Archive for the ‘personal’ Category

Off to North Bridge and Mighty Subs…

Posted: August 28, 2009 by datechguy in personal
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…for the last full day that My kids and my wife have before they all head back to school or start college.

We try to picnic at North Bridge in Concord at least once a year. It is a wonderful and historic spot for picnicking and I recommend it highly to everyone.

Therefore blogging will abruptly stop for the day in an hour or two. I don’t do remote blogging often. I don’t have enough of a life to begin with (:c).

Oh and speaking of Mighty Subs and their 20″ subs if you don’t take my word about how awesome it is check out this blog. These guys decided to do the ENTIRE mighty subs menu and blog and review it each item.

The Chicken Cutlet is wonderful, only Linguine’s chicken cutlet in Marlborough can compare to it.

Of course if I can’t get you to go peacefully…

Living and Dying on the Amazon Vine

Posted: August 27, 2009 by datechguy in amazon reviews, oddities, personal
Tags: ,

The new general Amazon Vine newsletter went up today. Shopping on it is very much like being at a mall at midnight on the Friday following Thanksgiving trying to get one of the 10 $100 laptops offered.

Basically the program works like this, based on the interests you give when you sign up, you are given a personalized list of about 10 items that you can select. About a week later everything goes on a general list and then you get a crack at it.

Last month my vine e-mail was classified as “junk mail” so I was the last of everyone to see things so I was determined this month to be ready. I checked the date on the e-mail that was junked and determined when to expect the new e-mail. I’d be ready this time…

Of course to my surprise the e-mail showed up a few days earlier than the previous month. When I saw it it had been in my inbox for 30 minutes which was long enough for both the software and the earphones (which I really could use) to be gone. Nothing else rang my chimes so I noted that the new e-mail was due today and was determined to be ready when the time came.

So This morning when I finished my errands I logged into the Amazon Vine site and kept refreshing the window every now and then.

By 2 p.m. I was refreshing every few minutes but as the 3 o’clock came I found myself distracted by the news of the day. When I finally turned my eye back to Amazon…the Newsletter was up and the race was on!

The newsletter couldn’t have been up 10 minutes but by the time I got there every electronic device and accessory was gone.

Then it came time to look at the books, My primary interest is history and I found something that looked pretty good but there was only two copies left, I clicked as fast as I could to request it but by the time I got to the confirmation page they were gone.

Deciding I wasn’t taking any chances rather than try to look through everything the moment I saw something of interest I started to click through. It was high on my priority but I was taking no chances. I clicked through and got it!

Now feeling like I wasn’t totally shut out I continued through the list and found a book on a historical event I never heard of. I read the description and it was interesting but since it didn’t have the “only x left” warning I left it open in a new tab and kept checking. I saw one or two items of interest but decided that the first one was the one I wanted. BIG mistake. By the time I went back to the tab and started the request they were down to two. By the time I finished I was too late.

Feeling resigned I checked out the list and found 4 items that seemed pretty good, three histories and one technical book. The technical book was interesting but was something I knew pretty well. One history seemed interesting but as it was written by a reporter from the New York Times guilt by association moved it back in the line.

I was down to two volumes, one on a legendary sports figure of some note and another on ethnic families and their struggles. It was a tough call but I decided to go for the book on the sports figure.

All of this took place within 30 minutes of the items showing up on the vine list. One hour later the offical e-mail listing the vine items showed up in my inbox.

But that’s ok I have to interesting items on the way and I didn’t have to worry about being trampled. Life is still good. Once I’m done the books you’ll see links to the reviews here.

The best news I’ve heard in a while…

Posted: August 26, 2009 by datechguy in personal
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…it turns out my son will NOT need surgery so today’s operation has been canceled.

He will still need a couple more months for the scaphoid bone in his hand to heal but barring disaster it looks like smooth sailing and a lesson well learned.

And for any of you who thought because I was a Massachusetts conservative and thought I was talking about something else. Shame on you!

A lot of random thoughts this morning so lets go through them Impromptus style:

You know I remember back in 92 when I was still a democrat and Paul Tsongas was running in the primaries against Bill Clinton. Tsongas was one of the most honest pols to ever come down the pike. I saw Clinton for what he was right off and couldn’t believe that people couldn’t see what was in front of their faces. After that primary I became an independent (or as it is called in Massachusetts “unenrolled”).

How many new “unenrolled” people are we going to see over the next year thanks to the actions of this president?

What is really amazing is how this is a communications phenom. The rise and resurgence of the Republicans begining with Reagan and continuing with Sarah Palin can all be traced to the new ability of the right to communicate. Twenty Years ago Came Rush Limbaugh, Then came Fox News, then came the internet, and now Sarah Palin defeated all of the major media using Facebook. All of these things are revolutions in communication, allowing like minded people to see they are not alone. It’s like an Army of Davids or something.

Back when I was blogging for Hiwired I interviewed Glenn Reynolds for our podcast about his Army of Davids book. It came up that the technology also empowered the crazy uncles as much as it did anyone else.

Oh and a quick plug for Zolex PC for virus removal. It’s run by a friend of mine and he does first rate work.

When I look at the MSM and their actions I end of thinking Peter Seitz and his famous quote a year after his ruling that created free agency in baseball:

“They were like the French barons of the 12th century,” he said. “They had accumulated so much power that they wouldn’t share it with anybody.”

BTW one of the things I noticed as a person who was on the net since the mid 90’s is that Rush was really ahead of the curve when it came to the net. I would see something on Drudge, Rush would then talk about it and it would drive further traffic to Drudge. I’ve never seen such an effective symbiotic relationship in media. Drudge should send Rush a thank you card every time he visits his accountant.

Speaking of facebook I still haven’t signed up, I’m going to resist the Facebook, myspace business for as long as it is humanly possible.

Yesterday my wife was on facebook and saw a rather interesting picture of an acquaintance of hers. Seems that this acquaintance and her friend had a picture taken of them at a concert posing next to a giant inflatable penis. The acquaintance’s friend flagged it with her name, and my wife saw it. If my wife can find it then her acquaintance’s boss can too. I guess technology does empower stupidity.

On that note my son just purchased an Apple laptop for college, it contains a built in web cam and he talks quite a bit with his friends on it. Let’s hope I don’t see him next to a giant sexual organ on the web anytime soon.

Speaking of Penis’ on the web in the 90’s we had the first president who was elected despite having admitted marijuana use in his younger days. Today we have the first president who admitted Cocaine use in his youth. Considering the number of paid web porn sites how many years do you think it will be before we have the first president or candidate who had a subscription to Hustler online or Abby Winters or something. After all these are all paid by credit cards and the records are kept somewhere. And once it is revealed we will find out exactly what kind of porn the president liked. Talk about too much information.

The web never forgets.

One final note on the subject. The final count for that day comparing the Sarah Palin post and the porn Parody post was a 22 x advantage for the Palin post in traffic. Of course if there was actual porn IN the post it might have been closer.

On a 180 degree turn the Madonna della Cava celebration was a big success, the heat was nasty but there was a large attendance, mass was packed, the food went over very well and even the band went home totally stuffed. Next year we hope to be even bigger.

We sold CD’s of the previous year’s procession and they sold briskly. I’m hoping that we will have some Marian Books such as St. Louis De Montfert’s True Devotion to Mary and The Secret of Mary available as well.

After all the primary purpose of Mary is to keep people from burning by leading them to her son. All the good food and good times in the world won’t do it without the prayer to back it up.

Turns out the brother of the organizer of the procession is my friend Vinny who works in Washington on ethics issues. I mentioned Rahm’s tax free home to him. Since it is legal I don’t seem much other than embarrassment coming from the story, assuming it ever gets reported.

It is more likely to come out then the Mohammad cartoons will show up in that Yale Book

Image copywright Jyllands-Posten

Images copyright the respective artists

Could you imagine the outcry if it they were refusing to print a picture of Piss Christ?

I guess that blows my chances of ever getting a grant from Saudi Arabia.

Oh and I’ve stopped putting up the Carter Arthur Watch. I think this administration has reached the point where comparing Obama to Carter is an insult to Carter. That’s pretty bad.

One more Carter thing. I noted in my review of Spys in the Vatican that Zbigniew Brzezinski didn’t bother with realism when it came to Poland and the soviets and was willing to displease the state department to protect Solidarity. I wonder if that was an aberration for him or did he change over the years?

I haven’t been watching or liveblogging Morning Joe either. They are still the fairest people on MSNBC (not a high standard to reach) but I just can’t put up with the anti-palin stuff anymore. I’ll still catch it on occasion but it’s no longer must see TV.

And I’d still be very pleased to have any kid raised by Mika as a daughter in law and not just because they might produce grandchildren as handsome as her.

One last Morning Joe note. Christine Hefner (a handsome woman too) was a panelist on the show for a while last week. It would be a fun project to figure out exactly when having the former head of playboy on a regular discussion panel was no longer a big deal.

You know I don’t think there is a better fast food item than Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich I’ve never tasted a fast food product that compare to it. It is spiced absolutely perfectly.

And there is only a few weeks until the first of the New Tom Baker Doctor Who Audios are available.

I don’t see them on the Mike’s comics site yet but I’d like to give them first crack at my dough.

Speaking of Doctor Who audios India Fisher’s run as the Doctor’s Companion Charley Pollard that started with #16 Storm Warning in 2001 will end this year with #126 Blue Forgotten Planet scheduled for late next month.

That run of 9 consecutive years is far longer than any companion in history. It should be noted that the final two years were with the 6th doctor rather than the 8th who she started out with.

Well that’s way long enough for a single post so I’ll close with a plug for Rich’s comic blog. He went on Hiatus for a week to go to a convention suspending his Doctor Who/Forever Knight strip Forever Janette and his Ancient Roman comedy strip based on Fvlminata House of Paulus for a week. Instead of writing a blurb about the trip he put up a comic to tell the story. I wish I had that much talent.