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Hi all, I recently got a bounced check fee from Comcast. They claim when I was using their online bill payment system, that I must have put in my bank account number wrong - which is odd since I’ve used this exact system several times before correctly without any problems. It’s a bad system. Imagine if you got charged $25 for everytime you filled a credit card number field incorrectly on an online checkout form… Well it made me upset enough to write a snail mail letter to the Comcastopoly. (more…)

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Well I promised I’d write more about the foods I encountered on my trip to Hawaii. However I had to wait until I got a flickr account, cropped my photos, uploaded them, upgraded to WP 1.5, and migrated to the new hosting service. Phew well that’s all done and so here it is a first in a series of posts of what I ate. This is sushi with nato beans. Nato is some Japanese fermented bean. It’s about as appetizing as it looks. Imagine opening a can of pigeon peas and sticking them in a tupperware container in your fridge for three months. That’s what it smells and tastes luck yum… One of the worst things I ever ate. And yes I did eat it all.

Hi folks things look a bit different, or rather things look like a default wordpress site. Over the weekend I migrated to a different hosting service and also migrated to WordPress 1.5 - which was long overdue. Thanks LF for making the move possible. I will try to get a new theme up in a few days.

Here’s my list of people who should just stop. Your time is done, please stop tormenting us

• Tom Cruise. No one thinks you’re cool anymore. If it helps at all, I never thought you were cool. You’ve conquered time, Japan, multiple wars, dangerous women, dangerous men, and even NASCAR. There’s nothing left, so please stop.
• U2. I honestly can’t tell the difference between the last three albums. How do you guys keep on churning out more stuff. Why don’t you just record a whole bunch garage band clips and release them to the public. That way if we ever feel like a new U2 album we’ll just shuffle the samples into new songs. I love Bono’s work as a diplomat, an advocate for debt relief, and stopping AIDS in Africa. I think U2 should disband and reform as an NGO.
• 24 Hour News Networks. I mean all of them. Fox, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN2. Basically all you do is show the same clips over and over and give a blow by blow running commentary on what you see. “We can see Michael Jackson leaving the courtroom. He’s wearing white pajama bottoms, no wait I think they’re taupe.” It’s really not better than watching MST3K, and at least that show was funny. There’s no analysis, no meaningful investigation, just talking heads arguing with each other all day.
• Saturday Night Live. The sad thing is there’s a whole generation out there that will never know that SNL was once funny. Let the funny reruns live in syndication, and let’s forget the last 3 years ever happened.
• Rubber Bracelets that show how awesome you are. Let’s face it, the majority of LiveStrong bracelet wearers probably couldn’t care less about cancer research. They’re just wearing them because they’re cool and all their friends are wearing them. The popularity has actually dilluted the meaning. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for the LiveStrong Foundation, but just like the “Support Our Troops” car magnets. It’s sort of a meaningless token without any action or sacrifice to back it up.

So I was at a friend’s party the other week and we got on the topic of iPods somehow. Everyone was gushing about how much they love their iPods etc. which is to be expected, but one girl told me about a problem she had with her shuffle. Apparently when Apple gave her the instructions they neglected a key step. Subsequently she was unable to get her shuffle to sync with her PC. She called Apple once (you get one free call with Applecare), the tech said, ” oh.. yeah you’re instructions are wrong, i’ll email you new ones.” The instructions never came. So she called again and they said, “Your one free call is up, we’re gonna have to charge you.” All she wanted was the instructions that were already due to her… This kind of thing would make me boycott a company forever. I’ve done it for lesser infractions, but for some reason people just love Apple regardless of what they do.

I must admit, I’m an Apple apologist too and I don’t know why. The company hasn’t been good to me in anyway. They totally botched up my refurbished iBook, and I had to pull teeth and drive 75 minutes to convince someone to fix it. OSX isn’t that perfect, but yet I’ll get into fisticuffs with anyone who says differently. I’m ready to riot if Microsoft/Intel ever puts Palladium into my PC, but I don’t mind Apple’s Itunes DRM at all.

Other brands inspire this undeserved loyalty and it makes no sense. In my mind VW is like that. Their cars are overpriced, overengineered, averagely reliable, and expensive to maintain. Yet people will swear by VW, even though Hyundai out does them in almost every way. There are a lot of companies that abuse or never reward their customers’ loyalties, but for whatever reasons, they never lose it. Any thoughts on what the secret is to abuse your customers and make them love you?

I think most adults put on a few pounds during winter. You’re inside more often and your metabolism slows down a bit. Unfortunately I’ve been noticing that the winter weight I put on, I haven’t been losing in the Spring. It’s easy why many people wake up in their 40’s realizing they’re about 20 lbs. heavier than what they were in college. As a result I’m trying to pick up a winter activity to help me stop the slow progressive adipose gain. I’ve never cared for treadmills, stationary bikes, etc. Frankly they’re just too boring. So this winter I’m experimenting with Olympic weightlifting. The kind you see on TV where some impossibly small guy/gal suddenly throws three times their body weight over their head. I’ve always been bored with weightlifting, but Olympic style is very challenging and fun. It requires power, flexibility, and balance. So far I’m just starting out by building a base with the front squat, back squat, and deadlift. Eventually I want to move to power clean and possibly the squat clean. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do the competition lifts: the snatch and the clean and jerk. I’d love to actually train with someone who knows what they’re doing. Anyone know any Olympic lifting coaches in South Central PA?