(Not) Wireless Wednesday: How Twitter is Rewriting History!

I'm fully aware that it is Wednesday, and usually my Wednesdays are preoccupied with phone news, but not today. Instead, I want to talk about how technology in general is changing the way history is being recorded.

I recently started school again, and one of the (unfortunately) required courses for my History major is History and Historians, which focuses largely on the most boring part of history: Writing about it. Now, I know not everyone loves studying the past like I do, but allow me to say this: If you think reading about ancient events is a snooze fest, try reading about reading about it. Anyway, I'm expected to learn and write about primary sources, which can at times be the Holy Grail to historians. Especially when dealing with the day to day lives of ancient peoples, scholars have been known to get pretty tight in the pants when they come across an old letter about some generally unimportant business deal, or even graffiti from Ancient Rome talking about their favorite gladiator.

The problem is, these sources are pretty rare because back then, your average Joe (er, Julius) was either unable or just didn't want to write down their every day activities and thoughts. When they did write letters about current events to each other, the paper usually wasn't the highest quality and wasn't cared for or just ceased to exist. We often have little to go on when it comes to the minutiae of life. That's where Twitter has changed everything.

To be fair here, it isn't just Twitter. Social Media (the collective phrase for social networks like Twitter and Facebook, blogs, and other such things) in general will shape a huge part in the indexing and retelling of events in our time. Now that the internet has provided everyone with microphones and an easy way to record their rambling (Don't worry, I'm very self-aware right now), we have a massive shift in paradigms. Where guesswork and filling in the blanks were necessary before, we now have an abundance of data. Entire corporations have been created for the purpose of collecting and indexing the massive amount of data.

It brings an interesting new challenge to writers and scholars of things past (puns!). Never before have we had to eliminate primary sources. Many people criticize Twitter for being a cesspool of irrelevant non-information, that nobody cares about what random people had for lunch. Generally speaking, I affectionately refer to such people as turbonerds, but in this case, they're almost right. The next generation of historians will have to focus less on connecting the all too scarce dots and more on ignoring a whole lot of dots referencing Jersey Shore.

Oh, and in case I use some of this for a paper in the future and the dreaded TurnItIn.com tries to screw me, I am that kid in your history class, Professor. And I give me full permission to use this work in the future. That was cool.

Sex, Drugs and Roommate Drama

Imagine the worst roommate you've ever had... Did he/she screw you out of money? Fill the holes in the wall with toothpaste when moving out? Bounce checks? I know (as does Brad and Matt) that this has happened to me...

Now imagine that roommate... times ten... thousand... That roommate may or may not be my sisters roommate.
This is a story about the last 5 days of craziness that has happened to my sister (Tiff) and her roommate (Mike)... Names have been changed for privacy reasons.

SUNDAY:
Tiff was getting ready for Sister Sunday Funday... a day when she and I meet up for lunch, sangria, movies, farmers market, etc. We were planning on meeting at her place around 12:30 (so I was planning on leaving my house at 12:00).
It's 11:30 and my sister calls me... crying. "Please hurry" she cries... "I caught Mike taking pictures of me in the shower"...
WHAT?!?! I will F*cking kill him!!! I told her to call the police and immediately headed over.
Apparently she saw a flash while she was showering... She thought it was just her TV ... but was looking into her bedroom to see if maybe it blew (it is a very old TV). While looking, she saw a digital camera sticking through the bedroom door, pointing at her... She got out of the shower and confronted him. At first he said he didn't do it. When she said "but I saw the camera... and left my bedroom door closed when I got in the shower" he replied with "like you didn't know?!"... the nerve!!! She took his video camera and locked herself in her room until the police arrived.

I arrived at her house around 12:15. The police (4 very friendly officers) had been there for about 10 minutes. 2 were outside trying to figure out what the crime was and what they could do. The other 2 were inside talking to Tiff. The asked Mike what happened... his reply? "She's looked at the camera before. She knew, and I thought she liked it"... What a sicko!!! If she knew... why'd she call the police?!!? Anyway, after looking at the camera, they discovered that in one shower - he had taken 1 picture and 3 videos.

Anyway - the crime was a misdemeanor - Voyeurism (aka. peeping tom). They couldn't arrest him, but suggested she press charges... So she did. They also suggested that on Monday she apply for an injunction (restraining order). After they left, my sister and I went out for our funday and then went back to the house to pack her things. She didn't feel safe there, so she came to stay with me.

Side note: the AC broke that day too... so she was calling the property manager to get it fixed.

MONDAY:

Tiff went to the courthouse to file for an injunction. The police report wasn't in the system yet, so she was limited on the type of injunction she could file... A repeat violence was what they suggested (since he admitted to doing it more than just that one day). She drove by the house a few times to get some things - but he was home - so she never went in.
Later that day, back at the courthouse, she found out the injunction was denied... since it wasn't actual violence. They suggested she wait until the police report got into the system and file for a sexual violence injunction - since the charges were for sexual harassment...

TUESDAY:

Tiff found out the police report had been filed - so she went back to the courthouse to try again at the injunction. After filing the papers, she went home to let the AC repair guys in. When she got there in the morning - the house WREAKED of weed. She followed the smell to their 3 bedroom - a room that was empty until he claimed it as his man-cave. She noticed a humming sound coming from the closet, so she went to open the closet door.
When she opened the closet, she saw foil wrapped sheet insulation covering the closet. On it, he had drawn in permanent marker a fake closet with a note that said "Tiff, if you find this - please talk to me first". She knew what was going on... so she called the police.

The police arrived with the drug dog. Upon confirmation from the drug dog, they received a search warrant. It took them about thirty minutes to completely destroy his bedroom and the "man-cave", confiscate his computer, 4 bowls, 2 bongs, and the 4 lbs of marijuana he was growing in his closet.
They found a safe that, after breaking open with a crow bar, they discovered contained multiple disgusting sex toys and women's lingerie/bathing suits. Even the drug cops were shocked and said "this guy is f-ing sick"...

Oh, a side note - meanwhile - the AC guys are there fixing the AC and watching the whole thing... You know - the broken AC that led to Mikes ventilation system being ruined, and thus the smell of his drug lab drifting through the entire house and even outside that led to Tiff's discovery of the closet.

Also through all this, we found out her second attempt at an injunction was denied. That's the part that pissed me off... She can't get a restraining order - until he actually physically hurts her. He can't physically hurt her because she's staying as far away as possible... They wonder why so many people become victims of violence - when they don't realize that those people can't get safe until it's too late!!! Anyway...

The officers put out a warrant for his arrest and gave us their number in case he came home before they got him. We changed the locks on the house and parked down the street waiting for him to come home. When he came home from work, we called the officers, and they came to arrest him. It was like a scene from a movie. It was awesome.

WEDNESDAY

Nothing exciting happened today... Except that Mike posted Bond to get out of jail.

THURSDAY

Tiff goes to the house to start packing her things... She doesn't feel safe there anymore so she plans on leaving. She got there to see Mike there with a U-haul moving his things... How did he get in? They changed the locks...
HE BROKE IN... SERIOUSLY?! You just got out of jail, and you decide to break in? Why didn't he just call the property manager to let him in to get his stuff?!? Tiff got to call the cops again! They couldn't do anything since he is technically still on the lease... but they did put it on his record (which is quickly growing)
After he left, she went in to start moving. The owners posted a note saying she has 7 days to vacate... they decided she's guilty by association. By being on the lease with someone who breached the contract - she breached the contract. We are working on negotiating with them to allow her to keep her stuff there until the end of August so she has more time to find a place and move.
Mike left a note too! It said "please return to me the following items: Jump drives, video camera, desktop computer, and anything that could incriminate you"... HAHAHAHAHA... Is he that stupid? Does he really not realize that THE POLICE took it during their search of his room?!?! Does he REALLY think she took it?!?!

Anyway... I don't think he's coming back. He is too stupid to worry about anymore... She's trying to find a new place to live - and staying with me in the meantime... And don't worry - the AC is fixed.

I'll be visiting Vegas (again) next week... so expect a post soon on that!!!

Til next time,
-Whit

BluePrints Gets a Bit Political

I think it's been long enough after being called out by Brad for not posting that I can safely write something here without looking reactionary. Yay!

And what better way to return than with a way of possibly losing some readers. But frankly, they aren't readers I want anyway. If you read the headlines, there's been a big debate in the news lately over a mosque being built next to Ground Zero. If you read some of the articles, you'll find out that President Obama has backed up the mosque being built, despite what sacrilege it is. And now, of course, the Republicans just got new campaign commercials. Now, it's fine using the other party's stance to distinguish yourself. But when that differentiation is pointing out how you're against blatant not discrimination, you should kind of be concerned.

The numbnuts against the Islamic mosque and community center being built there are claiming that it is insensitive to the victims and family of the 9/11 disaster. And it was a disaster. But really? A place of worship is now offensive just due to proximity of wreckage? Yes, that wreckage has some terrible memories attached to it, memories of a day that changed history and will not soon be forgotten. But if a church were to be built nearby, there would be no issue. No one would bat an eyelash at a synagogue being constructed. But apparently an entire religion is to blame for the attacks. And that's where I have a problem.

Now, I could go on a tangent about the atrocities that men have committed in the name of Christianity, but it would do no good. Instead, I'll take the time to point out that it was members of a very extreme sect of an otherwise peaceful religion, not the religion as a whole. Preventing the mosque from being constructed does not do anything constructive. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Most things done like this are done in the name of "fighting terrorism", which is a fine ideal. But this fails completely. For one, it only fuels the fires of terrorism. They hate the US for how intolerant and bossy we are. So how do we combat this? By being discriminatory and telling people what they can and can't do. And second, Islam is not terrorism. Instead of making more people of the same religion that caused the 9/11 attack, how about we foster some good feelings instead? Nah, we'll keep wondering why the gasoline makes the fire worse. I mean, it is a liquid, right?

And in response to the faux-pundits' out of context quotes from the Qur'an, I could point out just as non-contextual passages of smiting from the Bible. And yet, there's no "Hey, no churches here!" sign anywhere.

The fact is, there is very little left of the ideals that this country was founded upon, but the one that we've kept very true to overall was freedom of religion. The right to practice our beliefs in peace. But morons with the unfortunate ability to speak would like to stomp all over it. And even bigger morons with the even more unfortunate ability to speak to large groups of other morons are using all this general lack of common sense to troll for votes. Because that's what they are: Trolls. Needless to say, I've lost pretty much all faith in either parties.

But let's end this post on a high note. This was BluePrints' 100th post! This was all planned, I swear.

Battleship Beer Pong

So I was at work today, when I heard about this awesome/deadly game that sounds uber fun and I thought, "Dang... that would be a great BluePrints Blog post"... So here it is...

Do you remember the game Battleship?




It was pretty much awesome. You place your pegged ships where you find strategically fit... then your opponent lists off grids... Like "A-6". With the hopes of sinking your battleship...


You all know beer pong...

The game for tailgaters, drunks, college kids, houligans, crazy whipper snappers, etc. You set up cups filled with shots of beer in a triangle formation and try to throw a ping pong ball into your opponents formation. If you succeed, they drink. If you succeed to the point where all their cups are gone... you win. That's the basics...

Well... now... there's something more. Something bigger. Something better. Imagine a game with the strategery of battleship but the debauchery of beer pong...

Are you ready?!?!

BATTLESHIP BEER PONG!!!!

The Set-up:

1. Align your cups (36 of them) in a 6x6 grid. You can do 5x5 if you want to tone it down a notch... though people have been known to do 8x8 if they really want alcohol poisoning.


2. Set up your ships. Typically for a 6x6 grid you can do a 4-cup ship, a 3-cup ship and a 2-cup ship... though the size/number of ships you want to use is pretty much up to you (as long as each team has the same standards). Your ship-cups will be a shot of liquor (your choice what kind).


3. Set up the "water" (the non-ship-cups)... these are all the cups that don't have ships. They will be beer filled.

Now you're ready to play.

The Rules:

1. Just like Beer Pong, the ultimate goal is to get ping pong balls in your opponents cups until they are all eliminated


2. Just like Battleship, the ultimate goal is to sink your opponents ships.


3. With those two goals in mind - a winner is called once all the ping pong balls have landed in all the ships spots.


4. If you land a ping pong ball in the opponents beer cup - they drink the beer and put the empty cup back in it's place (some people who are really crazy re-fill that cup). If you land a ping pong ball in the opponents shot cup (a piece of a ship) - they drink the shot and put the cup UPSIDE DOWN back in it's place. This differentiation in what to do with the cups allows you to try to figure out where their ships are.

Is that not awesome?!?! Crazy?!?! I highly suggest you try it.

Brad - maybe a new game for UCF tailgating? Perhaps?

Please play/drink responsibly!!! :-)

Til Next time...

-Whit

Take that, Brad!!!

So recently, Brad called the other contributors "lazy"... How dare he!!!! So I'm going to show him... by posting!!!

I honestly can't think of anything super exciting to post, though... So I'll pull a Brad and post about what's been going on... Maybe some of you can give me some ideas of things you want to hear about from this post (hint hint... that means reply to this post and give me ideas people!!!!)

First thing I'd like to do is defend myself for not posting... Try to keep up here. Monday through Friday I wake up at 5:30 am. I go to a friends house and work out. We are done working out around 7:15. We get ready for work and make all our food for the day (like Brad - I'm trying to lose weight... so we cook healthy meals and portion them out for the day... So far, I've lost 6 pounds!!)... Then I'm at work by 9:00 at the latest. I stay there until 7:00 pm (at the earliest). On Mondays and Tuesdays I go to pool at 7:30. Wednesdays I have Flag Football. Thursdays I go to happy hour with some friends. Fridays I either go to a live show or dinner with friends. All of which, I'm home by 11:00 pm or later. Saturdays I work out, do laundry, grocery shopping, and then go out Saturday night. Sunday is either farmers market or pool tournaments.

Ok... so there's the summary you never wanted to hear... but that should show you... it's tough for me to find time to post!! Not that you all aren't important or high on my priority list... but you just... aren't important or high on my priority list. :-)

So that leads to a lot of what's been going on... weight loss, pool, work, and fun. My goal is to lose a total of 30 lbs. I'm at 6 so far after 4 weeks. A slow start - but a healthy one. Like Brad said - it is tough to diet... but we have put ourselves on a 4 meals a day schedule that really helps... and we've been finding fun creative healthy recipes too. The hardest part is resisting the desire to go to that evil little vending machine down stairs at work.
My friend and I played in a scotch doubles pool tournament two weeks ago... We placed 1st out of 45 teams... split a $600.00 prize!!! Woohoo!!! I also won a pool tournament that enters me into a regional tournament in October. If I win that - it's another free trip to Vegas!!! In the mean time... I'm taking a free trip to Vegas in a couple weeks for pool...
Then there is work... Busy as always... I am going to Henderson NV for 2 weeks in September... Virginia here and there for a month or two at the end of the year... and in between I will be in Sarasota for a month every three months starting in November. I'm working on my Extreme Networks certification for work... and soon after will start studying for my Cisco CCNA.

So that's everything with me... So help me out here... What would you like to hear/learn about? Great healthy recipes? The "secrets" of losing weight and keeping it off? Winning pool tournaments? Traveling in Vegas? Networking? Fiber? Help me out!!! What do YOU want to hear about?!

Till next time...

Too Many Topics For One Post - And Lots of Typos

So its been a while since we've had a new post on BluePrints. For my end, I've been on vacation for most of the month. Amanda and I spent 2 weeks in Pennsylvania, came home for a week and then spent two weeks in Georgia. More posts on both of those topics to come (sneak peak: I'll be delving into the goods and bads of being Amish).

As for the other contributors? Good question. We're not entirely sure if Matt still knows he's a contributor. Travis and I often joke that it would be a good idea if we had asked him to be one of the starting contributors, since he never seems to post anything. In Ned's defense, he's been on vacation too. Whitney was never expected to post a ton, so no harm there. We haven't gotten much in the way of questions on formspring, so JK doesn't have anything to respond to. As for Travis, he was on vacation...for 4 days. The rest of the time he has no excuse for though.

Well, now that I've effectively called out all the other contributors in the most public way I know, let us move on. As of Tuesday, I am on a diet. As a result, I'm pretty miserable. In the name of full disclosure, I weigh 278.3 pounds, so my goal is to loose 78.3 pounds. I figure that will probably take me a year and a half. I hate dieting though. I'm in a continual state of starving, and it sucks. It feels like I never eat, even right after a meal.

There were a bunch of things leading to my decision to diet finally, not the least of which being my little tubing experience. Another big reason was just my eating habits in general. While in Georgia, we went to Vortex Bar and Grill. This is a place known for large and unbelievably delicious burgers. While there, I ordered the Double Bypass, a buger that consists of 2 grilled cheese sandwiches (as the buns), 2 fried eggs, 6 slices each of cheese (not including the cheese in the "buns") and bacon, and a huge side of tater tots. Not only did I eat every bite, I did so in under 15 minutes and didn't even have a stomache ache afterwords. That was sorta freaky.

On another note, the second time we went to Vortex while we were there, they had sweet potato tater tots. Yeah, give that one a minute to sink in. Sweet potato tater tots! Pure delicious awesomeness on their own. But they kick it up a knotch with marshmellow dipping sauce. Yeah, finger food sweet potato caerole FTW!

Moving on, we come to my marraige. Don't worry, only good news here. My wife and I are not good compromisers. Whenever we have to do something for each other, we formulate complex deaks. For example, we go out to dinenr with our friends every Friday night. Amanda's not big on it, so eventually we came up with going every other week so long as she got a 10 minute massage every week (I hate giving massages). So anyways, she's been wanting a second dog for a while now, and I've always said no, mostly because she never offers anything worth while in the way of a deal. Two days ago, the conversation went a little like this:

Amanda: Can we get another dog?
Me: No.
Amanda: What if I let you get a motorcycle?

We were on our way to look at dogs within an hour. Today, we found our new dog. She's a 6 month old corgi/terrier mix that we're naming Knightra (after the UCF mascot Knightro). I'll add some pics to the post tomorrow when we pick her up. Bike will uave to wait till the end of the year when we have money.

Well, I think that's about as many topics as I can cram into one post. Now that my vacations are over and school is about to start back up, I'll be posting more. Can't speak for the other lazy contributors though....

Good Idea, Bad Idea - Convenience Stores

In a little change of pace for Good Idea, Bad Idea this week, I'm going to start with:

Bad Idea - Eating At 7-Eleven


Between the doughnuts that have been there since January and the rolling hot dog/taquito machine that moves them forward at a speed slightly slower than a turtle covered in BP oil, could it ever be a good idea to eat at a 7-Eleven? I personally enjoy the "Fresh Deli Sandwich" area, containing deli sandwiches made last week wrapped in magical saran wrap that keeps them fresh well past their expiration date.

I used to eat at 7-Eleven often when I was in high school. In fact, its a miracle that my stomach didn't implode on itself in disgustingness. The only good thing about 7-Eleven is their Big Gulp drinks and Slushies. Neither of which are particularly a good idea on the health front.

Good Idea - Eating At Sheetz


Now, for those of you that aren't from the Pennsylvania area, I am about to describe the single most wonderful gas station in existence. In fact, "gas station" is not the correct term for all that is Sheetz. Sure, they sell gas, and they even have many of the same properties as a typical convenience store, but they bring their game to a whole new level.

When you drive up to a Sheetz, you notice that it is busy. Not just a few cars, but many. You may have to wait just to get one of the parking spaces to go inside, and its not because there's a shortage of them.  When you walk inside, you notice that it is clean. The floors are neither sticky nor greasy, the glass is clear and streak free, and the people working their look human, not like mongoloids. The lights are all on and bright, and its an altogether welcoming feeling.

There are two main things that make Sheetz so amazing. One is that they have their own line of products. For example, I wanted a Starbucks Iced Mocha with my breakfast, but I then noticed Sheetz had their own brand of mochas. Starbucks has vanila, mocha, or sugar free. Sheetz has 10 different flavors, including chocolate banana mocha! And it was DELICIOUS. In fact, of the 6 times we had Sheetz for breakfast in the 10 days we were there, I had the chocolate banana 4 (I tried raspberry mocha one of the days, which was also good). I assume that they have their own version of other delicious things too, but I couldn't bring myself to try any other kinds.

The thing that makes Sheetz most amazing though is their MTO (Made To Order) section. There are 3 or 4 touchscreen computers on which you place your orders. Now, some people may say that placing your own order is like doing their work for them. In fact, when they had this at a McDonald's I used to frequent, I rarely used it, and they quickly took it out. At Sheetz though, its really the only plausible way to make this work. When you click start on this machine, you are given multiple options from Macho Burritos (Moe's style burritos), subs (which I was told were the "best subs ever eaten"), breakfast, sides, drinks, and an entire coffee bar (similar to Starbucks) all of which are available 24/7. Now, I am somewhat of a breakfast fanatic so I have to admit that I had breakfast all of the times I was there.

Once you choose your starting point, like breakfast, you are then given all the options in that group. Biscuit sandwiches, English muffins, breakfast burritos, bagel sandwiches (and there's 5 different kinds of bagels) croissants, and even pretzel meltz (their on a pretzel bread and are actually quite delicious). From their, you choose your meat (sausage, bacon, ham, or steak for 29 cents more), on the next screen then your cheese (of which their are 7 different kinds with American being free and all others being 29 cents extra), then egg (which is 39 cents more), then the additionals, which range from mayo, ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, onions (either sliced or diced), hot sauce, chipotle ranch, and even PESTO SAUCE.  How cheap are those up-charges? I mean, if you go to McDonalds, a sausage biscuit is $1. If you add egg and cheese it goes up to $2.99. At Sheetz, its just as good and only $1.68 and you can have onions and peppers on it.

Really the point I'm trying to make is this: Don't write a blog post before you eat breakfast. I'm really hungry right now. Oh, and that Sheetz is awesome and I really wish we had them in Florida. I'm thinking I should just give up on teaching and open my own Sheetz franchise. Their stores are awesome and I've missed them ever since we got back from Pennsylvania.

Who is JK?

Being an advice columnist, I was worried when I posted my introduction a few weeks ago that no one would submit any questions for me to answer. You can see where that would be a problem. Fortunately, all my worry was for naught. In fact, queries were submitted by multiple readers. I guess you guys were all on the same wavelength because they all asked the exact same question: “Who is JK?”

Totally valid question, I’ll admit, but where’s the fun in me just giving you the answer?

I’m not opposed to giving you some more information about myself. I realize you are all trying to figure out what to make of me instead of just blindly trusting me. I can’t say that I blame you. I would do the exact same thing. So, to answer your question I figured it’d be much more fun to approach this as if it were a science experiment.

When trying to prove a theory, all you can do is try to disprove it and when you run out of ideas for doing that, if your theory is still standing, you assume you were right…at least until some other scientist 76 years down the road waltzes in and decides that Pluto isn’t a planet anymore. (Yeah, I know its a few years after the fact but I’m still bitter about it.) Anyway, I figure if that method is exact enough for science, why not use it here. I’ll give you some clues as to who I’m not and you are welcome to draw your conclusions from there.

The first hypothesis that needs to be disproved is that JK does not stand for Just Kidding. You can know that I’m telling the truth about this because there is no slash in between the J and the K.

Apparently, j/k is the appropriate abbreviation for those two words. Why? I have no idea. We don’t abbreviate much of anything else in this fashion. Other than b/f and g/f (boyfriend and girlfriend, respectively) I can’t think of another instance where you can take a word or term and shorten it without using a period or an apostrophe. Though, given the rapid decline in the usage of proper English, I can pretty safely predict that such trends are likely to continue. I would suggest that if you’re planning on jumping on the poor English bandwagon and riding it into the sunset that the smarter approach would be to begin now. You’ll be called a trendsetter. Instead of having to learn this slang, you can create it!

(Note: How to Create Your Own Slang could be a New York Times Bestseller…or at least get a good dozen views on the internet. Just thought I’d put that out there for anyone who is an aspiring author.)

Another theory that needs to be cleared up is that I am not J. K. Rowling. If I were, a few things would be different. Namely, I would have a mansion complete with a giant vault full of money, protected by Gringotts goblins and at least one dragon, of course, and also, I wouldn’t have made Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows quite so depressing. Those are the two glaring differences between me and her that I can think of right off the bat.

I guess there is probably one more myth I should dispel about my possible identity. I need to put out there that I am not JK from the JK Wedding Entrance Dance video that went viral last year. Actually, in that case, JK stands for Jill and Kevin. Unfortunately, for me, I’m not two people. Sometimes I’ve wished I were, alas, I’ve had no luck in the matter. If you want to see that video, however, just click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

That’s all you’re going to get out of me for now. I’m reasonably sure you’ll learn plenty more over time if you decide to keep reading. I wish you all the best with it and am looking forward to hearing from you.

Apple Issues "Challenge" to Industry, Cases to Customers, Apology Nowhere to be Found

That picture says it all to me. I'm sick of this topic. Apple had their emergency iPhone 4 "Antennagate" conference today, where Stevie started, as usual, with talking about their sales figures. 3 million people have bought this broken product. Wait, sorry, it isn't broken, all phones are.

Apple's solution is 2 fold: Free cases for whoever wants one, or a refund if you just don't want the phone. Well the second part isn't actually something they are doing for you. All AT&T (and Sprint and Verizon) phones have a 30 day buyer's remorse clause to refund the phone and get out of the contract without a fee. The first part is not a bad solution, but like one audience member said during the Q&A, it seems like they are making people choose between form and function. The iPhone 4 is truly a beautiful device, the first iPhone design that I personally like. But the iPhone 4 with a bumper is ugly, and people who like Apple design will probably agree. Oh, and you only have until September 30th, after which time they'll "evaluate" whether or not they need to continue with free cases. In other words, if you're dumb enough to buy one from then on, it's your problem.

As for the design flaw, Apple did a "scientific test" and found that 3 other phones lose coverage when held a certain way. Now, I'm not doubting their tests, they have proof. What I do find is misleading is how far you have to go to try to recreate that signal loss. They showed a picture of a Droid Eris almost completely covered by a hand to lose some signal. During the Q & A session, someone even asked to be shown how the BlackBerry Bold 9700 lost so much signal, since he couldn't get them to drop at all. The response he was given was hardly an answer, merely that it can't be replicated everywhere. So it can only be done where Apple finds it convenient I guess.

Now I didn't expect Apple to come out and say "Sorry", so their data to back up why they weren't going to didn't bother me too much. What does piss me off is the absolute arrogance and delusion required to basically say "Well all phones are like this, so we're issuing a challenge to the industry!".

No. Apple, you are full of shit and we all know it. Never before has a BlackBerry, a Palm, an Android, not even the failure that was Kin had such a glaringly obvious defect. Your antenna design sucks, and there is a reason we stopped putting them on the outside of our phones. In fact, those old bricks were better, because the antenna wasn't right where everyone naturally holds it. No matter how many times you say you care about your customers, anyone with half a brain can tell that you don't think too for any one's intelligence. And the better part of 3 million people unfortunately prove your point.

Travis' Review of Inception

I have to give a friend of mine, Matt (not the contributor or brother), credit for what is the best way to describe this movie: "No matter how high you set your expectations for Inception, you will be amazed. Don't be afraid.". And he's totally right.

Inception is without a doubt the most creative and original movie I've seen in quite some time, but unlike many other creative films, it has absolutely flawless execution. Christopher Nolan (Dark Knight) has done it again. The concept is simple: We hold secrets in our mind, and our mind is most active, and thus most vulnerable, when we sleep, so if you can share a dream with someone, you can find their secrets. But they didn't stop there and say "Let's make a cool looking dream movie". The level of depth that this concept was given was incredible, allowing the real world to affect the dream (If you have to pee, it's raining), and even using a dreamer's subconscious to project itself as random people who start getting pissed off if you start changing a dreamer's dream.

The casting was perfect. Leo once again played an incredibly flawed yet brilliant character incredibly well, Ellen Page strayed from her usual hipster-witty style (not saying I don't like that), and of course Joseph Gordon-Levitt was the perfect calm and collected guy who knows how to function sans-gravity. We do see some of Nolan's friends from Batman (Alfred and Ra's al Ghul) and the amazing Marion Cotillard as a rather disturbing presence.

The effects were over the top and definitely fitting of a dream world (or a dream within a dream world) (or a dream within a dream within a dream world). Massive cityscapes crumbling, or folding, avalanches, the works. I went in expecting it to be an awesome plot with a small fight scene or two, but there was a lot of action, but more importantly it was all well thought out, and the anti-gravity fight scene was one of the best I've seen in quite some time. And the ending... well, I won't ruin it, just go see it.

Overall, this movie was perfect to me. I seriously cannot think of a way to make it better. It has joined movies like Forrest Gump and Wall E as one of my top 5 films of all time without question. If this doesn't win far too many Oscars this year, I may find the voters and leave them flaming bags of poo. Now that you're done reading, go watch it. Seriously.

Travis' Mini-Reviews: Motorola Droid X and Samsung Vibrant

Ok, so I just got back from a T-Mobile and a Verizon store to play with the 2 newest members of the Android Army, and I have to say: Meh.


First up, the Droid X. You can find this big fella for $200 with a 2 year contract. The 4.3 inch screen looks great, and despite the bigger than the EVO body, it looks pretty good and is pretty ergonomic. That being said, I wanted to throw the thing across the store. The UI is yet another failed attempt by Motorola to "improve" Android, but so far only HTC's SenseUI has worked for me. I will say it's better than MotoBlur, it looks far less infantile and doesn't force Facebook and Twitter on me. It packs 7 home panels, which is cool, and has 3 big icons along the bottom (dialer, apps, and contacts). But as you slide to different panels, these 3 icons change to randomly shaped dots to represent which panel you're on. It's good to know which panel you're on, but the change looks dumb and lags the phone a little. Now, like the EVO, a keyboard on a 4.3" screen is great, and coming preloaded with Swype is cool, but I couldn't type on it. It's not like I didn't know how, but the screen was garbage. Everything I did required at least one re-press. Unresponsive is hardly the word to describe it, and it was a beyond frustrating experience. Hopefully it was just that model that was bad, and I will be testing another one most likely tomorrow. Oh, and we found out recently that Motorola was gracious enough to install security that will completely brick the X if you attempt to hack it. Fantastic work at effectively closing good ol' open source Android, Moto. You sure this phone wasn't meant for AT&T?



Now, the one device that made me (mostly) happy today, the Samsung Vibrant. At first, I thought that was the dumbest name for a phone ever. Well, behind the :) (No really, that's it's name). But the name is perfect. The screen, sitting at an even 4 inches, is beautiful. Samsung's SUPER AMOLED technology is on par with an iPhone 4's screen, but of course bigger. The phone comes preloaded with Avatar (Cameron's epic, not M. Night's fail), which is perfect for how amazing that screen is. The phone's design is very nice, thin but seemingly sturdy. My main problem, again, was the UI. Samsung's tweaks are somehow worse than MotoBlur to me. It didn't feel like Android to me. You still get your multiple, customizable panels, but the 4 static icons on the bottom (not changeable) mixed with a totally different app tray simply scream "iPhone knockoff!). Instead of your normal vertical column of apps, you have panels of apps in a 4x4 grid. Just like the iPhone. And the icons themselves are squares with rounded edges with small logos, like the iPhone. While Samsung did figure out that iPhones do sell well, it ruined the Android experience that I love. Careful with the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude, Samsung. You may have a recall on your hands.

And 2 quick notes. In the Verizon store, some woman was using one of the live demos to yell at someone else over the phone. Um, bad place to do that. And I popped into an AT&T store to go hands on with the iPhone 4 too. no review on that now, but I did manage to make it drop 4 bars of 3G and 2 bars (or waves?) of WiFi with the Grip of Death. Fun stuff, and we'll see what Apple says about it tomorrow!

Good Idea, Bad Idea - Getting Your News From twitter

Good Idea - News From twitter


I personally don't like to read or watch the news. However, I very much like to know what's going on in current events around the world. A few months ago, I discovered the answer: twitter news. I follow CNN Breaking News (cnnbrk) and our local news station (cfnews13). The big plus is that I know what's going on with very little effort. I like to say "I get all my news in 140 characters." When people ask me "Did you hear about the tropical storm over in the Philippines?" I can say "Yeah, at least 18 dead. Wow." Especially as a teacher (when I'm not on summer vacation. How's work going for everyone?) its good for me to have a little idea what's going on since kids ask really random questions a lot.

Bad Idea - cnnbrk


There are three major problems with only getting your news on twitter. The first is that essentially, you're only getting the headlines of a story. If someone wants to have a discussion about any of this stuff, I can't really participate. Well, I make stuff up and pretend I know more, but I don't actually. For example, I saw this on cnnbrk yesterday:

Deaths of Coppell, Texas, mayor and daughter rules murder-suicide

The first problem is that this tweet actually doesn't make any sense. The commas are in the wrong place. I assume what they meant was "Deaths of Texas mayor, Coppell, and daughter ruled murder-suicide" but that's not what they put, so I could be wrong. They could mean that the death of the Coppells were ruled murder-suicide by a Texas mayor and his daughter. Apparently this mayor listens to his daughter more than his cabinet. Also, do mayors have cabinets?

Anyways, the point being that if anyone brought this topic up, that is the extent of the information I have about the topic. I can't really have a discussion with them. Leads to a lot of me tricking other people into giving me the information about the topic without admitting I don't know anything about it (which if you think about it, is an even better way to get news). Don't get me wrong, I enjoy making people think I'm involved and participating in a conversation when actually I'm just letting them talk (I do it to my wife all the time, and she still doesn't know)(well, she does now because she's reading this over my shoulder).

The other big problem with only getting my news from cnnbrk is that its really repetitive. For example, a couple months back when that earthquake killed a bunch of people in Haiti, I was pretty convinced that Mother Earth was trying to rip us all back into the depths of herself because cnnbrk put up a story about another earthquake ever 4 hours or so. Seriously, there were like 30 earthquake stories in a month. It was crazy. Right now, 32.67% of their posts (I did the math)(by which I of course mean I didn't actually do anything except guess then make it look precise by adding 2.67% to my guess) are about the Gulf oil spill in some way. As a person living in Florida (and no, that does not make me a "Floridian") the spill is kinda important to me, but I'm sick of hearing about it. We get it, the Gulf of Mexico is doomed. We'll be cleaning up this spill for the next 50 years. The ecosystems of that area will be completely obliterated and take lifetimes to recover. It sucks. But really, I'm sick of hearing about it. There's not much I can do to help even if I wanted to (which I don't so much).

Plus, they NEVER put up good stories (by which I mean the actual meaning of "good", as in positive or uplifting). I know this is a go to complaint about all news mediums, but its more pronounced on twitter since there's no room in 140 characters for fluff pieces. Basically, cnnbrk would have you believe we're in a post-apocalyptic world with a corrupt government out to take over the entire world through war and deception while the planet itself is trying to destroy us all, but we still have occasional sporting matches of various kinds, but all of them are very important and memorable.

Well, that's it for this week. And just for fun, check this out: http://therevolvinginternet.com/ WARNING: This link is completely unrelated to my post and may cause motion sickness, irritation, annoyance, nausea and trippy altered states of consciousness.

Wireless Wednesday: Invent-An-App, AT&T Stops Charging for Free Things, and More BlackBerry 6

Fear not, kids! My adventures into philosophy haven't distracted me from the real reason you all come here! It's time for Wireless Wednesday!


First up, Google has announced a cool new application development tool for Android called App Inventor. While still in an invite-only beta, the tool will help those with good app ideas but lack the programming knowledge previously needed to make them. This essentially builds things like Lego blocks: You can still make a building, but legit architects builder far better stuff (for the most part). This means that more people will be developing apps for the Android Market, which is without question an awesome thing.


Next up, AT&T has been selling Microcells, essentially little boxes that you pay $150-$200 for that plug into your cable internet provider and it acts as a miniature cell tower, allowing 5 devices to use its service, for some time now. The device was created to boost service in the homes or office of people with crappy AT&T service. Previously, they charged for the device, and there was a monthly service fee, none of which made no sense because it was their service that sucked in the first place, and the monthly cost was more ridiculous because it wasn't like you were even using their service at that point. Many people claimed that the microcells should be free, and now some AT&T customers are getting their wish. How nice of them. What people should be asking for is waived cancellation fees. On second thought, no. If you were dumb enough to sign up for a service without researching the fact that it doesn't work in your house, AND you didn't test it and return the product within 30 days, you deserve cancellation fees. But I'm not being fair. AT&T does deserve credit here, they are trying to make good on the lack of reception for their die-hard fans.

And finally, BlackBerry released another video demoing BlackBerry 6 on its official Youtube page. The interface is yet again showing off touchscreen gestures, which fortunately aren't reminiscent of the Storm's awful "clicky-touchscreen" method. Also, there's been some buzz about a possible BlackBerry tablet, but nothing really official on that as of yet. Check out the BlackBerry 6 video below (this time, no Black Eyed Peas!).

Excercises in Intellectual Group Masturbation

So last night, I participated in something that I can safely say I've never done, and I don't think many people ever take the time to do. And despite it causing a light case of sleep deprivation, it was awesome.

A good friend of mine is a deeply Christian guy, but not the douchey persecution and abuse of power type. He's the kind of guy that regardless of how well you know him, you can have long and potentially pretentious discussions with. So last week he had sent me an invite to a night meant to "Explore and Discover". Despite the cheesy name, the premise was cool. A small get together of people, some friends, some you've never met, with the goal of having a big discussion on Life, The Universe, and Everything (unfortunately I didn't bring a towel). Oh, and of course free (for me) pizza.

Now I was expecting this to be a bunch of people wearing smoking jackets and ascots, sipping on Scotch talking about the meaning of life and maybe a bit about the East India Company. Instead, I walked, a bit late from work, to about 15 people, sitting in a circle of folding chairs (and no smoking jackets), already in an intense discussion on the morality of adjusting a religion to fit your life. Our "formal" discussion lasted about 3 hours, covering topics such as the existence or active involvement of God, the concept of a void, and a historical perspective on the Bible. Since our group was largely Christian, a lot of the discussion revolved around that, but we touched on universal concepts like altruism as well. And it was truly an enlightening experience. It's not like I had my beliefs changed, or I really learned any objective knowledge. What was so great to me was that these people, all with different beliefs and interpretations, had taken the time out to discuss them with people of dissenting opinions. The majority of this group were Christians and were used to discussing these issues with peers, fellow believers. But they were able to have an open discussion with people of different (or no) faiths in a calm and productive manner. To me, it's something I don't see to much of these days.

I highly suggest setting up a similar gathering for yourself, but there are a few guidelines I think you should follow:

Don't invite douchey people. People who will mock others' opinions or insult people will disrupt the group and just piss people off.

Set up a big, comfortable circle. You want everyone to be comfy and be able to make eye contact with each other.

Have food and drinks. You don't need anything fancy, but free food and drinks will make people more inclined to come, and while they're there, they'll enjoy it more and be more comfortable. Also, it helps reduce talking over each other if you've got food in your mouth.

Invite different people. Don't just get The Gang together, you've probably had these conversations already. Take people from different circles of friends for a better variety of people. They'll have better discussions.

Set ground rules. Be up front at first. Tell everyone it's either be respectful or get the hell out. Try not to interrupt or get too loud. Don't let things get out of control. That said, don't be afraid to have people be honest and passionate.

I truly believe we would all be better off if we did this once in a while. Despite some major differences I had with a few people, it was a very gratifying experience and I felt much better knowing that people take the time to put some thought into their philosophies on life.

The Size of LeBron's Ego Deserves Its Own World Cup

What's that? A post on BluePrints about sports??? Yeah, it's happening. Hopefully I don't make a fool of myself.

So it's been a strange couple of weeks for me in terms of sports. I usually only care about football, but since the season is a bit away, I've been appeasing my appetite in other ways.

First, let's talk LeBron. We'll start with a joke I love and take no credit for: Have you heard about the new LeBron James cellphone? There's a ton of hype around it, but it only vibrates because it has no rings!" Oh nice gravy. Anyway, to briefly recap for our friends who live under rocks or in Finland, prominent but championshipless basketball player LeBron James, in an unprecedented move, rented an hour of time on ESPN to announce which team he'd end up playing for. Now, when I say unprecedented, it's not a compliment. No one has been so egotistical before. ESPN was advertising the crap out of it all week. Now, after a week of attention whoring, one would expect a climactic proclamation with a marching band and enough pyrotechnics to make Michael Bay wet himself. Nope, LeBronze stumbled over his words to say he was going to be in Miami. Literally, he said he was going to South Beach, which made me think he was just announcing a vacation. But no, he's going to play for the Miami Heat. As a Florida resident, I am surprised that this state could get worse. And then I went back to not caring.

On a more positive note, I was also for some inexplicable reason getting into soccer. No, the World Cup. Soccer is a silly sport to me. I have a hard time getting into a game where people can run around for 90 minutes and end the game a 0-0 tie. Yet despite all that, I joined in the great American tradition of not caring about something until the US was doing quite well at it. Yet even after we lost, my interest remained. But the most interesting part to me, other than ESPN sound guys fighting vuvezelas, was Paul the Psychic Octopus, who perfectly predicted the last 8 games. Paul, who is a German octopus, received death threats after predicting Germany's loss to Spain. Yes, angry German soccer fans were calling for the head, or beak, or tenticles of a Precog Cephalopod. That imagery is funny enough by itself, but Paul was presented with a miniature World Cup Trophy. He's probably the most confused octopus in the world right now.

But on a serious note, is it real football season yet?

BluePrints Quickie: Travis Takes AppleT&T's Side!

So, since I tend to type a lot about a lot, I'm going to start covering some stories and try to be brief! And to break it in, I'll talk for as long as I can stand about how I'm on AT&T and Apple's side!

So, recently there was a class action lawsuit filed against Apple and AT&T, basically claiming that people who have ever bought an iPhone through AT&T signed a 2 year contract for the service, but were never informed that the iPhone was going to exclusively be offered by AT&T for 5 years, which causes customers to be essentially signed up for 3 additional years. That's the suit. Now, I'm all for Apple and AT&T paying for the awful business moves and products they both put out, but this is ridiculous! The lawsuit basically assumes that users will resign a contract for new versions, which they definitely aren't required to do. More importantly, once the contract is up, you are more than free to unlock it and move to another GSM carrier. It is ultimately no different than any of the other phones offered by AT&T.

This case is beyond illogical and insanely frivolous, but let's take a bit of humor from it. AT&T, THIS IS HOW MUCH PEOPLE HATE YOU! They are willing to take up a massive class action lawsuit that will most likely go on for far longer than the exclusivity itself will, all in order to say "Hey Apple, WTF are you still doing with them?" And sadly, I agree. Apple would be far better served breaking the exclusivity contract, because I guarantee the amount of money they'd make, even if they only went to T-Mobile would more than make up for however much AT&T sued them for. And that was a BluePrints Quickie!

Good Idea, Bad Idea - Emmy Nominations

Good Idea - Emmy Nominations

I figure since the nomination lists came out today, it would be a pretty good idea to do a post about them. The nominations this year are pretty good. Here's some of the ones that matter (I've also underlined the nominees I hope will win):

Outstanding Drama

"Breaking Bad"

"Dexter"

"The Good Wife"

"Lost"

"Mad Men"

"True Blood"

Outstanding Comedy

"30 Rock"

"Curb Your Enthusiasm"

"Glee"

"Modern Family"

"Nurse Jackie"

"The Office"

Outstanding Actor in a Drama

Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad")

Hugh Laurie ("House M.D.")

Jon Hamm ("Mad Men")

Kyle Chandler ("Friday Night Lights")

Matthew Fox ("Lost")

Michael C. Hall ("Dexter")

Outstanding Actress in a Drama

Connie Britton ("Friday Night Lights")

Glenn Close ("Damages")

January Jones ("Mad Men")

Julianna Margulies ("The Good Wife")

Mariska Hargitay ("Law & Order: Special Victims Unit")

Kyra Sedgwick ("The Closer")

Outstanding Actor in a Comedy

Alec Baldwin ("30 Rock")

Jim Parsons ("The Big Bang Theory")

Larry David ("Curb Your Enthusiasm")

Matthew Morrison ("Glee")

Steve Carell ("The Office")

Tony Shalhoub ("Monk")

Outstanding Actress in a Comedy

Amy Poehler ("Parks and Recreation")

Edie Falco ("Nurse Jackie")

Julia Louis-Dreyfus ("The New Adventures of Old Christine")

Lea Michele ("Glee")

Tina Fey ("30 Rock")

Toni Collette ("The United States of Tara")

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama

Aaron Paul ("Breaking Bad")

Andre Braugher ("Men of a Certain Age")

John Slattery ("Mad Men")

Martin Short ("Damages")

Michael Emerson ("Lost")

Terry O'Quinn ("Lost")

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama

Archie Panjabi ("The Good Wife")

Christine Baranski ("The Good Wife")

Christina Hendricks ("Mad Men")

Elisabeth Moss ("Mad Men")

Rose Byrne ("Damages")

Sharon Gless ("Burn Notice")

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy

Chris Colfer ("Glee")

Eric Stonestreet ("Modern Family")

Jesse Tyler Ferguson ("Modern Family")

Jon Cryer ("Two and a Half Men")

Neil Patrick Harris ("How I Met Your Mother")

Ty Burrell ("Modern Family")

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy

Holland Taylor ("Two and a Half Men")

Jane Krakowski ("30 Rock")

Jane Lynch ("Glee")

Julie Bowen ("Modern Family")

Kristen Wiig ("Saturday Night Live")

Sofia Vergara ("Modern Family")

Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series

"The Colbert Report"

"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart"

"Real Time With Bill Maher"

"Saturday Night Live"

"The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien"

A couple of quick comments on the nominations. In general, I think the comedy nominations are good. The Outstanding Actress nominations (including supporting) for drama series suck though. I really don't care at all about either of those categories. Why are none of the ladies from Dexter on there? None of the ladies from Lost, House, Bones, 24? (I'm still waiting for them to make a Worst Supporting Actress category so that Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe O'Brian from 24) can win her Emmy) On another topic, how awesome is it that while the Jay Lenno show is BOMBING every night, Conan got a nomination for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series? He only ran the show for 7 months, got fired in a humiliatingly public fashion, and then receives an Emmy nomination? I'm just wondering if the industry can find any MORE ways to point out how stupid NBC is. Finally, big props to Glee for receiving a total of 19 Emmy nominations. I really hope that they clean house, because they deserve it. If you aren't watching Glee, you're missing out big time. That show is absolutely awesome in all ways.

Bad Idea - Emmy Categories

The main categories that people care about are pretty interesting. The ones I listed above for example, people might care about. I can even see throwing in Best Director, Best Producer, and Best Writing, but after that, the categories get a little ridiculous and boring. For example, does anyone care which show wins Outstanding Art Direction for A Multi-Camera Series? How about for a Single Camera Series? More importantly, what does that even mean? I thought I understood that it meant they just used one camera or multiple cameras, but Lost, Glee, Heroes, Modern Family, and True Blood all count as single camera series. I don't believe for a second that Lost only uses one camera. And Heroes has been canceled and has sucked for 2 seasons, why is it nominated for ANYTHING?!?!

What's even weirder is that they nominate the show EPISODES, not the specific show or actor/actress. For example, in Outstanding Voice Over Performance, The Simpsons takes 3 of the 6 nominations (which I will agree is an awesome and funny show)(Seth Green for Robot Chicken and H. Jon Benjamin as Sterling Archer are the other two I care about). Why can't they nominate the voice actor/actress on their body of work, not just one episode?

Finally, why are award shows the only place that women don't care about sexism? Women seem fine with having separate categories for Outstanding Actress and Supporting Actress. What exactly are they trying to say? A woman could never beat a man in the same category, so we'll make another one. If we owned a store and had "Employee of the Month" and "Female Employee of the Month" we'd have feminists crawling all over our store and every female employee would be suing us. But the Academy and Emmy association are ok with this? Seems like their protests are only for when they're discriminated against, not when its in their favor. Not real fair, huh?

As seen on the interwebs...

Today's edition comes from Amazon.com where a reviewer gives his opinion over a a product. Seen here is the The Mountain Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tee and the review is done by B. Govern "Bee-Dot-Govern" of New Jersey, USA. He writes:

This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to 'howl at the moon' from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called mehth. I told them no, because they didn't have enough teeth, and frankly a man with a wolf-shirt shouldn't settle for the first thing that comes to him.

I arrived at Wal-mart, mounted my courtesy-scooter (walking is such a drag!) sitting side saddle so that my wolves would show. While I was browsing tube socks, I could hear aroused asthmatic breathing behind me. I turned around to see a slightly sweaty dream in sweatpants and flip-flops standing there. She told me she liked the wolves on my shirt, I told her I wanted to howl at her moon. She offered me a swig from her mountain dew, and I drove my scooter, with her shuffling along side out the door and into the rest of our lives. Thank you wolf shirt.

Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women
Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the 'guns'), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark.

And that was what amused me today on the interwebs!

Big AND Tall Is A Lie

So yesterday, my wife, a few friends of ours, and I went to go tubing down a creek. For those of you that don't know, this consists of sitting on an inner tube and floating down a creek (which is a small river). Its a great thing to do on a lazy day because all you have to do is lay back and your tube and drink. Very awesome.

Well, we get the the place and start blowing up the tubes, which even with a compressor takes a long time. As we get started, I have a difficult time getting into my tube. This is probably because I tried to do it in the middle of the creek with the current trying to pull the tube away, plus I had my floating cooler attached to my tube, which made the current pull stronger (and yes, I said floating cooler and it is AWESOME). I eventually got into the tube and quickly noticed that the water level was a little too low to be tubing down this creek. Every minute or so, a big rock would get thrust up your butt, which is painful, stops you from floating, and probably not very good for the tube. We got down about 60 yards or so, and I noticed my tube was leaking a little air, so I stopped and blew some air back into it. As soon as I sat in it again, I could feel the intake valve (the place where you blow the thing up) releasing air. I checked to make sure it was fully closed, and tried again. Same result.

Of the five tubes we took (all of them being the same brand and style) mine was the only one that had a problem. I broke a freaking inner tube because I'm so large!!! What's annoying to me is that I don't think I'm all that fat. For one thing, I'm tall. I'm about 6' 3". I agree I weigh a lot (265 pounds or so) but with my height, that isn't completely out of control. I can still walk on my own without a motorized cart thing. Don't need a crane to get me out of the house, and I can stand with other people on an elevator.

This is kinda the story of my life recently though. See, when I was in high school, I was 6' 2" and 130 pounds. I'll do the math for you, that makes me roughly the thickness of a toothpick. I'm serious though, I was REALLY skinny. It wasn't that I didn't eat, because I did. And a LOT. I just never put on any weight. Once I got out of high school though, my metabolism decided it was done. I put on about 100 pounds in a little over 2 years. That still doesn't sound healthy to me, but whatever. So I've gone from this dangerously skinny, Calista Flockhart looking little boy, to an overly large ogre style oaf.

Someone described it yesterday as "You don't realize how big he is until you try to put him into something." I feel that's a pretty good description. This was said because they have a few small cars. One of them is a Honda Civic that I can only sit in the front seat of, and only because there is a sun roof that can be opened to make room for my head. They also have a Toyota Prius that when I sit in makes me look like, well, this:

Actually, come to think of it, I pretty much always feel like kids movie monsters. Like whenever I'm anywhere, they ask me to get stuff that's up high, like this:

Needless to say, I was more than a little annoyed when the tube I was TRYING to ride in broke because I sat my big butt in it. But that is only the beginning of my embarrassing day. We ended up walking back up the creek to where the car was parked and had to go to Wal-Mart to find a tube that would work for me. The whole way there (an excruciating 16 miles) there were endless jokes about my size and weight. Including me going into a long rant about how hard it is for me to find clothes. I usually wear a 2 or 3 XL, not because I need it that wide, but because I need it that long. I have to buy extra tall dress shirts, which are difficult to find. But the biggest problem I have is finding pants. Most clothing stores don't carry tall or large sizes, so I've tried going to the Big and Tall store, only to be unbelievably irritated. The big and tall store assumes that you one or the other, not both. It really should be called the Big OR Tall store. All the pants I find are either the right width and too short, or the right length and way too skinny. I am forced to buy clothes that are 4 to 6 inches too large in the waist and 2 to 4 inches too short. Its really irritating.

So after lots of jokes about the shocks in the car not handling the weight, and me being large enough to put dents in the ground as I walk (most of them made by me to be fair), we get to Wal-Mart to find a tube made for a family. We get to the right isle (after returning the other tube because the nicer people in our group insisted it wasn't my fault, but a defective tube) we start looking around for a new tube that might be a little stronger. Being that its the middle of the summer, the selection was limited. We did find an inflatable kiddy pool that we thought would work pretty well (god, I really wish I was kidding), when someone decided to ask an employee what they might have. The employee directed us to an inflatable boat. A two person inflatable boat is the only thing they had that would support my weight. What's even more upsetting, is that this "two person" boat can support me and a toddler and we would hit the weight max on the thing. My pride all but gone for life, I finally agree to just float down in the boat. In all honesty, it will be more comfortable for me, as tubes leave 3/4 of my back and 3/4 of my legs just sticking out in the air, but still, I have to be in a boat to float down a river. We should have just rented a barge!

Well, that's my highly entertaining story (to everyone but me). To really fill out the stereotype (and because I'm more than a little upset now, and I eat when I'm upset) I'm going to KFC for a bucket of Double Downs.

Apple Really Doesn't Care About You and Thinks You're Stupid

Yeah. They don't. Recently, I watched a documentary called "MacHeads", which documented the community of Apple users from 1984 to 2007 (when it was filmed). Despite the blatant fanboy perspective that the documentary took, the film was interesting, showcasing the "culture" around Mac users and the fierce loyalty to the company, even when it basically died. What I found really interesting was the attitude of the MacHeads upon the resurgence of Apple with the iPod and iPhone lines. The hardcore Mac users loved the new desktop and laptop lines, but didn't like the others as much due to the complete lack of community. Previously, user groups had in person meet ups where they shared ideas and software, and it was something that Apple itself loved and even fostered. But what the MacHeads now see is a complete lack of association with the user groups. The change, which hasn't effected sales, did annoy many users.

Ultimately, what Apple users have failed to learn is what Molly Wood of CNET says best: "He doesn't love you back". And today, Apple has shown that they really don't have a big opinion of the intelligence of it's users. In response to the antenna issues of the iPhone 4, Apple released a statement. The statement says essentially that the issue is a software problem, one that causes the iPhone to erroneously display 2 more bars than it should show. And this problem goes back to the iPhone 3G. So you know those areas where you get 4 bars? It's probably only 2. Well fantastic, Steve, but what does that have to do with holding it in my left hand? The answer (and I quote):

Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don't know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

....WHAT? How dumb do you think people are? Unless this software also fixes the physical properties of the iPhone 4 or it changes the laws of electromagnetism, this doesn't actually fix the issue! You will still lose signal when you bridge the two antennae. All this fix does is stop lying about how much signal you don't have. It gets better:

We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

Oh, thanks. Now, instead of lying to users, you'll allow them to fool themselves into thinking their coverage is fine by making it look the few bars they have are better. You might as well make the color of the bars you do have darker. Or better yet, don't even bother displaying them, let users be completely in the dark.

But seriously, what the hell is Apple thinking here? How dumb do you think people are? The obvious joke here is "Very, I mean people buy Apple products in the first place". But being completely serious, I truly can't tell what the angle here is. When you add this press release to the leaked customer service memo that said that they won't be issuing free bumpers (which completely circumvent the issue and cost $1 max to make) to disgruntled customers. Previously, I've heard that Apple users love how good their customer service has been, but I just can't see it now. It all comes back to what I've said many times. Apple is making the exact same mistakes it made 10 years ago, mistakes that led them to being all but irrelevant.

Wireless Wednesday: Samsung Goes Wild, A Death in the Family, and the Definition of iNsanity

Long title, I know. Whatever. You know what this is!



So Samsung has unveiled a total of 5 new high-end Android devices in the last week. They are coming out with the Galaxy S series of phones on every major US carrier, and a little rural one. AT&T is getting the Captivate, T-Mobile's is the Vibrant, Sprint's is a little different with the Epic 4G, Verizon has the Fascinate, and the little carrier that could (for now) US Cellular is getting an otherwise unnamed Galaxy S. Specwise, the phones are mostly identical. All are 4" SUPER AMOLED screens (I'm not excited about them, they're really all caps), have a 1GHz "Hummingbird" processor, 5mp cameras with 720p video recording, and run Android 2.1 for now, but Froyo has been promised. Sprint's model is the only one that features a slide out QWERTY keyboard, 4G capability, and of course the front-facing VGA camera. The T-Mobile rendition will ship with The Sims 3 and James Cameron's Avatar, and it's the only model with a release date and price (July 15th for $200 with a contract). As a bit on insider info (see my post on Corporate Social Media Policies), I can tell you that RadioShacks, and I hear Best Buys, won't be replenished on the HTC Hero starting some time next month, so we will probably see the Epic hit Sprint very soon.



Next up, let's have a brief moment of silence for Microsoft's Kin. We done? The Kins, which launched in May, saw very little success. Like really nobody bought one. I have yet to see one in the wild, and strangely, earlier today was the first time anyone asked me about it by name. About an hour ago, Microsoft announced that it would no longer be focusing on the project, and the majority of its resources would be reallocated to the upcoming Windows Phone 7 OS, which ships later this year. So what did we learn? Either that kids aren't stupid, and if they're going to get a phone with internet, they want a true smartphone (or an iPhone), OR parents just don't want to get their kids $30 data plans. Either way, I'm sure you will be missed, Kin, by someone out there. Somewhere.



And finally, yes, more iPhone stuff. In addition to all the prelaunch issues, and the AT&T issues, and the whole being biased against left handed users, more rumors are surfacing about the possibility (or inevitability) of an iPhone on Verizon. Now, I've gotta tell you, I am so damn sick of these rumors, and it's not because I don't like the iPhone. I'm just so sick of hearing about it's possible migration to ANY other carrier. Someone is always quoting "people familiar with the plan", or some guy has some friend who has an uncle who cuts the lawn of the guy who saw an Apple employee walk past a Verizon store. It's to the point that yesterday, Bloomberg posted an article saying that 2 "people who are familiar with the plan" are saying that the mystical CDMA iPhone will launch in January. Ignoring how far journalism is willing to stoop to create buzz, anyone who seriously believes this is an idiot! Since 2008 we've heard these same exact rumors. And 100% of the time they've been wrong! Who could possibly not have learned from the past 800 times this came about? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Which is why I was texted this, along with the rest of my district, from my boss, who's boss heard it on a LOCAL FOX STATION. Yep. I wish I was making this up. Hopefully I'll see you next Wednesday, if I don't die from over-exposure to idiocy.

The Virtues of Being Stupid

So the other day, Cailin and I were waiting in the blazing heat for some yummy breakfast (Big ups to First Watch. Place is baller), which made us a little cranky. And when we get cranky, we start judging people. And that's when a small gaggle of stereotypically ditzy girls walk up and marvel at the line (it's a Sunday morning breakfast place, how is it this shocking?) in voices that could only be described as a bad mash-up of 80s Valley Girl mixed with the dead-pan sadness of the Hills cast. In other words, it was a sound worse than nails on a chalkboard, because I can't understand the stupidity of nails on a chalkboard. But it made me ponder upon a single, life-changing question: "How would life be if I was stupid?" And before the jokes fly in, "...any MORE stupid?" Better?

My answer came very quickly at evaluating it: Life would be much easier. Seriously, life would be a much simpler and more gratifying experience if I was a moron. And it would be a hell of a lot more fun. If I had a low IQ (not that I know what my IQ is anyway), I'd be in a constant state of wonder at the world. When you look at the world and how predictable most people in it are, it's kinda depressing. With seemingly limitless possibilities, people tend to continue to do the same thing over and over, which is the definition of insanity. That's right, I'm claiming that most of the world is insane. But if I didn't have the capacity to realize this flaw, and couldn't predict what people would do or say in given situation, I wouldn't be so bummed that these numbskulls never learned.

Some might say that being stupid would take away all foresight, which could very easily lead to unfavorable circumstances, and they are totally right. But I wouldn't know that my bad decisions would lead to overall unhappiness. So I would completely enjoy myself in the meantime. And since I would be oblivious to the fact that it was my fault, I could participate in one of America's favorite pastimes: Blaming everyone else when it's totally your fault. Seriously, the fact that I know I'm the cause of my situation can be good, but can also really suck. Sure, when life is good, I can have a sense of pride, but it would be so nice to blame people when things suck. Lost my job because I didn't show up enough? Nope, those jerks kept scheduling me during my Wii time (no dirty jokes)!

So yes, life would be much simpler and happier in the short run, but I (unfortunately) know I can't just become blonde, and ultimately, I like being a fairly intelligent individual. And I don't know what I'd do while waiting in long lines if I weren't smart enough to judge and life at other people. Maybe I'd just play with my iPhone...

Hello my name is...

Hi everyone! I’m writing this to introduce myself to all of you. I’m JK and I’m BluePrints Blog’s advice columnist.

Here’s some stuff you probably don’t want to know about me…

I have an intense love for reading and don’t get to do it as often as I’d like to, which ideally would be for a few hours a day.

I have a bad Tetris habit. I mean, it hasn’t dried up all my money, alienated my friends and family and put me out on the street yet, but it does have a way of turning 5 minutes into an hour extraordinarily quickly.

I eat way more cheese than is good for my body but just enough to be excellent for my soul.

I have a strong desire to be picked for jury duty. There is just something about performing my civic duty that speaks to me. (You can picture an American flag waving gently in the background. I’m not suggesting that you should as that would be a bit melodramatic but if you wanted to that would be an appropriate image.)

I really enjoy helping people and I have a habit of seeing people’s potential and trying to bring out the best in them. I always do my best to do the right thing and I like helping others try to do the same. It’s not always easy but it makes the world a nicer place to live.

Oh, and Coke is better than Pepsi. That’s right. I said it.

So, here’s how this works: the only way I can offer advice is if you submit questions. There are no limits on the kinds of questions you submit, if you’ve got a question or something you need advice about, you can send it here and I’ll offer you an answer. Questions can be sent in anonymously if you wish, they can be serious, funny, complicated, simple, as long as they’re in a language I can read, I’ll do my best to give you an excellent answer.

I’m really looking to the current BluePrints Bloggers to get the ball rolling here and submit some questions of their own. I think it will offer you guys some insight into both them and me and let’s be honest here, after reading some of their posts, it’s painfully obvious to me that they need my help. : P

That’s the gist of it. I’m looking forward to hearing from you all and I’m very excited to be joining the BluePrints team.

Good Idea, Bad Idea - Kids' Songs

Good Idea - Educational Kids' Songs

This week Amanda (my wife) and I have been babysitting her little cousins. They are 5 and 7 and really not all that important to the story (if for no other reason than that only her parents would care if I sit here and tell you how cute they are). Suffice to say, we've had fun with them.

While driving different places with them, we have the kids' channel on for them to listen to, and I've noticed something. All the songs they have are educational in some way.  I don't remember it being that way when I was a kid. Like this is a great song from my childhood that I still remember today (watch the video, its worth it):

HAHAHAHA!!! You're gonna have that stuck in your head for a week now!!! But really, what did that song teach us? Other than gibberish and that Bram really can't play the circa 1822 tuba, nothing. What lessons can we learn from Itsy-Bitsy Spider? 1) Rain will make spiders fall. 2) The sun makes water go away (though no explanation of how) and 3) Spiders are really stupid.

So its probably a good thing that the songs these kids hear are educational. For example, we heard an entire song on the water cycle. It talks about water evaporating and becoming clouds, then the clouds bringing down rain, then starting over. Certainly a more useful thing to remember than Skidamarink.

Bad Idea - Non-Educational Kids' Songs

The problem with making educational kids' songs so prevalent is that it starts to become the norm. So when you're listening to the kids' channel and the song "Don't Play With Bruno" comes on (which is the entire reason for the topic of this post) it makes you think twice. First, because the song is absolutely ridiculous, and second because it teaches the wrong lessons.

At the end, you will find the MP3 of this song to listen to, but first, I want to give you a brief synopsis of the song. Two girls are sitting on a swing whispering to each other, and up comes Bruno. As they see him approach, the following conversation occurs (also the chorus for the song):

Sue: Don't play with Bruno. Bruno is a dweeb.
Shirley: A dweeb, what's a dweeb?
Sue: Oh you know... like Bruno.
Shirley: Shhh here he comes.

Then Bruno approaches, and in what can only be described as the voice of a retarded Seasame Street character, says "Hey girls, I'm digging a hole, want to help?" to which they of course reply, no. So he starts to dig his hole alone.

Then approach Mike and Mike on a red bike and another red bike, who see Bruno's hole (which is now 3 feet deep) and want to join Bruno. Shirley and Sue quickly repeat their chorus in unison, informing the boys of Bruno's dweeb status, and that they shouldn't play with him. Bruno then informs the group in his retard voice that he found a horseshoe. Mike and Mike reply in a very sarcastic manner "A horseshoe? Neat. Bye." They go over to the hole to look at the horseshoe and Shirley and Sue are left alone.

The next verse is more of the same. Baby Gail shows up with a shovel and pail, Shirley and Sue tell her to stay away from the contagiously dweeby Bruno, Bruno finds a tractor, Baby Gail goes to look at it. The next verse is where the song really takes a turn for the worse. A jeep pulls up and a man CLAIMING to be a doctor from a museum is looking for Bruno. The girls quickly tell the stranger that Bruno is a dweeb, but he's in a deep hole where no one will see the adult stranger and the child. The stranger then runs over to the hole and a short time later, Bruno exclaims "I found a lost 'city'!" Apparently, Shirley and Sue have a thing for lost cities, because they realize they want to see the city and go join Bruno.

So the things I learned from this song are all bad. Here they are in a nicely organized list:

1.  Don't play with people that are different.
2. Spreading gossip is the way to go!
3. Its completely acceptable to dig giant holes next to your mom's bushes.
4. Allow babies to go play in deep holes unsupervised.
5. When strangers pull up in cars, inform them where they can find groups of unsupervised children to play with.

None of those are really lessons that we should be teaching children. Now, this may all seem a little strange to you, so I encourage you to listen to this song:



Really...you just can't make this stuff up, you know? Awesome.

Well, that's another Good Idea, Bad Idea. Till next time, nice gravy to you all!

Wireless Wednesday: Not All About iPhone!

Hey BluePrints, it's been a while since we've had a legit Wireless Wednesday, so let's get back into the swing of things!

First off, the iPhone 4 does launch tomorrow. And hopefully launch day will be less catastrophic as every other part of this launch has been. The day preordering started, AT&T servers crashed, leaving hopeful buyers to just wait, or try valiantly to get through to the ordering screen. In store preorders were done on good old paper, and those who did get through later received emails saying they had been cancelled without a real explanation. AT&T's response: It was because of the hug demand. Well no kidding. It's not like this should have been a shock. iPhones have always sold a ton at launch. Or did you suddenly forget all those current owners that are currently raping your network? Oh, and that new shiny white iPhone? Don't hold your breath, since they won't be available until mid to late July. Why? Apple's official answer:

White models of Apple's new iPhone® 4 have proven more challenging to manufacture than expected, and as a result they will not be available until the second half of July. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.



Really? You've introduced new colors to your existing products before, and you'd think green, orange, purple, etc. would be more challenging than white. And speaking of white things, Best Buy announced that they will start carrying a white HTC EVO on Sprint starting July 11. It'll still be $200 with a contract.



Now let's end on a high note. The big news of today is the announcement of the Motorola Droid X. Think of it as the Verizon EVO, rocking a 4.3" touchscreen, 8mp camera with 720p video recording, 1GHz processor, Android 2.1 (running a new, less kiddy version of MotoBlur), HDMI out slot. It lacks the front-facing camera for video conferencing, but instead it has 8GB of internal storage, which means the Droid X can have a total of 40GB of memory, when added to the microSD card slot. It also comes preinstalled with Swype, the awesome gesture-based typing app. Unfortunately, despite the Adobe CEO's presence at the unveiling, the Droid X won't launch with Android 2.2 or Flash 10.1. Verizon did tell us that Froyo will launch later this summer, hopefully not too long after the July 15 release date. You can pick this bad boy up for $200 on contract. The good part: It also will have WiFi tethering. The bad news: You only get 2GB of tethering, despite the unlimited non-tethering data. Bad move Verizon. Don't be like AT&T.