Chance's Weekend Update: 12/09/2009

"As a kid, I might have been psycho, I guess, but I used to throw golf balls in the trees and try and somehow make par from them. I thought that was fun. "

                                               -Tiger Woods, The best golfer on the planet. Who is still playing from the rough for fun... 

Hey All, I know that it isn't a weekend, but I hope that between reading the latest news on Tiger and trying not to freeze that you can take a moment to get up to speed on everything I think is worth knowing. Once upon a time I wrote about the new Google service...Wave--which like any good dance party is awfully lame without enough people. Fortunately I have 25 open invites, so let me know if you want in on the action. Back to now, I admit that it has been much too long since my last update--I really have no solid excuse. It was a tough process deleting all of the really interesting but outdated little blurbs that I have collected but not finished over the past several weeks, but I am pretty happy with whats left and I hope you are too. Enjoy.

Some Things that Don't Suck:

 

North Central College Cross Country, In case you haven't heard...NCC owned cross-country this past season. It was scary how good they were, if you missed them going 1-9 at conference, setting a new record low score at regionals, or winning nationals with 7 ALL-AMERICANS check out these videos: [Regionals] [Nationals]

Buying a Beer Company, Pabst Brewing Company is selling for $300 Million Dollars---which is a lot for one person...but only a little for a lot of people. Better yet, if you pledge (not pay yet) $10 and we buy it--you get $10 worth of beer. Win-Win. You know you want to. I won't tell your wife/girlfriend/mom as long as you don't tell Katie.

Just when I thought that t-shirts couldnt get any cooler... Taking Guitar lessons to learn how to play 'Wipeout' as a 14 year old made me feel really cool, playing the Guitar Hero video game in college made me feel like rock star, and this tee-shirt could finally push my ego over the edge...wow.

Homer Simpson as your Navigator, Do you have a Garmin? (or GRMN...damn) then you are out of luck. But if you have a TomTom GPS unit then you can download new "VoiceSkins" and have either Homer or Snoop Dogg help you to your destination.

Shop Savy, Do you ever wonder if you are getting a good deal on something in the store or if they just put a big yellow tag on it to fool you? If you have any of the new Google phones you can just snap a quick picture and it will tell you the cheapest price online as well as the best price locally as well as distance from where you are standing--awesome. Like most cool Droid features, the rest of us are just ouf of luck...NOT, there is a blackberry version and the box of Kleenex near my desk has 25 reviews online.(Edocrab [barcode backwards])

Seven Minute Popsicle!!! Wow that chocolate orange juice (long story) was really good, I wish I could take it with me, but I have to leave for work in 8 minutes and my car has no cup holders...I would be out of luck if this crazy freezing machine didn't exist or if I still had the Mercury Cougar with no cup holders...fortunately neither are true and this is sweet and possibly magic.

Lady GaGa, before she was a zombie-whore...I mean...uh...this. Really, watch both videos, I promise this is the same girl.

Some Things that Do:

I have to take this down after Christmas, with some help from my dad, I spent about 11 hours lighting up Black Friday. Almost falling off the 20ft edge of my garage--sucked, cleaning Lowe's almost totally out of lights--sucks for other people, and taking these down in the freezing cold of January will certainly suck--but my Christmas lights being timed to 20 Christmas carols does not suck at all. Stop by and see it.

The Bulls Defense, Not that I am a pro basketball player--but if some fool had tried this move during an intramural basketball game he would have been on his back in a second.

Go-Girl, This product has set a new Chance's Weekend Update record for THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING EVER!!! Literally a rubber funnel to help "active" women urinate standing up--do not miss the informational video. I guess it wont harm anyone, I mean worst case a lady would pee all over her hands...but more likely the little tomboy could be mistaken for a pre-op transexual....I would even go as far as to say that I wouldn't believe this was NOT created by Saturday Night Live writers if I hadn't already bought several as Christmas presents. Mele Kalikimaka.

Until Next Time,
Chance

Chance's Weekend Update: 9/10/2009

"The more I want something done, the less I call it work."
                                               -Richard Bach, Writer from Chicago: Jonathan Livingston Seagul

Hey everyone, this was a big week for surprises: Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize over a couple of decently credible candidates, the moon didn't blow up when we bombed it (bonus: we still have tides!), the cardinals with two outs in the ninth only had to catch a pop fly to end the game and...the professional baseball player got hit in the nuts with the ball and dropped it--Cards went on to lose their 3rd straight game--Chicago Cubs style, AND I finished a weekend update! As always, I hope that you enjoy the selection of news and reviews that I plucked from the internet for you:

Some Things that Don't Suck:

Zip Skinny, If you have every wanted to compare your neighborhood with another by using a gauge more sophisticated than landscaping, this site is for you. It pulls together all kinds of public data to give you a pretty clear snapshot of a given demographic. And if this data gets your juices flowing, check out data.gov--one of Obama's promises of government transparency--literally all of the data that is collected by the federal government. Good luck sifting through it though.

Along those same lines, Politifact.com is one of my new favorite websites. It is a "neutral" website that does fact checking and rates bullshit spewing from politicians on a scale from 'True' to 'Pants on Fire'.  So I am sorry Glen Beck, now everyone will know that most of the time you are talking out of your ass. Another fun feature of the site is the Obameter--which tracks the big guys progress on his 500 campaign promises.

This Shirt..., A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to see the "T-qualizer" shirt in action. It literally has a couple of equalizer bars on the front of it that respond to the beat of music around you. Kind of nerdy--maybe, but do I want to order it online right now--yes!

Google Powermeter, how would you like to visually see how much power your home is drawing from the utilities in real time--from the internet or your phone--and compare it with other homes in your area? I would! That said, I would probably take it too far and starting killing watts like it is Apollo 13, but seriously...this is really cool.

CanvasPop, If you are into decorating your walls (mine are mostly empty) with really cool pictures that you have taken--or want them in some kind of custom frame or with a cool photoshop filter--you would either have to call my friend Bob, or really get taken to the cleaners--until now. Canvas Pop (dot com) has all kinds of options, accepts any resolution and format, and gives you the pricing right up front. If that doesnt tickle your fancy, you are going to have to call that other guy I know and he will do it Lego.

Direct Charity, I am a skeptic--so I have never been fond of dropping money into cans and would never really consider any of those "Just a dollar a day..." campaigns, but oxfam gifts are different. Buy a goat-$50, Buy a cow-$75, buy a water jug-$18...they take a polaroid of it--which is mailed to you, and the gift is mailed to the people who actually need it. Kind of like Farmville, but real.

50 Extraordinary Billboards, This paint advertisement is pretty sweet...but a close second has to be the McDonalds sun dial...

The Yes Men Fix The World, who doesnt like a little satire--well apparently corporate America...expecially when you lie about being an executive of a large corporation and speak at a conference with live coverage...These guys have done that...and keep doing that to get their messages out there! Sometimes when you tell the truth, it is so ridiculous that it is funny, and then instead of sending your ass to jail, someone decides to make a movie about it.

Take down the Man, just like the Yes Men mentioned above, my two friends that started 'TDTM' are also liers--I mean they changed their names to protect their "law-school" identities. That said, I really like the stuff they have so far, but course work really seems to be holding them down because there hasnt been a new post in awhile. I encourage you to visit their site and poke around...maybe it will get them off their asses--much like the recent traffic to my blog is getting me moving.

Google Wave, There is no good way to describe this--yet. This very new "thing" replaces email, instant messaging, blogs, and online photo albums. There are so many features that the video explaining it is over an hour long. Last month Google invited 100,000 people to try it out--one of those invitation was sold for $27,000 on ebay the same day. This is huge--tell all your friends, the internet just turned upside down, got faster, more interactive, and takes up less space...Okay I will explain that last little point: instead of sending an email to someone and replying back and forth creating new copies of the same information, a 'Wave' is started out on a server somewhere--all the information is in one place. You can replay back anywhere inside the message and it will add a timestamp. Better yet, there is a playback feature that will play the responses like a movie in case someone is added into a long wave pretty far into it. Very sweet, google is taking over the world again.

Some Things that Do:

The guy who is trying to burst the A123 Bubble. A123 (AONE) is the battery company that I have been hyping going on two years now--they basically went back to the drawing boards and reinvented batteries to be lighter and to charge more quickly. Their IPO was two weeks ago at $13, and they have recently jumped into the $28 dollar range. I am loving it, and this journalist is trying to rain on my parade with his "facts" about how the company hasn't shown any signs of being profitable--whatever.

Accidentally attacking a NAVY SHIP, the Somalians have struck again, and this time they really messed up...It was dark and in their tiny fiberglass pirate boats they mistook the 525' long steel Navy Cruiser for a freight liner. Oops. Good guys: 1 - Pirates: a lot. On a side note, they were lucky in the fact that it was a French Navy ship, so their odds of a surrender were decent.

Gov. Blago 'No Shame' Tour continues, as reported by the Sun Times earlier this week, the former governor and future inmate of Illinois is to be fired by Donald Trump on his fading-in-popularity TV show, 'Celebrity Apprentice'

Shameless Self Promotion, my website is getting more polished by the day, and I just got a new printer that will automatically print labels when new orders drop. If you want to to help me test it out, go ahead and order some of my sweet vitamins and I will give you a big hug the next time I see you.

Until Next Time,
Chance

Chance's Weekend Update: 8/9/2009

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying."
-Woody Allen

Happy Monday. Really. This past weekend was a nice reprieve for me, I slept in, didn't paint anything, didn't cut the grass, didn't spend any money, or even host a party. On top of that--I read the entire paper. Cover to cover--even the crap I don't like. Why? I don't know. Carpe Diem. Enough of that though, what have you all been up to? As I came to discover over time, my favorite part of this whole weekend update thing isn't so much clicking around for interesting things on the internet, or adding my two cents here and there--it is the one or two sentence emails that I get back from people now and then--or sometimes the paragraphs that I get back when I write something political... As you may have gathered from my little introduction, I am old now, and unless I am really on my game and manage to fight off all of the "real life" distractions...I never get around to my hobbies, but now that I am well rested ,I hope that some of what I found today will make your Monday feel as refreshing as my weekend has been. Anyways, Here it is:

Some Things that Don't Suck:

Free Groceries?!?!, This is no too good to be true scam…One of the guys that I work with was telling me about how his wife has gotten crazy into coupons and regularly brings home hundreds of dollars worth of food for almost nothing. She has gotten good to the point that she keeps a blog about it to share her deals with other cash conscious moms out there. When you get into it you might wonder how the hell this all works—the details are here…but in a nutshell you break your purchase up into several transactions, the computer gives you "credit" for the full retail price of items and spits out all of those coupons offered from the manufacturers (not the store) with the receipts even though you have used store coupons you have to make your transaction cost almost nothing. You then save those "Catalina" coupons for more of these "shopping" trips. At the end of the day you too might have over 100 ½ pints of Ice Cream in your freezer for free.

The Green War, Maybe I am just a little ahead of the curve on some things, but earlier this year before the whole 'Cash for Clunkers' hand-out campaign I destroyed my own clunker and then traded up for a hybrid. Since that time my older sister got the new Volkswagen TDI--which gets better gas mileage than my car even when you don't drive like a grandma (which I do now)--and she points that out frequently. I tried to even the environmental scorecard by getting an electric lawnmower, and turning down the A/C...but she has a no lawn and an apartment that she can cool by holding an ice cube in front of a fan...damn. Luckily Caterpillar has stepped up into my corner and come out with the ultimate hybrid: D7E Hybrid Bulldozer...Way tougher than your car Jessica, and while I do not own one, I drive my car to the company that makes it. Chance 1 - Jessica 0.

Folding Paratrooper Bike, Watching the Tour De France every year gets me all hyped up about bikes...I usually start by obsessing over the lightest and most high-tech ones, then go into the whole utility debate until I finally talk myself out of getting one...This one nearly put me over the edge though--it is thrown out of a plane, unfolded, and then ready for action in seconds. Nice.

The best thing to happen to running since legs, Runner's Chance--my new multivitamin. no joke. After I was having some trouble finding a vitamin that fit all of my needs, it took about 8 months and a lot of help from several companies, some family, a few friends, a lawyer, and a cpa to bring me over the hump and take my idea of a product from a page in my notebook to a giant stack of boxes in my guest bedroom...and most recently into nice little arrangements on running store shelves all across Illinois and Missouri. In addition to saving you from my sales pitch (you can check the website for that) I will save you some money if you want to give them a whirl. Use the coupon code: "update" during checkout. Next year when Runner's Chance buys Berkshire Hathaway I will send everyone who buys a bottle of my first batch a giant dividend check--just food for thought.

The Go-Plate, "The Man" is always trying to kill our productivity by penalizing multi-tasking. Don't run with scissors, no texting while driving, only have one wife. But not anymore! With the Go-Plate you can hold your drink and your plate IN ONE HAND...which will really open up your options at the next backyard BBQ.

A real-time marathon video game, at the time (1984) somebody thought this was a real sweet idea. Then it failed miserably and was somehow resurrected recently on the world-famous letsrun.com message boards. In this came you alternate pressing the right and left arrow on your keyboard to control the legs of your runner...each click=one step...for an entire marathon, but not with your legs--with your fingers. And not good for your health--bad for your job security, because it will take you at least two hours and you probably wont be able to write for the rest of the week.

Kara Goucher, formerly University of Colorado and current Oregon Track Club standout got 2nd place at the Boston Marathon in April and recently won the Rock and Roll Chicago Half-Marathon...beating all of the men along the way. She is running the Marathon in Berlin at the World Championships in two weeks and probably has the best shot of any American at bringing home some hardware.

Some Things that Do:

Kara Goucher kicking your ass (my ass specifically).

Olympic Committee insider to profit huge off of Chicago 2016...No way; how could this possibly happen in the most corrupt city in one of the most corrupt states in the union? Let me guess...he went to U of I! Oh yeah, and Mayor Daley flipped out on a reporter when asked about it.

New 25-year high!!!...the Illinois Unemployment Rate. Well the sentence started off well enough, unfortunately for a ton of people there isn't a whole lot of light at the end of the tunnel yet.

No more Sear's Tower, I am a fan of tradition, and even though I think all of the $350 Million dollars in upgrades to the Tower are very exciting and I (like a lot of people) am pretty pumped to go see it, I believe that changing the name to "Willis Tower" is ridiculous. Next on the chopping block is clearly Wrigley Field, and before long everyone will want to go downtown to "Toyota, IL".

Until Next Time,
Chance

Chance's Weekend Update: 4/19/2009

Chance's Quarterly (j/k...kind of) Update: 4/19/2009

"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars"
-J. Paul Getty

Hey all, long time no see... While the absence of my updates showing up to greet you on Monday mornings has been 100% my fault, I assure you that I have been very busy with some other exciting projects that I will shed a bit more light on in the coming weeks. To paint the picture of my despiration to finish this and free my mind of the all these things I have been waiting weeks to share; it is after midnight and I am sitting on the floor of my hotel room in 'damn near Canada', NY--surrounded with newspapers, bent corner magazine pages, and of course my handy pocket notebook...[Katie just got our waterproof replacements in the mail the other day]. I hope that you enjoy the links, because I really enjoyed pulling them all together...but I am not proof-reading it, haha. Goodnight.

Some Things that Don't Suck:

Pandora, is without question the best addition to the internet since AIM. A simple and elegant (and free) internet radio station where you select bands that you like, and it fills in with related recommendations. Give a song a thumbs up and you will hear more like it, thumbs down and you will never hear it again. Addiction Warning: They have a cell phone application. Archive your music libraries, they just went obsolete.

Mint.com, just like Quicken or Microsoft Money..only free, more visual, and simple. I personally track all of my finances through their website, and my favorite feature is the automatic updates...Every Friday I get an email that tells me all of my balances, the biggest transactions of the week, and changes to the prices of my stocks. Beyond that there is a budget tracker that will text you within minutes if you get cross one of your preset spending limits for a given catagory--it catagorizes transactions with scary accuracy and you can compare your spending with state and US averages.

Peoria, Caterpillar, and Aaron Schock featured on the Colbert Report...even though this is my favorite show, I definitely missed this one, but was very pumped that the link to the video landed in my inbox on time for my update.

First Time Home Buyer's Credit, Free money doesn't grow on trees...it is direct deposited when you file your 2009 taxes. Unlike the 2008 credit--which was essentially a zero interest loan--this one does not need repaid. In related news, I just bought a house:

Boxed Water, while this may seem like a retro throwback to gradeschool chocolate milk...it turns out that putting our beverages into plastic instead of cardboard was a big step back environmentally...so this group wants to get back forward. Even better, 10% of their profits go to world water relief foundations and another 10% go towards reforestation projects.

In My Backyard, If you have even been curious about how much power a solar array or even a small scale wind turbine would produce in an exact location on your property--this webtool is for you. It is a government website though, so forgive the dry look--it is pretty sweet.

World Largest Model Rocket to be launched next Saturday!!! 36 feet, 9 motors, and 1600lbs of adolescent ambition...I am pretty jealous, I hope that to keep it authentic they launch it with a little metal key attached to the yellow battery pack with an elastic cord.

Solar Powered City to be built in Florida, construction on the 17,000 acre city near Fort Meyers will begin later this year and beyond the cool factor, they are promising to create at least 20,000 permanent jobs. It was only a matter of time before somebody realized that there is an open federal grant that will pay for 30% of the installed cost of PV systems. Beyond that, the smart grid system being used will make residents very aware of their power usage and drive waste out of the system.

The future of Detroit, until afew weeks ago I was not a huge fan of Ford. [for the record, I still think that Mustangs are lame] but several sutble moves recently have convinced me that Ford has the right state of mind to come out of this downturn stronger than they were going into it. Follow the link and you will see that they recently gave away 100 of their brand new Fiestas with only one string attached--recipients had to post their honest opinions of the car on Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter. The company has had top exectives talking on little NPR shows about why they didn't take the bailout money, and how the Ford family has the capital to repurchase the company 2.5 times if it came to that point. From a marketing perspective they are going all-in on 20-something hipsters and social networking teenagers...From a financial perspective--their has not been much press but their stock has more than doubled since that interview...and now paid for my ticket/trip to Missouri where I listened to it.

Ice is growing--NOT MELTING--in Antartica, I was a little bummed earlier today after watching a 90-minute documentary about glaciers dissapearing all over the world...and I thought, if all of these massive ice sheets are melting why is the water not rising?? Luckily (for all of the coasts) it only took a couple minutes on Google to find that it is all refreezing at the south pole. That mystery is solved...now as far as how all of the people in India and Montana are going to farm when their water source is gone...


Some Things that Do:

Spending this much money, I am not going to argue about the various stimulus packages, they all had good intentions...but the lump some of money spent over the last few months is just incredible...This is a visual representation of $1 Trillion dollars, and you definately need to see it.

MPG rating, I drive a hybrid and I obsess over this statistic, but being a math guy at heart I have always had trouble with it. To be more specific, the average means nothing but is easy to get wrapped up with-the important thing is actually how many gallons it takes to get where you want to go. Take this example:

--You drive downhill for 100 miles getting 100mpg,

--Now you turn around and drive back up the 100 miles getting 10mpg

So what was your average MPG over the course of the trip? 55 would seem logical, but really you used 11 gallons of gas (1 down, 10 up) over 200 miles...so you only got 18.2 mpg. The problem is has more to do with comparing potential car replacements than your operating effieciency. The recommended solution is the sticker rating of 'gallons per 100 miles' as to not mislead consumers. I realize I am drawing this one out pretty long, but to drive this home a little more consider that, "replacing a large vehicle that gets 10 mpg with one that gets 20 mpg reduces gas use per 100 miles from 10 gallons to five, a 5-gallon savings. Replacing a small vehicle that gets 25 mpg with one that gets 50 mpg reduces gas use per 100 miles from 4 gallons to 2, a saving of only 2 gallons."

The item on your list of things to do that will never get done...ever, TuneUp is a $30 piece of software that will go through your iTunes music library and fill in all of the blanks--Cover art, genre, album titles, & even mislabeled song names. I dunno how it works, but I used to think this was great...all of that changed a couple of minutes ago I declared that music libraries were obsolete and I kind of want to send a consistant message here--so this software is a total waste of time...a sweet waste of time.

Until Next Time,
Chance

Chance's Weekend Update 3/1/2009

Chance's Weekend Update: 3/1/2009

"With a stop light, green means 'go' and yellow means 'slow down'. With a banana, however, it is quite the opposite. Yellow means 'go', green means 'whoa, slow down', and red means 'where the heck did you get that banana?'"
-Mitch Hedberg

I think I have used this quote before, but now that I am in a strange place (Texas) I see it in a new light. Things are different here--not their bananas--but definately their attitudes and their exit ramps. Both of which have caused problems for me. I have been late for several things by assuming that a quick question would warrant a quick response--when really any question calls for damn near a life story. I will admit though, the exit ramp thing is a little more my fault. Back home I am used to seeing the place I want to go, taking the next exit, and then standing on the break hoping not to slide off the road during the 180 degree tight turnaround. But here in Waco, if you can see your destination, then you probably missed your exit a mile ago--literally. Further, the "exit ramp" is more of a little access road that you can slide over to at full cruising speed. Armed with this knowledge (and free gas), I drive my rental car like I am Mario Andretti, and subsequently I have missed my mile-long exit the past three days in a row. In other news, I want to come home and Twitter is the new everything. If Facebook was the gateway drug will all its fancy apps and options, Twitter is straight to the point internet crack. I know that seven of you know what I am talking about, because after my last update you started following me (randomharrier), and for those who have not yet tried it, I hope you are having fun with your 8-tracks and board games. Anyways...

Some things that don't suck:

The most welcoming Starbucks on Earth, to be fair I have not been to every Starbucks on Earth--but I have had a white chocolate mocha in 4 different countries and over a dozen cities. For the most part, if you have been to one, you have been to all of them...so I was suprised more than once by how well orchastrated the greetings were in Waco Texas. On one occasion I walked in the door an the girl sweeping the floor said, "Hi, I'm Jessica. Welcome to Starbucks, what is your name?.....Well Chance, I hope you have a great day" Then after waiting in line a moment a different girl behind the counter said "Chance, what can I get you today?" While a bit upbeat for 7am, it was nice that they can make a shop half way across the country feel like home. I have now gone back to that store almost ten times, and I hope that if you every find yourself in Waco, Tx you will stop in too.

The Rest of the Story, as far back as I can remember all activity in my house has halted at 7:30 am when Paul Harvey would come on the air. So it was only natural that now that I am in the car at that time of the morning, I hit the preset to jump over to 1290AM to take in some unconventional news spoken by either Paul Harvey himself, or more recently Jr. This past week at the age of 90 he passed away, leaving behind a 58 year radio legacy.

The sweetest thing to happen to hats--ever, Beard Head hats come in four styles (colors): Viking (yellow), Lumberjack (brown), Grandpa (grey), and Pirate (black). Unlike whereever you probably are right now, I don't need a coat to go outside, but if I did, I would probably want one of these too.

Things you couldn't get for a dollar yesterday, but you can today...like a Watt of solar power. While the manufacturing costs for most photovoltaic panels is still floating around $3/Watt, First Solar--the makers of film thin solar cells--announced that for the first time ever, their costs have dipped below the long thought impossible goal of $1/Watt. The good news is that this will make it much cheaper to install a grid tie-in system of renewable energy to your house. The bad news is that to be on par with conventional power they will need to hit $.65 / Watt.

"We are not in it to make money, but we probably won't lose much", a quote from this 1981 news report about a San Fransico Newspaper making itself available "online" via your telephone, TV set, and two hours of downloading.

Some things that do:

Getting your face eaten by a monkey. I am sure that you have heard about it, and maybe even listened to the 911 tape, it is pretty messed up. Something that I didn't know about chimps before last week was that "an average size chimpanzee and rip all of your limps off with very little effort--they are something like twenty times stronger than humans". For real though, this chimp could surf the internet, change the TV channel with a remote, drink wine from a tall stem glass, and rip a face off with very little warning.

Being a poser...aka e-cigarettes, I get it, you are addicted and when we hang out I have to wash all my cloths--no big deal, it is a fairly normal but fading trend. But to replace actual smoking with an toy cigarette that emits realistic (odorless) smoke and sprays aerosol nicotine into your lungs is super lame and borderline a borderline substance abuse activity.

Illinos Tax Hike, As if the Blago episodes weren't enough to tarnish Illinois...now we are all but chasing business out of the state with torches and pitchforks. If we are lucky, all of the other state will follow suit and business can be uniformly strangled otherwise we could see alot more big business flee. Why would they stay? they can't even buy favorable legislation anymore.

AIG, They dropped a sweet $61,000,000,000 loss the 4th quarter of 2008. Nice investment Uncle Sam.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update 2/16/2009

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

-Bertrand Russell

Sorry for the lack of update last weekend...We got a new puppy (Tina) and then my sister had her baby (Ethan) so my free time was shifted from sifting through the news to visiting my nephew and playing with my lunatic dog. Then like usual I was trying to make up for lost time and I buried myself neck deep in reading and then was left with entirely too much information to send out. I spent most of the rest of the week plus my down time in the airport trying to take out more than I add. Big thanks to all of you who emailed me sweet things over the past couple of weeks as well. And keep the referrals coming, it is good for my ego when people I don't know ask to be on my mailing list. Enjoy:

Things that dont't suck:

Writing in the Rain, I always have a pen (that can write upside-down or in space) in my pocket, and usually a little notebook in my pocket...and within 5-7 business days I will have this one in my pocket...Designed for writing field notes in wet and humid conditions, this notebook uses a specially coated paper that repels water. Sweet.

Constantina Elise (Tina for short), named after the 2008 Olympic Marathon Gold Medalist Constantina Tomescu-Dita and Katie's niece Elise is a hungarian Vizsla, which are well known for being great hunting dogs...and for loving to run between 30-90 minutes a day. Our seven week old especially enjoys racing me up and down the stairs, wrestling a toy duck the size of her body, and passing out in odd places (like on my laptop while I am typing) once she exhausts all of her energy.





Cat CEO on Economic Advisory Board, Now that JO is Obama's right hand man I feel a lot better about Caterpillar...that and I dodged the ax during the round of layoffs that cascaded through the company this past couple of weeks. But back to Jim Owens' best week ever: he gets named to a very significant government board, flies on Air Force One, has an interview on 60 Minutes, and then moments after Barack leaves the building JO contradicts most of what he just said...

Americans Stimulating more than the economy, while most company annoucements these days are dripping with red ink, it was nice to hear that at least one industry was just heating up 4th quarter 2008 and is full on raging the month of January...I am talking condoms of course, up 6% this month alone!

Knowing exactly where everyone is...., Google's newest lab 'Latitude' has me very much on the fence. The geek in me thinks that it is awesome that you can have a buddy list and literally see where you friends are on Google Maps...exactly. They don't even need a smart phone, they just sign up and Google can use their signal to figure out where they are. Just like Enemy of the State. The Orwell in me is woried that Gene Hackman wont be around to save my ass if someone was trying to find me. Consider this (Progressive Commercial Voice)...if we are allowed to play with this kind of technology, what else is out there? This.

Having the Internet while you drive, If you have phone with an internet data plan then you are already paying at least $30 a month a connection...use it intelligently, with a USB Cable and the software from Mobishark, your phone is now your modem and if you have a laptop you are free to roam. (Most of this update was written on I-39). The second best thing about this, Verizon charges $30 a month for this same service--MobiShark charges $50 once for the download.


Things that do:

You know things are tough when someone steal Lance's bike...luckily for him though, 'It's not about the bike' but unluckily for whoever stole the one-of-a-kind-highly-recognizable bike, Lance Armstrong has a cult following...and he is a dick...and the people who really like him are usually fanatic dicks. In future news: Man who stole Armstrong's bike was found beaten badly and tied to a tree along the Tour of California course with rope hand-weaved from Livestrong Bracelets.

Great Depression 2.0, Just kidding...but seriously I spent most of my "research time" (a.k.a. the few precious hours that I get for my random walk through the internet every week) building my case that this economic hicup was more a psycological than financial affair. I don't just pull this stuff out of my hat, it has happened several times (1893, 1907 are most similiar)...usually like this:

1) Scandal - some kind of greed gone bad that undercuts public trust
2) Panic - triggered by the scandal (or stupidity) fueled my media
3) Bank Run - everyone wants their money and they want it now
4) Intervention - JP Morgan, Rockafeller, Congress...
5) Normalization - people put their money back in the bank and go back to buying lattes or shoeshines I guess

Hours of reading and my theory was busted...no #3, that was until Tuesday. Thankyou Pennsylvania Representative Paul Kanjorski, as it turns out, back on September 18th, two days after ABC money market fund "broke the buck" there was a $550 Billion Dollar electronic run on the banks in less then two hours. It took immediate action by Bernacke and Paulsen to inject $105 Billion dollars from the Reserve back into the market to keep the world financial systems from literally melting down. Everyone did a very good job of keeping this one under their hats...CPAN even stopped reporting the cash supply indicators (M0, M1, M2) and nobody really batted an eye at this bizzarre behavior. I guess that is good though, because if it was let out all of us would be keeping what was left of our money buried in the backyard...probably right underneath our crops, behind our gates, and next to our guard tower...

Illinois was clearly caught up in No Government Left Behind program, Our state is the benchmark for corruption, the governor was under federal investigation, the mob was involved, and so was the PRESIDENT....what the hell was Burris thinking when he lied to the impeachment panel?!? The trib just ran a sweet editorial 'State of Corruption' a pretty far from from Honest Abe (Happy 200th).


Until Next Time,
Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 2/01/2009

"There are tens of thousands of people all across America, just like me who are losing their jobs or lost their jobs"

-Rod Blagojevich, the ex-governor of Illinois...Blagojevich SNL skit

It was another exciting week of recession / depression 2009. A bunch more layoffs, the Dow taking a trip back to the year 2002, and Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning...awesome, more winter. Some silver lining is that tommorow morning (if I don't sleep in) I am driving over to Denny's for a free Grand Slam Breakfast. In other news, my Twitter experiment has pretty much ended with limited success. Anyways, read on:

Some things that don't suck:

Is investing in the stock market just a gamble? then skip the crap and just bet! This website is sweet and probably the next big addiction for many of us. Instead of researching stocks, rebalancing your 401k, and wishing you would have put your money where you mouth was on some of those moves...now you can (with limited risk).

Flight of the Conchords coming to Chicago! If you have not heard of them, they are a comedy folk band from New Zealand...check out their website, What the Folk.

Woot, this website sells exactly one product per day at a great price. The sale starts at exactly midnight and typically sells out early in the day.

Unlympics, a month-long series of quirky sporting events aimed at encouraging debate about Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics. Events included: the lighting of stuff on fire, the game where you win, run around the block and we'll time you, spelling Bee, and the solitary confinement game.

Sign of the Times, in 2004, Gov. Blagojevich put up 32 signs on the tollway reading "Open Road Tolling--Rod R. Blagojevich Governor" for $15,000 a piece ($480,000 total)...today it only cost $15,000 to take them all down, haha.

Google Earth---Not Google Dirt, In the latest version of google's most popular download, the developers took the advice of marine scientist Sylvia Earle who pointed out that in the previous four releases they had left out "two-thirds of the planet", so you can now zoom and scroll your way through the valleys and canyons of Earth's Oceans.

Some things that do:

Blowfish Poisoning sent 7 to hospital, This sucks because people are still dumb enough to order a dish where if prepared incorrectly it can cause death within an hour...and these seven were lucky enough to draw a chef not lisenced to prepare the delicacy.

If you thought Scarface was gangster..., This movie actually looks pretty sweet. It was written by a guy (now in hiding) involved in the real mafia in Naples, Italy...scary stuff, its called Gomorrah.

Full frontal male nudity during the superbowl, To all of the super bowl viewers near Tucson, AZ...I am sorry, and so is Comcast. Somehow this 30-second clip from Shorteez, a hard-core pay-per-view adult channel owned by Playboy cut into the game with less than 3 minutes to go. Luckily the error was corrected and Comcast is paying up a $10 dollar credit to regional customers.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 1/25/2009

Chance's Weekend Update: 1/25/2009

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there."

-Lewis Carroll

The (my) world is changing fast...I get emails on my phone, iTunes automatically creates playlists that go great with the song I am listening to, and I drive really slow now. This is kind of big for me because I used to check my email once a week, only listen to Nirvana, and cruise at 95mph on the interstate. Mind you, when I say slow, I am not talking speed limit slow...I actually try to coast as much as possible to keep my MPG bar pegged at 100, so there at times when I drop to as much as 20 under...especially when it is hilly. That is beside the point though, my weekend is over already and I didn't even get to play with my legos...damn I am getting old. Anyways:

Some things that don't suck:

First Stem Cell Study Approved, Ten patients who have recently suffered from spinal cord injuries leaving them completely paralyzed have a remarkable opportunity which was unavailable to them until literally this last week. The results will not be known for some time, but in lab environments stem cells have been shown to regrow damaged nerve cells--which is awesome news for those first ten people...and hopefully a lot more down the line.

Prank Wars, Amir (from Jake and Amir) and one of his coworkers from Collegehumor.com have been in an ongoing prank war for almost a year now. I have watched a couple of them on YouTube, and they have been escaladingly mean...but this last one really took the cake. It was a sweet way to hopefully end this thing and probably his friend's relationship.

Dock-N-Talk, ditch your expensive and rarely used land line for this cell phone docking station that allows calls to ring through your existing home phones. Your cell phone can connect physically with a cord or automatically through blue tooth whenever you are in range. To be clear, you can also place calls from your wireless home phones and the answering machine will still work...but only when your cell phone is docked.

The Cubs and Wrigley Field Sold, The 25 year Chicago native and founder of Ameritrade picked up the Cubs at the sweet discount price of $900 Million (estimated value of over $1 Billion this past summer). Even though he clearly inherited all of the problems associated with a cursed team and an antiquated ballpark, I am very glad to see the friendly confines pass into the hands of a loyal fan rather than some random corporate sponsor. But hopefully some people wont be happy with that and I will move up a couple of spots on the season ticket wait list (I still haven't cracked 37,000).

Jake Winder, Even though I graduated last year I am still very pumped that a North Central Pole Vaulter is the number 1 ranked vaulter in the country. I watched him in action a couple of weekends ago at the Alumni Meet and it was pretty intense, so I am looking forward to Indoor Nationals when he takes it to the rest of the country.

Ground Zero, Choose a location on google maps, choose your weapon, and this "mapplet" will show you the thermal damage associated with the blast.

Very Short List, is an email that I have been getting once a day for a couple of months now...most of the time it goes directly to the trash, but every now there are some really interesting things in it. As the name of the newsletter gives away...it is a very short list: only one item per day.

Some things that do:

Season Ticket Wait list Conspiracy, (see the comment above about my spot on the Cubs season ticket wait list). Last year when I checked my spot on the list I was sitting just above 37,000 which was odd because I was sure that when I got on the list I was somewhere around 34,000 but maybe I am just going crazy. As any concerned party might do, I sent an email, and was offered some 9-game package that I could buy at discount...hush money. But when I logged in today--to double check that I hadn't dipped below my claimed 37,000--and I found that I was sitting 45,667 place in line, now I knew I wasn't crazy...I was crazy pissed. This is bullshit, I kind of thought that the concept of a wait list was similar to that of a line--starting at the back and working your way forward to your desired destination. This is my third year on the list and I have slipped nearly 12,000 spots. I am going to get some answers on this--I will keep you posted.

Peanut butter recalled, while this may not be of much consequence to some people...peanut butter is a major component of my diet so when I recently heard about the salmonella outbreak I was both saddened and concerned. There is some silver lining to the tarnished peanut butter story though....Girl Scout Cookies are safe!!!

Illinois Governor nominated to NOBEL PEACE PRIZE, Even though Ex-Governor Ryan is sitting in jail for selling a CDL that directly led to a family burning to death in a car accident, a University of Illinois Professor felt the need to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize...for the sixth time.

Blago Hired Drew Peterson's PR firm, is planning on skipping his impeachment trial, and will be on the View tomorrow, All of these things separately blow my mind but all together is beyond comprehension. First of all...why the hell does a police officer from Bollingbrook who has killed two of his wives need a PR firm? Second, what could a PR firm possibly do to help our Governor? and finally... the View instead of your IMPEACHMENT TRIAL??

Twitter is contributing to the end of all meaningful relationships...instead of calling your friends or meeting up for meaningful conversation, we can just check our twitter timeline and read their recent one to two sentence updates. It is pretty much a distilled facebook that is yet to be picked up on corporate web filters...but I have been hearing a lot about it (and Facebook tried to buy them)so I started an account to see what it is all about...feel free to follow my updates throughout the next week or until I forget about it....my username is randomharrier

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 1/18/2009

"In the 1960s, NASA astronauts discovered that their pens did not work in zero gravity. So like good engineers, they went to work and designed a wonder pen. It worked upside down. It worked in vacuum. It worked in zero gravity. It even worked underwater! And it only cost a million dollars!
The crafty Russians used a pencil"

-Urban / Internet Legend , the frugal side of me laughs at this anecdote while the more fun side of me looks the other way whistling...because I own a pen that can write upside down, survive being dropped out of an airplane, and even break the windows out of a car.

I was hoping to use the above quote to kick off some kind of over-processing metaphor to segue into my opposition of the continued economic stimulus packages, but in doing my due diligence on the story I found that it was only a myth (click the link underneath to read the details). The moral shouldn't be overlooked though. Consider this: Something like 97% of a car's power output is used in moving its own weight. Someone figured out that every 100 lbs you eliminate can save between 2-4% in efficiency. Instead of the fairly obvious solution (the pencil) of making really lightweight cars which wouldn't need a huge heavy engine to get it moving, a large transmission to handle to torque of the engine, a 200lb breaking system to slow it down, or a 15-gallon fuel tank, the best automotive accomplishment in recent history has been the hybrid car (the space pen)...that allows us to drag all 2000lbs of the previously mentioned dead weight with us wherever we go...only now in a slightly more efficient way. Anyways...I had to cut out a lot this week's info otherwise it would take you hours to sift through it all, but there is still a ton here, I always seem run into an information overload when I take a weekend off or read magazines on a flight...enjoy:

Some things that don't suck:

Crash Proof Cars, I will file this one under: "I wish I had this last weekend". The 2010 Volvo S60 will be equipted with a collision detection system to warn you of fast approaching objects and if neccesary take full control of your braking system--allowing you to look at your directions and slam into a stopped truck at a stoplight in St louis...

The XO Laptop, The XO is a highly effective learning tool designed and built especially for children in developing countries, living in some of the most remote environments. For starters, it's about the size of a small textbook and made with a rugged plastic exterior. It has built-in wireless and a unique screen that works in full color or black and white to make it readable under direct sunlight. And finally it's ultra-low power using only about 4 watts (most laptops use about 40 watts). This means, when there's no electricity, it can be recharged through alternate power sources like solar power. The company has been working hard over the past 3 years to significantly reduce the price and hence availability, it is a pretty sweet foundation.

BookCrossing, I love books and own a lot of them...which doesnt really make sense because all they do is sit on my shelf. This website has a "read and release" policy where you literally put an ID tag on your book and hide it somewhere. You then register its location on the website and other members can go read it, then release it somewhere else. You can track your book's journey or search for other books to read yourself.

Cheat Sheet, This is a quick way to be "that guy" aka the number one source for all of the current happenings in the world. In a nutshell, the authors of Cheat Sheet put together a short list of your need-to-know news articles for the day. Visit their website when needed or subscribe to their newletter if you have a serious information addiction.

Couchsurfing, this community of free places to sleep is for the truly cheap at heart. Most countries and major cities are represented, become a member yourself and allow strangers to crash in your basement or simple use the free service to save some money on your next adventure. As an experiment, I searched the city I stayed in this past weekend and there were 3 registered couchsurfers...one even had a letter of recommendation.

Blago's lawyers jump ship, After comparing the upcoming impeachment trial to a lynching and citing a lack of preparation time, the governor's head lawyers (a father-son team) decided that it was time to jump ship. Shortly thereafter, Edward Genson, another prominent Chicago lawyer decided to sit this one out--convincing a jury that R Kelly didn't really piss on a 15 year old girl even though there is a video was one thing, but convincing the state that Gov. Chipmunk is innocent is apparently way out of his league.

Girls Gone Wild's CEO Joe Francis and HUSTLER's publisher Larry Flynt ask Congress for bailout, I don't care who you are, this is funny. Clearly they are not expecting the money, or even need it. They are just raising that question that nobody has thought of yet...where does the gravy train line stop? Why do the automakers and bankers get all of this money and the local grocery and retail storefronts are left out to dry? This is classic Flynt, circa 1999.[2]. If you are lost I will refresh your memory--there was a presidential witch trial going on--Clinton being the witch (Bill this time), and all of the congressmen were ready with torches and pitchforks. That is of course until Larry Flynt ran a full page ad in the Washington Post with a hot line number offering up to $1 million for "documentary evidence of illicit sexual relations" with a member of Congress or other high-ranking government official. Several weeks and probably thousands of hours of political commentary later, the 82-page Flynt Report was released.

Some things that do:

The Temperature. (note: I am writing this from Houston, TX where I was just swimming outside earlier tonight...this "-39 degree wind chill in Chicago" is just a rumor I am choosing to pass along)

PackBot, This one is right out of the movies...and its manufacturer is literally iRobot. There are more than 2000 of them being used in the middle east...the scary part is that they have just recently armed them...somebody call Will Smith.

Illegal Taxes from our other super corrupt politician, times are tough for city governments...especially when they have to follow federal laws. Until recently, all Chicago residents with satellite television service were going to be looking at a 9% luxury tax from the city on top of their current bill--mailed and collected separately of course. This creative revenue stream for the city was quickly shot down after lawyers from Direct TV and Dish informed the Mayor Daley that they could not volunteer their subscriber information--thus the tax is unenforceable...

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch