I got my cell phone number a long time ago in Saginaw, and for all time I've gotten some random strange phone calls from people in Saginaw. Last night, I got a text message from a stranger that I think is pretty representative. Except for that time I got the voicemail about somebody wanting a crossbow license, that was a little different.
Well if there was any doubt, I'm putting money on all the Circuit Cities closing any time now. I was just there doing some last minute shopping, and there's no lines anywhere. Meanwhile, there are about 30 people in front of me at Best Buy.
How about that extended warranty now, Circuit City? Not so much. It's too bad too, I really liked the place. They had a different vibe than Best Buy, and I always thought their TV selection was better. Then again, no Reward Zone, so they definitely didn't get the majority of my electronics business. Adiós my friend, it won't be long until Meijer is the only store standing....
I just want to say, how about that snow? At the start of the winter, I heard about this "road salt shortage" going on. Apparently, somehow, there's been a shortage of salt. Salt. Honestly? How did this happen? It's salt for crying out loud. We have the technology for UPS to know when I'm swearing at their automated voicemail system over the phone, but we don't have salt to put on the roads. Really?!?
Anyway, I didn't think much of it at the time. But perhaps I should have. All winter, the roads have been worse than normal for whatever reason. I had attributed it to the salt shortage - was surprised that I would notice such a thing. However, after today, I might be reconsidering my theory. I think the Lansing road crews are just punting on the whole winter snow plowing season. I'm not sure what they are doing, but they sure aren't plowing the roads. I can't even say they are watching the Lions, because the Lions aren't even on TV.
I saw a Comcast truck get stuck in the road today. Normally I would feel bad, but it's Comcast, so I really don't care. A Comcast truck is not small. It's a full-size pickup with a ladder on the back as well as cables and any number of other things that they use to stick it to the little guy. Stuck, on my street. Awesome.
I went to Meijer this evening, and it was bedlam. It hasn't even hardly snowed today, but somehow there's snow everywhere. I have no idea how many lanes some of these streets are, much less which one I'm in. I did a pretty sweet power slide making a left turn at one of the intersections, which would have been even better had there not been a number of cars that I slid around, and was briefly pointed directly at. Normally I'd expect the roads to be better tomorrow - however, given this winter so far who knows, maybe the plows are actually off dumping more snow on the roads. What is happening Lansing, seriously.
Yesterday (Saturday) Jeremy started moving his stuff out of the house. It's only two weeks until his wedding, at which time he'll be moving the rest of his stuff out. So that means there's all kinds of stuff to consider in the house...Foco took his TV and his table, so there's a pretty gaping void in the kitchen/living room area. Most of his stuff from the basement is gone too.
So that's got me thinking about the house, and all the little things that need to be attended to - fixed, cleaned, removed, moved, etc. Including thinking about where things are going to end up after Pete & Brandon move in, especially considering there will be another person. All the stuff from the Man Room has got to go in the basement, eventually, and the basement is going to be a lot more used in a three-person setup than it is currently (which is not at all, essentially). In the house, there are many (many) things that need to be fixed, and one of which is a light in the basement. Somehow in the past, a ceiling light had fallen and wasn't ever repaired. It's right in the area where the TV will likely go, so with three people it suddenly becomes lots more important.
Today I managed to put the light back up without electrocuting myself OR burning the house down (yet anyway)! The only casualty was the ceiling tile immediately surrounding the light...it is no longer with the company, if you know what I mean. Whoever decided these tongue-and-groove tiles were a good idea, I'd like to have a talk with them. I have basically zero knowledge of these sort of household things, but I'm pretty confident in saying they suck. So how do you remove and put back in a tile in the middle of the ceiling? Apparently you use some kind of glue, and hope you never have to do it again (defeating the point of the tongue-and-groove). Whatever.
Another thing in the house that needed to be fixed was the dishwasher. You know the little door that pops open, releasing the soap? Well that door never popped open. I'm not sure at what point in the past it broke, but it was definitely before I moved in. Therefore, the dishwasher really sucked.
I did a little research and tore open the front of the dishwasher and found out how this thing worked. Apparently there's what's called a "bi-metal switch" - it's a little piece of metal that holds in a piece of plastic on a spring. Current is run through the metal, which gets it hot, and makes it bend. As it bends, it releases the plastic, which is pulled by the spring, and opens the detergent door.
Who the heck thinks of that? Would it not seriously be easier to put a motor in there and just open the stupid door? Was somebody trying to come up with the most ridiculous way to move a lever in the history of mankind? I don't get it. Anyway. I bent the metal so it had less far to move, and so far (2 or 3 cycles later) it's been doing good. The dishes are, in my opinion, way cleaner.
It's the little things that make life so much better....
No major topic today, just a good ol' bulleted list.
At work on Friday I gave a presentation to a bunch of programmers on usability/interface design. It was actually at the A-O sponsored Java Users Group. It was a little strange because it had nothing to do with programming, and in a more perfect world, none of the people that were there should ever have to know any of that stuff. It seemed to go over well; lots of people told me they enjoyed it. Hopefully someone (management) will get the hint that we should have some people that do interface design stuff full-time (we don't currently have anybody even remotely like a "designer"). But they probably won't.
Today I built a box for macro photography following instructions here. I want to sell a few things on eBay, and so my excuse was I needed to take pictures of them and thus should build one of these. I haven't tried it out extensively, but I think it turned out good. It looks like the picture.
I attempted to do this Instructable to build a remote shutter release for my camera, but I didn't have great success. Whenever I plugged it in, it took pictures continuously, which is no good. I gave up on that project, not a big deal I suppose, although it's hard to admit defeat sometimes...
I hacked the firmware on my little Canon digital camera yesterday (CHDK website). Mostly this means I finally can have actual manual controls on my camera, which I'm excited about. It also means I can play Sudoku and Reversi on my camera, which is pretty ridiculous.
This week I also succeeded in hacking my Wii so I can play burned games now. It was a multi-step process, but it was all in software so there's no permanent modifications. In case you're wondering, there are three steps:
So that's pretty exciting. I have a whole bunch of games now, and probably won't actually play them, but I have them!
Molly and I went to the Red Wings/Flames game this past Wednesday. We also drove around on Belle Isle, which is an island park in the Detroit River, just north of downtown. It's actually the largest island park in the US. Who knew? There wasn't a lot going on, but it was kinda cool anyway. Probably would be sweeter in the summertime....maybe. The Red Wings won too, and I got an awesome championship ring replica (for free). Good times.
Today I paid my last respects to two dear friends. Two of my top five brick-and-mortar stores - Steve & Barry's and Value City - are both going out of business.
I had heard that most Steve & Barry's were going under a couple of months ago, though I was relieved to hear that the Lansing store had been spared. Unfortunately, that was only temporary, as recently the "liquidation sale" has turned into "going out of business sale" here too. I remember the first time I saw a S&B, it was in Ann Arbor, on a visit to Ben and Toth's dorm. It was like the promised land...everything in the store, under $8. I didn't buy anything that day, but the next time I was there, I bought not just one, but TWO fake leather jackets. For under 20 bucks. The prices rose, and eventually they branched out into non-college clothes, but it was always a killer deal. Today I was looking at dress pants in Kohl's, half off they were still $35. Are you kidding me?!?
I was talking to Eric over Thanksgiving, and he made me realize that pretty much all of my clothes shopping over the last couple of years has been restricted exclusively to S&B. Ever since they started carrying dress pants, there really was no reason to go anywhere else. All the shirts, jeans, and dress pants that I wear are all from S&B. Unfortunately they didn't sell short sleeved dress shirts (although nobody does, which is another story), so that's the only part of my wardrobe that isn't from there.
Even for the last time I went and played paintball, I stopped in to pick up a jacket, pants, hat, and gloves. I had a whole new outfit. Tonight I picked up a whole bunch of the wooden hangars that they have, they were 5 for a dollar, which is a pretty good deal if you ask me.
When I heard on Thanksgiving that Value City was going out of business, it caught me a little more by surprise - I had no idea. Value City was one of those stores that I never bought a ton of stuff from, but it was always awesome to go visit. I did buy some cheap dress clothes from there, which was pretty sweet, and I think a couple pairs of shoes. They had such random stuff. A lot of it was pretty crappy, but you never know what you might find. Like they always sold that stand up arcade cabinet that was made out of the lightest wood known to man, and was way overpriced? I mean who else has that? Nobody.
So today when I went in there, it was apparent that I had missed the boat on good deals. Lots of fixtures for sale. They did have some dress shirts that I was excited about, until I saw there were about 40 of the same color in the same size (which was the wrong size, naturally). And I noticed that the shirts that are size 18 neck have "BIG" printed on the tag - is that really necessary? I mean, if you have a 18 inch neck, you probably know you're a big dude. You don't need the tag to tell you. It's not like you look for "BIG" on the tag before reading the number either. Strange.
But anyway. It's a sad day. A moment of silence, please.
I just want to say, how about that snow? At the start of the winter, I heard about this "road salt shortage" going on. Apparently, somehow, there's been a shortage of salt. Salt. Honestly? How did this happen? It's salt for crying out loud. We have the technology for UPS to know when I'm swearing at their automated voicemail system over the phone, but we don't have salt to put on the roads. Really?!?
Today I built a box for macro photography following instructions here. I want to sell a few things on eBay, and so my excuse was I needed to take pictures of them and thus should build one of these. I haven't tried it out extensively, but I think it turned out good. It looks like the picture.
