Category Archives: Different

Stubborn Telemarketers…

Posted on April 19, 2008 | Comments Off on Stubborn Telemarketers…

When a Telemarketer calls (Despite my being on the F___ing DO NOT CALL LIST…) I try to be polite. The person on the other end is just trying to earn a living and likely not having a good time calling me up at home. I mean, Lets face it: Does anyone grow up and say “I want to be a Telemarketer Phone Operator!!”?

Usually the call goes something like this:
Telemarketer: “Hi! can I speak to the Man of the house??”
Me: “(sigh) Who’s calling?”
Telemarketer: “I’m Kevin and I’d like to speak to you about your Gas Grill!”
Me: “Hi Kevin, How’s it going today?”
Telemarketer: “Um, I’m good! I’d like to tell you how you can save money…”
Me: “Yeah, That’s great. Please remove my number from your list”
Telemarketer: “Um, OK..”
Me: “Great! Take care! Bye!”

They NEVER remove my number from their list.

That being said, I just got a call at 5:30pm today on Saturday that the gentleman just would NOT get off the phone. It’s rare that I have to hang up on someone, but I sure had to today. Despite saying two times that I’m not interested, and to remove my number from their list, he just kept going. After saying twice “I’m not at all interested” I just ended up with “OK, I’m hanging up now, bye“. I half expected him to call me back!

These calls have been increasing lately. The MOST annoying is the Automated “Heather in Account Services, calling re your credit card account” nonsense that has hit our answering machine 3 times this week alone. I’ve actually hit “1” and try to get the name of the company, but the best I get is “We’re From VISA!”. I’ve written about it back in January and I seriously think it’s a phishing scheme to get my Info and or credit card number.

I have wonder: Do people really give their Credit Card info over the phone to a stranger who calls? I’ve never been interested in anything people try to sell over the phone, but even if I was, I’d tell them to mail me something and I’ll send it back.

Music I’m listening to right Now:
“New Soul” by Yael Naim from the “Yael Naim” album. You can see the video on VH1.com here.

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Posted in Current Issues, Different, Rants

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Battlestar Galactica – The Ties That Bind

Posted on April 19, 2008 | Comments Off on Battlestar Galactica – The Ties That Bind

Episode 3 was interesting. I’ve always enjoyed the writing on the series (series that concentrate on effects and NOT the story don’t last) and the Final season is not disappointing. In this episode, not much happens with most of the crew, but lots of things happening in the background with the Cylons (all of them), Starbuck and the government. See spoilers after the break.

Also, you can see full episodes online at scifi.com here.

Music I’m listening to right Now:
“The Taste” by Five For Fighting from the “The Battle For Everything”

Continue reading →

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Posted in Cool Stuff, Different, TV

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The BBC Asks: “Innocent photographer or terrorist?”

Posted on April 17, 2008 | Comments Off on The BBC Asks: “Innocent photographer or terrorist?”

Saw this on reddit.com: “Innocent photographer or terrorist?”

The article has some scary stories of people being harassed by the police for taking public photos. (You need a license for the camera in the UK?!?)

This is a growing trend in many countries as well as here in the US: Treating Photographers as “suspicious” for just snapping photos. To make life more entertaining, The Metropolitan Police in UK has launched a campaign that has a poster with the text:

“THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE TAKE PHOTOS EVERY DAY. WHAT IF ONE OF THEM SEEMS ODD?“

Wow, a great Question! But What defines “ODD”? Am I “Odd” for taking a photo of an obscure Box with a Cable in Times square?
How about this one in the Subway at 34th st??
Or my personal favorite The Brooklyn Bridge ate night?

Surely I was up to no good when taking that photo, right? That campaign poster will likely generate hundreds of calls just when tourists take photos of National Landmarks at night.

At what point does vigilance become outright paranoia? I don’t think harassing photographers is going to make us any more secure. Mind you, I’m all for the Police doing their job (BTW After getting stopped on the sidewalk by both the NYPD and the Secret Service, I have to say, both were Very polite and professional) , but encouraging the public to be suspicious of Photographers is foolish.

Here in NYC, we have the “If You See Something, Say Something” program. I wonder when they’ll take the extra mile and encourage people to harass photographers such as myself?

Music I’m listening to right Now:
“Suspicious Minds” by Fine Young Cannibals from the “Fine Young Cannibals” Album. Seems appropriate.

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Posted in Current Issues, Different, Images

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Amusing Sony Advertisement

Posted on April 15, 2008 | Comments Off on Amusing Sony Advertisement

[pageview src=”//www.dailymotion.com/swf/x52y3b” frameborder=”0″ height=”339″ scrolling=”no” width=”100%”]
Saw this on Techeblog.com.

From Techeblog:

The world’s largest foam machine was custom-built for the shoot, and pumped out over 500,000 gallons of foam per minute. The commercial is for Sony’s cameras, and locals got Alpha DSLRs, Cyber-shots, and Handycams to shoot the experience

Looks like fun but I’m wondering how they cleaned up afterwards? I bet this is the same people who did the Bouncing Balls advertisement in San Francisco.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment.

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Posted in Cool Stuff, Different, Video

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“No videos on flickr!”?

Posted on April 10, 2008 | Comments Off on “No videos on flickr!”?


No videos on flickr!
Originally uploaded by AlbySpace

Seems to be a big issue to many people, but I’m not convinced that it is something to ditch flickr over. Other than expanding the potential user base, I’m not sure this is really a good idea for flickr as it is a Photography site, not a video site. At this time, the videos are limited to 90 seconds. While this may help stop copyright issues, I’m not looking forward to people adding videos to the groups I use.

I use flickr as a great site for Photography where I’ve met some great people and gotten lots of tips. Why would yahoo want to risk alienating an established user base?

Does flickr really want to become “YouTube”?? I hope not.

Nice image made by AlbySpace.

Update: Naturally, there is a flickr group or two. IMO, this is getting a little ridiculous, especially some of the threads being discussed.

Update: UGH. Someone made a domain called www.no-video-on-flickr.com
(sigh) This has officially become absurd.

Music I’m listening to right Now:
Nothing at the moment.

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Posted in Different, Rants

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Improv Everywhere: Best Game Ever

Posted on April 8, 2008 | Comments Off on Improv Everywhere: Best Game Ever

Improv Everywhere gave a Little league team the “Best. Game. Ever.”

They turned a little league baseball game in Hermosa Beach, California into a major league event complete with NBC Sports, Jumbotron, Player interviews, *and* the Good Year Blimp!

The video here:

Music I’m listening to right Now:
“Chasing Cars” by “Snow Patrol” from the “Eyes Open” Album. You can see the video here.

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Posted in Cool Stuff, Different, Video

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Apparently, I Do Take a lot of photos

Posted on April 3, 2008 | Comments Off on Apparently, I Do Take a lot of photos

Last night, while covering a Charity Poker tournament, I shot my 20,000th photo on my Nikon D80. I discovered this using a program I wrote in PERL to copy my image files from my SD cards to my PC. It puts a little summary at the end and extracts info from the image files EXIF info.

In this case, Nikon stores the shutter count in the image (That and other info effectively gives the image a serial number!) which I list in the summary. In this case, since getting my D80 on August 10th, 2006, I’ve taken 20,004 images. Granted, I don’t take as many as I used to, but I guess that is a lot.

#################################################
Camera Models found as per images:
NIKON D80
Camera Lens found as per images:
Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 EX DG Macro
Shuter count as per Images: 20,004
Copied: 213
Skiped: 0
#################################################

Music I’m listening to right Now:
“Big Bang Baby” by Stone Temple Pilots from the “Tiny Music…Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop” Album.

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Posted in Cool Stuff, Different, Images

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GW Bush’s First proposed monument?

Posted on April 3, 2008 | Comments Off on GW Bush’s First proposed monument?

sealweb.jpgI first saw this on SFist the other day and nearly laughed out loud. Basically, people want to “honor” President GW Bush by naming a public building after him. In this case, they want to rename the “Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility” to the “George W Bush Sewage Plant”.

As SFist says, Genius. I wonder if it will make the Ballot in California?

Music I’m listening to right Now:
“Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off” by Panic! At The Disco from the “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out” Album. You can see the video on vh1 here.

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Posted in Cool Stuff, Current Issues, Different, News

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Gardening time is here again

Posted on March 30, 2008 | Comments Off on Gardening time is here again

brocolli.jpgSpring is here so It’s time to prepare my vegetable garden again. With all the tasks at work (4 Projects Due at the same time *AND* late night calls 4 to 6 days a week…) I’m really looking forward to doing work that my wife and I can enjoy.

Also, for our garden, we’ve planted new mixed color peonies. That was a little amusing as my wife got the little shovel, put on gloves, dressed in old jeans in case it got dirty and then I did all the work.

She’s ready for a career in management…
😉

Music I’m listening to right Now:
“Beautiful Seed” by Corrinne May from her “Beautiful Seed” Album. You can see the video of her playing it live here.

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Ugh. Sen. Hillary Clinton is really close to losing my vote…

Posted on March 26, 2008 | Comments Off on Ugh. Sen. Hillary Clinton is really close to losing my vote…

Democratic PartyApparently, Sen. Hillary Clinton is jumping on the same band wagon the Radical Right wing is on.

I wonder: Has Sen. Clinton gone after Sen. McCain for his seeking of the endorsement John Hagee?

As Keith Olbermann pointed out, Sen. Clinton is NOT doing the Democratic Party any favors with her attacks and missteps.

Me, I’m not interested in her attack politics but rather what the NEXT president can do to solve the problems presented to us now. Her comments about Rev Jeremiah Wright comes at a time when her own credibility is under attack and, IMO, has the feel of desperation.

Slight Update: While out to lunch and discussing Sen. Obama’s appearance at work (And I Missed it!!!), my friend and I ran into a Sen. Clinton supporter. We were just discussing whether or not a lot of “experience” is needed and our Sen. Clinton supporter pointed out his opinion that Pennsylvania will sooner support Sen. McCain NOT support Sen. Obama. Mind you, this is his opinion and I hope he’s mistaken. IMHO, Sen. McCain is running as it he’d be a 3rd GW Bush term and I’d rather avoid that.

Music I’m listening to right Now:
“Stop And Stare” by One Republic from the “Dreaming Out Loud” Album. You can see the video here.

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