- Intro
- Outsourced customer service
- Post-death appreciation
- Campo Azul tequila
- Faith No More on tour

Intro music: “Anhelos” by Leechmaster
Outro music: “8-bit Junkie” by George Wood

Associated media:
- “Customer Service Gone Wrong” – this is not far from the truth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y7I5h51rrE
- Joe was right, look at the boxes these people work in.  Bullshit.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DkqnsO2C2Y
- Faith No More – Mark Bowen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHDLjsqGEFE
- Faith No More – From Out Of Nowhere http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-SAjfHhjts
- www.fnm.com

FINALLY!  It took a few weeks and a few test runs to get the equipment functioning properly (even if we weren’t), but here it is: Episode 1.  Much like the Star Wars movie with the same title, you will be left saying “meh, but cool effects”.  We fully expect to be called the Jar Jar Binks of the podcasting world.  Thank you for downloading, feel free to leave feedback.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

From hothardware.com:

“In an odd move aimed to rival Best Buy‘s Geek Squad, Wal-Mart has announced plans to offer its own form of tech support for shoppers.  The mega-retailer has confirmed that it has started up a partnership with N.E.W. Customer Service Companies in order to offer in-home setup services to those who buy their gear from Wally World. In fact, the new offering will be in place prior to the holiday season getting fully underway, so there’s a good chance things will take off this winter.  Wal-Mart customers will be able to buy service plans on a prepaid card ranging from $99 to $399, which honestly sounds like a curious way to pay for in-home installation services. At any rate, the services available range from standard television setup to wiring an entire home theater system or home network, and all plans include preliminary consultation and a tutorial after installation is completed.”

Given how cheap Walmart is regarding wages, I can only imagine the quality of people working in the “Wally Squad”.

From the Lansing State Journal:

“Sean Murphy, an employee at Preuss Pets in Lansing, has unofficially broken a world record.  Murphy successfully managed to fit 16 Madagascar hissing cockroaches into his mouth for a total of 10 seconds Friday night at the Old Town pet store. The current world record is 11 cockroaches.  “My first thought was I can beat that” said Murphy. “Eleven doesn’t seem like that many.”  Murphy initially stopped at 12 cockroaches and waited the official 10 seconds, but then continued until he reached 16.  “I’ve never gotten it in one try so that was a big surprise,” he said. “Let’s see if anyone can match that within the next year and maybe next Halloween I’ll shoot for 20.”

Wait, just in case you missed this: “I’ve never gotten it in one try”.  So this guy has done this before…. probably many times.  I’ll bet he’s a real hit with the ladies.

From ScienceDaily:

“Researchers at North Carolina State University have found a genetic “switch” in fruit flies that plays an important role in making flies more tolerant to alcohol.  This metabolic switch also has implications for the deadly liver disease cirrhosis in humans. A counterpart human gene contributes to a shift from metabolizing alcohol to the formation of fat in heavy drinkers. This shift can lead to fatty liver syndrome — a precursor to cirrhosis.

In the study, published in the October print issue of the journal Genetics, the research team measured the time it takes for flies to stagger due to alcohol intake while simultaneously identifying changes in the expression of all their genes.”

Now this is a proper scientific study.  If given the opportunity, who wouldn’t want to be able to tolerate more alcohol?  Just flick that switch and point me to the bar.

http://tinyurl.com/yz2vaec

From Ashton Kutcher via Twitter:

Hilarious

Via myfox8.com:

“It might not be worth as much as a grilled cheese sandwich said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary, but a North Carolina woman believes she’s found a well-known Christmas character in her pork chop.  Sue Church stopped by the FOX8 studios on Tuesday morning to show us a pork chop that resembles Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Some have suggested the meat actually resembles the antler-wearing dog in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  The aforementioned grilled cheese sandwich fetched $28,000 in an eBay auction in 2004, a decade after it was discovered.  What do you think Sue’s pork chop looks like?”

You can call it whatever you want, but it looks like she already tried to eat it.  Many times.

I’ve never really been a fan of traditional coffee.  Every once in a while I’d have a cup (or three) at IHOP when I was really in the mood, but even then I’d have to load it with sugar and non-dairy creamer to cut through the bitter taste of their cheap coffee.  I knew that Starbucks offered many alternatives to the traditional cup of coffee, most of which barely resembled coffee.  I managed to avoid stepping foot into a Starbucks, or any glam coffee lounge for that matter, for years, casting it off as a place that I shouldn’t be because 1) I’m not social, 2) I don’t like to read, 3) I don’t carry a laptop around with me, and 4) I can’t see paying $5 for coffee.  I’m a caffeine addict for sure – the more, the better – so after a few drinks at Starbucks I’m dirt poor.

Well that all changed when I got turned on to café sua dá (Vietnamese coffee).   Café sua dá, which literally translates to “coffee with milk”, is traditionally made using harsh French Roast coffee and then mixed with condensed milk and served over ice.  Ah, this is great stuff that will definitely keep you up and alert at 3:00am and it’s cheap.  Most places that sell café sua dá usually will brew the coffee through an espresso machine since it’s faster than the little metal strainer.  My only complaint is that all consumer espresso machines under $100 are shit, and I’m not about to pay more than $25 for a coffee machine.

I recently came across the Toddy Cold Brew system, and this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.  It’s cheap (around $30 at Amazon) and the cold brewing cuts out a lot of the bitterness that you get with coffee.  What’s also nice is that with the harshness gone, I don’t have to use the super sweet condensed milk any more.  Whole milk and a little sugar and it’s perfect over ice.  Check it out, but if $30 is too much for you, then you can get the same results from using a couple of large cups or jars and a paper coffee filter. It’s so easy, even a 9-year old can do it (this kid does a great job and his video demonstration deserves a plug).

From Lifehacker:

“CrimeReports will display, when data is available, a variety of crimes including homicide, breaking and entering, robbery, theft, theft of/from a vehicle, assault, and sexual offenses by default. You can also add in other crimes like kidnapping, arson, alarm responses, and proactive police activity like community policing and vehicles stops.

All of the above have color coded flags that can be easily read on the map. The flags are identified in the left hand column or by mouse click—both give you the type of crime and the location. You can also adjust the range of dates displayed to the last few days, last week, two weeks, month, or a custom date range via calendar. CrimeReports is a free service and requires no login.”

So you think your neighborhood is pretty safe?  Find out for sure at www.crimereports.com.  I was surprised to see how much stuff goes on in my neighborhood – and that’s just the stuff that’s reported.

Call me a procrastinator, but I was totally fine with my iphone for the past year, jailbroken on firmware v2.1.  Considering the problems I had initially with jailbreaking that phone in Windows, I wasn’t in a hurry to try it again.  However, over the past few months, about 1 out of every 3 apps I tried to install from the App Store told me it wasn’t compatible with my phone.  WTF doesn’t anyone make backwards compatible apps?  So I was ready to go for the jailbreak again, but as luck (or lack thereof) would have it, there’s no jailbreak software for the latest firmware (3.1.2) for Windows.  That is, until today.  Renowned iphone hacker GeoHot released his jailbreak app early Sunday morning.  It’s pretty slick (when it works) and it took a fraction of the time I spent jailbreaking my phone the first time.  It wasn’t without its problems, but once I figured out the right sequence of disable-disable-open-open-connect-close-disconnect then it worked like a charm.  I gotta say, 3.1.2 runs noticeably faster than 2.1, and the addition of landscape emails and text messages, plus the voice recorder, made it even better.  So far Cydia is up to its usual random crashes but Tweetdeck is running fast and stable.  On 2.1 Tweetdeck was almost unusable.  So far so good.

From David Spark via Twitter:

David said he couldn’t imagine anything duller.  I don’t know, these folks look like they’re having a great time…

http://tinyurl.com/ygt4vo7

The “World Championship” you say?  It looks like an old man’s version of pencil fighting but with souveniers.  Ah hell, as long as there’s alcohol and competition, there’s bound to be some excitement.