Category Archives: general

Just regular kinds of stuff that happened (that doesn’t fit in other categories).

$365 million dollars…

I can’t even imagine winning this much money. 15, 17, 43, 44 and 48, with a Powerball number of 29,It’s the biggest pay-out ever, $363 million was the highest before but that was two winning tickets. According to CNN.com ‘the cash option is $177.8 million, or $124.46 million after taxes. On the installment plan, over 30 years, the first payment would be $6,507,986 after taxes.’

As long as you you don’t blow it, it seems like you’d be better off taking the $124 million and earn the interest over the 30 years. Not even factoring in the compounding if you could get 5% a year return on $100 million you’d get $6 million a year, that’s pretty much the payment you’d be waiting for (if you did a little better on the interest it’d be a lot more). Over 30 years that’s $150 million more. Even if you didn’t get that interest rate you’d still get significantly more even at 3%.

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Aimee Mann part deux

Since Aimee Mann disappointed me the other week by canceling her concert. I thought I better speak up since things are now way better at my end. She’s rescheduled for tomorrow in Ann Arbor and I managed to get a seat in the front row!!! I’ll post a review later (hopefully with photos).

So if any one reading this is going, drop me a note and maybe we can say “hi” before or during or after or something…

Museum of Bizarre Discasters (Disc-asters)

This week in Circuits with David Pogue he’s interviewing Scott Gaidano president of Drive Savers (a hard drive recovery business):

This is our most famous computer: it’s a laptop that was rescued from the bottom of the Amazon River. A cruise ship hit an underwater barge, and sank down to the bottom. And the woman, an amateur diver, several days later, against all international law, broke in with a Maglight flashlight. Went down two flights of stairs underwater. Green, dark water. Found her stateroom. Remembered to bring her key, and rescued her laptop, and got it to Drive Savers. And we recovered all the data for her.

What makes that one extra interesting is that message came through while I was planning and trying to decide on the 3 or 4 day Nile cruise of my Egypt trip. Maybe just the 3 day (and I’ll back up all my data).

Woot off today!!!

So today Woot is having a Woot Off, this means instead of having one deal a day (at 1 am EST) they change the deal every time they run out of it (if they don’t run out, it only lasts 12 hours). A Woot-Off generally lasts 24-72 hours and happens once (or twice) a month. Sometimes these are refubs so pay attention (it’s listed up near the price, so you can’t miss it).

What’s this mean for you? Great deals all day long (as long as they keep selling out) for a few days. More about Woot.

I went to church today…

So I don’t consistently or the same place. Especially since it means I have to get up on Sunday early to go to the place I like best. Besides, I don’t like my organized religion too organized.

So we’re reading one of the the prayers out loud and there is a page turn in the middle of it. It’s something they print up with the hymns and readings of the day and a few things just happened to paginate badly. So I read it real quick to see if there are any differences (different churches use different versions) so I don’t actually have to turn the page in the middle of it and draw attention to myself. It’s one of those things everyone should know and I was just checking for variations and I’ve already set my booklet down. So we get to the part where it splits and I practically jump as everyone turns the page, it sounds like a flock of damn birds just took off.

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The worst napkins ever

Napkins are napkins, right? Sure some might be bigger or fluffier or prettier but they’re all generally the same. At least in my experience. I picked up some America’s Choice generic napkins the other day and every time I use them I cringe. They aren’t very absorbent and kinda non-porous. Their qualities reflect that of paper more than napkins. I could probably run these babies through my ink-jet printer except they might not absorb the ink.

Robert Heinlein says:

In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.

Robert Heinlein

For a science fiction writer, Robert Heinlein has a lot of great short quotes that have nothing to do with Sci-Fi.

Another HoroSpoke

I really love reading my HoroSpoke last time I talked about it, it was dead on. My HoroSpoke for this past week says:

My Virgos might be having it rough this week, but they always know how to handle shit very efficiently. So you were just dealt some unsettling news, so what? There isn’t a better person this could have happened to. You are already all over that mess and ready to move on. Things might be somewhat shitty for the next few weeks or so, but everyone knows you made the right move. Oh, and on a romantic note, I totally see that someone is going to propose to you, like, really fucking soon. Hot.

Haven’t had the unsettling news yet, but I’m looking forward to the proposition proposal.

Jenna at GirlSpoke does HoroSpokes every week.