Andy Laub they call me "The Solution"

The other day Kottke pointed out this thing on MetaFilter that basically talks about quality of life and how it can be dramatically affected by some of the things we use every day.

I find the concept fascinating, and it hits close to home for me. When I reached a point where I became self-sustaining, I started to adopt the philosophy that if I’m going to buy something, I might as well do it right the first time. Otherwise I know that I’ll just regret it down the line, and eventually buy it again. Since then I’ve still found myself burnt on occasion, but that’s not what this post is about. Nope – I think it’s time for a good old-fashioned meme:

• I love my iPhone. I am convinced it is the best phone in existence for me. I realize this is not the case for everyone, but regardless, something you use every day should be something that works with you, not against.
• Intel Macs are phenomenal. I can’t see a reason to go with any other brand for day-to-day computing.
• Get the biggest, nicest, highest-resolution LCD you can afford. There’s no such thing as too much screen.
• High-speed internet should be obvious.
• One year I spent my tax return on a really nice office chair. It’s a Herman Miller Mirra, and it’s awesome. I can’t say that it’s the chair for everybody, but everybody should have a chair that is equally awesome for them.
• Dyson vacuums suck so hard. In a good way, though. Especially the ones with The Ball™.
• The filtered water from our GE Profile refrigerator is the best water I have ever tasted.
• If you’re into TV, then you should have some sort of DVR. We went with TiVo, and will probably be shopping for a TiVo HD shortly. But it’s so nice not to be chained to your TV (or worse, a VCR).
• On that note, Hulu and friends are awesome, but they’re even better when you can watch them on your TV. There are a ton of approaches to this, so whatever works for you. But the ability to lay on the couch and watch the internet go by is key.
• Finally, one of the best things about no longer living in an apartment is a garage. Especially in snow country – I think I cleaned my car off a total of 5 times last season, and I can live with that.

Those are a few that came to mind as I was vacuuming this evening (ha!). What do all y’all think?

This morning I opted for some McDonald’s breakfast as we’ve had coupons for free (!) chicken biscuits sitting on the table for a couple weeks now. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I’m all about the sausage patty when it comes to breakfast sandwiches, so we’ll see how this new contender can compare.

7:52 – Biscuit, hash brown, and medium Sprite are in front of me. I spent $2.51 on the group – a good value, considering the normal meal retails for $1 more and the biscuit alone is almost that much.

7:53 – Food has been debagged.

7:54 – First bite. Okay, I guess. Kind of sweet in the same way their chicken breast sandwiches are.

7:54 – No napkins were supplied. Good thing I have a supply at my desk.

7:55 – About halfway through the sandwich. I think the biscuit is the saving grace.

7:55 – Hash brown delicious as always.

7:56 – I would estimate this sandwich has about 3 bites left. But I take big bites.

7:56 – Chicken has toppled off of biscuit. I repeat: chicken has toppled off of biscuit. Why are breakfast sandwiches so delicate?

7:57 – Down to final bite.

7:57 – Sandwich eaten.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the breakfast details, but rest assured, if this sandwich had not been free, there’s no way it could dethrone the sausage (”king of breakfast meats”). But don’t feel bad. Chicken is still a shoe-in for 2/3 of the meals of the day.

The internet is a broken mousetrap.

We are the mice. Content is the cheese. Or maybe the desire to give our feedback on content is the cheese.

And just like mice, we often pursue that cheese without all the information and with a disregard for the repercussions.

Just one thing: mice learn. What if somebody fixes the mousetrap?

• The Acura RDX is interesting, but not interesting enough to get out of the car. Especially if you’re hungry.
• There is a Chipotle Grill near the Acura dealership in Bloomington. This is an exciting development, because it picked up what otherwise turned out to be an almost totally unproductive day.
• IKEA Minneapolis, I give up. You were temporarily oversold on not one, but both of the items I came there to buy. Last time we tried to buy a shelf you didn’t have any on the floor, and were unable to take them down from the overhead area before the next day. That’s… inconvenient to say the least. Word has it that 65% of your customer base is local, so this kind of service, while inconvenient, may be okay with them. But that leaves 35% of your customers that drive hours from other areas only to exit empty-handed. It seems as though you’re not familiar with inventory management, which is sad because even Wal-Mart is better at it than you.
• Marshall Field’s has officially transitioned to Macy’s, marking the 2nd name change for all the local stores in less than 5 years.
• If you plan on visiting the Genius Bar at the Apple Store, prepare to wait.
• The 24″ iMac is beyond ridiculous. Abe thought it looked blurry.
• The 17″ Macbook Pro has the same max resolution as my 20″ Apple display.
• We checked Verizon, T-Mobile, and Cingular. None of them had Blackberry cases.
• CompUSA had manager’s specials on video games and that’s why they’re my favorite store. And also why I own PGR 3.
• Circuit City has an overwhelming number of large TV’s. And they were playing the same Eagles concert DVD that they were last time we were there. In July.
• It’s lame when the band you came to Minneapolis to see cancels for “a band emergency.”
• Olive Garden breadsticks and soup are good. And better when combined. Like Voltron.

There’s a particular thought process that I slip into every so often, and it’s something I can remember doing for quite awhile now. It’s basically a variant of the “one of these things is not like the other” game straight out of Sesame Street and it’s something that helps me divert and concentrate my thoughts (albeit briefly) on a new challenge. I’ll find a group of three or more objects and try to find something that excludes each item. For example:

• Saab 9-3 5-door
• Ford Focus sedan
• Mazda 626 coupe

Using that as an example (because that’s exactly what I happened to be focused on today as I was leaving work), I can say that the Saab and the Ford both have 4 passenger doors; the Saab and the Mazda both have tail lights that extend onto the trunk/hatch, and the Mazda and Ford both have separate trunks. Basic? Of course, but it’s fun and simple, and expandable to as many items as you can focus on.

A little bit of history. Quite some time ago, before I moved to Wausau, Jim Carter (the dealership) sold Mazdas (and Chevrolets). Shortly before I moved here, or maybe it was after, Jim Carter disappeared and was replaced by Kocourek Chevrolet. Mazda evaporated, maybe because they didn’t have much to offer at the time, and so for at least 5 years Wausau has been Mazda-less in spite of its size.

Along the same line, Kocourek recently (in spring 06 or so) filled their import brand void by buying Wausau Imports (Nissan, Saab, Audi, and VW – easily my favorite for window shopping). In this new arrangement, Imports moved into what used to be the Saturn of Wausau dealership, conveniently located across from Kocourek. Saab, however, was moved to Kocourek’s GM building, presumably because of being part of GM.

In the meantime, Mazda was still nowhere to be found, until this week. Fred Mueller (GMC, Buick, and Pontiac) has added an import line to their arsenal with their new Mazda franchise. Like I said, a few years ago, Mazda didn’t bring much to the table. Now though, they have quite a lineup and I’m happy to see they’ve returned because I hated having to drive 40 minutes to look at them. Furthermore, the dude I talked to there (part of the Mueller family) was super nice and very enthusiastic about their new acquisition.

Overall, it’s been an interesting year for the car market in Wausau.

Dinner this evening took us down to Stevens Point and the Golden Corral buffet smorgasbord extravaganza. The food was admittedly quite good and there was an amazing selection, but the atmosphere was a whole other story.

The second you walk in the door you find yourself in line, waiting to pick up your tray, plates, and drinks. After looping back and forth several times, you finally accomplish this and are then escorted to a table that is, honestly, rather tight even for normal-sized people. While we were eating, another party was being seated and had to be moved because one of them couldn’t fit in the chair. Sadly, I imagine this is a common situation when you step back and look at the majority of their clientele.

As we alternated between consuming plate after plate of food, rushing to get more food, and making use of the “unlimited refills” beverage policy, more than one of us observed how the Golden Corral is a pretty accurate representation of the US: fat, crowded, and rushed.

This kind of environment makes It difficult to relax when compared to a “normal” restaurant. Everyone seems very focused on eating as much as they can in what can only be an effort to get the most out of the $9.95 entry fee. Except they’re so focused on eating they don’t take the time out to enjoy the food.

The most disturbing aspect was this nagging feeling as though we were animals being led into a feast and fattened up for some as yet undetermined finale. I’m not sure if that was their intent as far as atmosphere is concerned, but the name certainly fits.

Back when I was in high school, maybe freshman or sophomore year, we had to do these daily grammar exercises that involved a nearly incoherent sentence being projected on the board that we had to copy and correct. Most of the time this was an uneventful and simple task but there was one time that I was totally stumped. The sentence read something like this:

Noone said we were going to her party.

Obviously there’s not much wrong with that sentence; picture one with more errors. However, I just went ahead and glossed over the word “Noone” because I thought it was a girl’s name. To me she sounded kind of pushy and not like someone I’d want to be friends with, but whatevs. I had a whole back story in my head for her, how her parents were both hippies who choose the name Noone because that’s what time it was when they met while naked at Woodstock (the original Woodstock). To each his (or her) own.

Turns out it was no one. Yeah.

Anyway, wizard on a bike:

Enjoy.

As I loaded up Flickr the other day, I was thinking about how much money I’m spending on near-useless internet stuff. The pro account in Flickr is only marginally worth it, though now that I’m well past 200 photos I needed to spend the money so my initial uploadings didn’t disappear. It’s kind of like the mob, if you think about it that way…

On that note, I started to wonder if there was some way to have the benefits of Flickr pro (unlimited photos) without having to pay the full $25. I figure that the brunt of the cost is for a) hosting and b) bandwidth, and I wonder if Flickr could remain profitable by offering a third choice between the free and pro accounts. It could allow people with decent hosting (like me) to upload their photos to Flickr’s service still, but instead of living on Flickr’s servers they would live on the user’s, leaving us with only one hosting/bandwidth bill instead of two.

There are only two potential issues that I’m aware of. I could see Yahoo! being concerned at the loss of too many Flickr pro customers, and I don’t know how valid that is. It depends on what kind of hosting they have set up on the side, if any. The other concern is how much bandwidth my photos actually use on a monthly basis. I can’t imagine it’s a ton, judging by the number of views that are recorded, but who knows. That’s one argument to remain a full-on pro user for some of the more popular people.

I have second thoughts about this idea already, and I know that part of me is just wanting to stop spending so much damn money. Is this a valid idea?

Stuff that’s been happening:

Things I did buy

Clipless sandals. So much better than the shoes I have because there are no socks required. Considering if it’s not warm enough for me to be wearing sandals I’m not going to be going biking either, it all works out pretty well.

Also, some parts for a thing for my car.

Things I won’t buy

For the last two months I’ve been thinking pretty hard about getting a digital SLR camera, namely the Canon Digital Rebel XT. It came highly recommended from a number of people and I really think it’s a nice camera especially compared to the others in its price range. As a bonus there’s a hefty rebate going on through one of my favorite companies. That brings the price down to under $700 for the whole kit, and it comes in black:

But I don’t think I’m going to jump on it for a number of reasons. I don’t know that I’d really use it enough to justify the price, regardless of how affordable it is. I’ve also noticed that I’m not even taking my small camera with me everywhere (even though I should). And honestly, I know that if I really wanted it I’d already own it. So that’s delayed, for now. I’m still thinking a larger one would be nicer just because of how grainy everything is with this tiny lens.

Things I saw

Finally, Cars, like every Pixar film before it, was a great movie. I can’t often say this about movies I watch, but there was absolutely nothing I didn’t like about it.

Hey, remember last year (5-8-05) when I started seriously car-shopping? One of the very first cars I drove was a green 1995 Saab 900S 4-door with a manual transmission. Er… I should say that I tried to drive it, as I wasn’t so good with the clutching. Anyways, the dude was selling it because he bought a Subaru Forester.

The point of the story is, I happened to drive past his house yesterday, and what had replaced the Subaru? A midnight blue 2002 Saab 9-3 SE sedan. I laughed.

In incomplete record of recent chicken sangwich consumption, in order of preference.

1. Red Robin
2. Culver’s
3. Applebee’s
4. Buffalo Wild Wings
5. McDonald’s

Found this beauty on Craigslist Milwaukee:

2001 BMW 740iL XENON-NAV-XTRA CLEAN MILES 89800 – $6200
Leather Seats Cassette Player Sunroof CD Player
Passenger Airbag Driver Airbag Anti-Lock Brakes Side Airbags
Cruise Control Power Windows Air Conditioning Power Seats
Power Locks

Also included with the ad were a few pictures of a very, very nice example of the car. One little problem:

Yep, you guessed it. There’s no nav in this car. Too-low price (25% of what it should be) and inaccurate description? I smell a scam. Let’s continue.

I sent him an email, so as to leave no stone unturned (I’ve seen pricing mistakes before):

What is the correct price of this car?

Thanks,

Andy

That’s absolutely it. Furthermore I used one of my nameless gmail addresses so there was no connection to andylaub.com. His response?

Good day,

Thank you for your intention to buy my car.I tried to call you (1) but because of a thunder storm my phone is down.The thing is that I really hate to lose it but I must sell it and the part that I don`t like is that I need to sell it on the Internet.However this is the only way I can because, ,I am American, but I recently moved to London, U.K due to work and family,therefore I need a vehicle which complies with their specs here.I`m a fresh daddy I can’t find the time to drive the car anymore.I know that you will say it`s hard to complete a deal like this but my intentions are very straight and serious.I don`t have relatives anymore in the states so I had to bring it with me. (2) The car is still registered in USA and if I’ll sell it to an American it will be more easy for the both of us.I realize that the price is a little low but if I will try to sell it locally it will cost me a fortune to register and nobody will buy.I belive that this means good news for you because the car is in mint condition, no accident history,clear title,no dents or dings,no scratches and it has the original color!I want everything to be O.K. for everyone.I will take care of the shipping and handling because I understand that nobody will pay for it.I post it as being in US, just to avoid paying additional fees.Please mail me back if you think we can make a deal !!!

God Bless You…

Wow, that’s alot of writing, so I highlighted the important stuff:

1. OK. I never gave my phone number, so that’s… interesting. Maybe it was like that one episode of Family Guy where Stewie couldn’t remember the phone number and just started with 000-0000 and worked his way up. Then again, he didn’t have that thunderstorm to deal with.
2. And here we go. The car is in London. Explain how it’s more financially prudent to pay to have a car shipped with you overseas and then try to sell it back to someone in America instead of just listing it cheap before you move.
3. Finally, the nail in the coffin: The SCAM!!! listing. Yup, someone else was curious about the car as well, and (surprise!) was sent the exact same email. Hmmm.

Too bad. I really like those cars, though I’d take a 740i Sport over the long-wheelbase version any day.

Today’s weather: High of 61 degrees with a likelihood of an attack by those aliens from War of the Worlds. Low of 49.

Sprint

Yep, that Sprint. No question, I really do like them a lot, but I’m a little sad at the same time. About a month ago, they sent this to my published email address:

Hi Andy,

The Sprint Ambassador Team recently visited Andylaub.com and wants to invite you to participate in our Ambassador Program.

The Sprint Ambassador Program is all about exploring our latest products and services and allows you to give direct feedback to Sprint. We recently launched the Sprint Power Vision (SM) Network and want to provide you with the full experience, at no charge. Sprint Power Vision Network enables customers to download data at faster speeds and experience new data products.

So what’s the deal?

As a qualified participant, we will send you one Sprint Power Vision phone and provide you with six months of all-access service (at no charge). You’ll have access to the Sprint Music Store(SM) live TV broadcasts, gaming and more. Yes, you will also have unlimited free calling and data service. It’s a pretty good deal and all we ask for in return is your candid feedback (you decide how much and how often).

[ Registration information deleted ]

If you have questions regarding the registration process or the program, please email us at [ Email ]

We look forward to receiving your registration!

The Sprint Ambassador Team

I was really excited about this because it was totally out of the blue. Unfortunately, I didn’t qualify because I’m not in a metro area right now. Admittedly, it makes sense that they want people who actually have access to the service to test the service, though as a footnote, I was at Best Buy yesterday and was told that Wausau does indeed have the Power Vision service. Interesting, because according to the service map, they don’t.

I see no orange in Wausau. Image from Sprint.

I’ve been trying to figure out whether Power Vision phones are backwards compatible with regular PCS Vision, and I wonder if this is the case of the salespeople just being confused. They said they used their demo A900 (dreamboat!) to browse the web all the time, but what if that just means it can get on the regular Vision network and isn’t necessarily on Power Vision? Maybe I need to stop overanalyzing?

H & R Block

Just get your shit together and let me e-file my state returns. I’ve been waiting for 2 months now.

TiVo

Much to the chagrin of many, many TiVo enthusiasts, TiVo is raising their monthly fees (to include free boxes) and dropping their beloved lifetime subscription. I am a firm believer that a lifetime subscription (meaning you receive unlimited TiVo service for the life of your TiVo unit) is the only way to go. I know several people who’ve saved hundreds of dollars already by buying it outright.

If you are considering a TiVo, now is the time. Lifetime subscriptions are still available for all boxes purchased through tomorrow (according to TiVo’s sales department) so I recommend biting the bullet and just getting one. Otherwise there is eBay, which is a viable alternative because the subscription is attached to the box and not the user. However, we all know how eBay gets when it comes down to supply and demand, and I have a feeling that demand is going to be up there in this case.

Abe and I have been back and forth on the TiVo thing for nearly a year, so I guess instead of calling TiVo a bunch of jerks (which they are), we should thank them for finally giving us the kick in the ass we needed to just go and buy one. We picked up an 80-hour model yesterday at Best Buy. Total cost: $220 box + $300 service + $50 wireless adapter = $570.

PDF likes his shoes black and his socks blacker. My personal taste is not quite the same, nor are my buying habits. I would estimate at least 20 pairs accumulated in the last couple years alone. The best ones:

1. Ben Sherman Cheetah, white/red/navy
2. Converse Jack Purcell Slip-on, moss/dark chocolate tweed
3. Nike Free 5.0, yellow/black/green
4. Puma Mostro Classic L, white/black
5. Vans Classic Slip-on, black/red/denim

And some to acquire in the future:

1. Le Coq Sportif Race Metallic, white/navy/red
2. Nike Considered Tiempo, black/glacier blue/black
3. Nike Free Trainer 5.0, grey/black/white/green
4. Nike Shox Cog, silver/yellow/black/white
5. Puma Lab II, online lime/gold fusion/ white

My parents’ dog Honey.

In our building today…