February 2006

On or around 12.30.2005, Agents Bladerunner, Renegade, and I infiltrated Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles. Posing as regular customers, we obtained many different varieties of sodas, and even held discussions with the owner, without ever being suspected as agents of The Crack Team. We were on full alert, and brought along two civilians to enhance our cover.
     This storefront contains possibly the largest selection of carbonated beverages, including sodas, energy drinks, beers, and everything in between. It is owned and operated by soda savant John Nese, who whenever possible stocks beverages that are flavored with real cane sugar and are bottled, not canned. There is a dizzying array of beverages, including many that have had large gaps in production, and have only recently been revived. They also have a selection of classic candies, such as Beemans Chewing Gum, the official gum of the astronauts of The Right Stuff. The store has been featured in many articles and on the History Channel’s Modern Marvels (When Renegade pointed out to Nese that most of his products were not modern, Nese countered with, “Well, they are a marvel.” The Crack Team agrees.)
     Overall, the mission was a great success. This was expected, since “Soda Pop” has three syllables. Sufficient time has passed for me to analyze the results of this Crack Team reconnaissance mission. I had assistance from Agents Hulagun and Assassin for a few of these.

Bawls
This is an energy drink flavored by a highly caffeinated berry known as guarana (Go ahead, make a guano joke. It will only be the millionth time I’ve heard it.) Some people find guarana doesn’t make them jittery (or bother their stomachs) like caffeine, but still keeps them awake. I admit, it was a much gentler stimulant, but I usually go for an energy drink when I want to WAKE UP NOW. I first heard about it on ThinkGeek.com, they’re big on energy drinks. Frankly, I thought it had a strange medicinal taste, and the guarana fruit flavor is hard to describe. Tolerable, sure, but I wouldn’t drink it again. The diet version tastes very similar, but again, not very good. I do dig the cobalt blue bottle, though.

Belfast Original Sparkling Cider
Created in San Francisco in 1849, the label claims it is California’s first soft drink. Tastes just like a carbonated version of the apple juice I drank as a kid. I noticed it is artificially flavored and contains no juice, so I was surprised how they got it to taste just like that apple juice. Then I realized I probably grew up on artificially flavored apple juice. If you really liked that stuff, you’ll like this, too, but I prefer Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider. That’s made with 100% real juice, and you can taste the difference.

Bubble Up
An old time lemon lime soda originally introduced in 1920, it’s glass bottled and sweetened with cane sugar. To me, most notable was the light, tiny bubble carbonation style. Good overall, with a cool retro bottle, but not a big standout.

Clearly Canadian Blackberry
A special soda for me. For a couple years in college, I had one just about every day with my lunch. Back then they had really interesting (and surprisingly delicious) flavors like Loganberry, which I just found out is a rasberry/blackberry hybrid. In 2004 they changed their formula from sugar flavored to a 50/50 cane sugar/Splenda mix. I tried the blackberry, and it’s still pretty good, but not as good as the original. Big surprise. They also cut down on the number of flavors. I just wish I knew about the switch beforehand so I could have stocked up on the original.

Coca Cola
A standard, but note that Galco’s only stocks Coke and Pepsi from Mexico, flavored with real sugar in glass bottles. Tastes a little different, but good. In SoCal you can also get them in most Mexican supermarkets like Ranchito. It is important to note that like in America, the label says it might contain corn syrup, but it does not (like ours never contains sugar because corn syrup is always cheaper).

Jeff’s Amazing New York Egg Cream
An egg cream is chocolate milk and seltzer, usually heavy on the chocolate syrup. Get them at a good Jewish deli and they’re damn good, despite the off-putting name. Finding the bottled version was pretty rare when I was in HS, so they were something of a treat. I can recall the label warning you not to shake them, but the chocolate syrup had settled to the bottom, so you had no choice. The syrup still settles, but now I realize you can gently tilt it back and forth, or move it in a swirling motion, to mix it without having it spray everywhere when you open it. Unfortunately, they don’t taste as good as I remember them. More of that artificial flavor creeping in. I tried chocolate and coffee, and Bladerunner tried chocolate and vanilla. Just didn’t do it for us. Stick with the delis, you can’t go wrong.

Manhattan Special Espresso Coffee
I was pretty skeptical of this one, even though a journalist doing a story on Galco’s said it was his favorite. Overall, it’s mixed. It does taste good, just a sweet, carbonated coffee taste. For the record, I don’t drink straight espresso or brewed coffees, they’re too strong for me. I stick with the lattes, mochas, etc., but down them daily. The problem is that over the course of the bottle, the flavor kinda got to be too much for me. Maybe I just drank it too slowly. Nese claimed that Manhattan Special is a very hands on bottler; they even roast their own beans. It just came off as too much of a good thing. Ooh. I bet this would make a great vanilla latte ice cream float.

Manhattan Special Vanilla Cream
A winner in my book, and I’m starting to wonder how a company like this can stay in business for over 100 years without anyone knowing about them (yes, I’m anyone). I am not really a fan of cream sodas, but this tastes just like vanilla ice cream. Again, all natural ingredients, flavored with pure cane sugar and real vanilla beans that you can see in the soda (but just a tiny bit). Assassin, who is a big cream soda fan, didn’t like this one too much. Go figure.

Moxie Original Elixir
Another one of those old time sodas (”Since 1884″) that Renegade could remember seeing in billboard ads drawn in Mad Magazine cityscape cartoons. I also read that it’s very big in New England. Unfortunately, it took a very short time to discover why this is an elixir and not a soda. It has a strong medicinal aftertaste, which comes from “gentian root extractives”. Nese explained that gentian root is the secret ingredient in Coke, but obviously Coke uses way less. Hulagun and I gave it a big thumbs down, but Assassin said it tasted like root beer. It is important to note that Assassin had just finished 3 regular (non-root) beers, and that might have affected his taste buds.

Original Nehi Grape
After seeing Radar O’Reilly constantly order them on M*A*S*H, I was excited to try it. However, the words “Artificially Flavored Soda” are prominent on the label, and you can really taste it. Kind of reminded me of those tiny wax bottles of syrup you’d bite the top off of and drink, and it almost had a waxy taste to it. I wonder if it was artificial when it was created in 1924.

Plantation Style Mint Julep
This has a great, real mint flavor that reminds me of the strong scent that would burst from the ground when I’d hit a mint patch with the lawnmower. Smooth and not overpowering; in other words, it doesn’t taste like carbonated Scope. One of my grandmother’s favorite desserts is vanilla ice cream with a little Creme de Menthe poured over it. I’m thinking this would be great for a vanilla/mint ice cream soda, kinda like a Shamrock Shake (which is just McDonald’s artificial vanilla milkshake with mint syrup). So, on second thought, maybe a lot better than a Shamrock Shake. The web site has a recipe listing.

Red Rock Premium Cola
This was one of the best of the bunch. Nese tells us it was Babe Ruth’s favorite cola, and that unlike Coke, the formula is pretty much unchanged from it’s introduction in 1885 (also in Atlanta). It had a very subtle vanilla flavor to it, but don’t think vanilla coke. Just a smoother flavor, and yet another flavored with pure cane sugar. I would easily take this over Coke.

That’s all for now, I’ll report again after our next mission.

Quick heads up on a new series called Monty Python’s Personal Best, which starts tonight on PBS. Each of the five surviving Pythons wrote and produced a 1-hour segment, and all colaborated for the one that would’ve been Graham Chapman’s. Contains new material! Should be pretty cool.

MSN has a map mashup that displays the cheapest gas prices in your area. In my area, there was a 8-12 cent price difference, depending on the grade. With prices so high, I wonder if it matters.

I wish I could say that I am stunned that I haven?t heard anyone else calling the latest attack on muslims, specifically Arab muslims what it really is, racism. I am not talking about your standard run of the mill racial slurs, but rather the entire country getting their panties in a bunch about the possibility of a company based in the United Arab Emirates running some of our ports. Sure, this seems a little bit odd to me (is Halliburton too busy to take this contract?), but the blanket statements being made about ALL arabic muslims not being trustable are really quite stunning to me. I didn?t know we were allowed to distrust entire groups of people these days, but I guess I am not as progressive as I thought.

I doubt I will get away with making similar comments about all those Jews in Israel, or all those japs in Japan, and I still hold a grudge over what they did to pearl harbor (not the bombing, but the craphole they have turned Waikiki into). Seems like a holocaust or being nuked puts you off limits for some time period, I just can?t seem to find a copy of that memo. I think we are not even allowed to make fun of Germans anymore about that little mess they made of the first half of the 20th century. Our current allies though in the UAE are fair game. If the rest of us in the grand USA got blamed for every stupid move some jackass American makes overseas, it would probably piss us off?.. wait, that is kinda how it works, but I thought we were special.

Don?t get me wrong, I don?t really like muslims. Yep, I came out and said it, mostly to part of the ?in crowd?. The reality though is that I don?t like most people. I have yet to meet any group of people, be it an ethnic group, religious group, or even a bunch of idiots who happen to all live in the same country who really impressed me all that much (with the exception of exotic dancers, cuz someone has to stand up for them). I guess I am saying that I don?t really like humans as a whole, but until recently, I thought that it was not ok to pick on anyone for being a member of a specific group. I guess I was wrong. arab muslims are fair game. I am not calling for another crusade just yet, but I will say that I don?t trust them and that they should not be allowed freedom or business opportunities in our country. They should not be allowed to fly airliners in our skies or captain ships coming into our territorial waters. They should not be allowed to drive cars in school zones, cuz you never know when they may just decide to run little Timmy over as he is walking home, as part of some jihad (or maybe the little bastard was wearing a shirt with that stupid mohammad cartoon on it).

Most importantly though, muslims should not be allowed to provide security in our ports. I guess while I am at it, we should also make sure that there are no hispanics working to secure our borders, africans to be in our police forces, or red-headed firemen (come on, you know you were thinking it). Really, this should just be part of a bigger policy to not allow ANYONE to provide security of any sort in America unless they are white guys with no clear ethnic lineage (like I want to give a german a machine gun)!

Seriously though, next time some jackass makes a statement about how we can?t trust any arabic muslims, just replace those words with your favorite group and their stereotype crime against the world. See how it sounds when some idiot on the news says ?it is just stupid to trust the scandinavians to run those cruise ships after what the Vikings did to Europe?!

And yes, I know that most of those ethnic and national groupings are supposed to be capitalized, but how can I learn to hate someone if I use proper grammar in my rants about them? Kind of shows respect that I want to avoid for fear of being a sympathizer.

I think this is a great example of the “good from far, but far from good” principle. All you have to do is stand back from your monitor about 8-15 feet while looking at the image. The email credited Phillippe G. Schyns and Aude Oliva of the University of Glasgow as the creators.

It is interesting to note that the thumbnail preview of this image has the faces switched, and moving closer or further from the screen does not change that. Also, I can see the switch somewhat by removing my glasses; I am nearsighted with an astigmatism.

I know that not everybody (meaning practically nobody) comparison shops to the extent that I do. Therefore you might go into Staples or Office Depot and think that USB cables normally cost $25-35. This is at least a 100% markup. They are assuming you don’t know any better, or are buying it with a larger ticket item like a printer, and in contrast it seems less expensive. And you’re too lazy to buy it elsewhere. On top of that, I see they’re trying to carry only top of the line, gold plated cables (which might have a .000003% performance gain), so you don’t have any choices. At Staples, they go a step further and gouge you for their store brand! You’re not even getting a name brand like Belkin.

Just so you know, using pricegrabber.com you can find a longer cable for less than 1/2 the price. I just purchased a 16′ Belkin USB 2.0 cable for under $10 shipped at databazaar.com. This is 60% longer and over 65% cheaper than Office Depot and Staples. And I earned AAdvantage miles from databazaar.com in the process. Yes, I have to wait a few days for my cable, but I probably could have shipped it next day air and still have saved money.

I am evaluating music sequencers to use with my new E-MU Xboard 49. It came with Ableton Live Lite 4 and Proteus X LE, and my sound card (Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum) came with Cubasis VST (Cubase lite) and FL Studio 4 Creative Edition. Not one full version in the bunch. I can respect that, but the way some versions were created is very frustrating.
     Kudos to Steinberg and Proteus. From my limited usage, they seem to be true, self-contained lite editions of other products. Ableton and FL, however, did a half-assed hack job. First off, Ableton hasn’t created a Lite version of Live 5, which shipped last fall. So it’s basically Live 4 with Operator (optional software synth) running in demo mode, with an option to hide the features not in the Lite version. If you could fully hide them, that’d be great, but I keep getting messages that read, “You are trying to access a hidden feature, you need to switch to demo mode”. Hidden feature? It’s right on the menu, jackass! Sometimes I get them from trying to drag and drop things. I should never see those messages, it should just not allow the operation, or show that you can do it. Also, you can’t save or export in demo mode, making it pretty worthless to me. Couldn’t they just remove the export functions, so you could save work but not render it to an audio (MP3, WAV, etc) file? Then every time you came up with a cool song or loop, you’d have more incentive to upgrade. It has built in tutorials and a hefty manual, but neither were pared down to match the Lite version. The manual has links that read, “See the feature chart to find out if your version even has this feature.” Of course, the feature chart hasn’t been created yet. I spent a lot less time with FL Studio, because I was getting those same “This version can’t do that” messages. My patience was used up with Live.
     This is a shame, because Live seems like a cool product. And after all that bitching and moaning, I can’t find a better product for the money. Owning the Lite version allows me to upgrade to Live 5 for $200. I’ve also looked at Reason 3 ($200 academic price), Sonar 5 Producer ($420 street) and Cubase SX3 ($400 academic price). Reason is the only one that comes close price-wise, but it can’t do audio recording, which I need for recording my dulcet tones. I may pick up Reason later, as it’s considered an excellent companion to Live, which is lacking in the instrument department. I’ll let you know how it goes in an upcoming article.

I’ve been using Firefox since it was Firebird, and I’ve never looked back. I only use IE for pages that use custom IE features, and those are getting very rare as Firefox gains market share. Here is my personal setup:

Firefox - The latest version at this time is 1.5.0.1. This offers several advantages over IE, including tabbed browsing, tons of extensions, image blocking by server (kill tons of ads), and a built in search engine box that works with over 6,000 databases.
     For some reason, embedded files (Quicktime, PDF, etc) annoy me. Firefox allows you to easily disable those plugins so they launch externally, and they seem to launch quicker that way. More importantly, the standalone viewers allow you more control. I usually play video at 2x original size since I run at a higher resolution, and you can’t do that when it’s embedded.

Extensions
These free addons improve the functionality of the browser. Here are ones I can’t live without.

Adblock Plus: Web sites cost money to create and run, and are supported by ads. Without ads, they would either die, or go subscription, and I usually prefer they did neither. However, I cannot stand animated ads (esp. Flash ads), and this plugin makes it easy to block servers who provide them (filter suggestion: *doubleclick.net*). For animated gifs, you can simply hit Escape and they will stop.

IE Tab: For those few times when you need to use IE, this offers a button to switch to IE to render the current page, but keeps it in the tab. Press it again, and it’s back to Firefox as a page renderer.

Redirect Remover: Some sites don’t provide direct links, in order to track your behavior. If the link is of the form http://OriginalSite.com/foo.php?site=http://ActualLinkImInterestedIn.com, it will scrub it so it goes to http://ActualLinkImInterestedIn.com. Sometimes that does screw things up, but you can turn it off, or right click and have it open an uncleaned link.

Search engines
In addition to the standard ones I use (Google, Amazon, Answers.com), I added these, so I don’t have to bother visiting the page before searching. Yes, I’m that lazy.

Wikipedia - Free encyclopedia.
IMDB - Internet Movie Database.
Pricegrabber - Compare prices on everything.
Shopping.com - Another price comparison site.

(or on the parkway, at least)

http://www.porsche.com/all/cayenne2005/

The Turbo S model can pull under 5 second 0-60s.
I know there are plenty of cheaper cars that can keep up with that.
(WRX STI Mr ArchAngel sir)
However, you gotta give it credit for having sort-of a wagon/SUV style body…

I’m not typically a Porshe fan, but I am not ready to argue with 520 horses either.

Opinions?

My latest tune if finally available after days of “processing”.

http://www.myspace.com/zerobalance

Up6 - Exponential Tablature

Check it.

Since we seem to have a few car buffs on here I thought I’d mention the news about the Dodge Charger becoming the new NYC police “cruiser”. It’s going to look pretty badass, I think.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060209/ap_on_re_us/nypd_muscle_cars_1

I also read that they are testing the Dodge Magnum as a replacement to the SUV support vehicle class.
I think that would be a brilliant choice. How do I figure that?
Here, I’ll show my work.
(Cargo space) minus (rollover factor) plus (beef) equals cool.

A lot of fanfare in the TV news about President Bush signing a law that forces analog broadcasters to halt transmission on 2/17/2009. It will all be digital then, and there is money to subsidize the purchase of a digital to analog (D/A) converter box for those with analog sets. Everyone on both sides are breaking their arms trying to pat themselves on the back. Digital enthusiasts should be very disappointed, however. Why?

Because previous legislation required this to happen in December of THIS year.

I just want to call attention to the fact that this is not progress, it’s a big step backwards. They are weasel-wording it by saying we are moving to a hard deadline. Did the previous law have a soft deadline? Yes. It said we’re to go digital by 12/2006, or when 85% of households contained a DTV - whichever came first. So it also had a hard deadline. That law was passed in 1997, giving broadcasters 9 years to prepare, and a lot more than that when you consider this started 43 years ago in Japan.

Kudos to this article at madison.com for not being afraid to include a little history.

An article at Red Herring discusses the wholesale pricing for Blu-ray discs that Sony has set. $23.45 for new releases, and $17.95 for catalog (older) titles. Again, that’s wholesale, and Variety guesses that will lead to retail prices of $35 and $30, respectively. The Blu-ray player that Sony hopes to release this summer (along with the discs) is priced at $1,800. Toshiba has not offered pricing for HD-DVDs, but plans to offer two players at $500 and $800.

Tonight I had a horrible experience at Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood. A couple weeks ago I purchased 4 tickets to The 40 Year Old Virgin, to be followed by a Q&A with writer/director Judd Apatow (of Freeks & Geeks and Undeclared fame). My confirmation email very clearly states that all I need to do is bring the credit card I used to a box office agent to pick up my tickets. I go to customer service, and they can’t find any reservation connected to my credit card! I only use one card, no exceptions. Nothing connected to my name or phone number, either. Nothing they can do about it, and the show is sold out. Yeah, sold out with 4 empty seats! Bastards! And this is after sitting in traffic for 1.5 hours. I am sure they will not deal with this in any satisfactory way, and try to say it wasn’t their fault, or say, “Oops, sorry about that! Now please hang up, asshole.” I have found their web site to be a flakey piece of shit in the past, but I DEFINITELY got a confirmation this time. I fully admit I should have printed it out as insurance, but it also stated I had no need to do so (and I’ve had no problems in the past). Apologies again to Agents Hulagun and Doubledeuce, whose nights were also ruined.

In honor of my old team lead, the most revered GroundHog prognosticator, seer and fan.
He holds a Groundhog lunch (tasty!) every year and was a great boss to work for.

And kudos to Pat Chang, who learned to play the piano at age 45 after
watching this movie; it’s never too late to live.

Groundhog Day (1993) was an exceptional motion picture.

Punxsutawney, PA founded in 1850s
Population 6800 (or 6782 in the movie)
Named after Ponkies or “sand flies” in area.
Celebration began as religious Candlemas Day.
First GroundHog Day celebration 1886
First celebration at Gobbler’s Knob, 1887

Phil sees shadow -> six more weeks of winter
Phil was named after King Phillip.
Phil previously known as Bre’r Groundhog
Phil is cared for by the gentlemen of the Inner Circle.

Groundhog nomenclature is Marmota Monax, order Rodentia
Groundhog lifespan is 6-8 years.
Baby Groundhog is a kit/cub.
Average groundhog weighs 15 lbs, 20 inches long.

Poor Phil Connors relives Groundhog day, everyday at 6:00AM
He wakes up to “I’ve got you, babe” from Sonny and Cher

Movie directed by Harold Ramis
Movie actually filmed in Woodstock, Ill.
Best diner in town is the Tip Top Cafe.
Movie playing in town, everyday, is “Heidi II”
Phil likes to be called ‘Bronco’ when wearing a serape to the movies.
Nancy Taylor is from Lincoln High, Pittsburg. Mrs. Walsh’s English class.
She makes chipmunk noises at the most intimate of times.
Robin Duke plays Doris the waitress.
Ned Ryerson is Phil’s insurance-selling school pal.

Phil Connors works for WPBH channel 9, Pittsburg.
He’s a weatherman.
George Fenton and director co-wrote theme song “Weatherman”
And surely Phil got pretty sick of hearing the “Pennsylvania Polka!”

Larry drives the TV van.
Rita produces the TV news segment.
Rita’s favorite ice cream is Rocky Road. And she hates fudge.
Rita’s favorite drink is “Sweet Vermouth on the rocks w/twist”
Rita majored in 19th century French Poetry (what a waste!)
Phils pays $1000 for each of his piano lessons.
Phil plays “Rachmaninoff’s variation on Theme from Paganini” at the party.
Bill Murray actually learned to play that *one* piece for the movie.

A lot of male viewers report this as a “life-changing” movie.
A lot of female viewers wonder what’s wrong with the male viewers.

[NOTE: This author has plans to learn to play the piano in the near future.]