Peon's Place

So one of the large topics of this week is the new Apple iPad. Sure, it looks neat, it’s reasonably priced (compared to other Apple products when introduced), and very useful.. however in the innovation department, there’s nothing. Take the Kindle or Sony Reader. Add in the functionality of the iPod Touch or iPhone (minus the phone part) and what do you get? Yes, the iPad.

It has no USB port. It’s still going to require your PC/Mac/Laptop to sync, transfer your current application profiles from your other devices, etc. It surfs the web, but cannot replace any computer. $500 for 16gb up to $700 for 64gb is great, but I’d rather save my cash to drop $700 on a half-decent 500gb laptop. I mean, it’s not as if I’m going to shove the iPad into my pocket and take it wherever I go, right? It’s going to go wherever my laptop (or Kindle / Sony Reader) would go. It’s a nice .5″ 1.5lb product that is only as mobile as a sheet of wood. Except more fragile.

The best use of this thing would be for a private school to invest in them, so kids no longer need to carry around 50-65lb backpacks — all course textbooks, etc, would be on this device. Reports would be sent in via e-mail.

Overall: neat idea, great product, but I already have 4 of the same product laying around.

I however, did find a slightly more useful product, for $15, at Fry’s yesterday.

Folding keyboard! It’s more or less pure rubber so you can roll it up and throw it in your laptop bag. It’s completely safe to spill drinks on since it’s essentially just a rubber mat, with raised keys (buttons) on it. Completely light, thin, and typing on it was surprisingly not so bad when I was playing with it in the store.

Now THIS is a useful product! I hate typing on the small laptop keyboards, and this thing even has the standard 10-key on the right side.

Okay, a little dorky. But you know you want one too!

I read an article online through the SF Chronicle: High-speed rail in California getting $2 billion. Hooray. It’s about time.  Sort of. Construction won’t really begin for another year an d a half… but at least you can look forward to a future 5 years from now where a train ride (220 mph) to Los Angeles will be amazingly faster than driving down.

I recall voting on this during the last major election; it’s nice to know the future US will be as advanced as a large portion of Europe. Quite honestly, our railway and public transit systems pale in reflection to that of our UK allies.

I’ve been reading a lot of The Oatmeal lately.. Notably hunorous is the How to Suck at Facebook page. Good stuff, and I can sadly relate to a few of the entries. ;)

Also, I’ve incorporated a new theme and have the Lyric section to the right the way that I want it. I can much more easily add new lyrics there and have it display properly, without distorting the layout on any browser (IE included, damn you Microsoft!)

I’ve been learning quite a bit of PHP during the past few days, as going into this blogathon I knew absolutely none. I had a firm grasp on HTML and a small bit of Javascript (since it’s so much like C++) but had no familiarity with PHP/CSS. I can look at code and understand how it’s supposed to work, however replicating it for myself is a different story. I am now learning how to do as such, and the random lyrics upon each page load is a resembling of that. I may look to start my own template (as opposed to installing a pre-created one) sometime in the future, and let things start taking off from there.

Where has January gone to?

It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating–people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

The shirt design is in!

My gloves however, are not. Damn you, Nike.

We have our first game on Sunday at 3pm, on turf! No super mudbowl for us, and playing in the rain while be fantastical!

Nike reimbursed me for the gloves after only three weeks of sending wrong pairs and receiving disgruntled phone calls from yours truly. I think I’m keeping the other two (wrong color) ones. One pair used once, the other still new in the packaging — I figure I can pawn the $45 gloves off for $20 and feel better about myself for it. You know. For having to deal with their crappy warehouse and mediocre customer service.

I’ve scoured the interweb (eBay, Amazon, Footlocker, Sports Authority, etc) and cannot find them in large for less than $45. Due to the fact they cost me just over $20 from Nike.com I am highly unwilling to pay more than double that. Plus the gloves from last year are still superb.

I got the Mustang back, and the bumper looks really nice. They replaced my rear bumper, painted it, and it looks better than the rest of the car now. The guy even took the time to fill in some of the scratches I’ve accumulated over the past three years. Thanks to the combined efforts of Fortes Autobody Shop, Farmer’s Insurance, and their customer who rear-ended me at a stop light.

Civin is supposed to give me a banner to link to his sites — the least I can do since he’s providing me the hosting services. This is assuming his lazy ass can ever make one, and then send it to me. =P

PCWorld has a little write-up on the new iPhone 4G. Not a whole lot different, to be honest, although it will sport a 5MP camera and possibly a removable battery.

There’s also talks of the iPhone 4.0 software being released soon, to combat the releases of the Droid, Palm Pre and Nexus One phones. The most exciting part is that it, again, might support multi-tasking applications. Might. Maybe. If we all wish upon a star and think really really hard, with magical fairy/pixie dust.

Also, with Apple releasing Tablet PC screens, I believe the 4.0 software update is supposed to be more current and run with those. Who knows.

I am not going to mention Haiti (damnit, there I go..) but I will instead mention the founder of, in my opinion, the greast food chain of all time. Rest in Peace, Glen Bell. Thank you for such nummy food.

The founder of Taco Bell back in 1962 passed away yesterday.

So here’s the new logo that will be on our shirts for football this year. Pretty sick!

Also, mix that up with the cleats Joe and I just got today from Eastbay..

We both have new gloves, I have my orange wristbands and white pants/shirt to go under the blue shirt/shorts.. fierce!

We have our first real game on the 24th up in San Francisco – come out if you can! This will be a preview of the superbowl game for us in a few months, as team we did not scrimmage against looks to be the toughest out of our opposition. Our defense however should be able to shut down the wicked offense they have, and I doubt they have a real answer for our 3-4 excellent receivers and top QB. ;)

In other news, I’m sad to see the Packers go down in the first round, but at least Brady and the Patriots went down as well. Go Ravens! Tom Brady struggled mightily against the Ravens on Sunday, to the tune of the worst passer rating of his playoff career. Hah hah! Ed Reed, Ray Lewis.. thank you. Shut this crybaby down. =)P~

Green Bay 45, Arizona 51

That made me sad, but was a fantastic game. The people eating at the restaurant who were not watching the game kept having to deal with the crowd — half of the fans cheering when the Packers would score, the other half cheering right back when the Cardinals would score. Here’s some fun facts:

• Karlos Dansby’s 17-yard fumble return for the winning score came just 1:18 into the extra period, making this the second-quickest finish to an OT playoff game in NFL history.

• It’s also the second playoff OT to end on a defensive TD out of 26 games which have reached overtime. The other? Al Harris with a 52-yard interception return for the winning score in the 2003 NFC Wild Card game for the Packers.

• Kurt Warner threw for 379 yards and five touchdowns, his second career five-TD postseason game. He joins Daryle Lamonica as the only players with a pair of games with at least 5 passing TDs.

• Larry Fitzgerald had a pair of TDs, giving him nine in the postseason for his career. That’s the highest total in NFL history through any player’s first five playoff games.

• This was just the second time in the Super Bowl era in which both QBs threw for at least 300 yards and four pass TDs in the same game, and Kurt Warner was involved in both. The other was the 1999 Divisional playoff game against Jeff George and the Vikings.

• Aaron Rodgers set a Packers single-game postseason record with 422 pass yards, and Green Bay scored its highest points total in a postseason game.

Courtesy of: http://espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=300110022

So, I’m taking the Mustang in tomorrow to have the bumper replaced, after some rear-ended me on the way to work last week. I’m hoping to have a 2010 Mustang for the weekend though, so we’re all good! The only decision is.. LA, San Diego, or snowboarding for the weekend? Total roadtrip time!

Also on a side/random note, a long lost cousin texted me last night; apparently her best friend found me on Facebook, hah! I haven’t seen this cousin (or her sister) since she was maybe 8 or 9, some 15+ years ago. =)

Hooray for family reconnections!

I just installed a plugin for my page that enabled iPhone / iPod Touch users to view my page in a different (more screen friendly) version. ;)

So I am ditching, or rather attempting to ditch, Comcast from my home. They decided to jack up my HD TV rates $20 without notifying me ahead of time that my “special promotion” rate was ending; after making a customer service guy feel bad about his employment decisions the other day, they’re going to credit my account for the difference. I figure I will pay one final check then cancel the service, and let them figure it out.

Alternatively, I signed up for the Dish, which leaves me still needing a home internet service for my PC and iPhone, since 3G coverage is horrible in my living room; I need WiFi to survive with it. AT&T U-Verse is waaaay pricey, which leaves me with satellite internet (unreliable, expensive) or DSL — which I am okay with since I don’t do online gaming as much as I did a decade ago. However, a 3mbps DSL connection is going to run $40 / month since I don’t have a home phone line, and I pay $46-something for the cable internet, making me wonder if I should just keep the Comcastic internet connection. FML.

Speaking of yelling at customer service reps, I’ve laid into employees at Nike.com twice now. Part of my order the other week was 2 sets of football gloves, the same color/style; Large for me and Medium for Joe. However, mine came in grey, not white. Bastards.

End result: the new pair will be here Monday and I get a $20 gift card to boot. Great gear, but somewhat shotty on replacing screwed up orders, so hope you’re not one of the unfortunate ones. =)

So this is a little preview of the logo that will be on our uniforms for this football season. IT’s getting cropped, obviously, and will be in orange on a blue shirt. Snazzy?

We have our first (scrimmage) set of games on Sunday. Domination: begin! While we won’t have our full uniforms and we have two or three teammates out of town, it will be our first opportunity to show how much kicked ass we plan on dispensing to the other teams.

Technology section created!

Keyboard for your iPhone? You got it. There are also smaller versions available. You know you love it. Now we can quit complaining about the shitty touch screen typing..sort of.

There’s also a nifty comparison of iPhone vs Droid vs Nexus One to take a look at, see how new technology stacks up with old technology.~

…they’re starting to make pornos about it.

On Sunday, January 10th, the Springfield family and the rest of the city will be celebrating their 450th episode, not to mention it’s the animated series 20th season! (update from perezhilton.com)

Huge congrats, and a “woah!” for going strong for so long.

I hope everyone had a safe New Year’s. I haven’t read reports of any of my friends being arrested or shot, so all’s well so far! Back to work though, ugh. I could have used another day…

I was browsing my Twitter peeps today (hence the above photo) and LL Cool J posted a sweet quote: “Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present” – a good moral to go by with this new year/decade running in full swing now.

A little football practice this past Saturday with my new team went great, and we had the opportunity to all hang out after. Apparently 6 Redbull/Vodkas (full size, not those half glasses), plus a few shots of various other stuff, and I’m semi-drunk by 6pm. Oh, this season is going to be grand, and 2010 is already pretty damn spiffy.

Congratulations to Chris Johnson for breaking a few records in his second year of the NFL — boy that kid is fast!

I would have been happy to see the Titans in the playoffs again this year, but it’s hard to go 0-6 and expect a winning season in the end, let alone a playoff spot.