Follow up: Exotic?

In case you were dying to know. These are the Hollister exotic.

Exotic?

I came across this "pumpkin patch" on my way to work the other day, and finally snagged a photo of it.  Two things struck me about this particular location. 

First of all, the use of the term pumpkin patch.  Last year our family went to a pumpkin patch to pick out K's first pumpkin.  It involved getting into the car and driving 15 minutes into the rural outskirts of town.  Arriving at a family's farm and picking out pumpkins that were in a field, on the vine.  I hardly consider throwing down some straw on an asphalt parking lot a pumkin patch.

Second, the inclusion of this sign:

If you were driving by and saw this sign out of the corner of your eye, you might think the "Premium Exotic Pumpkins" were from Hondurus, Hong Kong, maybe even Holland.  Nope, the full sign reads: "Premium Exotic Pumpkins from Hollister"... WTF?

Hollister is two hours west of Fresno.  What's so exotic about that?!?!?!?

(BTW, I looked up exotic thinking I may have misunderstood its actual meaning... nope, the sign is just full of sh*t).

Return of the TWO!!!

Just when it had given up hope of ever being set free from the bottom of its box, the flap opens...

from above, as if by the hand of God himself, the imaciated and weary digit is plucked from its grave.  Then lifted upon high to oversee and beckon all that see it.  The two has returned.

At least for now.  Unfortunately I didn't need gas today and by the time I do (in the next two or three days) I'm sure the price will jump up to over $3.50 again, c'est la vie.

Winning Wednesday: Fable II (Late)

Fable II hasn't really been given great reviews because of its story, but instead its choice and consequence system.  Basically you are given free reign to do anything in the game.  Each decision you make effects everything else in the game.  In the very beginning of the game you begin as a child and are asked to help find some [arrest] warrents for a town guard.  After collection them, you are approached by a theif, who says he'll pay you to give him the warrents instead of the guard.  The decision seems small, but it has lasting ramifications.  Once you grow up and return to the same town, you learn the consequences of your decision.  If you gave the warrents to the guard, the town is a bustling center of business with many new shops.  If you gave the warrents to the thief, the town is a desolate, lawless, dark place.  Each decision you make also effects your good/evil meter, pure/corrupt, and beautify/ugly meters, and the townsfolk react to you differantly depending on your "ratings".  Its an interesting game, and I'm only about a third of the way through it, but I am continually impressed by the depth of the good vs evil system.  On top off all that the visuals are amazing beautiful scenery and very detailed environments.  I'd definately advise picking this one up even if you don't like RPGs.

Swing by the Xbox website and check out the minigame.  Its a little violent, but the animation style is worth watching in itself (A Hero's Tale).  

NOTE: When asked to put your birthday in, the format is DD MM YYYY, not MM DD YYYY.

Tepid Coffee and Stale Blogs

I realize I've been out of the blogosphere for a few days now, but unfortunately I don't have anything clever to say this morning either (well I do, but I don't have the pictures to go with it), so instead I'll give you the Reader's Digest version of what happened in the 10 days since my last post.

• My sunglasses went "missing" from a party for my Grandparents 50th anniversary (#1 suspect is my uncle)
  
• New sunglasses purchased for a ridiculous amount of money (*sigh*)
  
• Got an offer for a new job (back in engineering, w00t!), start next Monday.
  
• Pre-ordered Fable II (comes in tomorrow).
  
• Went and saw game five of the NLCS and watched my Dodgers get walloped.  :(
  
• My little guy got a high fever and didn't feel well most of the weekend.
  
• Went to a wedding with an open bar and fully utilized it.
  
• Had our family (and then some) over for dinner last night and watched game seven of the ALCS.
  

That's it for now.  I'll be back with something worth reading soon.  Thanks for checking in!

Did you know...

...the dollar sign ($) had never been used on any US currency until 2007?

sorry for the wikipedia reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign

Spare me your marketing drabble

While I was at "Club Save Mart" (where I spotted the XXX soda aisle), I also saw a sign for their pharmacy's "19-Minute" Guarantee".  While its nice they make a promise like that, they are one of the newest entries into what I call "arbitrary number marketing".  Following Circuit City's 24/24 guarantee (pick up ready in 24 minutes or you get a $24 gift card) and the countless rows and rows of retail products ($xx.99) Save Mart steps up the psychological assault.  I have absolutely no problem with service speed guarantees, in fact I am apt to go some place that has one versus one that doesn't.  The problem I have is the stupid time-frame.  Why 19 minutes?  Do they really think people are going to go shopping for their groceries and then drive across the street to Long's to pick up their prescription?  It would take longer than a minute just to get across the street!

My list of approved time related guarantees:

• 60 seconds (1 minute is also an acceptable denotation)
• 3 minutes
• 5 minutes
• 10 minutes
• 15 minutes
• 20 minutes
• 30 minutes
• 1 hour (60 minutes is not acceptable in this case)
• 2, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, 36 hour guarantees are also acceptable for longer services
• anything that takes longer than a day an a half really shouldn't brag about how "quick" they can get things done

Have you seen any other gimmicky time guarantees?

Tech Tuesday: Instant Art

Digital picture frames have been out there for a while.  If you're unfamiliar, its basically an LCD screen and memory card reader with a frame around it.  Its a nice way to display a slide show of pictures in your living room without having to tie up the TV.  But most of the time you have to take the memory card out of your camera or plug the frame into your computer via USB to load the pictures.  Not really an inconvience, but T-Mobile is soon to release the first GPRS enabled digital picture frame.  Basically the Parrot DF7700 branded under the T-Mobile name, you can send a picture message (MMS) to the frame and it automatically downloads the photo and displays it.  The price point is on the higher end of the average for normal digital picture frames (~$100 at release), but where TMo is going to try and stick it to you is the $10 per month fee to use the GPRS function.  Granted you get a new SIM card and "phone" number for the frame,  but I'm not sure its actually worth $120 a year to have that capability.  If you like the idea of a digital picture frame, my suggestion is purchase a digital picture frame with Wi-Fi capabilities (assuming you have wireless internet where the frame will be displayed).  You can have it sync to your Picasa Web Albums or any other photo hosting site as well as using your memory cards (and the best part is there are no additional subscription fees).

RE:FW:FW:FW: I HATE YOU!!!

Of the many annoying things that occur in day-to-day office life, the “mass e-mail forward” has to be the worst!  At least three times a week I receive an email that is either marginally funny (hardly a snicker, usually an eye roll), a “see who your friends are/you’re wish will be granted/you will be cursed/you will die tomorrow if you don’t forward this”, or a “warning” email.  Don’t get me wrong, if you send me a genuinely funny email/video I appreciate it.  Problem is the people who send these emails out tend to send them to either “All-Recipients” or a huge list of people.  Not content to let the annoyance pass, several people feel the need to reply to these messages a la “reply to all”.  So it wasn’t bad enough that “Gang members in Fresno are getting into minor fender benders around town and then carjacking people when they confront them” now I have 20 additional emails that range from “that’s so scary!” to the simple “OMG”.

To compound this, my [personal] mobile phone is set to synchronize with my work’s Microsoft Exchange server (I get my work email on my phone).  A few months back my wife had to call AT&T wireless (our provider) to take care of an issue.  After her problem was “fixed” the operator told her that my line was well over its allotted text messages (200).  That raised a flag.  I do text message more than I make phone calls, but I’ve never gone over my 200 messages.  I called AT&T back and after several flip-flop answers it was determined that when my email is sent to my phone it counts as a message.  Now you may be thinking “Brandon isn’t email part of your data plan?”  I thought the same, and questioned this (as I have an unlimited data plan).  Turns out, yes indeed syncing with the Exchange server is counted on the data plan, but also counts as text messages (i.e. we get dinged twice!).  Blarg!

To make it simple I have devised some rules/guidlines for sending forwards:

1.  If you didn’t shed a tear from laughing or at least literally laughed out loud, don’t forward it
2. If you are my friend, you know it and don’t need an email back from the friend fairy (or whatever the “blessing du jour” is)
   
3.  The only wish that will be granted by including me in your “10 people by midnight” is if you wished to get smacked!
   
4. As far as curses, see #3
   
5.  If you think not sending an email will kill you, make sure a psychiatrist is one of the people you forward the message to, but change the subject line to “I need help”
6. Do not send ANY warning emails without at the minimum checking snopes.com 99% of the time it will be there, and you can thank me for preventing you from looking like a gullible dipsh*t.  Also if there is a link to snopes in the email, for GOD SAKE click it and make sure the link refers to the same story!!! (http://www.snopes.com)

This concludes my rant.  Now forward this to 10 friends by 5:00 pm or a dingo will eat your baby.

(ETA: Ironically as I type this I just received two more!!!)

This seems a bit counterproductive...

I saw a sign for this free annual church event.  My mother-in-law and a few friends attend this church, and they have explained that the "Trunk or Treat" event is a free event for children, where instead of going unsupervised door-to-door "trick-or-treating", they can do it with the supervision of adults in the church's parking lot.  Seems like a pretty good idea until you take a step back.  

All year long you tell your kids not to talk to strangers, not to take candy from strangers, not to get near the car of strangers... etc.  Now you take them to an event in which the sole purpose is to have your kids go from car to car recieving candy from multiple stranger's trunks... hmmmmm...

(By the way, look at the poor boy's concerned face.  I think even he knows something's up.)

As of the post the church's site hasn't been updated with the specifics, but if you're interested here's the link: http://www.npkids.org/

(Its still probably better than letting your 18 month old go by his/herself)  :)

Winning Wednesday: Stuff White People Like

My parents got this book for me for my birthday and I have to say its pretty funny.  Its a satire of well... Stuff White People Like, and is writen as a guide for non-white people who want to make white friends.  While the target of the parody is the liberal white person, even moderate and conservative people can get a laugh out of it.  Consistently while reading the book I either laughed because I was "caught" or snikered to myself because "I knew exactly who he's talking about".  

Give it a looksy and I think you'll find it entertaining.  Included in the book are also fill-in-the-blank "form letters" to make it easy to bond with a white person and a few quizzes to help determine your "whiteness".  The book is written by Christian Lander, and he also has a blog called Stuff White People Like.

Links:

Book on Amazon.com

Book's website

Stuff White People Like Blog