Apathetic Thursday

If there is one thing I hate when traveling it is trying to find access to the Internet. It seems that no one offers free Internet for customers or visiters, but will gladly charge you hansomely for a few hours of access.

Recently, on a family vacation to the North Shore of Lake Superior, my domain name expired. I knew it was going to expire soon, but I thought I still had a few weeks because I had been ignoring the spam like emails that MyDomain was sending out every few days for the last two months. (Side note, I don’t see the point of renewing a domain name 60 days ahead of schedule, so stop bloody bugging me about it!)

Anyway, two days after my domain name expired I was in the town of Grand Marais, MN. Most of the town us covered by a BorealWireless service. (Which supplies wireless to most of the city, several busineses, and even their library.) Fortunately for me I found an open network called “NETGEAR” and was able to check my email on my iPod Touch. Even more fortunately, I actually read my email from MyDomains which told me I had an expired Domain. (Side note: I don’t trust them to hold onto my credit card info so the auto renew failed.) I was unable to renew my domain via my iPod, but I was able to call and renew my domain for another year.

Okay, so where am I going with this? This incident got me thinking. I don’t want to pay for an hours worth of time so I can spend 30 seconds checking my email to see if there is an emergency. What I would like to see happen can be described in two senarios:

(Mediocre solution) WiFi providers offer a 5 or 10 minute wireless plan for a small fee. Just enough time so you can check in on things. Then, if the need were to arise, the user could buy a longer block of time.

(Better solution) WiFi providers offer a limited 2 or 5 minute free period wherein the user may check in on things and decide if the need to purchase more online time.

Here is a novel idea, rather than charging people an exorbitant fee for a pathetic service, give customers something they are willing to pay for.

What is the best way to eat an Oreo cookie?

By the dozen.

What is your favorite ice cream topping?

Pie.

I stopped at the potion shop and bought some potions today. Almost ran out of Rupees. This batch should last me awhile though, I don’t fight as many boss battles as I use too.

xkcd

dive into mark

Although, I have to say, there isn’t much point to any of those fields, if you can’t communicate your findings/theories/knowledge to a future generation… (But I’m not good enough to do a comic of that…)

(EDIT: actually entered the photos, both for better user experience and a test with some other things I am working on.)

In the spirit of xkcd and something that may have been said in the lunch hall…

My Dad and I have been working on a collection of one liners for quite some time now. I just  came across the collection today and decided to post it up for critique. Let me know what you think, and if you come up with some good ones, please share them and I’ll add them to the list. (Be sure to leave an alias though, so I can give you credit.)

They told me…

They said I was persuasive, but I convinced them otherwise.
They told me I was a worrywart and it really bothered me.
They said I was paranoid they are probably out to get me.
They said I was a hypochondriac and it just made me sick.
They told me I couldn’t keep a secret and I just had to tell someone.
They told me I was proud, but I’d never admit to it.
They told me I was apathetic, but I didn’t care.
They told me I was gullible and I believed them.
They told me I was smart, but I knew that already.
They said I was stupid, but I didn’t understand.
They told me I was cool, so I shivered.
They told me I was clueless, but I didn’t know what they were talking about.
They said I was indecisive; I didn’t know what to think.
They told me I was a pyromaniac and I burned with anger.
They told me I was psychic ,but I knew they would say that.
They told me I was skeptical, but I’ not so sure.
They told me I was a dupas, Duh!
They told me I was preachy, which reminds me of a story…
They told me I was pessimistic, nothing good cam come from this.

I told them…

I told them I was regretful, but now I wish I hadn’t.
I told them I was wrong, but I was mistaken.
I told them I was subtle, but I don’t think they got it.

I’m sorting through photos today and ran across this one.

Snapped this photo the other day while out and about. Somehow this doesn’t quite seem to capture the spirit of the season…

Hot off the twitter feed, by John Gruber:

 I’d sooner attempt to fashion my own homebrew HDMI cable out of melted pennies and hollowed-out Slim Jims than pay $60 for one at Best Buy.

I just wish Best Buy would catch on that most of their potential customers feel this way.