jump to navigation

Phone Tag May 10, 2005

Posted by Owen in : Weird , add a comment

I decided to call my Mom so I pick up the phone and call her, but it’s busy. So I wait 20 minutes and call again. Still busy. Then my cell phone rings. I pick up and it’s my mom. She tells me she tried to call just a minute ago and 20 minute before that. We must have called each other at the exact same time… twice! What’s the chance of that?

Golfmobile April 29, 2005

Posted by Owen in : Weird , add a comment

Guess what kind of car the new Pope drove?
That’s right! A VW Golf. This is a divine sign that I’ll be the next world religious leader. Schweet!

Sublime Music February 15, 2005

Posted by Owen in : Weird , add a comment

During the past week at the gym, I’ve heard the following songs:

You gotta admit, they got the eclectic part down.

Pepsi iTunes Promotion: You Can’t Win February 6, 2005

Posted by Owen in : Weird , add a comment

Don’t bother entering the iTunes Pepsi promotion… according to the FAQ you can’t win even if you having a winning game piece (notice the date the code must be entered by).

Q: Do I need to redeem my song when I enter my code?

A: Each code, once verified and entered into an account, is worth one free song credit that you can use to download a song free of charge from the iTunes Music Store catalog. Song credits are stored in your account. If you have an available free song credit in your iTunes account, then that credit will automatically be used and deducted from your iTunes account on your next attempt to download the song of your choice. Note: All available song credits in your account must be used by May 23rd, 2004 at 11:59:59 pm PST. Any unused song credits remaining in an account after such time will be void and ineligible for a free song download.

Subject: Washington Mutual Informs You January 21, 2005

Posted by Owen in : Weird , 1 comment so far

Got this obviously fake email message today. I inform you, does anyone really talk like this? C’mon, people (especially Banks) earnestly don’t talk like this! Grammar lessons should be obligatory to follow for scammers. (Of course, I probably shouldn’t give them any ideas.)

WAMU is calling

Sister Act January 21, 2005

Posted by Owen in : Weird , 3comments

I was waiting for a flight at the San Francisco airport recently and was sitting watching people walk by. I was watching the cleaning lady go by. She was a young black woman with a huge poofy afro wearing gray maintenance coveralls and was pushing one of those trash carts in front of her. I watch her reach into one of her bags and flick a switch. Suddenly, a old Michael Jackson song starts blaring. I watch as she starts to dance Jackson’s famous dance moves as she emties the trash cans. Do a little moonwalk, lift up a trash can, spin around, dunk it in the bag, slide to the left. I felt like I was in the middle of an old 80s movie like Blues Brothers or Sister Act or something. I wouldn’t have been suprised if everyone in the waiting area spontaneously broke out singing about the virtues of air travel. Whoever you are, you made my day.

Star Wars Christmas December 26, 2004

Posted by Owen in : Weird , add a comment

If you’re not tired of hearing Christmas music in the grocery store, listen to the horrific Star Wars Christmas Album. (Really! You can’t make this stuff up.)

It contains gems like “What Can You Get A Wookiee For Christmas (When He Already Owns A Comb?)” “Let me see. We have a scarf for Skywalker, right?” “Yes.” “And perfume for the Princess?” “Yes.” “What about Han Solo?” “Couldn’t we get him ear muffs?” “That leaves one big problem.” “THE WOOKIEE!” “Couldn’t we get him a comb?” “We gave him a comb last year!” and “R2-D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas”.

Oh man, what were they thinking?

Ironic Blog Spam December 21, 2004

Posted by Owen in : Website, Weird , add a comment

Here’s some Ironic blog comment spam that I just found on my blog:

Name: online poker | Email: pkehvzra@a562d7bef37555bf78b572857b385eb18.com | URI: http://www.************.com | IP: 216.176.52.40

Having been teaching ethics for a very long time…I’m struck by how little reference is ever made to the terrible things that have happened in the 20th Century. Ethics ought to be rooted in some idea of the way in which human nature can go wrong and produce these disasters. by online poker

Ethics. Yeah right.

Eek! September 25, 2004

Posted by Owen in : Weird , add a comment

My Mac just completely crashed (a first). Unlike the dreaded blue screen on Windows, a nice translucent box popped up explaining the problem and how to restart your computer in 4 different languages (including Japanese). When the Mac crashes, it does it with style.

Email Woes May 20, 2004

Posted by Owen in : Weird , add a comment

I wanted to transfer my email, contacts, and calendar from Outlook on the PC to Entourage on the Mac. No problem, I’m sure there’s an import button. Nope. Entourage doesn’t support importing from Microsoft’s very own PC version! Good God! For example, Outlook can export address book entries, IF you are willing to right click on each, select export, and choose a location. There’s no bulk export utility! No problem, I can get a 3rd party software to do it. No go.

But OK, by searching the Internet I find OK ways to export all the data. For example, I can import using Outlook Express on the PC then copy the files to the Mac and use Apple’s importer. I decided I’ll be rid of Microsoft software and use Mail.app, iCal, and Address Book. But all the programs have problems that bug me. They’re good, but not good enough. Mail.app is a real great program, but just doesn’t have the organizational tools I need. Address Book is fine, but the interface is irritating. It’s too hard to do easy stuff. iCal is nice: looks great, easy to use, full featured, light weight, but the reminder feature doesn’t work well. If you set a reminder for a date that has already passed (let’s say you have a meeting tomorrow and you want a reminder and you set it to remind you 1 day in advance, but it’s only 23 hours away: no reminder). I could easily live with these minor issues, but it turns out Entourage solves most of them.

Now Entourage (besides being hard to spell), is slow and bloated (takes 2% of the CPU when idle–more than the Finder!), but it has all the features I like from Outlook: 3 vertical pane email (once you use it, you’ll never go back), virtual folders, fast email display, good reminders, nice integration with all PIM functions, etc. Of course, there’s still a problem: there’s no way at all to import calendar entries. Sigh. Can’t win.