Questioning An A-Lister

From Seth Godin’s “The Reason” post:

The reason that you have a water bubbler in your office is that it used to be difficult to filter water effectively.

The reason we still have a water bubbler in our office is that filtration may remove biological impurities, which may spread disease, but not chemical ones, which may affect the flavor or may also be detrimental to the health of the drinker.  Plus, ours is one of those that provides instant hot or cold water, so it’s useful as well as healthy.  The presence isn’t due to an archaic “we’ve always done it this way”, it’s actually an improvement over the tap.  And it’s plumbed directly into the water line, so no one needs to change the bottle.  This is also why my fridge has a water dispenser in the door.

The reason that Blockbuster exists is that VCR tapes used to cost more than $100.

That’s why Blockbuster was started.  Now that VCR tapes are well below $100, and are on the verge of extinction, should Blockbuster cease to exist?  Not hardly.  Blockbuster stores serve a group of people Netflix can’t—the very impatient.  Video on demand just hasn’t arrived, and there’s no reason to think that Blockbuster won’t try and have a hand in that in the future.  The presence of something from the past doesn’t necessarily indicate a status-quo, same-old-same-old mentality.  Not that Blockbuster is any shining example of adaptation, but it seems to be filling a need even today.

The reason that SUVs have a truck chassis is that the government regulates vehicles with a truck chassis differently.

No, that’s why you get a tax break for buying an Explorer.  My SUV (a Honda CRV) is actually built on a car chassis, as is the Murano, Rav 4 and a few other small SUVs.  Maybe SUVs are built on a car or truck chassis because there are economic and safety engineering reasons for minimizing the number of chasses in an automaker’s fleet.

I am with Heather on the lawn thing—out of frustration, my neighbor has mowed mine on a couple of occasions.

Now playing: The Grateful Dead – Sugar Magnolia (Remastered Version)

SplashBlog Up and Running

Splash Blog is a Flickr-like service, with a client app that runs on my Treo 700w.  There’s also a web-based admin, which I can use to upload photos from my Nikon D50.  I suppose I could pop the SD card from my Nikon into my Treo and upload from there, but while the EVDO network is fast, it’s not as fast as my cable internet.

I’ve been playing with the service for a couple of weeks, and it’s pretty cool.  On the Splashblog now is the obligatory photo of the dog (one of the dogs, anyway), my buddy Jon’s black and gold inventory, and a few photos from Franklin on Ice.

Now playing: Mott the Hoople – All the Way from Memphis

Marc Broussard Saturn Commercial

My search referrals are filling up with this, for a smattering of reasons.  To make it easy, here’s the answer in one spot:


The song in the Saturn commercial is “Home” from his “Carencro” CD.  This is the commercial where the sides of the buildings fold down for the Vue.  The rest of the albumn is good, but this song is different from the rest.  If you want it in iTunes, click the link below on a machine that has iTunes loaded.  If you want the whole album via Amazon, click on the album cover.


BTW – Carencro is his hometown in Louisiana.


Now playing: Marc Broussard – Home


Carencro, by Marc Broussard
Click here for the album at Amazon

XM Radio On Treo 700w

My buddy Nathan comes through with this today–www.minixm.com.  This is XM Radio’s
official lightweight stream site, meant for devices like the Treo 700w. 
Access the site through your Pocket IE, and choose your channel.  When the
stream begins, Windows Media Player will start and handle the playback. 
You can get the “now playing” in either WMP or PIE.  The sound quality
isn’t fantastic, but good enough, especially for the news programs.

Bad news for Treo 650 users–the XM stream requires support for Windows Media
Player 9 or better, which apparently isn’t available for the Palm OS. 
Trying to open the stream crashed Bob’s 650.

Proof The NFL Fixed Super Bowl XL

The Seahawks took the field to The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony”, while the
Steelers took the field to Fat Boy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now”.  What
could be more bittersweet than making it to The Big Game, and then losing?

That was obviously a subliminal message to the Stepford referees as to which
team should win the game.  Gillette was in on it, too.  See,
Proctor & Gillette needs a new commercial for its new razor, and Hasselbeck
wasn’t as likely a candidate for a shave as Roethlisberger
was.

The “Lucky Leg” – Go Steelers!

I love my hometown of Louisville, KY (a.k.a., Louavull), and I love my
adopted hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.  The Louisville Courir-Journal’s RSS
feeds helop me stay in touch with the news back home, and today’s issue had a
great article on one member of the Steelers Nation, and his lucky leg:

Four weeks ago, in the first round of the playoffs, Pittsburgh trailed
Cincinnati 17-7 in the second quarter. Gray decided to kick-start the Steelers
with his prosthetic leg — the one with the Steelers helmet on the shin.

“I just popped it off and started banging on the table with it,” Gray
said. “Everybody was like, ‘What is that?’ I said, That’s my lucky leg!’

But why does our man have a prosthetic leg festooned with Steelers logos?

“I was thinking about getting a Steelers tattoo,” Gray said, “but I was
like, I need a new leg anyway, so why not get a Steeler leg? That’ll kill two
birds. I’ll have a tattoo and a leg — and I won’t have to worry about the
pain of the tattoo.”

You have to appreciate the thought process, there.

Full article at http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060203/FEATURES/602030329/1011/rss05.

Logitech Headphones for iPod

Not my year for gadgets.  First, my NetGear SC101
suffered a breakdown, and now my cool Logitech
Wireless Headphones for iPod have given up their ghost as well.  As
soon as the music started playing, the headphones would lose connection with the
transmitter.  I could re-pair the headphones and the transmitter, but as
soon as the music started, they’d lose their connection again.

E-mailing Logitech support gave me a couple of steps to try, including the
reset button and re-pairing, but no fix.  So I’m on the phone with tech
support to get an RMA.  I’m going to miss these things until the
replacement arrives.

Netgear SC101, Round 2

Staples gladly exchanged the faulty SC101, and re-installation was a breeze.  I uninstalled the previous version of the config software, connected the hard drives to the new toaster, plugged it in, reinstalled the config software, and I was off to the races again.  There was no need to repartition the drives, and the data was all intact.  The config tool recognized the old partitions, and the new device actually seems a little faster.  A nuisance, but Netgear and Staples both made the whole process a lot easier.

Steelers Ringtones for Treo 700w

You can download many of the famous Steeler fight songs as MP3s or WMAs from http://steelergridiron.com/fanzone/songs.html.  The Treo 700w can use WMA format for ringtones, so any MP3s will need to be converted first (see below).  Some the the songs are right-click-and-save-as, some you need to un-zip afrer you download. 

You can download the “Puhlahmahlu” song as an MP3 from http://www.flidop.com/flidop/detailband.php?BID=184 (scroll down—link under the letter).  Since this is a full-length song, you should probably edit it down to your favorite parts before turning the whole thing into a ringtone.  You really only need 30 seconds of a ringtone, since your voicemail will pick up after that.

To convert MP3s to WMAs, and edit the songs as needed, I use the free .  This is extrememly easy to use, and I think I’ll be creating ringtone monsters by pointing this out.

To get the ringtones on your Treo, you can copy them to an SD card, or put them in your file sync folder and sync your device (advanced users can navigate directly to the Rings directory on their device).  Then, navigate to the files using the File Explorer, tap and hold on the song, and choose “set as ringtone” from the pop-up menu.  This will copy the song to the ringtones directory.

Then, go to Start >> Settings >> Phone, and click the “set ringtones” link.  On the tones screen, choose the Phone event (known caller, unknown caller, etc) and then select the ringtone.

If you want to really go crazy, you can set different ringtones for each person in your contacts.  Once you get your tones in the Rings directory, open up your contacts, and find the person you want to set the ringtone for.  Scroll down in their contact entry, and you’ll see a “Ringtone” entry partway down the contact information (just under where you enter the mobile phone number).  This is a dropdown list containing everything in your Rings directory.

Just remember to turn of those phones when you’re in a movie, restaurant or at the symphony.  Please!

For more information on creating rongtones for your Treo 700w, visit http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/mobile/pocketpc/makeringtone.mspx

<update 2006–02–03>

If you don’t have a Treo 700w, no big deal.  Any SmartPhone or will work like this.  If you have a normal cellphone, you can probably still make your own ringtones.  All you need is a USB data cable to connect your phone to your computer (these are often available at the store where you got your phone, and almost always available online, just Google for the model of phone you have and you’ll find one), and the freeware BitPim to transfer the song to your phone.  There is a list of phones you can use with BitPim at http://www.bitpim.org/help/, and links to cables for the phones.  Make sure the data cable includes the USB drivers for your phone.  Use Audacity to cut out about a 30 second chunk of your favorite song, connect your phone to your computer using the data cable, and transfer the song chunk using BitPim.  BitPim will automatically put the ringtone into the proper folder, all you have to do is choose it.  I used to do this with my old LG-VX4500 and it worked like a charm.  Most phones can use MP3 or MID files as their ringtones, but if you’re having problems, just Google for your phone type and you should find some additional information.