Super Bowl 2008 Liveblogging

Once again this year, we'll be wrangling pixels and Cheetos to bring you some quality Super Bowl bloggage, with special emphasis on the TV commercials (game? what game?). I hope you'll join us, but more than that, I'll pay you to join us.

OK, not really. But there will be some giveaways of coveted Fire Ant Gazette cra...uh, merchandise, simply because I love and respect you. Plus, I don't want to have to pack and move that stuff.

We'll use the same format as last year, with one big honkin' post per quarter, along with our trademark Ant Ratings for each ad. Your insights, feedback and commentary will be greatly appreciated, unless you actually plan to take the game seriously, in which case you might be better off finding a Buffalo Wild Wings somewhere.

And, in advance of the Big Game, I'm going out on the limb and making my prediction right here for the world to see: I think the Mighty Ducks will beat the Panthers by two runs and a birdie.

I'm all about professional sports, dude.

Forget walking on sunshine; I want to run on air

My wife showed me a column in the current issue of Runner's World wherein the writer described his experience with the G-Trainer, a treadmill developed by Alter-G that uses air pressure to simulate running in a low gravity environment.

Now, aside from the fact that the device looks as though you're running inside a hovercraft (as MLB so aptly described it), this is something I and my aging knees can get behind (or in, or on, or however you and the machine get along). You can reduce your effective weight by up to 80%, and run at speeds up to 18 mph (faster than a 3.5 minute mile). Heck, you can even run backwards at 10 mph – and who hasn't wanted to do that at one time or another?

The downside, other than needing a workout room the size of a garage, is that it costs $75,000. This makes it exclusive enough that Alter-G's website has a list of the individuals and organizations that own one, including former world record marathoner Alberto Salazar, the prestigious Cooper Clinic in Dallas, and the Houston Texans and Rockets (although I just can't picture Yao Ming fitting inside the G-Trainer skirt).

I have no doubt that trying to move your legs at an 18 mph clip provides a good aerobic workout without stressing the joints too much (the heart? well, that's a different story). On the other hand, running is supposed to be good for maintaining bone density, because it's a weight-bearing activity. Alter-G workouts would negate some of that advantage.

The other thing I'd worry about, being the worrier that I am, is that I'd have the thing pumped up to maximum pressure, somehow lose contact with the skirt, and find myself suspended from the ceiling with my head stuck through the drywall.

One organization which is surprisingly missing from Alter-G's owner list is NASA. I guess the device is just too science-fictiony for them.

Technorati tags: G-Trainer Low Gravity Treadmill | Alter-G

Starbucks Earnings Conference

I'm listening to a webcast of the 1st quarter Starbucks earning conference call, and I'm hearing some interesting things. To wit:

• Sbux will discontinue "warm breakfast sandwiches by the end of 2008," and will focus on providing a "healthy breakfast alternative." They claim that customer surveys revealed that the scent of warm sandwiches (which are offered in only about 4,000 US stores [or less than 50%], by the way) interferes with the coffee aroma, thereby destroying the ambiance the company thinks its customers are seeking.


• The company will continue to provide warm pastries and lunch.


• The company plans to open 1,175 "net stores" in the US during 2008 (which includes the closure of 100 underperforming stores -- not identified -- which is 6 times the prior 3 year average). It plans to open fewer than 1,000 stores in 2009.


• It will open 75 net new stores internationally during 2008, and over 1,000 in 2009 -- more openings than in the US, for the first time in its history.


• Sbux management intends to announce five initiatives that will "extend the company's coffee leadership" and "reaffirm our coffee authority."


• Addressing the test of the $1 8oz cup of brewed coffee in the Seattle area, the company says that it makes sense, so far, and it's a response to the "current economic pressures on its customers." They emphasized that this is still just a test, that the company intends to reinforce its position in the high-end coffee retail business (and, once again, to "reaffirm our coffee authority") while broadening its market base.

It's clear to me that Starbucks is responding to a plateau (at best) in US demand for its goods and services, and will focus its future growth strategy in international markets. However, given the financial under-performance of its current international stores, this strategy smacks a bit of desperation.

Deafening Silence

A British man who won $40 million in the lottery says he'd give it all back in exchange for his health.

Ida, on the other hand, had no comment.

Mac Tip: Reformatting a Windows External Hard Drive

This is a rather obscure topic that won't be of widespread interest, but for those who need it, it can be a time saver.

When my wife's laptop motherboard and hard drive crashed recently, we send the drive to a data recovery service (and I hope to write about that experience at some point). They were successful in retrieving her data and sent it back on a tiny Western Digital USB 80-gig hard drive. Unfortunately, the drive was formatted as NTFS, a Windows format that is read-only for Macs. We could copy the data from the drive, but we couldn't delete or add files to it (my wife took the opportunity to switch to a Mac, so we had no further need for a Windows hard drive).

I figured, no big deal; I'll just reformat the drive using Apple's Disk Utility application and we'll have a new Mac disk for backup. I connected the drive to my PowerBook, fired up Disk Utility...and was surprised to see that the drive was grayed out in the Erase tab of the program. There was no apparent way to reformat it.

I did a quick search on Apple's support site and found nothing of use, but a Google search led me to this post on MacOSXHints.com, where the secret was revealed. It's very simple, really; here's what you do...

"Eject" the hard drive by clicking the arrow next to its name in the Desktop sidebar, but leave it physically connected to your computer. The drive's icon will disappear from the Desktop, but the drive will be accessible to the Disk Utility application as an unmounted volume. Under the Erase tab of Disk Utility, you can select the drive to be reformatted, and also select the new format you wish to use. You can also rename the hard drive. Click the "Erase" button and after a brief time, you'll have yourself a brand spankin' new (more or less) drive ready to fill with Mac file goodness.

Again, this process reformats a Windows NTFS hard drive into a Mac (or Unix) format. If you wish to share the drive between a Mac and a Windows machine, this is NOT the way to do it. But, that's a whole other topic.

The Ultimate Vanity Search

Lest you think the following is excessively weird, it's not my fault. I got the idea from none other than John Scalzi.

I'm sure I'm the only person reading this blog who's ever typed his own name into Google just to see what comes back. If you've done it, too (typed your name, that is, not mine), it's OK. Narcissism is a universal human trait, but you can also call it "research" if it makes you feel better.

Anyway, something that makes you feel even better than seeing a bunch of links referencing you is when Google itself assumes that someone wants to search for your name and goes out of its way to help. Exhibit A:

That's right: when I intentionally misspelled my name, Google asked if I was actually looking for, well, me*.

Now, even I would have a hard time getting enthused about this but for the fact that there are actually plenty of people with the name I typed in. The only logical inference from this is that it really is all about me.

G'ahead...give it a try using your own misspelled name. I already know of at least two of my blogging buds for whom this will yield ego-stroking results.

*Of course, I'm intentionally discounting the likelihood that there are many other more important people in the world who share my name, and Google is actually referring to one or all of them.

Pricey Tag

According to this report in the Telegraph, a British man has paid 375,000 pounds (the equivalent of $745,000) for a personalized – um, excuse me – personalised license tag reading "F1." With VAT, the plate totaled £440,625 or $875,000.

The man was quite enthusiastic about his purchase: It's every man's dream to have his perfect car with a number plate like this. I know I certainly lay awake at night thinking about the possibilities of getting my hands on a certain license plate (the identity of which I won't share; I'm not sure I trust you that much).

Even more ridiculous is the fact that the car upon which he will affix this plate, a McLaren SLR, while undeniably cool, retails for less than the license tag itself.

The article states that the buyer is a businessman who "has amassed a £75 million fortune." That means that he spent .6% of his net worth on a license plate. His family must be so proud.

You may have a favorite phrase for which you'd be willing to pay good money to put on your ride, but my pick for this occasion is shown below:

In honor of Monday (the Day Early edition)

Cousin Danny sent this link down the interweb wires from Kerrville, and while you've probably seen most of these video clips in one form or another, you might not have seen them combined and set to music, which adds a certain winsomeness to the sight of office drones who have had it up to here with uncooperative and/or annoying office equipment and/or co-workers.

If Monday gets you on the ropes tomorrow, just remember these folks and realize that things could always be worse: you could be a pro golfer trying to compete with Tiger Woods.

Midland, Texas: Tropical Paradise

The following email hit my inbox a few days ago:

I was more than happy to grant permission to use the image, which is a collage of three photos of hibiscus I took in our backyard last summer. I'm flattered that someone would consider my amateurish photo for publication, and impressed that they actually asked for permission to use it.

I can't help wondering, however, why the best photo for a book about the Caribbean ecosystem would come from a land-locked deserty locale like Midland, Texas.

Question for the City

We were out at the house around 10:30 this morning and the masons were hard at work, constructing the brick columns that will be integrated into our walls. I was a bit surprised at this, but the foreman said that as soon as the temperature hit 33, they hit the job site.

I mention this because it contrasts with the absence of a concrete crew at the disaster site former known as the intersection of Midkiff and Wadley (for those not familiar with Midland, this is one of the busiest intersections in town, and it's narrowed to one or two lanes in each direction while they convert the roadbed from asphalt to concrete). To my untrained eye, the construction is very close to being complete, perhaps even a day's worth of work. Someone made the call that the weather was too bad to work (it's now partly cloudy, in the mid-50s) and so the motorists of Midland get to endure the mess at the intersection for another weekend.

I'm sure there's a valid reason for losing a day of construction. I'm simply glad that the crews working on our house are apparently less vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather.

Hey, Utterz...how about a voice-activated keypad?

Note: This is another test of the Utterz moblogging service. The quality isn't great, because I'm using a Bluetooth headset to dictate the post – one of the reasons for the test.

Mobile post sent by fireant using Utterz.  Replies.  mp3

Recumbent Blogging

Update: Link to Recumbent Blog fixed. You guys are soooo picky.

No, I'm not referring to the practice of posting while reclining on the couch, although, now that I think about it, that's not a bad thing to contemplate.

Very few of mankind's inventions have evolved with such profuse diversity as the bicycle, and for some of us, the pinnacle of that evolution is the recumbent bike. Over the years, I've extolled the virtues (and, yes, the challenges) of recumbency, in these pages, and I continue to get questions from the curious, the skeptical (but, mainly, the older*) about the curious contraptions that allow one to move forward while apparently relaxing (appearances are deceiving).

If you are curious or skeptical, regardless of age, about this incarnation of the pedaling arts, I recommend regular visits to The Recumbent Blog, which is single-minded in its focus and absolutely striking in its design. The photography is beautiful, and the advocacy is firm but reasonable. Even if you aren't in the market for a 'bent, if you love bikes, this is a great destination for recreational browsing.

*There's a pretty good argument to be made that people are more likely to give up bicycling as they age because the traditional cycling posture is simply too uncomfortable.

Utterz Test

Mobile post sent by fireant using Utterz.  Replies.  mp3

There goes the neighborhood!

According to the Wall Street Journal, Starbucks is testing $1 per cup coffee and free refills.

We who rely on the conspicuous consumption of overpriced and overhyped luxury items to assure ourselves of our significance are aghast at the prospect of having to mingle with the riff-raff and hoi-polloi that will now flock to our favorite caffeineries, where they will no doubt suck up all the rarefied air as they knock over the plastic stirrers.

Now, if they would only provide free WiFi...

National Pie Day

I was reminded by an article in today's newspaper that today is National Pie Day, and while I normally am a cynic about such pronouncements – most of which are designed to advance some crass commercial agenda – I must make an exception for this one, which celebrates what is surely one of the high points of God's creation.

There are very few things in life that can't be improved by the liberal application of pie. To paraphrase the esteemed philosopher and raconteur, Pogo, the health of the world improves with each dose of Vitamin Pie. This philosophy can – and should – be applied to famous quotes, as well. To wit:

• When you come to a pie in the road, take it. (Yogi Berra)


• A pie in time saves nine. (Ben Franklin)


• 100% of the pies you don't take don't go in. (Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky)


• To pie or not to pie, that is the question. (Shakespeare, and the answer is obvious, isn't it?)


• You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people pie. (Zig Ziglar)


• Great pies are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. (Samuel Johnson)


• I never met a pie I didn't like. (Will Rogers)


• Outside of a pie, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a pie, it's too dark to read. (Groucho Marx)


• Pie is more important than knowledge. (Albert Einstein)


• Pie is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. (Robert Frost)

I hope this has been edifying because, after all, a day without pie is like a day without sunshine. And, the answer to the question I know is burning in your mind: it's cherry, followed closely by chocolate cream with chocolate sprinkles on top. If you need a delivery address, you know how to contact me.

Counsel and Reminder for Those Nervous about the Economy

Wall Street Journal - The giant headline smack in the middle of French daily Liberation's front page this morning says it all: "Crash."

Word of God* - Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

WSJ - Japan's benchmark stock index fell nearly 5.7% today, while India's tumbled nearly 5%, Australia's lost 7.1% and Hong Kong's fell by nearly 8.7%.

WOG - Come and see the works of the LORD, the desolations he has brought on the earth.

WSJ - Corn, oil and copper prices were trading sharply lower on speculation that slowing global economic activity would diminish demand for raw materials, with prices for zinc, soybeans and palm oil also declining...

WOG - ...though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

WSJ - Recession fears are a subject bound to dominate discussions at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, which opens in Davos, Switzerland, tomorrow, but then that might have happened regardless of the past 48 hours of trading. The closing session at Davos for some time has been titled, "Why Are We Afraid of the Future?"

WOG - The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

*Adapted from Psalm 46 (NIV) via BibleGateway.com

Diamond Settlement - Good News/Bad News?

Need somebody to feel sorry for today? Forget about the weepy Packers or Chargers fans. Instead, consider the plight of the poor schmuck who passed off a big honkin' cubic zirconium ring to his wife or girlfriend as the real thing, and is now trying to explain to her why the existence of this website doesn't represent the unexpected windfall she thinks it is.

Technorati tag: DeBeers Class Action Settlement

Super Bowl Setup

Are the Giants worthy to take to the same field as the mighty Patriots?

The experts will probably say no, but my advice to New England is to not start polishing that dynasty trophy just yet.

I can't help feeling sorry for Brett Favre, though. He's going to have to consider seriously whether he wants to end his career with the interception that kept his team out of the Super Bowl.

Dealing with Clients: Don't Slam the Competition

Much of my work involves redesigning existing websites. The owners of these sites approach me for a variety of reasons: the original designer graduated from high school (or junior high); the original designer disappeared without leaving contact information (we web designers seems to be an unreliable breed); the original designer switched to an occupation that pays a living wage; and so on.

Most of these sites are a mess, both from a cosmetic and a coding perspective. Most were built using FrontPage, and while that in itself doesn't doom a site to failure, it is generally an indication that the creator wasn't a professional.

The clients for most of these projects have no illusions about the state of their sites. They are often apologetic and/or embarrassed about how their sites look, and what they think it implies about them and their company or organization. And, frankly, they're usually right. But there's one thing I've learned over the years of dealing with these situations:

No matter how ugly the site is, no matter how many web standards it violates, no matter how unprofessional the image it presents, I never explicitly point out those shortcomings to the clients in a way that blames someone else for the problems.

Case in point. I had lunch a week or so ago with the board of a local organization who needed a site makeover. Their site had all the previously mentioned shortcomings and then some. They knew it (well, they knew it was ugly and out-of-date; they didn't know from web standards, and I didn't expect them to) or they wouldn't have asked me to meet with them.

Instead of launching into a laundry list of all the shortcomings of the site's design, I asked them about their vision for the site. The first comment was something like this: "our website is horrible and needs to be fixed!" There were smiles and nods all around.

Even then, I didn't aggressively agree. I said, "yes, I think there are several things we can do to make the site more attractive and more effective." And we launched into a productive discussion of how to improve it.

See, the thing is, the person who built the site was a member of the organization. It might have been a relative of one of the board members, or a friend, or even a well-meaning volunteer. There was nothing to be gained by denigrating those efforts – and a lot to be potentially lost by doing so.

It's one thing for "family" to slam their own; it's quite another for outsiders to join in. Since you never know for sure the relationships and dynamics of the situation, it's best to stay focused on the facts, and to look forward rather than rehashing old mistakes.

Now that I think about it, a lot of things in life would probably go more smoothly if we put this philosophy into practice.

Solid Gold Vinyl

My pal Mark is thinking about digitizing his extensive collection of Slim Whitman albums, but he's leaning toward leaving them on vinyl and buying a new turntable to replace the old and busted Radio Shack model he's nursed along since 1968.

He tells me he's just about decided on this model, which borrows technology from both the Mars Rover and The Terminator.

I can't decide if this is a joke. A hundred large for a 'table? Of course, that works out to just $130 per pound, which probably makes it a better buy than most of the alternatives. Plus, according to the shopping cart calculation, shipping by USPS is only $7.00. And, they take PayPal.

I say, go for it, Mark. And let us know how ol' Slim sounds when spun on bullet-proof wood.

"The Awful Truth" is Awfully Funny

I've started flipping over to the Turner Classic Movies channel at lunch – meals are more enjoyable without the trauma and drama of CNN or Fox News – although I rarely finish watching whatever happens to be showing. Today was an exception, though, as I tuned in about halfway through The Awful Truth, a 1937 movie starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne (and featuring Asta, the precocious terrier from The Thin Man series; he plays Mr. Smith in this movie).

These movies provide wonderful insights into the society and culture of past eras, but this one in particular also provides a vivid reminder of how far the state of movie comedy has fallen. Both Grant and Dunne turn in laugh-out-loud performances without offending the sensibilities or resorting to slapstick. OK, I take that back – but nobody did (or does) slapstick like Cary Grant! And while Dunne is not a beauty in the classic sense, the closing scene is more sensual than just about anything appearing in today's theaters.

The Awful Truth earned director Leo McCarey an Oscar, and it was nominated for Best Picture. If light-hearted and sophisticated comedies are your cup of tea, put this one on your NetFlix queue, or look for a re-run on TCM (February 11 and March 21).

Squirrels are people, too

Rob, the globe-trotting proprietor over at 2Dolphins, got up awfully early this morning in order to send me this link: Scientists Prove That Squirrels Are Sneaky.

The only surprising thing about this is that it required a scientific study to make the claim. For years, I've watched squirrels bury – or pretend to bury – pecans in every conceivable spot of our yard, and a few that I couldn't have conceived of until we found saplings sprouting. (Squirrels apparently don't have very good memories, either.)

Here's the money quote from the article:

This sort of devious self-awareness suggests that it won't be many years before we have our first squirrelian presidential candidate. (Don't bother suggesting that it's already happened. Nobody takes Kucinich that seriously, do they?)

Advice for Beginning Bloggers

LinkVendor offers a free service that most bloggers are likely to find interesting. It's a back-link list generator, meaning that it will compile a list of the websites that are linking to your site. Now, I realize that there are many similar services, but this one is different from most in that it includes more than just clickable links. It also shows those sites that are stealing your bandwidth.

If that sounds harsh, let me explain. Some people have a habit of using images on their sites without actually loading those images onto their web servers. Instead, they link to the images where they currently reside. This means that whenever you visit their site and view that image, the bandwidth associated with the image is actually coming from the image's host server and not the site you're visiting.

This is bad manners at best, and harmful at worst. Depending on the popularity of the "borrowing" site, the owner of the site housing the "borrowed" image could actually incur additional out-of-pocket expense due to increased bandwidth.

I point this out because when I ran the LinkVendor report for the Gazette, I found about half a dozen sites that were doing exactly what I describe above. In some cases, the offense was somewhat mitigated by the fact that the "borrower" included a text link and/or attribution of the image to the Gazette, but in a couple of cases, they just slapped links to my images on their sites, making it look as if they owned them. And one of the offenders was a revenue-generating blog. (It's only fair to note that when I pointed out how little I appreciated what they were doing, they immediately removed the image. I think that falls into the category of "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.")

If you're a new blogger – or even an experienced one who never thought about this practice – please don't take shortcuts and link to images residing on servers you don't control. (We haven't even touched on the associated copyright issues.)

If you want to use an image that appears on the Gazette on your personal blog, just ask me. 99.9% of the time I'll gladly grant that permission, and I'll bet that most bloggers will do the same.

To do otherwise is bad manners, if not downright theft.

The Air That I Breathe

Apple announced today the "world's thinnest notebook computer": the MacBook Air.

The price is hardly airy, starting at $1,799, but as they say, you can never be too rich or too thin.

The optional 64 gig solid-state disk drive is where the future of notebook computing is heading: no more hard drive crashes.

Say...I just noticed that it's only six months until my birthday! ;-)

Best Mexican Food in Midland?

I have all kinds of ideas for serious, thought-provoking, pithy posts. But, really, there's not much in life more important than good Tex-Mex, so those other things will wait. Plus, it's Janie's fault for bringing up Wall Street Bar and Grill.

Here's my list for where to find the best Tex-Mex/Mexican dishes in town. Feel free to try to convince me otherwise.

• Fajitas - Romie's


• Stacked Enchiladas - Abuelo's (especially with a fried egg on top)


• Asado - Dos Compadres


• Tortilla Soup - Jorge's (Big Spring & Loop 250; recipe is different at Midland Drive location)


• Tacos (plain) - Rosa's


• Tacos (exotic) - Casa Lopez (Soft Tacos Durango: beef, chorizo, avocado, fresh pico de gallo in soft corn tortillas)


• Nachos - Dos Compadres


• Seafood Enchiladas - Cancun Grill


• Huevos Rancheros - Wall Street Bar and Grill (I know, I know...but have you ever tried 'em?)


• Breakfast Burritos - Jumburrito (chorizo, huevos y queso con salsa verde)


• Chips & Salsa - Tie: On the Border & Abuelo's


• Brisket - Casa Lopez


• Chile Relleno (traditional) - Dos Compadres


• Chile Relleno (exotic) - Cancun Grill (shrimp and crab smothered with corn queso)

Notably missing from my list are nominations for best sopapillas, flan, menudo, rolled enchiladas, and non-breakfast burritos. It's about time you guys started pulling your weight around here!

Embarrassed by the Cowboys

The 2nd best team in the NFL* just stunk up the joint, and I can't believe I keep falling for it.

*Turns out they're probably not even the second best team in their conference, and possibly not the second best team in their division.

Too Much Stuff

You can tell when you have too much stuff by packing 60 moving boxes, carrying them to a storage unit, and returning home to find that the only perceptible difference is that your closet doors can now be shut.

Sixty down; hundreds (?!) to go...

A Charlie Brown Poinsettia

The thing about poinsettias is that they tend to overstay their welcome. We swore that wouldn't happen this year.

But, sometimes it's hard to know the right time to pull the plug. We may be getting close on this one. What do you think?

Nah. It's got plenty of life left in it.

Wired about "Bent Objects"

I have to confess that it's been a long time since I've seen anything as clever as Bent Objects. Do not visit this site unless you're prepared to commit some significant scrolling time. You've been warned.

Hat tip to Opining Online, which has also done us the immense favor of adding the Gazette to its blogroll.

1000Bulbs.com: Customer Service Done Right

I've been hard on some retailers lately, pointing out perceived failures in their service. I don't feel badly about doing that, but I do think it's equally important to recognize the companies who distinguish themselves by providing superior service. That's what I want to do now.

I've mentioned previously some dealings with a company located in Mesquite, Texas whose online identity is 1000Bulbs.com. The company – whose corporate name is the less catchy Service Lighting and Electrical Supplies – sells light bulbs. They recently merged with a sign and lighting installation and repair company, so their services will expand, but the company was built on the seemingly simple focus of light bulbs in their myriad incarnations.

They've done well. So well, in fact, that they were included on the 2007 Dallas 100 Award list which is sponsored by SMU's Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship and which recognizes the fastest growing privately held companies in the Dallas area.

I believe they've done so well because they offer good prices on a ridiculously wide range of products (see also, "long tail"), but beyond that, they go overboard to coddle their customers, even those who are, frankly, idiots. Take me, for example.

Last year, I ordered some compact fluorescent bulbs for our game room. I ordered eight of them via the company's website, and a few days after placing the order, a box full of bulbs arrived. I unpacked them and started placing them around the room in proximity to the fixtures, and then got distracted by something (a baby squirrel, no doubt). When I returned to the task of installing the bulbs, I noticed that I was short by one. I hadn't noticed that while I was unpacking the box, but now I saw that I had paid for one more bulb than I had received...and those things aren't inexpensive. So, I got on the phone and called their tollfree support number.

The fellow that answered the phone was appalled that they'd failed to ship the entire order, and promised to ship the missing bulb to me immediately. He pulled up my order, confirmed the address, and apologized again for the mistake. I received the replacement bulb the next day.

That was also about the time I found the missing bulb, on a bookshelf where I had put it, forgotten it, and then failed to notice it when I started the installation. When I realized my mistake, I can assure you that I didn't need any additional light bulbs to illuminate the room, as my face was taking care of that task.

I felt awful, and quickly wrote a check covering the amount of the bulb, plus an estimate for shipping and sales tax. I drafted a letter of explanation, apologizing for my gaffe, and thanking the company for its consideration. I dropped the letter and check in the mail that afternoon.

A couple of days later, I got a phone call from a representative of 1000Bulbs.com. She said they'd received my letter, and were happy to hear that (1) the shipping "problem" wasn't a problem after all, and (2) that I had everything I needed. However, she said, they were returning my check; they appreciated the gesture, and that was sufficient. I couldn't talk her out of it, and sure enough, the check arrived a couple of days later.

Now, I've had enough experience in corporate accounting to know that it probably costs more to process and account for that check than the face amount, but it would have been very easy (and even understandable) if they'd just dropped it into the shred bin after receiving it. They didn't have to return it, much less take the time to call me.

Needless to say, because the company has layered its strong product line with caring customer service, I'll continue to do business with them as often as possible. (I'm also quite a bit more careful nowadays when it comes to unpacking boxes.) If there are any budding entrepreneurs in the audience, you could do worse than emulate 1000Bulbs.com's approach to customer service.

Fantasy Band Meme

Via the estimable proprietor of Dustbury.com comes this meme of wondrous frivolity: Build your own band, album, and album cover, using the vast resources of the interweb...chosen at random, that is.

Here are the steps:

• Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
  The first article title on the page is the name of your band.


• Visit http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
  The last four words of the last quote on the page is the title of your album.


• Visit http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
  The third picture on the page is your album cover.

I rigorously followed these steps (ignoring Charles's wimpy ethical concerns about minor details such as copyright), and proudly present the Gazette's latest contribution to the wonderful world of DRM-free music (rather loosely defined, I'm sure):

For the record (ha!), my random Wikipedia article was about Dana Hanna, a software developer in Maryland (what are the odds that my fictitious artist would be a real person?); my album title – which I've managed to make almost entirely illegible – comes from Evan Esar: Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.; and the cover art comes from a photo entitled "Laughter from the Sidelines."

This is actually a lot of fun, with the added benefit of providing a creative challenge in coming up with a halfway decent album cover.

However, never being content to leave well enough alone, I propose to expand this meme by one step: the selection of your fake album's debut position on Billboard's Top 100 list. You may accomplish this by visiting http://www.random.org/integers/ and generating a random number between 1 and 100 (inclusive). Veneer Over Today's Disappointment debuted at a respectable-but-not-flashy number 65. Whether it has a bullet or not remains unknown.

I actually twisted off for a time and worked out a scheme for generating a genre for the made-up band. (Yes, I apparently have too much time on my hands.) This involved visiting the afore-linked random number generator and applying the results to http://www.wfmu.org/genrefinder.php in order to select a genre. That proved to be overly unwieldy, although the results for my band – Power Violence ("Order and disorder in a freeform haze of terribly played guitars, shorted-out electronics, found audio detritus, strange sounds from strange lands all around.") were amusing.

Disconcerting Search Phrase of the Day

Someone just visited the Gazette via the following search:

I have only one response – I didn't know it was loaded, OK? Honest! A little spackle, a little paint; it'll be as good as new!!

Update: I thought that was weird until I saw this one that just came through: fire ant obituary. Is there something I should know that you're not telling me?

Mxd Sgnl

Setting: Conference room in Starcom MediaVest Group's Atlanta offices.

Ad Exec #1: Allstate wants a campaign to address the increasing problems caused by distracted drivers. They want to increase awareness of the dangers of not keeping your eye on the road.

Ad Exec #2: Oh, yeah, that's a huge problem. But how do we convince drivers to stop paying attention to things other than the task of driving?

Creative pause

Ad Exec #1: Hey, I know what we can do!

Seriously, does anyone else see the irony of this billboard? It's bad enough that they're using a sign on the side of a highway to remind folks to watch the road, but then they place a message on it that is non-intuitive to anyone except those who are too young to drive in the first place.

All's right with the world, again

I snapped this photo *before* completing my shopping trip. If you were at H-E-B this morning after 9:04 a.m., you saw a different scene. Better luck next time.

Sad Political Commentary

You know we're in for a dreary presidential campaign when four of the top candidates make the nonprofit "public interest group" Judicial Watch's list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2007.

The group puts Democratic leaders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama on the list, along with Republicans Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani.

You can decide for yourself whether the accusations leveled at each of these people (as well as other Congressional leaders such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Diane Feinstein) are credible or significant. If nothing else, the list provides food for thought about the state of our political system and our society.

van Gogh's Doppelgänger?

Is this uncanny, or what?

But, you ask, does he still have two ears?

I'm not telling. You can ask him yourself, though.

Blast from the Past

We're 60 days from closing on the new house (theoretically) and so we're doing some packing, starting in the closets and cabinets that contain items that don't get a lot of use. We're making some interesting discoveries. To wit...

And, yes, we are taking them with us, along with another dozen or so.

RIP Netscape

AOL has announced that it will cease development and support of the Netscape browser on February 1, 2008.

Netscape usage had dwindled into irrelevancy over the past few years – according to most stats it has less than a 1% market share – so its demise will directly affect very few people. However, the company and the browser will always have a solid place in the history of cyberspace. Netscape was arguably the first company to make the World Wide Web the centerpiece of its business plan. Netscape's ability to produce a browser with an interface that looked and behaved pretty much identically on any computer was also arguably the catalyst that exposed Microsoft's dark side to the world, as Redmond deemed this strategy a threat to its own business plan and launched what we fondly remember as "The Browser Wars."

Netscape was also the first dotcom IPO with any kind of substantial splash. I was in the headquarters offices of an oil company in The Woodlands in 1995, on the day Netscape's stock went public. I was trying to negotiate a deal with the company (it never worked out) and I can remember idle chitchat about Netscape. I was the only person in the room who knew anything about it, and I'm pretty sure no one took my advice to go buy as much of the stock as their brokers could get their hands on. (Of course, I didn't follow my own advice either.)

I was a loyal Netscape user right up until Firefox was released. I even built a few websites using Composer (*shudder*). As a web designer, I had mixed emotions about it. I hated the way it choked on CSS; my consolation was that Internet Explorer was usually even worse. In a way, I was relieved when Netscape's market share dropped to the point that I didn't have to test new designs using it.

As nostalgic as those memories may be (if indeed one can be nostalgic about a phenomenon that's less than 15 years old), I won't mourn the passing of the company. (And for those who feel an inexplicable need to continue using Netscape, it will still work; you just will never see any upgrades or fixes. And, eventually, technology will completely pass it by.) With the continued improvement of Firefox, and the news that the next version of Internet Explorer passes Acid2, the web browsing world has never been in better shape, for both users and developers.

Rabbit Run

As I read this column about a small Florida town that allegedly produces the fastest college football players in the nation, I kept waiting for a "gotcha" or a link to Snopes or some indication that its early April (2007) publication date was not to be disregarded by the savvy reader.

But, apparently, it's not a joke. In which case it's also extremely interesting, in a bizarre fashion.

Link tip: Wall Street Journal

Bad Apple (Redux)

Last Tuesday, we visited the Apple Store located in The Domain, one of Austin's newest upscale commercial/residential developments, the kind that Midland's downtown development gang would undoubtedly give one of each redundant body part in exchange for a similar local installation*. Ironically, The Domain is managed by Simon Properties, same as our mall. That's all that the two endeavors have in common. But, I digress.

The concept of the Apple Stores is undeniably cool: at least one of every product made by Apple (although I didn't notice a server) is set out for hands-on use by prospective customers. You're free to tap keys and move mouses and scroll wheels to your heart's content, without interference from pushy employees.

Well, with one exception.

My wife and I were making a counterclockwise circuit of the store and we found ourselves near the Altar of the Lesser Mac Demi-gods (aka The Genius Bar) – the pretension in that part of the store is thick enough to cut with a Gucci penknife – and in front of a large table upon which rested nothing but a gleaming 24" iMac. There was no one around it, so we started, you know, tapping and mousing and scrolling.

Almost immediately we were accosted by an imperious woman who practically ran over from another table where she'd presumably been assisting some customers. "Don't TOUCH that! That's the CONCIERGE computer!" (Remember the reference to pretension?) She fluttered around the apparently sacred iMac, probably muttering incantations to exorcise whatever amateurish demons we'd unleased on it. We were too surprised to react by doing anything other than sheepishly moving quickly back into the flow of customers, but I immediately started a slow boil over what I considered to be an bad case of overreaction.

Had I been quicker on the uptake, I would have pointed out a few things to Ms. Concierge:

• The computer was accompanied by no signage, labeling, or other markings indicating that it was off limits to the unwashed masses. ("I'm sorry; my ESP has been on the blink lately. Do forgive me.")


• The icons on the computer's monitor were identical to those on every other screen in the joint, each of which is designed to invite interaction. (The concept of "attractive nuisance" comes to mind.)


• If the use of that particular computer is so all-fired critical, why isn't it secured? (Note to Ms. Concierge: Check into the concept of a password.)

I had intended to buy a copy of Leopard while I was there, but after that treatment, I changed my mind and left without purchasing anything. And, frankly, while I continue to love my Apple products, I'm not interested in visiting another Apple Store ever again.

*It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that this willingness would be shared by just about every other city in America with a population less than two million.

If you're wondering about the first "Bad Apple" post - and who isn't? - you can find it here.

None is the loneliest number

I've decided that the Gazette's theme for 2008 will be a daily cellphone photo of dubious quality taken inside a grocery store to illustrate and even define the great issues of life. I'm pretty sure I have the material to stretch this through, oh, say, today.

Halloween came early today, as I was confronted by this horrific scene at the local market:

These sadly empty shelves are where the Blue Bell ice cream is supposed to be. If you squinch your eyes in just the right fashion, you'll make out two lonely half gallon cartons of Breyer's, which are probably left over from 2006.

I think you'll agree that this is a problem of apocalyptic magnitude. Someone needs to do something.

But what would you pair with a nice tapioca?

We spent the holiday weekend at Kyle's country estate (well, what would you call a house that has its own professional recording studio?) outside of Austin, from which we ventured forth to engage in activities as varied as a half day browse through the Ikea store, a quick visit to the Apple store (more about that later), and a couple of visits to the neighborhood H-E-B grocery store.

While cruising the aisles at the market, this label caught my eye, and I had to share it with you via camera pic:

Now, I'm far from being an oenophile – most of the humor in Sideways escaped me completely – so I'm completely at a loss to concoct a scenario under which one might be charged with writing a description of a recommended wine/food pairing and the comestible that comes to mind would be rice pudding.

OTOH, depending on how you feel about rice pudding (I happen to like it, by the way, and I know at least one other highly intelligent and respected blogger who shares that affection), one definition of hell might be the provision of an infinite supply of the gooey confection along with the charge to find the wine that best accompanies it – with the diabolical twist being the requirement that the wine cost less than $8.