Pauls Rants and Revelations

So I was one of the millions of people who weren’t lucky enough to be able to go to Macworld. As such, I was constantly hitting the refresh button on my browser so I could get the latest of what was happening from those who were posting blow by blow commentary.

At the tail end of the hour long keynote address, Steve Jobs reveals the newest Macbook, the Macbook Air. Touted as the thinest Laptop in the world, it is certainly impressive to look at. However, once past that, things start to get a little drab.

Aside from the rather puny processor, and lack of external ports (only 1 USB), and lack of HDD space, it is really not a great machine. Oh, I would not say no if I was presented with one, but I would certainly not spend $1800 just for the novelty of putting my precious mac into an envelope.

You can get the news and highlights and video on these other sites. Apples newest creation can be found here if you want to check it out.

Personally, though, I won’t be pining for this one. Mostly because my Macbook Pro totally kicks that ones ass. The Time Capsule, on the other hand, I would take in a heartbeat (right after I upgrade to Leopard that is).

-Cheers

In the current evolution of the “make money without working” generation, a lot of people have turned to blogging for money as a way to earn some cash. They spend a good deal of the day on the internet already so why not get paid for the stuff they write. Right?

Wrong, mate.

What these folks don’t realize is that using any of the paid posting services does not yield a high return. In fact, it may not even pay for the cost of hosting your site; and you have to have a domain and hosting according to most services’ requirements.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There is money to be made by blogging about products or services or any other type of thing people are promoting. There just isn’t a lot of it. Most often, a 200 word job will pay $5. And you have a very good chance of being rejected by the service or the folks who posted the job. Its their right, after all, to tell you ‘no’ if they see they are not getting what they want for their money. And if your post is approved, you have to wait upwards of a month before you get your $5 in you Paypal account. Some folks can’t wait that long.

I have used, and still do use, a few paid posting services (as if you couldn’t tell from the posts). But while I have made some dinero from spewing about this or that, its certainly isn’t enough to pay the rent. Its not even enough to pay for my Starbucks habit. So why do I keep doing it?

Because its an easy way to supplement my income a bit. It takes me 15 minutes max to write a post about something. So at $5 a pop, I could (potentially) make $20 an hour. That is not a bad wage at all. The only down side is that there are not enough post for me to fill a day’s worth of working. I would be pressed to fill an hour a week, honestly. So why do I bother?

Because its quick and easy and it often relates to my interests of needs. No other reason.

I started this blog for the sole purpose of pissing and moaning about anything I want to whoever wanted to read it. Some people like it. Most don’t. And some feel that the world is a bit dimmer with me in it. So be it. Its my blog and I’ll rant if I want to (hence the name). That is why this blog is here. Not to make money from pitching a new animal fat free mascara, or to tell the world of the great market of gold/silver/bulion/slaves/coins, but simply to state my skewed, skeptical, and often mis-informed opinion about things no one really cares about.

Have I talked you out of it yet? Are you ready to pick up the papers and look in the want-ads for a real job?

No? Alrighty then. If you would like to make money blogging then feel free to click the links below which will take you to a number of reputable services of which I happen to be a member of.

And if you sign up now I promise to honestly consider to possibility of sharing a slice of the referral fee I’ll garner from you.

-Cheers

Hey, everyone need some help sometimes. And the primary means of help giving falls under one thing: money. Yes folks, just cold hard cash. Its often looked upon as the root of all evil but you know what, evil or no, paying bills and rent is a necessity in life.

Enter Christian Faith Financial. On the surface, its just like every other payday loans organization. But the difference is that they are a lot nicer about loaning you the money you need. I find it hard that they would sue you for late payments or make harassing calls to your place of business. In fact, should I need it, I would try them out first (but heres hoping I never need it).

Still, it makes for a nice change to see a more friendly face on a service that most consider murky at best.

-Cheers

I had a totally “what the bloody hell was I thinking” moment today.

I was on my way to archery practice as normal. I got to thinking about a project I was trying to get started and sorta lost track of things. Before I knew it, I was 25 miles past the point I was suppose to exit the freeway.

Go me.

I tried to turn around but the nearest exit was another 5 miles after that. Needless to say I cleanly missed practice and ended up driving about 60 miles round trip to nowhere.

At least my zoning out didn’t affect my driving. It would be embarrasing to explain to the arresting officer that I was daydreaming behind the wheel. But then again, there are plenty of way worse explanations that have been given for poor driving (putting on makeup, talking on the phone, reading a report, etc).

-Cheers

As some of you know (yea right, none of you blokes know) I occasionally need to put on the spectacles in order to see anything more than a foot away. The doctor said its from staring at the computer for the last 10 years but what does he know.

As it happens I came across this by chance : Great Discovery: www.ZenniOptical.com. Usually I don’t click on these things but what the heck, I do need glasses.

After a quick search I found some nice black roundish ones that my wife said would me look ’sophisticated’. $21 for frames and lenses is a fair price in my opinion so if you need some specs, definatley check them out.

Now all I have to decide is if I want the Silver, or Gunmetal. Its a tough decision you know.

-Cheers

You know, the web developer in me often wants to lash out (in a fun way) at the users. Something like rude error messages such as “You forgot you freaking name?! How lame”. But one of the more fun things in this business is Google and their great sense of humor. Take the following link I came across on digg:

Here to There - Google Maps

Now, Im not sure what is funnier: the fact that there are actually 2 towns with those name in France (leave it to the french) or that Google knows exactly how to get from, well, Here to There.

Its almost as good as the one someone found to get from NY to London, in which is said to swim 2800 miles across the Atlantic.

If you know of any more interesting or funny items like this, feel free to share them.

-Cheers

Now this is just plain disturbing. If I really was considering doing the do, this would be the clincher for me.

-Cheers

As it often happens, technology has once again fizzed out under the uses I put it to. My cellphone battery is about to die completely. It will barley hold a charge for most of a day before I have to put it on the charger, whether I user it or not.

Fortunately, there is a place I can get a fresh one that will put the life back into my primary means of communication with the world.

It was actually by a happy mistake that I came across Allbatts.com. I was looking on Craigs list for a laptop for my son when I found a decently priced Dell one that had a bum battery. A post I found for dell laptop batteries came up with the link so I clicked it (because curiosity has yet to kill this cat).

I forgot about the laptop battery I was looking for and search for my aging phone, expecting nothing to be found. But they had it. For about $20 I can (and will) replace my cellphone to get a few more years use out of it. Hazzah for small victories.

This could also help out my sister in law who is now forced to use one of those weird external power supplies to keep her phone working. Too bad Christmas already came but there is at least her birthday. At the very least I’ll tell her about the site.

In short, if you are looking for a batter, any battery, take a look at AllBatts. I would be surprised if they don’t carry what you are looking for. If you do find and use it, leave a comment. Happy tales are always welcome.

-Cheers

On the way to our snowy vacation, as my luck would have it, I got pulled over for speeding. This pisses me off.

Now, I was going above the speed limit. Well above it in fact. I was in the passing lane trying to get around two assholes in lowered trucks (who the hell drives those during a rain storm in Oregon anyway?) playing a game of car tag. This was dangerous so as soon as a passing lane opened I gunned it; and got immediately noticed by the cops. They saw the two dingle berries (in fact passed right by them) but pulled me over instead. Erg.

Try as I might I couldn’t talk my way out of it. I give him the facts but he ignored me out of hand and threw a ticket at me. $250 worth of ticket.

Frustrated, and not wanting to make a scene in from of my family, I just took it and went on my way.

After we got back, a few days later, I called the county office to see about sending in my penance as there was no way in hell I was going to waste 6 hours round trip driving and $100 in gas to show up in court. The woman was, to put it mildly, so far from helpful that the light from it wouldn’t reach her in 100 years. She informed me that the tickets from that office often take a week or more to get put through their system. She had no reference at all to the ticket number and couldn’t do a damn thing.

So whats got my dander up, you ask?

The fact that in this digital age, where a dashboard cam video of a cop tazering someone can end up on Youtube within a day, a cop can’t find the time to put some freaking numbers into a computer at the end of their shift astounds me. Perhaps I don’t know all there is to know about the other side of writing the ticket, but it seems that it would be required of them to put them in the system in an orderly manner.

I called them again today, a week later, and still it wasn’t in the system. Double erg.

Enough about this ordeal already eats at my thin veneer of patience, but is there something that could be making it take longer then normal? Does anyone have any light they could shed on the inner workings of the police ticketing system? Can someone spot me $250?

Perhaps tomorrow they will have it in their system. If not then I am going to seriously consider raising some mildly annoying hell about it. Or just wait until the next day. What ever I have energy for.

-Cheers

It would be just my luck that these things happen.

As I said previously, my wife bought me the Valve Orange Box for christmas. I thought this was the best thing. I immediately started downloading (as she just gave me the money for it cause it wasn’t in stores here) and even though it was going to take a good few hours (I was downloading everything that game with it, about 15 gigs worth) I was in high spirits.

I check back a few hours later and most of the downloads are hanging around 97%. Then I notice that there is no activity on the network. The wireless works but my game system is on an ethernet cable. I check the cable and everything and no go. I check the LAN settings and still nothing. I restart and it starts back up again, then freezes at 99%. I restart and manage to grab the rest of it just when the connection dies again.

So I’m frustrated but at least I have the game. I play a little but its not as great since an internet connection is required to record and display all of you achievements. I finished Portal and Episode 2 but have yet to play TF2 until the connection works.

After days of messing with setting I say “fuck it” and go get a network card. I throw it in and everything is up again and my achievements and recorded and I can play TF2. I only started it to make sure its working but I had a lot of work to do so I did that for the next couple of days. I put my game system to standby and get to working.

Today dawns and I am just getting over a cold that has been going around the family for a week. My kids want to watch a movie so I though to let them watch on the game machine since it has surround sound. I hit that power button and … wait for it… nothing happens.

I push it again and still nothing. I push it again frantically and no go. I rip off the hood and check connections and still nothing.

Now, I am officially pissed. I tried tracing the problem but there is nothing I can find wrong. The power unit seems good, connections are on, the buttons work, it just will not start up. It may be the power supply but I have a feeling that its more than that. Its probably reached the end of its usable life as a whole. Its a 3 year old system and while still respectable by todays standards, it is a bit dated.

I suppose in retrospect I should be grateful for all the use its given me. Except for the last 3 months or so its performed well while coding, modeling, rendering and all other tasks. But I fear that since my top-o-the-line Macbook Pro came into the household, my old system just couldn’t keep up with my now lifted computing expectations.

Still, I’m miffed that it wouldn’t even allow me to get the 300 gigs of data off of it before it keeled over. I can put the hard disks in an external enclosure but I really need to get a working PC in order to play on Steam ever again. I really just need a new power supply and motherboard (and chip since AMD discontinued the 939 socket); the rest of the kit is still good.

Perhaps I’ll start collection around my wifes office. I would do it at mine but I work at home, and everyone knows that I’m not the most charitable sort.

-Cheers