rebelpeon.com

Expensive Advertising

While some software loads, I thought I’d share my thoughts on some advertising I received in the mail today. On the outside, it looked like a magazine offer for Urban Trends magazine. I’ve been keeping up on some design stuff lately, so I thought I’d open it up and give it a look. Opening up the sample magazine (~6 pages), gave me nothing but Mercury Milan ads. Then I found the DVD.

Yes, it came with a DVD. It was also plastered with Milan ads on it. Oh great, they got me to open up there junk mail, basically because they lied to me, and now they expect me to actually consider this car?! In addition to the magazine and DVD there was a letter, a piece of paper in the shape of sunglasses proclaiming their website, and a comment card.

The upside, on the letter, there’s a “rebate” for a $50 american express card, but you have to test drive the car. I don’t want to test drive the car, I have no desire (but the $50 may get me if I have extra time). The only thing I think of when I hear Mercury is cars that are identical to Ford’s (because they are, the Milan is a Fusion), and that HORRIBLE actress they have for their SUV ads. In no way shape or form would you find me in a Milan, unless I was renting a car.

And wasting who knows how much money on this advertisement to make Mercury appear “hip” to the “urban crowd” is definitely not well spent money.

Links 4/6

New Alton Brown Show!

“Feasting on Asphalt,” which features Brown driving across the country by motorcycle to take a look at food on the American road today. It premieres at 9 p.m. July 19.
“FireWire”—Ads on page may be Not Safe For Work (NSFW).
Incredibly Hot New Chili

The Naga registered a Scoville heat unit of 876,000. The record holder is a Red Savina Habanero with a rating of 577,000.
Dictionary on your iPod

Links 4/5

Apple Boot Camp

Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows. Boot Camp will burn a CD of all the required drivers for Windows so you don’t have to scrounge around the Internet looking for them.
Traffic Cameras Increase Accidents and Profits

Upon installation, the cameras caused an immediate 40 percent increase in rear-end collisions from 53 in 1999 to 74 in 2000. Overall accidents were up between 25 percent and 41 percent from 107 in 1999 to 134 in 2001 and 151 in 2002.

Free Virtualization

Well, Microsoft has finally bowed to VMWare’s free Server product. You can finally download Virtual Server R2 Enterprise Edition for free. It’s great that VMWare has forced this upon Microsoft. However, there are still a few key differences. The free version of VMWare Server is actually a “beta” version, while Microsoft’s Virtual Server is the final build, and safe for production use (unless it’s running on XP).

This is great news for enterprise environments none-the-less, especially with the new licensing scheme for Windows 2003 products. Basically, if you have enterprise resources, you’re incredibly stupid not to be running some sort of virtualization, be it in production or not. You save too much money on the hardware (one machine now can host X number of virtual machines) and software end (one Windows 2003 license can be used on the host and up to four virtual machines, and the virtualizing software is free).

I personally can’t wait until hardware based virtualization technology becomes more main-stream, that’s when the huge performance increases will come.

Birthday Trip

So, for those of you that don’t read the comments, I pointed out that Erin was essentially kidnapping me for the weekend. She basically wouldn’t tell me where we were going, or what we were doing, just that I was driving because of my far superior gas mileage.

Turns out we went to Cedarburg, WI, where we ended up going on a winery tour, wine tasting, dinner, and then stayed in a bed and breakfast. It was actually quite a bit of fun.

Unfortunately, since it was daylight savings time, we forgot to sping ahead Saturday night, and then missed the breakfast. However, to make up for it, I got these awesome camera phone pictures while waiting for the winery tour. I honestly can’t believe I didn’t purchase the book. I mean, George and Laura in their under-roos? Oh, and make sure you include Reagan too!

Celebrity Drunk Driving Defence

One of the most notorious drunk drivers in the Ottawa area has been found not criminally responsible on his latest impaired driving charges because of a mental disorder that makes him believe female celebrities are controlling his actions.
Fantasy Portfolio Challenge—Looks like a good way to win a ‘06 Maserati GranSport, without even having to pay the taxes!
Conan O’Brien in Chicago—As seen on Travis’ site.
Indiana Joins the Rest of the Nation (Minus Arizona) on Daylight Savings Time—After reading that, I’m so glad I don’t work in education anymore. These schmoes have had a year to plan for this, and it sounds like they haven’t done squat, which would coincide with exactly what I saw while in the education sector. And then, to top it off, they take the time to complain about it to the news instead of fixing the problem.

But IT staff at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, fear the change will create complications galore.
“This is like Y2K except this one is really happening,” said university IT spokesman Steve Tally.
Original Scans vs. Photoshop Version

Annoyances

Chewing with your mouth open and/or making a smacking noise while eating. I don’t know why, but this has got to be one of the worst things evar. What drives all of you up the wall?

Links 3/29

New Volume Limiter Firmware for iPods—This is a sad, sad day.
All Hail the FSM—Too funny.

Global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct consequence of the decline in numbers of pirates since the 19th Century
The Book Written about FSM
Pretties from CryTek—Wow, these guys know where there doing with the realism thing.
One Car, Three Drunk Drivers—This is just too funny.

Police in The Hague caught three drunk drivers all behind the wheel of the same car within hours of each other early Wednesday, police said in a statement.