It reminds me of how my mother hated the music I listened to until she saw me play on stage back in '94. She had the best way of describing us and the crowd: "That gives a whole new meaning to 'flipping your wig!'"

One of the secrets of extreme metal (be it death, black, thrash, or anything requiring high energy and stamina) is most of us are nerds showing off how far they can push their limits on their instruments. One of my sources of joy is trying my "Sub-Bass" out on other bassists. Once they get past the giant strings, it's neat to see what others can do with it.

Anyone remember Haultrek? It was a webcomic that sounds a little like what they're planning here--only the authors decided to back away from the Star Trek angle and re-brand it as "Freighter Tails." www.mzzkiti.com

While it kinda died over the years, it had potential.
"But somebody has to haul the stinky stuff too."

I find it interesting that a company as big as Best Buy decided to use Amazon as a source of revenue. I've heard of small businesses and entrepreneurs being sellers, the wisdom being that it doesn't have to be their only income stream.

I think Trump has it wrong: the future is adapting, and right now it looks like running a business through Amazon isn't a bad idea, despite Amazon profiting from it without much effort (unless one spends a bit more to take advantage of their ability to store, handle, and ship merchandise!)

I wonder if this will go the way of Voodoo Graphics or Cyrix: the big two are just... too big!

That brings back memories hanging out at the Radio Shack in town, learning BASIC, and taking the occasional trip to the bigger town up north to play with what was called the Level II. (Ooooh... double-size text that's supposed to happen, as opposed to the occasional hardware glitch when powering up. I always suspected the Level II OS was only one DIP switch away.)

The word "Model" didn't come along for some time, much like the word "Episode" until there was a second Star Wars film. \m/

For me, VLC is my backup player for the occasional rare file type and also a handy media converter under Media > Convert / Save.

For everything else, it's the last version of Winamp for audio and MPC-HC for video which I like because it looks and works like the last good version of WMP that came with Windows 98 with a subtle difference on the surface: an extra button for frame advance!

I was caught by one of those red light cameras: turning right at a red light without coming to a full stop in a rich suburb of Portland, Oregon. The fact that it happened just after midnight and no cars or pedestrians were visible for miles in all directions didn't make any difference to the judge. The fact is that I sailed though the turn at 11MPH without stopping.

Back in the 80's when they first made driving without insurance illegal, the argument was put forth that a law can't be enacted that favors a private industry. These days, they're clearly making too much money on this.

I've never been in an accident, but my car insurance has always included coverage for uninsured motorists. Personally this doesn't really affect me, but I'm sure it's part of the reason the reason insurance is so high around town for everyone.

I just wonder what would happen if they ever install speed cameras around the interstate highways here: Oregon is mostly stuck on 65 rurally and 55 in town, and almost everyone drives 10MPH over the speed limit here, which is about the speed limit in the surrounding states!

In my day I had to hang out all day at the nickle arcade and play the "home version" of games on my Atari 800 with Iron Maiden or Metallica on the turntable to harm my mental health!

Aye, mine is a 100+ room three-star (enclosed keyed entry to the building but no valet staff beyond one House Person), with a final price around $100-150 per night. We try to get their loyalty, but many people are passing through, often using those third-party services. Lately they seem to be only a few bucks below our normal rates until sales come up and I start seeing -$20 rooms in the "Restaurant Roof Vent View" rooms. :-

The funny thing to me is the formal-ish atmosphere. I have a convenience store background and had to get used to calling people "guests" instead of "customers," but I always treated them as if they were visiting my living room, and passed that along to people I've trained over the years.

I don't know how much loyalty I create, except for the few fellow metalheads that stay every now and then. \m/-_-\m/

Address, license plate number, co-guests occasionally, and the rate they had in the past (which doesn't apply to third-parties, but makes it easier to set up our regular guests.) At least their phone number comes through from Expedia, though half the time there is a leading zero or one that has to be edited before our system recognizes it as a phone number. It doesn't sound like much, but it slows things down when people are lined up on a busy night. We normally get that info when they call us to make a reservation so it's ready to go when they check in, and regulars in our local history take almost no time to set up.

Oh yes! My hotel used to price all rooms the same by the number of beds, and the worst rooms (on the wings not facing the river or the few odd rooms that don't have balconies) were saved for last when we had to use them. Now, they are offered at a lower price, and are usually taken by people using third-party billing sites like Expedia who blindly click on the lowest price then become upset when they realize what they got, and we can't change the deal because they didn't pay us in the first place.

The thing about these third-party sites is they generate much less revenue, so it was decided that we wouldn't give daily breakfast discount coupons for our restaurant to those who don't book directly with us. This has caused some problems, but it's also caused some of our guests to become happy regulars that book directly even if we have to match their rates.

There is also the fact that Internet prepaid rooms are extra work to prepare, and since they started allowing same-day bookings, often with "I just made the reservation five minutes ago, isn't it here yet?" it must be said that these services are disliked by us front desk staffers who would prefer people just call or walk in. We can't simply check repeat guests in from history—we (and they) have to enter their personal info from scratch every single time. There is also the chance of making mistakes like charging their personal card the full amount of the room since they were already charged by the third party before coming in, and as the night auditor, it gives me more types of mistakes to be aware of and hunt for.

Needless to say, it wouldn't surprise me if Expedia and Priceline users are unintentionally treated like second-class citizens because of all the extra work they create. I try to treat everyone the same, but I still feel that twinge when someone comes in saying they have a reservation, and I had already checked in the last arrival of the night.

Same here—the speaker on my 2007 Samsung u740 (before they called it "Alias") died and I made the transition to a smart phone last April. My #1 requirement was a removable battery, and I found the G4 to be what I needed. (The G5 was nice, but too big for my Carhartt slacks' phone pocket, and I didn't feel like I needed the modular features.)

I don't really know if I'll ever need to replace the battery as I rarely go outside the 30-80% charge range (using the Ampere app as a charge alarm,) but I want my phone to last and have the option to replace or upgrade it to an 8500mAh ZeroLemon if size ever becomes unimportant to me. I also like the fact that the G4's fuel gauge chip (MAX17048) means there's no need to "calibrate" the battery and shorten it's life even further.

I read years ago that children were asked which character on Sesame Street was the most honest. Yep, it was Oscar the Grouch. He had no filter and while he was irritable, kids sensed no BS coming from him. It's like a couple friends I have: rude sometimes, but they occasionally said things that needed to be heard, even though I didn't like hearing it at the time.

This story made me happy. My parents pressured me into enrolling when I was fresh eighteen, and I was burned out after one year and dropped out. I liked the education and was all about electronics, but I had never held a job before then, and should have gone that direction instead. What followed was mostly twenty years of working in different places and moving on when the Department of Education would catch up to me. I should have bankrupted myself out of it before they created that lovely exemption for student loans when I had the chance.

Oh well, I lived, learned, and found work that paid well enough to let them siphon my hard-earned money for almost a decade while barely getting by. Three years ago it finally ended and I no longer had to be creative with my taxes so I was always paying $10-$50 at the end of the year so they had nothing to garnish beyond my paycheck. At that point, I bought a van. The cost of payments, insurance, and gas was equal to the price of a monthly bus pass and what they were taking out of my paychecks. My last van payment will be next March, and I plan to celebrate and start building my bank account faster than ever with an eye towards using my electronics and programming knowledge to become self-employed.

While much of this was my own fault, ITT still robbed me of a good portion of my life. I'm glad to see them go, and maybe more stories like mine will make the next generation think twice before getting trapped in a student loan. Looking back, working and paying for college is a smart thing to do, but going in the direction of Entrepreneurship is even better. There will always be a limit to how much money you can make if you're working for someone else. There are no guarantees, but there is always the possibility of raking it in with the right product or service, and the education needed to run a business doesn't have to be expensive. What good is being a lawyer if you're paying thousands every month for your education until you're in your sixties?

I learned to divide between two keychains: one has the regular keys, the other has the van's remote, gas cap key, bottle opener, and a AAA Arc-UV LED light.

That way, I can't lock the keys in the van, and when we're on the road, the drummer can use the remote to get in and pass out in the passenger seat!