So if you remember correctly, I bought a Dell Mini 9 laptop a few months ago. It came in handy while traveling. It also made the commute to work much more enjoyable.
Now that I don't work in downtown Vancouver anymore, my commute is shorter. It's short enough now that I don't have time to watch any movies or TV on my laptop. I have a billion episodes of The Hills to catch up on.
I've watched a lot of nature shows in the past. As such, I've seen a lot of animals of varying kinds do battle with each other. I've seen cats battle mice, dogs versus a rock, and bears against spawning salmon. What I didn't see until today were ants engaging a crab. It seems like such an unlikely scenario. Ants live in and on the ground. Crabs live in water, usually the ocean. Where the hell would those two meet?
The above video answers that question. It also tells you who won this particular engagement. I won't spoil it but I will say someone was way too passive and didn't use their advantage very well.
My TV was delivered just a half hour or so into the five hour waiting period that I thought I might have to sit through. The delivery guy was a nice fellow too. Though it wasn't part of the basic delivery service, he took the TV out of the box, put it on the stand for me, and helped me put onto the fireplace mantle that I hate with a passion.
I did a real quick setup just to make sure everything was working. The first picture you see above is how everything looked with no regard to where wires should go. Note the real big mess of wires to the left of the TV.
After running through a series of Blu-ray discs, DVDs, HD cable, and some Xbox 360, I shut everything down. I then proceeded to reroute almost all the wiring which included speaker wires, Ethernet, HDMI, digital optical, and power for four different devices. The second picture shows the results of my "clean up". While wire placement is more logical now, it just appears that I smeared the mess of wires out further and to the left. Oh well, it's a work in progress.
Overall, I'm quite pleased with the TV so far. My first impression was how small 50" looks when you have it at home. I can't believe I was even considering a 46". Since I have a plasma and not an LCD, I'm being careful and opting to do a break-in procedure. I'm getting real impatient because a hundred hours of low contrast and low brightness viewing really sucks ass. I'm thinking I might do twenty hours and then light that mofo up again.
If you're like me, you probably use the Internet, sometimes for amusement. If porn isn't doing it for you anymore and you're chafing for more entertainment, I suggest having a look at Yahoo! Answers. It's essentially an online community where Yahoo! members ask each other questions. Other members can respond and people can pick the "best" answers. The questions come from a wide range of topics. Of course, since this is the Internet, there can be much hilarity to be found in the Q&A. First, some of the answers are quite funny. There are also a lot of very wrong answers. The worst is when there's a really genuine question being asked and everyone's best answer is clearly so wrong. Then there are the really stupid questions. They're so stupid, you really hope the askee is just having some fun.
In less than five minutes, I found the following three questions that I thought were entertaining. Can you find more?
So I've been given preliminary authorization to start a small side business at work. Here's the situation. A can of any soft drink costs $1.05 at work which I think is a bit of a rip-off. They must be buying the cans in bulk quantities so you know it costs them way less than $1.05 a can. Even your average consumer can go into any supermarket and buy a 12-pack and pay less than $1.05 a can. Here's another thing, Coke products are being phased out of all the food service facilities, which includes the main cafeteria in Phase I and the Think Tank cafe in Phase II. All the vending machines are already just Pepsi products.
Seeing this opportunity, I devised a plan to initially sell cans of Coke products for $0.75. We're already doing a similar thing for snacks. Our production coordinator bought some snack-sized food items from Costco and set it all up in this general purpose room we have. It has a fridge and a water cooler in it. Snacks are $0.50 each and we rely on the honour system for payment. I think its worked out well so far.
I'm going to offer the soft drinks in the same manner. Co-located with the snacks, the drinks will be in the previously unused fridge. I'll also have to rely on the honour system. I'm hoping it will be a success for several reasons. First, the main draw will be price. Seventy-five cents is way more reasonable than $1.05. A soft drink was $1 back at Black Box downtown, so it's now even cheaper. Second, it's all about location. Previously, skate team members had to either go to the main cafeteria located all the way in Phase I or go three floors down to the Think Tank to get a drink. Now it's right where most of the team sits. Third, it's all about 24-7. The main cafeteria closes at 7pm and the Think Tank finishes at 4pm. If you're looking for a drink outside of their operating hours, you have to look for a vending machine, a Pepsi vending machine. With my setup, you can get a Coke any time of the day or night.
I'm saying this is a preliminary run because of a few things that might get in the way. The head development director (like a project manager), wants to assess how much profit I'll be making off the team after the first little while. I'll make just over $6 for every 24 cans, so I doubt I'll be getting rich off this. I'm also hoping I won't get ripped off. If I get two dollars collected for 24 cans, I'll be mad. I'm not sure of the selection I chose either. I currently am going with an initial mix of 12 Diet Coke and 12 Coke Zero. Is this what the team wants? Maybe not.
