Jim’s Blog

So, I started using this when Google first announced it, and it’s incredible. You call this number, and say what you’re looking for, and your phone connects. Trying to call Meijer today while driving home looking for the Futurama DVD? I was. I called them, and they didn’t have it. I called GOOG-411 back and asked for Best Buy. Best Buy had it, and now I do, too.

So, what makes Goog-411 better than just dialing 411. 3 things:

1. It’s free

2. The robot that answers is a lot more polite than 411 operators

3. It’s free

Now, it does have its drawbacks. I once tried to get it to connect me to El Zarape. It couldn’t find it, so I said “Mexican Food” instead. It was the second result, and it pronounced it like we sometimes do in jest, all Americanized. I assume that’s going to get better in time.

Some might suggest that Google’s using it to perfect some master AI software, built to enslave humanity. I don’t really care one way or the other. I don’t have to pay $2 everytime I want to call a damn business. Thanks, Google.

Nippon is a native name for Japan. I wonder why we call it Japan? Is it called other things in other parts of the world?

Wikipedia is my new god. Let me enlighten you as to why.

Turducken

The knowledge smash you will experience with this link is off the charts. Learn, children, learn.

I dreamt this morning that Rhonda, my bed, wrote me an e-mail. It was to help me with some computer troubles I’ve been having. Today, I fixed those problems. Thanks, Rhonda. <3

As I was heading into my hometown this weekend, something struck me. They’re building a Bass Pro that is (I think) bigger than my high school. As I thought about it, there’s also a so-called “Mega Church” in town that is likely to be larger than my high school. The local McDonald’s has two drive through lanes. It’s a disturbing trend. I’ve never been a fan of my hometown, mostly due to the rampant intolerance I experienced while living there, but they seem to embrace more and more of the values that are opposite of my own.

I could say the same for the whole of the United States, too, I suppose.

I’m of the opinion that there is nothing more important than a quality education. If you think times are tough now, just wait until the children of these times come into power. The best is yet to come. The whole of a community should be focused on the education of the young. Call it a social responsibility. I sometimes think back to some of the classrooms I was forced through in that town. More than one held mops and cleaning supplies before it held students and teachers. To watch the construction of an enormous store dedicated chiefly to the killing and deep frying of animals that’s miles away from anything but an on ramp and a few gas stations is a tragedy. The way we’ve structured our priorities in this country is a joke that we’re all living everyday.

Nothing rocks like hearing from old friends.

College is weird. You live side by side with a huge number of young and bored people like you. You share strange adventures and wind up with strange memories. A few years later, you and everyone you’ve come to care about in the past 4 or 5 years scatter to the wind. Nice Stef in San Diego, the Al and the Illustrious Jenna Gable in New York, the Endlessly Epic Bob in Atlanta. The people you used to see everyday, would buy drinks for on weeknights, and who shared in capers… now you only talk to a few times a week, or once every few months, or not at all.

It’s a sad reality. With so many people in so many places, how do you really keep up? Can you really count reading myspace posts and facebook updates? Of course not. The only thing I can think to do is dedicate a week per month to contacting everyone you can think of. Thankfully, technology has made it easy to keep track of people. A few clicks, a couple of keystrokes, and I’ve sent a “word up” message to someone I haven’t seen since graduation. It’s a sorry excuse for the kind of contact I had over the weekend, seeing Margo for the first time in I don’t know how long. It’s more contact than I would have had before the age of the internet. Keeping track of phone numbers? Mailing addresses? I’ve moved every year for the past 6 now.

I guess I’ll continue to do what I can. This week, I’ll make an effort to contact some of the people who’ve drifted the furthest away, and see how life is treating them.

People who know me know that I love Wikipedia. Why consult a boring (and often expensive) encyclopedia when you can get punk rock information now that’s occasionally wrong and hilarious. For instance, I had no idea that the badger was an ingredient in the color blue and could be used to make a “smashing party punch.”

A while ago, I read an article about how Tequila was rising in popularity such that aged tequilas were being sold. Many, many, many people told me that you can’t age tequila. After a while it supposedly goes bad. I hadn’t heard this before, but was more likely to believe the article than the yahoos I know.

Rich dropped by my office today. He’s spent quite a bit of time in Mexico lately, and raves about the tequila he scored. I brought up the whole “you can’t age tequila” malarky and he agreed, it’s malarky. He told me to consult wikipedia.org. I did. It doesn’t say anything about tequila going bad. Why would it? It did force a dump truck load of knowledge into my head.

And, now I want a margarita.