And you thought just the movies were bad

The LA Times re-investigates movie theater popcorn, and still comes up disappointed. Guess it's a good thing that the teeny tiny child size popcorn bags are now $5 and not worth my dollars.

"A medium-sized popcorn and medium soda at the nation's largest movie chain pack the nutritional equivalent of three Quarter Pounders topped with 12 pats of butter"

45

Well, another birthday month has come and gone. (The 13th, for those of you that missed it). It’s nice that it often happens close to the Columbus day weekend. All went well, even though it started off with a little excessive imbibing after Friday’s dinner – but a tasty drink and cute boys, well… I ended up going out every night of the weekend, so I think I birthday’ed enough to justify the actual day (Tuesday) to be relatively regular and boring.

I must say the Internet age makes things interesting. The Birthday celebrations began on October 1, when I got a flurry of birthday emails from restaurants and stores that had my day on file. Some had some nice coupons, so saving a buck or two was nice. Cards are pretty much dead except for my immediate family. Being a computer guy myself it doesn’t faze me. I’m just happy to still be remembered. So over the weekend I got plenty of email well-wishes, and a flurry of Facebook Happy’s from all my FB buddies near and far. The strangest ones being some more robo-emails at midnight Monday as Tuesday EST officially kicked in – I’m not sure why the Eudora help forum or Apple Insider really wanted to wish me a happy – but I guess “the only thing worse than being talked about” and all…

So this was 45 for me – half way through the decade. Studies say this is the “unhappiest” decade in most people’s lives. The exuberance if youth is gone, and the “don’t care, you’re still alive” of the later years hasn’t kicked in yet. Not sure where I fall in that yet. I certainly don’t feel old, except for the knees (paying for all those skinned knees as a kid maybe). By now I do realize the whole ‘work’ thing is overrated, but aside from the occasional lottery ticket there’s not much you can do there. :)

I'll end it with a great column by Charlie Brooker, a columnist from The Guardian, a newspaper in the UK. (That's Charlie's byline pic at the top of the post - I love that cheeky look :-)

Grocerie$

Sometimes it feels like this is what my neighbourhood is turning into....

Brrrrr

OK, I finally caved. Home nursing a cold today, and when I got out of bed it was chilly. it had gotten down to 60 in the apartment. So for probably the earliest time in the past 11 years, I turned on the heat this morning. (The latest in the season was 2 years ago - a warm fall let it go until December 12th.)

Since right outside Boston got some snow today, it's time to dust off the French Toast Alert system on the bog.

Things I read

The There, I Fixed it blog. A collection of fun pics, proving again that reality will always be stranger than fiction...

Pimp your ride

A company called Dub has dedicated themselves to making your ride even hipper than it is now. Tire rims that spin independent form the wheel are so 2008. What you need now are LED Display lights for your cars wheels. That's right, Pimpstar can turn your ordinary wheels into rolling LED billboards.




Now you can be the hippest dude on the block. Let your wheels tell people something about you! Be patriotic. be hip. be sexy. Be cool. Turn that dull ride of yours into the talk of the neighborhood.

It's scary what technology can do in the wrong hands :-)

Smile of the day

Today's comic from Real Life Adventures