Habit is overcome by habit

Tweet

I'm trying to get into shape. Well, at least one that's not as round. I'm just a 3-D guy trying to fit into a 2-D world. As you can imagine, it has been a struggle. So much so that the other day, I had to go to court over it … food court, that is. It's like regular court but more fun and much tastier.

Anyway, I've heard that habit is overcome by habit. And eating is a habit. So I thought I would overcome eating food by using hoodia diet pills - using not eating. I found if I take and put a pill between each finger including my thumb and do this for both hands, I would spend much the day trying to get the pills between each finger including my thumb on both hands. Finally, when I had successfully achieved this Cirque du Soleil feat, not only could I not pick up any food, I could no longer hold any utensils by which to eat the food. Now if I can make this a daily habit, eating won't be a problem, will it…

They're Alive! They're ALIVE, I tell you!!!

Tweet

That brilliant, evil genius of the "Pearls Before Swine" comic strip, Stephan Pastis, has finally done it! He is taking his world-class characters and animated them for the world to see. Click on the image below to watch his zany results.

Warning! This is not for the faint of heart or those without a sense of humor!

Keeper of the Old Stuff

Tweet

I have been working for my company for the past 20 years. Even though we go through periodic purges of antiquated equipment, there is still a lot of old stuff hiding away in an unused cubicles. Recently, the company has begun filling those convenient storage areas with newly hired people fresh out of college. "Fresh out of college" is management’s preferred employee --- someone who has some training yet can be paid as close to minimum wage as possible. "We'd love to pay you more but unfortunately you just don't have the experience yet. Don't worry. When you do, we'll find your cheaper replacement."

Last week, a new recruit was cleaning out one of the dungeons of despair, I mean, cubicle to make room for her new office. She picked up one of those "Velo binding" machines and looked at me as though I was the museum manager of ancient artifacts. I ended up explaining that, once upon a time, presentations weren't done with a high definition LCD screen in front of an bored audience. We actually had to print up booklets, assemble them with fancy bindings, and then hand them out so we could all turn the pages together while someone in the front of the room would read to us. It was considered a good meeting if the booklets were in color. It was considered a very good meeting if food was available. It was considered a great meeting if you didn't have to attend. In fact, at the end of the year, you would have a file cabinet full of written memorabilia so you could relive the hours that you wasted in meetings. Ah, good times, good times. Nowadays, you have only memories. And if you're lucky, they will file themselves in those irretrievable places in your mind. Ah, better times, better times...

Who's afraid of The Dreaded Pirate, Monsieur Poopy Pants?

Tweet

Apparently not the Marines! As our boys bravely rescued yet another vehicle that had been commandeered by Somali pirates, one of the pirates express his feelings by soiling his britches. This could explain why the these of the high sea have lately been wearing brown pants ... brown being the best camouflage for such an occasion.

Teens In The Fast Lane

Tweet

Teens can be so cute when they get to age of driving an automobile. Their entire attitude undergoes a miraculous transformation when they believe they can be licensed to control several tons of metal, plastic and glass at high rates of speed. This is in stark contrast to the lack of control they seem to have over the tons of metal, plastic and glass that accumulate in their bedrooms. Apparently, the only difference is the presence of gasoline. And from the horrific sight of some teens’ bedrooms, I would be more than happy to chip in for a gallon or two of gas to get that fire started.

Regardless, there is something magical when you see a teenager's eyes fixate on those car keys. I say magical because when you dangle those car keys over their heads, they suddenly possess the speed and ambition not normally seen around times when dishes need to be washed or when homework needs to be done. Yes, those keys possess a magic that you won't find in any pixie dust or witch’s wand.

What about when that fateful day of the driving test arrives?  You can tell which teenagers have learned to stand on their own two feet – they're the ones who failed the test. But even if they passed the exam and the state foolishly grants them a license, you as a parent, as a responsible adult, as a gatekeeper of all that is precious and holy, still have the power to keep your hormonal raging child from becoming a road raging, driving fool. All it takes, my friend, is two words, two very simple yet extremely powerful words. When they come to you, whining in voices that make nails on a chalkboard a very welcomed sound and ask why can't they drive the car, all you have to say is "car insurance."

My Review of Roku XD Player

Tweet

Originally submitted at Roku

The new XD steps it up with 1080p HD video quality and extended-range wireless.

Roku XD Player

Bad Picture Quality

By Ron from North Carolina on 10/7/2010

 

1out of 5

Pros: Easy to set up, Easy to use

Cons: Poor picture quality, Inconsistent performance

Describe Yourself: Netflix fan, Power User, Early adopter, Technophile

At first, I thought I had a bad unit. The Roku-XD produced a strobing effect in the video. It reminded me of the old Macrovision copy protection feature used in playing VHS tapes. There were horizontal bands of brightest and darkest and seem to happen only during when there is sound. I used the composite video output to an old standard TV (no HDMI involved). If I adjust the brightness and contrast down enough, the strobing in the video is almost gone. Of course, the picture quality is very dark.

I must say that Roku's customer support is excellent! Within a week, I had a replacement unit. But, sadly, it has the same problem of strobing video.

I still have the unit I bought last year and it works very well. In fact, it has more video out options that Roku's newer models. I think Roku may have gone to a very cheap digital-to-analog conversion chip set.

(legalese)

"Blogger In Draft"

Tweet

If you've set up your blog through Google's blogger.com, you get to play with advanced beta features from time to time. Today, I went to Blogger in Draft because I learned that it now has built-in traffic stats to check your blog. There is also a few extra features that you can play with (such as the redesigned 'preview' function). Handy so I'm passing this along to you ...

duck! it's 3D TV

Tweet

First there was the Internet and my geekness soared with the ease of researching any trivial matter and expanding my programming skills in the new world of HTML. Then TV shows began their slow start to become accessible to the masses through the Internet. But in the early days, you can only catch certain episodes at certain times when certain sites allowed you to be the certain viewers they were looking for. The only way you could save your shows for more convenient viewing was to invest in all sorts of elaborate servers and terabytes of storage complete with 1U lcd monitors. Basically you needed a set up that rivaled NASA's space center. But all of that is in the past. Now, you can satisfy your video addiction by watching anything at any time and saving it to pieces of plastic not bigger than your fingernail. If only the shows were worthy of your fingernail.

Anyway, the latest technological challenge for geeks everywhere is 3-D TV. While at a electronic trade show recently, I got a chance to preview what is coming out for this Christmas shopping season. In one large booth, just past the scantily clad models (who, sadly, were not female), stood a large wall covered in the latest 3-D HD television screens. These pricey toys showed off majestic scenery that flickered fast enough to tease the eye into wanting more. A salesman strolled up to me and asked my opinion. As I watched vibrant images of colorful fields with swaying wheat, barley and corn, I said it was a little grainy for high definition. They threw me out of the tradeshow…

Why Are Americans Fed Up With Their Government?

Tweet

Let's say, hypothetically speaking, that you come to America in 2000 and stay illegally. In 2004, an immigration judge orders you to return to your country. What do you do? What a silly question! You stay! Why not, you live in public housing and you are getting welfare.

Sadly, there is nothing hypothetical about the situation. Here is a woman who has done just that. And, in 2010, she is still here ... living off of your money. For your viewing pleasure, allow me to present to you President Obama's aunt:

Where are you, Billy Mays?

Tweet

I miss Billy Mays. You know, that overly enthusiastic, always smiling, TV pitchman who died last year at the ripe age of 49. He was the spokesman you could always find during the wee hours of the morning or on Sundays when nothing good was playing. He could take tongue-tangling phrases such as "rainbow light complete prenatal system" and make it reverberate throughout your brain. You can almost hear his baritone voice excitingly say "Let me do a rainbow light complete prenatal system review just for you! Act now and I double it! rainbow light complete prenatal system review, rainbow light complete prenatal system review!" That's what I need right now. Someone who can take mundane phrases and put a little life in it.

My Company's Exercise Plan for Us

Tweet

Fall is in the air as I awake to cooler nights and labor in days unfettered by summer's furnace. Just in time too. At work, they finally got the air conditioning working! And, to make up for those sweltering days that we endured, they have it on full blast to match the 50 degree temperatures outside. Woo Hoo! Now I can sit in my office and watch my fingers freeze into a gnarled lumps on my keyboard. I would complain but shivering is one of those fat burners that actually work. Not only does it keep your muscles in constant motion but you often miss your mouth while eating because your hands are shaking so much. It's a w-w-w-w-w-w-win-n-n-n-n-n-n-n, w-w-w-w-w-w-win-n-n-n-n-n-n-n!

Those anti-social ants

Tweet

I watched a Discovery episode about how social ants are. Really? When was the last time an ant befriended you on Facebook? What was the @ant twitter that you received? The only social skills I've experienced is having these annoy specks of life raid my home for food and water and then stay a while on my couch. (Kind of like my brother-in-law but without the gas attacks and constant requests for money.) Maybe if ants were more social and pleasant, I wouldn't try to kill them so often. They could start by using their tiny mandibles and immense numbers to keep my lawn cut and hedges trimmed.  Then they could politely knock on my door and perhaps share the good news as Jehovah Witness Ants.  For now, I will extend a friendly finger and thumb ... and squash them.

Shake, shake, shake to a new you

Tweet

Lately, I have been blessed by the most idiotic exercises scams on television. The latest is an ad for a set of weights that shake while you do bodily exertions. And for only $19.95 ... plus shipping, handling, taxes, insurance, costs for packing, wrapping, and the actual product if you act now.

I have a better, more humanitarian option for you get in shape. It's from my upcoming "best fat burning exercises with no money down" program (only $19.94 plus shipping, handling and words if you act now). It's very easy in fact. Just find an elder person who lives on the third floor or higher and has Parkinson's disease. Do your good deed each day by carrying them up and down the stairs of their home. Not only will you be a good Samaritan by assisting in their movement, you will also be helping yourself get in top shape and save more than $19.95 in the process (especially if you act now to buy my program). Stay tuned for more...

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

Tweet

As you go through your daily challenges, remember to stay positive. No matter what happens, stay positive! Regardless of the situation, find the good in it. If you find yourself traveling across country in the middle of summer, in a car without air conditioning and with a nagging mother-in-law next you, smile! There are lots of motherless drivers who would give their farmer-tanned arm to have, at the very least, an irritating mother-in-law riding beside them. So sit up straight and enjoy the ride. Be positive! If her misguided but well-intentioned chatter cause you to swerve and wreck, have fun with it. You both survived and that brand new Mercedes can be replaced. As you file the seemingly endless forms of car insurance claims, be sure to write on them "shortly after the old bag went off, the airbag followed suit." See! You can do it! Remember that even a self deprecating Emo is an optimist when they see the cup as half full ... with their own tears. So don't worry! Be happy!

the end of times or the beginning of better dialog?

Tweet

Think back to that incredible time when you experienced that most exciting, erotic form of insanity known as Love. Do you remember the very first time when you or your wonderful object of affection took that important leap of faith and said those three words that would change your lives for better or for worse: "I love you."

Then, as time worked its eroding magical ways into your blooming relationship, there came another defining moment. One where expectations in behavior began to go unfulfilled and assumptions about what each other's love meant began to become challenged. This continued until that routine phone call ended without those three little words being tagged on to "goodbye." Again, relationship changed for the worse and then for the better.

over the teeth and through the gums

Tweet

My friend told me that he was a total abstainer. Really? Completely and totally? Wouldn't that mean that he abstained even from abstention? When I asked him that, he looked at me like I was the one who made the crazy comment.

No, he said he meant that he abstains from just the good stuff ("good stuff" - my translation). It seems he prefers to live in the real world – you know that illusion created by the lack of alcohol. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with sobriety as long as it's done like everything else … in moderation. But not with my friend. He prefers to be drier than desert air after it has gone through a series of humidifier filters. As for me, perhaps I'm drinking myself to slow death. But that's okay because I'm in no rush to get there anyway.

Can you hear me now?

Tweet

I subscribe to several newsletters that cover electronic, computer and Internet trends and developments. Lately they've been filled with a barrage of blurbs for mobile apps and other cell phone enhancements. Unfortunately for me, this is one electronic gadgetry bandwagon that I haven't jumped on. But I don't feel too deprived … from dropped calls and poor sound quality. All of my friends and family involve me in their happy cell phone world every time they call me from their overpriced, overrated, overfee-based and overtaxed marvel of consumerism.

If you're studying marketing or economics in school and your teacher asks you if it's possible for people to trade their long, hard hours of work for extremely poor return on their money. You've got an easy "A" if you use the cell phone market for your example. Extra points if you're going to answer "politics".

Halloween as a retirement fund raiser

Tweet

Halloween is coming up and my grandson is at that unfortunate age where his mom plans to dress him up in one embarrassing outfit or another. The embarrassing part will take place years from now, when pictures of his halloween costumes might be shown to his potential girlfriends while saying sugary sweet comments like, "He was as cute as a young Justin Bieber that Halloween." (Of course, by that time that comment gets uttered, Justin Bieber may be the crazed Mel Gibson of his day.)

The good news is that my grandson won't have any memories of being dressed up in clothing that he would never wear, or of being paraded from house to house in search of candy that he will never eat. So now is the time to get the pictures and videos of blackmail quality. I've got to fund my retirements years some how...

RIP Robert Schimmel

Tweet

He was one of those gifted comedians who could take tearful tragedy and make it into a hilarious event. His material came from the misfortunes, tragedies and struggles that painfully erupted from within his brief life span. He had gone through the financial and emotional torture of divorce and endured incapacitating effects of a heart attack. When the doctors discovered stage III lymphoma cancer, they gave him six months to live. Nine years after that fatal diagnosis, he still have audiences rolling in the aisles – and not because he was performing at epilepsy conventions.

His comedy wasn't for the faint hearted or those easily offended by rough language. But his brilliant routines weren't vulgar for the sake of vulgarity as seems to be the trend of late. There is a reason why he was named as one of Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Comics. No bribes were involved, just talent. He just had a way of putting unpleasant situations into side-splitting perspective  --- something *I* need to being doing more of.

Rest In Peace, Mr. Schimmel. You will be missed ...

A Once and Great Contributor

Tweet

With all the recent stories of atrocities committed in the name of Mohammed, it's difficult to believe that there was once a time known as the golden age of Islam. During the peak of this time in the eighth and ninth centuries, Muslim rational thought worked in concert with its religious dogma. As a result, our civilized world benefited greatly from such life enhancing innovations as algebra, glass mosaic tile, and the astrolabe. Sadly, toward the end of the ninth century, an anti-rational faction began to dominate the faith, forcing Islam into its own version of the dark ages that it has never arisen from. It is unfortunate that a once great contributor to the advancement of humankind has become plagued with those who prefer contributing needless suffering and acting as formidable obstacles to human survival.