Aye Matey it be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Arrrrrgggg!!! Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day :-)

Feist in Ann Arbor

If your like me and saw the new iPod nano commercial (embedded below) and kind of liked the song so you googled "1234" (don't tell anyone). She will be performing this weekend in Ann Arbor, MI at two locations. Here is a link to her MySpace page if your interested.

Upcoming Shows

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Sep 15 2007 12:30P	Borders Books and Music	Ann Arbor, Michigan
Sep 15 2007 8:00P	Michigan Theatre	Ann Arbor

Precision Passing

Pictures I took of a play I ran during my Colts franchise on Madden 08 for the Xbox 360. Peyton really threaded the needle on that one :-)

Office Product Review (#2)

Ahh the Swingline stapler. A legend in its own right that probably should have won an award for best supporting actor for its role in the movie Office Space.

I didn't always have it this good though. Less than a year ago the only stapler I had was made by a company named Ace. That stapler was made from plastic (the Swingline is metal) and rather flimsy in comparison. Try and staple more than 3 or 4 pages at once and the Ace would (rather embarrassingly) fail. Back then I was of the mindset that a stapler, is a stapler. It wasn't until recently that I saw how wrong I was.

I inherited the Swingline about a year ago when my boss left the company. But I only recently decided to try it. I was trying to staple a larger stack of papers and knowing that my Ace would fail I picked up the Swingline. My first thought was that this thing weighs a ton (1.3 lbs to be exact). To my surprise it cut through the stack of papers like a hot knife thro... you get the idea, needless to say I was impressed.

My Swingline appears to be model # 747 (and appropriately so). This thing is the champ of the stapler world and I will never under estimate the power of a Swingline again. When matched with a package of Swingline staples there is little this stapler can't do (outside of wash my car and things of that nature).

The Good:
- Everything

The Bad:
- The weight might bother some people

Score: A+
Usage: Often

Office Product Review (#1)

Out of pure boredom I have decided to write a review on every office product in my office at work. The opening review will be on the Aurora Dual Power Calculator (DT210M).

Right away I noticed that my office spared no expense when it comes to buying calculators. Springing for the revolutionary "Dual Power" model (it has both a battery and a solar cell). Insuring that you get a constant stream of calculating power whether your battery is dead or not. Except, now you won't really know if the battery is dead or not. Assuming your somewhere that has a light source.

As far as calculators go this one isn't exactly feature rich. You won't be doing any graphing or advanced scientific calculations on the Aurora DT210M. It does have your basic list of functions however. Such as memory and percent calculations. My model appears to have an advanced toggle mode for the add button (+). On occasion when pressed this key will stay depressed causing the display to blink incessantly and locking out the rest of the keypad.

Overall the Aurora DT210M seems to work as one would expect from such a product. This reviewer did experience some frustration with the product randomly shutting off during longer calculations.

The Good:
- Dual power capabilities
- No missing buttons

The Bad:
- Sticking keys
- Seemingly random shutdowns
- Keys easily catch food particles (this could seen as either a plus or a minus)

Score: C
Usage: Often

What a weekend I had...

Well, to be honest it didn't end all that badly but it sure didn't start off very well.

I left work early on Friday after finding out that the person who was going to buy my car (06 Honda Civic) had backed out. Now, in a normal situation this wouldn't have been such a horrible thing but in this case, it was. My next payment on the thing was in 4 days and well, I just didn't have the money. So, one way or another the car had to go.

I ended up having to drive an hour and a half to a Honda dealer in Indianapolis who I had previously gotten a quote from. My local dealer was offering $200 less so I figured it was worth the drive. We get there (me and my mother) and get the process started. Here is where it gets... Fun. I owe a little less than $1,300 more on the car than the dealer is offering me. I figure I can just refinance my current vehicle to include the extra amount owed. Not possible said the dealer. You see they aren't about to payoff a car that they don't have the title to (the car was being financed).

So now I have to give the dealer the $1,300 up front before they payoff my loan. Seeing as how I wasn't able to afford my payment on the thing you can probably see my problem with this. We leave the car at the dealer and make plans to stay at a friends house while we decide how to come up with the money. I end up borrowing the money from said friend after failed attempts to secure a personal loan because I needed a check stub from work to prove I had a job. I wasn't about to drive 2 hours home and 2 hours back just for a check stub.

We return to the dealer the next morning and start the process all over again. This is Labor Day weekend mind you so the dealership was crazy busy. Yet somehow they had absolutely no way to make change for the cash I had brought. After digging around we finally find the exact change needed for the transaction to complete.

When it was all said and done we finally got the car sold. Though it feels more like I payed the dealer $1,300 to take my car. All that is left to do is get a personal loan to payback my friends and I will finally be done with this ordeal.

I hope the girl that backed our of our agreement reads this so she knows how much shit she put me through. I went from having an extra $200 in my pocket to owing $1,300 in 24 hours.

Awesome...