John McCain is a fucking douchebag, who I can't stand for a number of reasons, but this is a ridiculous thing for people to be upset about. However, instead of talking about it, I'll just link to my post after Mitt Romney used the word, since we've been down this road before.
I know this is late, but I've been sick so I haven't had a chance to post it yet. But here is my bracket, where you can clearly see that I haven't cheated at all getting it up this late. It's also clearly biased with Georgetown winning it all, but fuck it, they haven't been in a position where I could legitimately make that pick for a while, so I'm going with it.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to say something about all the people I've seen recently detailing their different records in different pools. Pick one bracket and stick with it, it's way more fun that way. Where's the exceitement if you need one team to win in one pool, and another team in a different pool, and can never really decide who to root for? Half the fun of getting in a pool and picking a bracket is giving you a clear interest in each game, so I don't understand you people with the multiple brackets.
Also, it's come to my attention that my brother picked Duke to win it all, so feel free to use this space to make fun of him.
Well, I guess it's nice to see that being an unreasonable idiot isn't reserved for pharmacists. Also, I'd be interested to see how many people who thought it was perefectly ok for pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions because of their religous beliefs complain when someone refuses to scan their bacon at the grocery store. I think all these Muslim cashiers should be required to get their prescriptions filled at pharmacies staffed by lunatic Christians, and those Christian pharmacists should have to shop at grocery stores with crazy Muslim cashiers. Maybe then, as each complains that the other shouldn't take a job that they can't do completely, a light bulb will go on. Probably not, but it's possible.
Anyway, the most ridiculous thing about this story to me is, who the fuck doesn't like bacon? If your religion doesn't let you eat bacon, it's time to find a new religion.
