by Matt | Aug 20, 2012 | Music, Personal
If you know me in real life you probably have a good idea what my personal musical tastes trend towards. For those of you that don’t, despite all outward appearances of being a “computer geek”, I’m actually into quite a wide range of music. 50% Punk, Ska, and Rock in general, another 30% techno (trance and progressive mostly) and 20% jazz and swing make up the majority of my collection. I hardly ever dabble in country, rap or death metal, although there are a few cross over tracks I can appreciate from just about genre.
For the most part, I don’t really mention it on my blog. I’ve noted a couple instances when I’ve purchased a new CD I enjoy, but largely the discussion of music is avoided in my blogging. That’s not necessarily on purpose, but I tend to believe that each person’s musical tastes are generally unique and a deeper personal expression of who you are. So, by talking about what I like, it’s not necessarily something that would resonate with anyone but myself.
That said, again if you know me in real life, you also know that one of my greatest joys comes from sharing music I’ve found. So, personal friends and family are normally the recipients of tracks I’ve discovered.
That’s the really long and excessive way of saying, “I found new stuff, but you may not like it”. Still, I like it enough to share it anyway.
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by Matt | Jul 20, 2012 | Baseball, Personal
No, not that kind of size guide, get your minds out of the gutter, geez. lol.
This post has actually been a long time coming. It’s something that’s annoyed me quite a bit in the past and, while I’m sure it’s old news to most of you, I thought a handy guide couldn’t hurt.
I’m talking about CARD sizes, specifically thickness. The sizes provided by most binder page, magnetic holder, top loader manufactures make absolutely no “real world” sense. For example, there isn’t such a thing as “180pt” card stock. If you go to a printer and ask for that, perhaps to make your own cards, they’ll look at you like you’re an alien. Even the unit of measure, “points”, isn’t really the correct term. Most of the printing industry uses “pounds” to express paper thickness. Even then there’s a difference between “Bond lbs.”, “Offset Lbs.” and “Cover lbs”. It really depends on what you’re printing.
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by Matt | Jul 13, 2012 | Personal, Tech
I think I’ve failed to mention this over the past week or two, but after seeing positive results I felt the need to share. We’ve completely cut our TV service. We’re going 100% streaming, and it’s awesome.
Our average cable bill was $250. That’s insane. We were using AT&T Uverse in a combo package with TV, Internet and Home Phone. The introductory price (as seen on the commercials) was $99. Over the past two years they’ve raised the TV price by $20, and for some crazy reason, the phone price as well. Also, after the introductory period ended, they started charging for the DVR, the 2 receivers, call notes (on the phone), and a half dozen other things. I had enough. In the grand scheme of things $250 doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was my 2nd highest monthly bill. Only my car payment was higher.
I got fed up and decided to make a change. I kept only the Internet portion of the Uverse service, and actually increased it from 18mbps to 24mpbs. My entire bill is now $60. Since we already pay for Amazon Prime (well worth the $79/year) we have access to all of that video library via the PS3 (which is free compared to XBL). I’m also considering reinstating my Netflix account, streaming only, for $7.99. $68 total is quite a bit better than $250. Both Netflix and Amazon have huge libraries, including a lot of Sesame Street and other children’s programming that our kiddo enjoys, and more than enough of a backlog of good shows we never watched to keep us busy if we get the urge to watch something. Tudors, Breaking Bad, 24, it’s all there if we want it.
I also picked up, for under $20, an over-the-air HD receiver. I set it up above the entertainment center and we now get the 4 local stations (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox) for free. I did that in case of emergencies. I didn’t want to be completely information-less in the event a hurricane was headed our way. $20 for a little redundancy, well worth it.
Honestly, we were watching less and less TV anyway. Kids take up 99.9% of your free time. After getting her to bed at 8:00 every night, there’s only about 2-3 hours left in the tank before I pass out. I’d rather spend that time with the wife, or playing a game, or blogging, or sorting cards. TV was so low on the list that it was easy to cut it out entirely.
Growing up, my parents always told us that, after finishing our homework, we had 1 hour we could use the TV. Not watch, use. That meant that you had to decide if you wanted to play Atari, or watch cartoons. Usually I opted for 30mins of Mighty Mouse and 30mins of gaming. Other than that, we were told to play outside. Looking back, it’s one of the things I think my parents did absolutely right. I wanted to pass on those good habits to my little one. So, we let her watch Sesame Street or Shaun the Sheep for about 30mins in the morning while we’re getting ready for work. That’s it. No TV in the afternoons and evenings. That’s family time.
The cost savings alone were worth it, but the added family time was equally important to us.
If the cable companies ever switch to an à la carte system, I’d consider signing up for a station or two, but that would be the only way I’d come back. Paying for 250 channels I don’t watch was simply a waste. I’ve been happily streaming shows for 2 weeks now, haven’t had a problem finding and/or missing any content I wanted to see, and have no plans to go back. I’m feeling good about this one.
by Matt | Jun 21, 2012 | Personal, Web
Not that it affects any of you in any way, but my last post was #1750. That’s not a significant number outside of it being just something I wanted to point out. After 1750 posts, and 12 years, for the first time I’m turning on page caching. That’s a good thing. I got a friendly email from my host last night that a significant increase in traffic to my site over the last six months has also increased load times and server resource usage. And it was legitimate usage as well, not some runaway script or resource hogging plugin. That means you fine folks are visiting, and visiting often.
I’m not going to insinuate that I know what I’m doing, or that I’m any sort of blog expert. I would also never bore you to death with self-aggrandizing posts about how to have a “popular” blog. That’s all horse shit. No pretentious crap here, no patting myself on the back for keeping at something long enough to “not suck”.
I simply wanted to say thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you to everyone who reads any of this. Thank you to the random people who just stop by from other blogs. Thank you to faithful and regular readers. Thank you for indulging my idiosyncrasies and politically and socially incorrect ramblings for this long. You guys are awesome.
That is all. Forward unto dawn.
by Matt | May 26, 2012 | Friends and Family, Personal
I promised a post about modern art and by holy Helvetica, you’re going to get one whether you want it or not. lol.
After wrapping up a fun day of shooting on Saturday, Sunday we decided to play it a little more chill. We took our friends and the kiddos to the Dallas Arboretum, just to walk around and have a nice picnic lunch before getting back on the road in the afternoon. It’s a great park and botanical garden and also happened to be hosting a huge Dale Chihuly exhibit. For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Dale Chihuly is a modern glass artist who does huge sculptures out of blown glass. He’s actually one of very few modern artists who’s work I appreciate. Not only are they aesthetically pleasing (mostly), they’re also so massive in scale and the craftsmanship required to construct them is so clearly off the charts that I can’t help but be impressed. Am I a huge Chihuly fan? No, not really, but they are undeniably impressive, regardless of your feelings on modern art as a whole.
Anyway, of course I had the camera in tow, and I took a handful of photos as we were walking around the grounds…
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by Matt | May 21, 2012 | Friends and Family, Personal
This weekend we decided to pack up the car and take a drive to see some close friends who had recently moved. They’re some of our best friends and we had all missed each other, so it was great to catch up and hang out all weekend. They have a little boy just a bit older than our kiddo, and they played great together. The drive was rough, but we had decided to time it around major “napping” times, so luckily our little one slept most of the way.
Friday was just arriving, hanging out, burgers, beer, that sort of thing. Matt and I (yes, we’re both Matt) talked video games and sports and the ladies swapped cake recipes and diaper rash stories.
Saturday was a little man-adventure for me personally. I’ve never, in my entire life, up until Saturday, fired a gun. Not once. My father owns a couple guns, but isn’t much of a hunter, and they’re mostly for home protection and the occasional dangerous wild animal (the live up in the Green Mountains). In my adult life, it’s just never been something I had considered. Any “good guns” were always too expensive and “cheap guns” just sounded like a bad idea. Like my father, I had considered a shotgun or a handgun for home defense reasons, but had never gotten around to it. So, when Matt suggested we go to the rifle range and fire his AR-15, I had no idea what to expect.
I understood the “basics” of a gun before I went in, I’m not a moron in that respect. I know which way to point it, about trigger safety and those sorts of things, but I wasn’t really up on the specifics (sounds, kick, how hot the damn barrel gets, etc). After a quick safety lesson from the range master, who also helped set me up at a station, it was off to the races.
After about 20 minutes, we traded off and went back and forth like that until I had fired at least 10 magazines and gone through and entire box of ammo. Again, not knowing what to expect, I just aimed for the middle of the target through the scope. I figured all those years of FPS practice had to be good for something…
Apparently they are.
Both my friend and the range master were impressed at my “grouping” for a first time shooter. I can’t really explain it other than that I just did what made sense. They both congratulated me on finding an apparently hidden talent.
Our little excursion into guntopia wasn’t complete though. Matt wanted me to try a shotgun next, so we left the rifle range and went over the the Skeet course. I (obviously) didn’t have a shotgun with me, so we rented one. Also, either the guy at the rental counter was screwing with me (probably) or I asked for the wrong thing, because he pulled out the largest, heaviest, most crazy shotgun I had ever seen. Matt later told me it was an “Over Under 12 gauge”.
Anyway, off to the Skeet course we go. Another quick safety lesson, and more particulars about the “over under” concept, and I was ready. Matt was manning the launcher controls and I stepped into the box. I yelled “pull” and blasted the first bird into powder. Matt’s jaw hit the floor. “Do that again” he said, and handed me two more shells. Next two birds, dust. He thought I was screwing with him and that I had shot before. Again, nope, just doing what I figured made sense. Track the clay pigeon, lead it a little, press the “go away” button. lol. We ended up going through 5 boxes of shells, taking turns shooting and operating the launcher. In all, I probably hit about 35-40% of everything I shot at. The center of the course (which requires the most leading) gave me the most trouble, but anything that was closer to 90 degrees, that was more “twitch” based, was toast. I guess years of video game playing has actually paid off. Look ma!
Anyway, I didn’t recount all that to toot my own horn, I mentioned it because it was one of the most fun things I’ve done in, well, ever. I had a blast, no pun intended. If a really nice shotgun wasn’t $1500+ I probably would have bought one on the way home, lol. It was just great to get out of the house for a little bit, get some fresh air, try something new, and for once not completely suck at something.
Who knows, maybe it’s a new hobby I’ve just picked up.
Stay tuned for part two tomorrow, it’s 180 degrees different. It’s all about modern art. No joke.
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