Turbo Tax is published by idiots.

Today Mary and I went over to her old boss's house four our yearly install of his tax software. He tried to do it himself, but is quite computer .. well... friggin-hopless. He tried to install Turbo Tax, but it would not run. I had him list off all the things on the CD and none of them were images, or programs except for one .exe file. So we went over there and sure enough, even though it said win/mac, it was not mac compatible. We looked on the website and sure enough that was the case. They had mailed this thing to him and he was supposed to install it and then pay for it. They e-mailed him to confirm he got it. So WHY didn't they mail him to say, "sorry, we are stupid throw out that disk, and don't call your ex-employee and her husband on their day off"
So we go to download the damn thing. But you have to have Firefox. Not IE. Not Safari. I can see not supporting IE because it is from Microsoft and therefore sucks ass. But if you are going to pick one browser to support on the Mac, why not use the ONE THAT SHIPS WITH EVERY DAMN MAC?
Morons. So we d/l that and then d/l the correct software version for his computer.
Sheez.

Saturday

Well Iowa lost a bowl game. In other news, the sun came up today. At least they did not get their asses handed to them like they normally do. I think they need to pay the coach more. Yea, that is it.

Thought this short clip was really funny

stuff

Well we made it through Christmas. We were going to get the kids a Nintendo Wii, but that was not to be. I stood in line at 5:00 at Target trying to get one, but came up short. I was #21, and there were 15. I felt bad for the father and son that were #16. They had been there since midnight. We got the kids some alarm clocks that dock up their iPods. Alex got a digital camera and Tim got a slot car set and his letterman jacket. We had a nice time and later went up to Mary's dad's house and had dinner there. I got Mary a under the counter TV for the kitchen. I wanted to have one of those at the other house, but did not want to try to run the coax to the kitchen. This one has an icemaker in the 'fridge, so I figured I could follow the water line up from the basement and that worked out well. Mary got me a park flyer type R/C airplane. It is pretty cool. I went out today and flew it a little bit. I have not flown anything for about 10 years, so that was a trip. It can go pretty slowly, and there was a little wind, so when I brought it in at 1/2 throttle it was pretty much in a hover. Makes for a soft landing. I did come in hard one time when I first started out. I hit the ground and it popped the canopy off. I did not realize it until later but the front gear came out. I could have just put it back, but when I realized it was gone I was frozen and not feeling too good, so I just came home. Pretty fun plane though.
I went to West Liberty yesterday to see Ranger Rick and (not my) Cousin Steve. Rick has the Daytona up on stands and is doing a lot of work on her. That was really great to see her in the shop and being worked on. We went over to (not my) Cousin Steve's and saw his '71 Dodge Dart that he had just gotten. It is 35 years old and has 7,100 miles on it. That is like 200 miles a year. I have never seen anything like that. There is a paper tag by the manifold that is still tied on and the original tires have a ton of tread left on them . I had never seen (not my) Cousin Steve's other cars, but they are all pretty damn sweet. He has 2 Austin's and they are just friggin' cool. He brought one of them back in the back of his pickup, so that gives you an idear of the size of these things. The picture here is not of his roadster, but just one I found on google.

I have been sicker then a dog the last day or so. I started to feel pretty bad in West Liberty and had to cut it short. I got home and just crashed. I am doing a little better today. I probably should not have gone out to fly, but that was only for about 15 min. I was not sure how long the weather would be nice enough to fly, so I thought I better go try it out while I could.

my new hero

This guy is cool.

**** in a box

Earlier I posted about a MS Word glitch type thing. I got it wrong. Sorry, Stove and Matt.
Type in =rand(200,99)

If you have not seen Justin Timberlake's video on SNL yet, then it is time you do so. I don't like him, but I really thought this was funny of him to do this.

the future of computing

Aaaaah. The Commadore 64

another great Mustang ad.

-Big Tim sent me this Ford Ad. Gotta hand it to those guys, they are doing a great job making people want a new 'stang. Not that it is really hard to do that.


-Too bad the dumb asses at Microsoft can't hire them to try to make somebody want a zune. Instead they have ads like this one. And why does everything in their ads look like a penis? This time it is a penis with wings instead of a penis with a new eyeball.


-Strange: Type this into a new word .doc.
rand(200,19)
Then hit return. Saw that on youtube.

-Here is an example of just about everything you can do WRONG with a table saw.

Zune still sucks

In an attempt to boost the slow sales of the turd colored ipod wanna be player known as a Zune, Microsoft produced 100 gay-ass pink ones. But now they are also selling some random Zunes with GAY PORN pre loaded!
Actually I am sure it has to do with Walmart taking stuff back, but my version is more fun.

See if I can post this before Steve does..

OMG. We all need at least one of these!

-and I guess it was just a matter of time before somebody made a USB powered electric shaver.

PS3 vs Wii

-Mary sent me this link to the Onion's comparison of the PS3 and the Wii.

-Here is an interesting article on how to photograph christmas lights with an average camera.

-The iPhone was finally released. But not by Apple.

USB guitar

-this USB guitar plugs right into your computer. Don't know how good the guitar is, but at $200 it might be a cool thing to have if you don't wan't to just get a USB cord to plug into your guitar.

the perfect holiday gift..

-How about a $25K collection of video games. Start your own museum.

sorry for the Dealy

-Just in case you have not seen the Tom Delay blog by now, here is a link to it. Well.. actually it is a repost of his blog. He thought that like everyone else, he needed a blog. He was too self absorbed to realize everyone hates him and since he left it open for people to leave comments, they did. He pulled it down after about an hour, but somebody had captured it and they have reposted it for the world to enjoy.

-So if you get busted for making crack, make sure you sue Arm and Hammer for 425 million dollars for not posting a disclaimer telling you that making illegal drugs can send you to jail.

-This salad dressing has a bit of a whang to it.

-This is a pretty long recording but I thought it was worth it. A guy gets quoted a price from Verizon and is charged 100 times more because they don't understand the difference between .002 cents and .002 dollars per K.

-Somebody bought a Wii sales reciept for $451 on eBay. I guess in the end he did not have to pay it though.

-Tut will like these retro iPod docks.

Glad I don't have to clean this one up.

iSpy

I usually don't get into spy photos of new cars, but Jalopnik posted one of a new Dakota and I had to check it out. I really don't like what they did to the Durango and Dakota. If somebody offered to trade me a new one for my 2000, I would seriously not take it. So I had to check the photos out. Naturally, it is hard to tell if they fixed it from the photos. But at least it is good to know they are not leaving it the way it is.

still yet another reason why microsoft sucks.

Microsoft has a problem. Vista, its long-awaited update to the Windows operating system, can't run the current version of SQL Server ....
....So companies looking to install Vista, which went on sale to corporate customers Nov. 30, are going to have to get their database management software someplace else.

so to recap... The music MS told you to buy won't play on the turd colored .mp3 player they told you to buy and the turd colored .mp3 player won't play on the OS they told you to buy and the OS they told you to buy won't run on most computers people have and if they do get new computers that can run the OS, it won't work with their database management software.
GREAT PLAN! WTF? They were supposed to release this OS like five years ago, and they still don't have a clue what they are doing.

oh HELL NO!

-There is a rumor running around the interweb that Ford is working on a mustang wagon. WTF are they thinking?

-Here is a great Mediacom story. A friend of mine at work has his phone through Mediacom cable. His phone stopped working, so he called it in. His wife went home to wait for them. They did not show. So my friend called them from work. It turns out that the technician was on the way over to fix the phone and he CALLED them to confirm the appointment and .. get this.. they did not answer. So he did not go. My friend called Mediacom and yelled at them and they came over the next day. When it was hooked up again they got their voice mail and the guy left them a message and, I swear to god, he said that he was on the way over to fix the phone, but since they did not answer the phone, he assumed they are not there.
Where do they find these guys?

-Will It Blend finally got around to an iPod.

stuff II

I bet Microsoft was behind this too!

This is old, but I stumbled across it again today. I feel bad for posting it. But yet I did.

stuff

Vista boss Jim Allchin said he would buy a Mac if he wasn't working at Microsoft. 'nuff said.

Tut's blog had this gem: Seems MS is not even creative to steal the design of Apple icons. They now just copy and paste them.

Microsoft ROCKS and so do these guys!

roller coaster tycoon

This is what happens when a sick sumbitch plays a game like roller coaster tycoon.

capstan tables

These are really a great design for a table. Make sure to watch the videos.

Here is how to control your Roomba (robot vacuum) by tilting your macbook. Thank god they finally figured that out! Kind of funny though.

OOPS. The Honda robot falls down the stairs.

LEC? The light-emitting capacitors (LECs) are essentially 1-mm-thick sheets of plastic. Inside is a layer of phosphor that when hit with an alternating current, shines bright white
HERE is a video of them wrapped around some drums.

And finally.... I thought this was really well done.



The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

gawd

Boy holds up convenience store for $1 candy
11:15 PM CST on Friday, December 8, 2006

By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
A boy believed to be about 12 held up a Pleasant Grove convenience store at gunpoint before school Wednesday after a girl he was with got mad at the clerk for charging her tax for candy.
At 7:40 a.m., six youths entered the Heba Mini-Mart in the 9500 block of Scyene Road near St. Augustine Drive.
A girl, whose age was not reported, tried to buy $1 worth of candy but did not "want to pay the tax on the item," according to a police report.
The clerk insisted that she would be charged the tax. "What is your problem?" asked the boy, pulling a chrome, semiautomatic pistol on the clerk.
As the boy and girl left the store, one of them took the dollar's worth of candy. The other four kids followed them out.

another dumb as hell zune commercial

Who comes up with this crap?

-Former Iowa Congressman makes the news. What a dumbass.
EDIT: He may not be from Iowa. Somebody commented that he is from New York.

- if 2 10" JL Audio's are good then 42 of them must be just swell! Phucktard.

iPhone

How funny. This guy wrote a column about how Apples' new iPhone will be a flop. That is funny since it has not been released yet. Hell Apple still denies that they will be making it.

vista

Sounds like if/when the long awaited Vista finally does ship, it will have many of the same features and look that OSX has had for quite a while. More innovation from the visionaries at Microsoft. Too bad it is such a hog that most businesses won't be able to run the POS.

About half of the average business PCs in North America are unable to meet the minimum requirements for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, while 94 percent do not meet the system requirements for Vista Premium. -eWEEK

I don't know if the turd colored iPod wanna-be (zune) will run on the crappy OSX wanna-be (vista) by release or not, but last I heard it would not. I do know the zune won't play the songs you bought from the iTunes wanna-be places that Microsoft told its people to buy from.

So those loyal to Microsoft have songs that won't play on their ugly ass players. Ugly ass players that won't talk to their OS. An OS won't run on thier computers.
Great plan.

I'm back.

I got back from Oklahoma today. Went to see mom and dad. Had a really nice time and it was great to see them. I have never taken that long of a trip by myself. The funny thing was that I made it through OK city, Kansas City, and Des Moines navigating and driving without a hitch, but when I got to Iowa City I missed the turn. *DOH*
I drove 700 miles in 10 hours. Now I must sleep.
But first.... "big" Tim sent me this today. I thought the disclaimers at the end were great.

great quote..

I like this guy.
"Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn." - Bill Watkins, CEO Seagate

And HERE is the "billion dollar patent".