They started out by introducing the team, and then they brought on a fictional team to destroy. Sure, the game was rigged, but it had to be, or they couldn’t get away with messing around so much. It definitely made it more fun though.

If they come to your city, I highly recommend getting tickets.

Side note, I went to one dealership, and told them my approximate price range. They showed me their pianos, but I didn’t like them. They then blamed it on my budget and said “You aren’t going to find anything that’s as good as you want for your budget. You should settle for a Kohler and Campbell and upgrade later.” He really acted as though I was being unreasonable.
That made me furious. I’d already found pianos that I liked, and that were in my budget (Brodmann, Pramberger and May Berlin). The dealer just didn’t stock those, and therefore criticized them.

After testing dozens of grands I ended up buying a Brodmann PE187 (6’2″) grand. It’s amazing. Finally, after spending two years without a piano, I now have one. Now I can practice again

This exact thing happened to me yesterday. At my company Christmas party I won a Playstation 3 in the raffle. Great I thought, I’ll just sell this on Craigslist. It’s worth $250 new (plus tax), so I put it up for $230. I thought it was reasonable, as it’s brand new, and Playstations have a fixed priced, and are rarely discounted.

So, here is the conversation when she calls me.
Buyer: “How much are you selling your PS3 for?”
Me: “It’s listed on the ad I placed.”
Buyer: “I know, but I don’t have that in front of me.”
Me: “Then where did you get my number from?”
Buyer “Um…..”
Me: “It’s $250″
Buyer: “I though you were only asking for $230″
Me: “Then why did you ask?”
Buyer: “Um….”
Me: “Do you want to buy it for $230, or not?”
Buyer: “Yes, I want it. Can we meet in an hour at X place?”
Me: “Yes, see you there.”

I then arrive, and we meet. I show her the Playstation, and she puts her hands in her pockets looking for money.

Buyer: “Um… I was wondering if you’d take $215 for it.”
Me: “No. We already agreed to a price. You can’t change it now.”
Buyer: “But I was just wondering if you would take less.”
Me: “No. We already agreed to $230.”
Buyer: “But I only have $215.”
Me: “We already agreed on the price, and you’re banking on me just caving and dropping the price because I already drove out here. I’m leaving.”
Buyer: “Oh wait, I think I have an extra $15 dollars.”

ARGH!!!!

Sure, I actually work in the tech field, so I’ve coded lots of websites, including multiple revisions of my own, along with my brother’s, and father’s, but I’m not what you’d call a real web designer. I just know how to hack some code together. I’ve never really studied HTML, PHP or other web languages, I usually just learn how to do what I want to do on the fly. It’s different when you don’t know how anything works on the web, or when you don’t have either a techy friend, or the money to pay someone to do it. I get that your average Joe Schmoe wouldn’t make the effort, but when you have an actual business that your family’s income depends on, having a website should not be optional.

I love it. Being a lover of Linux, open source, and most things Google, this is the perfect device. I was a longtime Android fan before joining HP, and it was something I missed over the last 18 months.. Sure, with Android there are so many devices coming out that soon this won’t be super high end, but right now it’s pretty much the best Android device available. It has a great screen (4.3″ 800×480), 1GB of RAM, and probably the best SoC available (similar overall to the A5. Better CPU, worse GPU). It uses a 1.2 Ghz dual core ARM A9 CPU with a 4 core ARM Mali GPU.

Sure, the new Galaxy Nexus will probably be a little nicer phone overall when it comes out next month, but mostly just because of the software and screen. The SoC (TI OMAP 4460) in the Galaxy Nexus is actually inferior to the Samsung Exynos 4210. I’m fairly certain that Google picked the TI OMAP as the Android 4.0 lead hardware because it would be fairer for other device manufacturers (especially their newly acquired Motorola Mobility). TI doesn’t make their own phones, so all their OMAP chips ship to other companies like Motorola and Nokia. Samsung will sell their chips to other companies, but the bulk of their chips go in their own devices.
Regardless of what may or may not come out in the future, I couldn’t be happier. My work approved and paid for the exact device I would have chosen for myself anyway! The only downside is that I had to switch from Verizon to AT&T to get it

It’s crazy, but in just the last two years this is my 7th smartphone (all company bought!).

At my last company I had an HTG G1. We then switched to Verizon and I got the original Droid. Then when I switched jobs to HP and got an HP windows mobile phone. Then, HP bought Palm, so I got a Palm Pre plus. Then They upgraded me to the Palm Pre 2. Then I requested to switch from Verizon to AT&T (so that I could use my phone in India), so I got an identical Palm Pre 2 for AT&T. And now finally, I upgraded to the Samsung Galaxy S2!
All’s Well That Ends Well

Salt Lake City to New York City JFK.
The person sat to my left was straight out of “A Beautiful Mind.” She had about 10 different newspapers, and she was highlighting words all over the place, drawing lines connecting letters, and copying down complete sentences while she studied for patterns. Then she started doing the same thing with a novel that she had (about Churchill during WWII). Talk about Crazy. Then she pulled out her white iPhone 4 and started sending an email (I know this because she was giving everyone around her a running commentary – She really thought she was a super spy, and for all I know, she probably thought she was emailing the president.). I glanced at her phone and she had 2500 unread emails…. (Yep she’s one of those). It was really painful trying to watch her type on the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard. She took about 4 seconds per letter.
Then I had a different guy on the right. He was one of those back packers. The kind that thinks he can tour the world with only the contents in his pack. So, he asked me where I was going, but it was obvious that the only reason he was asking was so that I would politely ask him the same question. His eyes lit up when I did. He told me he was travelling to New York to do race commentary. He explained that he was going to a mud race where he would hold a microphone and shout out commentary. It wasn’t televised, it wasn’t a big event, and it didn’t sound like there were even many spectators, so who knows why he’d be giving commentary.

New York City (JFK) to Paris (Charles de Gaulle)
We get on the flight, but the pilot announces that there’s a mechanical malfunction with the plane. We sit and wait on the tarmac while the mechanics come over and investigate. Since we’re stuck with no departure ETA, the old woman next to me decides to stand up and start doing yoga. She would deliberately do the more extravagant moves when she thought people were looking. I’m certain she wanted me to ask about it, but I ignored her. Unfortunately, the other woman (Woman B) on our row decided to to ask. Great! Now the whole row got a long speech about her super cool meditation techniques, and how easy to learn it was.

Unfortunately for all of us, woman B asked the worst followup question imaginable “Can you teach me?”  Just what I needed. Yoga woman’s eyes lit up. Fortunately/unfortunately, the pilot saved me by announcing that the issue required a part to be replaced and, not having it in stock, we’d all have to get off. The flight ended up being cancelled. Delta then gave us coupons for a Taxi and a Hotel (Hampton Inn) until the next day. Hey, there are worse places to be stuck for 24 hours than New York, right?
We walked to where you get a taxi and got it. He took us to the hotel and then refused to take the taxi coupon that Delta had given us. Brilliant. Luckily NY taxis now take credit cards. We arrived at the hotel and quickly got to our rooms. I turn on my laptop and try to connect to the internet. Their security page says that wifi is free for guests, and I just have to put my last name and room number to get online. It doesn’t work. I try to call the front desk, but the phone in my hotel doesn’t seem to work. I call the front desk from my mobile phone, and the woman says “It’s your fault, you must be entering the information in wrong” I politely tell her that I know how to spell my own name, and I’m pretty sure I typed 102 (my room number) in correctly. She then reads back how my name is in the system. “W-I-L-L-I-A-S-M-S. Seriously, who can’t spell my last name. It’s extremely common. Finally, she fixes is, and I get online. The next day we took a cab into the city and walked around. I ate swordfish at Union Square Cafe, which I highly recommend, looked around, and headed to the airport.

New York City (JFK) to Paris (Charles de Gaulle)  - 2nd attempt.
We arrive at the airport, and try to print the boarding pass. It gives an error saying that we must see a Delta employee. We do, and find out we’re apparently not scheduled on the flight. It’s obviously caused by the mix up of the cancelled flight. After an hour of arguing, and almost missing the flight, they agree to put us on it just minutes before it’s departure. They also upgrade us from Economy to Economy Comfort. Nice, right? We are the last to board, and take our seats. We were both sat on either side of a triple seat row at the front of the cabin, so we had a lot of space. A few minutes after I’ve sat down, a flight attendant asks me to return to my original seat. She basically thought I’d switched seats and given myself a free upgrade. After I finally understood what she was accusing me of, I showed my boarding pass and she left me alone. Two minutes later a guy comes up to the same flight attendant and asks to sit in between me and the other HP employee, as he’s stuck at the back of the plane next to a crying baby. Fortunately, the flight attendant was not the patient type, and blew him off.

Paris (Charles de Gaulle) to Bangalore, India
After a fairly uneventful flight, we arrive in Bangalore to find that Air France had lost our luggage.

We were given 100€ to buy new clothes. Being the genius that I am, I had no extra clothes aside from what I was already wearing. Luckily, we soon arrived that the hotel (at 2:30AM), where they provided me with some spare clothes and offered a laundry service. As luck would have it, our luggage was found and delivered to us on the last day of our trip.

The rest of the trip went well. I spent some of the time at the Bangalore HP office, and the last day touring the city (as it was festival day). Great food!

 Even though India is 11 ½ hours ahead of Utah, the jet lag actually wasn’t that bad.

In my case, I decided to get the Nook simple touch (pictured above on the left), B&N’s latest touch screen e-reader. It gets 2 months of battery life, and is extremely thin and light. As I’ve recently been travelling for work, I don’t want to take several books with me, nor do I want to read books on a colour tablet, as I may be unable to charge for long periods of time. The obvious choice was an e-ink e-reader. The nook’s clear competition is the Amazon Kindle. Up until recently, the Kindle wasn’t touch screen, and had a big keyboard taking up space. This has since been fixed with Amazon’s 2011 Kindle (pictured below).

It actually looks extremely similar to the new Nook. So why did I get the Nook? Quite simple really. EPUB support. EPUB is the official standard for ebook publishers. It’s supported by every publisher and, with the exception of the Kindle, every e-reader. Why would Amazon be the only e-reader not to support the official EPUB standard?. Well, for the same reason that Apple limits codec support on their products. They don’t want to sell you just the hardware. They want to sell you everything. If the Kindle supported EPUB, people would be able to purchase their books elsewhere. They’d be able to borrow, and download free ebooks without ever going to Amazon. It would be perfect for the customer, but at the expense of Amazon. I personally will not buy a product that restricts me in such a way. Apple does the same thing. If you buy an iPhone, you can only install apps that Apple approves of. With Android, you can install whatever you want, whether it’s in the official Android Market, or downloaded from some random website. It’s quite ironic really, because it was exactly this openness in Android that led Amazon to use it. Amazon Kindle devices use Android. They don’t pay anyone, they just use it because it’s free. They also offer their Amazon App Store for regular Android devices. I’m all for that, as competition is a great thing for everyone. The problem with Amazon’s method, is that while they’re repurposing Android for an e-reader, they’re also locking it down. So while an Android phone can use both Google and Amazon’s App Stores, an Amazon Fire tablet can only use Amazon’s App Store. Not cool Amazon, not cool.
So, while I commend Amazon for creating very reasonably priced hardware, they should play fair. I personally choose to only buy hardware that allows me to choose my own software. EPUB is far superior to mobipocket as a format and an official international standard. Buying an e-reader that doesn’t support it would be like buying a  music playing device that didn’t support MP3.

I went to SafeLite’s website, filled out my car’s make, model, year etc… and requested a callback with a quote.
Here’s a transcript of the phone call:

CSR: What kind of windshield replacement do you want?
Me: One that fits my car.
CSR: What car do you have?
Me: It should be in your system. I filled out the online form.
CSR: To look up your information, I need your phone number.
Me: You have it. You just called me.
CSR: Oh right, here it is. So, I see there are two different windscreens that fit your car.
CSR: A regular windshield, and a PAAS windshield. Which would you like?
Me: What’s the difference?
CSR: One of them is PAAS.
Me: What’s that?
CSR: Just a different model. Do you know if you have the regular or PAAS model in your car right now?
Me: You haven’t explained the difference, so how would I know? What’s the difference in price?
CSR: The PAAS is $150 more.
Me: Is it better?
CSR: It’s just different.
Me: Could you get someone on the phone that knows the difference?
CSR: Um… sure.
Me: Thanks
Supervisor: PAAS stands for Pre-Applied Adhesive System.
Me: So, that means it has a different adhesive?
Supervisor: Yes. In the event of an accident, if won’t fall out.
Me: So the cheaper windshield might just fall out?
Supervisor: I don’t know. Your car manufacturer would be able to better advise you on the differences.
Me:  I think I’ll look elsewhere. Thanks.

[Update]
I forgot to mention, they offered me a lifetime warranty.
Me: Does it cover rockchips?
CSR: No
Me: What does it cover?
CSR: Nothing caused by a collision.
Me: How about vandalism?
CSR: No.
Me: So basically it only covers if my windshield breaks by itself while sitting in my garage overnight?
CSR: Um…..

I have a special plan with Sprint. I got it through an employee referral, and I get several extra perks. One of those perks is for overages. If I go over my minutes, they charge me $5 for each additional block of 100 mins (rather than a rip-off 45 cents a minute). Because it’s so cheap to go over minutes, I don’t have to worry about it, and I can have a 500 minute/month plan. Then I’ll occasionally pay $5/$10 if I go over. Great deal, right? Better than needing to have a higher minutes plan just in case.

Here comes the problem. When I recently switched from the BlackBerry to the feature phone, they removed the overage feature without telling me. So, this month, we’d gone over 239 minutes. Rather than costing the usual $15, it cost $112.05 (at 45 cents /minute). Obviously I call sprint to complain.

Sprint CSR – We can’t do anything about it. It’s your fault, you went over minutes
Me – You can do something about it, and you will, as you changed my plan without telling me. I was expecting a $15 charge, not a $112 charge
Sprint CSR – hold please.
♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬
Sprint CSR – I’ve spoken to my supervisor, and the best I can do is credit you $15
Me – I don’t think so, I was charged $97 more than expected. I want to be refunded $97. Let me speak to your supervisor
Sprint CSR – Umm…. If you bother my supervisor he will probably cancel the $15 credit he promised you. You shouldn’t risk it.
Me – Are you threatening me?
Sprint CSR – Please hold while I transfer you to my supervisor
♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬
Sprint Supervisor – Are you unhappy with the $15 I offered you?
Me – Yes. I want to be refunded $97
Sprint Supervisor – The most I can do is $35
Me – I deserve $97.
Sprint Supervisor – Well, the most I could probably do is $45
Me – When I switched phones, I was not informed that it required a plan change that would remove my automatically added minutes.
Sprint Supervisor – I don’t think I understand
Me - It’s quite simple. You owe me $97 becau……
♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬♪♫♬ (yep, she put me on hold mid-sentence).
Sprint Supervisor – My manager has approved a one-time $97 credit. Have a nice day.