To Cell or not to Cell

The reason for the afore-linked Apple vs Windows, Numbers vs Excel showdown was that we’re unhappy with our phone situation. I may have mentioned it before, that we’re looking at a better/cheaper/better way to do it. I don’t have the answer yet, but I have the pricing. It’s this same thing though, I have the lists of pros & cons, but I’m not sure the weight of each point quite yet.

Currently we’re running Vonage for home phone through at&t DSL service, with prepaid, low-rung cell phones through Virgin Mobile. The total cost currently works out to about $85 a month. 

We ended up here to save costs over at&t’s service plans, and it worked out in our favor in every way, because when we dropped at&t’s phone service, they didn’t touch our DSL service cost. In reality though, at&t charges two different prices for the same service; a $45 charge if you’re NOT an at&t phone customer, and a mere $35 if you are. So essentially, if we use at&t as a gateway to VoIP phone service, it tacks on $10 to the total cost of whatever you go with.

Enter our move. There’s another catch with “Dry-Loop DSL,” as they call it. When you move, you can’t “transfer service,” they terminate your current service and start you up again. Awesome, right? I know, totally. It really only mattered to us in that they “corrected” their error, and made our setup $10 more expensive than it used to be. 

What’s $10? It’s a stone’s throw away from where we were, that’s what it is. And there’s the whole pros/cons things to deal with. And honestly, while we’re happy overall with the “phone service” we get from Vonage, we’re not that satisfied with some of the unanticipated, non-cash costs of using them. A Pros/Cons list, you say? Why SURE, I can do that!

Vonage through at&t DSL, Pros

• It IS the cheapest ($86)
• Easy access to phone features from any computer. I can forward calls, change the amount of rings to voicemail, have my voicemail messages sent to my email, all very quickly and easily.

Vonage through at&t DSL, Cons

• Only cheaper by about $10
• Plan is not unlimited, so we have to watch our minutes in order to keep it cheaper.
• Phone must be located by modem. Only ONE phone jack throughout entire house can be used, then
• Phone must be located by modem. Wireless interference makes phone almost useless unless you’re right next to it.

At&t Home phone & DSL service, Pros

• Total cost with discounted DSL service: ~$95.
• All the same features as Vonage
• Unlimited minutes any direction, in the US (all my calls are US)
• Can use ALL phone jacks in house, separate modem from phones, lose most all interference.

At&t Home phone & DSL service, cons

• It’s more expensive
• Features are harder to get to; must access through phone, dialing #’s and whatnot in order to access features. Takes longer, more demanding, less likely to happen.

Cell phone as main phone, Pros

• Always-on status (where’s Random bob? Call him! You have HIS PERSONAL NUMBER! HE’S THERE).
• No wireless network interference, freedom to move about anywhere while having a conversation. Want to talk while out in the shed? Not with our wireless house phone, you cannot.
• I won’t keep forgetting to charge my phone (that I never use so I forget about it all the freakin’ time).
• “Call Features” of the home phone are lost, but become pointless anyway, so who cares?

Cell phone as main phone, Cons

• Most expensive option ($105, before taxes & surcharges)
• Limited minutes still
• Really, do I want to be contactable all the time?
• No “unified” phone number for our family. Who you gonna call? If you need to talk to “us”?
• Did I mention it’s the most expensive option?

There IS a dark-horse option I haven’t mentioned yet: Getting our internet connection through the local cable company. It’s the same cost as through at&t without phone service, so the same cost, and most of the same pros/cons as we currently have. Except that we would possibly be able to separate the at&t line-in from our box, and shove the phone line out of the modem into a jack in our house and push the dial tone to ALL the rest of the jacks, thereby eliminating probably our most annoying con: having essentially one interference-ridden phone for the house.

…of course, this would require that a phone jack be near a cable outlet. Which currently I do not see being the case at our house. Which would mean far more work than I would ever do to rectify what is essentially a very small issue. Which would mean changing things for the sake of keeping them the same.

I don’t know. What do you guys think? Give me holler, let me know. What am I missing?

Round 4: Chase vs Hunter

Yesterday when I got home, I was greeted by a limping dog, and a blood-soaked dog. Yes, again. This marks the fourth time we’ve had to deal with this, since about mid-August. This was also the worst thus far.

Chase got a good hold on Hunter’s left arm and left some pretty deep & long lacerations, and it looks like Hunter came down on top of Chase’s head & neck in return, and pretty much swallowed his whole head, rather ferociously I might add. Chase’s face looks like crap to match Hunter’s arm. He’s got what looks like a blood-filled swell under his right eye, and I will be keeping an eye on it (no pun intended) because I’m worried it’s not going to drain itself and will need to be lanced. But we’ll see.

Now the fight didn’t just consist of those wounds, however. Hunter also has scrapes & teeth marks on his head & ears, and we found some good-sized puncture wounds on chase’s elbow, so it seems at some point they traded spots to see who could do the most damage.

Turns out it was a tie. Who knew? Two 90lb brothers of the same age, same basic build & strength… when they fight it gets ugly fast. I mean, we doctored them up for an hour or so, to cleanse wounds that took maybe 20 seconds to make. They’re so damned equal that there’s not really an “alpha” when it comes down to the wire, ya know?

I wish this was an easy problem to solve. We love them both, and what’s more, they love each other. They’ve done nothing but lick each other’s wounds clean in the time since. It’s not like there’s some known trigger, it’s not like they don’t get along, it’s not like there’s something they just can’t stand but to fight over. They love each other and protect & defend each other! It seems that occasionally, they start to play a little rough, someone gets a little rougher than the other thinks they should, and it escalates, fast, and with weeks-long consequences.

I don’t want to have to crate them when we go. Seems cruel. Plus, how are they gonna defend the property from inside a box? No I don't think that's the solution. They love each other too much to be separated like that. We'll just have to make do I suppose, and hope the figure it out before they really do some damage. Here's to hoping that this one hurt them both enough that avoidance sounds like a good plan in the future.

Microsoft Office 2008: The Best?

So. Since I had to call “no joy” with Numbers, where at the same time Excel — from Microsoft, I remind you — actually lived up to its name, and Excelled, I decided to see if maybe I had jumped on the Apple/iWork bandwagon with a little too much haste; maybe the latest & greatest MS office was indeed the all-around champ. To the bat cave!

The, uh, bat cave is where I do all my side-by-side testing. Bat cave.I stole the term. From Batman.

I downloaded the trial version and installed. Strike one. I don’t know why Microsoft cannot create a more streamlined, intuitive process for installing their apps. I will say to their credit, that this was better than the Office 2004 install that loaded so many items that rhymed with “crap” to bother recalling, but still: near the end, they throw a dialog box at you telling you that the installer will now search for and destroy older versions of office you have installed.

But, I don’ wanna trash my actual, fully-functional version of Office for this trial.

Your options? “Continue.” Yes. Now when you get the the next screen, in small print buried at the bottom of like the 3^rd paragraph, they mention that just don’t check the ones you want to keep and then hit continue and it won’t delete anything. But, uh, how about — for the sakes of logic and customer stress relief — we just put an option to “Skip” on the first window? Yeah! Let’s try that, maybe? That might work! Might make sense!? Unless you’re Microsoft!?

OK we’re installed. Whew! What a journey. But now we have to test out Word & Excel. So let’s open up some old documents and let’s see what we can’t do with these bad boys, eh?

I open up word, and drop in an image. Quite immediately, and of course wrongly, it puts the image inline with the text. Which honestly I just about always hate, but OK some people like to do it that way (because they were born without a left hemisphere where it counts, but that’s neither here nor there), let’s just fix it. Hey, uh, where do I fix this? Is it in the formatting menu? Can’t find it. In the image elements at the top? No. In the clip art/photos toolbox (editor’s note: Freudian slip I should probably left in: I typed “Foolbox” first time out)? Doesn’t seem to be. OK fine, I remember that I can just right-click it and change it to not be inline… wait, where’s that option gone to? What the f*ck? They? What? How the hell?

Strike three. Geezus, Microsoft. Didn’t you used to do this for a living? The only thing worse, is the cluttered interface. There’s a toolbox, there’s a toolbar, there’s a ribbon (?) that takes up like 500,000 pixels of your screen real estate… it’s pretty gaudy all considered. I thought that the concept sounded kinda cool, but in practice, it’s annoying; you end up with but a corner of the window dedicated to your actual content. You know, that most important part? It gets kicked to the side rather fast. Take a closer look, click the picture at the title of this post.

Peace.

Apple Fails Against Microsoft. Really.

A week ago I had frustration with an Apple product, at which time I discovered that the Microsoft Equivalent was actually a better choice to use.

Scary, I know, right? 

It was a Numbers vs Excel debate. I was trying to load up our invoice from Vonage, and whittle down how many long distance calls we actually make (I used our highest-billed month in order to have a safe margin). The problem stemmed when I tried to copy & then paste the information from the table on Vonage.com into Numbers. For whatever reason, it was reading the Duration column values as time/date values. After being dumb and pretending that Numbers was a Microsoft product and hence looking in the strangest places to find the simplest value modifier, I located the correct place to change the “cell type,” if you will. It imported it as a date/time value, I just switched it to numbers, should be easy enough, right?

Yeah, except no.

It — for whatever reason — decided that the duration of the calls had a start date. OK fine, turns out there’s actually a whole option for Duration. Fine, I’ll fix this up real quick, I’ll just choose to tag these cells as “Duration” values.

Yeah. Except, no.

Try as I might, no matter what I did, that column (formatted 00:00:02) would inherit a DATE, and I couldn’t total up my minutes, because Numbers would not SUM the total time since it was a date/duration mucky mess of a pot of values.

Then, I said “what the hell Russian Roulette is kinda fun” and loaded up Excel. From Microsuck. I waited, and waited, and waited some more, and eventually it came to pass that the program loaded, and it only took long enough for me to have a child and enter mid-life-crisis. OK strike one, Microsoft.

But here’s where the story gets confusing. I pasted the same information in… and it didn’t add in the date. What’s more, I didn’t have to even fuss with whether the column was a “duration” or a “number,” I just hit SUM and it totaled the value for me. Nice. 241 minutes of actual long-distance calling.

I wanted to do a test though. I figured, I would take the data out of Excel, since it was formatted “correctly,” and paste it into Numbers again, see if everything jived. Maybe Numbers just can’t handle 00:00:00 formatting properly when you paste it in, who knows. So I did it. The numbers pasted over, but STILL, the SUM value box showed an error, saying you CAN’T total a bunch of durations or dates.

Strike one, Apple.

We're not fat we're double portions of healthy!

I read an article on the New York Times about fat people pushing back on the Healthcare Debate. Saying that it’s a stereotype and that you can be fit at any size and/or weight.

Apparently a movement started by a lady in San Francisco:

Marilyn Wann is an author and weight diversity speaker in Northern California who has a message for anyone making judgments about her health based on her large physique. “The only thing anyone can accurately diagnose by looking at a fat person is their own level of stereotype and prejudice about fat,” said Ms. Wann, a 43-year-old San Franciscan whose motto in life is also the title of her book: “Fat! So?”

I don’t understand the debate. Why are we “pushing back” against the healthcare debate? You’re fat. You’re at higher risk of about every known condition because of it. The expenses to keep you “healthy” — or rather, “alive” — are astronomical compared to “thin” people. It’s not a question, it’s a fact. There’s no debate.

Here's from the same article, a few paragraphs down:

Extra weight brings with it an increased risk of chronic disease, medical experts say, and heavier people tend to have medical costs that are substantially higher than their leaner counterparts.

Come clean, lady: we’re “starting” this debate so you can feel better about yourself, right? Because you’re not fat, you’re big-boned!

I’d say “get over it” but that’s quite a task for a fatty. I mean, seriously: just take ownership here. You're excessively overweight and it affects your health. You're having trouble with the self-control required to avoid being that way. I get it. We all have our flaws. But don't blame ME for your fatness, lady. It's not a false stereotype, it happens to be factually backed-up and has severe consequences.

I hate this, I hate it when people are in the wrong but "start a debate" or something, essentially blaming EVERYONE ELSE for their shortcomings; "it's not MY fault, I don't lack self-control, I'm NOT FAT, YOU ARE ALL TOO SKINNY AND YOU'RE THE UNHEALTHY ONES! SO THERE! NANANANA!!"

Whatever. Grow… Nevermind. Don't grow. Shrink.

Lifting the Tacoma: going with 3-inches (or 6)

So I’ve had the truck a little more than a year now. It’s a nice truck! But to be honest, I didn’t expect it would stay stock forever. It’s our expedition vehicle. When we go out into the nature around us, it’s the one we take. I want it to be superior at that, you know? The question wasn’t ever “are we going to lift it,” the question has always been “how much do we lift it?”

This question remains unanswered as of yet.

There’s a slew of options out there for the Tacomas, but a lot of them are sh!t and really, the way I see it there’s really only TWO options: a 3-inch or a 6-inch. There’s pros & cons to both I guess, cost is a slight factor but not completely prohibitive. The problem I’ve had in deciding is whether or not the 6-inch lift is worth the extra cost, and whether I’d make use of it. You know, is it actually a) better, and b) better for our needs? Does it justify the added cons for the pro of an addition 3-inches of ground clearance? That’s really the only question in the matter, but it’s not an easy one to answer.

A 3-incher costs, let’s say $2k by the time all’s said & done. What do I get? 3 extra inches of ground clearance for the frame, and with a little finagling I can put on 33” tires and gain an extra ½-inch clearance over my current 32” tires as well. A 6-incher however costs twice this amount. I gain 6 inches of clearance at the frame, minus a couple of inches just after the front tires for the subframes that support this lift. So at points I get 6-inches of additional lift, at others I get just 3- or 4-inches (though I’ve been assured that I can use those as sliders and just pretend they’re not there in that respect). I also have the option of running 35” tires which would give me an additional 1-½” of lift on top of that, and a most-important 1-½ inches at the axle & front suspension. But there’s a chance I’d stay at 33” anyway, as I hear that 35” requires “trimming” of the frame. I refuse to trim my frame.

A pro & con list, you say? Yeah, I can do that. Here you go:

3-inch pros

• More affordable
• Gain at least 3” of lift at all points (no subframe rails)
• More accessible entry
• Won’t void warranty locally

3-inch cons

• Can’t run bigger than 33” tires (little added ground clearance for axles)
• Extends suspension for lift (less “flex” for the suspension; it’s already extended)
• ONLY 3” of lift

6-inch pros

• Additional 3” of lift provides better obstacle clearance through middle of truck, better approach & departure angles
• Can run 35” tires (?)

6-inch cons

• Probably can’t run 35” tires, have to stick with 33” anyway (frame trimming)
• Costs at least twice as much (parts, additional necessary parts, etc)
• Actually only gain 3” of ground clearance after the front tires for about 1-½ foot of length
• Possibly void warranty (local dealership frowns upon 6-inch lifts)

Clearly then, the 3” is the better option, right? Not so sure. That’s the problem with pro/con lists for me, they don’t take into account the weight of particular points, they just assign a point for each. There’s a chance that actually, that additional 3” of lift — the one true Pro of the 6-incher — is weighted so heavily that it bests the laundry list of its cons & the 3-incher’s Pros. Which is why the argument still unfolds.

I’ve yet to find the weighted scale for these points yet.

To be continued…

The importance of Neutral, Folks; Neutral

Have you heard of the Consumerist? You know, the website that deals with consumer issues? Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t (though now I guess you have), I only bring it up to ground my upcoming complaints:

Yesterday I read a story on some Consumer Reports testing of stuck accelerator pedal survival strategies. It was in reference to a recentl story about a CHP officer who — along with his family — died in a car accident in their new Lexus thingamajig. What happened apparently sparked a recall by Toyota for some 3.8 million cars & trucks (mine included) because the floor mat got stuck and caused the accelerator pedal to stick. Which is what happened to this dumb CHP officer and his poor, poor family (yes I’m going to Hell with all of my friends to suffer for eternity, I know don’t bother telling me).

They were traveling at like mach 2 and the guy called 911, they couldn’t unstuck the pedal and they crashed & died at 120mph. Cue crying.

OK now here’s where I scream “Darwin” folks, because there’s a really really simple solution to this problem, and actually TWO but one is better than the other. First and less effective is “turn the car off,” because, DUH, if there’s no power, there’s NO POWER and you don’t rocket to 120mph and DIE. The other, better option, is just to push the lever into neutral and brake like normal. I mean, what the hell? at no time PRIOR to calling 911 did he figure to try one of those? or hell, at no point during a 60-second phone call to 911 did he have this — or heck, A (singular) — thought? Really? Really, dude?

OK I got off-track a bit. Because here’s the things that really got my logic all riled. The commenters on the article were all discussing the event in question, and while a special few had the right ideas on what the dumb guy driving should have done (see above), too many to count were chastising the recommendations that would work because these people are a) stupid and/or b) legally retarded.

Everyone and their mother, it seemed, was saying that you SHOULD NEVER turn a car off at high speed because if it’s a newer model with the locking steering wheel function, then you’re stuck without steering at 120mph. This is infuriating to me because these idiots who don’t know are giving out bad advice to the other IDIOTS on the web who might someday find themselves rocketing into a bad situation at 120mph. Because here’s the deal, dipwads: IT’S NOT THE ACT OF THE KEY BEING TURNED “OFF” THAT LOCKS THE WHEEL, IT’S THE COMBINATION OF THE CAR BEING PUT INTO PARK AND THE KEY BEING REMOVED THAT DOES IT.

Which means that if you’re traveling at mach 120mph and you’re panicking on what to do because you have the silly feet and got your mat lodged into your accelerator pedal, seriously, turn the damned car off. It’ll work.

It was so frustrating to read all of that because it’s both wrong, and shows the complete lack of critical thinking skills the commenters are equipped with. Have they ever tried to turn a car off anywhere besides “Park”? No? Well then, probably not the best source of information regarding the matter then, huh? I mean, that’s pretty basic, right? If I want to learn to skydive stopping my local “We’ve never Skydived but we’re experts, trust us” shop on my way home for information is probably not my best bet nor in my best interest.

OK so that information was completely wrong, what else could get my panties all wadded up? Well like I said, that option happens to be the least-effective of the two that would work in the given situation. The more effective option is still to tap the gear lever into Neutral, and stop like normal with the brakes.

The scenario as given was that the car was accelerating like mad and life was on the line. A lot of people were wasting time killing brain cells of all that read their tripe by saying that they wouldn’t and therefore you shouldn’t put the car into Neutral in that situation, you should turn it off and fight it down to a stop against a now non-functional Power Steering unit, and non-functional Power Braking unit. Which while possible, is far from easy.

Their rationale? Because the engine will rev up and bounce off the redline, and BY GOLLY! It could be a really expensive fix to have that motor repaired if it bends a valve or blows a rod or seal.

(Kudos to you if you just pictured a large blubbery sea animal getting… You know what? nevermind)

How far down do you have to pull your stupid hat to come up with this lame-ass reason for not doing the right thing? I mean, we’re talking about a 3,000lb piece of metal hurling itself down a road at speeds man was never intended to travel, with the lives of all inside — and possibly the lives of others outside — on the line. Really guys? You know what, shut the f*ck up. Why? Because you might die, and possibly having to repair an engine is the better alternative, given the situation. So… Why? Why spread such stupidity on the web? Why misinform so many people?

If you have read those comments, if you heard the story and the stupid among you have said anything resembling the above, shut them out, and listen to me here:

IF YOU’RE PRESENTED WITH A CHOICE, THAT YOU’RE GOING TO DIE OR HAVE TO REPAIR AN ENGINE, CHOOSE THE LATTER.

Seriously. Browsing the internet, it’s good to see (sarcasm) that we still have plenty of stock of stupid. Can’t run out of that, now can we? Demand’s just too high.

The Cheez-It Recipe

It happened that I ended up getting a good whiff of Hunter’s ear. Curious, I sniffed his brother’s ear, too. Yep. Guys, I’m almost 100% positive on this — I think I know how they make Cheez-Its. Guys, it’s not all that “air-drop a hunk of cheddar” like they show on TV; they simply shove plain little crackers into dogs’ ears, and BAM! Cheez-its. 

Got a dog? Try it yourself. And then call me, let’s see if we can’t start up our own business on this, eh?

Organizing the Kitchen

These are my new babies. Go ahead, click the picture to see a larger version. What’s so special, you ask? Well, it turns out I am most definitely an obsessive-compulsive personality. Those jars you see? They turned me on. Why? Organization. Ughghhgh…

What you see are four 2-liter jars and four 1-liter jars. There’s more on the way, however, as we plan to add a few 3-liter jars to the mix to hold our bulk quantities items (sugar, flour, prostitutes… what?), as well as some smaller ones to hold other, often-used items in easy-to-reach, easy-to-use sizes.

I know I shouldn’t be so amorous over some glass jars, but c’mon… ORGANIZATION!

We had been just putting the overstock sugar, flour, coffee and the like in the freezer to keep it fresh/safe from ants, but the paper & plastic containers make a royal mess of the freezer unnecessarily. The prostitutes, you ask? No, we didn’t keep them in the freezer, that’s just cruel. Now the stuff can sit in the cupboard, sealed for freshness/ant protection, ORGANIZED, and is easier to get to and manipulate when we need to.

The kitchen’s coming along. We’re getting our systems down, we’re getting it to click, and make it as easy to work in and clean up. Obsessive-compulsive? Yes. So yes, the kitchen must be clean; I’m a big fan of staging areas, I love to have them all around. The jars are a big help in the big ORGANIZATION scheme in a big way. When we come up with & implement some of our other ideas, I’ll get you up-to-date.

In the meantime however, remember: treat your prostitutes well! I mean it.

Adventures in de-carpeting

So yeah, there was more to the “Miles was put down” story yesterday than I told you about initially. Now, I don’t want you to hate me or think that he made a bad so I killed him: I swear to you, he was very very ill, in mucho pain and just generally hanging on so as to sleep uncomfortably and sh!t himself to death anyway. So, yeah. Really.

But anyway. He had been sleeping with us for awhile before the day came, because the boys were loving on him so much as to not ever let him have a moment’s rest, right? I was initially concerned about this arrangement, because I like my sleep, and I was envisioning having to constantly get up and let him out to go potty (piss & sh!t). Surprisingly, this didn’t happen. Much. Well, at all, until two nights before his scheduled “appointment” at the vet. Sunday he had started to crap (sh!t) out his insides. Explosive diarrhea? It exists, apparently. I had no idea. The stuff comin’ out of him? Wasn’t poop, it was liquified death. Straight out of his butt.

Yes this is gross. And it gets worse.

So two nights before his “Appointment” at the vet, he had to go. Luckily I was roused enough to hear it and figure out he wasn’t just looking for a good spot to lie down, he was hoping to god that the door would magically open so he could go outside and spew liquified death from his nether regions. Not once! Not twice! Three times that night. After going weeks without having to do potty breaks during the night, suddenly he couldn’t hold himself. The night before his “appointment” at the vet, it continued. Except this time, I wasn’t fast enough. Despite being faster because I was half-expecting it, he didn’t make it out of the bedroom before he unleashed his liquified death upon the carpet.

So at 2am in the morning, there we were, trying not to puke as we boiled water and mixed pet stain odor destroyers together to form a concoction so powerful the world damned-near knelt before us, quivering with fear. Turns out? Still no match for the liquified death that had been slathered richly over the entry to the bedroom. We struggled in vain for a full day to try and get the smell gone. And then we gave up on that, and got smart:

So we were gonna rip up all the carpet anyway, right? Why not start right now, then? Right. So we put our magical rings together and formed Voltron or something, and got to cutting the carpet out of the bedroom. For the night we just started with the strip that contained the — yeah, you get it — stuff. It was the best idea. That smell permeated the whole of the carpet, the padding underneath, and possibly the first three layers of the earth’s crust.

I’ll be back with more of the carpet adventures. For now, enjoy the picture of the finely-crafted wood floor that some stupid f*ckers oversprayed the hell out of because they’d never heard of drop cloths, the mother f*ckers. Oh, and the f*cking staples everywhere that they stapled down the crappy-ass carpet padding with in the middle of the f*cking floor… 

Ahem. Not bitter. Not at all. Why do you ask?