Just wanted to drop a quick “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” to you guys. My whole family is down here visiting so it’s a little crazy but it’s good to have everyone together for the holidays.
Hope yours are going equally well and I hope you all made out like bandits under the tree. Lauren got me Gears 2 and Price of Persia, so I’ll be cracking into those shortly. I also got a skateboard for my birthday which I’ll start riding once the weather clears up a little down here.
Anyone else get anything cool? Everyone’s families doing ok?
I also just wanted to thank you guys for being the awesome friends that you are. Even though we’re not anywhere near each other, it’s great that we can still keep in touch, even if it is via a stupid comment box on my stupid website. You guys rule, and I mean that.
I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday and an even better 2009!
The MacBook Pro arrived just after we finished our “end of the year” performance reviews. It was like getting candy after going to the doctor’s for a shot.
I’ll talk more about it later as I unwrap its delicious layers of goodness, but for now, here are my first impressions.
For starters, it’s glossy. REALLY glossy. Probably too glossy. This is not a laptop I’d want to watch a movie on, or have to do any serious color correcting of photos. It does however, like a plasma TV, have very rich colors and a deep black, which I’m sure was their intention in doing this. For me, I’m indifferent, I’ll have to have it longer than 5 minutes to give you an impression.
Second, there is a distinctive lack of accessories. As you may know, they’ve gotten rid of the DVI port and replaced it with some crazy new mini-multi-monitor jack that looks like a mini-USB port to be quite honest. That’s wonderful for the aesthetic look of the laptop, but NOTHING uses this port except the brand-new cinema displays. Given that 99% of their users don’t have one of those when they buy a new laptop, you’d figure that Apple would include a short converter cable, or at least a connector, or something. Nope. If you want to hook this laptop up to a $4000 display that you already have, you need to shell out another $30 for an adapter at the Apple store. Seriously? You’re launching new technology and not giving anyone a simple $2 cable? That’s lame. Also missing from the box is the extension portion of the power cable as well as the small Apple Remote that until now, came with nearly everything.
The laptop, the power brick and a cloth to clean the screen were LITERALLY the only things in the box.
I know I’ve never owned a Mac before, but to be quite honest, I was expecting something a little more, I dunno, complete feeling. Maybe it’s the PC in me, but where are the cables, the manuals, the warranty card, the piles of crap I don’t need? While useless, having a pile of crap was reassuring. Getting basically an empty box makes me FEEL like I’m missing something. I know I’m not. I know it’s all here, and the presentation is nice, but it’s like getting a giant heart shaped box of chocolates only to find out that there is only one single piece of candy in the box and the rest is simply packing material.
That said, it is a laptop. It’s not supposed to come with a whole library and a free Big Gulp. It’s fast, it’s silent, it’s got everything on there, ready to go. So, I’m happy. Hopefully this will be a good experience.
Now, pardon me, I have to go to the mall to buy an effing video cable.
Every once in a while, someone will say something or do something that, while slightly ambiguous, let’s you know that you’re doing a good job at work or that they appreciate your effort. This also extends, due to our times, into realms of “job security”. A kind of “I guess they like me” sort of feeling. These are all good signs and provide brief moments of satisfaction and happiness. Your boss taking you out to lunch for example. That’s a good sign. The office refrigerator being stocked with primarily your favorite kind of beverage, also a good sign.
In my case, it was a purchase order that was placed on my desk. A fairly scary looking document with lots of PR numbers, inventory numbers, serial numbers, etc. On the surface, it looked like more work. However, once I realized what it was a purchase order for, there was no elevator that could move fast enough to get me downstairs to turn in said paper work. What my boss had left on my desk was a purchase order for this, with my name on it for the “receiving person”. I guess it’s a good sign. They apparently like me.
My first thought was utter surprise, “Holy crap, I’m getting a laptop.” Which was quickly followed by “Oh no, now I’ll be one of those people.” Which eventually turned back into “wait a minute, I don’t care, cause holy crap, I’m getting a laptop!” Then it was relief when I realized the rest of you yahoos have Mac laptops and you’re completely normal…
*pause*
…ok, well, at least you DO have Mac laptops.
*pause*
…I’ll take pictures when it gets here. I’m going to name her Audrey.
I’m a frugal mother-fucker. I don’t like to spend money on myself, with the notable exception of video games, which I consider “therapeutic entertainment”. I wear jeans that have been “busted” because I don’t want to buy new ones for myself. The same goes for shoes. I buy shoes once every five years. The same can be said about lunch. I rarely go out to lunch (on my own dime) because I don’t see it as nessisary. Yes, food itself is necessary, but I don’t see why I need a “nice lunch” when a simple PB&J will do. Or Ramen noodles.
I ate ramen in highschool, college, and now at the office. I’ve sampled every flavor from every major manufacturer. I’ve had ramen in packets, cups, bowls, trays and even frozen “gourmet” ramen in cute little mock-Chinese tack-out containers. I can say, with near perfect certainty, that I’ve had whatever variety of noodle you’re currently thinking of.
So much so, I’ve started rating them. What better way to remind myself which ones I like, than to give them a number. I won’t bore you with a long list, but I can give you some examples. For starters, I can tell you that I prefer the premium “noodles in a tray” variety from Nissin’s Chow Mein line over the more traditional Maruchan. When it comes to dry noodle packets though, Maruchan is still king. In the more obscure categories, containing things like Thai or Vietnamese noodles, I prefer the Simply Asia brand of Pad Thai over things like Thai Kitchen or Taste of Thai. Frozen entrees are also an interesting category, even within brands there can be huge discrepancies between flavors. For example, in the Tai Pei frozen meals product line, the Teriyaki Chicken is quite eatable. The General Tso and Cashew Chicken are absolutely not.
The upside to all this is that even the most expensive asian dish I’ve purchased over the years is cheaper than going down the street and getting a hamburger. I think the “premium” dishes run about $2-2.50. The packets of dry ramen will run your about $0.15. In economic hard times, you can’t beat lunch for $0.15. I think stock in a noodle company is about the only stock I’d buy these days.
(PS: If anyone is vaguely interested, I could actually make a list, complete with ratings, but I’ll hold off unless there is a demand for vast amounts of noodle knowledge that I don’t know about)
I was going to write thing long post about how I can’t vote because I moved after the registration deadline and how that wasn’t fair and all this crap, but that would mostly be a lie.
I would have voted, but it wouldn’t have meant anything. I probably would have voted for Obama, or written in Ron Paul, or maybe even Jon Stewart.
Despite my previous dissertations to the contrary, I’m not adverse to the political process. It’s just that I don’t like either candidate, or the electoral college system, or democrats, or republicans, or those freakin’ third party nut jobs. Actually, come to think of it, in the three elections I’ve been eligible to vote in, I’ve picked the “lesser of two evils” and never really liked ANY candidate.
That’s wrong of me to simply vote for someone because I like the other guy less.
I realize that you can’t always agree with someone all of the time, nor should you. That stifles healthy dialog and leads to complete polarization. But for me to vote for someone, with a clear conscience, I feel I at least need 50%. And the problem with politicians is that they’re 100% full of crap.
In this election cycle, there’s been a lot of talk about people like Joe. Average Joe (and I’m not going to use that phrase) who gets tossed around like a piece of meat by both parties. Each candidate tries so very hard to show that the other guy will screw working class Americans and that their plan/party/ideas won’t. The main problem is that each candidate hasn’t been a “working class American” for years, if ever. They’re completely out of touch and simply don’t give a damn.
You have to be a life long politician before you can get the backing of your party, and you need the backing of your party to run for president. It’s as simple as that.
You can’t change the system from outside the system and once you’re in the system you have to play ball for long enough to get your shot that by the time you get there you’ve forgotten why you started in the first place.
They only person I want to vote for is a person who goes out on Saturday nights, goes to a sports bar to have a beer and watch the game, watches football on Sunday AND Monday, grills for their neighborhood block parties, owns a margarita machine, drives a pickup, owns a gun, and has a crappy job just like the rest of us.
You know who I would vote for? These guys.
I doubt I’ll ever run for office, I joke about that from time to time, but in all seriousness we need a completely average, normal person to be president. We don’t need politicians, we don’t need pundits, we don’t need people on either “wing”. We need someone who can look at a situation or an issue and not have any affiliation, motivations, or bias one way or the other. We need someone who’s not afraid to invite foreign leaders over and either shake their hand or punch them in the nuts.
The fire fighter commercial illustrates that point. Do we want clean water? Yeah. Do we want better roads? Yeah. Then why do we keep electing people who are so deep in the political system they can’t get the basics right.
I admit, there are millions of issues that the president has to face. War, peace, financial trouble, education, environment, transportation, energy, foreign policies, trade, etc. That’s a lot on one plate. But no one since Kennedy has put the country on the path to a particular goal. Everyone says they want to change this, improve that. Then they put together huge bills that do nothing or regulate things to the most minute detail with little change.
I want someone to stand up to stand up and say THIS, this is what we’re doing for the next four years. THIS is my focus. Fill in the blank with a major issue. In the next four years I want flying cars. In the next four years I want all American’s out of debt. In the next four years I want to totally eliminate fossil fuel emissions.
Not since the space race have we as a country been motivated to better ourselves. That is what I want to vote for. A better America. I’ll vote for “change”, but I want to vote for “purpose”.
After sending a fairly well versed but substantially vemon filled email to the apartment complex’s corporate offices yesterday, to absolutely no surprise I received a phone call from the apartment manager. The one that couldn’t help me yesterday.
Corporate had forwarded on my scathing email to/about her and she had, ummm, made a few corrections to the bill. Most notably, removing the charges I had called them out on.
There was still a minor issue with the water bill, but a logic bomb cured that right up.
What she said to me was this:
When we paid for water, what we were essentially paying for was the last month and a half (1.5) not just the previous month. In her words:
“So, when you paid August rent, you were really paying for July and the last half of June’s water.”
Stay with me now.
So, I said, “Ok, so when we paid Septembers rent, we were really paying for August and the last half of July right?”
“Yes, correct”
“Then, how come it still says “water thru 8/11″, wouldn’t that be the part of August I already paid for?”
*silence*
“Umm, I’ll have to check with the water company on that and get you those dates”
So, thanks to some “interesting” reverse accounting on their part, we’re now even. Huge surprise.
Just goes to show you kids, it’s always fun to stick it to the man.
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