Smoking The Mac Crack

It finally got me. This whole Apple Mania caught up with me.

For a long time, I managed to resist. I never bought an I-Pod - I just bought cheaper MP3 players that did the same thing. Hell the MP3 player I bought is a 2 gig USB thumb drive that cost me a whole whopping $15. It plays MP3 files, it does not care where the MP3 files came from (there is no rights management on it, it will play anything without regards to the legality of the file in question), and even has a built in FM player. And it did not need any special software to be installed.

The 2 gig ipod was selling for something like $150 at the same time. And you could not even use it as a USB thumb drive!

But I had to smoke the mac crack eventually, so I got the iphone 3GS. The newest one. My old phone was OK - but it did get a little wet and stopped working for a day. During this time I accepted that the phone was dead, but at least the SIM card lived. So at least I still had all my contacts.

Anyhow, the old phone dried out and started working again. But I never really liked that thing. The battery life sucked, the web browser sucked, the alarm clock program sucked, and so on.

So now I have the 32 gig Iphone 3Gs. I was able to get the promotion price because I had the old phone for 2 years. Now Itunes is installed on my computer.

The Mac invasion has begun.

But the phone is really cool. I has a much better Google Maps application. The old phone had Google Maps, but the Iphone Google Maps is better. I also have a You Tube application - which the old phone lacked. I could not really even watch You Tube clips (at work) on the old phone.

I can watch the clips now. And the I.T. snoops will not even know! HA! A whole new era of clock killing at work has begun!

But really the apps are where it is at. I have a cool carpenters tool kit app that includes a plumb bob, a surface level, a spirit level, a ruler, and a protractor! Cool huh? I thought so.

Now I can see how level my desk at work really is - and harass the mainentence guy if I find it is off. Can't have my pens rolling all over the place you know!

I also have a Sirius/XM app, so I can listen to my satellite radio over the phone. I also have the free Pandora and Slacker music apps.

And I even have something called "active sonar"! This cool (and probably useless) app uses sound to measure distances! It was also free, so if it does not work no big deal.

I also got a bar code scanner, so now I can scan something in the store and use the internet to price check it. I can buy movie tickets with the Fandango app, or use the movietickets.com website I usually purchase through.

I even have the classic arcade game Dragon's Lair.

But the coolest thing so far is the Navionics app. My phone now has marine charts from Maine to Florida's West Coast, including a good part of The Bahamas and all of The Keys out to the Dry Tortugas.

As far as phones go, the iphone is the one to get.

Winterfest Photos

I did manage to get some pictures from Saturday. And I said I would post them, so here it goes!

There were big ass cruise ships. The true size is not very apparent from this photo, but it is big.


And there were fake owls! Apparently, they keep real birds away. They must work, because the docks were not all covered in bird shit.


There was also....RAIN! Yes, lots of rain. And on my open boat there is not really anyplace to hide from said rain. So you just get wet. Nothing much you can do. So my ass was wet for most of the day. Literally. Pants and underwear were wet. Here is the "oh shit" moment captured on a data card. Nobody uses film anymore.


But when it was not raining, it was pretty nice. Here is a cool house I saw.


And here is one I think is for sale. You know, housing crisis and all. Lots of stuff for sale. In the rain.

More photos will be posted soon!

Back And Dry

Photos from the Winterfest Boat Parade will be here soon! I have things to do today so Ill have em up by Monday.

5 Day Weekend!

I managed to score a 5 day weekend. I managed this through an elaborate series of complicated swaps. It really all started the week after Thanksgiving, when I worked a Sunday and Monday for someone else - and traded them my Thursday and Friday. Since I did not ask for that trade, I was able to score this Saturday off, by agreeing to work this past Tuesday.

With me so far? Good.

Then Monday - which was a scheduled day off - someone got sick, so I worked on Monday and traded for today. So now I have today, tomorrow, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off. Wednesday work starts at 1 PM.

And what was the point in all this? Well it seems to have confused the boss slightly.

But in reality, the plan for Saturday is....THE WINTERFEST BOAT PARADE! Yes, it seems it is that time again.

I have yet to assemble a crew. I might not have a crew. And it might rain. Forecast calls for a 60% chance. So I have that much going for me. Did I ever mention there is not really a good place on the boat to hide from the rain? Yea. Well there isn't.

But there is one cool thing. The Oasis Of The Seas is in port! This is currently the largest passenger ship at sea. She is 5 times the overall length of the ill fated Titanic, at 1,181 feet. This can also be expressed as .223 miles. Her beam (width) is 154 feet at the waterline and 198 feet at the widest point. She has 16 passenger decks and looms 236 feet over the water.

In relation to my boat, Oasis Of The Seas is 59 times longer, 23 times wider, and some 30 times taller.

I still have to get everything ready. I am hoping I know where the orange flashing light I need is. I have everything else.

Except a crew.

Sunday is another boat mission - on a friend's boat. So that is less work. No trailering and stuff. Monday and Tuesday are more like real days off.

Then Wednesday starts a regular week.

Ill be sure to see such a large ship when I am in Port Everglades. Ill attempt to get pictures of it, if the lens on my camera is wide enough!

Black Froday, Cyber Monday

Well I survived the madness of Black Friday.

This is mainly because I had to work. Thursday too. And Saturday. So being safely away from all sources of retail craziness, I was not really worried about being trampled to death at a Wal-Mart.

So as a result, I really do not know how Black Friday went. Sure - there were stores that had long lines of idiots standing around for 6 - 8 hours waiting for the doors to open. And I assume the mobs were orderly, as I did not hear any reports of a trampling death this year.

I have heard various "news" reports however. Bloomberg reports that sales "may have" advanced 2.4% over last year. Of course last year there was a slump of some 8% over the year before. But the retail industry forecast of a 1% slump in spending seems to have held true also - so who knows.

I think the actual numbers are WORSE than what is reported. For one, nobody was trampled to death. Compare this to the 90s when multiple people would get trampled to death. And not just at Wal-Mart! Oh no, you were taking your life into your hands every time a new shipment of Tickle Me Elmo hit a store. And even if you were just driving within 50 miles of that store - you were at a greatly increased risk of harm. People had lost their mind.

When the economic shit hit the fan in 2007, it was close to the holiday season. Sales were down from what they were, but since many people did not realize just how shitty things were to become stores were still hopeful. It took the sales figures AFTER the entire holiday season was over to make that clear. As the season went on, things got shittier and shittier.

But still - people were trampled to death on Black Froday.

Last year we all knew what was up. We were firmly into the shit. No question about it. Anyone who said "oh, this economic thing is not so bad" was clearly smoking crack.

And still, on Black Froday there was one trampling death.

So I have developed an index. The more people who get stampeeded, the better the season is. Pretty simple really.

This year, by my accounts - nobody was killed. Nobody even so much as tripped and fell down. It all seemed to be rather calm and controled - which is not a good sign really. Chaos and madness is a better indicator.

Saturday, after work, I did make a spy mission to a Best Buy. The store was full of stuff. Much of it was Black Froday sale items that had not sold out. There was one Garmin GPS for $99 that was sold out - but from what I could see everything else was still there. Even the $25 DVD players.

So either the Best Buy stocked up and built up sufficient inventory (unlikely in my opinion, given the poor sales forecast) or else stuff did not sell as anticipated.

Also -there were not any people in the check-out line. I did see some people walking out with stuff - but there were no check-out lines.

Now Cyber Monday is more my speed. This is the day when people spend time at work looking for online deals. I did this. I ordered a Garmin Nuvi 550 GPS for $199, a universal mount for the GPS ($20), and a LED light ($8). That concluded my Cyber Monday shopping extravaganca. Not very exciting, but now the Waverunner has a primary GPS, and the boat has a secondary backup GPS. I can also use the 550 in the truck, on foot, or on a bike. It has car mode, boat mode, foot mode, and bicycle mode. Plus it is waterproof. Pretty cool.

I wonder if there is a measure of productivity lost on Cyber Monday. I bet that the sales boost minus the productivity loss would make for an interesting topic for an economics class.

And today - the universal GPS mount arrived. Just now. Really. West Marine apparently ships shit out fast. So today, on my traded day off - I have something to install on the Waverunner! Now if I can just get that GPS in all will be good.