Tech Breaker

...and then there were two.

2011-03-21T07:51:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post this time to predict what happens next with the US mobile carriers.

Current iPhone users with AT&T move over to Verizon when their contracts end. T-mobile customers under contract run in droves to Verizon and Sprint once their contract is up and they realize who their carrier actually is (AT&T). AT&T is then left with the small and waning customer base it had before the iPhone came out and then withers and dies. What we have left is Verizon and Sprint. Verizon will feel zero need to innovate since they will be the hands down dominant carrier and Sprint will struggle with financial issues in order to stay viable. Prices will increase and service and reliability will suffer.

Kill The Internet?

2011-01-28T11:29:00.000-05:00

How does that saying go? If it isn't broke, don't fix it. Yea, that one. The internet is apparently becoming a very dangerous place. Dangerous for governments that have something to hide or are afraid of losing power. First (okay maybe not really first) it was the uprising in Iran and then recently it was Tunisia and now the government of Egypt has pulled the plug on the internet in an attempt to stop the same kind of thing from happening there. What's next? The good 'ole US-of-A is next. The US government has tried to put through various versions of an internet kill-switch over the past year while calling it all kinds of different things. It is coming up again and Senator Lieberman is apparently leading the charge. Here's the thing folks, the internet isn't broken, our governments are. Where should we be focusing our attention?

Quickie: Black Ops vs New Vegas

2011-01-14T07:29:00.000-05:00

Gameplay: Black Ops and New Vegas are both immersive and fun to play. New Vegas really should have been an expansion and should not have cost the same as a full new game. Black Ops definitely gets the nod but both are good.

Software (I played the PC versions): Black Ops was flawless and ran like a dream. I never experienced even the slightest glitch. New Vegas is an unholy piece of crap that should not have been splashed upon paying customers. New Vegas crashed every time I played and and there where numerous in game glitches with NPC's and quests that forced me to break into console commands just to progress.

Three letters sum up both games.

Black Ops - FTW
New Vegas - WTF

Password Security

2010-12-28T11:21:00.000-05:00

Password security can no longer be ignored. Even by the technically semi-literate. Or the technically advanced, such as myself. Truth be told I did not practice what I have preached for years. I have always told people not to use the same password on multiple sites. I have been using the same password everywhere for years. I have gotten away with it for years because it was long, obscure, and complex. More lengthy and complex than most corporate policies dictate.

That kind of thing just does not fly any longer, period. Just about anything that is short enough and simple enough for you to remember is hackable. It is only a matter of time. With the proliferation of online activity and the ability to track people from site to site, a single password for all is a disaster waiting to happen. Yes, I had a WoW (World of Warcraft) account hacked and my secondary gmail account hacked. That was a sign for the laziness to end.

Along comes password management to the rescue. I have looked a a few options and partly because of a recommendation from Steve Gibson , I looked at LastPass. If you are a fan of SpinRite or Shields UP!!, you are already familiar with his site grc.com. LastPass may or may not be the best at what it does and just about any management system is better than using the same password everywhere, LastPass has solid functionality and works on my Android phone, my Chrome OS netbook, and my Windows 7 desktop. I created a master pass phrase that is very long and I can only remember because of the substitution cypher I keep in my head. I've used LastPass to generate and track new passwords for every site that I use and so far, except for online games, it works like a charm. A thing of beauty.

No more excuses, take charge of your digital security.

But What Do I Know

2010-02-26T15:49:00.000-05:00

If I had to make a guess, I would say it almost seems like Palm wasn't really serious about returning to the smart-phone market. A market that they held a 30+ percent share of in mid 2006. They came out last year with a phone that could have made some gains, the Palm Pre. At first blush it looked pretty cool, very slick, nice interface and such. But Palm , for some reason, refused to open up an SDK for developers on a large scale. Okay, yes they released the Pixi or whatever the hell that thing was called but then they released what was dubbed a creepy commercial. After looking at the events I would say that palm was looking for someone to come along and offer a buyout at a premium and now that no offer has materialized they don't know what to do. But what do I know.

The Murdoch Touch

2010-02-11T12:57:00.000-05:00

Is Rupert Murdoch to old to understand this "internet stuff"? I don't think charging for access to his newscorp sites is a genius move. There are way too many alternatives available for that kind of strategy to work. Then I looked at Myspace traffic numbers after hearing that the CEO had been canned. Myspace has seen a pretty dramatic drop in traffic over the last two years, according to Alexa estimates. It's hard to know, without more research, what really caused this to happen. My first thought? Murdoch just doesn't get it. Second? Facebook has been hugely successful over the past few years, Myspace couldn't help but feel that as a drain. Lastly I thought it's probably a bit of both. Facebook has been huge but if Myspace were backed by someone that put real time and effort into innovating that product then it may well have fared differently.

The 500 Dollar Question

2010-01-28T16:41:00.000-05:00

     The question for me is moot. I do not have $500 to spend on anything much less a gadget that doesn’t fit into the “need” category. Please understand that I see a definitive line between “need” and “want”. I want an iPad very much. Similar to how I want a new desktop, a Nexus One, a 50” plasma TV and so on. None of these products is in my immediate future however the pricing of the iPad presents a very interesting question in my mind. If I had $500 to spend on a device, what would I buy?

     The choices are many. For many people the $500 question is preceded by some thought of what they are missing or “need” in a new device. I won’t delve into all the possible needs of people who might want a MID (mobile internet device), there are many considerations based upon career, personal situation, travel frequency and on and on. I can best formulate a generic question that works for my situation and possibly for others as well, by asking,” What would fit best for me based on how I tend to use technology?”   Simple enough I suppose but then I thought about it for a few minutes. That particular price point presents a diversity of options that, although not unique, could well apply to many, many people.

     My first thought was that the iPad and Nexus One cost almost the exact same. I say Nexus One because that is the most recent device released that I really wanted. So I started to think about which one would fit my needs best and then it dawned on me that for $500 there are a number of options available. The obvious ones I have mentioned already but add to those two, netbooks (with a few $ left over), low end laptops, low end desktops, iPods, cameras would be an option although they are a bit outside the class of device I am looking at here, and unsubsidized cell phones.

     For me the answer is not as complicated as it may be for other people. First of all I see absolutely no purpose in the world for netbooks. In my opinion they are too small and underpowered to be useful beyond getting email and web surfing and I can do that just fine on my phone. I have fat fingers and those little keyboards drive me insane however, I have been using phone keyboards for years (starting on a blackberry) and I guess my thumbs are agile enough to make those even tinier keyboards useful. If you happen to be the netbook type, for $500 you can get a really tricked out netbook.

     I would love to have a laptop. I would use it mostly as a desktop replacement computer. There really isn’t much of a need for big tower cases anymore but they are such a part of the computer identity that we still make and use them even if we have no plans of expanding the hardware functionality of the machine. For me to get a laptop it would have to be pretty beefy. I am a gamer but I am not obsessed with getting every high end graphic intensive title that is produced. I don’t travel that much so I don’t really have a need for portable computing power other than the odd trip to visit family that lives out of state. All of this means that a $500 laptop would be a waste for me. I wouldn’t get much use out of it.

     A desktop computer is something that could be a real consideration for me at this point. My computer is a few years old and is on the borderline for being able to play HD content. New games need to be scaled back a little on the graphics but all in all it is still useful. However if I had the money it would certainly be nice to have a newer desktop. My only problem is that on a $500 budget I wouldn’t be able to get a PC that was markedly better than the one I already have. It would make more sense to save up a bit more so that I could buy a machine that would last me another 3 to 5 years.

     The one device that I have really been wanting for the last three weeks is a Nexus One. That is one sweet phone. I already have T-Mobile and am moving to the no-contract service. So an unlocked phone is right up my alley. I may be in the minority in this but I use my desktop for entertainment. I watch movies, listen to music, play games, look at photos and play around with the odd video. I use my phone as the communication device (shocking I know), which means voice, text messaging, IM, twitter, Facebook, etc. Sometimes I watch YouTube on my phone or answer the odd email on my desktop but those are rare instances. My current phone is a G1 and I still like it however it is getting increasingly difficult to run the messaging apps I want and use the phone without the device being irritatingly slow. I would benefit from a new phone that is faster and has better capacity to multi-task.

     The question mark in much of this is the iPad. On the surface it is not a new, magical, earth shattering device like Steve Jobs would have us all believe. It is a really big iPod Touch. Sure Steve says it could replace a TV for casual viewing but I don’t watch TV. I watch everything on my computer. All I would get is a smaller screen. Steve says it’s a gaming device like no other. I am paraphrasing all this by the way. I play games on my desktop and Xbox 360. I don’t play arcade games. I play MMORPG’s and shooters. This little pad isn’t going to run an MMORPG much less do it better. The intriguing thing to me is what the iPad could be but isn’t right now.

     I would change my mind about buying one in a heartbeat if it did some of the following, which is not impossible in my estimation. Imagine if it could also be a secondary screen for a desktop, laptop whatever. Imagine if you could replace your keyboard and mouse with this thing. If you are an artist, imagine if you could use it as a drawing tablet for digital painting or sketching. Imagine if it ran an app that linked to home security/automation and it was all presented in an augmented reality fashion with 3d views and iconic representation of devices in your house that you could interact with and oh, yea your entertainment system to. I’m sure that people smarter than me will come up with some real game changing ideas for this product. The problem is they don’t exist yet. For me this would be an item of pure luxury and I can’t afford that. Luckily I am not among Apple’s target audience for this product. Otherwise the innovation that could come along based on this device might never see the light of day.

News Flash (not really)

2010-01-20T12:21:00.000-05:00

Google announces that they know everything about everyone and will keep that information forever.

In other news Google berates Chinese Government for questionable practices and the rest of the world breathes easier knowing that Google is looking out for us.

That is all.

AAA gets you a T-Mobile discount

2010-01-12T13:37:00.003-05:00

t-mobile? aaa? switching to one of the new plans on t-mobile, let them know you are aaa member and they will wave the activation fee.

Aftermath

2009-12-30T09:26:00.002-05:00

Could be worse...

Apps That Don't Suck: Pandora

2009-12-15T12:48:00.000-05:00

     Hey kids, now that iMeem.com has been swallowed whole by the unwashed ass of social networking (MySpace), I have been in search of a streaming music service that doesn't suck and that has an Android app. I finally checked out Pandora.com and the associated Pandora app from the Android Market. I should get the bad out of the way first. Pandora has a license structure that does not allow their users to immediately play a song that they have searched for. Basically you cannot search for "Detroit Rock City" by Kiss and immediately listen to it. After listening to a song you cannot replay that song and there is an hourly limit to the number times an hour that any single artist can be played. All those limitation are based on the licensing that Pandora obtained in order to legally play all this music. In my opinion another way that the RIAA's draconian business model detracts from people who want to consume their product.

     Last.fm has some similar issues with their ability to play music and the frequency at which some of us wish to listen to it. The difference between Last.fm and Pandora is that when the former plays music that they think I will like based on previous choices, they are pretty much always wrong. When Pandora plays music based on songs and artists that I have previously chosen, it picks a winner every time (so to speak). If you want a service that varies wildly from your chosen music in order to fuel your lust for musical discovery, maybe Last.fm is for you. If you want a service that will weave more closely in and out of the genres of music that you are looking for, Pandora is the better choice, IMHO.

   The best part of Pandora for me is the Android app that is available. Free in the Android Market of course and it actually works without getting in the way of itself. The app works simply, launch it and run whichever station you want to listen to music from. It will run in the background and doesn't render the phone unusable while running. It will also quite easily stream music on Edge/2G, at least it does for me in Pittsburgh.   Last.fm died pretty regularly if not on 3G. Most of the web controls are also in the App. You can skip, like and dislike songs. After a week of using the app I have not had a single Force Close. Note that my experience may differ slightly from others since I am using a customized ROM on my phone instead of the stock T-Mobile ROM.

     All in all some good stuff from the folks at Pandora. There website does not have a nauseating layout, the registration process is quick and the music quality is decent. My only complaint is that I can't listen to a song 50 times in a row if I want to but I guess that may not be an issue for most folks.

Microsoft - Giving Up The Beta

2009-12-09T13:00:00.000-05:00

I came across this today and I'm still a bit surprised. Microsoft is actually letting anyone download Office 2010 Beta (yes free AND legal). Microsoft is apparently continuing to offer its software to the public in a no hassle beta program a la the Windows 7 Beta. You can find the download page here. The best part? The install is supposed to be valid until next fall.

Will The Economy Follow Big Tech?

2009-12-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

     Both Google and Apple are making acquisitions this week. Google gets hold of AppJet, the maker of EtherPad, a realtime web based collaborative word processor. There is a post on the EtherPad site that says they will be joining the Google Wave Team.Kinda makes sense to stick those guys together. Both are pushing the real time collaborative thing but my question is, why not shove some of that real time web goodness into Google Docs? Maybe I'm missing the point on the big picture here but I wonder, if Google is really serious about moving Docs into the enterprise, why not start by integrating real time collaboration and target the groupware that is so entrenched and expensive (ie. office and lotus notes). Oh yea, in case you were curious the price is rumored to be in the low 8 figures.

     Apple is trying to acquire Lala.com and apparently integrate this into iTunes. Maybe is thinking about transforming iTunes into a streaming type service rather than stay with downloads. I don't really get this one to be honest. Apple already has a stream model for movie rentals and most people are still obsessed with carrying around storage devices for every song and movie they own. Personally, I'd rather just stream it all and not have to worry about managing all that data storage, but then I guess I'm odd.

     The real question that I was thinking about at the start was is the economy going to follow Big Tech now that money is getting spent again? Not that I'm a cynic or anything but hearing over the passed couple months from politicians that the economy is recovering, has not inspired me in the least. Apple and Google however seem to be a couple of the most successful companies going right now and the fact that they are buying again tells me one thing. The economy really might be getting ready to grow again and now is the best time to start acquisitions before other companies profits and net worth start going up again. I guess it's all a matter of time either way.

12 Days of Geekmas

2009-12-04T16:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I am not going to create a geek version of the Bob and Doug Mckenzie 12 days of Christmas. See it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2oPio60mK4 My point here is that it is tough being a geek. It is time consuming. It is expensive. It alienates so many people that come to understand how woefully small their intellect is when compared to that of the average geek (imagine what it's like for me, being an ubergeek and all).

Please don't ask so much from the geek in your life in the weeks following Christmas. A geek needs time to fully engage and absorb every minute aspect of the software/hardware/game/gadget that they received. You did get them something didn't you? You really should go the extra mile on this one because you know damn well that you missed SysAdmin Day altogether. Do some research, spend some time listening to that geek when he/she starts rambling on and on about (insert name of said geek stuff here) and don't just let your eyes glaze over as is normally the case. Check out the geeks Amazon.com wish list. Any geek worth their salt has a list on the internet somewhere and its a pretty safe bet that there is one on Amazon. If you are at the moment not understanding "wishlist" and/or "amazon.com" then please just nod as if you really do know and then search for it on Google.

The days following Xmas are critical. If the geek was able to get a few days off there is a guarantee that they will be called about something or other and will be forced to cut the "vacation" short. Let them have time for themselves. Don't try and make them spend time with you or other loved ones. Don't break their concentration by asking silly things like "Do you want another soda?", just bring them one. Geeks only tend to get time off if the entire office is completely closed down anyway. This might only happen once or twice a year, give them some breathing room. Show your love by buying gift cards that they can use at Newegg.com or Amazon.com. Don't try and make them adhere to your antiquated ideas of tradition or communication. Free them from the bonds of the analog world!

That is all.

Broken Resolve

2009-10-30T06:54:00.002-04:00

Earlier this year I had resolved to blog more often and more consistently. That has clearly not been the reality. I tend to spend much time reading other peoples stuff. CS Penn's Awaken Your Superhero and Merlin Mann over at 43folders.com. Yes, I am breaking etiquette by not including the links. I could take a momment to whine about how the best thing the worlds largest software company (Microsoft) does is make mice but then who doesn't already know that.

Bottom line, there is good stuff on the 'net although burried by mountains of crap (RIP Geocities). Maybe I should resolve to contribute to the semi intelligent content on the internet rather than sew the seeds of mindless crap. Hmmm, or maybe I should just drive up my site traffic by posting nothing but doctored Megan Fox pictures. Hmmmmmm....

It wasn't my fault

2009-09-21T14:42:00.003-04:00

My wife's Dell Inspiron 1720 died 2 weeks ago. As the post title will tell you, it was not my fault. We have had the thing for about a year and a half. My wife tries to turn the laptop on one day and nothing. No hard drive spin, no error beep/light codes, just blank screen and a sinking feeling. I have had a number of computers in my time and it really strikes me odd that this thing would just up and die.

I called Dell Support and got an English speaking person first time (miracles never cease) and after a few steps, one of which was "power off the laptop" to which I said "you do understand that is all it does now, right?", we finally agreed that it was not functioning properly and we were told we would get a box to ship it in for service. This was almost two weeks ago. With profit margins so small on computers these days wouldn't it be less expensive for Dell to just replace rather than maintain the infrastructure needed to make a major repair like this (motherboard replacement)?

Relatively immaterial at this point I supposed but two weeks? That seems a bit much but I'm not going to complain too much yet since the work is covered under warranty. So for now, we wait and my wife has to use my computer if she needs something online. Not that I have an issue with sharing or anything but, COME ON DELL, I want my... uh, wife's computer back. plzkthanxbai

Xbox 360 sucks ass but we all bought it anyway!

2009-09-18T12:34:00.003-04:00

I really need to figure out a way to get people to buy any old piece of shit from me and brainwash them all into thinking they love it and want to buy another one. Oh, wait Microsoft already did that and I think my own sense of pride and general scruples would keep me from being able to do that. What's that? You Microsoft wouldn't do that or worse yet you live under a rock and haven't seen umpteen reports on the astronomical failure rate of the 360.

Come on kids, let's get real. We were all suckered and yet we stand in line asking "Please Sir, can I have some more?" Any other product with a 54% failure rate, yes a 54% fail rate, would see the manufacturer in bankruptcy before you could say "Steve Ballmer is a hyperactive, power mad, dancing monkey!". What this really showcases is the complete breakdown of the way free markets and/or capitalism is supposed to work. Consumers have so fallen for the marketing BS! that we believe we need something whether it works or not.

Do I sound pissed? Damn right! I knew all this and still bought a effin' 360. Every time I turn it on I know there is a 50/50 shot that the RRoD will bite me in the ass. Oh yea, we have all that cool XBLive stuff thrown in and we get to do all kinds of cool gaming with friends and stuff. No! Not only do we pay $400 for a POS console, it has about as much online capability as a Commodore 64 until you pay an extra fee and then if you want to watch a video that is otherwise freely available on the Internet you have to pay AGAIN!?! As Penn Jillette would say, "Fuck!".

AndroBlogger Test Post

2009-07-09T14:24:00.001-04:00

this seems to work fairly well. there is no auto capitalization or punctuation. not really a big deal. i don't see any way to add tags or categories, though. that is a pain. if i have to login to the website to tag the post i might as well just write it.
that is all.

"Fired"man Fail!

2009-05-12T11:18:00.003-04:00

Saw this over at the fail blog and had to post it here. It is a Fireman post but this guy should be "fired".

Tech Notes for day 67 and counting for DTV

2009-04-06T13:53:00.003-04:00

Yea, only 67 days left. If they don't delay the cut over date again. We are quickly getting ready with new equipment. There will be more about that on my other blog. Right now I'm looking at the beta version of the Friend Feed site. Real time stuff is the way to go but lots of sites will go through some major pains to get it working well.

On another note...
Anyone else find the "click" noise that Guitar Hero guitars make really annoying? It drives me crazy. Glad I bought Rock Band instead. Can't wait until the Beatles stuff comes out in September. There are actually some tunes in there that I have never heard of that I like. For an old guy that tends to take 10+ years before I give a band a chance, that's saying something.

It's been a whole week since I broke, err, found flaws in anything. Must be a storm brewing...

... and not the good kind of PITA either.

2009-03-28T08:27:00.004-04:00

In this case the PITA involved here is not the tasty grain based item you would find in your favorite Mediterranean restaurant. It is an acronym for Pain In The Ass. This is where I get to inform folks about stuff that may work for most people but for some reason is not really worth using to me because of the PITA factor.

So, with that being said...

Social Median is a site that is sort of a community based news aggregation portal. You can join in on news streams based on different topics that are posted by other members. You can setup your own feeds to be posted on the site and there is a follow system similar to that of Friend Feed and Twitter.

I used the site for awhile to get news on certain topics and to identify people that tended to post on topics that I like to follow. This feature set works well and I had no issue here. I wanted to use the site to pull in my blog entries and push them out to other sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. My issue was that if I happened to title one of my posts the same as some other site, my post would not get pulled into Social Median it would just link to the other post where ever that may have been. The most recent was a link that was supposed to go to my blog on wordpress.com but instead went to a page at the Nashville Post website. That is a deal breaker for a lot of bloggers that are trying to generate some exposure.

I also like the idea of being able to have one place where I could have all my blog posts pulled into and then be able to push them out to other social networks that I am involved in. The problem here is that whenever one of my posts had apostrophes or periods in them, the social median site would push the link out with a bunch of junk characters in the title. This made the links very hard to read and pretty amateurish which is not what you want if you are trying to attract positive attention.

To their credit when I posted tweets about these issues, Jason Goldberg (the founder) DM'd me asking what was going on. I explained the issues I was having and it escalated into their support side. I then received and acknowledgement about how my issues could be significant to members but no follow up on a timeline to fix the issues. The suggestion I got was to rename my posts so that they weren't the same as any others.

All in all, I'm sure the site is useful to many people but these few issues are more than I am willing to put up with. There are just too many options for news aggregation and social networking/media.

pappi loves the google

2009-03-19T16:36:00.006-04:00

Hold on a sec. Let me finish drinkin' my Google branded Kool-Aid. ahhhhhhh. That's good stuff. Okay, now granted, I am a Google nut (plz no fan boy comments) and I suck up their apps like a whale sucking down a metric ton of plankton, but I do have that tiny little voice in the back of my head saying "what if Googles motto is do no evil... right now". That was the case until I heard that they are rolling out Grand Central to the masses as Google Voice. Hang on, one more swig of Kool-Aid. I have been trying to get in on Grand Central for months and was afraid that it might go on the chopping block like a few other apps (notebook, jaiku).

me: Please Google can I have a voice service so that I can replace (fill in the name of the hated, over priced, antiquated phone service provider)

google: Sure thing and we will do it for free aslongasyoudontmindifwekeepallyourtranscribedtextsandvoicemailsandusethatinformationtomakebillionssowecantakeovertheworld.

me: Wait... did you say free? woohoo!

I'm all giddy inside. But seriously this is a really interesting exercise for analyzing the behavioral psychology of this situation. Microsoft would have killed for the kind of data that Google is collecting now. People were paranoid as hell about Microsoft and how and what information they were gathering and what would they do with it. Now, we are freely giving that same information and more to Google without a second thought. Why? Because Google says "Do no Evil"? Because they don't charge for their apps?

I'm not really sure what the mechanism behind this is. If I knew I would try and replicate it myself. What I am sure of is that we have become increasingly paranoid about our personal information. In small town America there was no privacy, everyone knew what everyone else was doing. The more people we are surrounded by, the more insecure we become about our private lives, except when it comes to Google.

I suppose a number of conclusions could be reached from this phenomenon. For me, I like what Google has to offer and I LOVE that it is free of charge and all they want is some data about my usage habits. I hold that idea of small town America as the measuring stick. If all they want to know if who I talk to and where I go, what's the big deal? If they want to delve into my real private life, finances, bedroom activity, etc. then they need to mind their own business.

AIG Bonuses Are Not Stimulating

2009-03-17T10:06:00.007-04:00

Everyone seems to be up in arms about AIG paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus to execs when they are now taking so much bailout money. Are they using bailout money to pay these bonuses? How could they be spending money on bonuses when they should be getting the business straight?

I think the core of the problem is being missed a little bit. How does someone get a job with guaranteed bonus money even if the job they are doing is ruining the company? AIG (and others, I am sure they are not the only one doing this) is REWARDING bad job performance. Performance that would come along with walking papers in any other industry and the finance industry is encouraging it! How the "F" does that happen and everyone pretends it doesn't happen and then the entire industry falls apart and everyone looks around and says "How did that happen?".

The top people in AIG's Financial Products division received not only bonus money but consulting fees up to $1 million a month and now we (the taxpayers) are being forced to subsidize these flawed and failed business practices by pouring trillions of dollars into this industry. I am not forgetting the auto industry, different industry same failed business model, but that is another (albeit related) rant.

BTW, I read something that was eye opening. If Jesus (he is used solely for the purpose of a time frame) spent $1 million a day from the time he was born until today, the amount would be reaching $1 trillion dollars. Then I got curious and broke out my calculator. If we divided up a trillion dollars evenly every person (not family) in the US would get a check for over $3,000! Now for my family of 5 that would mean $15,000. You want stimulus? THAT is stimulating!

first!!!

2009-03-14T19:34:00.000-04:00

this is my first post using blogger and this really was intended just to be a test post...

However,

After I titled the post it came to me how many places people use forums or comment areas to just be a dork and stick "first!" in as soon as they can after its creation.

Don't these people have anything else to do?!?

In real life situations when someone asks a question or makes a statement, does some jerk run up and yell "first!" and then run away? No! It is annoying, irritating, aggrivating and a waste of the 3 seconds it takes to create and that 100's of people spend looking at it and getting annoyed.

Can google come up with a web crawler that does a seek and destroy of those posts and wipe them? Maybe, then again google doesn't delete anything... ever...

hmm, what should I rant about next?