King of Uncool
by Tim Faircloth on May 15, 2008, 2:17 pm
I found this article on digg:
10 Items You Think Make You Cool, But Don’t
One major problem I have with this article is that it assumes you’re buying most of these things strictly because they make you cool. I honestly don’t care what people think about me, I buy things because I want or need them.
Another thing about the list is that there’s one or two things on the list that aren’t technically items, but that’s just nitpicky I guess.
There are also several grammatical/punctuation mistakes in the article, but I seem to be one of very few people that actually cares about that kind of thing. It’s also a bit finicky to pick at Joe Blogger’s casual post.
That being said, I think he’s right on target with a few of them — belt buckles, tricked out bikes, hats, and ringtones are generally only purchased for the sole purpose of being cool or showing off.
Anyway, without further ado, here are the “items” I own that apparently make me uncool. I’d like to point out that I don’t use most of these items very often, but apparently just owning them makes me uncool:
- Ironic Belt Buckles - Some time ago someone bought me a Seatbelt Belt. I’ve also got a GI Joe belt.
- Blue Tooth Headset - Anyway, I own one of these things because every now and them I’m doing something that requires use of both my hands and I hate doing the “hold it between your ear and your shoulder” thing. Also, “bluetooth” is one word, not two.
- Guitar Hero - I don’t own this game because I think it makes me cool or it’ll make me a rock star, and I know I can’t play guitar. I own it because it’s fun to play. Hell of a concept, eh?
- Funny Ringtones - I once had Weird Al Yankovic’s “White and Nerdy”, but I stopped using it because I just got embarrassed whenever it rang and wasn’t on vibrate.
So there you have it, I’m the King of Uncool.
Also, I notice I’ve had the same placeholder banner on this page for almost two years… and I haven’t changed the footer either. I’m sure I’ll get around to it someday.
New toy
by Tim Faircloth on May 7, 2008, 5:27 pm
I’m making this post from my new toy — a refurbished 8 GB iPod Touch. Isn’t that awesome?
The joys of pet ownership
by Tim Faircloth on May 7, 2008, 12:48 pm
As some of you may know, I own a cat (named Tomtom), and I have cat doors — one that goes into the laundry room and one that leads from the laundry room to the outside. It’s a nice setup because I can lock her out from the outside without keeping her from her food, or I can give her access to her food without letting her inside and so forth. Usually I just leave them both open so she can roam in and out freely.
There are several problems with the setup. I don’t have those high-tech “only an animal with a special collar can get in” doors, so at times the neighbor’s cats will get inside. My cat doesn’t like that (she isn’t very sociable with other animals), and I think I’m often feeding several other cats in the neighborhood. Generally it’s not a big problem since the neighborhood cats rarely come inside, and I don’t mind giving a free meal out. It’s not like I’m going broke buying food.
The other problem is that Tomtom likes to kill things and bring them inside… I guess she figures I feed her so she needs to share her bounty with me every now and then. More than once I’ve had to play “find the corpse”, a game that can sometimes go on for days because she finds the most ingenious hiding spots for them.
Right after the tornado about a year ago, after a few weeks (I was living in a hotel room at the time, so I didn’t have much time every day to search) of the horrid smell I found a squirrel in the corner of my computer room. That was nasty, but luckily the carpet was being replaced. No harm no foul.
For the past few days I’ve noticed a particularly rank smell in the air in my den. I looked in the usual places, but couldn’t find it. I was beginning to think I’d lost my mind. This morning I happened to peek behind the bookshelf in the corner and found the culprit — a field mouse, probably the same one Tomtom brought in (and I threw back out) a few weeks ago.
The problem with my most recent find is that it had been decaying for several days and was rather “juicy”, and most of the juice had soaked into the carpet underneath the bookshelf (which I moved so I could properly clean the area). NASTY!
In any event, I’ve been scrubbing the spot like a mad man with every cleanser I have on hand, but it seems like the smell is going to stick around for a while.
So… does anyone have any suggestions for getting the smell of a dead mouse out of a carpet?
Other updates
by Tim Faircloth on May 5, 2008, 3:17 pm
So, I’m working on doing a few other things to filter out comment spam to see if I can get rid of this horrendous captcha bullshit:
- Honeypot field — aptly marked (and hidden with css) so valid comments won’t be filtered, but bots will assume that there should be something there.
- Javascript printed field — bots don’t have java, so when they submit it will fail the check
- No comments on old posts — if a post is 90 days old you won’t be able to comment on it.
I’ve also noted that I had a visitor yesterday on an iPhone. It’s a whole new level of geek when people are browsing your crappy blog on the go.
Bottled water
by Tim Faircloth on May 5, 2008, 2:46 pm
What is the Real Cost of Bottled Water?
True, it’s another reason not to buy bottled water, but the subject matter of the above article got me to thinking. Everyone bitches about the price of gas, but in the grand scheme of things gas is cheap. Bottled water usually costs between $1.00 and $1.50 for 20 fluid ounces, but gasoline (at least around here at $3.50/gallon) costs right around $0.55. One gallon of bottled water (at above prices) would cost between $6.40 and $9.60.
But if you do a little poking, bottled water is cheap compared to other products:
- Rubbing alcohol (generic) (16 oz. for $1.33, sale price) — $8.51
- CARNATION Evaporated Milk (12 oz for $1.79) —$11.46
- Gerber 100% Juice Apple (32 oz. for $2.99) — $11.69
- Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup (24 oz. for 2.49) — $13.28
You’re all gonna bitch at me because I don’t factor in packaging, but I say that’s part of the price. I tried to look for the largest portions for each product but my choices were limited since CVS is apparently the only company that posts prices for groceries online.
The point is that we all bitch about the price of gas when it’s actually quite cheap in comparison to all these other products (and so many more).
But then I guess people (yes, Americans especially) are always looking for things to bitch about, but we always bitch about the wrong things. We need alternative fuels so yay for ethanol! Wait, that’s driving up the price of corn? Wait, can’t we use another plant like non-THC producing hemp or lawn clippings? So you’re saying it’s no better than gasoline? Poppycock. We’re making a difference. That’s why my new huge mother truckin’ SUV uses ethanol instead of gas. It gets 15 miles to the gallon, can you believe it?
No, I can’t.