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My grandma is visiting, and after we were done watching one of her soaps today, I used the remote to play her second soap ((The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful.)). When she was done with that show, she asked me how to rewind it so she could tape her shows tomorrow, too. 🙂

Then, later in the day, after showing her the pause, play, skip, and replay buttons, she's zipping around like an old pro. She's skipping commercials in batches, replaying eight seconds back in case she skips too far, pausing to go get her coffee, the works. Smart cookie, that one.

Is there a law that prevents the city of Erie from charging people to enter Presque Isle State Park?

I think Erie - if allowed - should put a booth up at the entrance. Charge $1 per car. Let anyone who walks, skates, or rides (on a bicycle) in for free. Sell season passes for $20. I'd buy a season pass - we're there more than 20 times per year. I'm planning to take my Grandma there later this week when she's here.

That alone might add millions of dollars to the city's income. Why won't Erie do it, or can't they?

Golf Digest published a series of articles and interviews in its May issue under the "How Green is Golf?" heading. It's come under fire (and received some support) as noted here and here.

Jared Kuolt has published a good, in-depth review of Rivet. The conclusion is the best part in my opinion <grin>:

It's not often that I spend money on software, but products like Rivet that show an unrivaled level of polish make the decision easy. I want it to work without hassle, and Rivet delivers just that.

Rivet sales are going strong. We've already surpassed our goals for the first month, and it's not yet been a week. I didn't know so many Mac users had XBox 360s! Later this week we hope to introduce version 1.1, at least as a "Cutting Edge" edition. It will automatically sort your iTunes podcasts into "shows." It'll do the same with TV shows, separating them into seasons when possible, as well.

So, to PS3 users out there, I guess you may have to wait for version 1.2… We just had to put these features in.

P.S. Big big props go to Fernando Lins for the icon design. I love the "rivet/power" button combo.

P.P.S. Just noticed Rivet got a mention at TUAW too.

Coming out of Cracker Barrel today, Carey saw an older, larger woman getting out of the back seat of a car parked next to our VW Touareg. She made a noise like "oh!" as the woman's door came within an inch of hitting our car, then made no noise as the woman pushed the door even further open, putting a nice four-inch scratch in our rear passenger door.

A male companion of the woman, who had been sitting in the front seat, said "oh, it's nothing" and the four people from the car walked in to Cracker Barrel. No apology, no offer to give us $10 to have it buffed out or to buy some touch-up paint, nada.

I was stunned. Carey was stunned. Not a peep from them despite the fairly obvious scratch. This goes above and beyond my "Courtesy and Manners" post. Wow.

Carey left a note on their windshield telling them that they should at least say "sorry."

In the words of that girl from Full House, "how rude!"

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The downside to sweeping an opponent? Waiting for the next opponent. Pens fans were pretty confident they'd play the Rangers, but the way the playoffs are going, who knows.

I tuned the Bruins-Habs game on with about 8:30 left in the third. The score was 3-2. Within the next six minutes, four goals had been scored and the Bruins led 5-4, where the game ended up, sending it to a seventh game in Montreal. Yow.

Update: The Ducks lost. Ottawa was swept by the Pens. New Stanley Cup finalists this year. I'm thinking Penguins-Red Wings. 🙂

Yet another thing to buy for the home: a gas-powered pressure washer. I went with a 3000 PSI model from Toro (at Lowe's). Four nozzles, three different cleaning solutions, separate gas/oil compartments (I don't like mixing gas and oil - the leaf blower requires that), and a fair amount of noise.

At least it's fun to use, and according to the wife, the house looks like it was painted. Next: the deck (and then re-sealing) and then the garage floor and driveway.

Remember when everyone's blog included a "what I'm listening to" section? I even had a script and some files that uploaded my playlist to my website so you could see the last 20 or 100 songs I had listened to.

Oh, those silly days of… 2004 or 2005 or whenever that was. 🙂

Can anyone send me some Mexican Coke at a reasonable price?

You know, I guess what I don't get is this: why doesn't Coke sell "cane sugar" Coke themselves? They could sell it for 2x the price or something and then everyone would be happy. What's stopping them from doing that? Why not? Or 3x the price if they want a different spot on the supply/demand curve. Seriously.

Cynical Peak has released Rivet, software for your Mac that will allow you to stream movies, music, and photos to your Xbox 360. This is the 1.0 release, and our software does several things another unnamed piece of software can't do:

• Rivet lets you share movies from iTunes, iPhoto, and an unlimited number of specified folders on disk.
• Rivet lets you share photos from iPhoto and an unlimited number of specified folders.
• Rivet properly shows and lets you navigate your folder hierarchy.
• Rivet resolves aliases.
• Rivet updates all content lists periodically, so if you download a new song or create a new movie, you don't have to re-launch Rivet.
• Rivet quits right away with no shutdown time.
• Rivet is a tad less expensive.

The demo is limited to 1 video, 10 songs, and unlimited photo viewing per session. Rivet costs $18.95 and licenses can be purchased and demos downloaded here.

Got your taxes done? It astounds me the number of people who put off their taxes, file extensions, and so on. Sure, the accountants are busy, but most people's tax returns aren't that complex.

Thankfully this year we're getting a small refund - a direct result of receiving a check on December 29, 2006 rather than after the new year. We paid in a year ago, and now we're getting it back. 😛 Not too bad for a guy who's mostly 1099.

We'll use the refund to pay for a play area/swingset. The "economic stimulus" package we'll dump into a savings account. Sorry, Georgie.

Today concluded perhaps the most boring Masters tournament I've ever seen. Last year at least the lead changed hands several times. This year, the way they've set up the course and the winds prevented anyone from making a charge. Winning the Masters by three with a final-round 75? Zzzzzzzzzzz.

Thankfully the Pens play tomorrow, and a little playoff hockey should wake me from my Masters-induced slumber.

So there's a house that caught my interest last year. It's a few hundred square feet bigger than the house I live in now, the lot size is about the same, and the location is both slightly better and slightly worse. For the vast majority of the people, it's a worse location. For me, it's better.

The unfortunate thing: the house is priced as if instead of solid wood floors, it had solid gold floors. It's a newly built home and it's been on the market for about 18 months already. It's currently listed at 2x the price we could get for our current house.

If I could trade houses, I would - and I'd consider it a fair deal for all involved. But for now (and likely forever) it will simply have to remain a curiosity. I may even go to an Open House some Sunday to have a look around. Maybe they'll pass out samples of whatever the realtor is smoking. 🙂

Lately here at the blog I've been running a bit behind. Now that I've got the MacBook Pro and I can do things like check my email from downstairs (using Screen Sharing to my Mac Pro here upstairs) I haven't been sitting in front of my "main" computer quite as frequently. I wonder if that's it.

Additionally, it's warming up, so I've been spending more time outside. Golf season is about here, so my Twittering is going to drop like a stone as is my general "sitting at the computer because there's little else to do."

I've been a bit busy lately, so I haven't had the chance to listen to R.E.M.'s latest album, Accelerate. I finally managed the time to give it a dedicated listen, and I'm impressed. I've been an R.E.M. fan since long before they became popular, and I've remained one after their popularity has faded. This album strikes me as a good blend of the old (and by old, I mean "Murmuer" era stuff) and their great ("Automatic for the People") - but that's only after one listen, and most R.E.M. music demand a bit more attention than a single listen.