Published June 10th, 2006
in Tech, Personal and Film.
I went grocery shopping this morning, and as I was leaving the store I noticed a new fixture near the entrance. The redbox dvd-rental kiosk. So I took a look at it and was amazed. All you have to do is enter your email address and swipe your credit/debit card, and you get to rent a dvd for $1 a night. No late fees, every night you keep the dvd, you get charged another buck. So if you just watch the movie on the night you rent it, you don’t have to pay for the rest of the rental period like you would at a Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. I don’t think that I have seen a deal this good before on movie rentals.
I may have been a little over-excited by the fact that the whole process was automated. I think that if there was a sales clerk involved in the process I would have been more skeptical. Is it wrong of me to be so trusting of machines, since a robot war could be coming some time in the future? It took about 2 minutes for me to commit to the rental upon seeing the redbox kiosk. I ended up renting a title that wasn’t in stock last night at the Hollywood Video. When it comes time to return it, all I have to do is stick the dvd back in the slot that it came out of.
Thank you, red dvd-renting box. I am glad to know you.
Published May 15th, 2006
in Personal.
Calvin and Hobbes used to be my favorite comic strip. Not that it isn’t anymore, I just don’t think that I have a favorite comic strip anymore since I don’t read the comics. I just go straight to the “News” section.
Uh oh, I just checked and it looks like there isn’t a “News” section in the newspaper, it turns out the whole thing is news, except for the comics.
Ok fine, I don’t read the newspaper. But I don’t have to now that the comics are on the internet. Anyway, I don’t know if this is all of the snowman strips that they did, but it is a lot of them, and they are funny.
Published May 8th, 2006
in Personal and Food.
It’s a surprise to me, but it turns out that I live in a city with one of the best Starbucks-to-people ratios in the Nation. According to epodunk.com, Falls Church, VA has 7.7 Starbucks locations per 10,000 people in the population. We usually just go to one Starbucks, but it’s comforting to know that we’re surrounded by them. (or is it…)
I think I’ve been to the one that counts as the .7 though. The one that I’m thinking of keeps track of orders by way of finger counting rather than by cash register and it seems they make their “coffee” from a different kind of “bean”. The last time I went there and handed the clerk my Starbucks card, he slid it between his fingers and made a “boop” sound with his mouth. I’m in no place to complain though, Lynnwood, Washington has 3.2 Starbucks per 10,000 people. I don’t want to know how they make their coffee at a .2 Starbucks.
(Thanks to Matt for the link.)
Published May 4th, 2006
in Personal and Film.
This September, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox are finally going to release the original Star Wars movies on dvd. Each movie will be released individually in a 2-disc version that contains the re-release version that was released in 2004 and the original version released in theaters.
I’ve been hoping that they would release the movies this way since the re-done versions came out, but I feel dirty about this. I bought this trilogy on vhs when they remastered them the first time in the 90’s. Then they released the remastered version on vhs in letterbox, so I bought that too. Then I bought the trilogy when it was finally released on dvd. Now I plan on buying this version because I’ve been waiting for it, and it’s only available for a limited time, September through December.
I’m sure this isn’t going to be the last version of these movies that I buy either. With hd-dvd and blu-ray discs coming out soon, and the 3-D versions in the works, I might just have to admit that I have a Star Wars problem, before this goes too far.
Published May 3rd, 2006
in Tech and Random.
Once again, Japan is one step ahead of us. They’ve developed this gun that launches a teddy bear into the air. Once free of the gun, the teddy bear’s parachute deploys and he descends safely to the ground. How cute is that?
The makers of this gun intended it to be used at weddings, because in Japan, they have started throwing teddy bears into the air instead of bouquets. Why not market it towards gun customers as well? Let’s say you went into your local gun shop to pick up a gun, and they had these guys sitting next to the regular guns, which one are you going to buy? And think of how much nicer convenience store robberies would be if criminals used teddy bear guns.
“Give me all the money in the cash register, or i’ll ‘cute’ you!”
