For over half of my life, I have worn sideburns of varying length and … ah … lushness.
General Ambrose Everett Burnside, a man who would not understand me.
Image from Wikimedia
For this entire period, I have been flummoxed by what must seem like a trivial issue. I could never get my sideburns to be even from one side of my face to the other. When the time came for adjustments, I positioned myself close to the mirror, looked for landmarks on my face, and carefully trimmed one sideburn to what seemed like the appropriate length of the day. I would then repeat this procedure with the opposite side. The trouble came when I took a step back and saw that they were nowhere near the same level.
Today, after decades of turmoil, I struck upon the root of my problem. My ears are not even; my left ear is higher on my head than my right. So when using my ears to fix the correct position of my facial hair, I was doomed.
While listening to one of my favorite podcasts, I heard a recommendation for the album The Race for Space by the British band Public Service Broadcasting. Now I'm not a huge electronic music fan, but this is a good album. I have to admit, I may enjoy it a wee bit more because of the extra-geeky history portrayed through the songs.
While listening to this album the other day, my four-year-old daughter asked me about the music. I told her what the songs were about, and like the good daughter of a nerd, she asked for more information. We were soon looking up and drawing pictures of Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin’s Vostok 1, Apollo 8, and the Eagle (LM of Apollo 11).
Clearly this is Yuri Gagarin on his way to Space,
The only downside to this whole activity is that my daughter loves the song "The Other Side," and asks for it to play repeatedly.
There is a point in the song where Ground Control in Houston finally regains contact with Apollo 8 as she clears the backside of the Moon. For some reason, the emotion of that moment gets to me, and I actually well up a little ... each and every time my daughter requests the song. I can't play it off as something else; it's not even dusty in my house.
So let this be a lesson to you: beware of recommendations from podcasts. Thank you, Brady Haran, for all of the unnecessarily expended emotions these past few days.
A nearly photorealistic rendition of Apollo 8 going behind the Moon.
I miss my father. I am hit by waves of sorrow and nostalgia at the strangest of times. Just the other day, I was reading a book to one of my daughters, and a part of the story brought forward such powerful memories that I had trouble getting through the final few pages. Other times, however, I am reminded of such great memories that I have to smile and even chuckle to myself.
I was out for a walk with the girls this morning. We went to go play in the gym for a while. It is really nice to have a big empty space to let them run around and climb to their hearts' content. On the way, we passed the rink. All weekend, there has been a hockey tournament for girls' travel teams. My little ones have liked to peek in on the skating and hopefully get a chance of seeing the Zamboni in action.
Today I was brought back to post-game conversations with my father. Regardless the sport, my father was an expert. He would enthusiastically show my sister how to follow through on her backhand while standing in our livingroom. One brother was shown how to properly apply pressure on the outside edge of his skis while carving up his bedroom floor. Another brother was shown the proper approach angle while high jumping an imaginary bar on our patio. My lessons usually involved posting up our high backed dining room chairs. My dad had an answer for everything, and after a great number of athletic outings, my siblings and I were put through his lessons.
Today while by the rink, I was transfixed by this very earnest mother recording her daughter's goaltending efforts.
It is hard for me to describe what captivated me by this scene. I watched this for at least fifteen minutes. At first, the mother was holding the iPad while recording from the stands. If you are a parent and attending a child's performance, do not do this. The mother then moved of to the side in what I thought was an act of courtesy. In fact, she was just moving closer to her daughter and looking for a place to prop up her iPad so she would not have to hold it any longer. As you can see from the image above, she rather precariously perched the iPad on the supports of the glass, held in place by the ropes that tie down the netting. I may have audibly prayed for a player to crash into the boards and put an end to this whole exercise. My daughters looked at me inquisitively.
A closer look at the image may reveal what really irked me.
If you are unfamiliar with Vertical Video Syndrome, then stop reading and watch this:
or this:
So if Vertical Video Syndrome is not enough of a concern, the mother did not even bother to level the camera. Look again at the horizon line created by the opposite boards in comparison to the iPad.
Imagine trying to watch that video! No wonder there are no offensive players to be seen, they have had to skate uphill the entire period.
Several, and I mean several, minutes later, the mother was struck by the need to correct her camera work.
Hooray, no more V.V.S. and it could actually be close to level. You will note, however, that there are still no other players in the picture aside from the much videoed goalie. That is because the white team was crushing their opponents. In the whole time I was there, the only time I saw the puck within twenty feet of this goal keeper was when the opponents finally got possession and dumped the puck to do a shift change. The rest of the time, the white team was controlling the puck and peppering the other goalie (and goal).
So why have I written this snarky post about a very well-intentioned mother trying to capture her daughter having fun and eventually share those moments, perhaps, with some family members unable to attend.
Here are my reasons, increasing in importance:
4 - Vertical Video Syndrome must be stopped.
3 - I hate watching parents use their iPads to record their children's performances and/or games.
2 - I miss my dad.
1 - I thank God that my father did not have a video recorder. His post-game lessons would have been completely intolerable if he had any actual evidence to support his points.
For years I have been given Visa or Amex gift cards during the holidays. (I have never been given a MasterCard gift card. They must exist. No?) I think we all agree that cash is easier to use, and if you search the Interwebs, you will find masses of people that prefer gifts of cash over a gift card. I do like that a gift card forces you to spend it, however. Cash gets deposited into a bank account and then siphoned out to pay for such exciting things as groceries and gas. Gift cards tend to go towards special purchases or dinners out. When spending the gift card, you remember the person that gave it to you. When spending cash, it's hard to delineate your twenty dollar bill from the one Aunt Edna gave you.
There are some annoying things, however, that go into using a gift card. For some reason, it's a pain to spend the entire value advertised on the card. If you have a $120 tab at a restaurant, for example, and you hand the server a $100 Visa gift card along with your bank card to cover the balance, the gift card will often be rejected if the full $100 is applied to it. If the server puts $99 on the gift card and $21 on the bank card, then all is well. Likewise, I have used a $50 gift card to pay for a $47 dollar item, leaving me, in effect, with a $3 gift card in my pocket. The odds of me using the remaining money on that gift card for another purchase are pretty long.
So here is what I stumbled upon this week.
I have been using Google Wallet for a while, both for online purchases and for NFC payments with my phone. Recently, Google has been shipping physical cards to users whom have requested them. It's basically a prepaid debit card, very similar to what PayPal offers its users.
I did not know what I would do with this card, but being the Google fanboy, I got one. Heck, it was free. Shortly after receiving the Google Wallet card, I received my first gift card of the season. (The Visa gift card pictured above.) So I performed a little experiment. I added the gift card as a payment source in Google Wallet. I then tried to transfer the $100 from the gift card to my Google Wallet balance, but was denied. I then tried transferring $99, and it worked! So now I had a balance on my Google Wallet card and could toss the gift card.
Today, I went into a store and made a purchase with my Google Wallet card for the first time. The vendor had never seen one before, but when he swiped the card, it worked, and that was the end of his questioning (it functions as a MasterCard debit card would). I then had a balance left on my card, but when I went into the phone app, I saw the option to transfer the balance into the checking account that I already had associated with my Google Wallet account. That was easy.
One caveat ... Google withheld $60 for my $50 purchase, until the payment goes through. I'm not sure how long it will take for me to see that $10 again. I imagine in a day or two everything will clear.
So if you want the forced experience that is intended by the gift card, then go out on the town or buy yourself something nice. If you actually want the cash, then you can funnel (launder?) the monetary value of a Visa or Amex gift card into Google Wallet, and then send it to your bank account.
Your choice. Oh, and thanks Aunt Edna! I write your name on every bill you give me.
It has been a while since my last post, but I'm on a little vacation right now, so it's time to dust off the keyboard.
One of my earliest posts details the demise of a Matchbox car that my then one-year-old daughter stuck into the opening of my subwoofer. It appears that the report of this death was "greatly exaggerated."
It's Alive!
I could not stand the thought of this thing rattling around while I had the volume cranked during the dramatic finale of G.I. Joe: Retaliation, so I spent a good hour of contorting, prying, and swearing until the car came out.
Fast forward about a year and a half later to the present day. My, now very verbal, daughter likes to know the names of everything. When she held aloft this toy, which she once tried to cast out of our family, she smiled and inquired, "What's this called?" I told her that this is a car that was driven by Bobby Labonte.
"Bobby the Bunny?"
"No, Bobby Labonte?"
"No, Bobby the Bunny."
"OK."
So I'm sorry, Mr. Labonte, some fights are not worth having. I do feel bad about this, but it turns out that my daughter's mis-pronounciation was the least of my failings. As I looked more closely at this car, it occurred to me that this was not a model of a modern car. A little research in the Interwebs revealed that this Hotwheel was actually meant to represent the 1974 Dodge Charger driven by Richard Petty. Yes, I confused Bobby Labonte and Richard Petty ... and then passed along that misconception to my daughter.
What makes me feel better, however, was this YouTube video that I found today.
Somebody (an adult) posted this high definition video of the exact Hotwheel car in question. I love the Internet!
To make things up to the NASCAR gods, I did have another conversation with my daughter today.
"Sweetie, can you get my car keys for me? They are the ones with the #2 on them."
"Why number two, Daddy?"
"The number two represents a great man, Rusty Wallace. One day, when you have to do a school project about a person in history, we can make a diorama of Rusty Wallace together."
Perhaps we can recreate one Rusty's reverse victory laps in honor of Alan Kulwicki. The 1993 April Bristol race was a particularly powerful tear jerker.
I was just referred to Adam Young's Twitter feed (@owlcity) and informed that I should follow him. His off-beat sense of humor meshes with mine:
Can't decide whether I like John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" or One Direction's "Take Me Home" better.
— Owl City (@owlcity) April 11, 2013
I'm not breaking any ground here. He has a million followers already, and I'm just learning of him. Apparently I am not as hip as I used to be. In fact, I may not have been hip since the last time people used the word "hip" in reference to anything beyond an acetabulofemerol joint.
Looking for more funnies, I discover personal philosophies and Christian teachings. I immediately resent having to read this material (that I snooped around and found on my own) and began liking this stranger less. Despite my Catholic upbringing, I still have this visceral response to unexpected evangelizing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the act; I'm just a cynical bastard. I actually considered unfollowing Adam, even though he made me laugh for several minutes.
What's wrong with me? He didn't make me read anything. His writings are inspirational and completely positive, no judgements at all. I was the one judging him.
Then it hit me ... I am the reason why the middle of the country dislikes "Liberal Elites."
By Angr (self-made; base map is Image:Blank US Map.svg) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons
So I'm sorry for thinking less of you, Adam. Thanks for the all of the Tweets. I really enjoy having you in my timeline.
I think I'm going to call my mother and then do something to get in touch with the Red State side of me.
Update
Mom is doing fine. Now I'm looking for somebody that owns a gun.
Update #2
Shockingly few number of gun owners in this part of Massachusetts. I may just watch Fox News for a while, instead.
Update #3
Could not tolerate exposure to Fox News, so I went outside and threw a rock at a tree.
My parents live in a condo that is part of an "Active Adult Community." The place is basically a three-dimensional advertisement for assistive walking devices and other mobility aids. The word "active" is taken with a pretty large grain of salt.
Each unit in the building has assigned parking spaces. Next to one of my parents' spots sits this beauty:
I have yet to see the resident that sits upon this fine chopper and sports the matching helmet. I do want to point out something that you may have yet to notice:
Yes, this scooter has a handicapped license plate. I am of the firm belief that if one is able-bodied enough to navigate a red scooter through the streets of suburban Connecticut, then one should not qualify for handicapped parking. Apparently the the Powers-That-Be in Connecticut's Department of Motor Vehicles do not agree.
Last tweet taught me to clean goat cheese off your fingers before typing a question about cleaning goat cheese off a screen. #itwasme
— Chris Conley (@CConley25) March 19, 2013
Nobody offered me any helpful suggestions, and my tablet is still showing some ill effects from this wild and raucous evening ... of me, sitting alone on my couch, watching Buck Rogers, and eating goat cheese. Oh yeah, and tweeting about it.
Let me begin by stating that I was going to title this post "RSS is dead. LONG LIVE RSS!" I thought it was catchy, and to the point. So I Googled the phrase, and came up with 21,200 hits from that direct quote.
So I guess I'm not particularly original (nor is this topic, it seems).
I've been trying to shift away from RSS feeds for a while. A number of blogs and news "news" sites that I follow have been posting their content on Twitter and other social media outlets for years. As I started to see duplicate posts on my Twitter timeline and my RSS reader, I began to unsubscribe from the RSS feeds and rely more upon Twitter. As I have become more involved with Google+ (say what you want, but there is great content out there), I have repeated the process and have begun unfollowing Twitter profiles and circling them on Google+. The problem is that not all of the sites that I follow push their content through social media. That's not fair ... they all do, to some extent. What I have found, however, is that not all of these sites are pushing ALL of their content out through social media. They cherry pick a few articles and Tweet or post them for their followers. Of course this makes sense, as they are hoping to draw traffic back to their websites and garner those valuable clicks (and ad revenue). The reason I started using RSS, however, was to avoid just that. I want the information to come to me, and then I can pick and choose which articles to read and which to ignore, all in one spot. So I am in this information limbo, where some of my content is coming through RSS, some through Twitter, and some through Google+.
Now our friends at Google clearly want everything to come through Google+. They want it to be less of a social network and more of an information portal. To that end, Google is shuttering their RSS reader.
This is just a screenshot. You can click "OK," but it will only give you a bigger picture.
Being the Google fanboy that I am, clearly Google Reader was the RSS reader I used. When this announcement came out on Wednesday, I was a little peeved. So were a number of folks on the Interwebs. I am particularly fond of YouTube user leebdough's version of the famous Hitler rant from Downfall: (Warning, some salty mis-translations in the subtitles.)
I actually want Google's hopes to come true for Google+ (or something else) to become a one-stop hub for information. (I really don't mind if they are taking over the world.) We are not there, nor are we close to that point. Shutting down Google Reader may push some content providers to use more social media; I still want a good RSS reader. Fortunately, a number of articles were written after Wednesday's announcement recommending alternatives to Reader. So on Thursday I deleted Reader from my phone and Tablet, and installed Feedly.
I wish I had done this sooner. I always enjoyed Google Reader's stark, utilitarian interface. It helped me roll through a great deal of content very quickly, and I was able to easily share any articles I wanted. I have to say, however, that the graphic-rich look of Feedly is pretty sharp. I can go to a more Spartan list style, like Reader's, but am enjoying the magazine look at this point. I know there are other options out there, but what hooked me to Feedly was the ease of switching from Reader. All I had to do was log into to my Google account, and Feedly rolled over all of my subscriptions. I repeated the setup on my browser, phone, and tablet. It worked perfectly. Once Reader closes up shop on July 1st, Feedly promises to keep all of my subscription information on the back end, so I won't miss a beat. (Fingers crossed.)
I have also dusted off my Pocket account, which I never really used. I had a number of old articles saved in Google Reader for a variety of reasons. I used this opportunity to comb through them all, discard most, but then push the ones I still wanted up to Pocket. I was then able to organize those articles using Pocket's tagging system so that they are now stored in a useful and accesible manner. Feedly will also allow you to push articles up to Pocket, so this is a system I plan to keep employing.
I do want RSS to go away and be another three-letter acronym that our grandchildren will never know. For the time being, this is how I'm dealing with the Google Reader shutdown. It works, and I think it is even an improvement. It has taken me a day or two to get used to different interfaces, but I like the results.
Anybody have advice on a good VHS digitizing technique?
Imagine my surprise when I looked down at the sink this morning as I prepared to shave ...
Don't see anything amiss? Look closer.
Yes, there was a death's head skull staring up and me from the drain of my sink. Somehow, the toothpaste residue from the night before had dried in that fashion.
I don't think that this is a sign of good look. In fact, this has been a week of strange omens for me. First, the new Pope is announced, and he chose to take the name of my brother (not the brother I would have guessed, mind you). Now, my bathroom sink wishes me dead.
Hopefully you will check in on me from time-to-time over the coming days to make sure all is well.
Speaking of the new Pope ...
Does anybody else think it is strange when the media refers to Pope Francis as the "First Pope from the New World?" I think it is time for the Italians to get over the whole Christopher Columbus thing. 1492 was a long time ago. There isn't very much that is still new on this side of the Atlantic.
I love that my family and the Internets still keep me up-to-date on news from my home state. My sister shared some information about State Representative Ernest Hewett with me this morning.
Click on image for larger view.
Apparently, he should change the quote on his official website to "Never get so low in front of a live mic."
49ers coach Jim Harbaugh played Screech's cousin on a 1996 episode of Saved by the Bell: The New Class. twitter.com/mental_floss/s…
— Mental Floss (@mental_floss) January 13, 2013
Looks like that crazy, Irish uncle that nobody talks about anymore went and got himself a hardware store.
I have no idea how I got on this mailing list, but this catalog came in the mail earlier this week.
There are so many things that impress me, here:
The corporate logo seems to be McFeely himself holding a large screw.
McFeely went and put himself on a dollar bill, and one can use said dollar bill to pay any shipping AND handling costs that may be incurred while making any purchases.
McFeely is clearly a huge proponent of square drive screws (hard to miss from the cover shot).
Maybe I should expend less energy remotely encouraging or discouraging professional athletes and spend more time reflecting on the scientific marvel that is a cheese doodle.
I received a lot of wonderful Christmas presents this year. I keep coming back and looking at these, however.
They are gloves that let you operate a touch capacitive screen. With the weather we are getting here in the Northeast, they are actually pretty handy (sorry, that was an awful and unintended pun ... but it's too late to go back at this point). If you are looking to get some on the cheap, +CNET posted this article a couple of weeks back.
It's not the concept of the gloves that brings me so much joy; it's the packaging.
I think more products should be designed with this feature in mind. These gloves work great!
My phone is a Nexus 4. The joys difficulties of purchasing this device have been described in a previous post. If you prefer to relive some of the highlights in all of its auditory and visual glory, feel free to numb your mind with this:
There is a reason I went through all of this hassel ... I was tired of paying a butt-load significant amount of money to Verizon Wireless each month.
My Verizon Bill
My wife and I shared a plan that included data for each of our smartphones. The total was about $174 a month, or over the course of a two-year contract, a grand total of about $4,160. I don't call that many people; why was I spending this much money? I'm a teacher; how could I afford to pay this much money?
Recently there has been a lot of buzz about getting away from mobile phone contracts and going the prepaid route. Even +TIME ran an article this past summer. I researched a number of options, from MetroPCS, to Straight Talk, to Ting. Every plan has its pros and cons, most notably being network coverage. If you are thinking about making this switch, look in to how good the networks are in the area(s) you will be using your smartphone.
I seldom go over a 100 minutes of voice in a month, and my wife does not use nearly as much data as I do, so being potentially throttled after 2GB would not be an issue for her.
So here's the math. At a total of $90 a month, we would be saving $84 a month from what we were paying Verizon. That comes out to us paying $2160 over the course of a typical two-year contract, or an overall savings of $2000!
Making the switch was an obvious choice once I put down my calculator. I still harbored some hesitations, however. First, we still had six months left on my contract. Canceling our service with Verizon would cost us an early termination fee on each of our two lines, totaling about $300. If you look at the $84/month potential savings pushed over the six months remaining on my contract, it is still a good deal.
My second, and bigger concern, was the need to pay full price for a smart phone when going into a prepaid plan. This is why AT&T and Verizon contracts look so enticing. They subsidize the cost of phones, so they only charge you $200 for an iPhone or Galaxy S3 that would otherwise cost $700+ off-contract. When expanded over the cost of two phones, they are offering a savings of over $1000 for premium devices. If you want a lesser smartphone, well they are almost giving those away. It is not until you consider how much AT&T and Verizon are overcharging for their actual service before you understand why they will sell you the phones for such an attractive price. They are making up for their costs (and much more) in the end.
I like my toys, so I knew I needed to buy high-end phones if I were to be happy with any changes. The thought of shelling out $1400+ so that we could make the switch to T-Mobile was not very appealing, even though my calculator assured me that we would be saving money in the end. When Google announced that they would be selling their Nexus 4 phone for $350 (16GB version), my sticker shock at buying two new phones went away. I could buy two Nexi (Nexuss? Nexuses? Nexusus? Nexum?) for the cost of one iPhone5 or S3. This sealed the deal. I won't argue that a Nexus is as good of a phone as either of those two devices, but I dare you to tell me that either an iPhone or an S3 are worth twice as much as a Nexus 4.
So I made the jump! Here is the money comparison of how much we would pay if we bought two new phones and stayed with Verizon, versus getting the two Nexus 4s and going with the T-Mobile prepaid plans.
Click to make larger.
So I'm happy with saving our household about $1400 over the course of the next two years. My next step is to get my wife off of the $60/month plan and switch her to the $30/month plan I use. As I mentioned before, 100 minutes of talk time is not a concern for me.
My T-Mobile Account Activity
I am almost half-way through my first month, and I have only used twenty nine twenty-nine minutes of talk, and that was during the holidays! My wife does spend more time on the phone, but is still very reasonable. Her use is usually between 150-300 minutes a month. T-Mobile charges ten cents per minute of overage. So if she goes on the 100 minute plan, she could get charged $20 of overage fees on her chattiest of months, or a savings of $10 per month of what she is now paying on her unlimited talk plan with T-Mobile. So next month, we will be cutting even more off our mobile phone bills.
My final piece of information comes for those who have gripes about the Nexus 4. Yes, it's internal storage is capped at 16GB. That seems to really affect those that play a number of different games on their devices. With the amount of high speed data I can access each month, cloud storage of documents, pictures, music, and movies works great for me. I've even pinned about six gigs of music onto my phone so that I won't be streaming my favorite playlists while navigating, and there is still a great deal of room left over. I guess if you need to have Madden, FIFA, and GTA on your phone, then you need a different device.
You are correct if you think that the Nexus 4 does not get an LTE signal (what Verizon and AT&T call 4G). The HSPA+ signal I get from T-Mobile is plenty fast enough for me, and it beats the pants off the 3G signal I got off my old Verizon phone. I just set my personal record with 14.4mbps down and 3.7mbps up (admittedly at a very off-peak hour).
If you have no idea what those numbers mean, you can see from the picture above that the top speed test of my phone taken from T-Mobile's wireless signal are not far off the bottom set of numbers on my list, taken from my Comcast wifi router. You will just have to trust me when I state that these tests were all taken from inside my apartment, and at a distance of about ten feet from my wireless router.
So let me conclude this very lengthy post by stating this: you are probably paying too much for your smartphone service. Do some research into monthly, prepaid plans and check how good the service is in your area from a variety of different providers. Check into the costs of unlocked and unsubsidized phones or see if your current phone can be or is already unlocked. Finally, check to see how much it will cost you to break your current contract. My guess is that the numbers add up if you are willing to make a switch.
I am a Google fanboy ... I have admitted as much several times on this blog. My heroes at Mountain View recently put my faith to the test.
My first smartphone was the original Droid. I had been a Verizon customer since the company first merged in 2000 and absorbed my contract. I was tempted by the early iPhone, but when my cell provider was going to offer a smartphone that would seamlessly integrate with all of the Google products I was using already, I took the jump.
The phone was great, and I eventually upgraded to a Droid 3 when it was time to re-up my contract. Over the past few months, however, my phone was hanging a great deal. It couldn't handle all of the processes that I was asking of it, and it's 3g speeds were feeling a bit stifling. I have lost count of how many times I had to pull the battery out of the back in order to force a reset.
While my technical frustrations were mounting, I became more aware of just how much I was being gouged by Verizon on the monthly family plan that I shared with my wife. It became clear that dumping Verizon and going with a pre-paid plan was going to save us a ton of money. The hitch was that I was still under contract, so I'd be on the hook for a pretty hefty early termination fee. Also, a prepaid plan requires one to pay the full (unsubsidized) price for a phone. I'm not one to skimp on my toys, so I was looking at forking over around $700 for a premium device. I would then have to double that figure because I probably could not get away with getting a great phone for me and a brick for my wife. So the cost of two new phones and early termination fees were keeping me reluctantly handcuffed to Verizon.
Then Google announced the Nexus 4. I will admit that it is not an iPhone5 nor a Galaxy S3 (depending on if you're into werewolves or vampires), but at $350, I could buy two for the price I would have to shell out for just one of those other phones. The Nexus 4 would certainly be a huge improvement over the Droid 3 I was ready to throw against the wall at any moment.
So that was the nudge I needed to jump from Verizon. At that price, I would actually be saving money by getting new phones and switching plans. I doggedly tracked Nexus news online and was ready to pounce when it went on sale.
Rumors came out that the phone would go on sale at midnight Pacific time, on November 13th It would only be available from Google's online store, however. I'm on the East Coast, so that meant 3am for me. I knew there was a lot of buzz about this phone, so I set an alarm and was ready to mash the refresh icon on my browser. (I wanted to live like an iPhone fanatic for a while.) The rumors turned out to be partly true .. the phone went on sale in England, Germany, and Australia, but not in the U.S. Just as it became clear that I got up at a God-awful hour for no reason, something weird appeared to be going on. The Internet was glowing with reports from where the Nexus was on sale; it sold out in just minutes. How was that possible?
Another bit a news popped up before my groggy eyes that morning. The U.S. sale of the Nexus was scheduled to open at noon Pacific time later that day, 3pm for me. I knew it would be a race.
I was at work and slipped into my desk at 2:55pm. I gave myself a few minutes to get comfy, load the page, and start the refresh process. The problem was that Google's servers were already overloaded. They put the phone on sale early. I didn't have a chance, and before I could even get Google's page for the Nexus to actually load, it had sold out. I was a little bitter at Google at that moment. It wasn't really their fault that I got up so early, but clearly they were having trouble with the online retail side of their operation. They also had a fair amount of warning from what happened in smaller markets earlier in the day. It was hard to believe that Google, of all companies, could not get an online market to handle a high demand and did not have enough product on hand to at least last an hour.
It took two weeks for Google to get the Nexus 4 back in stock and make it available for order once again. It was to be November 27th, again at noon Pacific time. There was the same buzz online as before. People were bitter that they could not get their phone when it first went on sale, and it was clear that there would be another rush when the gates opened. Google, however, had weeks to revamp their servers and handle the flood.
So let's see how it went.
I got to my desk (even earlier this time) and Google had not released the phone, yet. After clicking and refreshing for over an hour, however, it became clear that Google could not handle the demand for this phone once again:
I had never been so frustrated trying to buy anything in my life. All I wanted to do was give them my money, and they would not let me (Sorry, I'm not that big of a Futurama fan, so I'll leave the obligatory meme photo out.)
The best thing I did that day was to eventually get the phones I was able to click on into my online cart. I could not process the order, but I had to walk away from the computer and actually address the rest of my life. When I went back to my computer around 8:00 that night, I saw from my news feeds that the Google store had eventually calmed down and was now accepting orders. I went back to my cart and ordered the two phones, and much to my relief, I was able to pay. Better yet, I was placed on a 2-4 week shipping notice, instead of the 9-10 week notice some people were reporting.
The phones arrived two weeks later, on December 12th, and I was pretty excited. I still cannot shake how distasteful this whole experience was, though. Hours of my life were wasted to get my hands on these things. What is amazing, is that the phone is STILL SOLD OUT. If I were not so determined to get these things, I'd still be throwing money at Verizon and using a clunkier phone.
The Internet is letting me down this morning. I have this distinct memory of Charles Barkley during a locker room interview. He's reading a newspaper and going over Michael Jordan's stats from a previous game. Barkley interrupts the reporter asking him questions and says something like, "He took fifty shots! ... Fifty shots! I could score sixty if I took fifty shots. ... Fifty shots!" Chuck must have been speaking about Jordan's sixty-four point game against the Magic on January 16th, 1993.
Unfortunately, I cannot find any video or even mention of Barkley's line anywhere on the web. Maybe I'm imagining it, but the recollection is pretty clear.
This elusive/imagined scene popped into my head after reading about Jack Taylor's performance for Grinnell College last night. He took 108 shots!!! He took seventy-one three pointers!!!
I really need to have that Charles Barkley footage now. If anybody knows where I can find it, please send it along.
There are times that I want to talk politics and foist my personal beliefs upon others. I try not to do that publicly, and I don't think this is an effective forum for that. I do have a strong wish, however, that the leaders of our country have a basic understanding of science, and the they appreciate some of the fundamental laws of nature that govern our existence. I do not understand why issues surrounding evolution and global warming are being debated, for example. So my draw jaw just dropped when I read this tweet from @minutephysics.
