Category: Observation

An Entertaining Night

Just back from the Trans Siberian Orchestra Concert in Peoria tonight.  This is somewhere around my 4th time seeing them and I can tell you they still put on a great show.  I think for the third year in a row we got the West coast version with Al Petrelli.  It appears he previously took a nasty fall off the stage and destroyed his knee.  He had a pretty big brace on it and was moving on it gingerly.  That did not stop him from shredding up the night alongside his wife on the keyboards.  I will not go much into the show since you really need to experience it yourself – especially you like your music fast, in your face and played to perfection.  I did appreciate the fact they changed it up since the last time we saw it.  They changed the dueling keyboards and moved up the “Strat” vs “Gibson” shred-off into the middle of the Christmas story.  A strange place for it, but it worked for me.

There were two interesting aspects of the night I did want to comment on.  First off, we could not locate our seats.  My wife had purchased them at the Civic Center Box Office so we new they were legit.  Unfortunately, the row numbering scheme confused us.  When we got to our section, we headed into the first level concourse and showed the tickets to the attendant there.  He directed us to the first rows in the level above us.  So we headed up there, passed the press box rows and checked out the first row number.  Turns out it was row 9.  We looked at the press boxes and noticed there were only two rows there which on best guess would make it rows 8 and 7.  Totally confused, we went back down and talked to another attendant and explained our situation.  He was confused as well and walked us up to the press boxes and told us to just sit in the second row (our guess row 8 ) and see what happens.  This NEVER works out for me so I went back down and talked to the first attendant and told him we were still confused.  I do not think he actually believed me, but he did walk up to the seats with me and I re-explained the situation.  This time he understood the situation and decided he needed to contact his supervisor.  So we walked back down and located her.  We ALL proceeded back up to the seats and had the exact same discussion resulting in the exact same confusion.  This time the lady told us to go ahead and sit there (I had Linda move down to row 7 which seemed more logical to me) and she would go to the box office and get it straightened out for us.  10 or 15 minutes later she came back and confirmed that we were now actually in the correct seats.  I still think we were in row 7, but the deduction we made is that the rows were wider to fit the tables in so they had to remove a row.  Anyway, we sat in the press box which ended up being a pretty cool place to watch the concert from.  The table actually cut down a bit of the stage view, but you could stretch out and see the rest if wanted to.

About 75% into the concert, we noticed a security guard talking to someone two rows below us (in the lower bowel).  He seemed to be getting upset because the person he was talking to wasn’t cooperating with him.  Eventually a guy about 55 or 60 in a brown sport coat stood up and followed the security guard.  It was just him and he really didn’t say anything as he weaved through the row.  We speculated that it might be smoking or possibly filming but his age threw me off for the latter.  A little later, my wife went out to the restroom.  On her return, she relayed the fact that same individual was out in the hall with multiple security guards and he apparently was holding a high end 35mm digital camera.  Turns out the security guards were forcing him to delete the pictures off of the memory card.  A smart person would have put spares in his coat pocket and periodically switched them out so he at least got some benefit for the effort.

That is it for tonight.  My ears are still ringing a little and my eyes took a beating with the strobes.

Shred On!

We Have Confirmation

I freed up a few minutes from work to make a quick post.  I hate going this long, but I am closing out some large projects which is taking me on some long days.  I thought I would comment on things I did not know Monday morning, but I do today.

  • I now know who my Lieutenant Governor is for my state.  For Illinois, this would be Pat Quinn
  • Our soon to be EX-Governor knows some naughty words
  • Our soon to be EX-Governor is married to someone that thinks she is worth 150K a year
  • Jesse Jackson’s kid is now also known as Senate Candidate 5
  • Attorney General Patrick Fitzgerald has an impressive trial record
  • Soon to be EX-Governor Rod Blowjobovich is living with visions of grandeur coupled with delusional thoughts
  • Illinois actually averages a governor being jailed once in every 10 years
  • Taking on the Chicago Tribune is not a winning situation
  • There are people out there willing to withhold funds to children focused charitable organization for personal campaign contributions
  • Soon to be EX-Governor has had his phone wiretapped since before the election
  • There are a tremendous amount of people who dislike the soon to be Illinois EX-Governor as much as I do
  • EX-Governor Jim Edgar is a complete idiot based on his comment that the problem with the Illinois politics is the voters – last I looked, I can only vote on the small list of candidates each party focuses on – and if you look at the past Illinois election and see who the Republican party put their hopes on you’ll understand why it is not OUR fault – at least we are rid of you and your ridiculous tea toting policies on alcohol at the State Fair.

Notice that I did not include the following in this list because they were already known

  • Political corruption runs deep with Illinois
  •  Rod Blowjobovich is as crooked as they come – I wonder if he would have been in this much trouble if he had actually moved to Springfield like he was supposed to!
  • Downstate voters have very little influence in high level elections
  • Did I mention Rod Blowjobovich is as crooked as they come?
  • Rod Blowjobovich looks like Deputy Dog

Oh well, back to reading this fascinating affidavit.  Hey Rod, don’t drop the soap and good luck on that planned presidential run.

A Thanksgiving Moment

Updated 11/29/08 (added Erector Sets)

First off, I would like to extend my best wishes for everyone on this Thanksgiving Day (for those US based readers out there).  May your travels be safe and uneventful.  I did notice where the flight reservations are way down this year.  I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that oil price per barrel is down yet some airlines are still trying to charge extra for baggage.  Last I recall, that was added to OFFSET the cost of jet fuel.  Funny how things go up instantly and tend to just drift down.

But today is about being thankful for things.  I decided that a recent discussion I had with a friend is a perfect topic for today.   So my thanks today goes to:  Not being killed by my childhood toys.  For some reason this topic came up one day and since my friend is roughly the same age, we were able to relate to the dangers we experienced as kids.  I say experienced because it really only comes into full perspective in retrospective or immediately after a significant injury.  I honestly think the danger is what made the toy so much fun.  I was looking through the Black Friday ads and was taking note of the new generation of toys out there.  My assessment is today’s kids must be extremely bored.  Everything has rounded edges, battery compartments attached by 10 or more screws, foam tipped and restricted power.  The liberals and soccer moms must be successful in their attempts to raise a pansy generation with unusually strong thumbs.  So here is a short list of the toys my friend and I decided were the most fun… translated, probably the most dangerous.

  • Jarts:  Sharpened steel tips with aerodynamic plastic wings to increase the accuracy and penetration depth.  These were at every single family outing I was ever at.  Kids of all ages whipping down to ground circles at the other end of the yard.  Which also happened to be where your teammates were standing making the whole event that much more entertaining.  Today they have stupid sand filled blunt ended enlarged badmiton shuttlecocks.  Total number of injuries experienced or witnessed in my childhood – ZERO
  • Water Pressure Rockets: These were just plain awesome. The task was to fill up a plastic rocket with water and then attach them to the end of a pump.  The attachment process was quite low tech with simply a piece of plastic that slid along the shaft and locked the end of the rocket onto a opening with a rubber seal.  This created an “L” shape with the long end having a plunger to pump air into the rocket creating as much pressure as you could muster.  I am sure it had some stupid line in the directions stating only x number of pumps.  Kudos to the toy engineers that could create a seal on the rocket capable of holding 10x pumps.  So now you basically have a pressurized rocket grenade.  The dangerous portion came with the fact you had to then pull back on the sliding piece of plastic to release the rocket.  However, a 10x load creates quite a lock so you had to really bear down and pull on the sleeve to release it.  For visuals, remember what you did the last time you had to open a stuck pickle jar.  My bet is you bent down a little bit and put the char at an angle to get the proper leverage.  Imagine now doing that with the water rocket.  How I never managed to blast one into my face is a miracle in itself.  Contrast that with the fact I absolutely loved that toy.  I think today’s version has a remote foot pedal pressurize and release system and I’m sure it is encased in a Nerf football.  Childhood injuries: only a pinched finger trying to pull that sleeve back.
  • Skateboards (with clay wheels): I have to needle my middle brother for this toy since he is the one who purchased it for me.  I am pretty sure he didn’t check with my parents beforehand and I am pretty sure he gave it to me when he was in college – I would have been 9 or so years younger.  I can’t remember a gift since then that surprised me more – not only was it the coolest gift I could have received at that time, but clearly he took a big risk with our parents.  For the most part it was pure joy as the wind whipped through my hair as I sailed down the hills balanced on a thin strip of wood.
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An Uncomfortable Wait

Yesterday I had the opportunity to read the packaging on numerous brands of condoms.  That’s right, I now know what the various sizes are (marketing genius made sure there were no extra small sizes, but an extra large to capture the bachelor party gag gift revenue), what the various textures are (ultra thin, extra sensitive, ribbed, something labeled twisted pleasure and a concerning offering that apparently pulsates – don’t ask me for details on that, I decided it was best not to know), quantity options, tip construction alternatives and a whole bevy of lube options including grape and strawberry flavor.

But it didn’t end there.  I further enhanced my worldly knowledge by reading all of the personal lubrication gels and a suprisingly large number of pregnancy tests. On the lube front, there was the standard KY options but the most interesting was the His and Hers option which looked like the dual tube packaging for strong epoxies.  Chuckling to myself, I thought that it might be an abstinence conctraceptive based on welding something shut.  I must have read 10 E.P.T boxes trying to figure out the differences.  Admittedly, I couldn’t figure it out beyond possibly the wait cycles or method of displaying the results.  I wondered if the talking greeting card technology had made its way into this market giving us a recorded message based on the results displayed on the stick.  In fact, think of the whole opportunity for Hallmark –

  • “Congratulations, you’re a winner”
  • “You’re gonna need some new clothes”
  • “Another bullet dodged”
  • “Your Mom’s heart attack has been avoided”
  • For him: “Hurray for new boobies”
  • For him: “Sorry, quality control has experienced a failure”

Okay, cutting myself off because that was waaaay to much fun.  I will take any submissions from my readers.  If this idea takes hold, I want it to be known I thought of it first and I want royalties.

Any chance the question popped into your head as to why I was relishing in this particular aisle?  Your assumptions are most likely wrong.   The reality of it is I was waiting to get my prescription filled at the Walmart out on Allen Rd. in Peoria.  I hit a prompt care to get relief from a sinus infection and decided to pop over to Walmart Pharmacy (they wave the co-pay winning the choice over the closer CV).  The benches they have for people to wait are located straight out and perpendicular to the pharmacy counter.  This also places it directly in line with the store shelves which had the contents I discussed above.  I get bored very easy so tend to take in everything I can find and product packaging is a ripe distraction.  So, sorry to burst the image bubble, but I was just sitting in the aisle reading the shelves from about 5 feet away.  Have I mentioned lately how must I love my new eyes?

What this does mean is a complete lack of privacy for individuals that want to actually purchase these products.  Imagine at least four people (men, women, children) sitting there staring at you while you make your selection.  And if that is not enough, you have all the people standing in line to pay for their prescriptions at the pharmacy desk.  Someone in the store layout either has a sense of humor, insensitive to a generally private matter or possibly this is a very common shop lifted item that they feel needs to have an extra layer of free security protection (sometimes I crack myself up).   I actually don’t have an answer for which option really applies in this case.  I am not sure I want to discourage the use of contraceptives since the local state portion of my daily paper seems to indicate the abstinence approach to reducing unwed pregnancies is not that effective.  But I have to vote against the layout guy not knowing what he was doing since he had a logical order to the shelves – condoms, lubes and then the EPTs seems like a pretty smart grouping.

Yes, an individual did come to the aisle to make a purchase.  He was probably in his late 30s or early 40s and was very interested in the top shelves that held the lubes and the EPTs.  In contrast to what my comfort level if it was me, he was pretty much oblivious to me watching him the entire 15 minutes he spent there.  I couldn’t tell exactly what product he was analyzing because his back was to me, but he was very thorough in his assessment.   He even opened the box and began reading the detailed instructions.  Eventually, he repackaged the box and proceed to make the purchase at the pharmacy counter.  I still couldn’t see what he had, but based on the shelf gap, I’m guessing lube.  Nothing like an informed consumer.

Hopefully I did not offend anyone with today’s post.  I blog it as I see it and I didn’t want to waste a solid 30 minuts of field work and some definite business opportunities await.  Hmmm, clarification, business opportunities in the EPT market, not to imply any reference to my previous post on the Vegas women.

Diiiiirty Giiiirls In The City of Silicone

Since I am heading to Vegas in about 2 hours and the fact my brother is insinuating lack of content from his glass house I figured I would quickly post on my my favorite observations in Vegas.  Yes, I admit it, I like watching the prostitutes try and pick up their customers in the City That Never Sleeps.  Purely from a marketing perspective, mind you, because I do not get to see that much in my rather small town.  About 6 or 7 years ago was my first true observation of this.  I was waiting for the Luxor inclinator about 2:30 in the morning and I was literally surrounded by very well dressed and jeweled women in very suggestive clothing just milling around.  At that time, they had a security guard sitting at a small desk next to the inclinator and you had to show your room key before he would let you get on it.  Strangely enough, none of these women would make eye contact with him, but just kept pacing around.  Finally, the inclinator arrives and out pops a couple of guys.  The first one says his name and a girl came over and they left the area.  The other guy also says his name and two blondes made their way over and then proceeded to step back into the inclinator that I had just entered.  I hit a floor number below their destination and made the socially expected move of backing into the farthest possible corner.  For the duration of my ride I was subjected to what each of the women were going to do in the whirlpool along with their champagne, strawberries and chocolate.  I chuckled as I was exiting to my floor and was actually intrigued on how much that little event was going to cost him – and no, there is no way I was going to pursue that answer.

A few years later in Vegas, I got a call from a buddy of mine that went out there with us.  Again, about 2 am, he calls my cell to inform me he was just propositioned by a prostitute and thought it was pretty funny.  This is the first time someone I new well was asked for this type of employment in Vegas.  Of course, still thinking about my unanswered question I asked him if he inquired as to the cost – FOR RESEARCH ONLY.  He didn’t ask and actually before I got done asking the question I was hoping he didn’t because I think that would represent a transaction which could have been a whole lot more fun to blog on.

Then came last time I was in Vegas about 3 or so months back.  Sure enough, around 2 am (something tells me I should start watching where I go at those hours) My nephew-in-law and I were heading out of Hooters (how appropriate) and all of sudden a lady at the bar reaches out into our path and asks us how we were doing that night.  From an observation perspective, I am guessing significant less bills would be required to complete any type of transaction as opposed to the shelf quality of the previous Luxor setting.  For the record, this may have just been a very friendly lady who likes to reach out and greet people.  However, said we were fine and continued walking out the door and headed to the crossover between the Tropicana and the MGM.  On our approach, we see two more ladies quite frankly the more traditional prostitute garb just pacing back and forth in front of the escalator.  I must admit, the general quality (assuredly from an appearance perspective only) is significantly higher in Vegas and augmentation is either very cheap elective surgery or the business setting there is very lucrative – or the longevity of the showgirl career isn’t very long.  We responded with disinterest and proceeded back to the Luxor where we were staying.  The following night I stayed up all night so I didn’t have to bother waking up to leave for the airport at 5:30am.  The same friend that gave me the call about his proposition met me about 1 am to play some video poker.  After a couple of hours of that, he headed back to the MGM where he was staying.  Sure enough, he shows up again about 15 minutes later and asks me if I saw a particular lady prowling around the outer slot machine banks.  I had not seen that particular girl.  Apparently she came up  to him and asked if he was winning or not.  I am not sure that is the best opening line that early in the morning – is anyone going to tell someone they have been windfalling it all night and basically beg to be rolled?  There was some banter back and forth and I am not sure of the exact line, but basically asked if he was interested.  He said no and that he was heading back to his wife at another hotel.  Disappointed she then asked optimistically, “Does she like women?”  Now that is a savvy business woman and probably could use those talents in a legitimate profession.  First distract, next engage, then make the offer, sidestep rejection and take another angle.  There are a lot of people I meet in business trying to sell me something that could learn a lot by watching those in the oldest profession.  Oh, by the way in case you are wondering he told her no.

As I was checking my comps at 4:30am I spotted a lady with the same description hanging on some dudes arm.  As they passed me she commented that letting him spank her was going to cost him more.  Yes, Information Technology technical marketers, the concept of Services Oriented pricing is not a new concept, it has been around for a long, long time.  Oh, and before anyone comments, I know that Silicone is been replaced but some of these women are pretty darn old.

Yikes, late for the airport – I’ll correct the typos later…. VEGAS HERE I COME

Design Failure or Insurance Liability

I like looking at everyday things and pondering if there are engineering improvements that can be made.  There appears to be a point in which the specific item becomes a commodity and it moves into a maintenance mode.  Apparently this means that there very little changes from year to year and those are generally in the attempt to make it cheaper, not consumer improved.  This of course is the business model of commodity since I am guessing the profit margins are based almost entirely on the volume.  Disruption events are the only driver for change or rather a shift back to design to win consumers back.  Sometimes, someone comes out with a better functioning widget (think ESATA over USB) or a sleeker hipper look (think IPhone) and the market is stood on end and we actually see creativity back into that market… but only until it the competition dies out and the mundane takes over.  I do recall one of my economics professors telling us that it is always better to actually disrupt your own products before your competitor does.  Apparently this has not happened in the walker business.

At least twice a week, I see an elderly person traversing a parking lot with the aid of a traditional walker.   This is usually a little sad seeing the definite discomfort of the individual, but there are always bright sides to any situation and at least they are still able to get out of the house and get some exercise.  The piece of the picture that always catches my attention is the bottom of the front two legs on the walker.  Probably 4 out of 5 times the owner has placed tennis balls over the ends.  This is an amazing ratio to me, 80% of the market is modifying your product.  There is a definite deficiency viewed by the consumer and there is a common solution that a majority of those customers are using to solve the problem.  I also smiled at the fact Answers.com actually put this use in their definition of a Tennis Ball.  What is preventing the producer of these walkers from improving the design?  Does it cost to much to modify the caps on the front bars so they slide better?  Have they studied what is causing the market to take this action?  I can only come up with five possible answers

  1. There is no competition in that market and therefore the producer has absolutely no monetary incentive to improve the design.  This to me appears to be a ripe market for a disruption and therefore profit
  2. There is a legal implication that trumps the design decision.  For example, the addition of smoother sliding front legs would result in the possible fall of 1 and say a million users, but that single lawsuit by ambulance chasing snakes (I mean lawyers) is too much risk to the business.  This seemed like a viable explanation, but read further in the post to see why I do not believe this.
  3. Profit margins by the company are being compensated via accessories.  If this is the case, I am not sure they have a successful market since the largest majority of users are taking a competitor product (although not actually designed for that use) over your accessory.
  4. The tennis ball lobby has somehow contacted AARP and have a side deal with kickbacks if they keep their names (and thus advertisement) prominent in retail parking lots.  Note, apparently the Penn Lobby is alive and well based on their prominent spot on Wikipedia. I had to laugh at that entry because it actually had a picture of new Penn ball and a picture of a used Penn ball side by side so you can see the difference.

To be honest, there was an event that prompted this particular post.  A disruption appeared in the marketplace.  Last week I was heading into a Walmart and saw a walker modification and it was not tennis balls.  Basically, it was just a small piece of plastic in the shape of a ski.  Something I had not seen before and it caught me off guard – hence the definition of disruption in the marketplace.  I was actually so stunned I went into the store to see if this item had actually made it to the market or whether this was an extremely crafty person.  Sure enough, there it was on the display next to the walkers.  Unfortunately, I forgot to notice if this was the same manufacture of the actual walkers they had (and thus falls in the accessory profit), or whether it was a different enterprising company.  There was actually another package next to it which had a production version of the tennis ball concept which had precut balls and a clever attachment mechanism that screwed into the bottom of the walker legs – that part was actually fuzzy yellow as well so it made it look exactly like they just slapped a tennis ball on the end.. but it was far more secure.  It took me about 10 seconds to get over the cleverness of that package and then put it in the category of stupidity since there was absolutely NO reason to make a better version that looked exactly like a hack in the first place.  This is no different than a programmer making an address storage program that looks and functions like a rolodex.  These options did convince me that option 2 above was not valid.  If it really was a legal issue, these products would not exist because they would have the same fear as the original manufactures of the walker. Therefore, I categorize this as a DESIGN FAILURE

Apparently I have additional field research to do in order to tell if the new skiis will overtake the tried and true slotted tennis ball.  I’ll keep you posted since I am now sure you are as fascinated by this as I am.. okay, maybe a little interested… try to deny it, but I know you will take extra time to check the legs of the next walker you see.

Hallmark Wins

Sorry for the long delay.  I have been fighting a stupid cold for about 4 days now and it is not showing any signs of letting up.  In general  I rarely come down with colds, but when I do they tend to be the nastiest strains on the continent.  Since I don’t take any medications unless I absolutely have to, I resort to the bombardment of Vitamin C.  The guess at this point is I sunk it in pretty deep by running 4 miles during the early stages.  This may have weakened my immune system enough for it to take a stranglehold.  Don’t worry, I’ll make it through.

Fortunately, I identified blog material during that run.  Since treadmill running is an immense bore,  I always have the TV or stereo going to keep my mind off the fact I’m at most moving back and forth about 6 inches for 30+ minutes at a time.  This is probably one of the few times I am actually exposed to commercials beyond when I am getting ready for work in the mornings.  Similar to when I was forced to watch 7 minutes of Obama’s infomercial because it came on before completing my mileage for the day, I caught my first Christmas commercial of the season.  Yes, on Friday Nov 7th, Hallmark ran a Christmas add for some kind of talking giftbag.  Thanksgiving is all but irrelevant these days and my guess every year they will push the Christmas season even further ahead.  I already see Christmas decorations start hitting the retail shelves before Halloween is over.  I’ve decided to honor my favorite pumpkin holiday and commit to not purchasing any Christmas themed item before Thanksgiving.  Mind you, this does not apply to purchasing gifts ahead of time.  My wife likes to get that out of the way as soon as possible in contrast to my theory that the best deals are on December 23rd – Chia Pets for everyone!

Hitman Ignites the Spidey Senses

Last night I started out watching Sweeney Todd with my wife.  It is rare when we get to actually watch a movie together and there was actually something on HBO we had not already seen.  I must admit, I did not do any research on this particular movie, but I had heard it received some fairly good reviews.  5 minutes into it we realized it was a musical and take a guess on what genre I typically dislike.  Shows about Music (Rock Star, Spinal Tap…) no problem.  Shows delivered in music format (Sweeney Todd, Hairspray…) suckage.  After about 15 more minutes we decided it was not worth wasting our together time on so we switched over to WALL-E.  Again, no research on the movie and caught a little off guard by the fact there were only mechanical sounds until near the end.  This was not the best I’ve seen out of the Dreamworks studios.  It had its cute moments, but didn’t hold our attention very strong.  We stuck this one out, but I’ll definitely do a little more Googling before the next movie night.

I decided to go check out the latest news stories on the web and ended up turning the TV on to have some background noise.  Hitman came on HBO and even though I had already seen it previously, I kept it on mainly because I was too lazy to find the controller and hunt for something better.  Again, I would not put this in the “good” category, but it has its moments if you like some action and blood on your screen.  What I did think was stunning was the formula damsel in distress.  When I saw it the first time, I was intrigued by her face tattoo.  I also distinctly remembered something about that tattoo bothering me on first viewing.  I made a mental note to pay closer attention when her scenes came on to see if I could figure it out.  Often times my brain will pick out something odd, but it takes me awhile to clarify what it is.  I think made a comment on this before, but I tend to take mental snapshots over time and if two snapshots don’t correlate well, the spider senses initiate.

Part way through the movie she shows up for the first time:

hitman

Kind of a cute tattoo don’t you think?  Subtle image yet striking since it takes commitment to place it on such a noticeable location (unlike Tyson who is just an idiot).

Here are a couple of other snaps so you get the feel for the placement and lack of symmetry on the other side.

hitman

hitman

Our hero (holding the gun in the previous picture) kidnaps the woman and hauls her off to interrogate her.  The scene cuts away and returns with the lady sitting in the middle of a dark room.

hitman

hitman

Spider senses ignite instantly, but it passed the screen pretty quickly.  She continues to respond to the main character’s questioning who eventually passes in front of her.  As soon as he walks by, we are left with this shot

hitman

There it is.  The two contiguous snapshots didn’t line up.  Do you see the difference?  Guessing you did since I framed it for you, but yes, the tattoo switched sides.  My brain didn’t like this one bit.  I decided to spend a little time tracking down an explanation.  As it turns out, there is a mirror in the room which would produce the same effect if the camera chose to shoot through the mirror instead.  I strongly doubt this since on closer inspection, the mirror is way to dirty to get those shots.

hitman

From that point on, it stays on the expected side

hitman

So, thanks to the director intentionally or accidentally putting this into the film, I wasted 1.5 hrs figuring out why I was so bothered after the first viewing.  Okay, maybe not wasted since I did get blog material out of it, but none the less, I could have been playing Rock Band 2 or reading some materials that have been building up lately.  I would have to think the actress would notice something like this if they had tried painting it on the wrong side of the face since it is such a stunning style element… and even if it got through that litmus test, someone should have caught it during production.  Of course, there are others things that make it through the splicing process that somehow make it out (see Lethal Weapon Movie Goof on this page).

Spider senses under control now, issue successfully identified

I Got My Sticker

Today, I did my Patriotic Duty.  Thanks to Biden, you first might think I went and paid more taxes today.  However, you would be dead wrong.  Instead I voted.  Yep, I took advantage of the opportunity to get my vote cast early in the presidential election.  Before I leave the Biden thing, I was caught off guard by my brother who offered up a quandary;  if the Democratic ticket is so willing to pay more taxes, why don’t they just go and do it now.  He is absolutely correct; there is nothing out there that is preventing them from doing that.  Any takers?

Back on track.  So I finally get there and pleased to find out there was only 15 or so people ahead of me.  One interesting thing I noted was a blue piece of paper being passed back through the line that was supposed to be read before you voted.  Basically the paper detailed out the fact that there was question on the ballot asking if there should be a Congressional Caucus (think that was it) that was worded unconstitutionally.  Apparently stating that a non-vote represents a specific vote (I think yes in this case) was illegal.  How ironic that constitutional request would be worded in violation of the law.  But that was the most interesting part.  I finally made it to about 2 or 3 back when the steward held up the blue paper and asked if everyone had read it.  I nodded along with the people ahead of me and most of the people behind me, but it then the nods turned horizontal.  How odd.  This rationalized into a short in the process in a very apparent location… that being the individual right in front of the first negative motion.  I think the lady in that position noticed me looking in her direction (honestly, I was just trying to understand the situation and not trying to apply any guilt).  All of a sudden, she pulls out the piece of paper and proceeded to undo the quad-fold and then passed it to the person behind her.  Clearly, she saw the paper being passed continuously in front of her, so the only thing I could think of was she was the last in line at that particular time.  Which would mean she forgot the process when the line started up again behind her.  I’ll chalk that up to short term memory, but then became very alarmed that she was actually preparing to vote.  Good thing they do not allow campaigning near the building.

I also read the polling location rules and your rights list posted on the window of the voting room.  One caught my eye.  This particular entry pertained to having the right of a non-harassing environment to make my vote in.  I had to chuckle to myself.  The horde of middle school girls practicing their annoying cheerleading routines literally 3 feet from where I was standing had to make that specific location the MOST irritating and thus harassing environment I have been in all year.  The horror, the horror.

Lastly, I had my first experience with an electronic voting machine.  I have spent a large percentage of my life in the I.T. world and can only wonder “What were they thinking when they designed this specific unit?”.  As a check and balance, I was given a PIN I had to enter into the voting c0mputer before I started.  So there are 4 empty squares to put your numbers in and a grid of numbers right below it.  So I hit the numbers on the grid and nothing happens.  I hit them again thinking I didn’t hit them properly, but nothing happened again.  Turns out after a little investigating that you have to spin a large wheel below the screen until the number you want is highlighted and then you can hit an enter  button to accept the number.   Don’t try to claim older people can’t figure out a touch screen, I’ve seen the grey hairs going to town on the video poker machines in casinos.  So this method progresses through the ballot until I come to the verification step.  I actually liked this and I am assuming this was a hanging chad requirement.  Once accepted, it then started printing out on a paper roll next to the screen and indicated I could leave the booth at that time.  Note to voting machine designers, I am not leaving until my vote printout is completely rolled passed the display window.   I will tell you I had a little bit of uneasiness while I was voting.  I was given a unique PIN number which I had to put into the machine first.  A unique number that is assigned to MY name.  You would think they would have pamphlets and notices about how that PIN is assigned to you only for validation purposes and is not associated to your particular vote selections.  Did I mention I am in the IT industry?  I did scan the printout and didn’t find it on the paper, but the barcode printout at the end ….

Get out and Vote!  and if you feel the need to pay more taxes, feel free to stop by your local IRS office

Whack A Time Share Peddler

I like Vegas.  My wife and I have a tendency to spend some time out there at least once a year and have become quite familiar with all of the sights and sounds that go along with a place labeled affectionately as Sin City.  Our recent visit was actually to go to a family wedding being held there, but for specific reasons I am going to hold off on commenting about that specific event (for now).  As a perk from visiting that city at a regular frequency, we tend to get fairly good rates on hotels.  Such good rates that we often end up going back to the same hotel(s) even after we have decided we wanted a change.  That is the situation we had on our recent trip.  Even though we have stayed at the Luxor like 6 or 7 times now, the $59/night room rates is hard to pass up especially since they usually end up comping them out at the end of stay anyway.  We could also use our offer to get a cheap room for others that were heading out there with us.  So, setting the tone for this post is we went to Vegas, stayed at a hotel even though we would prefer to go elsewhere and had brought a number of people with us.

Four things stick out about that visit that has significantly impacted my desire to ever go to that particular hotel again.  I will let you form your own opinion if I am simply overreacting.  The first of these issues is the room location we were given.  Having been to Vegas so many times, the room view is not an issue for us – to be honest, I really do not sleep much while I am out there and prefer to spend time out in the lights rather than just looking at them from a window.  What is critical is my ability to actually get some sleep when I decide to head there.  Keep in mind, this usually consists of me going to the room after 4am and getting up around 10am to sleep the rest off under the sun at the pool.  Note, the reason for the couple of hours in the sun is to detox from the smoke and fumes from the casino floors.  The first day plays out as expected, hit the room about 3am and hit the zzz’s.  At 8:30am I am awakened by extremely loud drilling from what appears to be the floor right below my room.  This I find extremely annoying and even try to drown it out with the pillow without success.  Frustrated, I decided to simply get up and head out to some places my wife wanted to visit.  Day plays out again exactly the same along with the same drilling which starts closer to 8am this time.  Furious, I call the front desk and ask them how long I am going to have to listen to them drilling every morning.  The response was “Oh, they are replacing windows below you, but we can move you to the other tower if you want to?”  No, really I enjoy the sound; I just wanted to know if you could add a jackhammer.  Idiot, of course I want moved or I would not have bothered to call you.  My take away from this was that they KNEW this was happening but put us there anyway.  The other issue is they had to move another party that was on the same floor (they needed to be close to us… no comment at this time).  I relayed that they needed to be moved as well and that was agreed to by the clerk.  So we packed up both rooms and headed out to the casino floor to kill sometime before the rooms were ready.  At 1:00pm we gathered up our luggage and headed to the registration desk to get the new room assignment.   Turns out they second room wasn’t done yet, but ours was.  We took the keys and I specifically asked the clerk what the second room number was and wrote it down on the key envelope as well.  We dropped all the stuff off at our room and headed out to the casino floor again.

Continue reading Whack A Time Share Peddler