The Salesman at Home

I was wondering what life might be like for the salesman at home.

Customer (Billy): cries and screams incoherently.

Salesman (Dad): "OK, I understand. I'm sure we can do that, let me talk to Engineering. No problem."

Later:

Dad: "The customer would like the system to produce chocolate milk. When can we have that implemented?"

Engineering (Mom): "I'm pretty sure that's impossible".

Dad: "3 months then?"

Mom (exasperated): FINE.

Dad: "Also, a stretch goal would be a baby brother, can you squeeze that in? It's a nice to have, but would really help our customer relationship. The customer really wants that."

Mom: "I think we need more time to consider the implications of that. And we're going to need input from sales. It's going to take 9 months, at least."

Dad: "Can't you work harder and move some things around? We really need this or we might lose the customer. And we need it in 3 months."

Mom (giving up): "Sure."

- schneid

World of Warcrack

In college, I spent a lot of time playing MUDs - Multi-user dimensions, which were a precursor to the massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) of today, like World of Warcraft. I eventually became a programmer for some of those MUDs, including the famous HERO MUD. After college, I stopped playing.

Shortly after Ben was born, I borrowed Might and Magic 5 or 6 from a friend. That game is a single player game and isn't even very good, and I played it in all my spare time for a month. I believe Suzette's exact words were "It's us or the game". I gave it back and made my friend promise not to let me borrow it.

A week ago, Suzette gave me a subscription to World of Warcraft for Father's Day.

I am proud to say without any uncertainty and beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I must stop playing this game right now. It's so thoroughly addicting and the hugest time suck. While playing, you check the time and think 30 minutes have gone by, and it's been 3 hours. And I'm not even playing with a group of people, just soloing.

There's a reason they refer to it as World of Warcrack. It's highly addictive. Just like giving samples to kiddies, they give a 10-day free trial, knowing you will get hooked. And I am.

Fortunately, I used the 10-day free trial instead of the subscription, knowing what might happen. I'm going to Target to trade it in for something less addictive like heroin. :) There's a reason that we have never owned an Xbox or other gaming system. Hmm, I wonder if they have those at Target?

- schneid

Cheap stuff equals lost jobs

I've been ranting and raving about this for years. One of the biggest problems with our country is everyone's desperate need to buy everything as cheaply as possible.

My inkjet printer broke recently. It originally cost $100 about 5 years ago. My choices were: buy a new printer for $75, or buy a new printhead for $50. This is a very typical scenario these days. In fact, maybe it's not, when I think of my car stereo. When that broke, it would cost $100 to buy a new one, and more than $100 to get it repaired. So I bought a new one. But when the printer broke, I bought the new printhead instead. The printer was still perfectly good, it just needed a new printhead. Why send the printer to a landfill? Maybe I'm just a more responsible citizen now. I hate to see all the stuff people put by the curb to send to the landfill.

Suppose you could pay $200 for a DVD player guaranteed to work for 4 years. Or you could pay $100 for a DVD player that would last 2 years. What would you do? Most people would pay $100, with the justification that "Hey, I can get another brand new one in 2 years!" But there is a hidden cost, in the landfills, god knows what's leaking out of the electronics in the landfills into our environment, and the lost jobs.

I think that manufacturing quality parts and opening automobile repair centers that are reasonably priced could save the American auto industry. Instead of making cars as cheaply as possible, they could make them as reliable as possible, then make money when you buy parts to repair them. It's only a matter of time before the American auto manufacturers are sold off to the Japanese, Germans, or who knows. I think the unions are partially to blame because they insist on a certain wage, and when they get it (or near it), thousands of people get laid off. The unions are squeezing their own people out of jobs. Then who profits? The people who run the unions.

Sure, many people want to buy a new car every few years, or they want to buy more expensive cars. But these aren't the people who can save the American auto industry. I'm talking about the lower and middle classes. They are the ones who want to buy American cars. They are the people who will spend $500 to repair their car every year, rather than get fed up and buy a new one. They don't have a choice. But they aren't stupid, and they're probably buying a lot more cheap foreign cars these days.

I just ran across the article Wal-Mart You Don't Know today and I feel vindicated. It says that not only does Wal-Mart want to sell the cheapest stuff, but they want to buy the products for less money every year, squeezing their suppliers for profits. This is causing the suppliers to outsource the labor, and is taking away American jobs.

This paragraph sums it up best:
It's Wal-Mart in the role of Adam Smith's invisible hand. And the Milwaukee employees of Master Lock who shopped at Wal-Mart to save money helped that hand shove their own jobs right to Nogales. Not consciously, not directly, but inevitably. "Do we as consumers appreciate what we're doing?" Larrimore asks. "I don't think so. But even if we do, I think we say, Here's a Master Lock for $9, here's another lock for $6--let the other guy pay $9."

If we keep outsourcing our jobs, who will have any money to buy all this stuff? The problem is that everyone only looks out for themselves, and few look at the big picture.

Here are some reactions to the article:

• Liberals: goddamn greedy corporate bastards
  
• Rich suburbanites: Wow, $2.97 for a gallon of pickles? I'm driving my Hummer to the nearest Wal-mart right now!
  
• Republicans: Awesome, every time they sell some pickles, my Wal-Mart stock goes up .00000001 cents
  
• Young people: OMG, NBD WCA ZZZZZ
  
• Libertarians: It's a free country
  
• George Bush: Terrorists hate our cheap pickles.
  
• Democrats: goddamn George Bush
  
• Everyone else: And this has what to do with me?

- schneid

Police concert at Wrigley Field

We dropped the kids off at my mom's and drove to Barrington to take the Metra. I hadn't taken the train in years, but it was exactly as I remembered. Some kids (could've been anywhere from 18 to 22 years old) were sitting near us, and the 4 of them polished off a case of beer in the 45 minutes we were on the train. Drinking alcohol on the train is against Metra rules, but it's fairly common, and the conductors didn't seem to care. It was the Taste of Chicago that week, and the train was full of people heading into the city.

We got off at the Clybourn stop rather than go all the way downtown. Clybourn is near Ashland and Armitage, maybe 2.5 miles from Wrigley. We looked for a cab, but there were none to be found. So we started walking and would grab the first available cab that we saw...but we never saw one. We walked through some nice neighborhoods, which I forget that Chicago has. After about 2 miles, we could see Wrigley but had enough walking, so we stopped for dinner. I had wanted to go to Goose Island, which is near Wrigley, but we didn't feel like walking a few extra blocks to get there.

We ate dinner at Pompei, which is on Sheffield. We both had a yummy ravioli with tomato-vodka-cream sauce that was excellent, and tiramisu for dessert. The focaccia wasn't that great, kind of chewy. But that didn't stop me from mopping up all the extra sauce with it. Yum!

After dinner, we headed to Wrigley, and the closer we got, the more crowded it was. I hadn't been to Wrigley since the Reality reunion which I think was in 1995. I may have been there with Tellabs summer interns once after that. Needless to say, it had been a long time. It's a beautiful park. We arrived around 6:00 with the concert scheduled to begin at 7:00.

We got right into the park and didn't have trouble finding our seats, which were on the field. I'd say we were about 45 degrees and 150 feet from the center of the stage. A friend of mine who was in the stands said that the sound wasn't good, but from where we were, it was great. We had a great view.

The outfield was covered with something like a Sport Court, a hard, plastic, interlocking flooring, and there were (cheap) chairs. So it wasn't lawn seating. The chairs were not wide and they were all tied together with plastic ties, so there wasn't much room for a big person. The infield was uncovered and had a rail around it, so you could actually see the infield.

Fewer than 10% of the seats were filled with an hour to go before the opening band. We walked around, checked out the vendors, and bought two cool t-shirts. They were $35 apiece, which seemed like a good deal since I paid that much for Eagles shirts 12 years ago. The beer selection was pitiful...they only had Budweiser products (blech) and Old Style (BLECH!) on the field, so we walked around inside the stands in search of decent drinks. It was cool that there were beer vendors on the field, so you could get a beer and still watch the concert. You could also stand in some areas that were much closer to the stage.

Inside, there were plenty of food vendors with the usual baseball game food, and a lot of beer vendors. We were able to find wine, frozen drinks (daquiris and margaritas), and a couple semi-drinkable beers (Heineken and Amstel light, I think). Oh well. You'd think that they could have a good Chicago beer, like Goose Island, at Wrigley Field.

Fiction Plane, the opening band, started playing. They were led by Sting's son, Joe Sumner, who also plays bass. He sounds just like Sting, and looks quite a bit like him too. The band had good technique and a decent sound, which reminded me of Coldplay and U2. They played for about 45 minutes, until 8:00.

The crowd filled out while Fiction Plane was playing. I didn't see a single person that I knew, until the seat immediately next to me was taken by Brendan, a guy I had just met at work. That was a pretty amazing coincidence. The rooftop seats of the buildings across the street from Wrigley were filled too; I wondered what the sound was like up there, since all speakers were pointed toward the infield.

The Police opened with Message in a Bottle and it was fantastic. It is really a fun song and the crowd enjoyed it. Quite a few of the songs had new arrangements, mostly slower in my opinion. Sting also slightly changed the arrangement of some of the lyrics, so occasionally it was hard to sing along. I wasn't crazy about all of the arrangements, but it didn't detract from the concert for me.

Andy Summers, the guitarist, looked terrible. Honestly, I thought he would keel over at any minute. Stewart Copeland, the drummer, looked old but kept pace with his frenetic drumming. They both played great and looked more comfortable as the show went on. Sting looked older but is still in terrific shape. And his voice, possibly the band's most vital instrument, was fantastic. (The next day, I heard Sting sing on Live Earth on TV, and he was hoarse from our concert.) There were no backup singers or musicians.

I would guess that 90% of the crowd was over 30. I really like older concert crowds, because it's not too crazy or noisy. It was a very well-mannered crowd. Unfortunately, a 6'5" guy sat in front of us. Fortunately, he didn't stand for the entire show. I meant to thank him afterwards.

The entire set list was:

Message in a Bottle
Synchronicity II
Walking On The Moon
Voices Inside My Head
When The World Is Running Down
Don't Stand So Close To Me
Driven To Tears
Truth Hits Everybody
Bed's Too Big Without You
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Walking In Your Footsteps
Can't Stand Losing You
Roxanne
King Of Pain
So Lonely
Every Breath You Take
Next To You

My favorites were Walking on the Moon, Message in a Bottle, Synchronicity II, Can't Stand Losing You, King Of Pain, So Lonely, Every Breath You Take, Wrapped Around Your Finger, and De Do Do Do De Da Da Da. The band played for two hours straight without a break and played two encores.

The weather was great, too. It was about 76 degrees the entire time without a cloud in sight. Which is fortunate, because we were sitting on the field and umbrellas were not allowed.

Afterward, we were able to get out of Wrigley quickly since we were on the field. We immediately headed east, since I assumed that any cab near Wrigley would be full. After a few blocks of working our way through the crowd, we hailed a cab. We had 25 minutes to get to the Clybourn station and catch our train; the station was 2.5 miles away. Well, the traffic was so bad that we ended up begin 25 minutes late. We could've walked there faster! (Of course, after already walking 2.5 miles TO the concert, we were NOT going to walk back too.) Then we had to wait 30 minutes for the next train.

A lot of people from the Police concert and the Taste of Chicago were on the train and it was hard to find a seat. We chatted with a guy from Cary for the whole ride. We disembarked at Barrington, got our car, then drove home, arriving around 1:30 AM. Then we slept in late and picked up the kids around 11:00 AM.

- schneid

Concert tickets

Well, I learned a valuable lesson (at least $300 worth) when buying tickets for the Police concert at Wrigley Field. I tried to get tickets for the first (and only) night, but they sold out within an hour, and despite my multiple phones and multiple Internet Explorer windows, I didn't get through. I was trying to get some less expensive seats in the stands.

They immediately added another date. After looking over the seating chart, I realized that the Wrigley Field seats would be very far away from the stage, and decided that this one time, we would spend $$$ and get good seats on the field, which were $254 each. That's an outrageous amount to pay for a concert, but heck...this is The Police, a group that broke up 22 years ago, that I've always wanted to see in concert. I ended up buying 2 pairs of tickets for $550 per pair (includes service charges). I figured that I could sell the other pair to a friend or to anyone else, that matter, for at least face value.

I couldn't have been more mistaken. Many of the tickets on EBay and on ticket sites have gone unsold or way under face value. In fact, as of right this minute (27 hours before the show), you can actually buy tickets (albeit at face value) from tickets.com for very good seats - better than the seats I have. :( Of course, you could get tickets way under face value on EBay. Or if you were willing to risk not seeing the concert at all, you could go to Wrigley and offer the scalpers $100 for a pair of good tickets.

Needless to say, I won't be doing that again. Don't overestimate the popularity of a show, especially for the second night of the show. I was shocked that I couldn't sell the tickets for face value. I ended up selling them on EBay for $230.

- schneid

TiVo and Amazon Unbox

I've been downloading TV shows from iTunes onto my iPod and watching on my TV. That's pretty cool. But TiVo recently announced that they are partnering with Amazon Unbox to allow you to download video to your TiVo instead of your computer! That will allow me to skip a step and then I can use my TiVo remote to pause, fast-forward, etc. That is cool! Hopefully it will be available soon.

Once you have purchased a movie from Amazon Unbox, they will keep track of it in your account, and you will have it forever. So you can delete it from your TiVo and download it again.

iPod + TiVo

OK, so I love my iPod, but TiVo was my first love. So how can I combine the two?

Some things I would like to do are:

• watch videos from the iPod on my TV
  
• listen to music from the iPod on my home stereo
  
• watch stuff from TiVo on another TV
  
• save stuff from TiVo
  

Here's how to do it.

Watch videos from the iPod on my TV

This is so easy. All you need is the right cable. Visit this web page about Getting the Video out of your new iPod - for Cheap!. I bought this cable on eBay for $7 including shipping. It's called an "RCA-mini" or "A/V" cable. It works great. Connect it to the jacks on the front of your TV. You need to use the volume control on your iPod to get the proper sound out of your TV (this matters more for music), and then you can adjust the volume on your TV to make it louder.

Works great, but since the cable is only 6 feet, you need to get off your lazy butt to use the iPod controls to pause, etc.

Listen to music from the iPod on my home stereo

This is also so easy. Get the cable mentioned above (you could just get an audio to mini cable), connect from the iPod to your home stereo, and voila, your iPod is playing on your stereo. Use the iPod volume to turn it up, otherwise it gets really distorted, then use the stereo volume to make it louder. Again, you don't have a remote, but it works fine.

Watch stuff from TiVo on another TV

This is what I was really interested in. We have a TiVo in our master bedroom, and sometimes I record movies for the kids to watch, but would prefer to watch on the big TV in our family room. So, you can copy movies from the TiVo to your PC, and from the PC to the iPod.

But there's a catch. OK, maybe 2. You can copy from your TiVo to your PC with no problem, if you are using a broadband connection (I have wireless). However, you must have TiVoToGo software to convert from the PC format to iPod format, and it costs $25. The second catch is that it takes 3-4 hours to copy a 1 hour show from the TiVo to the PC over a wireless connection. That kills it for me. It's just too much of a hassle. Sure, you could do it at night, but my PC is in my bedroom, and I would hear the hard drive spinning for hours while I was asleep.

Yes, I know that you can just get another TiVo on the other TV, and then you can transfer stuff while you are actually watching it, but you must have paid TiVo service on the other box and I'm too cheap.

There is another solution that's pretty cool. Did you know that you can insert a video signal on your cable? That's how they put security camera feeds on your TV. You can insert your TiVo signal onto a channel on your cable, and then your TIVo will play on that channel in your whole house. See this article about How to extend your TIVO or other device throughout your house for more information. I haven't actually done this, but it sounds pretty cool.

Save stuff from TiVo

This is another thing I haven't tried, but should be easy. You can download TiVo Desktop for free, and copy stuff from your TiVo to your PC, and watch it there, or presumably send it back to the TiVo. You need to have a broadband connection. If you are wired, it might only take 1 hour to transfer a 2 hour movie, but if you have wireless, it's going to be slower, which is why I don't do it.

- schneid

I love my iPod

I thought that I was in love with my TIVO, but it was just infatuation. Now I have found true love in my new iPod. I've never owned an MP3 player, so it was about time I got with the 90s (ok, so it's 2007). After a torturous decision-making process, I chose the 30 GB video over the 8 GB Nano. I was concerned about breaking the hard drive in the video iPod, but I alleviated that concern by getting a 3-year warranty. You can't really wear the video iPod while working out, but since I rarely do, that's not a problem. I mostly use the iPod in my car (with an FM transmitter) and also like the ability to copy stuff from my TIVO to my PC, then to the iPod, which I can then play on any TV.

I've copied almost all of my CDs already, have over 900 songs on my iPod, and it's only 10% full.

After much research, I bought some accessories. I have Sennheiser OMX50 Street Line Flexible Stereo Clip-On Earphones. They clip onto your ear and are like a speaker in your ear, rather than a bud that you jam in there. I've never liked ear buds and the ones supplied by Apple always fall out. Anyway, they stay in pretty well and sound great. My wife has Sony MDRJ10 Ear Clip Headphones, which fit even better, but the sound is nowhere near as good as the Sennheiser.

I also bought a Kensington Black Digital FM Transmitter Charger for my car. This plays my iPod on the car radio. It's an FM transmitter, so there's occasionally a little static, but it works great, and it's better than buying a new car radio (that your iPod can plug directly into). Plus it charges the iPod. I bought this instead of a Griffin RoadTrip or Monster iCarPlay after some research.

It's amazing that you can carry your entire music collection and more (600-1000 CDs) on a device that fits into your hand.

I haven't gotten the cables to play the iPod on my home stereo or TV yet, but I'll add some notes when I do.

- schneid

Awesome Movies

I couldn't fit all my favorite movies into the little space they give you, so here's a list. Not that anyone cares, but if you really like one of the categories in general, and haven't seen a movie I put in that category, I recommend that you see it.

Comedy

Office Space

Elf

Drop Dead Gorgeous - this is one of the funniest movies you've never seen

Houseguest - it's too bad that Sinbad hasn't made any more movies

Amelie

Daddy Day Care - very funny and Steve Zahn is hilarious

Grosse Pointe Blank

The Princess Bride

Groundhog Day - you have to watch a few times to appreciate how funny Bill Murray is.

What About Bob - the first time I saw this, I thought it was stupid. But the more I see it, the funnier it gets.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Pee Wee's Big Adventure

A Christmas Story

Happy Gilmore

Fletch

Liar Liar

Blues Brothers

This is Spinal Tap

Big

A League of Their Own


Thriller

The Sixth Sense

Identity - great movie that I'd never heard of

Memento

The Da Vinci Code

The Usual Suspects

The Silence of the Lambs

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

The Spanish Prisoner

Heist

Signs

Runaway Jury

Seven

Action/Adventure

Braveheart

Saving Private Ryan

Minority Report

Pulp Fiction

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Drama

Catch Me If You Can - I wouldn't exactly call it a drama...it's funny, it's a true story, it has elements of a thriller. An all-around great movie.

Almost Famous

A Beautiful Mind

Forrest Gump

Lost in Translation

The Shawshank Redemption

Erin Brockovich

Stand by Me

The Untouchables

Glengary Glen Ross

Titanic

Hotel Rwanda

American Beauty

Witness


Sports

Remember the Titans

Breaking Away

Rudy

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Twelve Monkeys

Blade Runner

The Matrix

The Lord of the Rings

Harry Potter

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Star Wars

Brazil

Jurassic Park

Gattaca

For Kids

The Incredibles

Monsters Inc

Madagascar

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Over the Hedge

Robots

Finding Nemo

Toy Story

A Bug's Life

Music

Purple Rain

That Thing You Do

Documentaries

Spellbound

Bowling for Columbine

- schneid