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Nearly A Perfect First Day In The Pick 'em

We have our largest pool of folks ever in the pick 'em this year, even after thining off some of the folks who didn't fill out their brackets. Through the 13th game of the day, "Randal D" had picked all 13 games correct -- even all the upsets. But after incorrectly picking the last three games of the day, he's in second place behind our Canadian Invader "Andrew" who picked 14 of the day's games properly. I managed to somehow pick 12 of them right (how, I have no idea), and sit in third place right now, ahead of my boss and co-workers (which is all that matters to me, really). Dren is still bringing up the rear, just barely behind Kyle, who is trying to upend Dren from his perpetual loser spot. Thanks to today's lower-seeds winning, they both actually put points on the board.

The full spreadsheet for the day has been updated.

Posted by Jake on 03/18/10 @ 11:03 PM
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Last Chance To Sign Up For The Pick 'em

We're now up to 43 competitors in the free bracket pick 'em. I emphasized "free" because people think you have to pay for it. You don't. It's free and for fun. I don't make a dime of this. However, a lot of local businesses (and some not-so-local) businesses have thrown in some great prizes (I just added one today). These businesses deserve your support, and I'd encourage you to click on their ads that are appearing over to the right of this post or the list below, visit their sites, buy their stuff/services, but most of all thank them for participating in this bit of fun.

Entries and brackets have to be filled in by the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. We already have a record prize haul, and record number of competitors (we had 30 last year), I'd like to see us get up over 50 people before game time tomorrow. So if you haven't signed up, or your friends haven't signed up, tell everybody you know and potentially win some great prizes.

Thanks again to some of our the prize providers (some of our prizes were provided by me or by folks who didn't want credit):
Baker City Vacation Rentals
Paizano's Pizza
SUPERAntiSpyware
Mug Revolution
Jake's Diner
Dave Woodland at Signet Mortgage
Bend Oregon Restaurants blog.

Posted by Jake on 03/17/10 @ 05:06 PM
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Bandwidth Killers

Just a few videos I've had sitting here for a while... check them after the jump.

Posted by Jake on 03/16/10 @ 10:17 PM
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Time Killer For The Day

It's silly and stupid, but it's addicting as heck for some reason. It's Break The Wall. I've yet to actually break through all the walls -- anybody else make it?

Posted by Jake on 03/16/10 @ 04:27 PM
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Local High School Grad Now Owns World Track and Field Record

While it was impressive that the Oregon women won the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships (and the men placed second), the most impressive performance of the weekend was Mountain View HS graduate Ashton Eaton breaking the world record in the heptathlon, with a score that would have won him the world championships (which also occurred this weekend). If he would've competed just by himself as an individual, he would've scored in a bunch of events as well, and probably would have won a few indoor meets this year single-handedly.

In short, the guy is a stud.

Posted by Jake on 03/14/10 @ 08:38 PM
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The Tournament Field Has Been Set -- Fill Out Your Brackets and Win!

The field has been set, and it's time to fill our your brackets in the UtterlyBoring.com annual pick 'em. You have until early Thursday morning to get things filled out, so get crackin'!

Posted by Jake on 03/14/10 @ 04:44 PM
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Time Killer For The Day

Before you guys fill out your bracket later, kill off some of your morning with some cute little unicorns.

Posted by Jake on 03/14/10 @ 09:24 AM
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The Worst Christmas Present Ever

It's a bathroom scale that takes pictures of you and posts them to twitter.

Posted by Jake on 03/11/10 @ 04:41 PM
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KOHD Is Still Broadcasting News -- Sort Of

HackBend, BendTech and this site all posted stories about KOHD ceasing their news broadcasts. Well, apparently they're not ceasing them entirely, just making them much shorter with little blips through the day in between and during other shows. They're no longer doing a full newscasts, from what I can see. Over at KOHD they've updated their news schedule for the various times they'll be on TV with news updates.

I still stand by my original point that I'm not a TV news watcher (I'm rarely in front of my TV, and if I am I'm hardly ever on KOHD/ABC). I also agree a lot with Jeff over at BendTech that the problem isn't with KTVZ or KOHD, but with Nielsen. Having been a Nielsen family on a couple of occasions, I can see how easily the system could be ripe with fraud, skewed or useless data.

Posted by Jake on 03/11/10 @ 03:40 PM
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Biking Directions Added To Google Maps

This interesting new feature adds "By Bike" to the car, walking, and transit option already available for finding directions on Google Maps. Testing it around Bend a bit, it seems to do a decent job of avoiding the hills and many of the busy roads around my house (I live near Pilot Butte) and finding alternative routes, but I'd be interested in what some of the bike commuters (Monkey Boy?) in the area think about what it's telling you. If I were to bike the commute from here to my office in Sunriver it'd be an interesting ride, especially considering I don't think those roads that Google Maps recommends riding are even there or ridable this time of year.

Posted by Jake on 03/10/10 @ 09:42 PM
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Time Killer For The Evening

Taberinos is a fairly simple game -- hit the lines to get rid of them, but it's still quite fun (and has decent music, which is a rarity for a Flash game).

Posted by Jake on 03/10/10 @ 08:44 PM
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Reading Material

Posted by Jake on 03/10/10 @ 09:15 AM
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Weirdest Video You'll See All Day Week Month

I don't know what this is, but I can't stop watching:

Posted by Jake on 03/09/10 @ 09:26 PM
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KOHD News Is No More

This news broke last week on Oregon Media Central, but KOHD made it official: KTVZ will be the only game in town for local TV news broadcasts, as KOHD is going to be rebroadcasting KEZI news out of Eugene, with a few packages created by a few Bend-based reporters. KOHD will still exist as a station, but they won't have a local news broadcast. This comment sums it all up nicely.

Honestly, I liked the look/feel of the KOHD broadcast, and felt they did have some good people, but their Web site absolutely sucked. While KTVZ's is full of ads (they have to pay the bills), at least there is useful content and conversation there. For those of us who aren't able to be in front of a TV when the news actually is broadcast on TV, online local news is important to me. Thanks to Barney's inability to ever stop working (I don't think that dude sleeps), KTVZ has the best online local news content. (The Bulletin's might be good, too, but it's mostly hidden behind a paywall.) KOHDs site was usually riddled with typos, layout errors, and ugly grammatical errors, and I never considered it a useful place for online news.

That being said, competition in a market is always good. But it appears KTVZ doesn't have any now, since KOHD and KBNZ are both just broadcasting sister-station content (and KTVZ-parent company NPG also owns the local Fox affiliate, so that eliminates the other major network).

Update: Forgot to even check, but Jon at HackBend is all over this, too. I knew about the news a few days ago as well, but with Band concerts and other family functions and work projects, this is the first I've been able to post anything.

Posted by Jake on 03/08/10 @ 02:08 PM
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Cascade Winds Concert Coming Fast

One last plug: Our concert is in a couple hours, and I hope to see some of you there!

Posted by Jake on 03/07/10 @ 11:45 AM
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Tour De France For The Everyday Biker

I really think somebody should stage this somewhere in Central Oregon:

Posted by Jake on 03/07/10 @ 11:43 AM
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How Will This Change Stress Levels At The DMV?

Some Oregon DMV offices are killing their Muzak subscription, as the elevator-music versions of Celine Dion and Aerosmith are driving the workers nuts.

Posted by Jake on 03/04/10 @ 09:28 AM
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Reminders

Posted by Jake on 03/03/10 @ 11:19 PM
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Reading Material

Posted by Jake on 03/03/10 @ 09:31 PM
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Time Killers For The Evening

Get the sheep to the barn. Or play some group Missle Command to celebrate the game's 30th anniversary.

Posted by Jake on 03/01/10 @ 11:00 PM
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The iPhone Is Finally (Officially) Coming To Bend

A couple months ago, folks with iPhones in the area were starting to see 3G coverage, and now you can officially get an iPhone in Bend, starting April 1 (hopefully not some sort of April fools joke).

I still have nearly another year on my contract with Sprint and with my phone, but my plan is quite a bit cheaper than the plans offered by AT&T. I'm probably going to go Android on renewal rather than an iPhone, but we'll have to see.

Update on 3/2/10: Apparently US Cellular is now offering 3G in the area, which might convince me to go back to them as their phone coverage is probably the best around here in the areas I work, but their data speeds sucked. Their coverage out here in Sunriver was far better than what I get from Sprint. When I force my phone to roam on the USCC network, it actually performs better. I noticed a "EV" icon showing up on my wife's phone last week (she on US Cellular), and was wondering if they had turned on an EVDO service here, just didn't have a chance to contact them. So I guess that answers that question.

Posted by Jake on 03/01/10 @ 04:37 PM
Posted in Geekdom, Local | 1 Comment | Permalink

Bend Gets Another Mention In National Media

While it's not for the pregnant man, it's not much better:

In an exclusive interview with In Touch, 25-year-old stripper Stefani Talbott claims that she slept with Lost star Matthew Fox twice in the past year. While Matthew’s rep says “These accusations are false,” Stefani says she first met the 43-year-old last July, soon after she started working at Stars Cabaret in Bend, Oregon. “I was dancing onstage, and I made eye contact with him immediately. I got so excited,” Stefani tells In Touch. Since she was a big Party of Five fan, she recognized him right away — but she soon found out he was much different from the clean-cut characters he plays.
Story in the New York Daily News as well as everywhere else, even making comparisons with Tiger Woods.

Thankfully Bend isn't the major point of the story here, but you know the local strip club (not safe for work, obviously) is probably getting some phone calls.

Posted by Jake on 02/28/10 @ 09:47 AM
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Join The UtterlyBoring.com NCAA Tournament Pick 'em (Fifth Annual, 2010 Edition)

Selection Sunday is coming up on March 14 here and then it's time for offices all over the country to create office pools for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship (and for workplace productivity to grind to a halt). And it's time for the readers of this site to compete for bragging rights (and some great prizes) in the fifth-annual UtterlyBoring.com Tournament Pick 'Em. Last years contest info was here with final scoring here. My brother is looking to defend his title.

It's free to play, so read on for the sign up information, prizes, and more!
Posted by Jake on 02/27/10 @ 12:53 PM
Posted in Cool, Interesting, Jake, Local, Site Info | 3 Comments | Permalink

NCAA Pick 'em Contest Coming Fast!

I'm in the process of getting everything setup on Yahoo! and getting my prize list all compiled (it's going to be a great one this year -- best list of prizes we've ever had, by far). If you participated last year, you should have already gotten your invite to join the group. If not, I'll be posting sign up information, official rules, and the full detailed prize list sometime over the weekend. Stay tuned!

Posted by Jake on 02/26/10 @ 11:17 PM
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I've Dealt With Some Hilarious Tech Support Issues...

...but nothing quite like this:

Posted by Jake on 02/25/10 @ 10:50 PM
Posted in Funny, Geekdom, Video | 3 Comments | Permalink

Sysadmin Credo

Uptime is priority numero uno.

Posted by Jake on 02/24/10 @ 09:22 PM
Posted in Geekdom | 1 Comment | Permalink

The World Can Breathe Easier

For a brief time this morning, YouTube removed the orignal "Rickroll" video because of "terms of use violations." YouTube acknowledged the mistake, and put the video back up. As you can see by the recent comments on the video, Rick was missed.

Posted by Jake on 02/24/10 @ 11:41 AM
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Time Killer For The Day

Sushi Cat a cute little game where you need to fatten up a cat. While this didn't happen to me, some folks are saying that on higher levels the cat gets too fat to make it into the baskets, or gets stuck bouncing around, but eventually makes it through (like up to 30 minutes later), so just a heads up about that bug.

Posted by Jake on 02/24/10 @ 10:49 AM
Posted in Games | 1 Comment | Permalink

More Reading Material

Cleaning out the links that have collected over the last few days before I head to the concert tonight (there are still plenty of tickets available at the door, all free, so I'd encourage you to come!):

Posted by Jake on 02/22/10 @ 05:03 PM
Posted in Geekdom, Interesting, Journalism, Local, Moronic, Randomness, Stupid, Video | 6 Comments | Permalink

Post Concert Reading Material

Recovering from not sleeping last night and then a this weekend's concerts and rehearsals, so enjoy some evening reading:

That's enough for now. Will post more later if I get motivated.

Posted by Jake on 02/21/10 @ 07:33 PM
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