Saturday, February 28, 2009

Are times worse now than before?

If you ask Obama he would say yes. This is the worst time since the great depression...

I had an interesting conversation with my coworkers this week. Over the past 9 years we have had the dot.com bubble burst, 911, housing bubble burst, banking industry stall + almost every other industry. Is there another time in history where so many things happened to the market in such a small span?

Certainly we've had other things like Vietnam, the gas shortage, recession of the early 80s and early 90s..but that's 30 years.

It was postulated that the reason why it's been so condensed is not because times are worse or because the world is coming to an end, but because we find out about things so much faster. When something happens in the world, the major news sites have it up on their pages within minutes. If you use RSS all of those different media outlets are combined into one space for your consumerment. Using something like an iPhone you don't even have to be at your computer, it's practically sent to your pocket automatically. It doesn't even have to be big breaking news. It could be that someone twittered that they just had a great bowel movement.

The other day it was reported that the stock market was back to 1997 levels. Colbert did a pretty funny bit on it but a part rings true. In 12 years I went from reading yesterdays news on a piece of paper to seeing Jabar Gaffney being signed by the Broncos within an hour of it happening.

I think this is one reason that we look forward to moving to Pittsburgh. It may not be as slow as DC traffic, but its slower than DC news which is fine by me.



Monday, February 23, 2009

Quick Hits

Been awhile since I posted so I thought I would post a lot at once.




  • Dollhouse: The first episode wasn't very good. Last week's episode was much better. Word on the street is that by episode 6 it will be much better. Hope so. I feel bad for Eliza after the cancelling of Tru Calling.
  • Impossible Mission: The title of this game is probably only recognizable by those of you who had a Commodore 64. If you did then things like Epyx and El-Shift-Oh make sense to you. Hello to everyone that just googled "Commodore 64", "Epyx", Impossible" or "Mission". Anyways, they released the game onto DS. I thought that since I'm much wiser and smarter now I should be able to beat a game like this. It still kicks my butt. Although I'm farther than I have ever been (granted it's on easy mode which gives an extra 2 hours of time). Here's hoping that they release Archon or M.U.L.E. (Hello to everyone that just googled "archon" or "MULE" or "Greatest Commodore Games Ever")
  • EBAX - My company is releasing a product which lets you modify SharePoint lists inside of Excel. If you use SharePoint a lot (for things like task lists etc) it will really make maintaining things a lot easier.
  • LOST - Is this season great or what?
  • Looking for a home - Why do some Realtors post pictures that look like they were taken with a camera phone? You can get something that will talk web quality photos for under $100. Just do it.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

A great weekend

Shayna and I had a most excellent time while in NYC over Valentine's day weekend. There was much to be done including going to "Top of the Rock" (Excellent!) and walking everywhere (Bogus!). We even caught some old favorite movies on TV (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Real Genius). I'll let you guys guess which was the favorite of Shayna's.

Spending the weekend up there made me realize how much better of a team Shayna and I have become. The first time we went to NYC we ended up mad at each other and walking 20 blocks not speaking. The second time was 12 blocks I think. This time though, there was never an upset moment. No matter what we helped each other and got to where we wanted to be.

I think it has a lot to do with how well we know each other now. We started to hit that point in our relationship where we don't even need to speak. We can just throw a look or just a word and know what the other is trying to say (this will come in very handy with Sophia on the way).

While at FAO Swartz, Shayna took me aside and told me that if there was any big kid thing that I wanted, just let her know and she would make it happen. I love that about her. All I have to do is say I want something and she would do whatever it took to make it happen.

Thank you for the wonderful weekend dear. I love you.

In other news, I saw Sophia hiccup today. It made Shayna's entire stomach move!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Rome

What is wrong, with Jim Rome, he talks like, he is listening to himself on the radio, he repeats himself, he repeats himself, he repeats himself. How can anyone possibly listen to him, I don't understand how he makes any money.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Cool experience

I got to feel Sophia kick a little today. Didn't feel like much, but it was very cool. I can wait until she is bigger and they are more pronounced.

Shayna is probably dreading that.

Monday, February 02, 2009

What a game

Glad to see that the Steelers won, but I'm more glad that it was a good game. I thought for sure when the Cards were down by 13 at the start of the 4th the game was over. Looks like the Steelers thought so too and took a break.

I find it weird that the booth didn't review Warner's fumble at the end. That for sure seemed like it should be worth reviewing. For me it looked like the ball was knocked loose and then his arm started to move forward. I don't know if that counts as a fumble or not (I would think that it does). At any rate, it should have been reviewed.

Goodell should be thankful that it didn't go to overtime, then a team wins the coin toss and scores on the first possession. For the Final game both teams should have at least one possession.

My wife is fond of putting in pictures or videos on her blog. So this time I will do it as well.

Best Commercial of the game: