CordellsMind

2010 Blockbusters

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:11:00 +0000

So now that 2010 has finally arrived what movies are the early favorites

1. Iron Man 2
Sure to be a crowd pleaser, fresh off the success of Sherlock Holmes the comeback of Robert D seems complete. If this movie goes well watch for "Thor", "Captain America" and "Avengers" to follow close behind.

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows....Part 1
Yes, that's right the final movie broken into 2 pieces. Warner Bros isn't stupid they know the HP series is the highest grossing movie franchise of all time so why not milk it a bit further.

3. Robin Hood
One more attempt at the epic tale, this time with Russell Crowe playing the lead and Ridley Scott directing. Am I the only person that liked Kevin Costner in both Robin Hood and Waterworld?

4. Tron: Legacy
Yet another remake, with this one not being out until late 2010. The Dec release of Avatar should help this Sci-Fi movie bring in the fans.

5. Shrek the 4th and Toy Story 3
Wow, is there no original movies anymore? These two kid movies are sure to do well, I know I will be taking my family.

6. Alice in Wonderland
Who doesn't love Johnny Depp raise your hand. I don't see many hands and with tim burton at the helm this will be unusual to say the least.

7. Inception
Finally an original story by Christopher Nolan. Is he becoming the next James Cameron? Nolan is best known for Momento, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. I am excited to see what this sci-fi thriller turns out to be. I am posting the trailer here for those who haven't heard of this yet.

Woo Hoo Summer's Here

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:56:00 +0000

UPDATE:

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

As always I need to update my summer movie prediction page with the final totals for 2009

Rank	Title	Gross	My Pred
1	Transformers:	$402	4th
2	Harry Potter 5	$302	3rd
3	Up	$293	1st
4	Twilight 2	$284	N/A
5	The Hangover	$277	N/A
6	Avatar	$269	6th
7	Star Trek	$258	2nd
8	Monsters Vs. Aliens	$198	N/A
9	Ice Age 3	$196	N/A
10	The Blind Side	$193	N/A

Well, looks like I was close on a few and totally missed the mark on the Twilight movie.

I'm glad to see Transformers go out on top but I think Avatar may beat it, judging by the pace it's setting.

Can't wait for next year

******
As many of you know summer for me kicks off in May with the start of the movie season.
So, if you were paying attention you probably noticed that I hadn't wrote about the 09 summer movie season yet? Well without further ado I bring you my

Top 5 movies of 2009

UP
Ok, not that one but I would go see that too.
Real trailer, UP in case you live in a cave, in which case I wonder whose internet you are stealing

Ahh, Disney & Pixar the perfect relationship. There's absolutely no reason to think this movie won't take in buckets of money. Once again John Ratzenberger will provide his voice for the movie, being the only person to have a role every Pixar movie.

If you doubt the success, Pixar movies have grossed $4.8 Billion and won 30 Academy Awards. I think they have the formula figured out.

Star Trek
Well, originally this was #4 in my list but after seeing it last weekend, I am moving it up. Yeah, I know that's cheating but I don't care. This was one amazing movie. Best Sci Fi movie since Revenge of the Sith in my opinion and some people didn't even like that one. JJ Abrams truly has a gift for directing and I can't wait to see his next project.

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 95% rating, that hasn't happened to a sci fi movie since The Truman Show(98), or Terminator II(91) for a true action sci-fi movie.

Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince
Really? Harry Potter? Aren't people sick of this franchise yet?
Well, how about this little fact. As of Nov 2008, the Harry Potter film franchise is the second highest grossing film franchise of all time, with the five films released so far grossing $4.48 billion worldwide. Without adjusting for inflation, this is slightly behind the 22 James Bond movies and the 6 Star Wars movies.

This movie has been complete for months, originally scheduled for fall 2008 but after the huge success of Dark Knight Warner Bros. executive Alan Horn noted that the move went ahead "to guarantee the studio a major summer blockbuster in 2009"

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
In 2007 the first Transformers movie was #3 taking in $319 million, with Harry Potter close behind at $292 million. This time I think it will be the other way around with Emma Watson unfortunately edging out my girlfriend Megan Fox. Just seeing if anyone is reading this.

This one is bigger, badder with an even more obscene budget.

Night at the Museum 2
I'm going out on a bit of a limb here putting this at #4 but the first one made $250 million and there is a smaller batch of "family" movies this summer to choose from. I guess Hollywood expects everyone to take their kids to X-Men or Terminator. My kids happen to love the first one, watching it about once a week.

With almost all of the cast returning this looks to be a fairly entertaining sequel.

Honorable Mention

The Princess and the Frog and Avatar are both coming out in December but it will be too late to make a run at the top 5 but if I know Jim Cameron I predict Avatar will break $250 million before Valentine's Day

Have a great summer everyone

Project 10 ^100 Please Vote for the Best Idea

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:56:00 +0000

Hello fellow readers. I haven't posted for a while since Facebook has basically been my replacement for blogging but I thought this was worth a post.

A year ago Google came out with this idea called

Project 10¹⁰⁰

It's basically a collaboration of ideas across the world. Google has compiled and condensed this list into the 16 best ideas and they are letting the general public vote for the best one.

Some great ideas. Even if this doesn't result in any action I think the simple act of bringing awareness to this type of Project is a great step toward becoming Borg

Please stop sucking me dry!

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:46:00 +0000

565K new jobless claims, lowest level since Jan.

"Continuing claims, meanwhile, unexpectedly jumped to a record-high. While layoffs are slowing, unemployed workers are having a difficult time finding new jobs."

Ok, I understand there are people out of work. I also understand it can take a while to find a job. In fact I have several friends that have been looking for months, and by looking I mean flying all over the country for interviews.

However, just yesterday I heard another example on the radio of people that are actually enjoying the extended unemployment benefits and don't really care when they find a job.

Are we simply making the problem worse by offering so many advantages and programs for everyone to enjoy?

If you haven't used very many government programs do you start to feel "cheated"?

To me it feels like there is a lower and lower sense of urgency as the economic situation gets worse and worse. It's almost a feeling of entitlement.

"Ohh, not to worry I don't need a job right away, the government will help me out"

This topic can snowball into the much larger social security topic but I will save that for another day.

Is Blogging Dead?

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:34:00 +0000

So, judging from my personal blogging habits and online observations Facebook and Twitter definitely seem to be taking the place of daily blogging.

I ran across a great article and I thought I would post it as somewhat of a transition to TwitBook

Blogging Is Over With

Analysis: Online trend chronicler says blogging "feels old" -- says he's moving from a blog to a "lifestream."

It's hard to remember that blogging was once deemed faster, less formal and often shorter than typical online prose.

These days, the online experience is often about Facebook updates and 140-character Tweets. More stream of consciousness, fewer essays with links.

Google Killer?

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:37:00 +0000

So, there has been some buzz lately about the next big thing, Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha LLC announced Monday the general availability of Wolfram|Alpha, a "computational knowledge engine" available on the Web that shares code with Mathematica, Wolfram Research's renowned technical computing software.

I've been following this a bit myself and I think it will take a very big leap to topple Google, and an even larger leap to replace it as my home page. That being said, it may have some future advantages over Wikipedia. I would love to have a bit more organization in the data on Wikipedia. Inevitably I do find what I'm looking for but sometimes it's in no logical order and 3 pages deep. Google gives me too many results and Wikipedia makes me work to find it.

The next big leap will be the one that can almost anticipate what you are looking for and then bubble those results to the top. Here's an example of where I hope technology is going.

The iPhone has an app called Shazam where you can simply hold the phone up and it will identify the song it hears, let you buy it, share it and watch the video. Damn cool if you ask me and almost reason enough for me to buy one.

How does this relate to online search software?

Well, I would like a similar experience when finding information.

1. Take me to the facts
2. Bring up recent news items
3. Find related youtube videos
4. Find related products to buy from places like Amazon

For example, let's say someone just told you how cool "Angels and Demons" is so you search on it and...

Hey look at that, through a Google search;

First link is the official site
Wikipedia page
YouTube video trailer
links to Books.google.com and Amazon.com
and even a news article on how this movie will damage the Catholic church

Good luck finding anything better than that, I don't anticipate my home page changing anytime soon, no matter how great a few people say something is.

Hat Tip: Bex

Google Does It Again

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Mon, 11 May 2009 02:26:00 +0000

Never ceases to amaze me when something new shows up on Google.

So type in your favorite team followed by schedule and BAM! the current game stats show up.

How cool is that?

My Own Version of the Bucket List

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:35:00 +0000

So my friend Bex recently wrote about his Bucket List and since my big Four Zero is only a few days away I thought I would share my modified version.

Instead of listing accomplishments I would like to do before I die my list consists of things I have never done and want to keep it that way.

1. Break a bone, yes I even made it through the skateboarding and skiing years

2. Take any illegal drugs, I'm not trying to be a prude and I'm sure I'm missing out on something amazing but people that know me already assume I'm high as a kite.

3. Go to jail, I've visited but always from the outside

4. File for Bankruptcy, not quite as uncommon lately

5. Foreclose on my house, see #4

6. Get divorced for the 2nd time, done it once don't need to repeat it for the experience.

7. Get bit by anything requiring medical attention, snakes, bears, ROUSes

8. Eat Lutefisk, see #6

9. Own a riding lawnmower or snowblower

10. Have a gym membership, see #9

Friday video

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:27:00 +0000

Ever have one of those songs that you need the interweb just to know what the heck the lyrics are?

Well, in the case of Pearl Jam's Yellow Ledbetter, there are no official lyrics so people make up their own.

Google Grand Central

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:16:00 +0000

EDIT: Lookie what I got in My Mailbox today

Hello GrandCentral User,

We are happy to announce that GrandCentral has been upgraded and is relaunching as Google Voice. While not yet open to the public, we wanted to give you, our GrandCentral users, the first opportunity to start using Google Voice.

In addition to the GrandCentral features you already know, we've added voicemail transcription, SMS support, conference calling, Goog411, enhanced spam protection and low-priced international calling. We have also integrated GrandCentral with your Google Account and your Google Contacts list.

To upgrade your account to Google Voice, just log in to your GrandCentral account and follow the directions at the top of your inbox. Upon upgrading, your GrandCentral number, PIN, and forwarding phones will be moved to Google Voice.

Note that since Google Voice uses the Google address book, your GrandCentral contacts will not be imported automatically. You can import your GrandCentral address book with these instructions. You will also need to recreate any individual/group settings and greetings.

After you upgrade, all your new voicemails will be accessible at Google Voice, while all prior messages will remain available at GrandCentral.

Thanks for being a great GrandCentral user and we hope you enjoy Google Voice!

Original Post:

Ok, for all those that read this blog hoping to get in touch with your techie side I bring you another amazingly cool Google feature.

Grand Central

Excerpts from the FAQ;

GrandCentral is joining Google. We're excited about this. Being part of Google will helps us make our vision of improved voice communications one step closer to reality and bring innovative communications services to millions of users around the world. This will also ensure that your GrandCentral number is here for the long run, and that no matter how often you move, change jobs or phone providers, everyone can still reach you through the same phone number.

We have put together below a quick Q&A about the acquisition, but as always, we encourage our users to leave us some feedback through the feedback button above.

Craig Walker & Vincent Paquet, GrandCentral Founders

Background

Q: What is GrandCentral?

A: Based in Fremont, California, GrandCentral provides an innovative web-based voice communications platform that helps you manage all your phones and phone numbers through one simple interface. You get a single phone number that forwards to all of your phones, giving you one number for life.

OK in case you just missed that.

You get a single phone number that forwards to all of your phones, giving you one number for life.

That's right, one phone number in the area code of your choice that will automatically forward calls to a preferred list of numbers you choose.

I had a beta invitation and decided to try it out and I was immediately impressed.

You can check voice mail online, setup custom greetings, choose a routing preference. All for FREE (at least for now) I would imagine the service will cost the end users something eventually but who knows as long as Google continues to grow it may remain FREE forever.

Credit to Chris C for turning me on to this feature.

Please Stop Trying to Steal My Money

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:12:00 +0000

Lately it seems like everyone is stooping to new lows to try and gain headway in the current economic climate. I'm finally completely pissed off enough to actually write about it.

Here are a few examples in random order.

1. Recently my son had to visit the Mayo Clinic for some sleep issues he was having. First he visited our family Dr. who referred us over to Mayo. Since we were making the trip to Rochester we thought we would cover a few things at once so we called for an appt with an allergist as well. We specifically asked the Mayo appt desk if we needed another referral for this and they said "No"
A few weeks go by and we get a bill from Mayo for $1300 stating "outside of network"
Of course we filed the official appeal paperwork with United Healthcare and their response was.
"After further review this is still not covered"

2. About two years ago I made the mistake of selling some stock options. Why is that a mistake you might ask? Well, the company that exercised the options added the profit I made from stock sale amount to my W-2 and lumped it in with my normal income, no big deal. So when I filed my taxes I reported my total income from box 1 which included the stock sale amount. However, when the submitted 1099-B goes to the IRS from the company exercising the sale they report the actual sale amount not just the profit amount. Well, without any cost basis the IRS assumes you bought the stock for $0.0 and sold it for $X.X. This lead to an audit and the IRS sending me a bill for $7,000. Now what burns me so much about this is not that they sent me a bill but that clearly they already had my profit amount on my W-2 in box 12. They simply had to subtract the amount submitted on the 1099-B from the W-2 and bang done. Now I have to jump through hoops to submit an amended return and tell them I didn't buy the stock for $0.0 *sigh*

3. This summer we had a family reunion planned in Colorado and made reservations at a time share but due to the economic downturn very few people were going to make it so it was canceled. We were told up front that the cancellation fee was $100. Ok, I can live with that, we knew in advance what the policy was. A couple weeks go by and I get my credit card bill and there is a charge for $194 from the same time share company. WTF?
I call them and send them a letter and they are in process of charging me the correct amount.

4. My wife had a "pay as you go" cell phone about a year ago. There was a website where you could "top up" the phone when it ran low, you just had to deposit a minimum every 3 months. Once again, I check my charges to my credit card and out of the blue here is a charge for $39 from this cell phone company. I call them up and ask them and they say "I don't know how that happened"

5. I usually pay all my bills through auto pay through my bank account. I setup certain days of the month to pay certain bills and usually the process flows nicely. Well, without warning one of the companies I have setup to pay on the 15th of each month changes the due date to the 14th of the month. Seriously, WTF? So, the auto payment goes through as normal and of course the payment is stamped as "late" with a nice $39 late fee on the bill.

*sigh*

I have completely lost faith in anyone even remotely trying to be kind and understanding not to mention ethical. Unless you throw a complete fit and write letters and call people everyone tries to take advantage. Add to this all the actual "crooks" and you constantly have to be on high alert. I just don't want to live like that, always checking and questioning everything. I guess I could try to go completely "cash only" but that still wouldn't stop things like insurance companies denying claims or the IRS expecting you to know all the tax laws.

RIP College Computer Lab

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:40:00 +0000

A friend recently sent me an article about the eventual closing of many college computer labs around the country mostly because of the extensive personal computer ownership of college freshman. The main part of the article is below.

It's very exciting and very sad to watch technology evolve over the years.

It's directly because of all my time spent in two different computer labs that I chose the career that I have now. I worked in two separate labs through my 7 years of college. My love for teaching actually started in my home town community college computer lab. One week the instructor was gone so the head of the department asked if I could help out. It was an AppleWorks class on the Apple II e.

RIP the Campus Computer Lab, 1960-2009

Posted by kdawson on Saturday March 28, @05:03PM
from the passing-of-an-era dept.

theodp writes "When every student has a laptop, why run computer labs? That's a question schools have been asking themselves as computer ownership rates among incoming freshmen routinely top 90%. After only four freshmen showed up at the University of Virginia in 2007 without a computer of their own, the school decided that it's no longer worth the expense of running campus computer labs. Student computer labs have been a staple of campus life since the '60s. So what are the benefits that will be missed as other schools follow UVa's lead?" The university's report notes understanding that "that students need collaborative space where they can bring their laptops and mobile devices to conduct group work, especially as the curriculum becomes increasingly team- and project-based." One of the spaces formerly occupied by computer labs "has been transformed into a technology-rich collaboration area."

My $1,000,000 idea

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:46:00 +0000

So, do you ever have one of those ideas that you just know is so cool but you lack the motivation to do anything with it, and then out of the blue some months/years later you see your idea as reality?

Well, about 5 years ago when RFID was in the news I had this idea of a way to track all the stuff in my house. Basically my idea was to install RFID tags in anything that I wanted to inventory and needed to find quickly.

Car keys
Glasses
Wallet
Cat

Basically anything that seems to get misplaced often enough to warrant tracking.

Then with a simple RFID console I would quickly "lookup" the item in question.

Well similar ideas using wireless transmitters are now becoming household items.

It's just a matter of time before we can find other common household items with much smaller tracking devices.

My life as a Head Banger

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:33:00 +0000

So, I have a new "project" which is probably way more difficult than I assume it will be.

I'm going to start digitizing my life. It's similar to Digital Scrapbooking just a lot less cool and creative.

I thought I would start with some old concert ticket stubs since many of them are fading quite rapidly.

Since I wanted to stick to one picture there are a handful of concerts I either left out, couldn't remember or lost the stubs.

Here is the chronological list up to 1998, which I assume is the point where I stopped thinking I was cool for seeing Poison 3 times and just threw away the stubs.

3/15/1986 Kiss
12/11/1987 Whitesnake
12/5/1988 Poison
5/28/1989 Bad Company
7/12/1989 Cinderella
3/11/1990 Motley Crue
5/27/1990 Kiss
12/9/1990 Poison
2/27/1991 Damn Yankees
6/2/1991 Warrant
12/3/1991 Rush
6/10/1992 Genesis
5/23/1993 Paul McCartney
4/8/1994 Rush
9/20/1996 Dave Mathews
12/2/1996 Hootie and Blowfish
5/24/1997 Edgefest
8/31/1997 Counting Crows
12/31/1997 Garth Brooks
11/25/1998 Lita Ford

How come I don't feel stimulated?

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:47:00 +0000

So, I'm sure by now you have heard about the latest in Economic Stimulus plans but I can't help but outline a recent quote.

"Poor people just spend money faster, because they're really living at the edge,"

Call me callous but I'm ready for the Age old Eskimo tradition.

Granted, my outlook would probably be vastly different if I were on the other side of the fence but I like to think my decisions have allowed me the advantages of staying with the herd.

Did Eskimos really put their elderly out on the ice to die during tough times?

Yes, in the past some Eskimos did kill old people when circumstances were sufficiently desperate.

Where it was practiced, senilicide was rare except during famines. As long as there was enough food to go around, everyone got their share, including the relatively unproductive. Given that the usual diet consisted of fairly dependable catches of caribou, fish, and sea mammals, many years could pass between episodes of scarcity.

On the other hand, when food did run short, the old and sick were looked upon as drains on the community's resources. Sometimes they were killed - thrown into the sea, buried alive, locked out in the cold, or starved to death. Far more commonly they were simply abandoned to die. The victim might be taken out in the wilderness and left there, or the whole village might pick up and move away while the old person slept. If the villagers were unexpectedly restored to prosperity, they might go back to rescue those left behind. An abandoned person would also be welcomed back as a full member of the community if he could manage to make his way back to the village on his own. But usually he couldn't.

Ok, I can fully support that last sentence but please stop the bleeding.

Food stamps, tax breaks for poor in stimulus bill

More than 37 million Americans live in poverty, and the vast majority of them are in line for extra help under the giant stimulus package coming out of Congress. Millions more could be kept from slipping into poverty by the economic lifeline.

People who get food stamps — 30 million and growing — will get more. People drawing unemployment checks — 4.8 million and growing — would get an extra $25, and keep those checks coming longer. People who get Supplemental Security Income — 7 million poor Americans who are elderly, blind or disabled — would get one-time extra payments of $250.

Many low-income Americans also are likely to benefit from a trifecta of tax credits: expansions to the existing Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, and a new refundable tax credit for workers. Taken together, the three credits are expected to keep more than 2 million Americans from falling into poverty, including more than 800,000 children, according to the private Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The package also includes $3 billion emergency fund to provide temporary assistance to needy families.

There are other, more indirect ways that the stimulus package is likely to benefit poor people.

For example, cash-strapped states will get an infusion of $87 billion for Medicaid, the government health program for poor people, and that should help them avoid cutting off benefits to the needy. In addition, more federal dollars will flow to high-poverty areas for education programs and preventing homelessness.

Advocates for the poor say that directing stimulus money to the neediest Americans makes sense because they're the most likely to put cash back into the economy quickly.

"Poor people just spend money faster, because they're really living at the edge," said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a senior policy analyst at the private Center for Law and Social Policy.

AI Needs a Makeover

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:20:00 +0000

Feb 20, 2009 EDIT 2

So obviously the producers may have listened to the fans but this sure feels like a campaign to me. I can understand some back stories but selling someone as the "savior" please.

here's a snippet taken from this article

All right, all right. In all seriousness, it's not Danny Gokey's fault that Ken Warwick & Co. love him more than Ford, Coca-Cola, and AT&T combined. But it's been absolutely bizarre watching the Idol Machine's early and overzealous campaign on behalf of a contestant who'd most likely have cracked the top 12 without the added help. And what's worse is that said campaigning is being done at the expense of both the show's integrity and dramatic resonance.

WOW, they really need to tone down the "we have you all wrapped up to make records for us"

It is because of this over dramatic "Selling" of certain contestants that I admire Taylor Hicks.

"Taylor who?" You know the Soul Patrol dude that refused to be involved in any tours or anything connected to the show and now he's all but gone the way of Ruben Studdard, but at least he didn't use the death of a family member to sell himself to the world.

He knew he coasted on the popularity vote and that he wasn't actually the best singer.

Jan 13, 2009 EDIT:

Ok, after watching the first episode of the new season, you can tell the producers listened to the critics and the fans.

In fact, there is a great article about the changes for the new season.

I will summarize for those short on time.

1. Fewer Trainwrecks - less "She Bangs, She Bangs" and more "A Moment Like This"

2. Character Development - Eeek, here come the tearful backstories

3. Wild Card Round - Ohh ohh, it's back, the judges pick 3 of the final 12

4. Goodbye affirmitive action, hello hotties! The top 12 won't necessarily be gender equal

5. New Judge - Welcome Kara DioGuardi - is this the beginning of the end for Paula?

6. About time - Finally the Wed results will only be 30 minutes

So far, I like the proposed changes, but we will see if it actually makes the show any better.

Ok, I'm a reality TV junkie, I admit it. I'm probably the only person that records both Girlicious and Ultimate Fighter.

Never have I been less interested however, than this year's American Idol.

Sure, it's still #1 in the ratings. Of course, it's still fun making fun of Paula (I'm smashed out of my mind) Abdul but they need some help.

Coincidentally a collegue and I were discussing this at lunch and she pointed me to a great article by Mark Harris from EW.com

The link to the full article is above but he had 7 really good points I thought I would share for anyone that is as bored as I am.

1. Tone down the product placement.
Tell Ford and Coke that if they want to buy an ad, they can buy an ad. Not redecorate the red room with bottle silhouettes, and not drag the contestants through another cruddy commercial while all lyric-botching evidence implies they should be rehearsing. American Idol is still TV's top show; would the whole enterprise really cave in if Fox stopped treating it like a QVC infomercial?

2. Devise a dignified exit strategy for Paula and Randy.
It's time. His autopilot appraisals — ''It was just all right for me,'' ''You worked it out,'' ''You did your thing'' — constitute as slothful a dereliction of duty as her inability to...well, I suddenly forgot my thoughts about Paula, but you look beautiful tonight, and you are always...so connected to the specialness that is...what you bring to you. (Cue applause. And call 911!) Yes, their portrayals of themselves are very convincing. (They're acting, right?) But no tears, since they both have enough money to keep themselves in bling and small dogs until the rapture. Now how about two judges who can listen to the contestants sing and offer quick, sharp critiques? No whining that it's hard — we all do it at home every week. Oh, and ban the judges from dress rehearsals. They should form their opinions at the same time we do.

3. Pick fewer — and fresher — ''mentors.''
Dolly Parton rules, but did so many of this season's greats have to be older than Dumbledore? When American Idol becomes about sixtysomethings coaching teenagers on how to sing ''Cracklin' Rosie,'' a rather large swath of pop-music history is being ignored. Conversely, more challenging, inventively themed hours might yield some surprises — after all, Kelly Clarkson, the Meryl Streep of Idol, broke through on Big Band Night, and Fantasia Barrino essentially won by shattering the show's formula with ''Summertime.'' Similar changeups might reward competitors who like to explore music, not just make pretty sounds. Speaking of which...

4. Raise the minimum contestant age to 18.
It's never fun to see a stage kid's deer-in-the-headlights look (remember Kevin ''Chicken Little'' Covais?). David Archuleta has a beautiful voice, but rarely has a talented singer been less fun to watch; too young to make (and too timid to explain) his own choices, he looks like a kid quaking outside the principal's office every time he's judged. In a few years, he'll be a better singer with more to say for himself; meanwhile, the High School Musical vibe around him panders to the speed-texting teen demographic at the expense of everyone else. Oh, damn it, did I just write something mean about David Archuleta? America, flag, God, freedom, the troops! I hope I won you back, because I have three points left.

5. Stop the medley madness!
If Idol is meant to create future pop stars, it's time to rethink those elimination-night up-with-people medleys. We know you have an hour to fill, so how about filling it by revealing the actual vote totals, from top to bottom? Producers claim this would ruin the suspense (because right now, NOBODY SUSPECTS the two Davids have been getting a lot of votes); on the contrary, being able to track the progress of your favorite might energize the constituencies of some middle- or bottom-dwelling singers. In any case, those Brady Bunch Variety Hourgroup sing-alongs are credibility grenades tossed at the winner's future career. Sex tapes on TMZ are less mortifying.

6. The Delta Sigma Bimbo hand-waving mosh pit must go. Forever.

7. Less talking, more singing.
Why are song performances only 90 seconds? Are you looking for someone who can actually sing, or just a pretty robot who can race to an unmotivated money-note climax in record time?

Now personally I would add

8. More Hot Girls
Why on earth would I watch the battle of the David's? Battle of the Cindy's on the other hand...

Let me Google That For You

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:51:00 +0000

My friend Betty showed me this cool new service and Bex's latest post inspired me to write about it here. In his post he says this:

"People usually don't want to know the answer, people usually want to know who knows the answer....
In general, people don't really want the information they are looking for; they just want to do their jobs."

Interesting, I took this one step further and put those two lines together.

In general people don't really want the information nor do they really want to do their jobs, they just want to know who will do their job for them and still collect a paycheck.

Having someone else tell you the answer still gets YOU the answer, as sad as that is.

Therefore, the next time someone asks you a question and you eventually find the answer on the web, instead of giving them the answer or the sending them the link, send them the link from the service below.

Here's an example

"Hey Cordell, how many pints are there in a gallon?"

"Hey Bob here's your answer"
LINK

Click the image below to try it out yourself.

OMG Happy Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:43:00 +0000

Ok, don't ask just stick around for the solo that starts at 3:40, it's worth it

Why do we still have the Penny?

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:12:00 +0000

I was sorting through a big pile of change I had and I kept wondering why do we still have the penny?

If you are still a fan of the penny maybe you should read this

Citizens for Retiring the Penny

The penny no longer facilitates commerce

Inflation has eaten away at the value of the penny to such a degree that it no longer facilitates commerce. The fact that the penny is still in circulation does not mean that it is useful. If the half penny were minted then it too would be in circulation, even though it would be nothing but a nuisance. The half penny was eliminated in 1858, when it was worth over ten times what the penny is worth today. Assuming that the timing was correct before, this means that we should have eliminated the penny fifty years ago. The penny is now worth so little that nobody even picks it up off the ground, despite the old "lucky penny" adage.

Even if you agree that the penny doesn't serve any useful function, you may still argue that it is not worth the hassle of retiring it. A reasonable question is therefore: What harm is caused by continuing to mint the penny?

1) Waste of money: The US mint produces about 7 billion pennies every year (roughly half of all coins made each year), at a cost of over $100 million dollars. About one-third of this money is used to pay for the zinc that pennies are made out of, which is why the zinc industry is lobbying to keep the penny in production.

2) Waste of time: Most cash transactions involve the exchange of pennies, leading to an increase in the time for the transaction to take place. The National Association of Convenience Stores and Walgreen's drug store chain estimated that handling pennies adds 2 to 2.5 seconds to each cash transaction (remember that we are including the occasional customer who spends 30 seconds looking for the penny in his pocket).

Let us estimate that each person goes through two of these transactions per day and that on average there is one person waiting in line (making for a total of three people's time wasted in each transaction). We can then calculate that the presence of pennies wastes (2 transactions/day) X (2 seconds/transaction) X (3 people per transaction) = 12 seconds per day, or 1.2 hours per person per year. Of course, when you get home you still have to find something to do with your pennies, meaning that probably only about half of the wasted time is directly connected with a cash transaction (the other time is associated with counting pennies etc), giving a total of 2.4 wasted hours per person per year. The mean wage in the US is approximately $17/hour, implying that each of us is effectively "paying" $40 per year to keep pennies in circulation. Given that the US has ~ 240 million adults, using pennies is currently costing the nation $10 billion per year!

Check out Google Latitude

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:58:00 +0000

Privacy Schmivacy, from a dad with a 7 yr old daughter, I have been waiting for something like this for a long time.

Last week Google Launched a new service called Google Latitude

Basically through triangulation it allows you to pinpoint anyone on the earth and place a pin on a Google Map. Obviously there are already outcries of "Ohh no here comes Big Brother" but personally I think this is very cool. Especially when taking a trip to Vegas with a bunch of "poker" buddies.

The Best Example of Web 2.0 EVER

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:43:00 +0000

Thank god for the internet and people with way too much time on their hands

Are you Unemployed?

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:30:00 +0000

Don't worry as long as you are hot you can suck at your job.

For the second time this week this theory has been proven.

The latest comes from this headline

Leryn Franco Lands Deal With Nike

Let me guess you've never heard of Leryn Franco?

Maybe this will help

The first example was from this year's American Idol

Contestant Katrina Darrel (who can't actually sing that well) Actually made it through the audition by wearing a bikini. Not only did she make it through the prelims she actually passed day 1 of Hollywood week, although Paula and Kara were not very happy about it.

Further proves that if you're hot enough you can pretty much suck at everything else.

Edit: Offers are coming in faster than she was kicked off the show.

Idol's’ Bikini Girl weighing Playboy offer

The Internet as Reference Tool

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:37:00 +0000

So, I was looking through some old books the other day and I ran across my copy of

"Hoyle's Rules of Games"

Hmmm, I said to myself "Self, I haven't opened that book in years." I wonder why not?

I thought of two immediate reasons

1. I don't play those games or need the read the rules
2. Anything I need in that book can be found on the interweb and since I haven't backpacked in 5 years, I'm always close to a computer or cell phone with a net connection.

My point is this.

Some may argue that the internet has become a much more compact reference library, especially for something as simple as the rules to a game.

Unless of course this was a signed copy by Hoyle himself...It's not.

Therefore, I challenged myself to pick 3 games at random from this book and see how long it took me to find the rules on the web.

Ready, Set, Go!

Klabberjass -11 seconds and only because I had a typo and had to use the Google "Did you mean" feature

Skat - 6 seconds

Poker - Geez, unlucky randomness that I opened the book to this chapter. Thrown out for lack of specificity.

Hearts - 15 seconds, I actually found a page quicker but liked the wikipedia page better

I rest my case.

Anyone want a slightly used copy of this book? Going once, going twice, recycled.

Bailout extended to Television

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:04:00 +0000

OMG, It's bad enough that our tax dollars are bailing out programs and businesses left and right but now more money will be dumped into the bucket so everyone can watch TV without interruption. In my opinion the major advertisers should pay this bill. They are the ones that want people to watch TV, let them pay for it.

Switch to digital TV expected to be rescheduled

The Senate votes to defer the transition from February to June, which would give millions of households time to prepare.

By Jim Puzzanghera
January 27, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- People who aren't ready for next month's nationwide switch to all-digital broadcast TV are likely to get a four-month extension after the Senate voted Monday to delay the conversion until June.

The move follows President Obama's call for a postponement after a $1.5-billion government program to help viewers buy special converter boxes temporarily ran out of money this month. Obama's proposed $825-billion stimulus legislation includes $650 million to help replenish the program.

The delay, approved unanimously on a voice vote by the Senate, would give millions of viewers more time to prepare for the transition. Only those who use outdoor or rabbit-ear antennas need converter boxes. Pay-television providers already handle the conversion for their customers.

"I firmly believe that our nation is not yet ready to make this transition at this time," said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), who pressed for the delay.

I Loved 1985

noreply@blogger.com (Cordell) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:46:00 +0000

Just a funny vid for those of us that lived through High School in 1985.

I love the stick figure videos, so simple yet so funny.