John Turner

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!

I almost forgot…my FFL team, The Funky Hermits, won our Super Bowl! What made our win even more satisfying was knowing that we beat the team with Tom Brady in the conference championships. After doing that, winning the Super Bowl was easy.

Don’t get me wrong, Brady is the man and he has without question turned in the best regular season performance of any NFL quarterback, ever, but it was fun beating a team with him on the roster using a team with Jon Kitna as the QB. [Read more →]

Depending on how you look at it, I’m either fortunate or unfortunate enough to work for a company that shuts down for almost two weeks during the Christmas holidays. If I don’t work I don’t get paid, which sucks, especially around the holidays, but then again, it is nice to have all that time off.

One of the things I did over the break was go down to Motor City with my buddy RC to play poker. I’ve pretty much given up playing online, and have decided to focus on playing in live games and tournaments this year. Aside from home games, I’ve only played against strangers live at a casino once before. Motor City has a tournament at noon every day, so we went down there last week and bought in. The buy-in was $65, with $15 going to the house and $50 going to the purse. I know, I know, $65 isn’t the big time, but there’s no reason to spend $200-$500 when you’re just getting your feet wet and practicing playing live.

So $65, it ended up being 40 people, no limit hold ‘em. [Read more →]

Whew! Today’s edition of Cool Tools was a good one. I especially liked the entry on live blogging conferences and the entry on the Personal MBA. I’ve been thinking about grad school quite a bit the last few years, or even law school, but just haven’t been able to justify spending $600 a credit hour and anywhere from $15,000-$50,000 total to get a grad degree, not to mention spending 4 hours in a class two or three times a week after working 8-9 hours. Reading the Personal MBA site has given me a lot to think about. If my employer were to offer tuition reimbursement, I’d go for a grad degree, no question. But without it, I can’t see the ROI anytime soon, especially with the economy tanking the way it is.

Happy New Year! Haven’t posted in awhile, been busy, blah blah blah. I’ll do better this year, I promise.

Recently, I’ve been spending more time trying to understand how people are making money off of their blogs. Some folks are making several thousands of dollars a month, just by posting! Don’t get me wrong, I like my job, but [Read more →]

Painless upgrade to WP 2.3.1, and a new theme. Yay!