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Victory at Green Bay
Legions of bitter cheese-heads will remember this day: When they watched an icon and living legend of Green Bay lore take to their home field as a Viking and beat them badly.
What do I say? Good going Brett! This was a great performance by the Vikes (7-1), with Brett, Adrian, Percy Harvin, Jared Allen, Sidney Rice, and Bernard Berrian leading the way.
Next stop: Detroit Lions on November 15. Gee, that will be a hard one.
Brett Favre Destroys Green Bay
This was one of the better Monday night football games in recent times. In all fairness to the Green Bay Slackers, they came into this one as the decided underdogs (both tactically and emotionally), and played a good game with some gutsy calls. A redeemed Bernard Berrian, Adrian Peterson, and excellent games from Sidney Rice and Visanthe Shiancoe led the charge. But even without the usual hyperbole and gushing from Mike Tirico and the other ESPN doofuses, it is clear that #4 was truly the General of tonight’s game. Not to mention the usual D from warlords like Antoine Winfield, Jared Allen, and the Williamses.
The Vikings are a serious contender for the big win this year.
Ultimate Summer Brew
Tea is indeed a liquid superfood, with potentially significant health benefits for regular drinkers. Now that summer has definitely rolled around, its time to drink a whole lot of chilled and iced tea. But instead of going through the trouble of hot brewing or sun brewing tea, try cold brewing it in your refrigerator. It is super easy to do - throw your favorite kind of tea and water together in an old jar or juice bottle and put it in the fridge overnight. But it results in a tea that has less caffeine, less of the bitterness than a hot brewed tea, and possibly just as many health benefits.
I have been cold brewing gallons of this summer intoxicant for the past few weeks. Good stuff.
Thursday Night TD Ameritrade Goodness
I’m not normally one to gush about good consumer experiences on a usual basis, but I do believe that one should give kudos when it is due. Good customer service can make a big difference, especially when many options among competitors are available. Just ask the computer or mobile phone companies.
I contacted TD Ameritrade earlier this evening with a question about my investment account. After some fairly usual troubleshooting talk and polite chit-chatting about trading fees, the customer rep on the phone gave me 20 free trades to use over a 2 month period. At $9.99 a trade, that’s roughly $200 of free money. I took down the rep’s name, and sent over an email to his manager noting how pleasant the experience was.
I’ll never say a bad thing about Pete Ricketts again. The guy knows how to run a company’s customer service.
Bangkok 226
An assortment of images from recent days. Above: A sculpture from the Bangkok 226 show in the newly opened Bangkok Art and Culture Centre – an exhibition of images of Bangkok from the past, present, and future.
iDisappointment
I have owned both a 1st and 2nd generation iPod Nano, and used them both heavily for at least 18-24 months until they eventually wore out. This has made me a pretty loyal fan of iPods over the years, especially since other mp3 players I have owned have broken in a matter of weeks or even days.
I am disappointed that my 3rd generation Nano, which I bought less than 7-8 months ago, is now pretty much broken. It is not worn down from wear and tear. Instead, the touchpad has prematurely stopped functioning properly about half the time, which pretty much renders the entire thing useless. Yes, I have tried restoring it several times and that doesn’t do anything. Being someone who constantly uses my iPod, the past week has been a bit of a drag. Although I do have an old SanDisk Sansa that I can use, its bigger than the Nano, can’t hold enough tunes, and I haven’t found a client that works well with it to manage my music and podcasts (compared to iTunes, Rhapsody completely sucks – which was the recommended application for the particular Sansa model I have).
The other day I called a somewhat well-known local store in town which has advertised that they repair iPods. I asked them if they could take a look at my Nano. The person who answered the phone said they repair iPods, and then began talking to the iPod repair guy in the background. I overheard the repair guy say: “3rd gens? I’ve ruined those trying to open them.” No way I’m bringing my iPod to that place! And even though I have successfully taken older Nanos apart on my own, I’m not about to try it with my current one. These 3rd gens are way too streamlined to try and attempt to open them on your own without the right expertise and tools.
So my question to any takers out there is this: Has anyone taken their iPod in to a local store for repair? What have been your experiences? Has anyone sent theirs in to Apple to have them fixed? Any luck?
Assault and Battery
Just checked out my portfolio and saw that:
My retirement:
401 plan return rate is Year To Date: -36.9%.
The main fund in my IRA is -32.02% since purchase.
A few of my non-retirement investments:
Fidelity China Region is -36.75% since purchase.
Visa is -23.54% since purchase.
It still hasn’t hit me yet. Maybe sometime on Sunday I will have a nervous breakdown. Beerorkid Dude you can have my kitchen knives.
Death Magnetic
I am getting sick and tired of hearing people nitpicking and whining that this album sucks. What do these haters expect? For Cliff Burton to come back from the dead and play on a Master of Puppets part two album? To say this is the best thing Metallica have done in a long time is the understatement of the year. The past two decades have been a nightmare for fans (or what fans are left). I’d say that this is a great return to form. All Nightmare Long is the best song on the album so far for me. Pick this one up.
Belated Summer Vacation
I’m on a late summer vacation and had a few photos to share.
Above: Washington State Ferries at dawn.
From the “Oh Hell No” files
Its taken me a few days to mentally process this. 2008 must be the year of self-delusional people overstaying their welcome. Way to go Brett! Bill Callahan + Brett Favre = a Boston Celtics style comeback? I doubt it.
The King of Fideo
A friend of mine makes a really great dish called fideo con pollo, starting with some home grown chilies from the garden. Being a fan of easy one dish meals, I couldn’t turn down an invitation for Sunday brunch – particularly as I was in the neighborhood and happened to have my camera with me.
This is really pretty straight forward comfort food, with the base being some angel hair pasta browned in a bit of oil. Throw in some fresh garlic, fresh peppers, black pepper, tomatoes, and cumin for taste. We steamed some already browned chicken with the vermicelli, and used the chicken drippings and broth to flavor the pasta.
We lightly toasted some flour tortillas over a gas fire range to go with some homemade salsa. Not being one to usually eat tortillas except at restaurants, this was a new experience for me.
The homemade salsa consisted of the pounded fresh chilis from the garden, dried serrano peppers, garlic, big chunks of white onion, tomatoes, black pepper, and water. This salsa was extraordinary, and went fantastic with our meal.
The finished product - with some refried beans, the homemade salsa, and toasted tortillas - is indeed a simple delight not found in any of the local Mexican eateries. What a great way to start a Sunday.
The Dark Knight
Frank Miller is a genius. Here it comes.
(Edit: The video was removed sometime in the last 24 hours and I can’t find it anymore. Anyway, it was pretty awesome.)
Have a Happy Fourth All!
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