Shouzer

I was looking at cars recently, not with any real intent to buy, but just to see what interested me.  I thought to myself, “Hey, with those American car companies failing, maybe I’d see what they had.  Maybe I’d try to support them, even if only in while perusing.”

The problem, as I quickly discovered, was that American cars aren’t appealing–they just don’t look good, imo.  I have no idea how their build quality or reliability compares, and I probably never will.  If there’s not a single car that can make me say, “I’d like to be driving around in that,” there’s not a single car I’ll look into in detail.

I even figured maybe they’d have a some competitive hybrids or something, since that seems to be the way the world is going.  Well, you know what?  From what I saw, they don’t.  Unless I want to start paying $30k or something, but why would I bother with that?  I can get a brand new Honda Insight for under $20k.

Like I said, maybe American cars are all built better and are more reliable, but frankly I doubt it.  That’s exactly one of the reasons Honda and Toyota became so popular.  Even if that is true, though, they’ve gotta have some street appeal too.  Hopefully Fiat can change that for us…

I love me some Denver Broncos.  It’s a fact.  Recently, they’ve been a bit crazy–I don’t think anybody could deny that.  ”Oh my, our starting QB has only been in the league three years, but he’s already been to the pro bowl and led the #2 offense in the league?  That boy needs to be traded!”  ”It was our defense that sucked last year?  Ranked 29th while the offense sat at 2nd?  No way…  Let’s draft a bunch of offensive players this year.”

Seriously, they’re crazy, but until the team plays a game under new head coach Josh McDaniels, I was generally willing to just wait it out.  He’s certainly crazy, but maybe he’s just crazy enough to be a genius.  However, I happened to read this article in the Denver Post, and I couldn’t agree with it more.

Essentially, Brandon Marshall has asked for a new contract (and subsequently for a trade), and Dave Krieger is arguing that he deserves it.  Well, you know what?  He’s right.  Typically I don’t like players sitting out OTAs or camp for new contracts.  If you signed the first one, be a man and stick with it.  That’s what I said when T.O. got a whiny in Philly.

But to me, a rookie contract is different.  Depending on where you’re drafted, you generally don’t have much choice in the matter.  Generally the thought is to go out and prove yourself and you’ll get paid.  Well, in three years in the league, Marshall has already established himself as a legitimate #1 and arguably one of the best in the league at that (he went to the pro bowl last year, too).

Pay him what he deserves.  Life’s short in the NFL, and in this case, he really is doing what’s right for his family.  I love Eddie Royal and Brandon Stokley, but neither of them are #1s.

My contract with AT&T runs out at the end of June, and, frankly, my iPhone is starting to piss me off. It’s gotten slow, it’s had visible hotspots on the screen for at least a year now, and iTunes is the biggest pile of shit I’ve ever had to deal with on a regular basis.

With that in mind, Megan and I picked up a pair of Pres when they were released.  So far (and this is coming from somebody who stood in line for the iPhone the day it was released and has talked it up previously), I’ve got to say the Pre is better.

• The keyboard on the iPhone is better than a lot of people would have you believe, but a physical keyboard is just better.  And a slider is just slick. 
• The browser is much faster.
• The plan is better.  I was paying $60/month for 450 minutes, 5000 night & weekend, 250 txt msgs (NOT picture messages–the iPhone will but still doesn’t support them), and unlimited data.  Now we’re paying a combined $103 for 1500 minutes, unlimited nights & weekends starting at 7pm, unlimited txt (including pics and video…), and unlimited data.  Inflation’s got nothing on Sprint.
• Multitasking, anyone?
• A crisper, brighter screen.

You could probably make the argument that some of my iPhone complaints would be placated if I were to wait for the 3G S, but frankly I don’t want to.  Apple’s exclusion of picture messaging has irked me from day one, and their dumbass decision to not support it on the original phone doesn’t do much to inspire confidence…

Oh yeah, Palm stock is up nearly 1200% percent since December.  Coincidence?  Not a chance.

I took my first vacation time of my career last week, flying to Rome for a much needed vacation. I found a great deal, and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I spent about 7 days in Rome with a 2 day side trip to Florence.

By the end of the week, I was saturated by beauty, becoming numb to the abundant Italian eye-candy. Their culture puts an extreme emphasis on the aesthetics, la bella figura. Art museums there are full of masterpieces; even simple, out of way churches, would be considered behemoths of marble in other countries; and the people themselves look like they walked out of a magazine and on to the metro. The saturation caused me to change the way I looked at the beautiful world around me. Walking through and art museum, I found many great artworks to be bland and uninspired. Only world famous works like Michelangelo’s David could take my breath away. While strolling through churches with marvelous mosaics and marble, instead of standing in awe of the magnificent frescoes on the wall, I stood in pain, focusing on the soreness in my feet. These smaller churches simply could not compare to the size and scale of St. Peter’s Basilica at Vatican City.

Similarly, the food was indescribably good. Suffice it to say, everything lived up to the hype. The freshness and quality of the food was incomparable. The fresh fruits, vegetables, cheese, and bread that I bought at the market was bursting with flavor, making it easy to understand how the restaurants could make such great food.

The tiny effort I put in to my appearance became glaringly obvious to me. Walking around in short and old T-shirts amongst a nation of cover models made me question my lifestyle and fashion choices. I am a guy who has sported the same hair style for more than a decade. Maybe more like 1.5. I’m not even sure any more. I stopped in a shop at the airport to kill some time, and while browsing sunglasses, I was not sure which were for men and which were for women. Are they unisex now? How can one tell? As I stood there trying not to look foolish as I browsed the eye-wear, I realized that I needed a makeover. I know the queer eye guys don’t do that any more, but maybe they can come out of retirement for a straight guy with no fashion sense.

In the engineering world, appearance receives very little notice. It is not uncommon to see such travesties as white socks with dress shoes and slacks. Some people look like they go out of there way to look unfashionable, but I would like to distance myself from the stereotype of engineer. Perhaps it’s time to finally start worrying about the superficial.

The food aspect is worth considering as well. I do fairly well here, eating a lot of “fresh” fruits and vegetables. When I say fresh, I mean I bought them raw at the grocery store. After eating truly fresh food though, I think I need to seek out farmers markets for fresh produce. Partially green bananas and prepackaged tomatoes just don’t seem good enough any more.

I love traveling because it changes me. Thrusting myself into another culture and perspective forces a reevaluation of life as I know it. When I see other people who live life in a different mindset, I like to adjust, fine tuning my own outlook on life.

This is not to say that everything about Italian culture is fabulous. I got frustrated at times by the hours of operation on many of their shops. Many small places opened late, closed for 2-3 hours at lunch, and then shut down early in the evening. I think they were open about 5-6 hours a day. It became inconvenient. It is easy to shrug such problems off as a traveler, but it gave me a greater appreciation for the most convenient place on earth, America.

So will I turn into an Italian supermodel who only eats the freshest of foods? Probably not. I’ll probably gradually slip back into the status quo of American culture. Frankly, I’m not too worried about it. It doesn’t diminish the fun and excitement of exploring and experiencing a different way of life.

Apparently the Church of Scientology has been editing Wikipedia articles in a self-serving manner, so Wikipedia has responded by banning all edits coming from their IPs.  Honestly, I know very little about Scientology.  The few things I’ve heard sound nuts, and Tom Cruise seems crazy*.

Frankly, though, all this does for their reputation is enforce it, in my mind.  Really, Wikipedia is fairly “neutral” from the things I’ve read.  Given that, if you really need to edit articles to make yourself sound better, you must be doing something wrong to begin with.

* Crazy funny…  Have you seen Tropic Thunder?  The man is surprisingly funny.

The NBA Playoffs have been pretty great this year.  Aside from the Lakers, the only teams left are teams that haven’t been overly successful in recent years.  Sure, the Cavs and the Nuggets have made the playoffs a few times recently, but they’ve never had any sort of major impact.  This year, along with the Magic, they’ve both got a legitimate chance to go to the finals.  Not just that, but every game in the semis has come down to the wire and regardless of who you’re rooting for, they’ve been fun to watch (albeit likely very nerve-racking).

Honestly, it just doesn’t get much better than this:

Since Scott posted about joining Facebook recently, I figured I’d link this article.  Basically, it’s a study that says Facebook users tend not to do as well in school.  Admittedly, the researcher herself admits that it might be some other third variable, but there is definitely a correlation.

Well, I finally broke down and joined Facebook. I can’t say I’m proud of it, but I felt that I was missing out on too much socially. I also think it provides a decent means of staying connected with people I went to college with, which could help me further my career. Networking never hurts. That’s how I got my job at GM.

My biggest concerns were always privacy. I know that’s ironic considering I write on a blog, but I didn’t like the idea that other people could post stuff on my page. I also feel that a lot of gossip happens over the “relationship status” part. I won’t be using that particular feature.

You can find me under my email address: scottp16@gmail.com I hope everyone adds me as a friend because my self worth is now directly tied to the number of Facebook friends that I have.

Joystiq linked to and gave a bit of commentary on this piece by George Will.  The whole editorial is a weak, elitist tirade against denim, of all things.  Honestly, I feel a bit bad about potentially wasting anybody’s time by contributing to his readership.  Perhaps that’s all he’s going for; I hear newspapers around the country are failing, but based on drivel like this, I’m starting to think it has more to do with “Pulitzer Prize-winning” authorship like this than anything else.

The crux of his argument seems to be that denim was created for poor, dirty laborers, and our uncivilized society has idiotically adopted it as our primary fabric.  He attributes it to a “thou shalt not dress better than society’s most slovenly” mentality, simultaneously revealing that he believes denim-wearers are unclean and–of course–that he’s superior (who didn’t see that coming?).

He goes on to bemoan this “misuse of freedom” (oh yeah, denim is far more damaging to society than the KKK), all the while revealing his jealousy of people more successful (”Silicon Valley billionaires are rebels without causes beyond poses, wearing jeans when introducing new products”), who have more fun (”Seventy-five percent of American ‘gamers’ . . . are allowed to vote”), and of apparent inferior intelligence (”children and their childish parents become undifferentiated audiences for juvenilized movies”).  Boohoo.

Personally, I wear jeans because they’re comfortable, not as some fashion statement.  It seems that Will puts more thought into what I wear than I do, which he might argue is the root of his discontent.  In reality, I do like wearing suits, but there’s at least two problems with wearing one all the time:  1) I don’t feel like sweating in my office all day, and 2) frankly it devalues the few times in my life that I do dress up.

It reminds me of an early episode of House (yeah, George, I watch TV.  Fuck you.) in which House doesn’t hire a female doctor, because it’s apparent she’s more concerned with her looks than with being comfortable.  Assumedly, Will would prefer the opposite:  that we all dress uncomfortably to create false facades of importance and self worth.   He calls wearing denim “the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances”.  I call his editorial a carefully calculated attack on lower castes.

After all, his argument isn’t that, as a society, we’ve outgrown denim.  No, it’s that denim is meant for laborers and bums, and everybody else should have better taste–everybody else should dress their stature.  I suspect he would have loved to live in the middle ages.  Back then, everybody knew their place.  You had royalty, and you had peasants.  And they most certainly didn’t dress alike.

BBC News had an interesting article about a month ago that basically said the more religious a person is, the less likely they are to “pull the plug” when they’re terminally ill.  I think that statistic becomes a little more interesting when you try to reason why that is.

Honestly, I would have expected it to be the other way around–my first thought would have been that people with strong religious beliefs would be more willing to accept death, with the knowledge that an afterlife is awaiting them.  Apparently that’s not the case, though, and I’m curious if anybody has thoughts on why that might be.  I have a couple guesses myself, but I won’t get into them unless somebody’s interested in the comments.

I happened to catch this clip the other day, and it seemed worth posting.  Over the years of watching SportsCenter, I’ve sort of come to the decision that I like Hockey highlights the best.  There’s just something about them that keeps ‘em unique–most baseball highlights look the same to me (you can only dive in so many directions to catch a ball), for instance.  Anyway, enjoy.

I know. It’s shocking. The Final Four has given people a reason to go to Detroit though. They had a big music festival down by the river front this weekend. I caught Gavin Degraw live there (for free) followed by a pep rally with each of the four bands performing. The weather was gorgeous, and spirits were high.

It’s pretty cool having a local team in the Final Four and now in the championship game. Probably at least 75% of the people downtown today were wearing the green and white. I’ve only been here for 10 months, and even I’m feeling it. MSU has been an underdog in their last two days, and they have systematically defeated their Golliathian opponents. It’s been a lot of fun to watch, and it’s been a lot of fun to be here in the atmosphere of it all.

This area has had a pretty bad year. Detroit has been slowing dying for at least a decade, but it’s on the mat now. The next few months will determine its fate, but at least for one weekend, people here can have some excitement and joy in their lives.

This week, the Obama administration gave GM 60 days to establish a plan for viability and Chrysler 30 days to accomplish a merger with Fiat, otherwise, both would be forced into bankruptcy. In addition, Rick Wagoner was forced to resign from his position as CEO of GM, and he was replaced by Fritz Henderson.

Firstly, I think Rick Wagoner was a bit of a scapegoat here. He really didn’t do anything wrong to merit the forced resignation. Most of the damage done to GM happened before his tenure, and he has done some good things to turn it around. However, CEO of a company the size of GM is a rather unique position. Decent really isn’t good enough. Rick accomplished some good things, and had the economy not turned sour, he might have righted the ship over the long-haul. During the last few months of this crisis, he has not really shown a great sense of expedience in fixing the mistakes.

The new CEO, Fritz Henderson, did an employee broadcast a few days ago, and I was greatly impressed by him. He seemed to have a great sense of urgency about him, and he is clearly intelligent and tough. He is certainly more charismatic than Wagoner, though I don’t know how important that is for a CEO. It is obviously too early to judge him, but I would hire him for the job if I had the power to do so. So while Wagoner got a pretty bum deal, I think they did the right move by giving the job to Henderson.

GM was given 60 days to submit a new plan for viability. Really, though, this is a bit of a misnomer. GM has a lot of constituencies who negatively affect their balance sheet. These are the bondholders who fear they will have to take pennies on the dollar for the debt they hold; the union who fears their contract will be broken; and the dealers who fear the national network will be greatly reduced. The 60 days is not to create a plan; it is to get concessions from all of these groups. The threat of bankruptcy in 60 days is a means of holding the proverbial feet to the fire. Or else it is a means of forcing those concessions as GM obviously cannot survive without them.

GM has no negotiating power with these constituencies, and I think the 60 day deadline will provide that power. If some group is unwilling to give concessions, they will be forced to risk bankruptcy which seems to be an enigma. Without the deadline, they would have no incentive to give in, and this mess would drag on endlessly on the taxpayer’s dollar. The deadline hurts, but it has to be done.

I also think the deal they are giving Chrysler is appropriate too. Chrysler was gutted of its ability to make cars when it merged with Daimler, and now that they stand alone again, they are doomed. Sadly, the merger is their only real hope.

I’ve seen this commercial on CBS multiple times throughout the tournament. I honestly don’t know if it is a real promotion though.

Watch CBS Videos Online