How did we, as a

How did we, as a country, come to think of timeframes in chunks of ten years aka decades?

Chicago Bulls Get Their Name From A Kid

According to this article, the Chicago Bulls were named by then owner Richard Klein's son exclaming, "That's bull!".

Interesting.

Samsung Rogue

I'm staying with Verizon because of the discount I get through work. Otherwise, I would have switched to T-Mobile to get the myTouch. Since the carrier choice was made for me, I chose the phone: the Samsung Rogue. I have to admit, it's much better than I thought it would be. I swore I would never get a candy bar phone with the argument that I always wanted something to talk into that the flip phones provided. I also thought I would never get a touchscreen because fingerprints on a screen annoy the hell out of me. Well the phone is great. The microphone is crap in windy situations but so are most phones. I did find though that the LG flip I had did better in the wind tunnel that is the corner I live on.

The touchscreen takes a bit of getting used to but once you do, it's very accurate and responsive. I only had one slip up when I sent a text to the wrong person.

A few notes:
The button sounds in the browser are controlled completely separately from the phone sounds. If you set the phone to All Sounds Off, the browser still beeps when you click on items.

The games only have a few uses before they expire. So while they're nice to have, they're not much use.

My favorite feature: When a call comes in, you can "Ignore and Text". This is great. When you're in a meeting, you can click ignore and text so the phone quiets, then gives you a list of pre-written text messages. "In a meeting, call you back in a bit." Such a great concept.

Garage sale wrap up

All in all, the garage sale was a success. We opened a day early, on Thursday the 13th, and it turned out to be a great day. We had about 70 people come through, and almost all of them purchased at least one item. Our collection of stuff consisted of a small amount of clothes, a fair amount of books, some jewelry, 5 bikes, electronics, 15 pieces of luggage including laptop cases and small carry ons and a lot of glassware like dishes, cups, candle holders, vases, etc. We sold two bikes (out of 5), a number of books and DVDs, priced at $1, but no dishes, luggage or clothes. The glassware didn't move at all this year. Friday was a very slow day. We saw about 20 people all before noon. Saturday turned out to be a great day. We had two rushes of people in the morning and one right after lunch. We sold some clothes, most of the books, the last of the bikes and some more of the electronics. All totaled we made $1200 over three days. The weather was great, we got to spend some time outside AND we made money by clearing out our closets! Chalk that up as a W.

Exchanging British Pounds in Chicago

I normally do all of my foreign exchanges at the Chase in the Loop on Dearborn. Today I learned that the chase in the loop only deals with paper money, however. They told me that Harlan J Berk at 31 N Clark exchanges coins. They do exchange almost any coin but it's at a severe discount due (66% of the current exchange rate) to the high cost of shipping the coins back. They exchanged the coins and the proprietor told me to "buy chocolate" in the future. It has a better "return."

After three long days it's finally done! Time to count the cash!

Our signage

Gabby working the garage sale.

RCN Cable

I used to be an RCN customer in early 2000 and loved the service back then. It was cheap and good. It had all of the features, channels and options that Time Warner or Comcast did. Unfortunately, I had to switch to Comcast when I moved because it wasn't offered in my building.

It's been 6 years but I'm back to RCN. I had it installed on July 3rd, which is amazing because I thought they would be closed because of the holiday. They said they were installing on Saturday the 4th as well. Wow. The technician was great. Courteous, pleasant and knowledgeable. The install was fast and I was up and running in about an hour.

I'm saving about $80 per month from what I was paying Comcast and I get the same package: phone, internet and tv. I still have an HD tuner with DVR, my internet speed is 10 Mbps and phone is just because my cell phone gets crap reception in my building.

Overall, it's great. Good features at a good price. My only gripes are that RCN's DNS servers suck. I get a page not found for major sites like Google and Yahoo. I switched my router's DNS entry to OpenDNS and the connections are better. The cable box interface is hoakey. It almost seems like it was outsourced to a small developer that made it up as they went along. It's slow too. The menu seems to react a minute later after a button push. Maybe it's the same developer that did their website. The site is a joke for what I consider to be a major company. The javascript is poor at best, they don't know how to handle special characters in their drop down menus and it doesn't have error handling that works. Worse than those problems was Comcast's call center person trying to do a hard sell on me as I was trying to cancel. She was so obnoxious, basically telling me that I'm an idiot for leaving. She literally, "That's ok though because I know you'll come back." Not will I not go back, but I'm telling everyone to switch to RCN if they can!

I'm very happy I switched. Especially since I get the science channel now!

PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcut: Shift-F3

Many of you may know this already but I just learned this today and found it so useful I wanted to share it.

If you select some text in PowerPoint and hit Shift-F3, it will automatically cycle through the capitalization options.

This article provides some details and examples.

This saves so much time!

Will Middle Name Usage Ever Become Popular?

With the world's population always growing, and name combinations becoming smaller, will the usage of the middle name in everyday speak become more populare? Or will unique first names, like Pilot and Kal-el continue to keep the middle name unnecessary?

Best Places to Look at World Skylines

James Blakeway, author of Skylines of the World, has been photographing city skylines for 20 years. He put together his list of best places to view the skyline.

Adler Planetarium is his #1 spot for Chicago. I would have to agree that it's a close second, only behind "on a boat" or "from the lake".

Denied From AdSense

When I first launched this blog, I was clicking through the various options and found a link that said, "Monetize". *It's hard to miss because it's one of the main tabs at the top. I clicked through and applied, filling out all of the required information and was denied! The error I received was "Difficult Site Navigation."

I think this was reported because at the time, I didn't even have my first post up so Google's automated system must have thought there were no links and therefore no navigation. I realize that this blog will never have the traffic of a perezhilton or an engadget but I thought, "after I get some content up, I'll reapply or ask them to re-review my site."

Maybe I need a privacy policy? Maybe I need to "own" the site for 6 months or longer? Maybe I don't have a "content rich" site? Again, I know I won't get the traffic to even make any dollars but now it's more of a quest.

I tried the help, the forums and the online form but to no avail. It seems as though this is an issue that falls outside of the standard issues and therefore there is no automated help for it. I hate automated help systems. They assume that your problem will fall into some predetermined bucked and that the system can answer it all for you.

Well it's not working so I'm asking if any readers (if there are any out there) know where or how to find the answer.

My "New" PS3

So I finally joined the "next generation" of gaming by getting a PS3 last night. I'm only 3 years late. I've had a Wii for a while and liked that but it always seemed a bit obnoxious, even for a casual gamer. I'm and old school type of gamer: I like to lay on my couch and not wave my arms around to get my character to swing a sword.

When I plugged in the PS3, I was immediately impressed. Wireless controls, simple internet connection setup (wired), and great picture. It was everything I assumed it would be and more. I can turn it on and off from the control, without having to get up. I can surf the web. I can play music, look at my pics, and what movies and TV shows. It has one of the best bluray players out there. Oh and it plays games.

It has demos! I can try a game before I buy it. And best of all, I can do all of this while sitting on my couch! I've tried 10 games tonight alone.

The next trick is to set up the media server piece and I've got a full system. It doesn't seem to be too hard, based on the blogs.

This is what gaming and a game system should have been from the start. Is it the best system out there? Probably. The hard drive is upgradeable, you can run other OS'es, it has USB ports that work with keyboards, webcams, etc.

Is it worth $400+. No way in hell.

Lego Star Wars Complete Saga - One Big Game of 52 Pickup

I've been playing the Lego Star Wars Complete Saga on the Wii for a few weeks now and I would summarize it like this: One Big, Continuous Game of 52 Pickup. The game is pretty fun. It's a pretty faithful adaptation of the movies. Any liberties taken work into the story well. Overall it's a good game. My only gripe is the constant collection of "studs". These aren't required but they're highly recommended. And are required if you'd like to complete the mission with Jedi status.

During the course of the game, you wind up destroying and moving things that release studs. You have to run around in circles, picking up all of the lego pieces before they flash and disappear. This happens throughout the entire level, in multiple locations and times. It basically turns into one big game of 52 pickup.

Running in circles throughout the entire game will just make it a longer game than it needs to be.

Don't Forget About Quincy Jones

With the media mania surrounding Michael Jackson's death, I've heard very little about Quincy Jones, the man behind the music. If you don't already know, Quincy produced the Thriller album. Otherwise known as the biggest selling album of all time. He was behind all the songs that everybody dances to: Thriller, Billy Jean and Beat-It. Play one and try not to dance or sing along. Jones came up with the basslines that make everybody want to dance. They're creepy and soulfull at the same time. Who could forget about Vincent Price's voice?? He used a drum machine and made it sound like a real drummer with rolls and snare hits that were a welcome addition. All of it in perfect synchronicity. Not only with itself but with the 80's. It was a great sound that mixed a bit of the 70's with the "future" of the 80's sound. It paved the way for all music afterwards.

And he was born in Chicago giving this whole story a home town connection.

Nacional 27

I had dinner at a place that I've not been to in a very long while.  Nacional 27, which has been in River North it seems like forever.  (*Since 2001?)  I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised and reminded that food was very good.  The drink list was good, with enough unique items to seem new and different.  The drinks were fairly priced, compared to other restaurants of a similar caliber.  We had a group of four that were meeting for drinks and had reservations at 7.  The hostess was very gracious in dealing with our group and closing our bar tab.  We ordered empanadas, which were tiny, but good.  I had the chimichurri encrusted filet which was great.  Spicy but not too much where it over powers the steak.

All in all, pretty good.  Definitely check it out if you've never been.  Especially after 10pm on Friday and Saturday for the latin dancing.

420 Bids on the Price is Right

I'm a big fan of the Price is Right.  I've been watching the show since I was little.  Bob Barker was the greatest game show host of all time and I was very sad to see him go.  My DVR is set to auto record all shows.  I know that the average Showcase is worth about $25,000 and that the average winner takes home about $28,000 in total prizes.  (*More on that in another post.)  As I said, I'm a big fan of the show.

This post isn't about how much of a fan I am but rather the contestents who bid 420, or some variation on the prizes.  If you're unfamiliar with the number, or term, it's a marijuana reference.  Or as Wikipedia puts it, "refers to consumption of cannabis and, by extension, a way to identify oneself with cannabis drug subculture."  These contestants think they are sneaky.  They think they're funny.  They think they're slipping one by the censors.  They act coy, or at least think they are.  They think they're "counterculture".

They're none of these.  They're idiots.  Yes, you may be sneaking one past the censors and yes most people won't know what it's referencing but it's just stupid.  Does it make your friends laugh?  They're idiots too.  It was funny the first few times but now, it's just stupid.

If you are lucky enough to become a contestant on the Price is Right, don't bid 420 or any variation thereof.  It comes off as childish and stupid.

Nuevo Leon - Another Neighborhood Gone

I had dinner at Nuevo Leon in Pilsen tonight*.  It was very good; authentic Mexican food with great tortillas, steak tacos, and refried beans.  While the food was good and the restaurant was good, the really interesting part was Pilsen is very gentrified.  There was much more of a mix of ethnicities than I expected.  It was very interesting to see the gentrification process midstream.  It's kind of like Wicker Park six+ years ago.  And Logan square 2 years ago.  Part of me feels bad for the group being pushed out.  The other part of me thinks it's good to see the groups mix.

Happy Cinco de Mayo.

 http://www.nuevoleonrestaurant.com/

*Not to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

Hello World!

The classic first post.  Or first program.