Odd that nobody pays attention to those that are supposedly losing out

In this article about a mailman in North Carolina who simply stopped delivering junk mail, I find it both amusing and odd that the fact that nobody complained or was even remotely bothered that their junk mail did not make its way to them was noted by either the direct marketing association spokesperson or by the mail service that enables them.

Admittedly, there is money being made and that’s the driver. But any drug pusher or criminal has that motivation too.

We receive *thousands* of pieces of this crap every year. I do what I can to minimize it. I’ve even contacted some of the more egregious catalog senders to have them limit their mailings to a few times per year (Victoria’s Secret graciously responded and now I get something maybe quarterly rather than weekly. Can you imagine how many catalogs I had to receive before even *I* didn’t want to look at them anymore???).

This year again, the AOPA Air Safety foundation sent me a half dozen thick envelopes filled with sample cards in spite of my contacting them to ask them to reduce such. I received no response at all from a recent email to them. I declined to purchase this year as a result.

There are a lot of necessary excesses that we learn to tolerate as a price for our way of life. We see things like driving 1-2 tons of metal a mile to get a $2 quart of milk as reasonable and (somehow) proper. But some things simply have no value-add in my life, and I believe in most other folks’ lives. In my opinion, anything that is unsolicited and provides no benefit, even as a side-effect (TV ads, for instance, at least provide the entertainment value of the accompanying programming), can be stamped out without hesitation.

Porn buddies

There are not a lot of sitcoms that I rave about, but “Coupling” is definitely on the short list. The writing, the characters and the situations are all brilliant.

Here Jeff describes to Susan the concept of the “porn buddy”. It’s brilliant. And probably practical advice… you know who you are. 🙂

The world’s ugliest buildings

I checked out this article on the CNN website and have to disagree completely with the premise that the buildings are all “ugly”. The only one that jarred my sensibilities was the Scottish Parliament – it just looks like a tenement with laundry hanging off the balconies.

Admittedly the word “ugly” is a subjective one so it’s all about opinion, but for the most part those buildings seem to me to simply stand out. The term “landmark” could just as easily be used in most cases…

Kill A Watt EZ P4460 – Hitachi Rear Projection TV 50FX19K – Standby Mode

Another surprise here. Ishwar suggested putting the Kill A Watt on my TV to see what the power consumption is like when it’s just sitting there waiting for me to turn it on. From what we’ve both heard I had rather expected the TV to consume a fair bit of power in this mode. At least that’s why we’re supposed to unplug such appliances when not in use (yeah, like that’s going to happen).

As it was the TV consumes so little power that it doesn’t even register on my power meter. In fact, after nearly a day (21 hrs) it still had not consumed enough to register any value at all.

Either my 12 year old rear projection TV set is extraordinarily energy efficient or those energy saver guides are using “common sense” rather than actual empirical evidence when they offer this advice…

Anyway, I’ve hooked up my entire entertainment system to check out what a week or so of consumption is like. Coming up soon.

Kill A Watt EZ P4460 – Whirlpool ED25DQ Refrigerator

DSC_0585 (325x640)I ended up leaving the Kill A Watt on my fridge for a *lot* longer than I intended. But at least I got a pretty good representation of its consumption.

These results were a big surprise to me. I’ve always considered that the fridge should be one of the chief energy consumers in the house and was expecting these numbers to be much greater than this.

RESULTS

Elapsed time: 623 hrs (about 26 days)
Measured Consumption (Watts): 173 <– This is what I spotted when the compressor was running
Measured Consumption (Amps): 2.43
Cost –
     Actual (for duration of test): $6.04
     Daily: $0.23
     Weekly: $1.62
     Monthly: $6.94
     Annual: $84.49

The Sex Song

Yeah… I’m not so sure you’d want them singing this song about *you*. But the melody is very good and frankly the lyrics make me laugh so here it is.

Not really safe for work if you can even stream this to your work machine.

Toronto Trip pictures from July

So, I’ve *finally* figured out what I’m doing and have culled through my Toronto images from our July trip.

Please click here to check them out. I’m going to be posting them over a number of days so check out the flickr app on the left side to see if there is anything new there.

This friendly little guy is a tortoise in the Darwin exhibit that was hosted at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Iron Man – wow!

Just saw “Iron Man“. Now *that’s* the way a super-hero movie is supposed to be done. A little funny, stretch reality a bit and use top-notch actors and special effects.

When I saw the 2003 version of “Hulk” I thought, “Uh oh… I hope this doesn’t mean all sci fi will flush plot and plausibility down down the toilet like this.”. Unfortunately a lot of movies seemed to follow that path and I found much of the comics to movie genre not that palatable. I’ve never been much of a superhero comic kind of guy so often my first exposure to these are through their Hollywood movies. Dismal examples include “The Fantastic 4”, “Hulk”, “Transformers” – all of which, had I been an afficionado from days gone by, I might have been able to overlook the terrible character development and flimsy plots due to nostalgia. But without that background I found the movies terribly lacking in depth and plausibility (and I’m really not that hard to please that way).

Movies that got it right include “X-Men”, “Batman Begins”, maybe “Superman” and now “Iron Man”.

As a side note I have to say Robert Downey Jr. *really* carries this move. His is an understated presence that just fills ths screen.

Gwyneth Paltrow seems under used, but I am imagining that this is to do with how the character she is portraying is represented in the comic books?

Voting – Holy Crap!

I just got back from my sad, sorry attempt to cast my votes for this election. At the advanced voting station, in this frigid weather (showing 34 degrees by my thermometer), there was a line out a couple of hundred yards and 4-5 strong wide outside of the building.

How incompetent a system are we running that it’s going to take me *how* many hours, business hours, to cast my vote?

I’m originally from Canada. A country which, in many ways, is not as sophisticated as the United States. But in some ways – consumer oriented banking and voting. Was VASTLY ahead of us. I cannot recall EVER having to wait more than 20 minutes to get into the polling station and then be on my way again. Maybe I was lucky, but I was then, as I am now, on the outskirts of one of the larger cities in Canada. If anything, I’m now *farther* away from the urban core. And yet we can’t figure out how to do this efficiently?

Come on! It’s not like this is unusual or a surprise. We have a MAJOR election every 4 years! And zillions of minor ones it seems all the time. Who’s the genius who thinks this is acceptable?

*sigh* I’ll try again at 3 pm… and probably again nearer to 6. I’ve invested the time to be aware of the candidates and the issues, I can’t believe I’ll be stymied by bureaucratic incompetence… oh, wait… that’s what bureaucratic incompetence is all about…

** Update 4:00 pm **
Just got back, the line looks a *little* thinner but was longer yet and, at over 2 hundred yards, was still ridiculous.  I guess this means that only the retired, the unemployed and convicts are able to vote these days?  That could go along way toward understanding the caliber of congress we have…

** Update November 4 **
I have to say that I was impressed. The polling station was open and uncrowded, direction was excellent and it only took me about 15-20 minutes to get in, vote and get out.  So I have to take back some of what I said above. I cannot at all understand what the frenzy surrounding advance voting was all about but I’m glad to see the fears were unwarranted.
Kudos. And yes – regardless of who wins the election, this IS THE BEST COUNTRY THIS PLANET HAS EVER SEEN.