Author: andy

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On This September 12th

The headline on September 12th from the New York Times

I actually started composing something a week ago about September 11th, reminiscing about that day and the general mood of the country prior to the attack on the World Trade Center.  As I paid attention to some 9/11 coverage during the past week, I was reminded of what the country was actually like, and that I was really viewing it with rose-colored glasses.  Hey, I was a sophomore in college; I’d only just started paying attention to the world around me.

Thus, instead, I reflect on September 12th, or really, the initial days that followed September 11th.

Much like the JFK assassination and the generation(s) before me that were actually alive at that time, I remember exactly what I was doing at the time it all happened.  I was in my dorm room and had just gotten up to read my Yahoo! News feed and see that a plane of some type had hit the first tower.  I woke up my roommate and turned on CNN just in time to watch the second plane hit the second tower.  On live television.

What followed over the next few hours, and few days, and few weeks, was a series of feelings.  Confusion.  Fear.  Shock.

Then Focus.

Then Togetherness.

Then Direction.

This country went through a terrible tragedy and, from it, came a sense of direction that it hadn’t had in awhile.  My initial blog post was looking to those years before 9/11, and that it was a time that I wish we could all return to.  However, in many ways, the country was already on a downward spiral of divisiveness, with the Lewinsky Scandal and Impeachment proceedings in the news.  With a Dot Com Bubble bursting.  With a Housing Crisis already in the works.

Really, a decade on, I’d like us all to reflect on where we were 10 years ago today, rather than 10 years ago yesterday.  Sure, yesterday was incredibly important and it is equally important that all those lives were lost.  At the same time, I think it’s essential that we remember how much of the country actually came together for a common purpose.  Eventually, that purpose was misdirected toward other political goals.  That purpose was used to divide the country even further than it’s ever been, certainly in my lifetime.  And today, on September 12, 2011, we are about as divided as we could be.

But on September 12, 2001, we were all together.  In grief.  In searching.  In wondering.

Yet also, in a desire to root out evil.  A need to be together in service to our communities.  To be together in solidarity and in support of our firefighters, policemen and EMTs, but also in support of each other.

Case in point: I read on Facebook that over 100 people from our church in St. Louis went to East St. Louis to be in service to others on September 10th as part of the Serve 2011 project.  That’s the kind of feeling we should be getting from 9/11.  Not only focusing on the attack itself, but also on the need to better ourselves that followed for the first few days and weeks after it.  The thing that was designed to tear us apart that actually helped bring us together, even if only for a few short moments.  Where we weren’t rich, poor, black, white, man or woman: we were just American.  And we were all the same.

And that’s what we need to work toward finding again, 10 years later.  Ten years after September the 12th.

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On Netflix

There has been a reasonable amount of vitriol on the interwebs with regards to Netflix in recent weeks.  First, it was the price increase and separation of DVDs and Instant Queue into separate plans.  Then, Starz pulls out of negotiations to keep their content on the streaming service, including Disney movies and TV shows, meaning that a lot of content will disappear in February.  Finally, today, it comes out that Netflix will begin enforcing its rule to only allow streaming to a single device on an account at one time (or two devices if you have a two-DVD plan, and so on).

I’ll read comments from folks on blogs saying that they’re going to cancel their accounts over all this.  That Netflix isn’t adding enough new content to justify their $8/mo.  That they are screwing over their consumers.

Well, folks.  Get used to it.  The cost of doing business with Netflix will keep going up, and they aren’t alone.

Hulu famously created “Hulu Plus,” a separate entity that you pay $8/mo to use.  Hulu carries shows from ABC, FOX and NBC, as well as many of their affiliates.  Some shows appear the day after airing on TV.  Other shows appear after 30 days.  Hulu Plus gives you the ability to watch some of these shows on your television, but the nature of the deal that Hulu was able to work with The Powers That Be dictate that not all of Hulu’s content can be sent to your TV.  They still want you to watch that content on a TV, through your cable provider, rather than do it through the internet.

Oh, and Hulu Plus still contains ads.  You pay $8/mo extra for different content than you get through their website, and you still get ads.  All just so you can watch it on your TV.  Because an LCD TV is different than an LCD monitor, apparently.

The content providers in the motion picture and television industry want a large piece of the proverbial pie, and they have entrenched interests with the cable providers that have built and “maintained” that infrastructure for decades.  They see upstarts like Netflix to be a threat.  A company that provides a really nice service to their customers that the vast majority of people are happy with.

Netflix has almost single-handidly destroyed the DVD industry.  In the early-2000s, I bought tons of DVDs, but now that I have Netflix, I have no need.  I can order a DVD and have it the next day, any time I want to see a movie.  Half the movies I own are on Netflix Streaming.  I still prefer the video quality of popping the disc in rather than using the internet to watch it, but still: if I want to see it, I can with only the most minimal of planning.  There was a time where I would rarely walk out of Wal-Mart without a DVD in town.  Now, I can safely enter and browse DVDs without fear of actually buying one.

Thus, these companies will charge Netflix exorbitant amounts of money to license movies and TV shows.  They will keep increasing the licensing costs, not because the content is actually worth that much, but because they want to destroy Netflix and keep their business model intact.

This is all aside from the fact that cable seems to have less and less that I want to watch.  Whenever Brooke and I are at our respective parent’s houses, we’ll flip on the TV and see what’s on.  Invariably, the answer is a resounding “nada.”  The only thing I miss having is the occasional sporting event.  So if I cared about sports more, we’d have to have cable.  Other than that, we just don’t watch much on TV anymore, at least stuff that isn’t available digitally through Hulu or TV.com, or that will eventually be available through Netflix in some form or fashion.  Part of me wants to get the basic “Family Package” of 30 channels when we move just so I don’t have to deal with bunny ears anymore, but thankfully, St. Louis gets a good number of channels over-the-air, so even that isn’t as big a deal.

Netflix provides me with a good service.  I have almost no desire to return to cable.  I can watch what I want and there’s plenty of material available, with new content arriving frequently.  My Instant Queue has 63 items in it, and it should be longer except that I know I barely have enough time to watch what I already added.

Keep on going, Netflix.  I’ll continue to support you.  And I imagine most people will, too.

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08.29.11 Dinner

I was pretty proud of myself, actually making a reasonable attempt at “making dinner,” rather than relying on stores frozen by Brooke to keep me alive in her absence.  Here, I made scrambled eggs using a few of our home-grown variety, and added in some sliced steak left from Saturday’s meal (thanks again, Diana!).  Also, a few slices of toast and half a tomato, also direct from the garden.  Not too bad, methinks!  Healthier than cereal and Hot Pockets, at least.  🙂

Meg had a hot dog, a banana and some graham crackers.  She still isn’t very interested in eggs.  Crazy person…

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Of Movie Ratings and “Black Swan”

We grabbed “Black Swan” from Netflix this weekend.  The film was directed by Darren Aronofsky, a guy whose movies I can’t say I’ve been particularly fond of (“Pi” and “Requiem For A Dream,” specifically).  Unlike those previous flicks, I can safely say that I enjoyed this movie, though it was definitely weird.  I can understand that it probably isn’t everyone’s cup o’ tea, but it is more suspenseful than I expected and the story worked on a variety of levels, which I always appreciate.

I only write about this because I had to think a bit about how to rate the movie on Netflix.  They let you rate movies on a 5 star scale, which then helps them suggest more movies for your viewing pleasure.  I tend to struggle with such things because, in some ways, you’re trying to think about Netflix’s rating system and assess what you think about a movie and what you want them to think you think about the movie.  For example, I love me some “Army of Darkness,” but by most accounts, it’s a terrible movie.  Perhaps it’s best not to rate a movie based on whether you believe it deserves critical acclaim for technical accomplishment and performance by the actors, but instead on whether you’d see it again or not.

Thus, I have settled upon the following system:

  • 5 Stars: I’d watch this movie again and again for all eternity.  I’d buy the DVD and the Bluray if I could.
  • 4 Stars: Great movie that I’d watch again, but I don’t need to own it.
  • 3 Stars: Good movie.  Glad I saw it.  Don’t really need to see it again.
  • 2 Stars: Not very good.  I’ll never watch this again and I’ll steer others clear of it.
  • 1 Star: Minutes of my life were taken by this movie.  It’s almost worth buying a copy so I can burn it.  In a barrel. “Battlefield Earth,” I’m talking to you.

Under this system, I think I’ll give “Black Swan” 4 Stars.  It’s a pretty great movie, I think.  I need to see it again just to see what I missed during the somewhat difficult-to-follow plot line, but I really like where the writer went with it.  I’d say more about the story, but I’m afraid I’d give too much away.  I definitely recommend you see it.

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Meg’s Word List

"To you, Chicken, I say 'bah, bah, bah.'"

As first-time parents, I assume it’s expected that we should be surprised with the level of language comprehension and execution that our 17 month old has.  To be fair, neither Brooke nor I have much experience with children of this age, so we don’t really know what Meg is supposed to be doing, aside from walking and playing.  That said, it’s astounding to me the number of words Meg seems to know already.  My Mom has marveled at this fact in the past, and her general feeling is that Meg wasn’t walking for so long that her language skills developed sooner instead (we’re convinced it was because of the ear infections, messing with her balance: she was walking within 4 days of getting ear tubes put in).

With all this in mind, I figured I should recount the words Meg knows.  We aren’t really keeping much of a “baby book,” in favor of taking a ridiculous number of photos and videos, and writing things down on this blog, instead.  Bear in mind that these are all words that Meg appears to know, most of which she can say, though it may not sound like we know it (and I have included her phrasing in parenthesis after each word).  At the bottom, I’m also listing a series of body parts Meg knows.  So far as we’ve read, this part is quite impressive, as she’s not really supposed to be able to do this for another year or so.  She can only say a few of them, but she can point to each one reliably.

Words:

  • Mom (“Mama”)
  • Dad (“Da”)
  • Meg (“Mee”)
  • Edie (“Dih-di”)
  • Banana (“Nana”)
  • Apple (“Appo”)
  • Juice (“Ju”)
  • Car (“Doh”)
  • Chicken (“Ba ba ba”)
  • Sheep (“Bah”)
  • Cow (“Mmm”)
  • Outside (“Outside”)
  • Elmo (“Emmo”)
  • Abby (“Abbee”)
  • That (“Da”)  — [Note: This is what she says when she points at something…]
  • Shirt (“Sit”)
  • Shoes (“Soos”)
  • No (“No”) —  [Note: As in, “I don’t want to do that”]
  • No? (“No no”) — [Note: As in, “I know I shouldn’t do this but I want to do it anyway…”  :-)]
  • Goodnight (“Night night”)
  • Hi (“Hi”)
  • Hello (“Ello”)
  • Goodbye (“Buh bye”)
  • Hat (“Hatta”)
  • Star (“Tar”)
  • Ball (“Bah”)
  • More (“Mo”)
  • Cat (“Didee”)
  • Good morning (“Minning”)
  • Uh oh (“oh-ohhh”)
  • Whoa (“whoa”)
  • Help, please (“Hep-eez”)
  • Baby (“bee-bee”)
  • All done (“aw done”)
  • Close door (“ah doh”)

Body Parts:

  • Nose (“no”)
  • Eyes (“ay”)
  • Ears
  • Teeth
  • Cheeks
  • Knees (“Nee”)
  • Feet
  • Toes (“Dohs”)
  • Belly
  • Hair
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Living In The Cloud

I find myself getting less and less patient with having to move data around between devices.  I want to have access to things where I want them, when I want them.  A lot of this has been building up over recent months, but I think the recent death of my old laptop (it’s GPU died…sad, sad day…) has brought it to a head.

Once the laptop died, I transferred some games to a desktop PC, but one I don’t leave on all the time.  This computer used to be my Linux web server, so this 5+ year old system is hardly up to heavy gaming…but that’s another story.  The new Linux server runs all the time, so it provides what we need for internet use, but there are a few key things it won’t do:  card reader functionality and iTunes.  I only have one device that has an SD card reader in it now, and it’s our netbook (Brooke has a USB card reader…somewhere…).  That, and iTunes is Windows and Mac, exclusive, so I can’t use it under Linux.

This means I’m relegated to using the netbook until I get some replacement parts to help speed up what is currently serving as my Windows machine.  And that netbook only has a 10″ screen, making it less than ideal for any kind of photo editing, or messing with an iTunes library.  Sure, it’s fine in a pinch, but netbooks weren’t really designed for heavy use.  Also, this poor netbook apparently won’t run Picasa: it actually “Blue Screens” Windows XP every time I try.  Because of these shenanigans, I haven’t been able to move pictures from our Nikon DSLR from the SD card up to the interwebs because the Picasa program is how I generally do this.

Which brings me to the point at hand: I love me some cloud computing.  Products like Dropbox (or Ubuntu One) to act as online storage, allowing me to share my files between the netbook, my Linux server, my work computer and my phone on the fly.  Google Music, so I can sync music from the cloud with my phone, and never mess with iTunes again.  Google+, which will automatically upload my photos from my phone to their servers (including Picasa) without me having to do anything.  Google Docs, which is where I’ve been typing countless cover letters and maintaining a spreadsheet of various jobs I’ve applied to, giving me access from anywhere on any device, including my phone.

Case in point: I could have transferred those pictures from the SD card to the netbook, and then in turn to a USB stick, and then to the Windows desktop that’s capable of actually running Picasa (or I could have found the cable to plug the camera directly into the computer…but seriously…who knows where it is…), or I could just transfer those pictures to my Dropbox folder on the netbook, allowing them to “magically appear” on whatever computer I wanted to use.  So much easier, and just as fast.

In short?  I’ve become too lazy for USB sticks and SD cards.  The act of physically connecting one thing to another has become a chore.  I’m in the 21st century and want everything, including my hard drive, to be “wireless.”

I have fully embraced the cloud.

The only thing keeping me from going “all the way” is my iPod Nano.  As our Kia Sportage doesn’t have an auxiliary jack, I can’t plug my phone into the stereo system.  My radio transmitter will only accept iPod-like devices: not my phone.  Thus, in order to listen to 8 GB of music or podcasts in my car, I have to use the iPod, which means I have to use iTunes, which means I have to use a cable to switch things around and update the playlist.

That, or I spend $250+ to get a new car stereo with an auxiliary jack, or $20,000+ on a new car.

I think I’m just spoiled…

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Fish Fry

The final product: fish, hushpuppies, corn fritters, potato salad, tomatoes, baked beans, and a side of chicken for grandma.

A new fish place recently opened off of Mark Twain Avenue in Hannibal that my father-in-law, Mark, has started to frequent. The proprietors go fishing on the Mississippi River daily, haul in their catch, clean it all for you, and open for business around 10:00 am.  So if you want fresh catfish in that general area, this is apparently the place to go.

Anyway, Mark decided he wanted to host a fish fry this past weekend, so many of us descended upon Hannibal, MO to have a mix of catfish and buffalo fish, among other things.

Edie is hoping Mark drops one of those fishes on the ground...

Mark borrowed the equipment, but basically, we were outside heating up canola oil in a dutch oven over an outdoor propane burner. This one is very similar to the one I just got for my birthday to use in beer brewing. It took a little while to heat the oil up to the desired temperature, but he had an issue with the candy thermometer we were using. As in, it wasn’t working properly, so the first few fish didn’t quite fry correctly.

Wish I could remember which seasoning packet he used. They were pretty perfect when they came out of that fryer...

After he turned the burner down a bit, things improved. It only took a few minutes for each fish fillet to be cooked through. I was kind of amazed how the smell of fried fish permeated the air surrounding the frying rig. I mean, you can smell fried fish in a restaurant easily, but that’s an enclosed space. This was very easy to smell from 30 feet away. Mmmmm…

Catfish, buffalo fish, and hushpuppies.

The buffalo fish isn’t one I’d ever had before: it’s the “wavy” one in the picture above. The catfish looked like your typical filet, so nothing too special there…except for the flavor, of course. Brooke also made hushpuppies, and those were pretty spectacular. The hushpuppies didn’t go in until after the fish was done, so as to not mix the flavors too much.

Brooke tried her hand at some corn fritters.

Brooke really wanted to try corn fritters, though. They’re similar to a hushpuppy, but not quite.  She made up the corn mix and took it out with a little scooper, dropped it into the fryer, and they turned a nice, golden brown.  I think they were a bit softer and less dry than a typical hushpuppy, but in the end, they’re pretty similar entities.  Is there a reason to have both?  Probably not.  But hey, they were both spectacular, so I didn’t complain.

They were done once they were floating. You can see the individual kernels of corn on the fritters.

In all, the food was excellent. I can’t say I get fresh catfish very often, especially fish that was caught on the same day. I think I preferred the catfish over the buffalo, personally, but they were both really good. I think the corn fritters went over best with people, but the hushpuppies were almost gone by the end, too.

I don’t think we’ll have to try too hard to get Mark to make this a yearly (monthly?) event. 🙂

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An “Auction-packed” Afternoon

Mark, watching intently as artwork was auctioned off.

I haven’t attended a ton of auctions in my time.  Most of them have been for family members that passed away, so the kids were trying to get rid of all the stuff they had around the house.  Old toys. Old magazines.  Especially old farm tools and implements, many of which were rusted beyond any usefulness.

This past weekend, Brooke’s Dad and I went by an auction hosted by a guy getting rid of some collectibles, among other things.  So, in some ways, this was my first auction for things I could actually have some interest in owning.  He had an assortment of different items available, ranging from movie posters and artwork, to yard equipment, to two boats and a van, and so on.

I don't know what it sold for, but it was in nice shape.

It was very interesting seeing what people pay for things, especially prints.  One guy spent $20 on a framed picture of Marilyn Monroe.  Not signed.  Not a particularly nice frame.  Just a picture.  Signed posters of sports “stars” (as in, I’d never heard of these people) from a car dealership in Independence, MO ranged from $10 – $30 or so.  An oil-on-canvass portrait of some random guy sold for $300 to a man who looked slightly older than me.  Surely he had some idea of what that thing was really worth, as the tears and condition of the painting made “$300” look like “too much.”

We arrived after most of the cooler things had already sold.  The Corvette shown above had a photocopy of a magazine listing values for such things, placing the car in the $15,000 to $24,000 range.  No clue if it actually sold for anywhere near that.  It was a Pace Car in the 70th Indianapolis 500 and looked like it was in pretty good condition.  There were a few small children’s cars that had already sold, as well.  I didn’t take pictures, as they were being loaded up by the time we got there.  They were your “Flintstones“-type vehicle, where your feet would propel you forward as you sat in this metal and wood contraption.  Looked cool and was surely antique.

This would be nice next to my bar someday.

I think Mark was interested in the Betty Boop waitress statue.  It was maybe 5 feet tall and looked to be in great shape.  We couldn’t tell how much it eventually sold for, but we were told that someone called in a bid of $2000 for it.  Not the kind of money I would pay, but still…good to know how much I need to save up if I eventually want something like it.

All in all, it was a worthwhile experience.  We were only there for maybe 30 min, and that was all we needed to tell that most of the interesting stuff had already sold, and most of what was left wasn’t worth much to us.

It’s just interesting to know that what isn’t worth anything to us is worth something to someone else.

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A Bit Conflicted

A few months ago, Amazon launched their own Appstore for Android phones, however it took me until a few weeks ago to actually get it.  Long story short, Android users have the Android Market pre-installed that allows them to download free and paid apps to their phones, and the Amazon Appstore is a separate entity that does the same thing: just through Amazon.  AT&T, in their infinite wisdom, denied users the ability to install apps that weren’t from the Android Market (including the Amazon Appstore), but they finally reversed course at the end of May and decided to start allowing such things.  However, it took over two months for the update to finally make through AT&T’s network to my phone that would allow the change.  I was in constant contact with AT&T and my phone’s manufacturer, HTC, trying to get this stupid update.  They even sent me a replacement phone, but no dice.

Finally, one day I checked, and I had the ability to install the Amazon Appstore.  All of the sudden.  Lovely.

Since that time, I have grabbed a few apps and checked out some others.  There are some apps that are exclusive to Amazon’s store, and others that are only available through Android Market.  The killer feature of the Amazon Appstore, however, is their “Free App of the Day,” where Amazon allows you to download one free (normally paid) app during that 24 hour period.  Sometimes it’s a productivity app (like, today, it’s “iCooking Barbeque,” which gives you recipes.  Normally, it’s $0.99).  This past Monday, however, the free app was a game called Guitar Hero 5, which normally sells for $8.

You can hopefully see why I was anxious to get this appstore.  Sure, there are frequently things I don’t want, but sometimes, something comes along that’s normally $8 that you can get for free.  You don’t even have to install it: you just have to “buy” it and Amazon will remember that you own it.  If anything, you can just get everything and never use any of it, and not even take up the virtual space on your phone.

I am, however, at odds with what Amazon is doing with their appstore.  Sure, as the consumer, I like free stuff.  It gets me to use their service and I end up purchasing more through them than I would otherwise.  This is Amazon’s strategy in doing this in the first place (and they are paving the way to release their own tablet at the end of this year, with full integration of their own appstore, effectively bypassing Google).

But what happens to the developers of these apps?  You know, the folks that actually made the app that Amazon is giving away for free for that day?

There are more than a few horror stories out there on the internet.  One company put their app up on the store and would get a few hits a day.  Amazon offered to host their app as a free app for the day, and they decided to go ahead and do it (so, yes, it’s voluntary).  Amazon tells the developer that “We have seen tremendous results from this promotion spot and believe it will bring you a great deal of positive reviews and traffic. It is an opportunity to build your brand especially in association with a brand like Amazon’s. The current price of this placement is at 0% rev share for that one day you are placed.” So, basically, Amazon gives the app away, and neither Amazon nor the developer makes anything for it on that day.  And this is what happens:

This particular developer was making some money from a few sales a day, and then effectively gave away 100,000+ copies of their app.  Almost $55,000 of product, given away.  After that sales spike, the developer says the sales returned to the original levels.

And this developer is not alone, In another case, the developer ended up giving away 180,000 copies of their app, but they ran into a separate problem from the first example.  The Amazon Appstore apparently doesn’t discriminate between Android phones, so in some cases, a given application won’t be fully compatible with your phone…and Amazon may not tell you this.  If you download the app and it doesn’t work, you tend to review the application unfavorably.  This particular app didn’t work on a certain set of Motorola phones, which meant that anyone that downloaded it gave it a bad review.  All the sudden, these guys ended up with thousands of bad reviews for their application, on a product that shouldn’t have been on some phones in the first place.

So, am I happy I have the Amazon Appstore?  Absolutely.  However, I’m also conflicted about it.  I have heard folks on podcasts that watch the store for updates in order to hear about new products, and if a particular app comes up that they want, they wait until the next day and go ahead and purchase it in order to make sure some revenue makes it to the developer.  Amazon also offers a nifty “Test Drive” feature for many of the apps they host that allows you to actually try the app out for 30 min on your Windows PC before buying it.  Thus, you can try it out on the free day, and if you like it, choose to wait to buy it the next day.  Others will get the free app, and then if the developer makes another application, they will be sure to buy that one also (which is kinda the whole purpose of this model…you get a free app, decide you like it, and then go to the developer’s page and buy more apps from them.  Doesn’t always work, obviously…).

Just something important to keep in mind.  What’s free to us, as Consumers, isn’t free to the people that made it.  Someone is losing money when we are given things for free.

 

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07.23.11 Dinner

Mmmm, brats…can’t go wrong. A side-product of Mom sending me to Hy-Vee with her card, we had both pineapple and beer brats, as well as corn on the cob and sweet potato chips.

Thanks again for everything, Mom! They turned out really well! 🙂