Happy New Year!

Well I haven't had much to blog about lately, nor have I had much time to blog lately. Must be the holidays, oh yeah, and work.

Today I must say it took me until after noon to realize it was the last day of the year. For some reason I hadn't associated tomorrow with being New Year's Day. But while we're on the topic... what kind of ridiculous holiday is this?! Somehow just because it's the first day of the year, every country in the world decided that it's a day worth celebrating. This is fine with me, but what about the first day of the month? February 1st, March 1st, September 1st... these should ALL be holidays! Oh well!

I guess today was a productive day of cleaning... so at least I can start the new year with a clean apartment.

I also watched this quality cinematic feature called Men with Brooms. As you might expect, this is probably the only movie ever made that revolves around the sport of curling. It's definitely a comedy, though don't look to see it among the ranks of any Academy Award winning films. First, it's more bizarre than it is funny. There is a lot of subtle curling humor, that you'd only understand if you are a curler, or fully versed in curling lingo and etiquette. As it was, it was nothing more than a fully predictable plot, filled in with a lot of other obscure garbage. Oh yeah, and since it's a Canadian comedy, it takes every opportunity possible to make fun of Americans and portray them as stupid, uptight, pompous, or some permutation thereof. The most famous actor in the film was probably Leslie Nielsen, which makes perfect sense considering he's Canadian and probably has made more terrible comedies than any man alive. (Though I think he is still hilarious, and enjoy even his terrible movies.)

Happy New Year!

Deal... or No Deal?

Tonight began yet another primetime gameshow that we stole from the Brits. The show, Deal or No Deal, is being run as a primetime mini-series-type special that will run each night this week at 8pm on NBC. Reminds me of the original schedule of Who Wants to be a Millionare, before they started running it every night for a month, and then eventually even syndicated it, until people got so sick of it they run away.

I digress... so Deal or No Deal. The premise of this show is so ridiculously simple I feel like I'm sitting back in my STAT 394 class determining the probability and expected value of each decision. Once you filter out all the lights, glitz, and strategically placed commercial breaks, you're left with this:

1) There are 26 numbered briefcases, each containing a value from $.01 to $1,000,000.
2) The contestant selects one of the briefcases.
3) The contestant then selects the remaining briefcases one-by-one, which are opened to reveal the values contained within.
4) At various points throughout the process, the contestant is made an offer to sell the briefcase they selected for a specified amount of money. If they take the offer (Deal) the game is over, otherwise (No Deal) the game continues until they either take a Deal or all of the remaining cases are opened.

That's all there is to it. The fascinating part (to me at least) is how "The Bank" a.k.a. the man upstairs with a yellow legal pad who is supposedly making the offers, though I consider it far more likely that a computer is making all of the calculations, is actually coming up with his offers. Now, I didn't take too close of a look at the values being offered at various points, but I'm pretty sure they're just offering the expected value of their selected briefcase based on the values remaining. For example, when the contestant tonight was down to just 2 briefcases (their own, and one other) the two remaining values were $50,000 and $500. So what is the EV of the case she selected? (50000+500)/2 = 25250. And what was she offered? $25,000 even. Sounds about right to me.

How long is this going to last? My guess is probably, oh... about 5 episodes. :) Why? Because the show has several fatal flaws that are the curse of all bad gameshows:

1) The audience can't play along. Well, they CAN, but really, it's about as much fun as when your friend goes "I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 26". "Oooh... sorry, wrong."
2) B-list celebrity turned game show host. The host of this show is Howie Mandel. Name one thing he's done in the past 10 years... yeah, that's what I thought. Now the same might have been said about Regis when he first took on the role as host of Millionaire... but he proved himself nicely... it helps that people knew who he was and he's a likable enough guy. Howie reminds me of when they got John McEnroe to host that failed attempt at a game show called "The Chair" where people were answering trivia questions while strapped into a chair and they lost if their heart rate went up too much. Can we say ridiculous premise?
3) Lack of variety. After about 5 episodes of this, every episode will start to feel the same. It's not like they can change up the questions, or have new celebrity guests, or anything different. See reason #1... how many times can you play "I'm thinking of a number" before it gets old... oh yeah, maybe twice. 'Nuff said.

Now that I've devoted more time than this show deserves, I have a question... what's the deal with America stealing all of our gameshows from the British? Are we not creative enough to create our own incredibly ridiculous premises and pretend to give away exorbitant amounts of money, but in reality give away nothing more than the slimmest chance of winning anything substantial? I have one thing to say: No Deal.

If you don't think this is cool...

... there's something wrong with you.

http://www.universeofsynergy.com/xmaslights.wmv

Q: How'd they do that?
A: http://www.wonderlandchristmas.com/wizardsofwinter.php

Now, if only I had:
1) a house
2) money to burn
3) creativity

I'd be all set. Well, 3's no problem, 2 might be able to work... but 1 is a sticking point. We'll see what we can do.

My name is Joe, and I endorse this product.

Celebrities and well-known people have been endorsing products since the beginning of television (or if you consider radio the precursor to television, long before the beginning of television). One thing I've always wondered though, why do celebrities do it? Admittedly, it probably depends on the celebrity, I mean your solid B-list celebrity probably genuinely could use the extra income it provides... so we'll forget about those. But pick someone rich enough that they shouldn't really need to do commercials for the money. In recent memory I recall Donald Trump hawking Domino's Pizza. Do I really believe that The Donald says to the wife "you know, let's order some pizza tonight" from his Manhattan penthouse, and even if he did want pizza, would he order that mass-produced cardboard that comes out of the Domino's ovens? Not in a million years. But surely he can't be needing the cash (though maybe to him, every dollar counts, so that measly $500,000 he gets from Domino's to act like a buffoon on national TV commercials is money in the bank)?

Enough about Trump, what about the new commercials for Campbell's Select soup with John Lithgow? Personally, I think the commercial where he breaks out into a spontaneous showtune about soup is absolutely hilarious. It's a great commercial, though I'd never buy the product. (Somehow I liken eating soup out of a box to drinking wine out of a box... just add "Mc" in front of the name.) Does John Lithgow need the money? Perhaps, though being the star of a top-rated sitcom for a few years (which is still in syndication somewhere, I'm sure) must leave a bit of cashola in the ol' pocketbook. Does he actually like the soup? Probably, but who doesn't like soup?

No, I think there is a commonality here that we have yet to explore. Celebrities are famous only as long as they remain in the minds of the public as a whole. What has Lithgow done since his sitcom? Can you name a single show he's been in? I can't, though I'm sure there are some. But what better way to get your face back on the screen and back into the viewers minds than by doing a cheesy TV commercial... one where everyone talks to their friends and goes "did you SEE that commercial with so-and-so... can you believe he did that?" It's perfect. Has anyone forgotten about Trump yet? No, probably not, but like him or not, he's a very smart man and knows business and how the public thinks. He probably thinks of his Domino's commercial solely in terms of keeping his name and face out there in the public. As long as he's still a star, people won't soon forget him, so it's time well invested (and he can buy a few pizzas with the chunk of change they gave him).

So by the same concept, as long as I keep blogging, people won't forget that I exist and people will keep reading. I'll be a Z-list celebrity yet!

Episode II: The Phantom Jury

Another day of jury duty, waiting to be called... the wheels of justice turn slowly apparently.

8:30am - I arrived and checked in, and took an obligatory seat in the jury assembly room. Today I got here plenty early, and got a nice table to work at over in the corner. Much easier than sitting with your laptop on your lap. It's decidedly more empty in here today, maybe removing those 40 folks from yesterday made a difference. As I count the number of people in the room I'm in... 37. There's probably slightly more in the other room, and a few more in the lobby. So yeah, I'd estimate at least 100 folks around here today waiting for their chance to serve (or more likely, sitting around hoping they're not called so they can go home for good at the end of the day).

9:15am - First announcement of the morning. 4 cases on the docket today with potential juries. Nothing as of yet, so more to come. I'll continue to sit here wasting time finding things to do online.

10:30am - Still nothing. We had an "official" jury break... but still no news. In one of the rooms they started a movie on the TVs, I guess it was good... I was already sitting in the "quiet" room and didn't feel like moving from my excellent seat. :)

11:15am - Finally some word. Of the 4 cases scheduled today, 3 of them have settled or otherwise been dismissed. That leaves only 1 jury remaining for the day, and we've got way too many people for that. So 50 people are selected to be excused with thanks for their service. My name is called, and I'm done.

And that was the story of my jury duty experience. I guess it wasn't a total waste of time... though it's hard not to think that when I spent two days doing nothing short of sitting around doing nothing. Oh well. At least I've served my time until next time.

Doing my part to uphold the Seventh Amendment

Is this what we have to go through to uphold the American right to a trial by jury? Perhaps so. I must say, they have gone to great lengths to make the process as painless and efficient as possible.

As one might have guessed, I'm sitting here in the Jury Assembly room of the King County Superior Court at the Regional Justice Center in Kent. Fortunately they have wifi internet connectivity here, which makes for a slightly more efficient way to pass the time. But in the interests of infotainment, here's a running commentary of today's events thus far:

8:00am - Arrive at the courthouse, make your way through the metal detectors at security, and check in with the nice people at the desk in the Jury Assembly room. Nice facility, I must say... and very efficient process. Just have to grab a clipboard and fill out my "Juror Biography" form (in triplicate, of course... gotta love bureaucracy) that basically asks your age, occupation, where you live, and various other classifying questions that would be provided to the lawyers should you be picked for a jury pool.

8:30am - I'd suspect about 150-200 potential jurors are gathered by now. One of the judges dropped by to welcome us all and give us an obviously scripted spiel about how important we are to the judicial process and such... though she obviously ad-libbed a lot of it too and added much more sincerity than a scripted list would do. This followed by a well-designed, yet incredibly cheesy "How to be a juror" video describing the activities. I felt like I was watching the pre-flight safety briefing video you see on some airplanes.

9:00am - Orientation complete... time to sit around and do nothing. We get the first announcement of the day, informing us that there are 4 potential jury trials on the docket today. Sit back, relax, and enjoy doing nothing.

9:30am - Update... 1 of the 4 potential trials will not be requiring a jury. Make that 3 potential jury trials remaining. I think it's a slow day at the RJC.

10:20am - After a brief 20 minute break to walk around and stretch our legs outside of the JA room, we receive the first jury impaneling of the morning. 15 names are called, and they all immediately leave for their mission. 2 potential juries remain.

11:00am - The 2 trials may still need juries, but definitely not before lunch. Since official lunch time is 12:00am-1:30pm, we may leave now and be back by 1:30pm. A nice 2 1/2 hour lunch break. I realized that I should have brought my laptop, and now with a 2.5 hour break, I drove back to my parents house in Federal Way, got my laptop and had some lunch... and then got back to the RJC at about 12:45 or so to sit and relax with the wifi connectivity.

1:30pm - Everyone's back from lunch, and time to call more jurors. This time they're going to impanel 40 jurors. (Based on this, we guess that it's probably a pretty big criminal trial they're dealing with.) I was not one of the 40 selected. Good news or bad news? We shall see. The 40 all turn in their juror bio forms and receive a number, and come back to relax some more while the counsel reviews their forms. Tick tick tick... 1 potential jury remains.

2:15pm - The 40-member jury panel receives word that the case has settled (I've watched enough Law and Order to piece this together... lots of legal bluffing from one side or the other... threatening to go to a jury, scared the defense enough to take a plea). As a result, those 40 people who did nothing but get assigned a number, are dismissed with the thanks of the court. They were technically on a jury even though they never actually left the jury room... so they don't have to come back tomorrow and they're done. Suddenly everyone's wishing they were one of the 40 selected. :)

2:30pm - With one potential jury remaining, and by my estimations well over 100 potential jurors in the room, it's quite clear that a lot of us will be returning tomorrow. But, at this point I have a minor celebrity-sighting. Who is one of the other potential jurors in the pool, none other than former Washington State Governor Mike Lowry! As my friend Jonell said, "That's a mug you can't miss!" True enough. Anyway, shortly after 2:30, we get the final announcement: the last trial has plenty of work to get through the rest of the day, and won't need a jury until tomorrow. So, we're all excused early, and will report again at 8:45am on Thursday. If we still aren't selected, that's the ballgame and we've served our time. Otherwise in the unfortunate event that I get selected for a jury, I could end up back again later the following week to continue on a trial. We'll see how things turn out. Time to go home!

You have now entered... the twilight zone...

When worlds collide, we enter a dimension known only as... the twilight zone. In tonight's episode... two of my favorite things come together in an unexpected place. But more on that later. First, last night was the usual Monday night curling league, we had what I would call a supremely decent showing. We actually got lucky when it mattered, but all in all played very well. The line score follows:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Total
We	1	1	2	1	1	2	x	x	8
They	0	0	0	0	0	0	x	x	0

Now for the obscure connection. Tonight I'm watching the Amazing Race, as usual, and nothing too odd happening. But then came the previews for the finale of the Amazing Race 8, where in my usual attempt to discern where the race will go next week I saw the greatest thing ever. They'll be CURLING on the Amazing Race next week! From the looks of it, it appears to be some sort of detour or roadblock, my guess is that they have to throw a rock and sweep it into the house, or perhaps something more complicated. It's great! Now I MUST watch next week!

Why DVR is the greatest thing EVER!

Rarely do I like to praise anything that comes from those money-grubbing fools at Comcast, but despite the fact that I think they charge too much for the services they provide, I can't dispute the fact that they provide top-notch products. I think their high-speed internet is far superior to DSL, and their cable TV I can't argue much with either.

So yesterday, I upgraded my cable box to one of the new fandangled dual-tuner DVRs from Comcast. For those of you not in the know, a DVR is a "Digital Video Recorder". If you hear people talking about a Tivo, it's essentially the same thing. Tivo is a brand name, but they make DVRs. Of course, what can you DO with a DVR? I'm glad you asked!

In its simplest form, it works just like a VCR, except that instead of recording things on a VHS tape, it records it digitally on its internal hard drive. You can play the shows back whenever you want, fast forward, rewind, pause, basically everything you can do with a regular VCR. But that is where the similarities end.

The excitement begins with the fact that it's fully integrated with the on-screen TV guide. The advantage here is that all you have to do is find what you want to record in the TV guide, and press the record button on the remote, and you're set. It knows exactly when to record it, and won't forget. No chance of messing up the times or anything like that.

The excitement continues... say I want to record the same show whenever it's on. For example, I set it up to record The Price is Right every day. Now, if I get home from work and want to watch it, I can watch that morning's show whenever I want! And I can even set the option to only keep the most recent episode, so my DVR doesn't try to store weeks worth of shows, but only todays. It's... ehem... Comcastic?

The excitement builds... so since I'm too tired to stay up and watch David Letterman at 11:30 every night, I can just watch it the next day when I feel like it. But what's better? Since it's all pre-recorded, I can fastforward through all of the commercials. An hour long show is immediately cut down to something like 40 minutes or so. Plus who really wants to watch all of those commercials anyway.

The excitement never ends... it's more than just for watching pre-recorded stuff. You can also do lots of neat stuff with live television. Last night I was watching Law and Order and I got a phone call (during the most exciting part, of course), so I missed part of it. Then I remembered... I can actually PAUSE live TV. So I hit the pause button and the DVR and all is well... except that it took me about a minute to remember that I could pause it, so I missed some stuff. NOT A PROBLEM... I can also REWIND live TV because the DVR automatically saves the last 20-30 minutes of what you're watching, so it's easy to go back if you missed something. (I haven't tried this with say, a football game, but sounds like a pretty neat feature there!) No chance to miss anything.

So, why am I so thrilled? Why can't I live without this? I probably could... but wow is it a neat thing and now even when there's nothing on live TV, there's plenty of stuff I can watch pre-recorded. Is there a catch? Of course, it costs me more. But I was actually considering a Tivo before I realized how far superior the Comcast DVR is. Tivo costs $12.99 a month, PLUS you have to buy the Tivo box which is NOT fully-integrated with your digital cable. With the Comcast DVR, no up-front costs-- the box is provided-- and the monthly fee, only $9.95 a month on top of my current cable bill. BUT... this actually replaces the HDTV box that I'm already using, which was $6.50 more a month... so if you subtract that, add the other, you realize that it's only costing me $3.50 more a month! Well, that's what the original plan was. But there's one more catch there (leave it to Comcast to zap every bit of money out of your wallet)... you MUST subscribe to Digital Cable in order to get DVR. I was originally just using the basic cable package. So another upgrade to the Digital Classic base plan was an additional $10 more a month. The result... $13.50 more a month, but that also includes a whole bunch more channels (including my good friend the Game Show Network). Somehow that all worked out I'm paying $13.50 more and am perfectly happy with the result.

And believe it or not... despite the price that I still think is higher than it needs to be... it's still Comcastic. :)

All that work for a $10 lightbulb

What ever happened to do-it-yourself car repairs. Sometimes I swear that manufacturers intentionally design cars just so that it's next to impossible to make simple repairs yourself. Now, I'm not trying to replace the engine, or anything like that... I'm not crazy. I just found last night that one of my headlights was out, so logically, this morning I go to the auto parts store up the street and pick up a replacement bulb. I figured, pop the old one out, put the new one in, piece of cake, right? WRONG. A job that I expected would take no more than 10 minutes ended up taking over an hour.

So I pop the hood, use my trusty maglight to scope around for an easy way to replace it. I can see exactly where the bulb connects to the car, the problem is you basically need hands of a 6-year-old to even reach down in there, plus once you do, there's not enough clearance to get the bulb out anyway, because the battery is in the way.

Plan B: Remove the battery. Easy, right? Sure, just disconnect the battery terminals, and loosen the one bolt that holds the battery down, and it just pops right out. Battery terminals... considering I've never replaced the battery the nuts that hold the terminals on were a little tight and awkward, but I managed to get them off with reasonably little trouble. Then that big bolt way down at the bottom that holds the battery on... not such an easy story. I can get a ratchet down there and it just fits in perfectly. One problem... there's no space to TURN the ratchet. Minor details.

It's at this point I second guess myself just wondering if there's an easier way then taking the battery out. So, after messing with my own intuitional instruction manual, I opened up the glove box and found the owners manual and flipped to the page on replacing head lamps. (At least they still put the instructions for this in the manual.) I call it "How to replace the headlamp in 9 easy steps." The first 6 steps involve removing about half a dozen screws, nuts, and bolts and basically disassembling the front corner panel of the car, followed by 3 quick and easy steps to disconnect the bulb and replace it. The additional caveat, "based on the complexity of the procedure, we recommend taking your vehicle in to an authorized service center for replacement." Taking the car into the dealer to replace the headlight? I think not. Removing half the front end of the car just to replace the headlight? I also think not.

I now return to the original plan of removing the battery, this time with a bit more resolve than the last time. Using a creative combination of the ratchet, vise-grips, and crescent wrenches, I managed to get the bolt holding the battery on loosened. From this point forward things become decidedly easier. I removed the battery, which gave me a wide-open reach at the back of the headlight. A few twists and disconnections and the bulb came right out. The new one went in equally easy. Of course, since the battery was now sitting on the floor of the garage, I had no way of knowing whether or not the new bulb was installed correctly and working, but I had hope.

I replaced the battery, reconnected everything and screwed everything back in (albeit this time, not nearly as tightly as it was in previously, because inevitably next week my battery will die or something). Turned on the headlights and it worked beautifully. The only lasting side-effects: my radio presets were all reset, but I'd been meaning to change them around anyway, so it worked out well. All in all, everything's fine but it was incredibly too much work for such a simple task to replace a $10 lightbulb.

Curling updates

Well, curling is still keeping me busy these days. Monday night curling went, I wouldn't say "well", but by the right combination of luck and decent shots we managed to win. As you might tell from the line score:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Total
We	0	0	0	2	0	1	1	1	5
They	1	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	4

Things were looking bleak after 3 ends, but somehow we managed to turn things around at just the right time to make it work. In related news, as is part of the Monday night league, each week 2 teams bring food for everyone, and this was our team's week to bring food... or so we thought. There was a shuffle of the schedule a few weeks back, at which we thought we got moved from last week to this week, so we brought food this week. Unfortunately, everyone else seems to think we were supposed to bring food last week, so confusion abounded. Either way, there was plenty of food this week and everyone was happy. :)

And in other news, in our Sunday novice league, we had a mini open house... basically a "bring your friends curling" day, and I convinced Jonell and Chris to come. They both ended up having a good time... after they discovered the miracle of slip-on grippers to go over their shoes. Being a med school resident, Chris has no consistent schedule, so a weekly event like curling doesn't mesh well. But Jonell has decided to join the novice league this year, and will be out curling with us next week. How exciting!

Do they think people won't notice?

Have you noticed that commercials take certain "artistic liberties" when promoting their products and services? This has probably been done since the dawn of television, but it makes it look so fake and unbelievable. Now, I accept the "best case scenario" advertising, like you see in the fast food commercials. You see the Burger King commercials for a Whopper... have you EVER ordered a Whopper that looks like that? Of course not... mine has usually been squished and flattened, with no strategically-placed beads of ketchup and mustard glistening out of either side of the crisp red tomato. But theoretically, on a particularly lucky day, it might look something like that... the commercial is simply what you might get in the best case scenario. This doesn't really bother me.

What I'm taking about are things that are completely changed for the purpose of the commercial. Take credit card commercials for example. It's so common these days to demonstrate the "convenience" of using credit / debit cards to make purchases. Their favorite way of showing this to show the customer swiping their card at the terminal when checking out. Of course, they take certain care to hold the card so you can see the Visa logo (or Discover, or whatever, they all do it) while they're swiping the card. Freeze the camera. Go pull a credit card out of your wallet... go ahead, I'll wait...

...


...


OK, good. Now tell me, what's wrong with this picture?:

I'm all about product placement, but tell me exactly how productive this transaction is going to be, considering the magnetic stripe on the card isn't even going through the machine. Plus, if you've ever had a senile moment and tried to swipe your card this way, you'll quickly notice how it doesn't slide particularly well when you're running over the raised numbers! Every time I see this, it drives me crazy. Think of how many people mimic what they see in the commercials, and then feel stupid because it doesn't work. Maybe they should sue Visa for emotional distress caused by their deceptive advertising? No no no, that would be a frivolous lawsuit... and that's a blog for another day.

Election updates...

Watching the election results come in can be a satisfying experience... well, when you're in the apparent majority. As a follow-up to my Initiatives blog from a few weeks back, apparently the majority of the state had mostly the same sentiments I do. What we have learned tonight:

• Nearly 2/3 of Washington citizens don't like smoke, at that's something all 39 counties can agree on. In 30 days, look forward to enjoying smoke-free bars, casinos, and bowling alleys.
• Confusing initiatives about healthcare and malpractice reform don't win enough votes
• As much as people hate gas taxes, they hate our current roads more
• 57% of Washingtonians still listen to the trash that comes out of Tim Eyman's mouth, but ironically, most of the rural counties in the state have him figured out. I'm not quite sure what to make of that.
• Seattleites are fed up with the monorail, and will be glad to stop hearing about it for good.

I guess I don't have much to complain about, believe it or not. The people have spoken.

And in a last-minute reminder and plug for my other blog, the Amazing Race 8 Travelblog had a special guest columnist this week, so be sure to check it out!

And the Oscar for best movie reviews goes to...

In what I will officially credit as the find of the year, my friend Andrew stumbled onto a biweekly online video segment on Movies.com that features everyone's favorite heckling Muppets, Statler and Waldorf, live From the Balcony with reviews (or rather, what seems to be more of a cynical view) of recent and upcoming movies. Each segment is about 10 minutes or so in length, and 99.9% hilarious. The current episode is actually the 10th in the series, but fortunately for those of us a little late on the uptake, they have the entire archive of past episodes available for viewing. And the best part: it's absolutely free! It can't be beat!

Each episode features clips from trailers, special features starring other members of the Muppets crew including Pepe the King Prawn, as well as the weekly "Balcon-ism". This is high-quality entertainment, so much so that it merits being immortalized on my featured links segment right here in the Universe of Synergy! Now if you'll excuse me, I have more reviews to watch.

Halloween curling

Nothing particularly interesting happening on halloween this year, but I did have my normal Monday night curling league. The only thing that made this halloween night spooky was the fact that my parents came to watch curling. :) On the other hand, my mom was yet again obsessed with her camera and took some pictures.

The empty curling rink prior to the games

On the bright side, I was playing really well, as was the rest of my team, and we managed to win 9-2. The only really terrible shot I made was when the camera flash went off right in my face right as I was delivering a rock... I guess it made for a good picture, but a horrible shot.

Bad shot, good picture.

Some random sweeping on one of my shots

Well, that's about it for tonight... just wanted to get some of the pictures up. Happy Halloween!

Initiatives... and battling propaganda

Initiatives... in Washington State they constitute the right of the people to enact laws outside of the legislature's failure to do so. As we come down to yet another voting crunch time, the propaganda keeps flying. You see it on the news, you see it in advertisements, you may have even seen it in your mailbox. On general principle, I usually vote no on nearly every initiative, on the grounds that they are usually just an abuse of the legislative system in this state. The power of initiatives were given to people to enact laws that the legislature was failing to recognize for whatever reasons. But, the majority of the initiatives you see these days have never even passed through Olympia, but are rather attempts to introduce entirely new legislation straight from a small minority with a loud voice. Take this year's competing medical malpractice reform legislation, neither of which are anything more than extreme and poorly thought out laws to benefit the parties that are proposing them.

However, there's one initiative this year which received my support. Initiative 901 will extend the statewide "Clean Indoor Air Act" to remove exceptions for bowling alleys, skating rinks, casinos, and bars; and additionally limit all smoking withing 25 feet of entrance ways. This one isn't anything new to the legislature. On multiple occasions the lawmakers in Olympia have taken up the discussion, but for whatever reasons (which I think are strongly related to the constant pressure from the tobacco and business lobbyists), they have yet to take any action. I believe that the initiative process exists just for this purpose.

Of course, now that I've established, at least in my own mind, that the initiative is worthy of consideration, the question of whether or not it's worth supporting comes into question. As expected, there are two competing camps here, both conveniently with their own websites:

No On 901: http://www.noon901.org/
Healthy Indoor Air for All Washington: http://www.healthyindoorairwa.org/

This is where the war of propaganda comes into play. On the pro side, the main argument seems to be that everyone has the right to work and live without the hazards of breathing second-hand smoke, plain and simple. Any other remarks are simply responses to refute the claims of the competing camp. On the anti side, the argument is not so concise. On the front page of their website, I was first presented with a conspiracy theory that the initiative is motivated entirely by the big pharmaceutical companies in order to boost sales of their tobacco-quitting drugs. Now I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, but this is utterly ridiculous. First, it implies that this law will cause a significant increase in the number of smokers trying to quit. I honestly do not think that it's going to change very many people to stop smoking. It's an addiction, they'll simply find new places where they can smoke and go there. If they do decide to stop smoking, it won't be because they were told they had to... heaven knows they've gotten that same message countless times in the past and they're still smoking.
Conspiracies aside, the "No On 901" website makes quite a statement on nearly every page:

"This is not a debate on the merits of smoking. The debate is whether we wish to
give our government the right to outlaw smoking by adults on ones own personal
property, private business or vehicle while at the same time knowing all tribal
lands and businesses will be exempt."

While for one, this sounds like something they conveniently garnered from some well-conceived campaign material, it doesn't hold much water when further down the same page they present a collection of ill-conceived statistics and soundbytes extoling the supposed lack of a link between smoking and cancer, claiming cancer is all genetic. I was trying to find the kitchen sink on their website, but they seemed to have stopped just a hair short of throwing that at me.

Filtering through the smokers propaganda though, there really is a reasonable argument against the law, and that is the one presented by the businesses affected. The claim is that by prohibiting smoking in said establishments, business will suffer as customers go elsewhere--most notably to the bars and casinos on tribal lands unaffected by the initiative. While there may be some merit to this idea, I first believe that the potential influx of new customers to these establishments would far outweigh the number who stop patronizing them. Plus, realizing just how relatively small and far-between the tribal casinos are, I don't honestly believe that everyone will flood the reservations just to smoke and gamble, because of the crowds would be enormous and the air, well, toxic. It's just change, pure and simple... people will get used to it, and in a few years won't think anything of it.

All things considered, I voted no on every initiative, except I-901. I already mailed by absentee ballot in, but on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, we shall see what happens. Hopefully most other voters can filter through the propaganda and make their own educated votes too, whether they are the same or different than my own.

Blog leftovers...

Nothing new and interesting here, just updates to stuff I've already written about. First the Cingular saga. So yesterday I went and did everything that the fine customer service rep suggested I do. I tried the phone with the updates that she sent to the phone, no change in behavior. So I stop by the Cingular store at Northgate and upgrade to a new SIM card... on the bright side, they didn't charge me for it, so I ended up with an extra $25 credit on my account, nothing wrong with that. But unfortunately, that also had no effect, I have the same problem I had before. Today I give Cingular a call back to see what they can do now. The first person I talked to was surprised the solutions I tried didn't work, and the only thing she could do was transfer me to their Equipment Exchange department to get a replacement phone. I worked my way through the Cingular phone system to find the specified folks, and talked to another lady who I explained the problem to. She thought it didn't sound like the phone had any problem, and I agreed that a replacement phone likely wouldn't help a bit. I asked her if I could talk to their technical support people who might be able to understand the problem. She put me on hold and found what she claimed to be someone from tech support, but it was just the normal customer support people again. This person still was not technical, and did nothing more than the rest of them tried to do. C'mon! Let me talk to someone technical who actually knows more details than what they've been taught in their "keep the customers happy" training. Though on the bright side, she credited me with a months service on my account. Well, at that I was out of options. So I went to plan C, and e-mailed Cingular, trying once again to get through to someone who can solve the problem. I got a prompt response to my e-mail, who said essentially that it "should work the way you describe"... and provided no real solution. What help is that?! I mean, I KNOW how it's supposed to work, what does it take to get it through to you people that it ISN'T working how it's SUPPOSED to work. ARGG. I'll respond to the e-mail and try to rattle more cages tomorrow. In the meantime, at least things haven't gotten any worse.

And in last night's Monday night curling updates... I played positively poorly for at least half of the rocks I threw. My line was good, but the weight tended to be off and the rocks would go through the back of the house, which certainly didn't help. After 7 ends, we were down 2 with one end to go. Then my whole team started making good shots, including myself. I made a great draw to the back of the house, followed by my teammates making great shots, and we ended up scoring 3 in the 8th end to win by 1 with a score of 6-5. No more curling until Friday.

Adventures with Cell Phones

I've determined that cell phones are a necessary evil. They never work quite how you expect them to, or the service isn't quite as good as you expect it to be, or something else causes you to be less than 100% satisfied. I've been pleased with my cell phone 70% of the time, except that other 30% of the time when I'm at home in my apartment, and it insists on giving me terrible signal strength. This is all the result of Cingular merging with AT&T Wireless back a year or so ago. Through my own research, I've determined that I get excellent signal (full bars) when I am connected to the AT&T (blue) network, but only 1 bar with the Cingular (orange) network. Despite this fact, my phone ALWAYS will prefer the 1-bar orange network over the 5-bar blue network. It's terribly frustrating, especially considering my cell phone is my only phone at home. The official word out of the Cingular home office has been that eventually they'll get the blue and orange networks all integrated, and nobody will have this problem anymore.

Well I got sick of waiting for this, and I called Cingular Customer Service today. Surprisingly enough, while I fully expected and was prepared for the reality that the first person I talked to on the phone wouldn't be able to help me and would probably give me the runaround, I was refereshingly proven wrong. The nice woman I talked to on the phone listened to my polite complaint, and proceeded to do some manic typing on her keyboard. She seemed well aware of the problem and provided me several solutions. First, she pushed out a software update to my phone while I was on the line (I could tell, because the screen on my phone did some wonky things while it was updating). She suggested that just the more recent updates may actually solve the problem. She also noted that my phone has an old 32K sim card, and recommended that I upgrade to a 64k sim card. She told me I could stop by any Cingular retail outlet and they can upgrade me on the spot, I'd just have to purchase the sim card which ranges from $20-$25. She said I can't avoid paying for the new card, BUT, she'd put a $25 credit on my Cingular bill to offset the cost of the upgrade. Even if the simple software update works, she recommended that I upgrade sim cards anyway.

Finally, as if that wasn't enough, she said that if after upgrading everything, if I was still having problems, to give them a call back and they'd arrange for a replacement phone upgrade to a newer model for no charge. Shocked and pleased at the service, I'm anxious to go home after work and see if it's working any better. Despite the fact that I've over the past many months found the precise optimal location in my apartment for best cell signal, I won't mind eliminating the need to contort my body into odd positions in order to use the phone. Stay tuned for late-breaking developments as the story progresses.

Long time no update...

I've been slacking off on my blog updates... well, partially because I've been so busy with things. At this moment, I just got home from my Friday night curling league, and am watching a rerun of Evening Magazine on TV which is featuring an interview with Bob Barker and a history of Husky Stadium. While that's probably way too much information, I'll elaborate.

The last 2 weeks or so I've been aggressively taking up the sport of curling. I think curling needs a new ad campaign to drum up some business in the States... I propose a new motto: "Curling... it's not just for Canadians anymore." Tonight we had 2 people from our team missing, so we had 2 subs, both of whom had curled even less than I have. Therefore I curled in the #3 position (Vice Skip), which was different than normally curling in the Lead position. The one difference being there were a lot of rocks out on the ice before I threw my rocks, and I had a couple of amazingly lucky shots, a double-takeout that was nearly a triple-takeout, and then a couple ends later, I actually made a lucky triple takeout. It was pretty impressive. Interspersed with my great shots were a couple that were less than stellar, but I can't be lucky all the time. :) We won our game 8-4 in 7 ends.

Tomorrow is another Husky Football game, against #1 U$C. Many have laughed at me or called me ridiculous for believing that there is any possible chance that we might beat U$C. I really don't believe it's going to happen, BUT I believe we have a chance. C'mon people... that's why it's called a game. But it should be a loud and rocking Husky Stadium, at least until the 3rd quarter or so where it may cut its attendance in about half. But you never know, stranger things have happened.

Anything else profound to add now? No, not really. Sleepy time.

New and Improved?

In my continuing quest to expose the fraud that is the world of product marketing...

Have you ever wondered if things that are called "new and improved" really are? Take the Glade "Plug-in" air freshener, for example. This item now has several variations... there's the original plug-in, the "double-size" original design plug-in, then they came up with the "extra outlet" plug-in... the one with the extra outlet built into it so you don't lose one in the process, and countless other improvements since then.

Now I'm not going to say the improvements aren't useful... certainly they're good ideas. They say the simplest ideas are the most impressive. But that's just it... now I don't claim the people who invented the Glade Plug-In are rocket scientists or brain surgeons, but they're obviously smarter than your average person if they're inventing things like that. I'm supposed to be convinced that when they invented the Glade plug-in, they didn't think to add an extra outlet to it so you could use it without blocking an existing outlet? I think not! I propose that, in fact, all of the so-called improvements were there all along, but were de-improved for the sake of marketing. Let's take a step into the Conspiracy Time Machine and go back to that fateful day when the product marketing folks first encountered the Glade Plug-In...

<do the wavy tv flashback sequence thing here>

Here we have Jane, the person who invented the Plug-In, and Bob, the head of product marketing for Glade.

"Bob, we have this great new product! It's the air-freshener of the 90's... it plugs into the wall which warms this scent thingie, that releases freshness into the room."
"Wow Jane, that's genius! We'll sell millions!"
"But wait, there's more. Look, an extra outlet built-in so that you don't lose any space."
"That's great, but can we make it simpler? Get rid of the extra outlet and make it worse."
"What? Why would I want to do that?"
"Because if we dumb it down, it's still a product that's so ingenius everyone will buy it. But THEN, they'll realize that they're missing an outlet. Just then, we'll release the 'new and improved' model with the extra outlet! And they'll buy another, this time with the extra outlet! We'll keep adding everything as an extra feature, and get them to buy a new one. We'll sell 3 times as many as we would otherwise! It's the golden rule of product marketing, never give them a quality product first, if you can give them inferior quality and then make them upgrade!"

<back to reality>

So there you have it. It's all about swindling the consumer into purchasing the same thing multiple times, each time with a new improvement. The moral of the story is, next time you buy something that's "new and improved" think of who's trying to take your money. :)

Disneyworld Day 7 & 8

This is a late update after being home for several days, but I'll try to recap the last two days of the trip.

Day 7 was a last wrap-up day that was spent mostly at Epcot, in fact, it was spent entirely at Epcot. A nice way to finish the trip. We made another lap around the World Showcase stopping at the various countries that we didn't stop at previously. We also went on the Soarin' ride again... which even though I've ridden it countless times in California, is just an outstanding ride.

Day 8 and time to go home... and the rains come in. Tropical Storm Tammy was pushing its outer edges into central Florida and starting the rains. But we weren't leaving until the evening, so we took a last stop over at Disney-MGM studios for some last minute excitement. Actually, Amy wanted to go play Millionaire, so she could try to get into the hot seat. So that's what we did. I, of course, was ineligible to get into the hot seat for 30 days after I got into it several days earlier, so it wasn't quite as fun for me. So Amy actually got the fastest finger question correct, but was not fast enough, she ended up being about 6th place and didn't make it into the hotseat. But some guy didn't do so well, and actually missed a relatively dumb question, and left rather quickly. The person with the highest score would make it into the hotseat, and that person was none other than, AMY. Now the entertainment comes. Amy does pretty well with her questions up to the first milestone at 1000 points. Of course, then there's a bit of banter between her and the host. Here's my paraphrased transcript of the conversation:

Host: "So Amy, what do you do in Seattle?"
Amy: "Uh, nothing at the moment, I'm unemployed"
H: "So you're just out of college, or...?"
A: "No, I was fired."
H: "Oh... I see... so what did you do?"
A: "I worked for a... marketing company."
H: "So obviously you were marketing the wrong stuff"
A: "Apparently."

H: "So did your boss do a Donald Trump thing like 'You're Fired!'"
A: "Haha... no, not quite, but that would have been funny. He kinda is like that."
H: "Bad hair and all."
A: "Totally."

At this point we continue... and a few questions later...
H: "For 16,000 points: King Kame... -ha-ma..."
A: "(correcting him) Kamehameha."
H: "Ka-me-hama"
A: "Ka-ME-HA-ME-HA"
H: "(laughing) Kamehame... sheesh, I've even BEEN to Hawaii... "
A: "Kamehameha"
H: "Kamehameha. King Kamehameha I was responsible for combining the flags of Britain and America into the state flag of which of these states."
A: "Where did you say you've been?"
H: "Nowhere! I've been nowhere!"
H: "A) New Mexico.... B) Utah.... C) Alaska..."
A: "I bet D) will be Hawaii."
H: "D) Hawaii. You know what my producer just said in my ear... 'You're Fired!'"
A: "Well hey, I'm looking for a job!"

At this point the host just loses it completely. The audience is laughing hysterically. At some point in there we get the answers all through. Amy makes it to the 125,000 question which she promptly gets incorrect and goes back down to 32,000 points. This concludes the show.

Backstage after the show, Amy's picking up her prizes, and the host drops by and tells her how much fun he had. Even the director comes by and jokes to the host "Make sure you get a copy of her resume." It was quite entertaining.

That concludes the excitement of the day, we all came home on our 6 hour flight. My dad and I managed to watch about 5 more episodes of West Wing... and we made it back including all of our luggage. That concluded the fine trip to Disneyworld.

I'll be adding and documenting all kinds of pictures in the photo album later... but for now that's all there is to say.