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Would You Vote for John McCain?

This was a funny little poem I saw on Digg. In all seriousness though, it amazes me that people are still going to vote for him after seeing what has happened in the past 8 years. Don’t be fooled, he really isn’t any different than George Bush. I’m also tired of hearing the lies his campaign spreads (head on over to politicaljackass.com to see what I’m talking about), especially that Obama will raise your taxes, when numerous economists and newspapers have reported that McCain’s tax policies are bad for the economy because they are just like Bush’s AND Obama’s tax cuts go to the middle class and not the wealthiest 1% of people. Anyway, here is the poem:

Would you vote for John McCain?
On a boat or in a plane?

I would not, could not, vote McCain.
Not in a boat. Not on a plane.

Could you vote if he were blue?
Could he get your dog’s vote too?

My dog would not vote for him,
nor would my cat.
I would not vote for John McCain.
I would not do it and that is that.

How about in the pouring rain,
under an umbrella held by John McCain?

I would not vote for John McCain.
I would not do it in the rain. Read more

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Microblogging with Asaph

Today I found out about a piece of software called Asaph. It is a great microblogging system. What makes it so great is the ease in which you can post. Just drag the bookmarklet to your bookmarks then whenever you want to post a new entry, you just select the text you want and click the bookmarklet. If you want to post an image, you click the bookmarklet and then select the image and it will automatically put it on your server for you. It’s an awesome tool and there is already talk of making a plugin for Habari. I’m hoping they do, then I might switch. Check out my shorts here.

I’ve also been posting a lot to Political Jackass this weekend, so if you’re interested in politics, hop on over. I’m trying to update several times a day. There is even a twitter account setup, you can follow Political Jackass at twitter.com/polijackass and read the political shorts at shorts.politicaljackass.com.

Sony ICF-C1iP Dock with Clock for iPod or iPhone

A few weeks ago I bought the Sony ICF-C1iP Dock with Clock for iPod or iPhone. I was at Target and started listening to all their iPod/iPhone docks. The Sony was one of the systems with the best sound (besides the extremely expensive Bose system). I usually don’t buy an electronic like this without reading reviews but I was able to play with it and listen to the sound quality, so I had a new alarm clock/iPhone dock/mini-stereo. This was a big disappointment.

The first couple weeks of having the system I only found one problem: the brightness of the clock. The clock had three brightness settings and on its lowest it was way too bright. It would literally wake me up in the middle of the night, that’s how bright it was. No big deal though, after a while I could get used to that. And for the most part, I did. Then last night something happened.

I was just about to fall asleep and I hear this incredibly loud buzzing. It was distortion/feedback fromsony the speakers. The iPhone was causing interference with the speakers. I read a couple other people having this problem but the product was clearly marked as working with the iPhone, so what gives? Well, even though it clearly states it works with the iPhone, unless you want to turn your iPhone to just a normal iPod while it’s docked, you’re going to experience problems. Apparently the only way to not have any interference is for it to go into Airplane mode, in which it turns off the phone (nowhere in the instructions does it even say to do this, by the way It tells you it will ask, but doesn’t tell you which option to choose). Since I sleep with it on the dock I would miss calls if I do this. This is unacceptable, especially for a product marketed towards iPhone users. So, I took the system back, very disappointed, and very disappointed in Sony for trying to cash in on the iPhone when it was clearly made for the iPod and works somewhat with the iPhone.

Backups with Jungledisk

I recently started backing up my computer with Jungledisk. I previously used Mozy to backup but Jungledisk intrigued me for a few reasons. One is you can add your storage as a mapped drive. You couldn’t do this with Mozy. That will be handy if I want to backup something at work and download it at home. Also, once you purchase the $20 software, you can install it on as many computers as you’d like. Mozy charged for additional seats. Jungledisk will also work on Linux, which I’m thinking about switching to because Vista is annoying me. Mozy has no Linux client. Another thing I’ve been very impressed with is the speed of the uploads. While you’re limited to the speed of your ISP, Mozy never used the bandwidth to its fullest. Jungledisk backs up much quicker.

I still have several more days before my 60GBs are backed up, but when all is said and done, I’ll have backed up almost twice as fast as I did with Mozy. Jungledisk costs bit more than Mozy’s $4.95 a month for unlimited storage. With Jungledisk you pay the one-time $20 fee and then $.15 for every GB used in storage and $.10 for bandwidth. After the first month I’ll be spending about $10 a month instead of $4.95. The extra cost is worth it for the speed and features of Jungledisk’s software.

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Blockbuster Online Problems

This entire week Blockbuster has only been shipping me two movies. I have the three movies out at a time plan yet I’m only having two shipped. Today, I decided to contact customer support to see what is going on. Here is my email:

For a few days now only two DVDs will be out at a time, even though I have DVDs that are available to ship in my queue. I have the 3 at a time plan, so why aren’t 3 shipping?

I think it explains my problem well. I have DVDs available, they are not shipping. Here is the response I got:

I am sorry if we haven’t ship your DVD. I’ve reviewed your account and see that you are waiting for one DVD to be shipped. Here’s an explanation of why this happened. I noticed that your queue mostly contains box/series sets, which if added as a set (with the padlock), they are considered a as a group and treated as a single request when the system searches for available DVDs to ship.

In looking at your queue, this appears to be the case. “X-Files: The Complete First Season” is not shipping due to its availability of disc number disc one. Unfortunately, this prevented anything from being shipped. Based on the way our system searches for movies, we suggest keeping at least 15 “Available” titles in your queue at all times, keeping in mind that each set is considered as “one” during this process. I really hope this information helps, Mike. Please let me know if I can answer any further questions.

Ok, I would understand this answer if two things weren’t a factor:

  • 1. I didn’t have movies that were available to ship that weren’t part of a boxed set at the top of my queue. I do. Why not ship them?
  • 2. They already shipped 2 discs of The X-Files season 3 (the first season that is currently available). Since they’ve already started shipping those discs (last week) why not pick back up with shipping them since I have an empty slot? This makes no sense.

So basically I’m paying for a plan to ship 3 movies and Blockbuster only wants to ship 2. Great job Blockbuster. Maybe it’s time to go back to Netflix.

Update: I have canceled my Blockbuster account. Not just for this reason, but also other reasons (no streaming service, queue page problems, etc) and moved back to Netflix.