ToasterWaffles

I’m a sucker for a good ol’ fashioned “You’re doing it wrong” pic. Sadly, I didn’t take this one. Found it via Brahm @ smugmug.com

I know it’s been forever since I blogged. Sorry about that, I’ve been pretty busy.

It’s finally Friday and I’ve had a chance to breathe. Part of breathing is making a new ring-tone for my co-workers.

All credit to the JMU Marching Royal Dukes for their stirring rendition of Thunder and Blazes. Otherwise known as “the circus” song which goes “doot-doot-doodle-oodle oot doot do do”.

Download the ring-tone
Download the whole song

The video quality is awful (cell phone → Quicktime conversion → YouTube) but the audio is there, and that’s the important part. Keep in mind that he’s slobbering all over the place because the pill doesn’t taste very good to him.

So I think I got this thing configured to start putting the RSS/ATOM feeds through FeedBurner now. I’m not really sure since I’ve only got the one machine to test on right now. If you’ve got an RSS/ATOM feed and it’s not working, please let me know!

Normally I think that the delivery chain style problems are interesting. How do you send a package from point A to point B as quickly and inexpensively as possible? That’s not an easy question to answer! It’s also very similar to how the internet works, sending your data from one computer to another when you look at a web page.

I cannot for the life of me fathom how FedEx makes any money.

Recently I ordered some items from Amazon. Since Amazon was, in this case, a front-end for another company I didn’t know if they’d be shipping from po-dunk Idaho, New York, or what until I got my shipping information from FedEx.

My package is shipping from Los Angeles, CA. From there it’s not going on to a truck down to San Diego, CA as you might expect. No, it’s going to FedEx’s famous Memphis sorting facility. From there it will fly back across the country to … Los Angeles where it will, I expect, be put on a truck and driven down to San Diego.

I called up FedEx to get some insight into what’s going on. The nice lady on the phone informed me that since Amazon had picked the 3 day delivery option it was going to show up in 3 business days. End of story. She also told me, amazingly, that had I picked overnight shipping (which wasn’t an option) it still would have flown to Memphis and then back to LA to be driven down to San Diego.

I just don’t get it; they’ve got a hub in LA — right at the airport! Why this extra step to Memphis? I like to think they’ve got a good reason for it but aside from “policy” I simply can’t think of one.

What do you think?

And it was pretty cool!

Yes, these are the same kinds of cars I saw in Frankfurt.
Yes, they only have two seats.
Yes, they’re made by Mercedes-Benz.
Yes, they do have pep!
Yes, they’re supposed to go up to 90 mph!
Yes, they’re supposed to get ~ 40 mpg.
Yes, even perma-grump Charles had a good time test driving it!
No, you wouldn’t take this on a road trip.

I’ve got red-green color blindness. This guy knows EXACTLY why I don’t tell anybody

I’ve gone with a new theme, as you can tell. My priorities in finding a new theme were:

1. Look good at 1024×768 and 1280×1024, the two most common resolutions of my readers.
2. Make more room for pictures in the posts. Bigger thumbnails are awesome.
3. Faster loading. This generally means no (or at least heavily optimized) images.

This theme, 1024 fit most of those pretty well. In addition, Jamie has informed me that it’s “pretty underground.” That’s good to know.

In the not-too-distant future I’ll probably move all the images to flickr or some other hosting site with tons of bandwidth.

AND SHE SAID YES!

… in other words, Jess and I are getting married!

I saw a story on digg titled “10 things bloggers don’t tell you”. I found it retarded enough that I had to write about it.

1. “Hardly anybody reads me.” Duh. I’ve got Google Analytics show up, I’m lucky if I get 60 page hits a day. Part of what I like about this blog is that nobody reads it.
2. “The more companies pay me, the more I like their stuff.” Companies don’t pay me anything to review anything, which is why I don’t. If you want a product review go to Amazon.
3. “Did I mention I’m not a real reporter?” I’m not even close to a reporter. Duh.
4. “I might infect your computer with a virus.” There will never be anything even close to a virus here. What would the point of that be?
5. “I’m revealing company secrets.” I never blog about work. Ever. I’ve wanted to, a lot, but it seems like a really bad idea. Hell, I don’t even mention when I change jobs!
6. “Just because my name’s on it doesn’t mean I wrote it.” I write absolutely everything that’s not quoted. Either Jess or I took every single photo that appears on this site. I’ve got the masters in Aperture.
7. “My blog is just a stepping stone to bigger and better things.” There’s nothing bigger or better than a blog. Especially this blog. Duh.
8. “I can control what you see on the Internet.” I can’t control anything you see on the internet. I don’t have mystical voodoo control over your mouse or your keyboard.
9. “Blogging just about ruined my life.” NOT posting has almost ruined my life. Jess gets on my case about that.
10. “I’m already obsolete.” I was obsolete before I even started. See #1 above.