The Daily Ping

First Ticket

In my life I’ve been pulled over a total of four times. I’ve gotten two speeding tickets and one ticket for driving on a park district road that wasn’t really a road; my first ticket, however, is one I will always remember.

I was 16 years old with a fresh driver’s license in my hot little hands. At that time I didn’t have a car so I had to borrow my mom’s car: a mid-80s Dodge Charger whose color we affectionately called “Bohemian Beige.” In reality it was a pale yellow cream color. Oh, and Dodge Chargers back then were 2-door K-car hatchbacks. Yep.

One afternoon in the early fall I wanted to pick up some lunch. I asked for my mom’s permission to drive her car and soon I was on my way. I was driving up East Avenue when I approached a standard 4-way intersection. A cop had pulled up to the opposite stop sign. I was young but not (yet) stupid: I was going the speed limit, making incredibly full stops, and being a model driver. Once I checked all directions I proceeded through the intersection and came up to the speed limit. About two blocks later I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the cop turning around. My heart jumped into my throat.

Within moments he pulled me over. I was terrified. I had only been driving for a few weeks after all, and here’s a cop? What? I kept calm while the officer got out of his car and came up to my window.

“Hello, officer,” I said politely.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” he asked. Even at this point I knew this was one of the dumbest questions I’d ever heard. How could I possibly know?

“No, I don’t know,” I said.

“Well,” he said, “your car has tinted license plate holders. We can’t see through them clearly. Now, that’s illegal.”

I was stunned. Tinted license plate holders? Really? Someone needed to make his quota and chose a vulnerable young driver to make the city a quick profit.

After handing him my license and registration, followed by an agonizingly long wait, I had a ticket for thirty bucks. When I got home that evening I told my parents the story and, naturally, handed over the ticket to my mom.

Your Unreasonable Fear

We all do stupid things because of some irrational fear that we have. Or, I sure hope we do because I'm going to share one of mine with you and I hope you'll do the same.

Before leaving on a trip of longer than a day, I tend to get paranoid about making sure things the house are turned off. I'll make sure the burners on the stove are off, that the heat is turned off (or turned low enough to only come on if it gets really, really cold), and that the computer is shut down. But the really paranoid part kicks in with the toast. For some reason, I have to unplug the toaster. Apparently, my subconscious thinks that the coffee machine is going to walk over to the toaster while we're gone and turn it on. Maybe the coffee machine will also decide to burn a piece of toast. And you know, that could cause a fire. All because the stupid coffee machine had to have a piece of toast, but it's just a coffee machine, so it doesn't know the proper procedure for making toast!

I am pleased to say, though, that my paranoid has paid off: never has our toaster spontaneously turned itself on and burned the house down while we're on vacation.

Auto Tune the News

I can't help it: I think every single edition of Auto Tune the News has been fantastic in some way. I present the latest episode as an example:

Return of an old friend

I may not agree with Congressman Frank Wolf on pretty much anything, but I can certainly agree with the stock photo females he associates with:

Another Reason the Newspaper Industry is Screwed

A couple of months ago, we started getting copies of our regional/local newspaper. Free. We haven't paid for it, we don't want it, and yet we get it.

I can't help but think this is a desperate move. At least I can recycle the thing.

TripIt

I don't travel by plane very frequently, so when I do, I like to try out all the nifty new travel sites with their shiny new options. Last time, it was whatever that site was called before it was rolled into Microsoft's Bing Travel. This time it's TripIt.

What is TripIt, you ask? Imagine a service that you simply forward your confirmation e-mails to (flight, car, hotel). The service then parses the e-mails for all the pertinent details of your trip (times, locations, confirmation numbers, costs) and then lays all the information out in a nice timeline for your trip. Just like that you've got everything you need, all in one place, ready to roll. Plus I think it can do stuff like track your frequent flyer miles, too (not a selling point for me since I've never once had enough miles to cash in for anything more than a free pencil or keyring at the game counter).

Anyone else used TripIt?

Computers from 1999

This morning I was rifling through old documents on my computer - located in the "Old Crap" folder - when I found a mockup for an ad. An old mockup.

Back in the late 90s I worked at a local computer store, Maha Computers. Under new ownership it became The Byte Shop without prior knowledge of the legendary California computer store (opps.) We held our own against a nearby Best Buy and Circuit City, but it was damned hard to compete on price to be honest with you.

One of my ideas back then was to have a subbrand of computers. Under Maha they were called "mcpc" (get it? Maha Computers? MC?) but under The Byte Shop they were just kinda "our PC line." While we excelled in custom-built machines we also wanted to offer pre-selected configurations just to make things easy.

Looking back at the specs now is, as you can imagine, a laugh riot. Ready? Here we go.

Orion: $879
AMD K6-2 333MHz CPU with 3D-Now!
Nobilis NB5AX Motherboard
64MB PC100 SDRAM
Western Digital 4.3GB Hard Drive
Actima 40X CD-ROM Drive
Sony 3.5” Floppy Drive
AOpen 56k PCI Fax/Modem
AOpen FX-3D+ 3D Sound Card
ATI Rage IIC 4MB AGP Video Card
Sun 690 Amplified Speakers
Premier 718 ATX Mid-Tower Case
104-Key Windows 98 Keyboard
IBM PS/2 Two-Button Mouse
Microsoft Windows 98
NobleView 14” SVGA Monitor
Two Year Limited Warranty

Man. 14" monitor. 333MHz. A whopping 4.3GB hard drive and... what's this? A floppy drive! All for 900 bucks.

Now, most of the PCs' specs were just modifications here or there. Some had awesome video cards (4MB of VRAM) and some had increased memory (128MB.) But the top of the line unit was the Atlas for $2509. With that you got:

Intel Pentium III 500MHz CPU w MMX
Asus P2B Motherboard
128MB PC100 SDRAM
Western Digital 10.2GB Hard Drive
Creative Encore 5X DVD-ROM Kit
Sony 3.5” Floppy Drive
AOpen 56k PCI Fax/Modem
Creative SB Live! Value Sound Card
Matrox Millennium 8MB AGP Video
Sound Image Lite Speakers
Premier 718 ATX Mid-Tower Case
104-Key Windows 98 Keyboard
IBM PS/2 Two-Button Mouse
Microsoft Windows 98
NobleView 17” SVGA Monitor
Two Year Limited Warranty

I'm a little scared to think about what that'll buy you today. Upgrades available on all machines included a Zip drive (awww,) a DVD-ROM drive, or NT 4.0. Astounding!

Anyway, it was a fun trip down memory lane but I'm really pleased that computer technology has gotten way better.

Lazy Ping Day

You know, I'm late with today's Ping and I have absolutely nothing to write about. So, shall we go with a video of Bob Barker being creepy, courtesy of fourfour?:

Save the Dolphins, but Don't Show a Sign During the Oscars

By far one of the weirdest moments of the Oscars, for me, was when the winners for Best Documentary (The Cove) took the time to display a sign telling people to text DOLPHIN to 44144. It was bizarre because, clearly, one of the producers had rolled up this sign and stored it somewhere in his tuxedo.

ABC cut away nearly instantly the moment the sign was shown. Lots of boring audience shots ensued.

Incidentally The Cove looks really interesting. And if you were wondering where you'd seen Fisher Stevens before it was either Early Edition or, more likely, the Super Mario Brothers Movie.

Hotel Bidets... with Zach Galifianakis

I dedicate this SNL sketch to Paul:

Incidentally, wasn't this weekend's SNL the best one in recent memory?

Buying Eyeglasses Online: Go for It

Friends, I'm nearsighted. (I blame it fully on years of squinting at computer monitors.) Thus I've had to wear glasses and contact lenses for quite some time. I switched to contacts back in high school and while I still have glasses, they're mostly for nights and whenever my eyes are tired.

The pair of glasses I had were outdated, old, and pretty crappy to be honest with you. I got them for a song at America's Best, one of the few eyeglass chains not owned by Luxottica. (Seriously - they own so so much.) But again, I needed new ones to match my slightly updated prescription.

My wife had had a positive experience ordering online although her first pair didn't quite pan out. She still got a nice pair of frames for super cheap after I had told her about Glassy Eyes and Matt Haughey's experience. I decided to go for it too.

After I had my annual eye exam I asked my doctor for a written eyeglass prescription as well as my pupil distance, or PD. As Matt says once you have those two items you're ready... mostly. It's also good to measure your existing pair of lenses very very carefully, as I discovered. Once I did that I shopped around and found a nice pair at EyeBuyDirect. I placed my order using my FSA and within a week and a half, I had new glasses.

Unfortunately they were way too big for my face. I thus got to experience EyeBuyDirect's customer service which was fine, but not stellar. I was able to return the glasses with no problem but I was out the shipping costs round-trip. It ended up costing $10.

While I had planned to exchange my eyeglasses at EyeBuyDirect I found another pair I liked more at 39DollarGlasses. Sure enough my pair was, uh, $31... because I had a coupon. Ordering was easy here too and in under a week I had glasses.

The end result is very good! The glasses fit well and I really like the way they look. They came with a good quality hardshell case, cleaning cloth, and mini repair kit. I only have two small quibbles. First, the frames are painted plastic and I can see very small imperfections around the lens. Not enough to notice from even a reasonable distance luckily. And second, the right lens doesn't fit as snugly as the left lens. Much like the paint it's such a slight thing that it's not even noticeable; I could easily take it to a optometrist to get it tweaked but since these are limited-use glasses, I likely won't. If these were $50 or $100 glasses I'd be peeved but, really, I can let it go at this price.

All in all I'm quite happy with my purchase. I remember back in the olden days that I couldn't imagine buying, say, shoes online but now I do... so why not eyeglasses?

Undercover Boss

Here is the formula for every episode of Undercover Boss:

1. Boss announces to his board that he's going undercover in the entry-level jobs of his (always his) company. Board looks SHOCKED.

2. Boss works undercover and finds one job he simply cannot do, one job with an employee supporting a family of 13 on minimum wage, one job with an employee with an inspiring attitude despite some physical hardship, and one job with a manager that needs an ass-whipping.

3. Boss "learns a lot" and tells his board that "a lot of things have to change."

4. Things change, at least for the people featured on the show.

5. Boss and company end up looking very good.

Roger Ebert Tries Micropayments

Roger Ebert, a national treasure who recently got his voice back thanks to technology is rolling out The Ebert Club. For $4.95 per year you get a number of members-only benefits for his site and, of course, get to pay the guy for the work he's done. Here's the signup page.

Ebert also wrote up a blog entry on the whole idea of micropayments.

I remember with what glee Gene Siskel and I once pondered [Nicolas] Negroponte's book [Being Digital], with its speculation on whether users would pay two cents to read two of our reviews. Negroponte actually used us as an example. Gene and I pounded on the office calculator: 250 reviews, times two cents, times 10,000 users, or 50,000 users, or three million users...wow! If three million people paid two cents for our reviews, there'd be $15 million for us to split! But, hey, even if 5,000 users paid two cents for half our reviews, we'd gross $12,500. Nice.

I think anyone who has run a hobby website has had similar calculations run through their heads. It becomes, "If I want to make a little money on this, how much would people pay? A dime? A quarter?"

Ebert's price point is a good one, I think. His timing couldn't be better what with his impressive media exposure and widely-recognized writing quality. It's a good experiment and to be honest with you, I hope it works.

Britney Spears, News Anchor

A dream I had the other night:

I was in New York, walking around as I am wont to do. I walk past a news reporter talking into a camera and notice that it's Britney Spears. Apparently, she's now a CNN correspondent. She's soliciting passersby for their comment on a random question. Given my good luck in situatons like these, I stepped up.

Her question, "Why do you think it's so windy out?"

My response, "I blame President Bush."

Pizza Pieces

When enjoying a non-deep dish pizza, I enjoy seeing my pizza cut up into squares instead of triangles. Squares are a nice size: easily portable and still super tasty.

But there's one dilemma: those darn center pieces. You know the ones - the ones without any crust at all. It seems that whenever we have a pizza, we get stuck with a bunch of the middle pieces. They're good and all but, really, the edge crust is important. (I wonder if the inventor of the no-middle-squares brownie pan could get a pizza sheet going?)

What's your favorite piece? And if it's the middle, be prepared to defend it.