Saturday, 31st of January, 2009
We took a day trip down to Paducah and back to help drive two legs of a special delivery. What a sight - the trees were all still heavy, bent over or broken from the weight of the ice storm that came through earlier in the week. A lot of the interchanges had only partial power, and I guess that would explain why our cell phone service was sketchy too. It was really beautiful, especially with the morning fog, but I imagine the whole situation is a bit of a disaster for those living there. I found a picture of Flickr of the exact stretch of highway we were on, at a similar time.
Friday, 30th of January, 2009
The SLSO Classical Detours concert theme this evening was Latin America. The only disappointment here is that the Detours concerts are all floor seating only, so you don't get to see all the exciting Latin percussion going on from a higher vantage point. In the program tonight was a popular waltz that most people probably don't realize is composed by a Mexican - Sobre las Olas. I know it as the "George Washington Bridge" song but I'm not sure if many others have heard it in that context.
Wednesday, 28th of January, 2009
Today Call of Duty: World at War - Final Fronts came in the mail from GameFly. It kind of bothered me that there is no customization on the controls available, so I couldn't change them to the Medal of Honor controls that I'm used to. The Playstation 2 version is also stripped down and single player only. It does look really good for being on the old Playstation platform though, with a widescreen mode and everything. But with no multiplayer, I imagine this game is infinitely better on a better platform, such as the Wii with the Zapper or Nunchuk.
Tuesday, 27th of January, 2009
I felt a little silly rolling around all winter on the Bridgestone Blizzak DM-Z3 snow tires I put on the Cadillac last month - until today. Lateral stability is where these tires are dramatically different from an all-season tire. It turns the task of driving in the snow, which usually involves lots of unpredictable dynamics, into one that is more like normal driving. Sure, if you apply lots of throttle and crank the steering wheel, you can get the rear end to kick out. But ease off the throttle and it straightens right out, instead of continuing going sideways - even an amateur can now look like Drift King. From a stop, these tires also dig in and find traction that I never thought could exist in white stuff. There wasn't a single place on the road that I couldn't just accelerate out of from a stop normally - and that was right next to pickup trucks that were pretty much stuck.
Saturday, 24th of January, 2009
I received a promotional through NetFlix for a free trial of GameFly. It's basically NetFlix for game consoles - you add games to your GameQ that you would like to rent, and can keep 1 or 2 games (depending on the service tier you are subscribed to) at a time. You send back the game and another one comes in the mail. One bonus with GameFly is that if you like the game a lot you can just decide to buy the game, and they send you the box and instructions (just like when you buy the game at a store) as well as the next game in your GameQ. This can be an exciting month, because there are a lot of games that I don't feel like buying to try out, but I'm still curious to try out. Now I can try them for free.
Saturday, 17th of January, 2009
Circuit City's liquidators were ready to go today. Everything at the Brentwood store was 10% off, accessories and furniture 30%. Last night CircuitCity.com shut down, and things like the price matching policy ended immediately - they won't even match a competitor's price if something you recently bought is now on sale. Some people who have recently bought TVs actually had to return their original TV and buy a different one to get their "price matching" - in some cases this was the difference of hundreds of dollars.
I was going to grab the lowest end audio receiver they had, which along with a Discover Card coupon would have been a pretty good deal, but they were already sold out. It was a little bit of a mad house there so no employee was in the position to really sell the display model (Sorry, I'm not paying full price for a device that comes with no manual or even a remote.)
At this point the emotion that I have regarding Circuit City is sadness more than anything else - I loathe Best Buy due to their inferior policies and service and therefore have brought Circuit City all my electronics business. That's a lot of hard drives purchased back when I was doing more on-site consulting. I guess it will be Wal-mart or a local store for me from this point forward.
Friday, 16th of January, 2009
I found the words to Song of the Wind that I was introduced to by a Mehlville Suzuki violin teacher - definitely my favorite: "Fox you stole my goose last night, you picked the fattest one! (Picked the fattest one!) Now the hunter's going to get you with his horse and gun gun gun. Now the hunter's going to get you with his horse and gun."
Thursday, 15th of January, 2009