Slow day before holiday

I always hate these days. You walk around the office and know that most people's minds aren't on the meeting at 11, or the report that is due. No, they are thinking about picking up the volleyball net, getting propane for the grill, and checking the beer supply.

I, for one, won't actually be celebrating over the weekend. I am going to see They Might Be Giants tomorrow at Mohegan Sun, but that is all until the actual 4th of July. As it is, I will be going to work on the 3rd, which will be another wasted day. Half of the building will be empty, and who really wants to work for one day? Not me, I say that eveyone who does have to work on Monday should be able to go in wearing picnic clothes. Wear shorts and sandals, have fun!

Happy Friday before the 4th!

Ford backing out of Hybrids

From Wired.com

Ford Reverses on Hybrids
Topic: Hybrids
Buying an "American" hybrid in the future will be a bit more of a challenge as Ford says it was just kidding about its pledge to produce 250,000 hybrids per year.

Instead of ramping up production of hybrids, the company is going to focus on flex-fuel vehicles and will work with bio-fuels companies to increase the availability of ethanol, according to the Detroit News.

Critics say Ford keeps to promises about as well as Charlie Sheen, citing past pledges for increasing fuel efficiency that never came to be.

Ford isn't giving up on hybrids altogether, but the shift to ethanol is taking the easy way out since it doesn't require innovation. Add "Falsely Over-promising on Research and Development" to the list of disparaging acronyms.

Now the other day, I posted about NYC going Hybrid with their Taxis, and as Ryan had pointed out, they were Fords. Now if Ford is making less of these, how will other cities follow the lead of NYC. Instead Ford wants to go with Flex Fuels (e85). Well, that is still burning something, but it is better for the enviroment, the problem is the stations, there aren't that many stations. Look at this map. First you will notice that they aren't in every state, and second, you will notice that in the states where they are, there are not that many of them.

It seem to me that the US, Detroit based companies want to keep burning things, while it's the Japanse companies want to use their battaries. One thing to keep your eye on is this device, it's the H2N-Gen. It works with your car that you have now, and makes it's own Hydrogen on the spot to inject into your engine, increasing milage and cutting emissions almost completely.

Today's Song

I don't really have anything newsworthy to report on today, since I am chained to my desk, and actually quite busy today. But I am listening to my iPod here (shut up, I had one when they still looked like little lucite bricks), which I enjoy having at work because it allows me to listen to the tons of music I download when I go on a download spree and often forget about altogether. Because of that, sometimes I hear a song that is completely novel to me, and comes at an odd time when I am not expecting it to.

 

This happened recently with a Kiss song. Now, I've never been a big Kiss guy. I'm not anti-kiss, but I never got into their whole face painting, pyrotechnic, freakish tongue-having cult. I mean, Knights in the Service of Satan? I can't get behind that. But when someone lent me the greatest hits, I downloaded it to my playlist for later digestion, thinking, hey, maybe it is not all "I wanna rock and roll all nite."

 

So, last week I was in Manhattan, walking briskly, to catch a subway and get on my commuter train back to the 'burbs. Suddenly, I hear "New York Groove"- Don't expect it to change your life- it is a very basic, simple song- almost bordering on a disco tune, but at that moment, coming on my earphones at the very same tempo that I was walking, it brought a big smile to my face. It also had special significance for me, as I am making my return to the NY thing in September.

 

Google Checkout

Google has done it again. They have re-created a web tool and I can only imagine that they made it better. I am talking about the new Google Checkout. And it is just what the name suggests, a new way to buy things online. The idea is very much like that behind PayPal. You put your money in account, or connect your credit card to it and they give the money to the vendor. But with Google, I can only imagine that they have made it better and easier. And for AdSense Customers, there are cost savings for using the service on the vendor side of things. The details deal with numbers, and I am not going to share them here. All I will say is that chances are they will have better fees than PayPal, even though they said that they are not in competition.

Well it is Google, and I tend to like alot of what they do, chances are good that I will be trying this out in the near future. The program has been in testing for a year and they already have two major players signed up, Starbucks and Buy.com.

Good luck Google, you need... who am I kidding, Google doesn't need any luck, I need their luck.

Chuck Norris facts - by Chuck Norris himself

This is a great video. For anyone that has ever been sent to the site of Chuck Norris facts, here is the man himself reading the facts on TV.

Precipitation Rains on My Plans.

So, I wanted to play golf today. Nothing fancy, just a quick nine on a short course after work- a bit more facile than a standard course, a little more challenging than a par-3. And here in Connecticut, we are being inundated by a deluge of biblical proportions. Okay, maybe not of biblical proportions. Then again, if you were to fashion a container with the same proportions as a King James Bible, I would hazard a guess that you would be able to fill it with the amount of rain that has fallen, so maybe that statement was not as hyperbolic as I thought it was.

 

Anyway, the rain is enough to overwhelm the drainage system at the Orchards, and enough to ruin my plans. At least it is good for my cranberry farm.

Hybrid Taxis in NYC

I would like to give NYC some credit here. Treehugger is reporting that NYC will be getting more hybrids in their fleet of Taxis. This is a great idea. Most of Taxi driving in NYC is stop and go and that is when the Hybrid becomes benifical. Heck, they will barely even use any gas at all.

What i'm confused by is this picture below. It is great that they are getting hybrids, but why hybrid SUVs? Why not hybrid sedans? They MPG on a hybrid SUV is the same as on my Nissan Sentra. Well, at least it's a step in the right direction.



More infor about hybrid cars can be found at HybridCars.com. They have a listing of all current and up coming hybrids out there, plus stats.

Food

So, there is another blog that I once started, that would chronicle my food adventures, eating at good restaurants, making good meals, even discovering new holes in the wall. I'm not even going to link to it, because there is nothing there. I'm not sure there ever will be, since the time will come soon that my kitchen will once more be nothing more than a countertop and a fridgerwave. So, I'm going to start posting all of my food-related thoughts here instead, and close it for business. I mean, I would rather have a blog that I update daily than 4 that I never update.

I will certainly miss having cooking adventures like the below beer can chicken, or even grilling a thick rib eye like we did last night. I'm no expert, but some of my tips for a juicy steak on the grill:

• Olio. A couple dashes of olive oil will help your seasonings to stick evenly on the steak, and help in the searing process. Besides, the tiny bit you put on will be instantly turned to carbon when it hits the grill, so the additional calories are negligible.
• Season away. Don't be afraid to put a nice thick coat of pepper, chili powder, Coriander, Cumin etc on the steak. Other great seasonings include dry mustard, granulated garlic, and ginger. The only key is think about how they'll taste together- if you aren't sure. mix them up in a small bowl, taste, and then once you make your "rub" and are satisfied, apply.
• Hot Hot Hot. While cool smoke cooking is great for some applications, a juicy steak needs to hit a hot grill. If you have a gas grill, turn it up to preheat right before you put the steaks on. If you have a traditional grill, try and spare a piece of fat or some bacon drippings, and drop them on the coals so they flare right before you apply. Sear the steak for a few seconds, then on a gas grill, reduce heat to high.
• Butter. I know, it's not good for you. But if you are going to do it right, do it right. If you want to be healthy, make a turkey burger. Take a small pat of butter and mush it with fresh or dry parsley (or chives). Put a tiny pat on each steak- no need to drench it, just a little dollop. It is as much for garnish as for flavor, Do it just before serving, so the butter is about 2/3 melted when you get to the table.

Yeah, butter and olive oil. You wanna fight about it?

Subway® PR Video

Here is a Public Relations video that I made for Subway®. Not sure how long I will have this up for, since it is company video and all, but hey, it's free PR.

Funny Article

Someone from my old job sent this image around. It's a pretty funny news article. Read the whole thing, you won't be sorry.

Click on the image to make it bigger so you can read it.

Like Christmas but...

Not. So today, Apple  went down for about a half hour. Now as many have commented, when most e-commerce websites go down, there would be a riot. But Apple fan boys like myself know that when Apple's site goes down, it is like when a parent give a kid sedatives so he can put things under the tree. I mean, Santa Jobs can't be going around trying to fill stockings with thousands of greedy cursors swirling around all over the place blowin’ up his spot. Especially not those 3.1 holdouts with the trail of 1,000 ghost cursors. Now that is scary, like the first time you are playing Mario 1 and realize you can jump up on top of the screen, and be all walking in front of the score, and you are all like, I didn’t think that was a viable part of Mario’s reality, and now he is, waltzing right by his score. I wonder if he sees it?

 

Anyway, when that happens (and by it I mean the apple store going down, not Mario dancing all over his score Pee-Wee Herman style), we know to get all excited because some new kit is coming. Well, false alarm. No new macs, no new software, no nothin. Just updating the Nike pack to available from pre-order. Ooooooh... like that was worth jumping to the top of the internet usage stats for my company by feverishly reloading.

 

The next one better be good, Jobs.

I'm Lame...

I admit it, I'm lame. Why you might ask, well because the Apple store was down for like an hour today and I got all excited that something new was coming out. on Digg, we were all talking about it. But when the store came back up there was nothing, nadda, zip, zero, ziltch... So I'm going back to doing work since I am at work. Maybe I should stop checking the Apple store every single day.... nah!!!

Look, It's Subman

I get to have fun at my job. Here is a recent thing I did, I had to find when Subman appeared in the film "Raising Helen". Well, I found him, and here is the scene where he is in the background. If you don't see him the first time, don't worry, I slow down the video and highlight him.

Screw Abercrombie

So today, I came upon a catalogue, that puts abercrombie and fitch's half naked models to shame. These people are legitimately selling CLOTHING. That's right. Check out the catalog.

Edit by Keith: Warning, NOT WORK FRIENDLY!

Joy and Keith go Running

Beer Can Chicken

Watch as Keith and Justin cook a Beer Can Chicken. (This video was shot with Keith's cell phone)

"An Inonvenient Truth" reviewed by Roger Ebert

"In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but
here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not,
and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided
not to." - Roger Ebert

I have not yet seen this movie.  Mainly because it isn't playing everywhere yet.  But when it does, I will see it, because I do believe that it will be one of the most important things that I can do, or that any of us can do.   Just watching the trailer made me feel like I haven't done anything to fix the problem.  And even though some people have said that Al Gore is trying to scare us, well they are right.  He is trying to get us to react, to do something, to start the change.  It is often said that the truth hurts.  Well, once we get over the pain we can either ignore the pain or do something about it.  Are you going to let your arm bleed or are you going to wash it out and put a band-aid on it.

There are some great movies coming out this summer.  X-men III was one of them.  I know, because I saw it.  But I think we all need to take the time and watch this movie.  Don't do it for yourself, do it for your kids.

Wii for everyone

Ever since I heard about the Revolution, I have been hooked.  I have been reading everything that comes out about it.  And now I keep reading every post about it now that it is called the Wii.  What makes this so great? How can I support it before it even hits the stores?

First of all, I am a Nintendo Fan.  I have always loved the nintendos and i love their frame of mind.  And second of all, they are doing something with the Wii that is different.  They aren't going with better graphics like the Xbox 360, or the PS3.  They aren't charging an arm and a leg, and they aren't creating a system that will control everything.  They are making a gaming system that will be fun to play.  Something that everyone can play, and something that you won't mind your kids playing.  So even though I have told people about it before, here it is again, I am buying it as soon as it comes out!

Battery Causes Apple iBook To Go Up In Flames! Pics Included.

"I mean, it was five minutes and (the computer) was in flames," Cindy Brown said. "The computer burst into flames. It doesn't seem real that you would have a fire in a computer. We all could have died, and the house could have burned down."

This a crazy story about people not doing what they are supposed to. They put a laptop on the floor. Capeting can catch on fire? Yes, it can, especially when you put a hot computer on it. If these people had died, I would have nominated them for the Darwin Awards.

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