Archive for August, 2007
8/1/2007
For the last week or so I haven’t been receiving any postal mail, so I contacted the USPS about it via e-mail asking why delivery had stopped. I got a response in less than 24 hours (very good) that said my inquiry had been received and sent to the local postmaster for where I live.
Today I decided to call USPS just to double-check and see what’s going on. After getting routed around a few times I got a hold of the local office. They said my mailbox had overflowed (too much mail) and immediately started sending everything back (i.e. “return to sender”).
I let them know I’m still here, still alive and to please resume sending mail to my address.
This is what happened (or at least my best guess):
I live in an apartment complex, and as you know, those mailboxes are pretty small.
If I don’t check the mail at least once every three days, the box gets overflowed with junk. Flyers, ads, etc.
I hadn’t checked the mail in about four days. Didn’t think too much of it. I figured I’d just have a box full of crap - but to my surprise there was nothing in the box.
A week goes by - no mail.
That’s when I called.
From what I understand, the USPS was supposed to notify me (usually by a small slip in the box) that mail delivery had ceased - but they didn’t.
If I hadn’t e-mailed and called, I never would have known the USPS purposely stopped delivering mail due to overflow.
Tomorrow I should start receiving mail again.
Hopefully…
posted in blog | No Comments »
8/1/2007
I’ve heard a lot of ‘Sabbath cover bands over the years. All of them suck.
However - I finally found one that sounds almost spot-on perfect: Sapattivuosi
It’s Black Sabbath - in Finnish - and sounds so fucking good it’s incredible.
Check out their MySpace page and listen to Kierteen arkkitehti, which is Finnish for Spiral Architect. Most other ‘Sabbath cover bands wouldn’t DARE touch that song - but
Sapattivuosi got it absolutely right.
Put it this way - you’d like it even if you didn’t like Black Sabbath. The production quality is that good.
posted in blog | No Comments »
8/3/2007
Today I’ll be visiting a guy who supposedly does decent restoration work on cars. He primarily works on traditional hot rods, but he may be able to assist me with some of the things the Buick needs.
As I write this I’m at Pop’s because the guy who does the work is in Inverness.
Inverness is a small town with a bunch of historic flavor to it - which is the exact reason I don’t like it because it reminds me of Northeastern Connecticut too much. I can tolerate Inverness for about a day but then it starts to irritate the shit out of me. At that point I can’t wait to get the fuck out o’ Dodge.
There’s nothing inherently bad about Inverness other than the fact it’s a small town. When I left New England I made a conscious decision to get as far away from small-town living as possible. Towns that have small flavor just irk me these days. Maybe someday I’ll come to appreciate them again - but not any time soon. :D I like Tampa. Big town. Big highways. Lots of convenience. Lots of people. Activity. Life. I like the ultra-touristy nature of the place. For many people that’s a huge turn-off, but I like it - and I say that sincerely.
posted in blog | No Comments »
8/3/2007
Yesterday someone e-mailed me a link to a car auction where one of the cars being sold is a ‘75 Free Spirit pace car.
So I checked out the link. Shortly afterwards I was pissed off. Why? Because the guy selling the car took a ‘73 or ‘74, painted on the stripes and is trying to sell it as a real-deal ‘75 pace car. Here’s an archived copy of the web page.
So how was I able to immediately identify it as an impostor? The nose is from a ‘73 or ‘74 - and the “Buick” logos are absolutely 100% wrong.
I contacted that auction house yesterday and let them know that the asshole selling that car was trying to push something that wasn’t the genuine article.
Today I received a voice mail from that auction house. They confirmed that yes, that’s definitely not a pace car, and thanked me for bringing it to their attention.
The moral of the story: Don’t fuck with a Buick owner. :)
posted in blog, buick | 2 Comments »
8/4/2007
A guy (Ed) lives close to Pop and works on hot rods. He does very good work with his rides. Pictured below is a “mutt” car (Ford body, Chevy Corvette engine) being worked on, and a finished all-Ford car with a 302 under the hood.
Fast and loud. That’s all you gotta know. :)
posted in photos | No Comments »
8/5/2007
There are a few web sites that exist right now that are all about people using live content. Stickam and Ustream are the most popular to the best of my knowledge.
Both suck. More on that in a moment.
In the beginning there was e-mail. It was good. Still is. By nature it’s not a right-now technology. Someone sends e-mail to you, you receive it, think about replying to it, then either reply or not. Simple.
Then there were chat rooms. Okay, this is a right-now technology, but only if you’re physically logged into the chat room at the time. It is a shitty means of communication because it’s completely chaotic. (Try logging in to a chat room with over 100 users in it and attempt to keep up with all the text flying on the screen. Good luck!)
Then there were instant messengers, another right-now technology. This is the evolution of a chat room (supposedly). Instead of using AOL or IRC, you login elsewhere and use a client to send little messages to each other in one-on-one communication. This is also a shitty means of communication because people take it too seriously. And if you lose messages due to something beyond your control (such as a power outage), there’s no way to get them back. Unlike e-mail where you can go back and review things, when you lose an instant message, it’s gone. Kaput. Buh-bye.
Now that bandwidth is relatively cheap, sites have sprouted up that allow right-now live chat rooms with video feeds. You create an account, hook up your web cam, and off you go. These little mini-rooms are a video feed with a chat room attached to it. If you’re saying to yourself “Um… isn’t that a step backwards in communication?”, you’re ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. We finally got to the point where we could avoid the chaos of a chat room only to go right back to it.
I’ve watched a few Ustream and Stickam feeds. They’re all terrible. The video content is boring and the chat rooms are full of netspeaking retards. This is supposed to be the next big thing?
I don’t think so.
Want to know something ironic?
The people who are making the best use out of the video feeds are radio stations. All they do is stick a cam in the studio and keep on doing their regular broadcasts, like LINK 92.2FM does in the UK. All the effort that’s being put forth into allowing users to broadcast video feeds is trumped by radio guys who essentially only use it as a tool to rebroadcast audio.
If that’s not irony I don’t know what is.
It also proves that the right-now video feed thing only works when you have quality content. Otherwise it’s a complete waste of time. At least with radio you can minimize the video feed window so you can do other things on your computer. Remember multitasking? Yeah, that thing that computers do so well these days? Can’t exactly do that too well when you’re staring at a crappy video feed.
posted in blog | 2 Comments »
8/5/2007
If you’re gonna shop and contribute to the big evil corporate machine, you might as well go to stores that look nice.
There are regular ol’ plain jane freestanding buildings and then there those that go up a notch. Several notches, actually. Clearwater Florida has shopping plazas where all the buildings look absolutely pristine. I will give Clearwater credit; when they design a shopping plaza, it looks more inviting and less corporate (even though it is). The colors and textures on the buildings are calm and passive - as shopping should be.
Here’s a few examples of what I’m talking about.
Above: Skechers, winner of the “dumbest name for a shoe” award.
Above: A “Super” Target. Big-ass building. Looks stately from a distance - and intimidating.
Above: A GameStop. For some reason there are a lot of GameStop’s that prefer taking the corner of a building and this one is no exception.
Above: Ross. I took this photo because the sign actually gleams and the building has the best design compared to all the other buildings in the plaza. The sign is too big, but the multi-tiered look really works well. This looks more inviting compared to the Target building which looks like it should have a moat around it and be guarded by a dragon.
posted in photos | 2 Comments »
8/5/2007
To those who aren’t aware, optical media is (taken from Wikipedia)…
..a flat, circular, usually polycarbonate disc whereon data is stored in the form of pits (or bumps) within a flat surface, usually along a single spiral groove that covers the entire recorded surface of the disc.
In other words, a compact disc (CD) or a digital versatile disc (DVD). All CD’s and DVD’s are optical media.
The optical disc has existed since the late 1970’s. We didn’t really start using it until the mid-80’s, and didn’t start mainstream use of them in computers until the 90’s.
Blu-Ray and HD DVD’s are generating a lot of discussion. Which is better? What’s more cost efficient? And most important, which has the better picture quality?
Answer: They both suck, and I’ll tell you why.
How I would love to smack all these Blu-Ray/HD DVD morons upside the head. Why? Because it’s a fucking optical disc, meaning it already sucks. Yet again we have another technology based on an unreliable, scratchable medium that’s over 25 years old.
Optical discs need to GO AWAY.
The replacement? Anything that doesn’t require moving parts of any kind.
Want an example? Okay. No problem.
Contrary to what people think, we will always have the need for physical media. If we didn’t, there would be no physical product to sell in stores. The need for physical media will never go away as long as people are buying and selling things.
The next generation of physical media will probably be a card. It will be about the size of a poker card. You will be able to take it, insert it into a player, and your movie will start playing. And yes it will be that easy.
There will be three types of cards.
One will simply be a card that expires. You rent your movie from the rental place, the card is set to allow 48 hours of use. After that it simply expires and stops working. And to be more Earth-friendly, the place you buy the cards from should offer a ten-cent recycle payback for any card returned so they don’t end up strewn about in landfills everywhere.
The second type will be an non-expiring version, allowing unlimited playback just like the DVD’s you buy today.
The third will be a reusable card.
By today’s standards, the throw-away expiration card will cost about five bucks. The unlimited version will be about thirty bucks. The reusable depends on how many movies can fit on it.
For example, if you had a Blockbuster reusable playback card, you just bring it to the store, pay a fee to rent the movies you want, load ‘em up on the card and then go home. The card will be “smart” enough to expire playback after 2 days or however long you rented the movies for. And if the technology was really smart, you could rent the movies you want online and download them to the card.
None of the cards will have any Big Brother we-track-you technology in it. Simply put, they’re just designed for playback of movies.
For data mediums, the cards are all “unlimited” use and act exactly like USB flash drives, save for the fact they’ll transfer data much faster and hold a lot more.
Optical disc - please go away. Now. You’re old, your unreliable, you just suck.
posted in blog | No Comments »
8/6/2007
The above quote is from a movie I just bought in the bargain bin for 5 bucks, The Running Man. This is a great Schwarzenegger flick.
Sadly, today’s television is not all that far off from this movie. If there were cash prizes in COPS, it’d be exactly like The Running Man. Fortunately we haven’t “progressed” to that point - yet.
. . .
On another note, the city of Tampa has decided to start some night construction on Busch Boulevard. You’d think this was a bad idea, however at least Tampa is courteous enough not to do this during normal daylight hours - and it isn’t just due to the heat. There are construction guys who can take 95-degree weather all day and not even think about it.
At around 10pm I headed out to do some quick shopping and -whammo-, there’s the construction. After coming back from shopping I decided to go around it. With GPS I’m able to do this and not concern myself with getting lost because it basically doesn’t happen.
The interesting thing about Tampa road construction is that it’s quick. Lightning quick. So quick that construction crews are there and gone in just a matter of days or just one day - not weeks or months. This obviously doesn’t count the big projects like bridges; I’m just referring to regular road construction.
I was used to Connecticut’s way of doing road construction, i.e. close off an entrance ramp, exit ramp or road and leave it sit for months on end before fixing it. Then when it finally gets fixed, close it again three weeks later for apparently no reason. Tack on another few months wait time at that point. Ridiculous? Yes. But people up there know and understand the way the state does things - as did I.
Tampa Bay Florida’s way of doing road construction is totally different. First of all, it’s safer because people are given notice well in advance with time tables and everything. Cool, eh? They’ll even tell you what detours are the best to take.
If you don’t happen to read that web site, construction notices are posted several weeks in advanced by means of big lighted road signs, as in “Notice: Construction begins [date here]“.
So unless you live under a rock, you’re aware of what’s going on.
You can even check out all the projects that are in place.
This is yet another reason why Florida kicks so much ass. :)
posted in blog | No Comments »
8/7/2007
I actually already know the answer to this question and I’ll get to it in a bit - keep reading. :)
In 1987 I was 12 years old. For video games, Nintendo was the big thing and more or less the only thing. People were throwing out their Atari 2600 and ColecoVision systems left and right to “play Nintendo”.
Whenever you went into a Toys “R” Us store and headed to the video game area, you would only find boys there. No girls.
In ‘05 or ‘06 I stepped into that same store I did back before I was a teenager. I honestly don’t remember why I went. I had a reason but it escapes me what it was. After I entered the store, I (of course) walked right over to the video game area to check it out. I didn’t have any intention of buying anything; I go there because that section is always an in-your-face kind of display. Wild colors are everywhere, sounds of games can be heard playing and the area is just a cavalcade of sights and sounds.
Also in this area are several television screens hooked up to game systems for people to test out.
And (if you couldn’t guess by now), I saw a girl that was probably 12 years old playing a game.
A girl.
In the video game area.
She was doing what all true gamers do: Staring blankly at the screen completely engrossed in the game. And moreover she was good at the game she was playing - which means she played it before and knew it well. It was some racing game as I recall.
Rock on.
All I could think of was “Wow. Times really have changed.”
There are girl geeks sprawled all over the internet. They do everything the boys do (sometimes better). They game, blog, program, code and everything in between. And they’re of all ages - not just kids. In fact, there are girl geeks my age (I’m 32, by the way).
So why is it that girl geeks are so hard to find? That’s easy enough to answer: They’re on the computer at home (not all of them, but most).
I give total respect to girl geeks - and I mean that sincerely. Girls that game or blog or code or whatever are cool in my book.
It’s too bad online personals don’t list a girl-geek category. It would be nice to hook up with one that is a geek (around my age obviously) that just flat-out admits it. She would score automatic “cool points” with me in that respect. :)
posted in blog | No Comments »
first time here?get notifiedcontact rich
more info
contact rich
rich@menga.net
Rich's Facebook Profile
Rich's Flickr Photostream
Rich's YouTube Channel