Chance's Weekend Update

Chance's Weekend Update: 12/09/2009

2009-12-09T20:49:00.000-08:00

"As a kid, I might have been psycho, I guess, but I used to throw golf balls in the trees and try and somehow make par from them. I thought that was fun. "

-Tiger Woods, The best golfer on the planet. Who is still playing from the rough for fun...

Hey All, I know that it isn't a weekend, but I hope that between reading the latest news on Tiger and trying not to freeze that you can take a moment to get up to speed on everything I think is worth knowing. Once upon a time I wrote about the new Google service...Wave--which like any good dance party is awfully lame without enough people. Fortunately I have 25 open invites, so let me know if you want in on the action. Back to now, I admit that it has been much too long since my last update--I really have no solid excuse. It was a tough process deleting all of the really interesting but outdated little blurbs that I have collected but not finished over the past several weeks, but I am pretty happy with whats left and I hope you are too. Enjoy.

Some Things that Don't Suck:

North Central College Cross Country, In case you haven't heard...NCC owned cross-country this past season. It was scary how good they were, if you missed them going 1-9 at conference, setting a new record low score at regionals, or winning nationals with 7 ALL-AMERICANS check out these videos: [Regionals] [Nationals]

Buying a Beer Company, Pabst Brewing Company is selling for $300 Million Dollars---which is a lot for one person...but only a little for a lot of people. Better yet, if you pledge (not pay yet) $10 and we buy it--you get $10 worth of beer. Win-Win. You know you want to. I won't tell your wife/girlfriend/mom as long as you don't tell Katie.

Just when I thought that t-shirts couldnt get any cooler... Taking Guitar lessons to learn how to play 'Wipeout' as a 14 year old made me feel really cool, playing the Guitar Hero video game in college made me feel like rock star, and this tee-shirt could finally push my ego over the edge...wow.

Homer Simpson as your Navigator, Do you have a Garmin? (or GRMN...damn) then you are out of luck. But if you have a TomTom GPS unit then you can download new "VoiceSkins" and have either Homer or Snoop Dogg help you to your destination.

Shop Savy, Do you ever wonder if you are getting a good deal on something in the store or if they just put a big yellow tag on it to fool you? If you have any of the new Google phones you can just snap a quick picture and it will tell you the cheapest price online as well as the best price locally as well as distance from where you are standing--awesome. Like most cool Droid features, the rest of us are just ouf of luck...NOT, there is a blackberry version and the box of Kleenex near my desk has 25 reviews online.(Edocrab [barcode backwards])

Seven Minute Popsicle!!! Wow that chocolate orange juice (long story) was really good, I wish I could take it with me, but I have to leave for work in 8 minutes and my car has no cup holders...I would be out of luck if this crazy freezing machine didn't exist or if I still had the Mercury Cougar with no cup holders...fortunately neither are true and this is sweet and possibly magic.

Lady GaGa, before she was a zombie-whore...I mean...uh...this. Really, watch both videos, I promise this is the same girl.

Some Things that Do:

I have to take this down after Christmas, with some help from my dad, I spent about 11 hours lighting up Black Friday. Almost falling off the 20ft edge of my garage--sucked, cleaning Lowe's almost totally out of lights--sucks for other people, and taking these down in the freezing cold of January will certainly suck--but my Christmas lights being timed to 20 Christmas carols does not suck at all. Stop by and see it.

The Bulls Defense, Not that I am a pro basketball player--but if some fool had tried this move during an intramural basketball game he would have been on his back in a second.

Go-Girl, This product has set a new Chance's Weekend Update record for THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING EVER!!! Literally a rubber funnel to help "active" women urinate standing up--do not miss the informational video. I guess it wont harm anyone, I mean worst case a lady would pee all over her hands...but more likely the little tomboy could be mistaken for a pre-op transexual....I would even go as far as to say that I wouldn't believe this was NOT created by Saturday Night Live writers if I hadn't already bought several as Christmas presents. Mele Kalikimaka.

Until Next Time,
Chance

Chance's Weekend Update: 9/10/2009

2009-10-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

"The more I want something done, the less I call it work."
-Richard Bach, Writer from Chicago: Jonathan Livingston Seagul

Hey everyone, this was a big week for surprises: Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize over a couple of decently credible candidates, the moon didn't blow up when we bombed it (bonus: we still have tides!), the cardinals with two outs in the ninth only had to catch a pop fly to end the game and...the professional baseball player got hit in the nuts with the ball and dropped it--Cards went on to lose their 3rd straight game--Chicago Cubs style, AND I finished a weekend update! As always, I hope that you enjoy the selection of news and reviews that I plucked from the internet for you:

Some Things that Don't Suck:

Zip Skinny, If you have every wanted to compare your neighborhood with another by using a gauge more sophisticated than landscaping, this site is for you. It pulls together all kinds of public data to give you a pretty clear snapshot of a given demographic. And if this data gets your juices flowing, check out data.gov--one of Obama's promises of government transparency--literally all of the data that is collected by the federal government. Good luck sifting through it though.

Along those same lines, Politifact.com is one of my new favorite websites. It is a "neutral" website that does fact checking and rates bullshit spewing from politicians on a scale from 'True' to 'Pants on Fire'. So I am sorry Glen Beck, now everyone will know that most of the time you are talking out of your ass. Another fun feature of the site is the Obameter--which tracks the big guys progress on his 500 campaign promises.

This Shirt..., A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to see the "T-qualizer" shirt in action. It literally has a couple of equalizer bars on the front of it that respond to the beat of music around you. Kind of nerdy--maybe, but do I want to order it online right now--yes!

Google Powermeter, how would you like to visually see how much power your home is drawing from the utilities in real time--from the internet or your phone--and compare it with other homes in your area? I would! That said, I would probably take it too far and starting killing watts like it is Apollo 13, but seriously...this is really cool.

CanvasPop, If you are into decorating your walls (mine are mostly empty) with really cool pictures that you have taken--or want them in some kind of custom frame or with a cool photoshop filter--you would either have to call my friend Bob, or really get taken to the cleaners--until now. Canvas Pop (dot com) has all kinds of options, accepts any resolution and format, and gives you the pricing right up front. If that doesnt tickle your fancy, you are going to have to call that other guy I know and he will do it Lego.

Direct Charity, I am a skeptic--so I have never been fond of dropping money into cans and would never really consider any of those "Just a dollar a day..." campaigns, but oxfam gifts are different. Buy a goat-$50, Buy a cow-$75, buy a water jug-$18...they take a polaroid of it--which is mailed to you, and the gift is mailed to the people who actually need it. Kind of like Farmville, but real.

50 Extraordinary Billboards, This paint advertisement is pretty sweet...but a close second has to be the McDonalds sun dial...

The Yes Men Fix The World, who doesnt like a little satire--well apparently corporate America...expecially when you lie about being an executive of a large corporation and speak at a conference with live coverage...These guys have done that...and keep doing that to get their messages out there! Sometimes when you tell the truth, it is so ridiculous that it is funny, and then instead of sending your ass to jail, someone decides to make a movie about it.

Take down the Man, just like the Yes Men mentioned above, my two friends that started 'TDTM' are also liers--I mean they changed their names to protect their "law-school" identities. That said, I really like the stuff they have so far, but course work really seems to be holding them down because there hasnt been a new post in awhile. I encourage you to visit their site and poke around...maybe it will get them off their asses--much like the recent traffic to my blog is getting me moving.

Google Wave, There is no good way to describe this--yet. This very new "thing" replaces email, instant messaging, blogs, and online photo albums. There are so many features that the video explaining it is over an hour long. Last month Google invited 100,000 people to try it out--one of those invitation was sold for $27,000 on ebay the same day. This is huge--tell all your friends, the internet just turned upside down, got faster, more interactive, and takes up less space...Okay I will explain that last little point: instead of sending an email to someone and replying back and forth creating new copies of the same information, a 'Wave' is started out on a server somewhere--all the information is in one place. You can replay back anywhere inside the message and it will add a timestamp. Better yet, there is a playback feature that will play the responses like a movie in case someone is added into a long wave pretty far into it. Very sweet, google is taking over the world again.

Some Things that Do:

The guy who is trying to burst the A123 Bubble. A123 (AONE) is the battery company that I have been hyping going on two years now--they basically went back to the drawing boards and reinvented batteries to be lighter and to charge more quickly. Their IPO was two weeks ago at $13, and they have recently jumped into the $28 dollar range. I am loving it, and this journalist is trying to rain on my parade with his "facts" about how the company hasn't shown any signs of being profitable--whatever.

Accidentally attacking a NAVY SHIP, the Somalians have struck again, and this time they really messed up...It was dark and in their tiny fiberglass pirate boats they mistook the 525' long steel Navy Cruiser for a freight liner. Oops. Good guys: 1 - Pirates: a lot. On a side note, they were lucky in the fact that it was a French Navy ship, so their odds of a surrender were decent.

Gov. Blago 'No Shame' Tour continues, as reported by the Sun Times earlier this week, the former governor and future inmate of Illinois is to be fired by Donald Trump on his fading-in-popularity TV show, 'Celebrity Apprentice'

Shameless Self Promotion, my website is getting more polished by the day, and I just got a new printer that will automatically print labels when new orders drop. If you want to to help me test it out, go ahead and order some of my sweet vitamins and I will give you a big hug the next time I see you.

Until Next Time,
Chance

Chance's Weekend Update: 8/9/2009

2009-08-10T15:23:00.001-07:00

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying."
-Woody Allen

Happy Monday. Really. This past weekend was a nice reprieve for me, I slept in, didn't paint anything, didn't cut the grass, didn't spend any money, or even host a party. On top of that--I read the entire paper. Cover to cover--even the crap I don't like. Why? I don't know. Carpe Diem. Enough of that though, what have you all been up to? As I came to discover over time, my favorite part of this whole weekend update thing isn't so much clicking around for interesting things on the internet, or adding my two cents here and there--it is the one or two sentence emails that I get back from people now and then--or sometimes the paragraphs that I get back when I write something political... As you may have gathered from my little introduction, I am old now, and unless I am really on my game and manage to fight off all of the "real life" distractions...I never get around to my hobbies, but now that I am well rested ,I hope that some of what I found today will make your Monday feel as refreshing as my weekend has been. Anyways, Here it is:

Some Things that Don't Suck:

Free Groceries?!?!, This is no too good to be true scam…One of the guys that I work with was telling me about how his wife has gotten crazy into coupons and regularly brings home hundreds of dollars worth of food for almost nothing. She has gotten good to the point that she keeps a blog about it to share her deals with other cash conscious moms out there. When you get into it you might wonder how the hell this all works—the details are here…but in a nutshell you break your purchase up into several transactions, the computer gives you "credit" for the full retail price of items and spits out all of those coupons offered from the manufacturers (not the store) with the receipts even though you have used store coupons you have to make your transaction cost almost nothing. You then save those "Catalina" coupons for more of these "shopping" trips. At the end of the day you too might have over 100 ½ pints of Ice Cream in your freezer for free.

The Green War, Maybe I am just a little ahead of the curve on some things, but earlier this year before the whole 'Cash for Clunkers' hand-out campaign I destroyed my own clunker and then traded up for a hybrid. Since that time my older sister got the new Volkswagen TDI--which gets better gas mileage than my car even when you don't drive like a grandma (which I do now)--and she points that out frequently. I tried to even the environmental scorecard by getting an electric lawnmower, and turning down the A/C...but she has a no lawn and an apartment that she can cool by holding an ice cube in front of a fan...damn. Luckily Caterpillar has stepped up into my corner and come out with the ultimate hybrid: D7E Hybrid Bulldozer...Way tougher than your car Jessica, and while I do not own one, I drive my car to the company that makes it. Chance 1 - Jessica 0.

Folding Paratrooper Bike, Watching the Tour De France every year gets me all hyped up about bikes...I usually start by obsessing over the lightest and most high-tech ones, then go into the whole utility debate until I finally talk myself out of getting one...This one nearly put me over the edge though--it is thrown out of a plane, unfolded, and then ready for action in seconds. Nice.

The best thing to happen to running since legs, Runner's Chance--my new multivitamin. no joke. After I was having some trouble finding a vitamin that fit all of my needs, it took about 8 months and a lot of help from several companies, some family, a few friends, a lawyer, and a cpa to bring me over the hump and take my idea of a product from a page in my notebook to a giant stack of boxes in my guest bedroom...and most recently into nice little arrangements on running store shelves all across Illinois and Missouri. In addition to saving you from my sales pitch (you can check the website for that) I will save you some money if you want to give them a whirl. Use the coupon code: "update" during checkout. Next year when Runner's Chance buys Berkshire Hathaway I will send everyone who buys a bottle of my first batch a giant dividend check--just food for thought.

The Go-Plate, "The Man" is always trying to kill our productivity by penalizing multi-tasking. Don't run with scissors, no texting while driving, only have one wife. But not anymore! With the Go-Plate you can hold your drink and your plate IN ONE HAND...which will really open up your options at the next backyard BBQ.

A real-time marathon video game, at the time (1984) somebody thought this was a real sweet idea. Then it failed miserably and was somehow resurrected recently on the world-famous letsrun.com message boards. In this came you alternate pressing the right and left arrow on your keyboard to control the legs of your runner...each click=one step...for an entire marathon, but not with your legs--with your fingers. And not good for your health--bad for your job security, because it will take you at least two hours and you probably wont be able to write for the rest of the week.

Kara Goucher, formerly University of Colorado and current Oregon Track Club standout got 2nd place at the Boston Marathon in April and recently won the Rock and Roll Chicago Half-Marathon...beating all of the men along the way. She is running the Marathon in Berlin at the World Championships in two weeks and probably has the best shot of any American at bringing home some hardware.

Some Things that Do:

Kara Goucher kicking your ass (my ass specifically).

Olympic Committee insider to profit huge off of Chicago 2016...No way; how could this possibly happen in the most corrupt city in one of the most corrupt states in the union? Let me guess...he went to U of I! Oh yeah, and Mayor Daley flipped out on a reporter when asked about it.

New 25-year high!!!...the Illinois Unemployment Rate. Well the sentence started off well enough, unfortunately for a ton of people there isn't a whole lot of light at the end of the tunnel yet.

No more Sear's Tower, I am a fan of tradition, and even though I think all of the $350 Million dollars in upgrades to the Tower are very exciting and I (like a lot of people) am pretty pumped to go see it, I believe that changing the name to "Willis Tower" is ridiculous. Next on the chopping block is clearly Wrigley Field, and before long everyone will want to go downtown to "Toyota, IL".

Until Next Time,
Chance

Chance's Weekend Update: 4/19/2009

2009-04-19T23:14:00.001-07:00

Chance's Quarterly (j/k...kind of) Update: 4/19/2009

"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars"
-J. Paul Getty

Hey all, long time no see... While the absence of my updates showing up to greet you on Monday mornings has been 100% my fault, I assure you that I have been very busy with some other exciting projects that I will shed a bit more light on in the coming weeks. To paint the picture of my despiration to finish this and free my mind of the all these things I have been waiting weeks to share; it is after midnight and I am sitting on the floor of my hotel room in 'damn near Canada', NY--surrounded with newspapers, bent corner magazine pages, and of course my handy pocket notebook...[Katie just got our waterproof replacements in the mail the other day]. I hope that you enjoy the links, because I really enjoyed pulling them all together...but I am not proof-reading it, haha. Goodnight.

Some Things that Don't Suck:

Pandora, is without question the best addition to the internet since AIM. A simple and elegant (and free) internet radio station where you select bands that you like, and it fills in with related recommendations. Give a song a thumbs up and you will hear more like it, thumbs down and you will never hear it again. Addiction Warning: They have a cell phone application. Archive your music libraries, they just went obsolete.

Mint.com, just like Quicken or Microsoft Money..only free, more visual, and simple. I personally track all of my finances through their website, and my favorite feature is the automatic updates...Every Friday I get an email that tells me all of my balances, the biggest transactions of the week, and changes to the prices of my stocks. Beyond that there is a budget tracker that will text you within minutes if you get cross one of your preset spending limits for a given catagory--it catagorizes transactions with scary accuracy and you can compare your spending with state and US averages.

Peoria, Caterpillar, and Aaron Schock featured on the Colbert Report...even though this is my favorite show, I definitely missed this one, but was very pumped that the link to the video landed in my inbox on time for my update.

First Time Home Buyer's Credit, Free money doesn't grow on trees...it is direct deposited when you file your 2009 taxes. Unlike the 2008 credit--which was essentially a zero interest loan--this one does not need repaid. In related news, I just bought a house:

Boxed Water, while this may seem like a retro throwback to gradeschool chocolate milk...it turns out that putting our beverages into plastic instead of cardboard was a big step back environmentally...so this group wants to get back forward. Even better, 10% of their profits go to world water relief foundations and another 10% go towards reforestation projects.

In My Backyard, If you have even been curious about how much power a solar array or even a small scale wind turbine would produce in an exact location on your property--this webtool is for you. It is a government website though, so forgive the dry look--it is pretty sweet.

World Largest Model Rocket to be launched next Saturday!!! 36 feet, 9 motors, and 1600lbs of adolescent ambition...I am pretty jealous, I hope that to keep it authentic they launch it with a little metal key attached to the yellow battery pack with an elastic cord.

Solar Powered City to be built in Florida, construction on the 17,000 acre city near Fort Meyers will begin later this year and beyond the cool factor, they are promising to create at least 20,000 permanent jobs. It was only a matter of time before somebody realized that there is an open federal grant that will pay for 30% of the installed cost of PV systems. Beyond that, the smart grid system being used will make residents very aware of their power usage and drive waste out of the system.

The future of Detroit, until afew weeks ago I was not a huge fan of Ford. [for the record, I still think that Mustangs are lame] but several sutble moves recently have convinced me that Ford has the right state of mind to come out of this downturn stronger than they were going into it. Follow the link and you will see that they recently gave away 100 of their brand new Fiestas with only one string attached--recipients had to post their honest opinions of the car on Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter. The company has had top exectives talking on little NPR shows about why they didn't take the bailout money, and how the Ford family has the capital to repurchase the company 2.5 times if it came to that point. From a marketing perspective they are going all-in on 20-something hipsters and social networking teenagers...From a financial perspective--their has not been much press but their stock has more than doubled since that interview...and now paid for my ticket/trip to Missouri where I listened to it.

Ice is growing--NOT MELTING--in Antartica, I was a little bummed earlier today after watching a 90-minute documentary about glaciers dissapearing all over the world...and I thought, if all of these massive ice sheets are melting why is the water not rising?? Luckily (for all of the coasts) it only took a couple minutes on Google to find that it is all refreezing at the south pole. That mystery is solved...now as far as how all of the people in India and Montana are going to farm when their water source is gone...

Some Things that Do:

Spending this much money, I am not going to argue about the various stimulus packages, they all had good intentions...but the lump some of money spent over the last few months is just incredible...This is a visual representation of $1 Trillion dollars, and you definately need to see it.

MPG rating, I drive a hybrid and I obsess over this statistic, but being a math guy at heart I have always had trouble with it. To be more specific, the average means nothing but is easy to get wrapped up with-the important thing is actually how many gallons it takes to get where you want to go. Take this example:

--You drive downhill for 100 miles getting 100mpg,

--Now you turn around and drive back up the 100 miles getting 10mpg

So what was your average MPG over the course of the trip? 55 would seem logical, but really you used 11 gallons of gas (1 down, 10 up) over 200 miles...so you only got 18.2 mpg. The problem is has more to do with comparing potential car replacements than your operating effieciency. The recommended solution is the sticker rating of 'gallons per 100 miles' as to not mislead consumers. I realize I am drawing this one out pretty long, but to drive this home a little more consider that, "replacing a large vehicle that gets 10 mpg with one that gets 20 mpg reduces gas use per 100 miles from 10 gallons to five, a 5-gallon savings. Replacing a small vehicle that gets 25 mpg with one that gets 50 mpg reduces gas use per 100 miles from 4 gallons to 2, a saving of only 2 gallons."

The item on your list of things to do that will never get done...ever, TuneUp is a $30 piece of software that will go through your iTunes music library and fill in all of the blanks--Cover art, genre, album titles, & even mislabeled song names. I dunno how it works, but I used to think this was great...all of that changed a couple of minutes ago I declared that music libraries were obsolete and I kind of want to send a consistant message here--so this software is a total waste of time...a sweet waste of time.

Until Next Time,
Chance

Chance's Weekend Update 3/1/2009

2009-03-02T06:42:00.001-08:00

Chance's Weekend Update: 3/1/2009

"With a stop light, green means 'go' and yellow means 'slow down'. With a banana, however, it is quite the opposite. Yellow means 'go', green means 'whoa, slow down', and red means 'where the heck did you get that banana?'"
-Mitch Hedberg

I think I have used this quote before, but now that I am in a strange place (Texas) I see it in a new light. Things are different here--not their bananas--but definately their attitudes and their exit ramps. Both of which have caused problems for me. I have been late for several things by assuming that a quick question would warrant a quick response--when really any question calls for damn near a life story. I will admit though, the exit ramp thing is a little more my fault. Back home I am used to seeing the place I want to go, taking the next exit, and then standing on the break hoping not to slide off the road during the 180 degree tight turnaround. But here in Waco, if you can see your destination, then you probably missed your exit a mile ago--literally. Further, the "exit ramp" is more of a little access road that you can slide over to at full cruising speed. Armed with this knowledge (and free gas), I drive my rental car like I am Mario Andretti, and subsequently I have missed my mile-long exit the past three days in a row. In other news, I want to come home and Twitter is the new everything. If Facebook was the gateway drug will all its fancy apps and options, Twitter is straight to the point internet crack. I know that seven of you know what I am talking about, because after my last update you started following me (randomharrier), and for those who have not yet tried it, I hope you are having fun with your 8-tracks and board games. Anyways...

Some things that don't suck:

The most welcoming Starbucks on Earth, to be fair I have not been to every Starbucks on Earth--but I have had a white chocolate mocha in 4 different countries and over a dozen cities. For the most part, if you have been to one, you have been to all of them...so I was suprised more than once by how well orchastrated the greetings were in Waco Texas. On one occasion I walked in the door an the girl sweeping the floor said, "Hi, I'm Jessica. Welcome to Starbucks, what is your name?.....Well Chance, I hope you have a great day" Then after waiting in line a moment a different girl behind the counter said "Chance, what can I get you today?" While a bit upbeat for 7am, it was nice that they can make a shop half way across the country feel like home. I have now gone back to that store almost ten times, and I hope that if you every find yourself in Waco, Tx you will stop in too.

The Rest of the Story, as far back as I can remember all activity in my house has halted at 7:30 am when Paul Harvey would come on the air. So it was only natural that now that I am in the car at that time of the morning, I hit the preset to jump over to 1290AM to take in some unconventional news spoken by either Paul Harvey himself, or more recently Jr. This past week at the age of 90 he passed away, leaving behind a 58 year radio legacy.

The sweetest thing to happen to hats--ever, Beard Head hats come in four styles (colors): Viking (yellow), Lumberjack (brown), Grandpa (grey), and Pirate (black). Unlike whereever you probably are right now, I don't need a coat to go outside, but if I did, I would probably want one of these too.

Things you couldn't get for a dollar yesterday, but you can today...like a Watt of solar power. While the manufacturing costs for most photovoltaic panels is still floating around $3/Watt, First Solar--the makers of film thin solar cells--announced that for the first time ever, their costs have dipped below the long thought impossible goal of $1/Watt. The good news is that this will make it much cheaper to install a grid tie-in system of renewable energy to your house. The bad news is that to be on par with conventional power they will need to hit $.65 / Watt.

"We are not in it to make money, but we probably won't lose much", a quote from this 1981 news report about a San Fransico Newspaper making itself available "online" via your telephone, TV set, and two hours of downloading.

Some things that do:

Getting your face eaten by a monkey. I am sure that you have heard about it, and maybe even listened to the 911 tape, it is pretty messed up. Something that I didn't know about chimps before last week was that "an average size chimpanzee and rip all of your limps off with very little effort--they are something like twenty times stronger than humans". For real though, this chimp could surf the internet, change the TV channel with a remote, drink wine from a tall stem glass, and rip a face off with very little warning.

Being a poser...aka e-cigarettes, I get it, you are addicted and when we hang out I have to wash all my cloths--no big deal, it is a fairly normal but fading trend. But to replace actual smoking with an toy cigarette that emits realistic (odorless) smoke and sprays aerosol nicotine into your lungs is super lame and borderline a borderline substance abuse activity.

Illinos Tax Hike, As if the Blago episodes weren't enough to tarnish Illinois...now we are all but chasing business out of the state with torches and pitchforks. If we are lucky, all of the other state will follow suit and business can be uniformly strangled otherwise we could see alot more big business flee. Why would they stay? they can't even buy favorable legislation anymore.

AIG, They dropped a sweet $61,000,000,000 loss the 4th quarter of 2008. Nice investment Uncle Sam.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update 2/16/2009

2009-02-16T21:54:00.001-08:00

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
-Bertrand Russell

Sorry for the lack of update last weekend...We got a new puppy (Tina) and then my sister had her baby (Ethan) so my free time was shifted from sifting through the news to visiting my nephew and playing with my lunatic dog. Then like usual I was trying to make up for lost time and I buried myself neck deep in reading and then was left with entirely too much information to send out. I spent most of the rest of the week plus my down time in the airport trying to take out more than I add. Big thanks to all of you who emailed me sweet things over the past couple of weeks as well. And keep the referrals coming, it is good for my ego when people I don't know ask to be on my mailing list. Enjoy:

Things that dont't suck:

Writing in the Rain, I always have a pen (that can write upside-down or in space) in my pocket, and usually a little notebook in my pocket...and within 5-7 business days I will have this one in my pocket...Designed for writing field notes in wet and humid conditions, this notebook uses a specially coated paper that repels water. Sweet.

Constantina Elise (Tina for short), named after the 2008 Olympic Marathon Gold Medalist Constantina Tomescu-Dita and Katie's niece Elise is a hungarian Vizsla, which are well known for being great hunting dogs...and for loving to run between 30-90 minutes a day. Our seven week old especially enjoys racing me up and down the stairs, wrestling a toy duck the size of her body, and passing out in odd places (like on my laptop while I am typing) once she exhausts all of her energy.

Cat CEO on Economic Advisory Board, Now that JO is Obama's right hand man I feel a lot better about Caterpillar...that and I dodged the ax during the round of layoffs that cascaded through the company this past couple of weeks. But back to Jim Owens' best week ever: he gets named to a very significant government board, flies on Air Force One, has an interview on 60 Minutes, and then moments after Barack leaves the building JO contradicts most of what he just said...

Americans Stimulating more than the economy, while most company annoucements these days are dripping with red ink, it was nice to hear that at least one industry was just heating up 4th quarter 2008 and is full on raging the month of January...I am talking condoms of course, up 6% this month alone!

Knowing exactly where everyone is...., Google's newest lab 'Latitude' has me very much on the fence. The geek in me thinks that it is awesome that you can have a buddy list and literally see where you friends are on Google Maps...exactly. They don't even need a smart phone, they just sign up and Google can use their signal to figure out where they are. Just like Enemy of the State. The Orwell in me is woried that Gene Hackman wont be around to save my ass if someone was trying to find me. Consider this (Progressive Commercial Voice)...if we are allowed to play with this kind of technology, what else is out there? This.

Having the Internet while you drive, If you have phone with an internet data plan then you are already paying at least $30 a month a connection...use it intelligently, with a USB Cable and the software from Mobishark, your phone is now your modem and if you have a laptop you are free to roam. (Most of this update was written on I-39). The second best thing about this, Verizon charges $30 a month for this same service--MobiShark charges $50 once for the download.

Things that do:

You know things are tough when someone steal Lance's bike...luckily for him though, 'It's not about the bike' but unluckily for whoever stole the one-of-a-kind-highly-recognizable bike, Lance Armstrong has a cult following...and he is a dick...and the people who really like him are usually fanatic dicks. In future news: Man who stole Armstrong's bike was found beaten badly and tied to a tree along the Tour of California course with rope hand-weaved from Livestrong Bracelets.

Great Depression 2.0, Just kidding...but seriously I spent most of my "research time" (a.k.a. the few precious hours that I get for my random walk through the internet every week) building my case that this economic hicup was more a psycological than financial affair. I don't just pull this stuff out of my hat, it has happened several times (1893, 1907 are most similiar)...usually like this:

1) Scandal - some kind of greed gone bad that undercuts public trust
2) Panic - triggered by the scandal (or stupidity) fueled my media
3) Bank Run - everyone wants their money and they want it now
4) Intervention - JP Morgan, Rockafeller, Congress...
5) Normalization - people put their money back in the bank and go back to buying lattes or shoeshines I guess

Hours of reading and my theory was busted...no #3, that was until Tuesday. Thankyou Pennsylvania Representative Paul Kanjorski, as it turns out, back on September 18th, two days after ABC money market fund "broke the buck" there was a $550 Billion Dollar electronic run on the banks in less then two hours. It took immediate action by Bernacke and Paulsen to inject $105 Billion dollars from the Reserve back into the market to keep the world financial systems from literally melting down. Everyone did a very good job of keeping this one under their hats...CPAN even stopped reporting the cash supply indicators (M0, M1, M2) and nobody really batted an eye at this bizzarre behavior. I guess that is good though, because if it was let out all of us would be keeping what was left of our money buried in the backyard...probably right underneath our crops, behind our gates, and next to our guard tower...

Illinois was clearly caught up in No Government Left Behind program, Our state is the benchmark for corruption, the governor was under federal investigation, the mob was involved, and so was the PRESIDENT....what the hell was Burris thinking when he lied to the impeachment panel?!? The trib just ran a sweet editorial 'State of Corruption' a pretty far from from Honest Abe (Happy 200th).

Until Next Time,
Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 2/01/2009

2009-02-02T21:09:00.001-08:00

"There are tens of thousands of people all across America, just like me who are losing their jobs or lost their jobs"
-Rod Blagojevich, the ex-governor of Illinois...Blagojevich SNL skit

It was another exciting week of recession / depression 2009. A bunch more layoffs, the Dow taking a trip back to the year 2002, and Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning...awesome, more winter. Some silver lining is that tommorow morning (if I don't sleep in) I am driving over to Denny's for a free Grand Slam Breakfast. In other news, my Twitter experiment has pretty much ended with limited success. Anyways, read on:

Some things that don't suck:

Is investing in the stock market just a gamble? then skip the crap and just bet! This website is sweet and probably the next big addiction for many of us. Instead of researching stocks, rebalancing your 401k, and wishing you would have put your money where you mouth was on some of those moves...now you can (with limited risk).

Flight of the Conchords coming to Chicago! If you have not heard of them, they are a comedy folk band from New Zealand...check out their website, What the Folk.

Woot, this website sells exactly one product per day at a great price. The sale starts at exactly midnight and typically sells out early in the day.

Unlympics, a month-long series of quirky sporting events aimed at encouraging debate about Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics. Events included: the lighting of stuff on fire, the game where you win, run around the block and we'll time you, spelling Bee, and the solitary confinement game.

Sign of the Times, in 2004, Gov. Blagojevich put up 32 signs on the tollway reading "Open Road Tolling--Rod R. Blagojevich Governor" for $15,000 a piece ($480,000 total)...today it only cost $15,000 to take them all down, haha.

Google Earth---Not Google Dirt, In the latest version of google's most popular download, the developers took the advice of marine scientist Sylvia Earle who pointed out that in the previous four releases they had left out "two-thirds of the planet", so you can now zoom and scroll your way through the valleys and canyons of Earth's Oceans.

Some things that do:

Blowfish Poisoning sent 7 to hospital, This sucks because people are still dumb enough to order a dish where if prepared incorrectly it can cause death within an hour...and these seven were lucky enough to draw a chef not lisenced to prepare the delicacy.

If you thought Scarface was gangster..., This movie actually looks pretty sweet. It was written by a guy (now in hiding) involved in the real mafia in Naples, Italy...scary stuff, its called Gomorrah.

Full frontal male nudity during the superbowl, To all of the super bowl viewers near Tucson, AZ...I am sorry, and so is Comcast. Somehow this 30-second clip from Shorteez, a hard-core pay-per-view adult channel owned by Playboy cut into the game with less than 3 minutes to go. Luckily the error was corrected and Comcast is paying up a $10 dollar credit to regional customers.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 1/25/2009

2009-01-26T05:07:00.001-08:00

Chance's Weekend Update: 1/25/2009

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there."

-Lewis Carroll

The (my) world is changing fast...I get emails on my phone, iTunes automatically creates playlists that go great with the song I am listening to, and I drive really slow now. This is kind of big for me because I used to check my email once a week, only listen to Nirvana, and cruise at 95mph on the interstate. Mind you, when I say slow, I am not talking speed limit slow...I actually try to coast as much as possible to keep my MPG bar pegged at 100, so there at times when I drop to as much as 20 under...especially when it is hilly. That is beside the point though, my weekend is over already and I didn't even get to play with my legos...damn I am getting old. Anyways:

Some things that don't suck:

First Stem Cell Study Approved, Ten patients who have recently suffered from spinal cord injuries leaving them completely paralyzed have a remarkable opportunity which was unavailable to them until literally this last week. The results will not be known for some time, but in lab environments stem cells have been shown to regrow damaged nerve cells--which is awesome news for those first ten people...and hopefully a lot more down the line.

Prank Wars, Amir (from Jake and Amir) and one of his coworkers from Collegehumor.com have been in an ongoing prank war for almost a year now. I have watched a couple of them on YouTube, and they have been escaladingly mean...but this last one really took the cake. It was a sweet way to hopefully end this thing and probably his friend's relationship.

Dock-N-Talk, ditch your expensive and rarely used land line for this cell phone docking station that allows calls to ring through your existing home phones. Your cell phone can connect physically with a cord or automatically through blue tooth whenever you are in range. To be clear, you can also place calls from your wireless home phones and the answering machine will still work...but only when your cell phone is docked.

The Cubs and Wrigley Field Sold, The 25 year Chicago native and founder of Ameritrade picked up the Cubs at the sweet discount price of $900 Million (estimated value of over $1 Billion this past summer). Even though he clearly inherited all of the problems associated with a cursed team and an antiquated ballpark, I am very glad to see the friendly confines pass into the hands of a loyal fan rather than some random corporate sponsor. But hopefully some people wont be happy with that and I will move up a couple of spots on the season ticket wait list (I still haven't cracked 37,000).

Jake Winder, Even though I graduated last year I am still very pumped that a North Central Pole Vaulter is the number 1 ranked vaulter in the country. I watched him in action a couple of weekends ago at the Alumni Meet and it was pretty intense, so I am looking forward to Indoor Nationals when he takes it to the rest of the country.

Ground Zero, Choose a location on google maps, choose your weapon, and this "mapplet" will show you the thermal damage associated with the blast.

Very Short List, is an email that I have been getting once a day for a couple of months now...most of the time it goes directly to the trash, but every now there are some really interesting things in it. As the name of the newsletter gives away...it is a very short list: only one item per day.

Some things that do:

Season Ticket Wait list Conspiracy, (see the comment above about my spot on the Cubs season ticket wait list). Last year when I checked my spot on the list I was sitting just above 37,000 which was odd because I was sure that when I got on the list I was somewhere around 34,000 but maybe I am just going crazy. As any concerned party might do, I sent an email, and was offered some 9-game package that I could buy at discount...hush money. But when I logged in today--to double check that I hadn't dipped below my claimed 37,000--and I found that I was sitting 45,667 place in line, now I knew I wasn't crazy...I was crazy pissed. This is bullshit, I kind of thought that the concept of a wait list was similar to that of a line--starting at the back and working your way forward to your desired destination. This is my third year on the list and I have slipped nearly 12,000 spots. I am going to get some answers on this--I will keep you posted.

Peanut butter recalled, while this may not be of much consequence to some people...peanut butter is a major component of my diet so when I recently heard about the salmonella outbreak I was both saddened and concerned. There is some silver lining to the tarnished peanut butter story though....Girl Scout Cookies are safe!!!

Illinois Governor nominated to NOBEL PEACE PRIZE, Even though Ex-Governor Ryan is sitting in jail for selling a CDL that directly led to a family burning to death in a car accident, a University of Illinois Professor felt the need to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize...for the sixth time.

Blago Hired Drew Peterson's PR firm, is planning on skipping his impeachment trial, and will be on the View tomorrow, All of these things separately blow my mind but all together is beyond comprehension. First of all...why the hell does a police officer from Bollingbrook who has killed two of his wives need a PR firm? Second, what could a PR firm possibly do to help our Governor? and finally... the View instead of your IMPEACHMENT TRIAL??

Twitter is contributing to the end of all meaningful relationships...instead of calling your friends or meeting up for meaningful conversation, we can just check our twitter timeline and read their recent one to two sentence updates. It is pretty much a distilled facebook that is yet to be picked up on corporate web filters...but I have been hearing a lot about it (and Facebook tried to buy them)so I started an account to see what it is all about...feel free to follow my updates throughout the next week or until I forget about it....my username is randomharrier

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 1/18/2009

2009-01-20T09:35:00.000-08:00

"In the 1960s, NASA astronauts discovered that their pens did not work in zero gravity. So like good engineers, they went to work and designed a wonder pen. It worked upside down. It worked in vacuum. It worked in zero gravity. It even worked underwater! And it only cost a million dollars!
The crafty Russians used a pencil"
-Urban / Internet Legend , the frugal side of me laughs at this anecdote while the more fun side of me looks the other way whistling...because I own a pen that can write upside down, survive being dropped out of an airplane, and even break the windows out of a car.

I was hoping to use the above quote to kick off some kind of over-processing metaphor to segue into my opposition of the continued economic stimulus packages, but in doing my due diligence on the story I found that it was only a myth (click the link underneath to read the details). The moral shouldn't be overlooked though. Consider this: Something like 97% of a car's power output is used in moving its own weight. Someone figured out that every 100 lbs you eliminate can save between 2-4% in efficiency. Instead of the fairly obvious solution (the pencil) of making really lightweight cars which wouldn't need a huge heavy engine to get it moving, a large transmission to handle to torque of the engine, a 200lb breaking system to slow it down, or a 15-gallon fuel tank, the best automotive accomplishment in recent history has been the hybrid car (the space pen)...that allows us to drag all 2000lbs of the previously mentioned dead weight with us wherever we go...only now in a slightly more efficient way. Anyways...I had to cut out a lot this week's info otherwise it would take you hours to sift through it all, but there is still a ton here, I always seem run into an information overload when I take a weekend off or read magazines on a flight...enjoy:

Some things that don't suck:

Crash Proof Cars, I will file this one under: "I wish I had this last weekend". The 2010 Volvo S60 will be equipted with a collision detection system to warn you of fast approaching objects and if neccesary take full control of your braking system--allowing you to look at your directions and slam into a stopped truck at a stoplight in St louis...

The XO Laptop, The XO is a highly effective learning tool designed and built especially for children in developing countries, living in some of the most remote environments. For starters, it's about the size of a small textbook and made with a rugged plastic exterior. It has built-in wireless and a unique screen that works in full color or black and white to make it readable under direct sunlight. And finally it's ultra-low power using only about 4 watts (most laptops use about 40 watts). This means, when there's no electricity, it can be recharged through alternate power sources like solar power. The company has been working hard over the past 3 years to significantly reduce the price and hence availability, it is a pretty sweet foundation.

BookCrossing, I love books and own a lot of them...which doesnt really make sense because all they do is sit on my shelf. This website has a "read and release" policy where you literally put an ID tag on your book and hide it somewhere. You then register its location on the website and other members can go read it, then release it somewhere else. You can track your book's journey or search for other books to read yourself.

Cheat Sheet, This is a quick way to be "that guy" aka the number one source for all of the current happenings in the world. In a nutshell, the authors of Cheat Sheet put together a short list of your need-to-know news articles for the day. Visit their website when needed or subscribe to their newletter if you have a serious information addiction.

Couchsurfing, this community of free places to sleep is for the truly cheap at heart. Most countries and major cities are represented, become a member yourself and allow strangers to crash in your basement or simple use the free service to save some money on your next adventure. As an experiment, I searched the city I stayed in this past weekend and there were 3 registered couchsurfers...one even had a letter of recommendation.

Blago's lawyers jump ship, After comparing the upcoming impeachment trial to a lynching and citing a lack of preparation time, the governor's head lawyers (a father-son team) decided that it was time to jump ship. Shortly thereafter, Edward Genson, another prominent Chicago lawyer decided to sit this one out--convincing a jury that R Kelly didn't really piss on a 15 year old girl even though there is a video was one thing, but convincing the state that Gov. Chipmunk is innocent is apparently way out of his league.

Girls Gone Wild's CEO Joe Francis and HUSTLER's publisher Larry Flynt ask Congress for bailout, I don't care who you are, this is funny. Clearly they are not expecting the money, or even need it. They are just raising that question that nobody has thought of yet...where does the gravy train line stop? Why do the automakers and bankers get all of this money and the local grocery and retail storefronts are left out to dry? This is classic Flynt, circa 1999.[2]. If you are lost I will refresh your memory--there was a presidential witch trial going on--Clinton being the witch (Bill this time), and all of the congressmen were ready with torches and pitchforks. That is of course until Larry Flynt ran a full page ad in the Washington Post with a hot line number offering up to $1 million for "documentary evidence of illicit sexual relations" with a member of Congress or other high-ranking government official. Several weeks and probably thousands of hours of political commentary later, the 82-page Flynt Report was released.

Some things that do:

The Temperature. (note: I am writing this from Houston, TX where I was just swimming outside earlier tonight...this "-39 degree wind chill in Chicago" is just a rumor I am choosing to pass along)

PackBot, This one is right out of the movies...and its manufacturer is literally iRobot. There are more than 2000 of them being used in the middle east...the scary part is that they have just recently armed them...somebody call Will Smith.

Illegal Taxes from our other super corrupt politician, times are tough for city governments...especially when they have to follow federal laws. Until recently, all Chicago residents with satellite television service were going to be looking at a 9% luxury tax from the city on top of their current bill--mailed and collected separately of course. This creative revenue stream for the city was quickly shot down after lawyers from Direct TV and Dish informed the Mayor Daley that they could not volunteer their subscriber information--thus the tax is unenforceable...

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 12/16/2008

2008-12-16T19:49:00.001-08:00

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
-Sir Winston Churchill

Driving to and from work is good practice for my backup [recession] career as an Ice Road Trucker. Seriously Illinois...plow the streets. And seriously me...don't drive a rear wheel drive car in the winter. For your benefit I just deleted this huge economy rant that took me 45 minutes to write--you can thank me later or more specifically thank my editor--Katie. Anyways, on to the madness:

Some things that don't suck:

Free Music is back! Take a lot of iTunes and add a dash of Facebook and you are left with Mojo--probably the sweetest source of free music since Napster. Once you and some friends install the software, you add their name to your friends list and hit the little '+' button which sends them a friend request. Once approved you can download any of their music at your leasure. As a bonus, it greys out any of their songs you already have, and bolds songs in red if they downloaded them from itunes ie DRM protected.

Blago in a Minute.... The correction continues...I felt like it was Christmas morning when I saw the morning headlines that G-Rod was going to jail, and it only got better when the quotes started rolling out. My opinion of him has shifted slightly though. The past couple of years, his behavior had lulled me into thinking that he was an idiot. But in reality his balls are too big for his own good. He looks like a chipmunk, but in his mind he is one hell of an untouchable chipmunk and that is why if it wasn't already obvious--he is not resigning anytime soon. In fact, if he is not in jail this time next year (which he probably wont be) he will probably be running for some other public office.

He should have had one of these, Note to the next governor of Illinois: Everything you say on the phone will probably be recorded...so you might as well know for sure.

Money Masters, learn more in 3.5 hrs than you learned in college...then tell all your friends. I strongly recommend setting asside some time to watch this documentary if you want to fully understand why the world is crumbling around us and potentially the steps that need to be taken to put us back on track.

AVG Free Anti-Virus, I recently fired up my computer from school for just about the first time since July and found that not only was my virus scanner way out of date, but it was running slower than Kennedy. I solved this problem just like most people problems these days--Google. It only took me a couple of clicks to find 'The best free anti-virus software on the internet'. On a similar note, if you computer is running slow, try out CrapCleaner...it cleans the crap off of your computer and was also nominated as one of the top ten downloads of 2008s. I used it and so should you...right?

Some things that do:

Supply and Demand is a real SOB, when we need more gas, OPEC makes more and the price goes up. When we use less gas, OPEC makes less...and the price goes up. All because the Saudi King Abdullah says that $75-a-barrel is reasonable...While I do appreciate cheap gas I am very aware that as long as oil is below $100 a barrel electric cars and oil sands aren't very economical--thus will be ignored until next time.

On a scale from 1 to Creepy, Gone are the days of little white lies, pretending you didn't see something that you did, and the judicial branch. Now computers can read your brain waves and literally project the images that you have seen--a little minority report if you ask me--but you didn't, so just be careful what you look at.

The fastest way to destroy what is left of America's economy would be to pass this bill, [2] blocking the "minimum advertised price," or MAP will pretty much guarentee that local manufacturers will have no way to ensure profitability as major discounters slash the value of their products into the red. Not only would this be bad for manufacturers, it would be bad for brick and mortar stores. Check the wording...'advertised' is the key component, XYZ.com can still sell your widget for 90% less than your downtown storefront, but they CAN'T run adds all over television and the internet to steal your customers from you. At least for now...And if you do not produce things or own a store then why should you care? Because if our ecomony is set up to to run new product's value to nearly zero within a year of coming to market then it will be impossible to maintain any kind of growth to pull ourselves out of recession. On the other side of that same coin, consider liquidity....maybe you bought a $2000 TV on credit 3 months ago, you still owe $1400 and now your tv is selling for around $500...sucks doesn't it? MAP is a good thing

And then there is the Amero...I am moving to Canada--well that won't work...let's all go hide out in Mexico--shit that won't work either...Europe is out of the question too. I think it is time to buy a big boat and wait for the flood or trade in your cash for gold, bury it in the backyard and plant some crops. Maybe this is a conspiracy theory...like the theory that the Great Depression was an orchastrated campaign to empower the Federal Reserve (FYI: the Federal Reserve is not part of the Government)...but because that is pretty much exactly how it went down maybe we should watch this thing closely.

Until Next time,

-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 12/3/2008

2008-12-03T21:35:00.001-08:00

"chance! please tell your people that this doesn't suck: http://www.lakeshoretheater.com/buytickets.aspx?eventID=283096"
-Mike Birbiglia, an awesome comedian, in an email acknowleding my weekend update as a legitmate avenue for marketing (this email was from this summer and that event already happened, but Mike is still super funny)

I know that it isn't the weekend, and I can only assume that you weren't expecting an update but despirate times call for despirate measures. In the time since my last update hit your inbox, the Dow has skid 3251 points (27.4%), the Cubs completely dropped the ball, Somolian pirates have all but taken over the world, and Kennedy has beat me in two races. I am not writing to make excuses, I am writing to make things happen--and hopefully save the world.

Some things that don't suck:

Hawaii to build a network of battery charging stations to support all electric cars. I have jumped on the green parade just as much as the next guy, and I think it is awesome that an entire state is willing to try out something like that--but as I read on my Uncle's comments about coal still having the energy market cornered creeped into my head (Electricity is generated mostly from burning coal...so being electric isn't always better for the environment)...but luckily one of the people who commented on the article beat me to the punch referencing another article where the CEO of Better Place L.L.C. explains that this whole charging network is to be powered by solar panels and wind turbines...100% renewable energy and 100% awesome.

A reporter stole the Empire State Building and it only took 90 Minutes...This article was kind of like the movie 'Blow'....the first half I was like "Wow, I totally want to do that..." and then by the end I was like, "hmmm....I guess breaking the law does have consequences"...criminal activity aside, the article does open your eyes up to our vulnerability.

A cruise ship outran the Pirates! To be totally honest here...I love this whole pirate thing. Times are tough, so a gang of guys with speed boats and guns have hijacked boats carrying everything from TANKS to 150 Million dollars worth of oil. This week one of em finally got away, but maybe taking a cruise ship full of hostages would have pushed our endearing pirates a little further from Jonny Depp and a little closer to Osama Bin Laden on the spectrum of public opinion...

The meanest Nerf gun ever, After all of this reading about pirates and all of this awful weather I starting to think about moving to a warmer climate...and more specifically what I would do there. The two first things to come to mind were Pirate Hunting (because I bet that with some goverment bailout money I could buy a faster boats and bigger guns than the starving Somolians), and Privateering. I am holding out that we will not only accept, but endorse the pirate craze sweeping the world--then the next step would surely be Government funded pirating, and there is nothing better than a Government job in a recession. Oh yeah, while searching for pirate hunting guns I found this nerf toy. Merry Christmas.

You can teach your fish tricks, You can't have a dog at most appartments or when you live in your parent's house with your girlfriend...and cats go to the bathroom inside...so screw 'em, now your fish can do everything your dog could and more...and it'll only cost you $40 bucks to learn how. (I just noticed that this website also has that sweet nerf gun from above--but I promise I didnt find it here)

I have VA and you should too, Virtual Assistants are like Tamagotchis for adults...and pretty soon everyone is gunna have one. You can find them all over the internet--but more often than not they are from Bangalore, have at least a bachelors degree, and would love to send emails to your friends or do some of your work for only a couple dollars an hour. If you are curious about the quality of their english, I will have Lalitha send you an email...seriously, say the word.

Some things that do:

Grammy Nomination Show, I am a little biased because I have never been a fan of award shows to begin with...but seriously, a full hour of award nominations--that they will read off again at the actual award show--kept me waiting an extra 60 minutes for the Victoria Secret Fashion Show (which is distracting me from doing this).

Durban wants Gov. Ryan Pardoned...this is a load of crap, 4 out of the last 5 Illinois Governors have faced federal investigation upon leaving office...Blago has his ticket punched to be the 6th (Thanks to the lady that spoke at my graduation). We finally have one in jail that really diserves it and people want to let him out. George Ryan is in jail because he was in a position of great trust and he broke the law repeatedly (see: Racketeering, Fraud, Corruption). Not only should he stay in jail, his wife should submit an appology to all the readers of the Chicago Sun Times for reading that garbage article pleading for her husband's release--being old is no defense but here is her try:

George Ryan is 74 years old. He has lost his state pension benefits and a commutation will not restore them. He would emerge from prison facing economic uncertainty at an advanced stage of his life.

hmmm...economic uncertainty at an advanced stage of life, sucks to be just like all the other mortals doesn't it?

It is 11:26 pm and since graduating college my new bed time is 10:15. I wish it was last year.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 07/20/2008

2008-07-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

Batman: "Better put 5 cents in the meter."
Robin: "No policeman's going to give the Bat-mobile a ticket."
Batman: "This money goes to building better roads. We all must do our part."
-Batman: The Movie (1966)

As you can clearly see from comparing a couple lines from the original Batman movie above to the Dark Knight that came out this past weekend…times have really changed. Just a few short weeks ago I headed off into the wilderness as a recent college grad with the hangover of the senior bar crawl still fresh in my mind--seeking adventure in the mountains--and somehow I emerged the other side of my vacation as an old man. I long for the days when I could sleep-in until 6:30am, take 4-hour naps, and actually see the sun. I used to read 2-3 newspapers a day, watch funny videos online, and speak in person to my friends…I am not depressed though, I am just trapped in the dungeon of corporate America for the next couple of decades (I call it a dungeon because the only daylight I see from my desk is a distance reflection off some ceiling panels, overall it really isn't bad). I do check my email every 15 minutes or so, am quickly becoming a Microsoft Excel Ninja, and am building quite the collection of random crap on my desk. And if my ego wasn't already inflated enough, they gave me business cards this week—so I am feeling pretty significant. As far as the Weekend Update goes, I feel like I finally have my life in order enough to get this thing cranking again—the only issue is that I didn't read much of any news this week, but I did find some cool stuff.

One cool thing being my grandpa's custom make suit--which fits great--that I wore to a "theme" wedding reception this weekend—big thanks to my sister for the ace impromptu photography in the elevator, and no, I wasn't going for the emo look, she just missed my head and most of Katie's body.(note: Katie was in a good mood, she just didn't care for the Cubs tie)

Some things that don't suck:

Girl Scouts selling more than cookies this year..., around 5,000 marijuana plants were found growing in the wooded swampy area of Kosciusko County--right inside of the 220-acre Girl Scout camp…since the discovery, GSA regrets to announce that they are postponing the release of their new brownie campaign sponsored by the Kosciusko County Girl Scout Camp.

Spaced, if you liked "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz", or in other words you aren't boring…you are going to love this show…Like most things I love, it is laced with pop culture references and was cancelled. Anyways, check it out.

Rental Car Rally, "Action + Adventure – Explosions"…All you need is a driver, a navigator, a rental car and $150 entry fee…. this sounds so sweet, the it is an all weekend event finishing up with a huge party and all kinds of awards (most / least fuel used, fastest time…etc) Downside…it is in New York.

Holy (Paint) Balls, If simply shooting paintballs at people isn't enough to get you excited…check out this remote control—WITH LIVE VIDEO FEED—paintball turret…there are pictures and videos on the site, but in short you can be half a mile away and shoot 30 paint balls per second (powered by a scuba tank) in any direction and see exactly what you are shooting at via the color screen on the remote.

Classy Napkins , sometimes we want to eat hot wings…and sometimes we want to be classy…now we can have both at the same time…

Knight Rider GPS, navigation systems are cool and Knight Rider is cool…it was only a matter of time before someone put the two together…It speaks like KITT, but guides you like your nuvi…now with those ultra cool red lights along the sides.

Need for Speed, A couple (a lot) of weeks ago I wrote about how red light cameras were being installed all over Chicagoland, and just recently I was able to fly my friend's yellow Corvette to Oak Lawn for the weekend…The only thing that would have made the ride more enjoyable would be to have this radar / laser detector with GPS and a database of all red light cameras sitting on the dash so that I could pay more attention to the sick acceleration than to scanning the horizon.

Running ahead, my favorite online running log, has some cool graphs to make you feel good (or bad) about your training, plus the functionality to setup groups with message boards and mileage reports…helps old alumni like myself feel like part of a team still.

Mad Men, Best show on T.V.

Some things that do:

No time this week for things that suck...if you are mad about that, send me and email and I can add your name to this section...

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 06/01/2008

2008-06-02T08:30:00.001-07:00

Chance's Weekend Update: 06/01/2008

"There's an old saying about those who forget history. I don't remember it, but it's good."
-Stephen Colbert

Good Morning Cubs fans, or soon-to-be Cubs fans...It has been a long time since I have seen so much brand new Cubs apparel around but that is fine, because a large influx of fair weather fans is a good precursor to a championship team. Anyways, it is now officially finals week at North Central College which is pretty exciting if you are into studying--but it also means that I have no more classes...i.e. plenty of time to do what ever I want (probably a lot of sleeping though)...Also on an interesting side note, Kennedy and I kicked off our post collegiate dueling this past weekend with the 'Senior Sunset 5k"...he was coming for me the last 800m but at the end of the day couldn't handle the heat (current score 1-0, next race June 15th)

Some things that don't suck:

VOTE NOW!!!, and a local 5th grade girl Nichyria Byrd could win ESPN's first-ever "Earn Your Stripes Youth Achievement Award" as part of the 2008 ESPYs. She is actively part of a charity called 'Girls on the Run' --if you are so inclined you can read all about it here. (Thanks for the heads up Alli)

Boys High School Track is going nuts this year...first local Chris Derrick runs 13:55 for the 5k, and now German Fernandez runs the most insane mile / 2-mile double anyone has ever heard of at the California State meet this past weekend: first a 4:11 preliminary 1600m Friday, followed up with a 4:00.29 1600m // 8:34 3200m Saturday...the link provided is to a video of his two-mile, but just for fun here is his mile run as well, click.

Holy Crap Batman, Monkey's can control robotic arms with their thoughts. "monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary"...pretty soon we won't even have to move anymore

$1,000,000 if you get a picture of Bigfoot with this sweet trail camera. It is a camouflaged camera with a battery which lasts an estimated 30 days, it can be set to take high resolution photos or 15 second video clips whenever triggered by motion.

Kerry Wood, this afternoon at Wrigley I watched him throw some powerful strikeouts as the Cubs closer in the 9th and it reminded me of the 'good ole days' when Wood and Prior were kicking ass left and right...here we are a couple of years later--the Cubs are dominating again--but Kerry is the closer and Mark is pitching in a Tee-Ball League somewhere. Serendipitously when I went to the Cubs website to check some stats there was an article about how it is the 10 year anniversary of when rookie Kerry Wood tied the MLB record of 20 strikeouts. The video is awesome, but here is the accompanying article.

Why Macs are better than PC reason #...."just hold a CD or DVD or video game or book or whatever up to my webcam, and it magically reads the UPC and downloads that item's cover and all pertinent information about it, and displays all my stuff on photo realistic shelves"...it is called Delicious Library--besides keeping an inventory of all your stuff, you can also check-in and check-out your things so that you never lose track of them...sweet

HotWicks Candles, finally some wax and fire that smells a little less Yankee and a little more manly. Some of the scents include: Campfire, Coffee, Beer, Pancake, Stripper--"After hundreds of hours of research and a lot of dollar bills we succeeded in capturing the legendary stripper scent", Grass, and New Car

Women: Age Matters, I have seen this before and it is kind of offensive, but also to good to get caught by the filter. In a very stereotypical fashion, the author outlines the pros and cons of dating women in each of his defined age categories--hilarious...and in advance ladies, I am sorry.

PDF Files, when you click on them thinking they are a normal link it takes extra long to open...but they always appear just as the author intended them and pretty much everyone can open the file without having some expensive software suite (i.e. Word, Excel...)--so it is easy and safe to send them around the internet--and now you can make your own for free online.

Some things that do:

Former Illinois Governor Ryan, not only did his corruption lead him right to a jail cell where he is patiently awaiting the company of our current head of state G-Rod...but his appeal was overturned this week--meaning that unless his legal team lead by another corrupt former Illinois Governor, Jim Thompson, is able to beg a pardon out of President Bush they will need to jump on the Obama bandwagon and pony up some campaign donations--or he will spend the next 6.5 years in prison.

Naperville Central Principal Plagiarized graduation speech...from a former student // current Naperville Central Teacher // member of the audience witnessing the plagiarism...

CTA Green line Derailment, they blame the driver who apparently ran a red light and then disabled the emergency brakes which would have prevented the accident--the driver has 31yrs experience with no prior accidents so I am guessing that this is something commonly done to keep from falling behind and this was just as it seems...an accident.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 05/26/2008

2008-05-27T06:58:00.001-07:00

Chance's Weekend Update: 05/26/2008

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
-Anais Nin

It was a long weekend hanging out at NCAA track nationals, and then once we were all back in town the weather was much too nice to type up my weekend update. Luckily it was unpleasantly cold this morning (something like 40 degrees colder than yesterday morning) so I was able to find the motivation to sit down in front of a computer and put everything together. Anyways, it is time to get busy...have a great rest of the week!

Some things that don't suck:

Living "off the grid", An architect in Arizona has set up a community with fifteen neighbors who all power their homes with a system of solar panels and wind turbines.

256gig Solid State Hard Drive, kind of like a huge ipod for your computer--it doesn't get hot and it loads super fast. Best of all, no moving parts to break so all of your files are safe.

This video really sucks but you need to watch it, This is some footage smuggled out of Burma that shows a small glimpse of the magnitude of the disaster which their government claims is over.

Coolest Foosball table ever...There is ambient lighting, three different types of ball for various speed of play, and best of all...each player is unique and can be handcrafted into anybody for which submit a picture.

The Dvorak Keyboard, Why are our keyboard letters jumbled up and out of order? As it turns out original typewriters were laid out alphabetically but because of the proximity of popular keys they kept jamming--so things needed to be spread out to slow typing down. In 1932, a professor from University of Washington figured out a more efficient layout but it never really appealed to the masses who had already learned the QWERTY method...if you want to try it your computer is already set up to do it ( its an option in control panel).

A Scavenger Boat to clean the Chicago River, The boat can pick up 4,600 pounds of river garbage in an 8- to 10-hour day. It injects 150,000 liters of oxygen into the water every hour, decontaminating 20,000 gallons of water a minute, reducing or eliminating bacteria and viruses...and it was only $600,000, but I guess the river is pretty gross.

Knowing what SPF means: "a sunscreen with an SPF of 15 will delay the onset of a sunburn in a person who would otherwise burn in 10 minutes to burn in 150 minutes"

The Big Lebowski--The F***ing Short Version, I love this movie in its original form but I find it hilarious that someone cut it down to scenes containing only one word each and you can still get the idea of the whole thing. Classic.

Free falling the a marathon, very literally, a 64-year old parachutist is planning on ascending to 130,000 ft in a special balloon and a pressurized suit--a trip up that will take over 2 hours--and then jump out. (the 24.6 mile trip down will take less than 15 minutes)

Some things that do:

WiiFat, the Nintendo Wii is awesome, and the their new game WiiFit adds a dimension of exercise to normal video game experience. Unfortunately there is a flaw with BMI (body mass index) charts, and when you are below a certain age they are way off. The reason that is unfortunate is because following the games release in the UK this past week--the game told a little girl that she was fat, could be trouble for game developers.

The Balloon Project, This one is a bit random but sounded kind of cool--unfortunately it turned out to be very lame. A group of people just attach their video camera to a bunch of balloons and then let it float over their city while chasing it on their bikes. Once they collect it, they upload it all to youtube and pass it off as indie art...I am sure that someone who sucks will tell you about it no time

Chicago has the highest Gas Prices in the country, it officially sucks to drive anywhere now...but just to put things in perspective, my favorite Chicago blog put together a list of the price per gall on on a couple of other common things in our lives:

Milk $3 (on average)
IBC Root Beer $5.33 ($3 for a six-pack of 12 oz bottles)
Miller High Life $5.33 ($15 for a 30-pack of 12 oz cans)

Ketchup $8 ($2 for 32 oz)
Hydrogen Peroxide: $10.32 ($1.29 for 16oz)

Coffee $17.44 ($2.18 for a 16oz iced coffee from Lovely)
Paint $24.98 (No conversion necessary! It comes in gallons.)

NyQuil: $93 ($7.29 for 10oz)
Super Glue $365 ($11.99 for a six-pack of .7oz tubes)

White Out Liquid Paper $738 ($4.29 for 22ml)
Polo by Ralph Lauren $1984 ($62 for 4oz)
Chanel Nail Polish $5760 ($18 for .4 oz)

More Gov Blago Corruption, apparently 8 weeks of work for the governor is worth $38k a year for the rest of your life--if you are a friend at least.

Former Cubs Pitcher died when he was struck by lightening last Sunday, Geremi Gonzalez, who won 11 games for the Chicago Cubs in 1997, was killed by a lightning strike in his native Venezuela on Sunday. He was 33.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 05/18/2008

2008-05-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

"America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair."
-Arnold Toynbee

Another weekend closer to graduation and things keep getting crazier a around here. First things first, earlier in the week I let a bunch of the freshman into our dorms so that they could fill Brian and Sharks rooms up with balloons (220 of them)--it was awesome, they even made a killer video of it that I am working on getting a link for by next week. Also this weekend was SpringFest at NCC, that means we were rocking out hardcore to an 80s tribute band in the rain, campus safety officers were all over pretending to be real police, and there are broken things all over campus--it was awesome. On another awesome note, I have heard through the grapevine that my update gets forwarded around a lot. From my perspective around 100 people read it, but I am hearing reports of many more...so if you get this as a forward but would like a permanent spot of your own on my mailing list, reply back to me and I would be more than happy to add you. In case you missed it, Friday night's track meet had some sweet action in the 4x400m relay. In first place, our 'A' team qualified for Nationals with the fastest time in the country...and in last place, our 'D' team (made up of distance guys--not sprinters--Shark, Kennedy, Brian, and myself) finished off our collegiate track careers in style...and half tights. Anyways, Have a Great Week!

Some things that don't suck:

GOOG 411, it is kind of like real 411 only free and better...dial 1-800-GOOG-411 from any phone, say where you are and what you are looking for and they will connect your for free (and depending on your cell phone settings can text you directions or the actual location on a map)

Rocket Man (Courtesy of Shark) "Hang gliders are for girls" said Yves Rossy....okay not really, but that is what he meant when he strapped on his fixed wing jet powered backpack and flew around the Alps @ 180 mph...so awesome

The Coolest Pen EVER...called the PulsePen. It has a voice recorder, a loud speaker, and a tiny camera that records the words you write....then the coolest part is that later if you go tap the pen on the words you wrote it will replay the audio it recorded while you were writing--perfect for notes in class or an interview--also if you tap another word it will skip to exactly that section of audio.

"This double-action camping/serial killer tool combines a compact axe and a lightweight knife with 3-inch blade that stores inside the axe handle" - online review. But for real, with my Colorado trip just a couple weeks away I have been looking around these camping sites and this handy little tool is one of the sweetest things I have seen in awhile.

Getting a college B-Ball Scholarship as an 8th Grader, Seriously though, Michael Avery is a 6ft 4in tall fourteen-year-old who was just made an offer to play college ball for Kentucky--after he finishes high school of course.

The Cubs, This week they signed Jim Edmonds, are ten games over 500, and I got tickets to the June 1st game for $15. Hell yeah.

The Sky is not falling...but it is barely staying up...U.S. Economic growth of 0.1% means no recession--it does mean weakest positive growth rate in 17 years--but hey, at least our heads are above water going into the summer spending months.

Finally having evidence that woman can't be trusted...if you watch nothing else this week, watch this...and then send it to all of your single sons, brothers, and friends just to give them a heads up of what they are up against these days.

Some things that do:

Dating a Murderer, WTF....I repeat...WTF...Drew Peterson, the Bolingbrook Police chief famous for killing his last two wives and getting away with it has a new girlfriend, she is 22 and clearly an idiot:

"They're like, 'We're 100 percent positive he killed them. His family thinks he killed them. You're going to be next,'" she said. "And I'm like, 'Then why isn't he in jail?'"

On a side note, her Mom called the cops...The soon-to-be missing little lady recently spent the night at Peterson's but claimed that "nothing physical happened," which was quickly put to rest by Drew--always the gentleman--following up with,"Never 'nothing' physical,"...Asshole.

Being anyone else but us...(literally U.S.)..., I came across this slide slow of some of the craziest weapons that the US has come up with over the past twenty years or so...some are just a little weird like the "puke flashlight" and the "gay bomb" which get the results the name imply...while other are slightly more sinister...like the "Active Denial System" a microwave for people...only it looks like a satellite dish and can be pointed at you or the "Rail Gun" very similar to the gun Arnold Schwarzenegger used in the best movie of 1996--Eraser--except that the chunk of metal (no explosive at all) can hit a 5-meter target from 200 nautical miles away with the force of a tomahawk missile...ouch.

Drake Student Arrested for throwing M&Ms at Police, While I am all about respecting authority, a decent amount of police--especially campus police are d-bags. So the 20-yr-old throwing candy coated chocolates in defense of his friend seems reasonable enough to me...but then the police stepped up their game and arrested him, so he had to step up his and piss all over the back seat of their car...

Two weeks until the Illinois Budget deadline for next year and legislators are praying for a miracle. In case you forgot, last year's overtime cost taxpayers over a millions dollars--including round trip airfare home every night for the good Gov'na...anyways, I am hoping that he has time to show up this year and iron out that 3/4 of a Billion dollar budget deficit in between testifying about his corruption.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 05/11/2008

2008-05-11T19:24:00.000-07:00

"The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity."
-Helen Rowland

Happy day after Mother's Day / end of the nice weather we have been having...it was so cold this morning. I guess it is a lot better than January and February when we went almost a month without seeing the sun, but just as we were getting used to 70s and sunshine, we get a forecast of a week of 60s and rain. In other sad news...college is over soon. I have really enjoyed my last four years and kind of wish that I had at least a couple more...but on a less depressing note, the Cubs swept the Arizona and are back on top where they belong...and there was a ton of news this week, so much that I had to leave off so much cool stuff because the email was getting too long. Anyways, I should really get to finishing up my last couple of papers so that I can be irresponsible the next couple of weeks! Have a great day!

Some things that don't suck:

Burglar gets caught by stolen computer, besides keeping track of our schedules, emails, and finances...now our computers can catch criminals for us...Mac computers have a sweet feature that lets you find your stolen computer if it is ever connected to the internet again...and the case mentioned in the article they were able to take a picture of the criminal with the built-in camera ON THE STOLEN COMPUTER and simple take the photo to the real police.

Coolest tool set ever, is 1470 tools excessive? no, not if you need them. And now that Craftsman is selling this mega tool set comprised of their 10 Professional Series Sets there is a decent chance that you will need something out of here...while one could argue that $8600 is a little steep, I would say that you cannot put a price on the peace of mind that comes with knowing you can fix everything, or at least have the tools to break it worse trying...

Democratic primary race nearing conclusion, with the momentum shift in super delegates after Obama's victory last Tuesday (BO 144 from the magic number) this thing could be over before we know it...Hilary has even toned down her hate campaign--positioning herself for the #2 spot on the ticket. Some say this long primary has worn on both of the democratic candidates and weakened them for the fall election...but I (and the author of this article) say otherwise...Obama has weathered some pretty serious storms and is now a hardened pro candidate...this should get good.

Cars that Fly? Nope...Planes that drive, It is the year 2008 and we still do not have flying cars and that is a little sad...finally a couple of MIT grads (they are so clever) decided to take a different approach to the problem...they just build a plane which could fold up and drive on the highway...

$5000 a month to stay in bed, so maybe we do not all have the credentials to be astronauts...but we can all work for NASA...they are still trying to figure out how the long trip to Mars would effect the human body, so for their latest study, they are paying volunteers $17,000 to stay in bed for 90 straight days!! Sounds like a hell of a summer job...

Wrigley Seating Guide, If you have spent much of any time in Wrigley then you know that there are a couple of seats with a great view of a giant steel column or the bottom of the upper deck--and not much else. Luckily for those of us not Wrigley savvy enough to avoid these terrible tickets and potentially falling cement on our own there is this great resource to get to know your seat before you pay for it.

Faster Lines at Midway, in an effort to cut wait time in airport security, Midway has borrowed an idea from the ski slopes and marked lines with a green circle--beginners, a blue square-intermediate travelers, or a black diamond-advanced passengers...Now the regular business travelers shouldn't have to wait for the family of five trying to get everyones shoes off--but just like the slopes, they will have to wait for all of us overconfident intermediates crowding their line.

Some things that do:

Banned Books, banning books is dumb...not quite as dumb as not teaching evolution in schools--but it is getting up there. I found this list of the most commonly challenged books the other day, and it kind of upset me, because I like at least 10 books on the list. Further, there is a special notation in the last column for if the book is also on the "one hundred most important books of the 20th century" list...

Crazy Volcano, as nuts as it is that a volcano erupted...one could never have predicted the insanity that followed in its wake locally...I will admit that I have had my fair share of strange theories about things, but so far there has not been even one case we have looked into which has not supported our (Ward 402) hypothesis that the volcanic ash in the atmosphere made women--at least temporarily--lost their minds. In the 48 hrs following the eruption, all of our girlfriends got very mad at us--yelling and crying--over very trivial things...as the hours ticked by we heard more and more reports of irrational girlfriend behavior, "insane wives", and arguing on cell phones all across campus...Maybe we are way off on this one, but next time there is a volcano in the news I am turning off my phone, locking the door, and taking a long nap...

Hybrids don't make much noise, so it is hard for kids to hear them coming...hence more and more people are getting hit by these silent killers, haha...sorry...Obviously there is a down side to everything, and while amazing fuel efficiency and reduced emissions is great for the environment...when Hybrids kick into EV mode they are pretty stealthy, and apparently this mode also paralyzes the neck muscles pedestrians in the general vicinity so they are unable to turn their heads to see that there is a car coming before they cross the street...

Postage on the rise, another year, another price hike...$0.42...pretty soon I won't be able to afford all of my mail correspondence anymore...oh wait, it isn't 1950--email is free...really though, I wish I wouldn't have thrown away all of those 1-cent stamps from last time this happened.

Mother's Day Tornado, this one sucks...powerful storms swept across the Midwest and Southeast, killing 22 on Mother's Day morning.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 05/04/2008

2008-05-05T08:51:00.001-07:00

"Laws should be like clothes. They should fit the people they are meant to serve. "
-Clarence Darrow

Good Morning, sorry for the late edition, I was a little sleepy yesterday so I went to bed rather than cranking out the update. Anyways, I recovered fully from my bike accident--thanks for the support. Also, the weather is amazing right now, so I am going outside and you should too. Have a great week...

Some things that don't suck:

Prius getting over 100mpg, I don't mean to brag, but I have been hyping 'A123 Systems' the MIT startup company--which produced a new type of battery that is 1/3 of the weight that takes a fraction of the time to charge--for almost two years now. This past week it was announce that on top of producing the massive battery for the Chevy Volt, they built a product for an offshoot company, Hymotion, which takes the place of your spare tire in the trunk of the Prius and boosts fuel efficiency to over 100mpg! On their website they didn't go through the cost savings associated with dropping $10,000 on an extra battery / they were much more interested in carbon footprint and things that like...but I did. First I figured that I drive, or will at least, about 17,000 miles a year (a little above the nat'l commuter ave of 15k), then there is the current Illinois gas price average of $3.69 (a number probably already outdated), and finally I used the friendly discount rate currently offered by the fed of 2.5%...that said, at the moment one would save about $1,810.80 a year on fuel, which over 5 years you would still be $1,677.02 in the hole in todays dollars (but still save a ton of trips to the gas station). Just for kicks, I found that the break even point (using Excel's Goal Seek function) is gas at $4.41 per gallon...so probably September, j/k I hope. But really the 2012 Department of Transportation estimate is $7 a gallon...so it is worth thinking about--especially since the battery in the trunk takes only 4hrs to charge and costs roughly $0.50 for a full "tank". If you want to play around with some numbers on your own I would be happy to send you my spreadsheet.

Things get done with Dictators, China said the air will be clean for the Olympics....but how, the city is so crowded and dirty--A mix of particulate matter, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide often blankets the city at levels five times higher than World Health Organizations safety standards--so they are shutting down factories in and around Beijing until the close of the games. When China says jump, its people say "how high?" unless of course they are in Tibet, then they say something like "kiss my ass" only in Chinese.

Paper Planes, once this song gets in your head it will never get out, M.I.A. is awesome, there is a sweet dance to the chorus, and this is the theme song to one of the funniest looking upcoming movies of the summer, Pineapple Express. M.I.A. says "Paper Planes" is a response to capitalism and the search for income, and is also a joke about perceptions of immigrants. She may be a political chick, but her dad was a militant revolutionary in Sri Lanka...so I guess that is to be expected....still a sweet song.

Mars bought Wrigley, I am of course talking about the company...not the field unfortunately. But backed up with money from the richest man in the world--Warren Buffet--Mars is now the largest candy company in the world (they also own Starbucks). What does this mean for the Cubs? Nothing--Wrigley sold them back in the 80's to pay taxes...but hey, maybe Buffet is a Cubs fan...

Swimsuit Controversy, Speedo unveiled its new LZR Racer suit earlier this year...and so far 20 world records have fallen under its aid...For about $500 dollars you and a team of experts and possibly some lubrication can squeeze this suit on and reduce drag by 5% more than the 2nd most advanced suit on the market. If you aren't wearing it, you probably cant win--and that is why even though it has been approved for Olympic use there are plenty of people pissed off about the advantage...I say the faster the better, as long as it is not laced with adrenaline and there isn't a propeller they can wear it.

Forked up storage, "functional art" some might call it...others, myself included think it is kind of a creative way to store your silverware....simply install this cool board into your wall and all of your guest will think you have a screw loose...

Being able to hold your breathe for 17 minutes and 4 seconds, David Blaine is insane...and this is the second time I have cited Oprah...but this video is worth seeing...I just tried a similar experiment myself and got a little dizzy / bored at 1:34...congrats Mr Blaine, you beat me today.

Some things that do:

15,000 fake pairs of Nikes seized by police in Oak Forest, the shoes having and estimated value of $750,000 were boxed, labeled, and ready to be distributed to discount stores and flea markets...criminals are getting pretty resourceful.

R Kelly and his love for minors, the big trial kicks off this Friday in Chicago--before forming an opinion either way it is always prudent to get the facts straight...this website provides a brief and sometimes a bit disturbing summary of all ELEVEN allegations against the singer / songwriter...who is illiterate (which explains a lot about his simply songs).

Wheaton Professor fired for keeping his private life private, Kent Gramm, a popular English professor at Wheaton College since 1988 was fired for refusing to cooperate with an administration investigation into the cause of his pending divorce with his wife of 30 years.

There will be blood, not the movie of course...well maybe...anyways, I am talking about the bloodsuckers who decided it would be a great marketing opportunity to start up "Foreclosure Tours". Literally a bus tour of foreclosed property...you pay to get on the bus ($97), you are driven around to see people at a rock bottom moment of their lives AND you can put in your bid right there--because the tours are sponsored by Realtors. Chicago people aren't always nice, and I am sure they will be less then courteous when a two level tour bus pulls up out front of what used to be their home...

Computer keyboards are dirtier than Toilet seats, every couple of years we are hit with a nice disgusting fact about our daily lives, so I guess this was about due...I guess I haven't cleaned my keyboard in the four years I have had this computer...and I am eating Chex Mix right now....crap.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 04/27/2008

2008-04-28T07:30:00.001-07:00

Chance's Weekend Update: 04/27/2008

"I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience."
-Mitch Hedberg

I fell off a bike yesterday for the first time in the last decade...scratch that, let me start over. North Central College has these big red grandma bicycles that you can use to ride around for free--and because of their style nobody is going to steal them. Well I don't have a car so I used one to go to work. On my way back it was pretty windy and cold, so I put my hands in my pockets--both hands. The tires on these things are like 2.5 inches wide, so I felt very safe riding along no-handed. Then I was going down a hill, picking up some speed, and I literally thought about how ridiculous it would be to crash right along such a busy street with potentially hundreds of witnesses. As one could predict, I was riding by some shrubs and a rouge branch caught one of the giant hand grips and the tire instantly turned perpendicular to the direction I was traveling and I was thrown out of my seat and over the handlebars. It was so insane, I was laying there in the grass thinking that I would never walk again, but soon got to my feet, collected the remaining pieces of my shattered ego and fled the scene. Other than a cell phone shaped bruise on my quad (my cell phone is 100% somehow) and a little grass stain I am alright, but I still can't get over how I was ejected from a grandma bike and I was smart enough to have both of my hands in my pockets. Anyways...

Some things that don't suck:

The Rather Difficult Font Game, My sister Jessica sent me an email this morning reading "I've tried this and got a whopping 2/34 correct...Here is the link," some may see this as a friendly email contributing to my weekend update. But I know my sister, so I knew she had just spit in my face and challenged me via this internet widget. A cool 19 minutes after she sent the initial message I ruined her day by making 13 correct blind guesses. Good luck...

Argonne labs has the worlds 2nd fastest computer, the exact speed of the computer really doesn't matter. The numbers are huge and I am sure it can figure problems out that we can't even read--for the tune of about $165 million dollars you could own one yourself. Oh and the other cool thing about it is that they are willing to share their new toy with the public groups conducting research.

CTA improvements announced, $227 million dollars worth of improvements....(far short of the $6.3 Billion in estimated repairs to bring the CTA "up to date"). As far as I can tell these are all infrastructure improvements, where are they getting all the money and considering the layoffs who is going to drive? "CTA officials said they have no choice except to issue bonds to finance the $227 million project in part. They hope that the bonds would be paid off with anticipated future federal transit funding." If you are wondering why I have this up here...it is because it is good that the CTA is being fixed up, but I acknowledge that it does suck that they are doing all the work on the State's credit card. (Having a feature on Google Maps is going to their heads).

Stop...Making my weekend updates Oak Lawn, in case you haven't driven through the lovely city of man-hole-cover-thieves recently...their stop signs have this great feature--state funded graffiti. Under the traditional "STOP" a sign also reads "in the name of love..." or "to smell the roses" in an effort to get drivers to pause a little longer. Kind of a cute idea, but an illegal use of state funds I guess.

Awesome!

Spy Mail, This is a GPS tracker that fits into an envelope. Now if you have an important package you do not need to rely on a website with periodic updates, you can pop open GoogleMaps to see exactly where you package is at that moment. There is even a feature that alerts you every time motion is detected, so you can really test the efficiency of your carrier. Or hide it in your kid's backpack...wait, they actually sell one specifically for that here.

Charlie Wilson's War, was a sweet movie that I saw this weekend. I looked up some things about it and found that it was pretty close to historically accurate, but the most significant part of the movie is the last 5 minutes. Now I am fully aware that everyone has their opinions on war and allocation of federal funding--and all sides make good points--but this movie does a great job at showing how one can do a great thing, then pretty much negate it all with a very simple and cheap lapse in judgment.

Being a Beekeeper, there have been some interesting articles recently about a couple of lost agricultural skills. Two which have caught my eye so far have been sheep shearing and now Beekeeping. The cool thing about bees is that they make honey--and I love honey. A second cool thing is that every time you go visit someone you can give them a jar of your very own honey. This is a link to a website about beekeeping basics...so that the skill is a little more found than it was yesterday.

Some things that do:

Being hit in the face with a fast ball (96 mph!!!), The first pitch of the fourth inning at the Dodgers game Saturday night missed the Gold Glove of catcher Russel Martin and caught umpire Kerwin Danley square in the face. As interesting as it is to read about I know that you are all eager to see it, thanks YouTube.

Going to College...When for the cost of around 1-year tuition you could buy a six-figure salary state job from the Governor!

These are two different stories relating to pretty much the same thing...The Governor is going to jail sooner or later, 3/4 of the people who contributed exactly "$25,000" were either given a State appointed position--some earning as much as $125,000 a year--or their business' won lucrative State contract work. Here is another fun fact: "Over the last four decades, four former Illinois governors have faced federal indictments and three were convicted" so far...

Chicago Police Assault Riffles, maybe it is just me...but this makes me a little nervous. Just last week the trigger happy CPD emptied their handguns into a Cougar lying down crying in an alley. Can you imagine the damage they could have done with an assault rifle? This seems to me like a great sign that there could be some serious problems in Chicago which should be addressed with a little less gunpowder and a little more common sense. For instance, maybe showing kids that drug dealers make (on average) about $3/hour and is by far the most dangerous job in the country (Alaskan Crab Fisherman / Ice Road Trucker / Logger included) as presented by University of Chicago Economist - Steven Levitt, Is Thug Life the Happy Life?

Coyotes want some press too, so they chased a woman through a Buffalo Grove forest preserve last week just days after the cougar infiltrated the city. Luckily there was no firing squad in BG and the lady escaped unharmed...but the question is still hanging out there like a big matzoh ball--why is Chicago turning into a scene from Jumanji?

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 04/20/2008

2008-04-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

"We are what we frequently do"

-Aristotle

The spring is a great time to clean out all of the junk that has been accumulating around us over the cold and nasty winter. Because I have been reading a bit too much philosophy recently I also see the potential to clean more than just the physical garbage, it is a great opportunity realign our practices with our philosophies. It is easier than it sounds and will only take a minute: Write down a list list things you enjoy, or even your "priorities" if you are so inclined. Then make a second list...your average daily schedule the past couple of weeks. As obvious as it may seem, how closely these lists relate is connected to how satisfied you are with your current situation. Make a couple of easy changes, and schedule some time to do the things that you really enjoy, otherwise you will spend all your time doing the things you have to do. Anyways, have a great week, I am heading off to read the newspaper in the great weather before going to class...

Some things that don't suck:

Silly Putty, I have not played with silly putty since I was probably 7 and I can still remember that it makes your hands smell very funny...But for some reason I was very excited to see that it can be purchased in 5 pound blobs. If it seems unnatural to have a gooey clay ball the size of your head sitting around, then you can also purchase a box of 100 plastic eggs to pack it in. I might even be able to use it for saving articles...when you press it to a newspaper it will pick up the ink, sweet.

"Last Lecture" of a College Professor, I was a little skeptical when I was emailed a link to an Oprah video, but after watching this I would say that it is definitely worth your time. No introduction would do the video justice, lets just say it is a lesson in advanced common sense.

Newseum, besides being a very cool interactive Museum in Washington, DC...the Newseum website has this awesome feature--a "news map"--literally a world map with little orange dots on it. When you place your mouse over one of the dots, the front page of the local newspaper in that area will show up. It is very interesting / entertaining to scroll around the US to see what different parts of the country find compelling.

Klean Kanteen's, they are sweet stainless steel water bottles, which unlike Nalgene will not atler your brain functions. I first read about these bottles a couple of weeks ago when looking into picking up some camping equipment, but my interest was re-sparked earlier in the week when I discovered that one of my coworkers has several--because his family is very plugged into the "green" scene--and they knew that Nalgene bottles were made with toxic chemicals. To add to the panic, Walmart is no longer carrying Nalgene, and Canada has banned their baby bottles.

Building a TANK, (note: this is the second time I have referenced homemade tanks...so if you want a fast track to being mentioned in my weekend update, build a tank) This tank is so awesome, in parts its cost is around $2000, it has a 360 degree turning turret--which fires golf balls and empty red bull cans powered by a scuba tank. The article has a video, so you can see this thing in motion.

$40 glasses, apparently the topic of discount eyeglasses is causing quite a bit of hysteria in the world of the optometry racket. Instead of paying $300 for your frames and the promise of another free frame a year from now(lens not included of course)...you can take the prescription--which you paid for--along with a couple of measurement and buy the very same frames for a fraction of the cost. Now instead of tolerating glasses that you do not like for years because you paid way to much for them, just get a new pair ever couple of months (lens included)!

Shut Up. I'm Talking, I have not read this book yet but it sounds great. It was written by a US intern working within the Israeli government as a speech writer. Besides voting on some UN resolutions and working Seinfeld references into important speeches, his memoir paints a vivid picture of a powerful government just as inept as ours. I cant wait to read it (my book list is getting pretty long).

Canada is our #1 source of oil, in case you haven't heard about it (I hadn't)...somebody predicted it in a NYTimes article written back in early April...of 1963. I was actually pretty surprised last week when I was watching a TV show about how they process the "Oil Sand" into crude oil and they mentioned how there is more oil in Alberta Canada than there is in the entire Middle East. Even though they have to bulldoze over thousands of acres of forest to get at it, at least the area is not war torn and unstable.

Sheep Shearing, With the cost of fuel at record highs, the migrant workers who usually spill into the Midwest to shear our sheep just aren't coming this year. There are two scenarios that could play out from this. #1 we do nothing--the sheep will be very hot this summer and we will be very cold next winter, or #2 we pick up some of those huge mean clippers, shave some lamb, and earn a little extra gas money.

Some things that do:

Buster isn't 101, remember the crazy old man who was all over the news for being the oldest guy to complete a marathon, it turns out that he is "a mere spring chicken of just 94" so the original record still stands (see: Dimitrion Yordanidis, aged 98). More than just that, Buster does not hold a candle to Edna Parker, who just turned 115!!!

Cougars in Chicago!!!, attn: Mayor Daley, new motto: "City in the Wild" Maybe the fear of being mauled to death by wild animals is a good things for Chicago. Citizens can bond and work together surviving their commutes rather than bitching about the CTA and pushing woman out of the way to get a seat on the train--thats right fat guy with a man purse, I saw you. Back to the point though, it sucks that instead of tranquilizing the animal, the Chicago police regressed back to their Ritalin and video game upbringing to unload their guns on a cornered animal and an innocent air conditioner.

When Cheerleaders Attack...and Dr. Phil posts bail, This story is crazy...it was sent to me last week, but I forgot to put it in. A couple of cheerleaders tricked a "friend" of theirs into coming over and they beat the hell out of her and videotaped it with the intention of putting it on YouTube. This was no normal cat fight, it was a brutal 6-on-1 beating. These girls deserve to go to jail, and like I mentioned before, the ambulance chaser Dr. Phil posted $30,000 bail in exchange for exclusive rights to the story.

I Slept through the EARTHQUAKE, this would not be an issue if I lived in California or something...I would just be sure to catch one next week. But because I am in Illinois I feel like I missed seeing Halley's Comet or something.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 04/13/2008

2008-04-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Chance's Weekend Update: 04/13/2008

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going"

Beverly Sills

The week that was gets an A+ for awesome. Besides all kinds of interesting news and some nice weather--we (roommates, some guys from the team, girlfriends, and myself) won a game show on campus. It was called "ThinkFast", there were three rounds of trivia questions, (two qualifying, and one final) and $200 in cash to the winner. We strolled into the crowded room completely confident of the outcome, and were completely undeterred by our poor performance in the first round--we were just warming up. A big team effort put us on top as we expected going into the finals, and we elected my roommate, Kennedy to be our representative in the finals--because he reads Entertainment Magazine, and yes I know that is embarrassing. There was some strong competition, but Nate dominated the finals--I cannot recall more than a few questions being completely finished before he buzzed in. We may be confident, but we are not greedy, so we shared the money with everyone who came out to support our cause. To add to my excitement, I was given a 2007 Oak Lawn High School Cross Country shirt (my second shirt supporting OLCHS XC--a big Thank you to Mrs. Wantiez). Now I am not a billboard, but I love free shirts and this has been a good week for t-shirts. I could use some new pants though, so there is still advertising space available...just kidding. Anyways on to the good stuff:

Some things that don't suck:

Ryan Hall Ran 2:06:17 in the London Marathon, after slapping around all of the top U.S marathoners at the Olympic trials this past fall in New York, Ryan Hall stepped up his game and ran another incredible race (fastest ever marathon by a U.S born citizen). In true baller fashion, he saw that some guys were struggling when they cruised through the halfway point under world record pace, so he asked the pace setters to "pick it up" because he wanted to test the field more. He did fall off pace to finish 6th, but he went down swinging like a man, and is in great position to bring back a medal this summer in Beijing.

A house for $100 and 500 words, instead of selling their Colorado vacation home in a sinking housing market for the appraised $171,000, the Ludlow family has decided to hold an essay contest--accepting 2000 entries with a small fee--to get rid of it. But wait, "how does this work?"...2000 essays x $100 + media attention = $200,000 in their pocket and a $100 house all to yourself. Pretty sweet idea I'd say.

Automated Restaurant, who needs waiters when every table has a touch screen for orders and a roller coaster system to deliver your meal. Now we should have known after the whole space race thing, and probably even before that with the invention of calculus (Leibniz--not Newton), but coming up with a way to avoid paying tips at a restaurant finally seals the deal that Germans are smarter than us.

Subway Car Reef, Surprisingly enough, throwing our giant rusting garbage into the ocean is a good thing. For the past several years, the state of Delaware has been building a HUGE artificial reef on the barren sea floor with old New York City subway cars. These luxury condos for fish are more than paying back in dividends. The new population of small fish that now call these cars home is drawing larger fish in from the deep in record numbers that commercial fisherman can hardly keep pace with. You could read all about the stats if the New York Times online didn't suck, so you are just going to have to take my word for it.

CTA via Google, for an out-of-towner, getting around Chicago can be tricky. Until now, most everyone had their CTA authority to call--girlfriends dad, a friend, or a teacher that lives in the city--you tell them where you are standing and without a moments hesitation they tell you a bus number or the nearest stop and all connections you need to make to get where you are going. Everyone else was stuck just hating everything about the city. But now the CTA has teamed up with Google (the savior of the free world, GOOG--really you should buy some while its still on a fire sale for the next couple of months) and added a feature to Google Maps, where after searching for your directions you can click the "take public transit" link...here is an example, Union Station to Navy Pier--$4 round trip p/p instead of $22 per car.

Being Famous, well maybe I am not famous, but the limerick that I wrote to save Wrigley Field was published on the Sun Times website (along with tons of others) and that is pretty sweet. If you want to check it out, you will probably have to search for my name with "ctrl-f" or you will be scrolling all day. As far as the contest goes--I think they have dropped the ball seeing as there were never any results posted last Friday as promised. And further, the page which promised the free t-shirt to the top 100 has been taken down. Fortunately for me, Katie saved the day and she surprised me by ordering one. This could be taken one of two ways: she doesn't think I can rhythm well--and she potentially has a lot of evidence to support this theory--thus failure to acquire a shirt by my own devices, or she is a wonderful person and will not stand for the newspaper disappointing me. To keep my ego intact I am going to lean towards the latter...

Giant Pumpkin Season, Last year I set out on a mission to grow a giant pumpkin, but unfortunately I lacked an understanding of the birds and the bees and I only planted one...thus no pollination...so despite having a child sing to my plant every week, all I grew were giant leaves, my $1.69 giant pumpkin seed was completely wasted. This year is going to be different though and with prime planting coming up in about two weeks, it is about time to order seeds! I love contests, so if you want to participate, send me an email or something and you can be my gardening nemesis until the fall when the proof will be in the pumpkin / giant jackolantern.

A Spy Watch, this is straight out of the movies...a cell phone watch...this is that dorky calculator watch on drugs--only it doesn't look terrible. The numbers for dialing are on the band--to avoid a huge face, there is over a gig of storage, an mp3 player, a camera, and a touch screen. It costs about as much as an iphone, but I blame that on the exchange rate. It is overpoweringly cool though.

Illegal Immigration slowing down, this may come as a surprise, but it is happening because Mexico is cracking down on their migration problem. As it turns out, a large portion of the migration flow is stemming from Central America--where poor immigrants are heading to Mexico for higher wages and opportunities for work (sound familiar?). Mexico is becoming more intolerant of this flow and thus it is slowing down at our end. I had no idea that this flow existed, but reading about it was pretty interesting.

Some things that do:

Psychologists don't know math, but we'll let them off the hook this time because it is a little tricky. If you have not heard about this then you are probably living under a rock, but in the spirit of clarity, mathematicians recently discovered that one of the basic assumptions used while designing cognitive dissonance experiments the past 52 years was wrong. The counterintuitive phenomenon can be observed by playing the "Lets Make a Deal" game famously known as the "Monty Hall Problem" (the link is provided in the left hand margin of the article). If you would like to look through the actual argument made my the Yale Economist, click here.

Police caught off guard by revolving door, an inmate escaped this past week while being escorted into a hospital because you can only go through a revolving door one at a time...so his restraints had to be removed so that he could use hit crutches alone...then he went through first (bad choice policeman) and when the police officer came through he was promptly hit in the face with a crutch, haha. The prisoner then exited the revolving door and ran to a waiting car--apparently they completely expected this lack of good judgment. This article is very watered down compared to the first one I found, but it is all that remains of the incident. As a follow up, the guy was caught later that same day--staying with relatives.

Subcategory- Local Idiots:

Gov. Blagomoron, I spoke too soon last week when I said, "at least with all eyes on Gov. Looks-like-a-chipmunk, he wont do anything else stupid..." because within 12-hrs of me posting that comment he signed a bill for Illinois to bypass the electoral college. The upside, the popular vote would actually elect the president. The downside, small states wouldn't matter at all really, and any error would require a national recount instead of a small localized reelection. I wrote all about it January 20th of this year, here.

Mayor Daley, beyond challenging legal precedence and the public opposition to plopping the children's museum down in Grant park a stone toss away from the colossal failure of the parking deck project to pay for Millennium Park--the Mayor has upped the illogical ante by championing a movement to change the city motto from "Urbs in Horto" (City in a Garden)...to something like "City of Children". So maybe I am being repetitive here, but what a dumbass. Changing the city motto is not going to make up for squandering millions of tax payer dollars on half-baked ideas which in no way benefited the city or the children he loves so much.

St Xavier Student, they haven't caught the kid yet...but I am sure once the school posts a reward of like $1000 dollars or a stack of man hole covers all of his friends will be standing in line to turn on him (or her--girls can be stupid too). The note reading "Be prepared to die on 4/14" was written on a bathroom wall by a student who just can't wait to go to jail. Classes for at least Monday have been canceled on campus and at four nearby schools.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 04/06/2008

2008-04-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

Chance's Weekend Update: 04/06/2008

"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us... they can't get away this time"

Lieutenant General Lewis B."Chesty" Puller (when surrounded by 8 enemy divisions)

Last week was a rough one for news. In fact, I believe the only articles that I actually cited are negative stories. That is really too bad...on a positive note though, I found a decent amount of other things that are awesome. On top of that I am trying my best to keep the newsletter short, but sometimes I still get too excited and start linking things like crazy. I haven't gotten any complaints yet, and as far as I know people are still reading this, but I figure that if I draw things out too long you may lose interest. Anyways, it is way too nice outside to write anything more. Have a great week!

Some things that don't suck:

Frank's Blog, not the kind old man next door that drives my dad insane, the Frank from my cross-country team. As you may, but probably did not notice, he commented on my update last weekend. Before that point I knew that he had a blog, but his actions triggered my curiosity, so I clicked around until I found it and then for the next twenty minutes or so I laughed my ass off. Check it out, you wont regret it.

Modern Products, Vintage Advertising, this was such a sweet idea. I am super into old things, and a huge geek...so this is really the best of both worlds for me. The first page is definitely all the best, but if you are already there you might as well click around some.

Pocket Memo Pads, this isn't even a link, I just changed the font color to blue. It is too simple, but also too perfect for a link. As another old school throw back--I have been carrying around a little 3x5 flip top notebook for the last two weeks. I make a lot of lists, but because I do not have a top hat like Honest Abe, I also lose a lot of lists. But with my new accessory, I have instant access to the lists of movies I want to see, books I want to read, things I need to do, items for my upcoming weekend update, and of course my favorite feature is my "words" page. As I am reading, I sometimes come across vocabulary that I am not familiar with. I used to just ignore it and move on, now I write it down, look it up, and try to work it into my vernacular. (write that down). All of that, and I didn't even need a $400 blackberry...I just needed a $.99 notebook.

Tours of Wrigley Field, for just $25 a person you can explore the Cubs clubhouse, press box, visitors clubhouse, bleachers, dugouts, on deck circles, mezzanine suites and security headquarters of the soon to be 2008 World Champions via a 90 minute tour of Wrigley. It sounds like a great time to me...even though it is a thinly veiled attempt to squeeze more money out of the fans to pay for the restoration.

Google Custom Time, "Be on time. Every Time." is the slogan for Google's new feature which allows users to change the 'sent time' of an email to lets say, 6 hours ago. Late papers, deadlines; no longer an issue:

April Fools!!! yeah they got me too. I thought it was a little bizarre, but I would never put it past Google to come up with something this sweet.

Photoshop Express, The best--and one of the most expensive--photo editing programs ever has just gone mobile. Thats right, you no longer have to go home to use your bootlegged copy of Photoshop to put your friend's face on someone else's body...you can do it online! Just upload your pictures and edit them. You can even host them from the site using a free account. Pretty Cool. Now that we have hard drives we can carry around on our key chains we don't need them anymore.

The Last Alarm Clock you will ever need, I am a sleepy person...worse than that, it is tough to wake me up. Sometimes my sleep schedule needs to be flexible, but my alarm clock is just so damn rigid...so I shut it off instead of changing the time--and I miss my noon class. crap. But not anymore, this "ninja alarm clock" has seven independent alarms (that means you can shut one off without wiping the rest out) as well as a variable nap alarm (1-120 minutes) and adjustable snooze.

The sky is not falling, this is one nice, positive, well researched, and informative article that floated to the top in a world of negative editorials. 2008 is not the next Great Depression, and technically it is not even a recession. Yes growth has flat-lined, but we have not even had a negative quarter yet and we need TWO before we should start dropping the R word. Also, the economist that wrote this article did a great job outlining why the Euro will probably never eclipse the Dollar on the world stage. Sorry Fox News.

R.E.M is coming to Chicago, so is M.I.A (my favorite female British rapper)...that last one was a link to a video...and so is this: R Kelly, Trapped in a Closet, this R Kelly song came about a long time ago and the video said "to be continued" at the end. I had no idea until this past week that he continued it 22 times!!! I watched them all and it was probably one of the most entertaining 60 minutes that I have had in recent history. Sorry in advance to your employer.

Some things that do:

3rd Graders Plotting Murder, this is insane. Back in the good old days when I was in 3rd grade most of our plots involved "Cooties," not hitting our teacher over the head with a blunt object, handcuffing her, and then ultimately knifing her. I apologize Georgia, but I am forced to file your state under "crazy" until such time that you redeem yourself.

Mayor Daley's Children's Museum Statement, if you have not yet heard, the city of Chicago wants to move the Children's Museum from its current high traffic spot on Navy Pier to the beautiful open span of greenery separating congested Michigan Ave and the tranquil lake front, Grant Park. Not to bring up old news or anything, but back in 1839, when the former Fort Dearborn became part of the townsite, the plat of the area east of Michigan Avenue south of Randolph was marked "Public ground. Forever to remain vacant of buildings." If you can get past the fact that the Mayor sounds like a bumbling idiot you will be able to see that he makes almost no case for overturning the Plan of the City, which has been closely following since its publication 99 years ago, except that he'd rather fight for a 5-year old rather than anything else...and we all know that 5 year olds hate parks...

Oak Lawn criminals follow the commodities market, noting the record high prices of metal, thieves have recently stolen at least 8 manhole covers--weighing in around 125lbs a piece--while it is still unknown where they are turning them in to scrap for cash, this prank is getting costly for taxpayers...but if I were a cop, I would probably check one of these places for a stack of man hole covers. On the flip side--if I were a criminal--I would be stealing catalytic converters, not manhole covers. Converters contain three of the most expensive metals at the moment--platinum at $2,000 an ounce, palladium at $450 an ounce, and rhodium, which sells at just less than $9,000 an ounce. You may need more tools, but it would be much more lucrative. Just a thought, and please don't try it, or tell anyone that I told you to.

Governor Recall, a riding the momentum of Gov. Blago's downward spiral into the abyss of bad statewide decisions, Rep. Jay Hoffman called out "Stop the Bullshit!" championing the bill (that passed) making it conceivable to revote for a replacement governor...i.e. California. I think this is a terrible idea--mostly due to cost--but also because at least with all eyes on Gov. Looks-like-a-chipmunk, he wont do anything else stupid...whereas a replacement might feel the need to make all kinds of changes without thinking them through.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 03/30/2008

2008-03-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

Chance's Weekend Update: 03/30/2008

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."

Will Rogers

This past week was a very exciting one in the news, and I feel bad that I left a lot of good stuff out because I do not want to fill your inbox with a novel each Monday. In a nutshell, winter is winding down, interesting innovations are springing up all over the place, the economy is falling apart--but not as bad as everyone is making it seem, and the election garbage is getting stale...so what better time to play games, take up a cause, and read some actual news. Also if you are near Naperville Tuesday, the owners of Saracco (everyone's favorite white wine--Moscato D'asti) will be having a wine tasting at Binny's on Ogden. With so much going on, I am actually getting back to reading right now...so enjoy:

Some things that don't suck:

Traveler's IQ, a little over three years ago I was quoted as saying "hello Facebook, goodbye GPA" and now that they have added this application to the mix I am very fortunate that I have a light class load to carry through the end of the year...The way the game works is that there is a world map, and a name of a city or place will pop up...you have 10 seconds to click somewhere on the map and then depending on how fast you were / how close you were, you will be given some points. If you accumulate enough points to get the the next level you get to continue, if not--you feel like an idiot and you play the game for the rest of the weekend. My Traveler's IQ is 102 and climbing--I really need to learn my African nations though.

FLUGTAG is coming back to CHICAGO!!!, what will you be doing in September? If you are not building a flying machine to jump off of Navy Pier with then you need to reconsider your plans...

Awareness, I think I am typically pretty aware of my surroundings, especially when driving--I can usually pick out a cop from a 1/2 mile away--but then again I do miss exits all the time. Why? well according to these guys, we miss things that we are not looking for...how aware are you? Take the test.

Earth Hour, For one hour this past Saturday (in each time zone that is) everyone shut off their lights. Well not everyone, namely Google, most of the Chicago skyline, and a couple of people who took the time to figure out why Google was all black. It was a pretty sweet idea to save power--and now it a pretty popular once a year thing. I already signed up to get an email reminding me about it for next year.

100 MPG, forget the Prius, the Avion "achieved 103.7 mpg on a drive from Mexico to Canada in 1986--a time when no one really cared" and as recent tests are showing 114mpg at 55mph. Pretty sweet, but still very 1980s...seriously though, the newest thing that I see on their website is from 1988...someone needs to look into this.

'Save Wrigley', The Cubs are all set to open up their soon to be Word Championship season tomorrow, and if you tune in, you will see fans all over sporting these sweet 'Save Wrigley' teeshirts in protest of Sam Zell selling the naming rights. Now you could show your support by going online and purchasing one for $14.99, or you could save some cash and do what I did, write a limerick expressing your feelings on the situation and submit it to the Sun-Times by next Friday at 11:59pm. Top 100 get a tee-shirt. Good luck to all.

Stealing from a sinking ship, apparently with all of the fears of job security the CTA is having some trouble keeping its drivers. So they are upping the ante, "Starting pay for this position is $17.46 per hour with the potential to increase to $26.86 per hour." That is pretty good money for a bus driver...and they need 400...at least until the state stops paying their bills.

Space Tourism, Well now that we know we can effectively shoot things down from orbit, we are ready to start the tours! There are actually two companies in the test flight stages of commercial space vehicles--which is pretty awesome. Flights open to the public could be available as early as 2010.

Self Destructing Flash Drive, in an age where we can carry around a library's worth of knowledge on a key chain, it is good that somebody finally developed some security more in depth than your dog's name followed by your birth date. The 'Iron Key' will erase its memory and fill itself with epoxy after 10 incorrect password attempts to prevent both physical and virtual access to your sensitive data. Awesome.

Del.icio.us, I know the name seems weird--but this web service is amazing. You simply create an account and then instead of bookmarking your favorite sites in your browser, you bookmark them through del.icio.us, and then the website creates lists of the hottest items of the day based on what people are looking at. On top of that you can use their search, which sometimes can find those diamonds in the rough that do not generate enough traffic to ever come up on a Google query.

Some things that do:

Accidentally sending nuclear weapon parts to Taiwan, and not figuring it out for two years...it is okay now though, it has all been returned...and luckily this time they were only the fuses to the warhead and nothing more sensitive. But seriously...

Forced Fiscal Responsibility, over the past couple of years, Wall Street firms have been getting a little greedy--amplifying their profits by playing with borrowed money, and buying up a huge amount of risky assets--only this time (unlike the late 90's) it bit them in the ass. Their situation is being pulled south by the crumbling housing market so Uncle Sam is stepping in with some new rules (the first major regulation change since the Great Depression) which is expected to be announced Monday--so hold on to your hats. What I do like about this plan is that it will probably keep people/companies from making illogical decisions--potentially saving billions of dollars in a downturn. What I do not like about this is that strict regulation could cut off the ability for an informed investor to make significant jumps during a bull market run--so even though this may be spun as a nice safety net by the various candidates, I see it as killing off a little bit of the excitement of the unregulated hedge market sector.

Myspace "Douche Bags", Katie heard about this website on the radio the other day...it is kind of like those services that take the license plate numbers of guys that pick up prostitutes--only this is for social networking sites...so maybe next time these people will think twice about posting ridiculous pictures of themselves online.

1 in 10 Americans think that Obama is Muslim, On top of all the other misinformation flying around the internet...this is the best example that I have seen thus far. There are only three candidates left, it really does not take that long to find out a little bit about each of them--just take a moment and type their names into Google. Once you scratch beyond the basic information like race and gender it might be a good idea to take a peak at their stance on important issues. For starters, check out social security, universal heath care, oh and this too: Awesome editorial in last Friday's Trib.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 03/23/2008

2008-03-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Chance's Weekend Update: The Lost Episode

"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful."

Gautama Siddharta

Well I didn't die, but I am thankful to be feeling better...but for clarification, I did not intentionally skip sending out an update last weekend in celebration of the North Central College Spring Break. In fact. there were a number of factors working against me; first being that I spent part of the week in Ada, OH which is still years away from electricity and indoor plumbing. And the next big one was that I got hit hard with the flu. While I briefly considered grabbing a newspaper crawling to the computer, I quickly reconsidered and settled back into my schedule of laying around making moaning noises between my naps. I am all better now though, but thanks for all of the emails of concern--of where your update was (not of my health). Again I apologize, but on a positive note I have got all kinds of material for a huge two week special here. **I am sending this out on Saturday (3/22) because I am going to be moving back into school tomorrow and will potentially be too busy to send this out later. This is pretty long so I hope that it will quench your thirst until next week, I just wanted to make it clear that I will NOT be sending out an extra newsletter to make up for the one that I missed.** Now on to the good stuff, but first...

A Timely Side Note:
I love Easter--not so much for the religious aspect--the hook for me comes mostly in the form of Cadbury Eggs and Easter Parties. There is really nothing better for me than a cream filled chocolate egg...except for maybe an accompanying "Robin Egg" (also known as a 'Whopper' in its more traditional round form) or Peep. The only problem for me comes as an annually ignored question which Wikipedia will finally help me answer. Why a bunny for Easter? and further why does it lay eggs? Well interestingly enough the Easter Bunny was brought to the United States via German immigrants but its roots are much deeper. According to popular folklore, Eostre--the ancient pagan goddess of the spring, pronounced "Easter"-- once saved a bird whose wings had frozen during the winter by turning it into a rabbit. Because the rabbit had once been a bird, it could still lay eggs, and that rabbit became the modern Easter Bunny--a symbol of both spring and fertility. Tada, the most celebrated icon of a sacred Christian holiday is Pagan....

Some things that don't suck:

Hulu, a web service similar to YouTube where we can LEGALLY watch all of our favorite TV shows and movies without searching all over the internet through shady websites and pop ups. It is about time...but between this and March Madness I do not see the GDP gaining an inch this month.

Smoque BBQ, It is in Chicago and on the Food Network...if you haven't heard of it yet, you will. This is no Top Chef shop, it was started by 5 regular guys who love food and their popularity is growing by the day...maybe they will eventually get a liquor license too, but for now it is BYOB. If you are in the area get on on the new thing while its still new...

BrickArms, is your Lego set boring? Maybe you should add some weapons...

The YouTube Awards, The winners of the 12 categories including: music, sports, comedy, instructional, short film, inspirational, commentary, creative, politics, series, eyewitness and adorable were announced this past Friday after hundreds of videos had been nominated and millions logged in to cast their votes. My personal favorite is the 'eyewitness' from Africa where a baby Water Buffalo gets attacked by lions then during that attack gets bit by an alligator, and then its entire herd attacks the predators while it WALKS AWAY.

Mind Controlled Video Games, I'll be honest, this is pretty insane. A step up from the Wii in terms of technology, later this year video games could be released that are controlled by our brainwaves via a sensor that the user would wear on their head. A step down from the Wii physically, kids are going to get really fat.

The Nike Trash Talk, Ingeniously, the Nike Trash Talk ($100; April 2008) features an upper that's made of leather pieces collected from the factory floor, the mid-sole uses scrap foam, and the outsole uses less toxic rubber and incorporates Nike Grind material from outsole manufacturing waste. A nice step in the green direction, and it still looks very cool.

100 years of Cars, this is a nice visual time line of the century that has elapsed since 1908 when the first Model T rolled off the assemble lines at Ford. Here is another sweet one which explains the current state of world currencies in the relative terms of Starbucks coffee. If you like what you are seeing, check out the next item.

Good Magazine, The magazine carries the theme of freedom, innovation, and environmental responsibility and gains a bit more credence by contributing 100% of your subscription payment to the nonprofit of your choice

Some things that do:

Hilary can be President because she stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and that is literally all she has got going for her according to 11,000 pages of schedules documenting her 8 years of "experience" shaking hands and taking pictures with girl scouts and florists.

The Kindle sold out in 5 1/2 Hours, the very sweet e-book device from amazon sold out almost instantly thanks mostly to my endorsement. The internet sales giant has orders backed up at least 6 weeks, but posted a very nice letter of thanks to customers on their home page. I understand if they are too busy to send a formal letter of thanks.

SEC Rule 10b5-1, which conveniently allows high wealth executives to schedule potential trade plans within a wide range of time, and then if presented with unfavorable insider information they can cancel the trade without consequence from the SEC because there was no actual illegal transaction. Why does this matter? Because the public does not have access to the information helping executives dodge portfolio busting Wall Street land mines and that is not fair. Want more dirt? Check out WikiLeaks.org

Chicago Curfew, While this is not of consequence for most people that I know, I am sure that it is annoying for a huge number of Chicago Minors. If they are on the streets after 10pm on a weeknight or 11pm on a weekend and NOT coming home from a church function, political rally, or an errand for a parent then they can be issued a citation.

Second Hand Fat, This is the first time that I have read about someone dying of someone else's "morbid obesity". A prudent mother in La Joya, TX needed a babysitter and she chose her bedridden relative. Unfortunately for her two year old son, the relative was not quite as bed ridden as everyone thought...and the child was crushed to death.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 03/09/2008

2008-03-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

"I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it."

Pablo Picasso

This week was an exciting week for random stuff! There was so much going on that I even let a lot of actual news fall through the cracks. I offset the lack of quality news with mixed in old stories which were awesome. I hope you enjoy, because I really did. Anyways, thanks again for all of the feedback!

Some things that don't suck:

Running a Marathon at 101 years old, "You are never too old to do what you enjoy." And Buster Martin likes running, "but not as much as I like my beer," he added. If that wasn't odd enough, he actually drinks a pint and smokes a cigarette at about the half way point of each run. Besides running he is in a rock band and stays up late. He sounds like a pretty cool old man to me, but does have one regret in his great life; not having more children--he only had 17.

A topless charity run (content warning), a great way for a woman to get someone's attention is to take off her shirt...intuitively a great way for a breast cancer charity group to get a lot of people's attention was to hold a topless race--I love it. Forget 'Race for the Cure' or the 'Avon Three Day' we need to get this thing going in the Illinois. I will start things off by pledging $1 to each woman who completes any charity race of her choosing the way that nature wanted it to be run--just submit a finishing photo and a time for me to post on a Cancer Awareness Blog.

Human Giant, This is a new comedy group that convinced MTV to give them a show...their skits rank from over the top hilarious to distastefully offensive gut busting. The video that I have linked is preparing me for the possible dangers of camping. You can find their videos all over YouTube, but I also posted a couple of my favorites to a simple Tumblr feed.

Super Cook, this is a website where you enter all of the ingredients that you have available in your kitchen at the moment and it returns a list of recipes broken into categories of 'starters', 'entries', and 'desert'. This could save potentially save a lot of time, and even mix up your standard menu a little. On a similar note, SaveChicago.org is "a high-tech, up-to-the-minute, on sale inventory of local goods and services - AND - we split our ad revenue with non-profit organizations." or in other words, an easy way to find sales.

Frank Lloyd Wright, his house designs are amazing and inspiring. And up to this point one could only peer into his works via photograph or the occasional 30 minute tour...but now you can rent them for between $135-350 a night to explore all of the details at your leisure. Sweet.

KILLDOZER, I think the the name says enough...but I guess I could fill in some of the details. First of all, Martin Heemeyer was mad at city hall for a zoning dispute involving his muffler business. Second, he owned a bulldozer. And third, he had just the right amount of knowledge and crazy to layer cement and steel plating into a composite skin over a foot thick. He guided the vehicle with the use of video cameras encased in bulletproof glass, and just for good measure he added a couple of holes that he could shoot his hunting rifle through. KD-Day occurred June 4th, 2004 when he drove the dozer out through the wall of his garage and went on his slow motion rampage resulting in $4 million dollars worth of damage spread out over 13 properties including City Hall, the local newspaper, the home of a former judge, and pretty much anyone else he didn't like. The day ultimately ended on his terms, considering that there was nothing anyone could do to stop him--three external explosions and over 200 rounds of firearm ammunition fired at the bulldozer had no effect. The national guard was actually on standby for an air assault when he ended his own life with a bullet to the head--it took the local Granby, CO police department over 12 hours to cut through his hatch with a blowtorch and recover the body.

Not being cold EVER, I just want to not be freezing on morning run, Wim Hof ran a half marathon in Alaska with no shoes or a shirt. I want to climb Longs Peak in June but am a little tentative because of the ice...Wim Hof climbed most of the way up Mt. Everest wearing only running shorts. There is also long list of crazy things that he can do that arguably exceed the mountain thing...so check it out, it is nuts.

Some things that do:

The Cubs Playing at the Cell, Don't worry north siders I think if we car pool in rusty cars we might blend in enough to avoid immediate robbery, but then once we get inside there is always the danger that the stadium could collapse...I mean nobody ever planned for what could happen if all the seats were filled.....JUST KIDDING KATIE AND HER WHOLE FAMILY...I am sure things will be fine--and at least someone will be winning games at U.S. Cellular....

Brett Favre retiring, after 17 seasons...this is the worst thing to happen to Green Bay, WI since being founded by a Frenchman wearing a silk dress, never mind...Besides being a Bears fan, I am a huge Brett Favre fan. It kind of sucks that he wont be playing anymore, but at least he will have time to take advantage of all his AARP benefits now.

Cameras that see through clothing, Besides being a potential "Cancer Death Ray" while peering through your clothing at a range of 80 feet, this technology seems very 1984 to me. I do see the positive impact of these devices in deterring concealed weapons--much like all of the new traffic light cameras in the Chicagoland area have been cutting down the running of red lights (see next). And I would prefer to walk under a camera at the airport rather than the current practice of taking off my shoes, belt, and possible getting a pat down--so maybe it doesn't suck THAT bad--but I am way too into privacy and way against Big Brother to ever be fully on board.

Intersection cameras, 220 more to be exact. So instead of crossing your fingers as you floor it for that yellow, open your wallet. It'll cost you a cold $100 and if think you can play off that the camera got the wrong guy--just check out the 12 second video of your moving violation available online. Mayor Daley shot down the hope of posted signs warning of the cameras with the reasoning that it would cut into the red light revenue stream; which is expected to swell to nearly $50 Millions this year.

Stupid People, if you don't want to spend time in a courthouse for jury duty, here's a little tip: Don't make a bomb threat instead. Dupage County Police traced the call and arrested Toby Owhoka at her home

Airborne doesn't really do anything, for the past 3 years, every time that I feel a cold coming on I will go down to Walgreen's to pick up a nice little sleeve of dissolving Airborne tablets "invented by a school teacher" which to boost my immune system and prevent the onset of the cold. Looking back I really should have known better--teachers are typically not recreational pharmacists and even with Oprah's endorsement we should have all been a bit more skeptical...but if you kept your receipts you can get a refund.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 03/02/2008

2008-03-02T23:59:00.000-08:00

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult."

E.B. White

I spoke way too soon last week when I was all about Sam Zell his changes at the Tribune, while his actions may be good business, they are not good Chicago business--and that is why he is pretty much leading the way for things that suck this week. In other news, I am just so excited to have another week of "wintry mix" ahead of me...but seriously, winter will be over soon. Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Groundhog's Day, so that means that we have less than two weeks of this garbage left! Also, I apologized in advance for all the extra links I added, I was going a little nuts this week. Anyways, here goes for the week that was:

Some things that don't suck:

The Kindle, unlike reading from a computer screen--which can get very tiring--the "electronic ink" display supposedly reads nearly the same as a printed page . Unlike a printed page, this slim and trim device is wirelessly connected to free newspaper, magazine, and blog feeds. Plus amazon.com,
where you can purchase and download a full book directly to the memory in less than a minute. Pretty sweet device for people who like to read, but do not like to carry around a bunk of books.

Getting an iPhone from your school. Thats right, Abilene Christian University in Texas is giving an iPhone to each incoming freshman because they had added some applications that they believe will be very helpful for students (and for their enrollment). Besides having your schedule, meal plan balance, and directions to classes right at your fingertips, students will now also have unlimited access to games, the internet, and youtube to keep them busy during class...

Knowing what you are talking about, with election anticipation building by the day, it is becoming easier and easier to spot the village idiot. They are either speaking vaguely about something they overheard from someone else, or they are incorrectly explaining what is included in fair trade and/or national health care and why it is perfect / ignorant. If you do not want to be "that guy" then follow the link to read a brief summary of what the primary candidates believe about a couple of token hot topics.

Tesla Roadster, I have mentioned this car before...But I really do not get sick of talking about it. Powered by 3500 laptop batteries, it goes 0-60 in 4 seconds, with 220 miles on a single charge. ON TOP of all that, it looks awesome. And I want it one--trouble is that they start at $98,000 and there is a pretty deep wait list. (not unlike my 38,700th on the Cubs season ticket waitlist)

Sidewalk Picasso, I first heard about Julian Beever a couple of months ago, but I stumbled across this video again and figured that it might just blow your mind...so I needed to share it.

Building Card Castles, is another one of my favorite things to do when I can't play with Legos, labyrinth, or DX-Ball. This guy outclasses me roughly a million fold. My personal best is the standard pyramid with seven little pyramids as a base. I am not sure how many total cards that is, but it was far short of his 22,000 that he used to build a replica of the Capitol Building.

Some things that do:

Blind faith in technology, "But GPS voice, I am not driving a train...this is only a rental car...okay, fine." :::BANG::: :::SMASH::: :::CRUNCH::: This is an oldie but a goodie. A computer consultant literally let his GPS system guide his car right onto the tracks--he got out just in time to not get slammed into by a Metro train at 60 mph--its too bad though, he could have won a Darwin Award. This incident did get me thinking though...maybe this technology has more potential than we thought before. If enough people start following these things around blindly, they isn't it possible that the satellites could control routes enough so that there would never be a traffic jam? Maybe you take a longer way to work now and then but now it would be in the interest of the greater good.

Sam Zell, I am officially off the Tribune Hype train...and the moment that I fell off was when I read in the Sun-Times (and yes I realize the bias) that good ole billionaire Sammy wants to sell not only the Cubs (thats fine...bring on Mark Cuban) but also the naming rights to Wrigley Field (that is not alright). I am now going to subscribe to the Sun--even though its pretty mediocre--and Mr. Zell...trust your GPS, I hear they are great.

Shooting missiles at the moon. I knew that the whole satellite thing was a just going to be opening a can of worms, and sure enough now we are going to be shooting down the moon. But wait, we have scientific reasons for launching a $79 Million dollar missile at the moon--we are looking for water!. #1 I will personally show anyone from NASA where the ocean is for a fraction of the cost, and #2 Just because you have a reason doesn't mean it is right...click.

"Pole Tax", I feel like this is the Stamp Act all over again...only a the "clear platform shoe and g-string party" would probably be more entertaining than the Boston Tea Party...but really, ask yourself if its fair to tax the guys who are about to walk in and drop nearly a week's pay on 12 dollar drinks and two minute dances? On the bright side, a lot of the money we pay out in political salaries will find its way back into the system...

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch