When we bought our Ford Escape six months ago, it came with a free trial of SiriusXM radio. We loved not having commercials, but overall we didn’t feel like the service was worth it. I was disappointed in the sound quality and it cut out a LOT around our home in Seattle. Maybe we’re on the edge of the satellite coverage? I understand it losing a signal under a bridge sometimes, but it would lose it in the trees along 522 up to Monroe and with nothing overhead at the same spot on 405 at 124th St every single time. But even with all that, the ability to listen to music without commercials and without connecting another device was really nice. Plus it also feeds traffic data into our navigation system which is handy.
When the free trial was up, they called to try to get us to continue. They walked through a number of deals culminating in $0.99 for one month and I said no. We kind of wished that we had said yes to that last deal so clearly it did still hold some value for us.
A few days later, we got an offer in the mail for $30 for 6 months. It’s normally $15/month so that’s a pretty great deal. We decided to go for it with the intention of cancelling again unless we can get a similar good deal. $15/month seems a bit crazy considering I pay $10/month for access to Netflix streaming and $10/month for access to millions of songs on Xbox Music.
After the first 26 races in the NASCAR season, 12 drivers are chosen to compete in the “Chase” which basically is NASCAR’s 10 race version of playoffs. The specifics of how those drivers are chosen are a bit tricky but basically it’s the top 10 drivers in points and then two wild cards. My favorite driver, Ryan Newman, was right on the bubble for the last wild card position. Lap by lap the standings would change and he’d move in and out of the chase. With the race winding down, Newman was driving his heart out and had pulled into the lead. A victory would have guaranteed that he beat out Martin Truex, Jr for a spot in the chase. With just a few laps remaining, Truex’s teammate Clint Bowyer was told over the radio that Newman was going to win the race. Then they asked Bowyer, who had poison oak on his hand, how his hand was feeling. “Is your arm starting to hurt? I bet it’s hot in there. Itch it.” At that point, Bowyer spun bringing out a caution. After the pit stops, Newman was no longer in the lead, didn’t win, and Truex got into the Chase on a tie-breaker with Newman.
Happy Birthday to me! This is an extra special year with the 50% increase in family size (by count, not by weight.) Our little man continues to grow strong and healthy, go to sleep easily at night, and generally be a happy guy. It’s the best birthday present I could get! My parents are also out for a visit. It’s the first time they’ve been able to spend a birthday with me in quite a long time.
Welcome to another season of fantasy football! We have the same group of guys as last year. The season got off to a rocky start with difficulty scheduling the live draft. In the end only Andy, Logan and I live drafted, but it’s doubtful that makes any difference. Next year I’ll have everyone who wants to participate help pick the date and time of the draft.
If you watch a movie set in England before the mid-1700s and the actors are speaking with a British accent, feel free to annoy your fellow movie watchers and point out that the accents are not historically accurate. What we think of today as a British accent didn’t exist back then. They spoke pretty much like we do in America now. The British accent was created by rich people in England who wanted to distinguish themselves from commoners. And since Boston and New York City in America had similar deposits of rich people with connections to England, they picked up some of the accent too (dropping the R’s.) I’m not sure who sits around at a party and decides to stop saying a letter to sound more cool, but hey, stranger things have happened!
I don’t know when Ikea started selling cabinets, but I’ve been hearing a lot about them lately. Sure they sell very cheap melamine cabinets, but they also sell cabinets that look very high-end. We have a homeowners mailing list at work which is usually full of high end remodels, but even people there have been buying the cabinets and having their contractors assemble and install them.
Did you know that Facebook might be using your name ads to your friends? If you say you like a company, your friends might end up with an ad that implies that you’re endorsing the company. Fair enough I guess since you are, sort of, endorsing the company by liking them. And remember, you’re not paying for Facebook so they’re going to make money off you somehow. That being said, you can disable this along with possible future expansions of the ad feature.
I wrote about having a chunk of skin removed back in
Reading Your Email
I believe there are definitely some reasons to be disturbed by this news and to call my representatives to make my feelings known. However, as with most popular news stories, there are people arguing the same side as me but who I completely disagree with. Those people say they are appalled that someone was reading their email or their web traffic. Their email is private! Umm… what? Even if the NSA wasn’t reading your email, you know who can read it? Your email provider, your ISP and countless other people along the route. Not only CAN they read it, but they DO. How else can Gmail serve up those contextual ads based on words that are in your email? How else can they filter out spam? How else can they sell information they glean about you to advertisers and other businesses? And even if THEY aren’t reading your email for some reason, I assure you that China, Russia and other countries are. There’s nothing difficult or illegal about the technology since it’s all sent across the Internet unencrypted. It’s trivial to read it.
Now if you want to call for changes in the scope of the NSA’s powers, create better oversight and transparency, or stop the government from using their web snooping to profile citizens, then that’s fine. But please don’t muddy the waters by being surprised that someone is reading your email.
On a related note, there’s an excellent open letter from a guy named Ben Adida to President Obama which makes some fantastic points about this whole debacle. He does a wonderful job of communicating his point logically without letting emotion ruin the argument. Here’s my favorite quote from the letter, but please go read the whole thing: