Monthly Archives: January 2006

Weblogs

A friend of a friend of a friend…

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This intro will take a little bit, so if you want, you can just skip to the obvious link below….

So around two years ago (told you it would take a while) my friend Allen sends me a message saying that I should talk with his friend Karen.  We start chatting online and quickly realize that we had similar weird senses of humor.  A lot of stuff about pirates, if I remember correctly.   That, and we both have excellent taste in music.

ANYWAY – Karen and I have chatted regularly and become friends, though we’ve never met.  She is my first online-only friend (well, except for "Natasha" from Russia, but she charges $2.99 a minute to watch her be my friend through a web cam), though that will change in the coming months.  Karen is getting married and I’ve been invited to the wedding! (She and her fiancé have a blog chronicling the planning of their wedding.  Don’t worry, its not nearly as boring as it sounds.)

Anyway – while looking at it this morning after Karen sent out a disgustingly blatantly self-promotional email, I followed the link to the blog of her maid of honor, and ended up spending much more time than I meant to reading it.   Not unlike this string of useless commentary that I cobble together from time to time, it is a rambling assortment of random observations, but it made me laugh, especially this post.  I had to share it with all of you (god, I hope it doesn’t crash the servers. *cough*).

THE POINT OF THE POST:

Here’s that link for you bastards who cheated and didn’t read the above: http://www.livejournal.com/users/jenza/

Web/Tech

Help in setting your barometer

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For christmas I got one of those neat atomic clock weather station thingies that not only uses the atomic clock to keep accurate time (not that it can get a signal at my house…) but also has a seperate display to show the humidity, weather predicitions and the barometric pressure.

However, in order to set the barometer correctly, you have to tell it how high above sea level you are.  Maybe I’m alone in this, but I had NO CLUE what the answer was to that!  I mean, really – I live far enough inland that I don’t worry about flooding (yes, Rhode Island is big enough) and never had to worry about it.

I discovered this neat site: http://www.earthtools.org/ that will help you figure it out.  Go there, choose "Heigh ASL" (Above Sea Level) and use the map to find where you live.  One tip: you have to double click to move where the view is.  Took me a try to two figure it out.

Hopefully this helps anyone wondering how to set THEIR barometer.

(Oh, btw, my house is 242 feet above sea level.  So if you ever read in this blog that my house is underwater, you probably should be moving to higher ground, quickly)

Marketing

The Wal-Mart Hole Gets a Little Deeper

Since it was bloggers who brought the problem to light, we might as well make fun of it as well…

BENTONVILLE, Ark. (January 9, 2006) – A feature on Wal-Mart.com that offered movie recommendations based on current purchases was shut down last week when it was discovered that “offensive” racial connections were being made by the software, according to media reports. For example, the purchaser of a “Planet of the Apes” DVD was given the recommendation of a movie about Martin Luther King Jr. as a “similar item.” “It’s just simply not working correctly,” Mona Williams, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, was quoted as saying. The problem was initially brought to light by Internet bloggers, the reports said.

Funny and Odd Thoughts

Who Would Send the Blind Guy?

Went out to eat at Uno’s tonight.  Went to the bathroom and saw that they had a baby changing station in the men’s room.  Nothing too unusual there.

Then I noticed that it had braille instructions – or that I assume are instructions – on the outside of it. 

Now, I’m hoping that the observation I’m about to make won’t be so politically incorrect that I’m going to get screamed and yelled at, BUT…

This is a place where you basically NEED to drive to get to.  If you go to dinner at there with someone who is blind and you have a child with you who is still in diapers and that child needs to be changed…

Who the hell would send the blind guy to do it?  Seriously.  Think about it.

I’m sure he COULD do it – as in he’s capable – and I’m sure he WOULD do it if he had to.  And if it is his child, he probably WANTS to do it.  But even with all of that, who would send the guy who CAN’T SEE to change the kid in a RESTAURANT? 

I have a ton of respect for people who live with disabilities, especially those that so often affect people from birth, like deafness and blindness.  Many of them overcome their hardships and go on to accomplish more in their lives than those of us with our full capabilities could ever do. 

But man, if you’re going out to eat and you’re blind, you’ve probably made a pretty decent sized effort to get there – taken a bus or had someone drive you, probably used a cane or had someone help you to find your way through doors and to your seat.  If, after all of that, someone sticks you with changing the baby’s crap-filled diaper, you gotta get yourself some new friends or something.