There's nothing like getting a good deal, but the deal Morah and I recently got on some blue jar Stilton at our grocery store can only be described as a hyper-value.
About a month or so ago, we saw the delicious, imported-from-England blue cheese on sale. Normally $30, each crock of cheese was reduced to $14. Stilton is a wonderful cheese, so we bought one. A couple of weeks later, after we had finished off the cheese, the sale was still going on. With no idea how long the price would last, we didn't want to pass up the chance to enjoy this creamy-yet-crumbly delight at such a value.
When we went shopping a few days ago, the Stilton was still on sale, but this time, the price was different. I saw two numbers on the sale tag: $5 and $25. I immediately thought, "Aha! We really scored because now the cheese is only $5 off instead of $14 off." I was pleasantly smug, and pointed out our great buys to Morah. She just stood there, staring at the price tag.
"No," she finally said, "It's on sale for $5."
What? That couldn't be right. But when I looked at the label, it was clear: "On sale for: 5.00. You save: 25.00" My brain had assumed that no one would sell $30 cheese for $5, so that's how I interpreted the sign. Seriously? Only $5?
We bought 3 jars.
After all was said and done, we got $90 worth of cheese for $15. Our total savings for all of our groceries was more than we paid for the groceries themselves. Like I said, we got a deal so good, it can only be described as a hyper-value.
This week I'm presenting a series of fails (epic fails, in same cases) from popular television game shows. No descriptions are needed for these clips; they speak for themselves.
I've really been enjoying listening to their unique sound, and I'm looking forward to this Seattle-based band's next album, due out later this year.
I recently ripped all of my CDs to iTunes for the first time. I have been listening to music I haven't heard in years! Artists like Meat Loaf, Green Day, Manu Chao, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and tons more are coming across my radar again. I haven't listened to some of this stuff since high school, and it's nice to re-discover it all.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? What are you listening to now that you haven't heard in a decade?
On the way home after buying our new bed, Morah and I stopped at Bed Bath & Beyond to buy king-sized sheets. We had already discussed what we wanted, and on an earlier trip, Morah had scoped them out.
The sheets we bought are made from bamboo fibers. Fabric made from bamboo is fantastic because bamboo is a highly-renewable resource, because it has naturally antimicrobial properties. Add to that the fact the dust mites have a hard time living in the latex mattress, and our bed is suddenly one of the cleanest places in the house.
Whenever we tell someone we have bamboo sheets, their first response is usually, "bamboo? That doesn't seem very soft." Folks, I'm here to tell you that these are the softest sheets between which I have ever slept. Sliding into bed the first night was a life-changing experience, and now that I know awesome bamboo fabric is, I want more things made from it.
Microsoft has announced its Internet Explorer 8 release candidate, which is the last step before the final, official release of IE8. This release fixes a lot of major problems that previous versions of Internet Explorer have, and web developers the world over have been looking to this release to take away the pain of developing websites for Internet Explorer. One Digger asked, "Is this finally the end of the IE development headaches?" Unfortunately, the answer is no.
When IE8 is officially released, IE6 - the primary source of our collective headaches - will still be in widespread use. Even though IE7 (which fixed many of IE6's problems) was released in October of 2006, many people continue to surf the web with versions of the browser up to 6 years old. For whatever reason, those people either don't know or don't care that a more secure version, which will improve their Internet experience, is available for free.
As my boss, Ryan, points out, a significant part of the problem may be I.T. departments that refuse to upgrade. I also point my finger at Microsoft for not making IE7 a priority update - after all, IE6 is still riddled with security holes. If Microsoft doesn't make IE8 a priority update, we'll be stuck with IE6 that much longer. That means the web development headaches will continue.
If Microsoft doesn't step up to the plate, how do we eradicate the Internet of the IE6 scourge? Doing so will come down to us: the web developers. If you attempt to visit this site using IE6, you'll be redirected to a page telling you why you should upgrade to IE7 (or, better yet, Firefox). As frustrating as this surely is for users, it (hopefully) educates them and narrows the margin of users running IE6.
I sincerely hope it doesn't come down to every site having to do that, because it is very jarring and confusing for non-tech-savvy users. Only time will tell if Microsoft is willing to clean up its own mess and alleviate the headaches of web developers world-wide.
When Morah and I were house shopping, we agreed that our #1 priority for new furniture was a new bed. For the past 5 years, we've been sleeping on a full size bed. (Bear in mind that we both like to sleep all spread out.) Because of other major purchases we needed (a refrigerator, and washer and drier), we had to put off buying a new bed until now.
A couple of weeks ago, we went out mattress shopping. Morah and I both did a bunch of research, and I was keen on trying out a latex mattress. Morah had money in mind, and wanted a balance between comfortable and affordable. Although I agreed, I felt that it was acceptable to spend a little more. After all, we'll be spending a third of every day of our lives in bed, and the mattress we choose now will (ideally) last us for a long time; possibly even the rest of our lives.
In our research, we found that there's no way to compare mattresses from one store to another - or even within the same brand! Basically, you just have to go from store to store and try out different mattresses until you find one you like. A daunting task, to say the least.
We headed out, prepared for a full day of trying out mattresses. Consumer Reports suggests that you spend about 15 minutes on each mattress to really get a feel for it, so we knew it was going to be a long day.
When we walked into the first store, we weren't really sure what to expect, but the salesman was pretty helpful and quickly narrowed down the choices for us. From there, it was just a matter of laying on the mattresses and trying them out. We found a pocked coil spring mattress that we liked, and it was on sale for a very reasonable price. We thought we had found the mattress we were going to buy, but to be sure, we wanted to shop around a bit.
Not knowing anything about mattress shopping worked so well for us at the first store that we decided to pretend we knew nothing at the second store. It also worked out pretty well, although now that we did actually know a thing or two, we were able to steer things in our favor a little more.
The nice thing about shopping when we did was that the stores were pretty much empty. As a result, we got very attentive service and we able to try different mattresses in the store at our leisure and without interruption. If you go mattress shopping, I high suggest doing it in the middle of the day on a work day.
We tried several different mattresses at the second store before finally making it to the latex mattresses, which we didn't get to try at the first store (the salesman there didn't bother showing us those, and I'm not even sure they had any).
Oh. My. Science.
Whoever decided to make a mattress out of latex is a freakin' genius. It's so soft and comfortable, yet supporting at the same time. As soon as we lay down on the bed, we were hooked. After discussing which mattresses we liked the best, there was no contest. The salesman knew our budget, so he called the store owner and got us a fantastic deal.
After a seemingly interminable wait, our mattress arrived on Saturday. The thing is huge. Not only is it quite a bit longer and wider than our old bed (twice as wide almost 2 feet wider, in fact), but it's taller as well. We made sure to order a half-height box spring to make up for the height difference. Despite that, it's noticeably taller than our old bed.
Sunday morning was... Amazing. When I woke up, I felt so well rested. My back didn't hurt at all and I didn't have any muscle fatigue. I didn't want to get out of bed, so I didn't! Morah and I had watched a movie in bed the night before, so I decided to watch another movie to prolong my time in bed.
It was slightly more expensive than we had budgeted, but if I get to sleep like this for the rest of my life, it was worth every penny.
As some of you may have noticed, for the past several weeks, I've been posting a lot of my Friday Fundays late (the dates don't reflect that because I "back post" them). Ideally, I would post them first thing Friday morning, giving readers all day to enjoy the links. Lately, if I manage to post on Friday at all, it's in the evening. This means that most readers won't see it until Saturday at the earliest.
To date, I have posted 235 Friday Fundays, a tradition I started in 2004 in an effort to bolster my readership. Although do have somewhat stronger numbers now, the difference isn't as wide as I had hoped. On top of that, I seem to be finding more and more fun stuff that I don't post because someone else found it, or post later than everyone else, meaning most people have already seen it.
I have new idea that I'm contemplating, and I want to get the opinion of my readers to see what you guys think of it.
I share a lot of neat stuff in my Google Reader, and probably a third to half of the stuff I post now comes either directly or indirectly from stories I come across in my Google Reader. One of the great things about Google Reader is that my shared stories are available as an RSS feed.
The idea is to add a box to my site (probably at the top right, displacing the "be my boss" box) that would include these funny and interesting stories. There would also be a page that listed all of the shared articles. Doing this would allow me to share website as I find them instead of saving them all up for Friday. It would also serve the stories I share in my Google Reader to a wider audience. If I implement this feature, I will still be able to add comments to the links, and I wouldn't be restricted to just the ones in my Google Reader.
If I were to put this plan into action, I would stop doing the weekly Friday Funday posts. The Friday Funday archives would stay where they are, allowing you to go back and find links you enjoyed.
So what do you think? Leave a comment and let me know!
Japander
What is a Japander? It's a western star who uses his or her fame to make large sums of money in a short time by advertising products in Japan that they would probably never use. And now you can see those commercials on this website. I was honestly surprised by some of the names on the list.
Looseleaf Beauty Report
As if some of those Japander ads weren't weird enough, here's... Um... Something weirder. Watch it all the way through; it's painful, but funny.
Although I'm late in writing this post since this issue is now resolved, I wanted to write it anyway because of a conversation we had at work today.
For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, popular social networking site was banning pictures from its site that depicted women breastfeeding their children. A lot of people (most women, but not exclusively) were unhappy with this, arguing that breastfeeding is a natural act, and that hiding it or calling it inappropriate could potentially cause new mothers to shy away from doing it.
Those against it argued, if you call breastfeeding natural, where do we draw the line? Nudity is natural, sex is natural, so how do we delineate between them?
The resolution to the argument came from Facebook in the form of a modification to their photo policy: breastfeeding is acceptable, provided no nipples or areolae are visible. This change came after supporters protested both online and in person at the Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, CA.
The initial ban was, however, not up for debate. Facebook is not public property; the First Amendment doesn't apply there. Because Facebook is owned by a company, the rules of the site are at the company's sole discretion. If the company doesn't want pictures on their website, it's not affront to the Constitution but a completely legal decision, and one with which the members of the site must comply.
In an instance such as this, there are only three remedies: deal with it, stop using the service, or complain to those in charge. In this case, the latter option worked and Facebook revised its photo policy, but had they remained steadfast, they wouldn't have been wronging anyone.
The discussion we had at work that caused me to think about this again was one about serving alcohol to people at restaurants. One of the women in the office is pregnant, and we were joking about going down to a restaurant for happy hour. That brought up a story about how a restaurant once got sued for refusing to serve alcohol to a pregnant woman, and that restaurants are legally required to serve you.
I quickly pointed out that this is not the case. Restaurants, like any other business, have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason (including none at all). Further, if you are on private property (which you usually are if you're in a restaurant) and are asked to leave, failure to comply with the request is illegal; at that point, you're trespassing.
The same is true in your place of residence. If someone comes over to your house and is being a jerk, you can tell them to leave and call the police if they don't.
The bottom line is that, although we have freedom of expression and the right to be (almost) anywhere we want in public, those same rights cease to apply in a private setting.
In 2000, I was disappointed Bush won the election. In 2004, I thought there was no way the citizens of this nation would reelect him. In 2008, we were offered a simple choice: continue with the same bullshit for another 4 years, or change our government in ways about which we could heretofore only dream.
Today, that change comes to America. Today, hope is not on the horizon, but in our hearts and our government. Today is the day the world once again stands with us in unity. Today, history is made.
Remember where you are and who you're with - in 40 years, you'll be telling this story and fondly remembering the day the leadership of our great nation was placed in the kind, capable hands of Barrack Obama.
Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it)
Since this has been on Digg, BoingBoing, Today's Big Thing, Mike's blog, and many more, you may have already seen it. But in case you haven't, this is one of the funniest things on the internet. Unless you've never seen the Star Wars trilogy, in which case you won't get it.
As you know, on February 17th, all analog television signals will be turned off in favor of digital. I know you know this, because if you've been alive and watching T.V. for the past year, you can't miss the incessant running of PSAs trumpeting this new age of television broadcasting.
You know what part of the switch I'm looking forward to the most? The fact that we won't have to hear about the upcoming switch anymore. The PSAs are so condescending - they treat people like idiots. Although, according to recent news, a lot of people are unprepared or confused, so perhaps the hand-holding is warranted.
Morah and I bought our converter boxes back in November (and I was able to set it up without having to be told how by a news anchor, thank you very much). At that point in time, I was impressed by the clarity of the image. Now, however, I'm often unable to get a clear signal at all.
The first hiccup came with the cold weather. I assumed that the heavy snow was interfering with the broadcast. As the snow let up, the reception improved. Further fueling my suspicion is that fact that it has been quite foggy in Spokane lately, and once again the reception has been poor. In fact, a couple of nights ago, it got so bad that we gave up and decided not to watch T.V. at all.
I grabbed the remote controls for the converter box and television to turn them off. I didn't consciously decide to turn the converter box off first; I just happened to be holding its remote control in my right hand. When I did, it kicked into analog pass-through mode.
The signal came in perfectly.
Whereas the digital image had been littered with artifacts, the analog signal was generally free from blemished. The digital audio had come through intermittently, but the analog audio was clear and continuous.
If digital reception is going to be determined by the weather, maybe I'll take my converter boxes back, get my money back, and stop watching television altogether.
Yesterday in my 2009 new year's resolutions post, I alluded to, "some exciting things," which will prevent me from building my business. The exciting thing is a new job.
I spent just over a year with Kauffman & Associates, Inc., and although I really enjoyed the people and the company, the work wasn't exactly what I wanted to be doing. The projects themselves were great, but it was no great secret around the office that my skills weren't being fully utilized. Although I was learning ColdFusion, the language I know best is PHP and that's where I want to build my skills.
A couple of months ago I found an ad on Craigslist for a local PHP developer position at Zipline Interactive. I applied, interviewed, and got the job. I'm excited about furthering my knowledge in PHP, especially as it relates to eCommerce and online transactions. That's an area in which I've always been weak (read: don't know anything), and I have wanted to learn for several years.
So how will this impact my business? It basically means that I won't be able to take new clients. To do so would be to compete directly with Zipline Interactive, and since I want to keep my job there, I'm more than willing to have my business take a little hiatus. A sabbatical, as it were.
As I mentioned yesterday, I can work on some infrastructure things (like creating an organized filing system) that I have neglected over the years. I'm also in the process of reading The Business Side of Creativity, which I'm hoping will help me get things in line for when I eventually break away and do my own thing full time.
When will that be? I have no idea. The prospect is both liberating and terrifying all at once. Kris knows all about the pain and the pleasure self-employment can bring. It's a scary step for sure, but it's a long way off, so I'll have plenty of time to prepare.
Eat right - This one has been with me for a while. In fact, I first set this goal in 2005! For 4 years, I've been telling myself that I'm going to eat right, so has it happened yet? Overall, yes. Morah and I have become significantly more aware of what we eat and how much we're eating.
In July I talked about always finding excuses not to count calories. There was always some big meal in the near future that I didn't want messing up my average. Eventually, I realized how stupid it was to worry about a big meal every once in a while, and started counting my calories again. I recently stopped because I was hovering around the same weight. That's one thing I've come to learn about counting calories: it will only get you so far. After a certain point, you have to work out in order to lose weight.
Work out more frequently - So clearly, I haven't been working out recently. This is a real shame, since I was doing extremely well earlier in the year. I would work out 4 or 5 days a week for 45 minutes or so each time. I was losing weight and getting into better shape.
In July I said that I was confident I could continue, and I would have continued had Morah and I not bought a house. That really messed with my ability to work out, because now I don't have access to the weight set and elliptical machine I was using. We have some dumbbells and some cardio videos, but I've never really been a fan of that stuff. Still, I don't have a lot of options (let's not get into the whole gym thing), and my high school reunion is in June...
Floss my teeth - O.K., I haven't been doing this. Need I say more? Can we move on now? Fine, I resolve to get into the habit of flossing. There. Happy?
Do my traction - Yeah, here's another one I missed. Let's lump it in with flossing my teeth.
Get caught up & stay caught up - While I have managed to get caught up a little bit, Google Reader has added a whole new level of difficulty to reaching this goal. Everyone once in a while I go through the list and un-star stories I'm no longer interested in reading, but even after doing that, I still have over 500 stories to read, some from 2007.
Moving has been both a blessing and a curse. Even though we moved back in October, we still have some stuff in boxes. That said, as we unpack, we tend to find things we don't want anymore and add them to a garage sale/Goodwill pile.
I'm still working on my digital decluttering, which has been going fairly well overall. My old Windows machine is organized and ready to be backed up, although I still have to go through the files and decide what to keep and what to delete forever. I did manage to whittle down my e-mail, however, and I have been diligent to keep my inbox as empty as possible.
Build my business - My business continues to grow slowly, and this upcoming year will be slower for reasons I will explain in a different blog post. The bottom line is that I still have my goals in place, and some exciting things are happening for me. The next 12 months will be very interesting, to say the least. In the meantime, I can build my infrastructure and work on some personal projects.
Work on my personal websites - Notice how the masthead is the same one from January? Yeah, sorry about that. I kept meaning to change it, but I never quite managed to find the time. I'm working on a new one and hope to have it done in a few days.
Get outside - Well, it's winter, so I've been getting outside to shovel the driveway (have you seen how long our driveway is? I'm buying a snow blower in September). Other than that, I still stay indoors a lot. Working downtown and riding the bus help a little, but I'd rather be doing fun things outside. I'm telling you, when I'm working for myself, 2 hour lunches are going to be the norm.
Buy a house - Success! On October 7th, Morah and I officially became homeowners. We love our house, and I love that I can cross something off the list.
Do more urban exploration - This one suffers from the same problems plaguing the "get outside" resolution. When I find time to get outside, I'll try to find time to get inside old buildings and stuff.
Have a kid - Whoa, right? I know, it kind of freaks me out too, but let's face it, I'm going to be 10 years past my sexual prime in May. Morah and I have always tried to be responsible about becoming parents (or not becoming parents, as the case has been), but we're ready now. Step 1: get married. Step 2: buy house. Step 3: have kid. I'm still nervous as hell about being responsible for the well-being of another human, but I guess any resolution that involves lots of sex can't be too bad, right?
Friday Funday brings you some fun and interesting links from my travels around the internet. Funday links will open in a new window.
Freeze Bubbles
As the site says, "Chasing bubbles round a very icy garden, in the dark while looking through a viewfinder is surprisingly hard." The result is worth it, though.
The Assumption Song
By The Arrogant Worms. They're pretty a pretty funny band. If you can find it, listen to their song Celine Dion.
Tony vs. Paul
I wonder how long this stop motion video took to complete. There's some pretty clever stuff here, and I'd like to see more videos like this.
The Invisible Rope
Oh. My. Science. Why am I only just finding out about this?! The invisible rope is a hilarious social prank.
Show Them to Me
It's a country song, but just this once, I think we can excuse that when you consider why this video is not safe for work. Via Mike.
Below is a story I meant to post about a little over a week ago. The snow was so bad that KAI closed early and Emily wasn't sure the bus from Cheney would be running the next day. She asked to stay the night at our house so that she'd already be in town the next day, so she and I left work at around 1 P.M. to catch the bus up the South Hill. Here's what happened:
We caught the 1:20 bus, which promptly got stuck on Stevens between 1st and 2nd. It took the STA mechanic 45 minutes to arrive and another 10 to 15 to get us moving again. I doubted our ability to make it up the hill, but our bus driver didn't want to take the chains that the mechanic offered.
Everything was going well, although the traffic downtown was terrible and it took us a long time to get past Division. After that, it was pretty smooth sailing until we got to the bottom of the hill at Perry. The bus driver asked if anyone needed to get off between there and 18th, and no one did, so she started up the hill.
The bus was climbing well, but a van was sitting at the stop sign at Perry and 18th. The bus driver started honking the horn like mad, knowing that if she had to stop the bus, we'd be stuck. The van didn't move, so the bus driver turned into the oncoming traffic lane to pass him. As we passed, we could see that the guy was talking on his mobile phone.
I don't know about you, but if a bus is coming up behind me honking its horn, I'm going to move out of the way, even if it's inconvenient for me.
The bus slowed to a crawl as we reached the steepest part of the hill, but it was still making progress. And then, all of a sudden, it wasn't. The wheels were spinning, but the bus wasn't going forward. It slid over into the curb and came to a stop. Our bus driver loudly exclaimed, "shit."
As soon we were stuck, the asshole in the van turned right and drove away.
Despite the bus driver's best efforts, we were stuck again. She called for another STA mechanic to come and we sat, waiting. After about 30 minutes, the next bus came, made it up the hill, and picked us all up.
After spending over two and a half hours on 2 different buses - which, not including Greyhounds and charters, is the longest I've ever spent on a bus - Emily and I finally made it to our stop and back home.
Friday Funday brings you some fun and interesting links from my travels around the internet. Funday links will open in a new window.
I didn't have enough links to create a full Friday Funday, but I've been wanting to revisit some past Friday Fundays, so what better time? To help make it more worthwhile, here are 10 classic Friday Funday links.
rathergood.com[del.icio.us]
Joel Veitch's popular Flash videos, including those wacky rodents from the Quiznos spots. This link appeared in Friday Funday III, way back on the 17th of September in 2004. It's hard to believe I've been doing Friday Fundays for over 4 years!
Windows RG Edition[del.icio.us]
Windows "Really Good" Edition perfectly nails everything that was wrong with Windows 98. First appearing in Friday Funday XI, this link will have every geek you know rolling with laughter.
Boom Boom Volleyball[del.icio.us] From Friday Funday XLIII: "With Candi and Missy! If you make it to level 5, you get a secret password (*cough* getumout *cough*) that allows you to play topless! Work safe (unless you play topless, obviously)."
PRANGSTGRÜP[del.icio.us]
The top two videos (in my opinion) are Library Musical and Lecture Musical. Unfortunately, they haven't done anything since I originally posted the link to Friday Funday XCII in 2006.
Naughty American History[del.icio.us]
The more American history questions you answer correctly, the more clothing your "professor" removes. Don't get too distracted, or the clothes go back on. Originally posted in Friday Funday CXII.
There's nothing like getting a good deal, but the deal Morah and I recently got on some blue jar Stilton at our grocery store can only be described as a hyper-value.
In 2000, I was disappointed Bush won the election. In 2004, I thought there was no way the citizens of this nation would reelect him. In 2008, we were offered a simple choice: continue with the same bullshit for another 4 years, or change our government in ways about which we could heretofore only dream.
