John Turner

Basically, I’m an old guy. I tell people I am 42% hip. People who are more hip than me (like 52% and up) get it and laugh. People who are less hip than me don’t get it and give me a goofy look. I try and avoid those people if possible. In other words, I get some of the pop culture stuff going on these days, but most of it goes right over my head. For example, I needed a 5 minute explanation of what rickrolling was…I didn’t get it, even though the main tool used in rickrolling someone happened when I was in college.

Anyway, there’s this thing called “LOLCats”. People upload pictures of their cats in cute/funny situations, and then overlay funny captions on the pictures. They’re cute and funny, for sure. But, I’m a dog guy. Cats are OK, but dogs are way better.

So the dog version of LOLCats is LOLDogs. Like this site: I Has A Hot Dog. (disclaimer: if English is not your first language please note that “I Has A Hot Dog” is grammatically incorrect which, apparently, is part of the joke but again I am only 42% hip so I’m just guessing) I found this picture today and just cracked up laughing. I’m still laughing two days later:

see more cute dogs and puppies

Seamless upgrade to WP 2.5. Yay!

I dropped my Netflix account yesterday. When I started with Netflix 3-4 years ago, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Then, I ran into the throttle. Basically, Netflix felt I was renting too many movies, causing them to lose money on postage.

I’m all for companies making a profit, but their argument doesn’t make sense. First, even if they were losing money on me, I’m 100% positive they were making money off of someone else, more than likely enough profit to cover both of us and still come out ahead. Second, they specifically use the term “unlimited” in their advertising, and they say I get to pick the movies I want. Well, unlimited means that if I only want to watch new releases, then they better send those puppies out as fast as possible.

[Read more →]

I cashed again in a tournament at Full Tilt. In the last 6 weeks, I’m up almost $2000. Not too bad at all. By “cashed,” I mean “more than $200″. I don’t count the little tournaments or satellites. For this latest, I used 50 FTPs to get into a satellite. I won that, which got me into another satellite where the buy-in was 2500 FTPs. I won that, which got me into the weekly $750K guarantee. Out of 3,974 people playing in that tournament, I ended up 82nd. I wish I could have made it into the top ten…that’s where the serious money was. I think first prize was $134K. Tenth was something like $9K, I think.

On the down side, I went to Motor City the other day to play live in their daily tournament and didn’t cash (last time I played there I cashed for $400). So, playing live I’m 1-1 (.500). If I was a professional baseball player and that was my batting average, I’d be making $15 million a year.

Yet another hypocritical politician goes down the tubes, as NY governor Spitzer resigns from office. Now, if we could only get Kilpatrick to follow suit, we’d be getting somewhere.

Probably the funniest thing about the Spitzer deal (other than laughing in amazement at how stupid some people can be) are the last two Letterman Top Tens a la Spitzer. Here’s Monday’s, and here’s last night’s. I have to say that Monday’s is better, though, especially #5 and #1. Absolutely hilarious. I don’t understand people who like Leno over Letterman. I think it must be like the difference between cat owners and dog owners.

The Detroit News is reporting that the La Shish chain of restaurants is closing for good. While it is bad news to the hundreds of workers that worked in the restaurants and commissary (especially in this economy), I am very happy that this chain is gone.

I have refused to eat there for the last several years [Read more →]

GRL has a number of sweet projects. Two I like and wish I had the money to build are the DIY Bullet Time rig and their crazy skyscraper-sized Laser Tagger. I dug the AZ track and video so much I went and bought both the regular track and the instrumental on iTunes. Rock on!

Am I a bad person if I take pleasure in another’s misfortune? What if the other person is O.J. Simpson? I had to laugh at this article over at SI about Simpson’s latest legal difficulties.

Without getting into the whole “is he guilty?” issue, I think it is funny to see a man who had everything anyone could ever want falling so low based on his own warped view of reality. He was a star athlete, Heisman winner, first NFL player to rush for 2,000 yards in a season, Pro Football Hall of Famer and rich (or what passed for rich at the time). Basically he had everything any typical sports-loving guy could want but apparently it wasn’t enough. If (allegedly) killing his wife wasn’t enough, now he’s caught up in some lame scandal revolving around some memorabilia resulting in some pretty serious charges (kidnapping, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, and coercion and conspiracy). Not something you want to spend your time worrying about, believe me. Funniest thing of all, though, was reading that his bail bondsman is “You Ring, We Spring!” in FL. Hilarious!

Seamless upgrade to WP 2.3.2. Yay!

Fortune magazine has a commentary on how US taxpayers will ultimately be funding Bank of America’s planned acquisition of junk mortgage king Countrywide. This kind of thing is irritating to no end.

On a similar note, here’s an analysis of why banks can offer such high interest rates for CDs and some savings accounts. Basically, the banks are in trouble, so they need to get capital, which is another way of saying they need you to deposit your money. So they offer high rates as an incentive, but the risk behind it keeps going up. The banks are willing to take the risk, because it really is YOU that is taking the risk, not the bank, thanks to the FDIC. So, when you put your money in the bank to get that 5% CD, and the bank fails, you’ll get your money, but the money you get won’t be your original money, it will be money you previously paid in income taxes. So you (and every other taxpayer) ends up screwed. Nice!