Rev. George

Wheel related crime up 4 bazillion percent

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:37:43 GMT

Bizarre, when I took Buddy out this morning I saw my neighbor by his car and a cop car in the parking lot. My neighbor shouted over to me that someone had stolen all 4 wheels off of his car. All 4. I guess it makes sense, why stop with one when you can have a set? I don't even remember the rims on his Grand Prix being anything special.

My car was parked next to his, I wonder if it was my wheel locks or my dirty factory standard wheels that caused the thieves to move on to the next car.

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 01:38:08 GMT

By the hair of my chinny chin chin

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:50:32 GMT

For xmas echolex got me some really cool shaving stuff.

I had mentioned wanting to try wet shaving, after reading a lot of good stuff on it and being sick of spending $2/cartridge for razors. She did a ton of research and got me a badger hair brush:

A Merkur safety razor:

and some fancy shaving cream:

She also got me a ton of links to read up on technique and that sort of thing, like the Badger & Blade forums and all these YouTube videos. It's definitely not the kind of thing you can just slap on your face and go, you have to build a good lather and lightly press the blade. In fact I'm still just getting the lather right, so I'm still using my old cartridge razor. But everyone assures me that once I get a hang of the lather and the safety razor I'll have a baby butt smooth face, so I'm going to put in the effort to get it right.

Corn maze!

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 14:40:20 GMT

Despite having lived in Michigan for over two decades, it was only this weekend that I officially became a midwesterner. It was only this weekend that I went to a "corn maze" or, as the Native Americans called it, a "corn corn."

nerdtech and stand_n_deliver invited echolex and I to one in Milan and it was surprisingly fun. We went out Saturday night and wandered around in the dark, using the full moon's light to figure out where to go. At first I was worried that we'd need flashlights but the moon was plenty bright. (More about moonlight, via)

I brought my GPS and recorded our tracks, with the intention of cheating. As it turned out we didn't need it, but it was fun to see the trip computer (1 3/4 miles walked and 45 minutes to complete). If I had any foresight I would have saved it and done some sort Google Map to make a Web 2.0 corn maze mashup.

Me vs. T-Mobile

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 16:31:37 GMT

I want a T-Mobile MDA. suidroot likes his, and it has a lot more software available than the SideKick 3. I like the slide-out-qwerty form factor, and I'll be able to run a Jabber client on it.

My first step is to check T-Mobile's site. They're offering it for $300 if I sign a new agreement. Next, I check Amazon, who hides the price behind an add-to-cart process that makes you choose a plan and everything. I do that and find out Amazon is offering it for $50, but only for new service activations. I decide that's the price I want to pay.

So I call up T-Mobile and tell them my price point. The guy tells me that $300 is a good price, and he was happy to pay $500 for the same phone. He agrees that he would have liked to save $250 when he made that purchase. The best he can do is $300, so I tell him that if they can't match Amazon's price (which he implies they're taking a loss on) that I'll be happy to engage number portability and switch my number to a pay-as-you go service for 90 days and then get the deal at Amazon, however it's kind of shitty that T-Mobile would offer better deals to non-customers than existing customers.

Suddenly the rep thinks I should talk to a special account rep.

I explain the Amazon deal to her and she says can knock the price down to $260. I explain my switch-away-switch-back plan to her. Now she can add a $100 credit to bring it down to $160. I get the feeling that this is where she stops on the price, so I switch tacks.

When I looked at the Amazon price I knew I was getting close to my 600 prime minutes and chose the next plan up - 1000 minutes for $20 more/month. I pointed out to my rep that $160 was still much more and asked if there was anything we could do about the service price. She was able to bump me up to 800 minutes for the same price, which saved me $20/month.

With the minutes increase, in 5 months I'll have saved as much as the Amazon deal would have saved me and in 8 months I'll have saved the entire price of the phone. I win. I agree and my MDA is in the mail.

Posted using LJTalk...

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 21:28:15 GMT

Now my friends page is littered with people testing out LJ posting via IM, I should have never said anything! (But you should still give it a try)

Posting from Jabber

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 18:18:33 GMT

Whoa, not only does LiveJournal have open instant messaging but you can post from your IM client too by IMing lj_bot@livejournal.com!

(negatendo figured that out)

Whoa, what a week

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 16:38:54 GMT

I think I undertipped the waiter when I was eating apocryphal Chinese food, because I'm living in interesting times.

Wednesday c0nsumer tipped me off that a local Meijer broke the street date for the DS Lite. So echolex and I ran up there and got a DS Lite and some games. I then hopped online to brag about how I got a DS Lite before the street date, which is evidence that I'm a better person than those who didn't but a worse person than those who did but didn't feel the need to rub it in everyone's face.

Thursday part dog, part alien Buddy went in for surgery. He had a face-lift, partly because he's vain as hell and partly because Chinese Shar-Peis suffer from entropion, a malady where the wrinkles cause fur to scrape against the eyeballs and slowly blind the dog. The vet cut out a lot of skin, and he looks like he's had a lobotomy. Now, he's one of those space dogs with the cone around his neck, and he'll get his stitches out on the 15th. We're going to cure the removed skin and use it to make an ironic collar for Buddy. (not really)

Friday echolex's grandfather Bruce died. She knew he wasn't doing well since they removed a brain tumor earlier this year, which is why we spent a week in April on vacation in South Carolina visiting her grandparents. He seemed like a really great guy, and I'm glad I got to meet him. I called Northwest about bereavement rates, and asked if I could use my miles to buy a ticket. I mentioned to the person on the phone that I was a little shy of the 25,000 mile needed but could no doubt get the miles from a family member. My parents both offered up miles to fly Jenny down to SC.

That night we tried to go out to the ArborUpdate birthday party with nerdtech, but by the time we got there everyone had left. We stuck around and had a drink; Bruce was a gin drinker so Jenny had a gin & tonic in his honor.

Saturday Jenny managed to score us tickets to the Canton Ikea friends-and-family preview day from a coworker. For being a ticketed event, it was pretty mobbed. It's Ikea, so you know what to expect if you've been to one before, but the checkout lines were out of control. It literally took us an hour and a half to check out, I checked my phone's clock. Part of the problem was that we wound up in a middle line, the lines on the sides fed into many more registers, the ones in the middle were the suckers lines. Part of the problem was that Ikea's idea of line management was to give out free candy. Part of the problem was that the woman in front of us was shopping for herself, her girlfriend and one of their moms, and using her employee discount. She then spent 20 minutes with the cashier checking out multiple times until her employee discount was applied. It's a good thing the A/C in the store was working or riots would have been inevitable. But now we have cheaply made Swedish crap, so it's all worthwhile.

That evening, we booked her flight. I logged on to NWA.com (which really should include a MIDI version of Bitches Ain't Shit) to find out that my frequent flier miles had gone up by 5,000 since I checked the day before. My theory is that the woman from Northwest that I spoke with took pity and dropped some miles into my account. That or, if you don't believe in the basic goodness of other human beings, angels did it. So we got the ticket for a $5 handling fee instead of the $350 bereavement rate. Jenny's mom drove down on Saturday and so those two will be comforting and helping out Jenny's grandmother this week.

Sunday I helped Jenny get ready for her trip, and then pitched in at my parents digging ditches and fixing computers. I tried to set up encryption on their wireless network, but it's too damn complicated. They have two Macs and three Windows computers, I was able to get the Macs working with every encryption option I tried, but I couldn't find a single encryption option that the two Windows computers would agree on. Not even 40 bit WEP.

Today I got up early and dropped Jenny at the airport and said our goodbyes. I haven't been Jenny-less this long since we moved in together, and likely a lot longer than that. I told her to take the DS Lite with her, which negates a lot of the getting-it-before-street-date bragging rights, but it'll keep her entertained in the down time. For some reason she didn't fight me on that.

I just heard from her; her puddle jumper arrived safely and she was playing Tetris DS waiting for her mom to pick her up at the airport. If you get a moment, let her know you're thinking of her and her grandfather.

Siriusly

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:43:40 GMT

OK, I'll do a longer vacation recap at some point, but I have to give a high five to Sirius. We spent at least 30 hours driving over the past week and Sirius was awesome. We mostly listened to Left of Center although we also listened to Howard Stern and a bunch of truckers call in with their sex problems on Playboy radio. It's only truckers who call in to Playboy radio, I don't think it would be entertaining if they had a more diverse set of callers. Left of Center plays some great indie music, and no commercials (I wonder how long that will last).

I bought echolex a Sirius receiver and subscription for her birthday but I never really listened to it before; now I'm listening to the streaming audio and thinking about getting my own receiver. The receiver she wanted (and got) was the Starmate, which I was really impressed with. You can pause the radio (like when you're at the drive-through beer store), skip back to songs in the buffer, and skip songs and commercials if you're listening to the buffer. You can even set it up to alert you when an artist you like is playing on another station, all of which is pretty impressive.

The downsides were that the NPR offerings were kind of lame (lots of syndicated shows like Fresh Air and Diane Rehm, but no Morning Edition or All Things Considered) and while they have much more selection than the local radio market, I still feel like I get more selection from podcasts. Also, since I work from home, I don't think I drive enough to justify getting my own receiver and subscription, but it's still up in the air.

See ya

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 01:46:38 GMT

Off to Charleston to visit echolex's grandparents. They have a dog named "Miss Kitty" which makes them alright in my book. See you next week, it'll be a hell of a drive (13 hours each way and yes leighton I realize professional truckers drive more but you went to school for that).

vs.

The weather disparity was better last week, but the 80's look promising.

Me Scout Cookies

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 20:59:54 GMT

Last night echolex practically dared me to make imitation Somoas, the Girl Scout cookies. I called her bluff, went to the store, burned my finger, swore to myself and eventually turned out some passable cookies. Next time they'll have more chocolate and I'll probably just melt some caramel instead of making it from scratch.

5 year anniversary dinner =)

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 15:37:47 GMT

5 year anniversary dinner =)
Originally uploaded by echolex.

At Eve (thanks to the recommendations)

It's Paczki Day already!?

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 13:52:25 GMT

Damnit, if I had known it was going to be paczki day today I would have Polished it up and grabbed some ultra-lard donuts. Well, there's always lunch...

I think eating paczkis is the second best religious recruitment technique. The first? Flirty fishing (NSFW)

Bands I always think are other bands even though their music and names are dissimilar

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 16:17:42 GMT

I think…

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead is Godspeed You Black Emperor
…Bloc Party is The Streets
…The Shins is The Vines

I have music by most of those artists, but for some reason I can't keep them straight.

Mid-shake

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:03:57 GMT

Caught in the middle of a shake, Buddy looks deformed.

Mid-shake
Originally uploaded by georgehotelling.

She's so good to me

Mon, 26 Dec 2005 19:46:43 GMT

echolex was able to get me the coat that I wanted, the first season of Arrested Development, a William Gibson novel and The Pragmatic Programmer! The coat blew me away, since I don't even remember telling her what kind I wanted. The girl knows me.

All I got her was the wrong food processor, although it's now the right on and there was a gift certificate to a fancy spa hidden inside :)

iPod in the mall

Sat, 12 Nov 2005 17:15:43 GMT

I had to go to the mall last night to pick something up. I brought my iPod and was listening to O'Reilly's FooCast in the car, so I brought the iPod with me in to the store. I wasn't a jerk about it, I put away both earbuds when I was talking to the salesperson, but the rest of the time I had them in. echolex thought that was weird of me, but I don't understand how that's any different than people walking around talking on their cellphone.

Vacation

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 04:07:12 GMT

Gone on vacation.

Going to San Francisco through the 3rd, then San Jose through the 5th, on to Sacramento through the 7th, Yosemite through the 8th, then staying overnight in S.F. to catch an early flight out on the 9th.

I probably won't be checking email, but I'm sure a smart person like you can figure out how to get ahold of me in a crisis.

Buy.com sucks ass

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 22:13:22 GMT

You know what the best kind of blog post is? The I-run-90%-Crud-so-they-have-to-listen-to-me blog post. If Kottke doesn't get any respect I doubt they care about my blog.

But seriously, avoid Buy.com. Not just because I'm an angry customer; if you look at people's complaints linked from my post you get the impression that you'll either have a very smooth experience or get royally fucked. I prefer to do business with companies where you either have a smooth experience or have a mediocre experience. At least those companies keep me from posting "my blog will make the difference!" posts.

Cable

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 22:00:38 GMT

I was excited for Six Feet Under to end yesterday. Not just because it was a good series and all that, but also because I had decided to kick Comcast to the curb for WOW (no, not that WoW). I had seen one of their vans in my apartment complex and figured that they were available. Sure enough, I typed my ZIP into the website and found out that I could get WOW.

I checked them out today. First off, their website is teh suck. For example, Java applet at the bottom. Even worse, if you type your ZIP into the form at the top it opens a new window and just as you figure out what it says and start copying down the phone number to call, it closes itself! Their design is, how shall we say, sub-k10k.

So why switch?

I hate Comcast
Their web site isn't going to win any awards, but their customer service does (link to the report).
They offer M2 and movie channels on non-digital cable. Comcast doesn't seem keen on giving me a digital cable box with a serial port, and the TiVo's IR blaster frequently change channels. I'll miss G4 for X-Play, but on the plus side I won't be subsidizing the rest of G4's programming. I think I'm going to pass on digital cable until everyone gets CableCARDs actually working. OK, not everyone, but one company in particular.
6 MBps/512 KBps cable modem vs. Comcast's 4 MBps/384(?) Kbps
I hate Comcast
Cheaper
I hate Comcast

I called the number and talked to a woman who seemed nice, but that may be because I was expecting a pleasant experience instead of a Comcast call. I asked her about the upstream on the 6 MBps plan, and she let me know it was "500 K". I told her that I work from home and that I couldn't be without my cable modem for a long time between cable providers. She said they recommend doing the install and only after it's done canceling service, which would result in virtually no downtime. I told her I was sold.

She took my address and then told me that they weren't able to serve my apartment complex, and that my apartment managers needed to file some paperwork in order to allow them to provide service. She emphasized that the process takes a long time.

Maybe I just need to go with an Easynews account, software to transcode everything into MPEG-2 and a couple 160 GB drives for the TiVo once TiVoToComeback lands. Man I hate Comcast, although I doubt they're to blame for WOW

Also, to head off any comments about DirecTV or DSL I do not have a landline and have very little interest in getting one. I hate telcos more than Comcast.

Summer sickness

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 22:29:36 GMT

I'm sick, but what's weird is that it came on really suddenly. I was playing Xbox and all of the sudden I realized my throat hurt, my muscles were sore, my nose was runny and I was warm. You know, sick. It hadn't been like that a half hour earlier. I was exposed to sick people on Thursday and Friday, so I imagine the bug has been in my body since then.

I picture my body as a giant playing field for Conway's Game of Life, where the disease and my immune system reached a delicate stasis. Then, at the far edge of the map, the disease gained the upper hand and the change rippled throughout the playing field, quickly turning the game in the disease's favor. I guess in addition to the symptoms above I also have a sudden tendency to classify things in relation to mathematical games.

him name is hopkin green frog

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 01:58:43 GMT

him name is hopkin green frog
Originally uploaded by revgeorge.

ps. i'll find my frog
How did a frog get on our second story balcony? It fell out of my grill cover that I lazily left off for a few (rainy) days, I want to know how it got in there in the first place!

Update Aug 2: I found a frog in the grill cover again yesterday! It was a lot lighter colored and smaller than this frog. This time I drove it to a nearby river to be released, where someone informed me that it looked like a tree-frog, which would explain the whole second-story-balcony thing. He also told me that frogs were a good indicator of pollution, but didn't explain whether frogs fleeing for high ground was a positive or negative sign. So pollution is definitely, uh, yeah.

Things to do in CA?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 01:27:38 GMT

It looks like echolex and I will be on vacation in California for the first week in September, what should we see/do? We're primarily going to be in N. CA around San Jose, San Francisco and San Cramento, but may head south to the greater LA metropolitan area.

Help!

Chicago

Fri, 15 Jul 2005 21:34:17 GMT

Jenny playing Rez
Originally uploaded by revgeorge.

I generally have a horrible time in Chicago, but I still go there from time to time. Sort of like pounding your head with a hammer so that when you stop, no matter what else is wrong, at least you don't have that hammer banging against your head.

echolex had the day off on Thursday, so on Wednesday I suggested we go see the Body Worlds Exhibit. It's basically a bunch of people with their skin off, something that she's seen more of than me. It was really interesting and made me long for the day when we replace disgusting flesh with sleek robot parts. Also, it reminded me a bit of Akira.

What I didn't realize when I proposed the trip was that the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry was also hosting the Game On exhibit on the history and culture of video games.

I don't think she believes that I didn't have ulterior motives for going to Body Worlds, but I honestly didn't know that was going on. Once she told me I was 100% sold on Chicago.

Anyway, I uploaded a bunch of the pics from the Game On exhibit to Flickr (no photos allowed in Body Worlds). Out check them.

Resumé

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 01:38:48 GMT

Heh, last time I had reason to send out my resumé I had a Word document and that was pretty much that. This time I'm sending out a Markdown formatted text file and I've gotten compliments from people who appreciate the fact that it's just text. I probably shouldn't be saying anything, since it seems to be giving me an advantage.

Plus if I need to make it pretty, I just need to convert it with Markdown and add a stylesheet. Hell, I should create a CSS Zen Garden for my resumé

Example:

Skills
======

* Highly skilled with Perl, PHP, Python, SQL, XHTML and JavaScript
* Experience with C++, Java, ASP/VBScript and Cold Fusion
* Extensive experience administrating Unix servers

Employment
==========

2002-Present: Web Developer, Xxxxxxx LLC
----------------------------------------

* Customized content management systems for clients giving them WYSIWYG 
  website editing and workflow capabilities

becomes

Skills

Highly skilled with Perl, PHP, Python, SQL, XHTML and JavaScript
Experience with C++, Java, ASP/VBScript and Cold Fusion
Extensive experience administrating Unix servers

Employment

2002-Present: Web Developer, Xxxxxxx LLC

Customized content management systems for clients giving them WYSIWYG website editing and workflow capabilities