For those who are fans of TopGear you might get a kick out of this:
Hat Tip: AutoBlog
Random Rants
My grandfather has been pretty sick the last week or so. He had a stroke several years ago and it was first thought this was a second one. It was not. He has double pneumonia which has exacerbated several of the symptoms of his previous stroke. The doctors have no optimism about his recovery, but he has already outlived their estimations from yesterday.
I’ll give the old man a lot of credit. He was a medic during WW2 and a beat cop for years in Worcester, MA. He is tough, smart, and will not give up. The stoke didn’t do it and this pneumonia won’t do it quickly. He just had his 95th birthday on Sunday.
I will be flying up there in the next few days although it is unclear exactly when. I’m not looking forward to the trip- I would rather remember him for his great stories rather than his funeral.
I will miss you Grampa Lenny.
[Update: He passed this evening. The funeral will be either Saturday or Monday. They are predicting some pretty bad weather Friday and Saturday so they are thinking of postponing the service until early next week. Rest in Peace Grampa.]
So one of my yearly goals was to run 700 miles in 2008. Yeah. That is probably not going to happen. I rolled my ankle yesterday morning. I heard at least three distinct pops. Yes I screamed like a little girl. It hurts like a mo-fo. I probably ought to see a doctor, but I would rather just whine on the internet.
I survived week one of my survivor pool. Four people are already eliminated (Detroit and Indy) and two more have picks tonight. I am looking at next week and am unclear who to go with yet. Fantasy football looks good this year. I crushed in one of my leagues, am hanging tough in one, and getting beat in the other- but scoring some points. I also went 15/20 picking college top 25 against the spread. I could make money with that ratio.
I went to see the Toadies last night at Stubb’s here in Austin. I always enjoy a good show and they certainly put one on. It was a nice mix of well known popular hits along with their newest released stuff that isn’t getting airplay (yet). They seem to be having a lot of fun doing classic rock intros between songs and other stage antics to shake up the crowd. They have two more shows in Austin this week (tonight and Friday). I recommend going if you have the means.
Today, Dell released their new micro laptop: the Dell Mini. I’m thinking of picking one up. With a 16G SSD, 1G of RAM and running Ubuntu linux it is about $450. I have an employee discount (or should) but not sure how much. It weighs just over 2 pounds but I don’t know what the battery life would look like. It is very intriguing at least.
Yeah, I just went in for a $700 oil change. It was supposed to be about $60 but when they did the tire rotation they saw I had no breaks. Almost literally. There was so little of the front break pads left that you couldn’t tell where they should have been.
A few hours and many hundreds latter and I have new breaks. They definitely feel better, but I feel kind of poor. At least there is no truck payment this month 🙂
Does anyone have any experience with AAA Insurance or Ameriprise Insurance (via Costco)? My renewal is coming up and am wondering if I should switch. I don’t want to end up at a crappy customer service company to save $50 a year. I have Progressive right now.
What is it? A dirty Tundra? Yep. But it is *my* dirty Tundra. I stopped by the bank this morning and made the final payoff of just over $1000. In less than 10 days I will have the title in hand.
Sweet.
Then again I just put $85 worth of gas into it yesterday…
I saw this on PvP Online today. The people who read this blog might get a kick out of it.
There is a bigger image at the order site (click the image above).
I ran 3.15 miles this morning and that put me just over 50% complete of my 700 mile goal.
The heat at the end of May and all of June was pretty killer on my running. I made myself run early morning and late evening to keep on trucking.
It is nice to be on target for one of my 2008 goals.
Off to Mexico in 4 days. My good friend Brian is getting married. About 40 people will be at the all-inclusive resort just south of Cancun. Should be good times.
Not much poker in the last month. I have been reading some of the books I have to try and sharpen the mind, but no felt time and very little virtual felt time.
As many of you know, I don’t shop at Walmart if I can at all avoid it. I don’t like the way they run business. That mainly stemmed from vendors and employees because they focused on getting the lowest prices to the consumer. I’m not sure they have the lowest prices anymore- since I don’t price shop at places where I won’t actually buy anything.
I now have another reason NOT to shop there: FMF recently went and was trying to buy a bunch of merchandise. He ran into a sign that read:
No human checkers for carts with more than 10 items.
Really? Are you kidding? That is ridiculous. Especially now with the “Super Walmart” where they expect you to do all of your grocery and household shopping in one place.
Read about his experience yourself: I’m Done with Walmart
Done with Walmart indeed.
Kelly, a friend of mine, pointed me to this wonderful piece of research and documentation: The Etymology of Human Male Non-Verbal Communications (or, Why Men Fist-Bump)
Enjoy.