I have to say, this is the first I’ve heard of the Ball Bra. Link via here.
Month: September 2006
Home Improvement Still Sucks
Remember that project I was griping about a few weeks ago? Well, we’re still working on it, and it still sucks.
Penn and Teller Are Hilarious
I’ve always wanted to be able to watch Penn & Teller’s Bulls**t, as I heard it was a great show, but I didn’t have ShowTime. It looks like, however, several of the show’s episodes are available online, and they are great.
The other thing I love is how they’ll riff on other magicians sometimes. Like the first video below how they total riff on Criss Angel.
Alcohol Use Boosts Income
I don’t drink, but based on the fact that I don’t make living wage, apparently drinking might be the answer.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – People who consume alcohol earn significantly more at their jobs than non-drinkers, according to a US study that highlighted “social capital” gained from drinking.
The study published in the Journal of Labor Research Thursday concluded that drinkers earn 10 to 14 percent more than teetotalers, and that men who drink socially bring home an additional seven percent in pay.
Thanks Barn for the tip.
Tell Us Something We Didn’t Know
According to a recent study, less than 20% of local jobs could provide for a family of three. For those of us that are sole-providors who are feeding a wife and two kids, I’m sure that percentage is lower (as the study says that only 19% of jobs provide a living wage for a family of four — if both parents work). To quote the article:
A Deschutes County family of three — one working adult with two children — must earn $23.14 an hour to meet basic needs, says the new report. A single worker requires at least $11.30 an hour to make a living in Deschutes County.
That’s a hair over $48,000/year. I can tell you one thing without getting into how much I make: I’m not making that much money, I’m just really frugal. I am feeding my wife and two kids, paying my bills, student/home/car loans, with quite a bit less than that, but I’m surviving — barely.
More commentary will undoubtedly appear at some point on the Bend Economy Blog (one of the best local blogs for this type of thing), but feel free to comment here.
MySpace Is Rated As The Worst Web Site
PC World rated the 25 worst popular sites of all time, and MySpace rightfully tops the list. Anybody have any sites (and we’re talking big ones, folks) that deserve to be on the list?
What Does Your Browser Reveal About You?
Since I’m a Firefox 1.x guy…
You are most likely a little bit geeky and proud of it. You are a strong supporter of the Open Source movement, and you think that RMS is “the man”. You really don’t care if FF is faster, or safer than IE – you would use it even if it performed 10 times worse. You are just happy that you have a free, open source browser with a huge community that is supporting it. At any given time you have installed at least 7 extensions that you couldn’t live without.
Yeah, pretty close. What does your browser reveal about you? (and they pretty much cover everything out there covered, including the various versions of MSIE, Firefox, Netscape, AOL, Opera, Lynx, etc…
Chad Vader, Darth’s Little Brother, Episode III
I posted the first two episodes of this back in the day, which you really should watch first before watching episode III to fully appreciate this.
My Parent’s Anniversary Trip To Thailand Might Be On Hold
My parents are celebrating their 30th anniversary in Thailand next month (the entire month), staying with an exchange student that lived with them a while back. But their plans may change now that the Thai military has staged a coup (more stories will show up here). While the State Department hasn’t issued any travel warnings for the area, I would expect them to shortly.
What Did $4000 Buy You From Dell in 1996?
I was taking some pictures at a house today, and happened to glance on the bookshelf to notice some old magazines. Like 10 year old magazines. One of them was a 10-year old copy of PC Magazine (with a cover story about online services like Prodigy and Compuserve — those were the days), and happened to turn over the magazine to look at this back cover ad (sorry about the crappy quality — my flatbed scanner as work was on the fritz, so I had to take a picture of it).
Back in the day that $4000+ laptop was top of the line. With its 90mhz Pentium, 10.4″ screen, and 810 megabyte hard drive, you were cruising in style. For nearly $5000, you could get a Pentium 120.
But if you were a businessman, you might be more interested in this offering:
So for $15,000, you could get two servers with Pentium 133mhz processors, 32 megs of ram, 4GB hard drives, plus they’ll throw in a 12-port 10-Base-T switch. Damn, that’s sweet!
It’s amazing how much hardware you can by for that price nowadays. Sadly, though, this is about the time I graduated high school, and I paid nearly $3,000 for a Pentium 133 system when I graduated — it was a speed demon compared to the family’s 486SX25.