So that's why they call it that. Or not.

Didn't see that one coming...

Just read it again.

See what they did there?

Yeeeaahhh... strange.

Some People's Kids

A couple of quick work rantings here...

For those of you who don't know, I currently manage a self storage facility, which is really a lot better than it sounds.  But sometimes the people who I have the privilege of dealing with make it seem, well, less good.

For instance, a couple of weeks ago, some lady called just before closing and ask what our smallest unit was and its price, then ask if we had a "State Farm discount".  When I said no, she promptly hung up.  Strange.

I have never in my life heard of business offering a State Farm discount.  AAA or AARP, maybe, but State Farm?  Now, to be fair, there is a large State Farm Insurance office just outside of town, so maybe she is used to getting special treatment for working there, but I don't really see that as being very realistic.

And then just now an older (sounding) lady called and asked if we were still having the storage auction that we had planned on.  Normal, reasonable question, because we are holding one tomorrow, but they sometimes get rescheduled or cancelled at the last minute for various reasons.  For this reason we maintain an email list for people who are interested in coming so they don't come to an auction that isn't happening.  I asked her if she was on our email list and she said she didn't think so I offered to add her to it.  She said okay, but when I got to the email address part, she goes, "Oh, I don't have an email address."

I don't know about you, but when someone asks me if I would like to be on an email list, I assume there might be the requirement of, oh, HAVING AN EMAIL ADDRESS to complete that interaction!  

It's folks like this that make me sad and fearful for the future of America, nae, the world, because these people breed.  

Björk ("Byerk") is super strange

So, I'm really easily distracted.  I was reading a Lifehacker article about something and noticed a cool picture on the io9 cell of the Gawker spam in the footer which led to a rundown of "10 Debut Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels That Took the World by Storm", some of which I think I'd like to read.  Someday.  And really just the two most sci-fi / lease fantasy ones: The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester and Neuromancer by William Gibson.  

Supposedly there has been talk of a Neuromancer movie project for years, but nothing has ever come out of it, according to the comments.  One director people seemed to be excited about though was someone named Chris Cunningham.  Apparently he is a semi-famous director who worked on movies like A.I. and such.  

But anyway, someone posted this cyberpunkish video of Björk "All is Full of Love."  that he made.  It is super strange.  I'm pretty sure the robot tries to touch herself at one point.  

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure who's weirder - Björk or Cunningham.  Although I must admit that I have no clue as to the underlying meaning / message of the song or accompanying video.

I was on TWiT's AAA! ...Kinda

Yesterday I was featured on All About Android #22, the TWiT network's weekly show about, well, the Android smartphone ecosystem!  Okay, not me in the flesh, but my question was read and answered on the air, and it was one of the best nerd moments of my life.  And of course, because it's TWiT, it's on video.

Let me set this up for you.  I've had my first Android phone, a LG p999 Optimus X2 / G2x on T-Mobile, for about four months now (since May '11), and I really dig it.  But lately I've been getting pretty annoyed by some of its quirks and decided to root it so I could get full control of and do a good backup in preparation for a change of some sort.  Having not gotten the OTA update to Gingerbread from T-Mobile, I was all ready to load the CyanogenMod ROM, but then I got a little freaked out by a warning about my phone being unrecoverable if something went wrong.

So, after reading the XDA forums for way too long, I decided to write to the all-star crew of All About Android and see what they had to say about it.  I remembered that Leo had a G2x (and apparently still does), and hoped that they could help me out.

What I got was way more than I could have hoped for.  A three minute walk through of exactly what to do for my situation, from the man, Leo himself.

(If you want to see Eileen read my slightly wordy question, start here.  And of course, watch the whole episode from the beginning for some really good stuff.)  

So there you have it.  I'm saved by the TWiT AAA team and Leo Laporte and now I've got a plan on how to attack my phone and put a sweet aftermarket ROM on it.

Of course, now I hear that you can force the update to 2.3.3 from T-Mobile, but I have a feeling that would undo my root, and at this point, I'm feeling pretty confident about just jumping right into CyanogenMod.

The Republican Primary So Far, and Why We Might Be Screwed

The Atlanta Wire, not known for its conservative leanings, had A Brief History of the Republican Primary So Far posted recently that is actually a very reasonable breakdown of the revolving door of media infatuation with the GOP's most recent presidential hopefuls. They chart the beginning, middle, and if applicable, end of each candidate's moment in the limelight, complete with Google analytics to back it up. Pretty nifty and worth checking out.

And here's why the Republican party is kinda screwed, at the moment: all of the candidates that the media has been in love with for more than a week or so are crazy. Trump, Palin, Bauchman, Perry -- they're all a little off their rockers on one thing or another.

And the actual crazy one, Ron Paul, is being ignored like he's not even there! I mean, the guy nearly won the Iowa straw poll, less than 200 votes behind then-sterling Michelle Bauchman. But Paul is boring and consistent with his message of isolationist and anti-war stance,which I think the press (and most of the Republican electorate) got bored with about five years ago. While Paul has some very valid points and concerns, he is about as unelectable in a national race as Mel Brooks would have been in the 1960s.

It seems like the only semi-viable candidates at the moment are the Mormon ones. Jon Huntsman is my current favorite, but he needs to learn how to run a campaign; and Mitt Romney is still attractive in that executive-experience and really-good-hair kind of way, but neither are garnering much positive attention right now.

Oh well, the GOP race got started way to early and there's still a year left before anything meaningful happens anyway, so I suppose I shouldn't get to worked up about it just yet.