Al's Blog-o-Sphere

Remember when gas stations wouldn’t take $50 or $100 dollar bills because they were so unusual they suspected counterfeits?

Today, you’d better have those big bills, or else you won’t have enough cash to fill your tank. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I paid for gasoline with cash. It’s become one of those things that you only use plastic for. Continue Reading…

Here I go again with another commercial comment. I’m sorry, but I just hate the way television ads are so condescending to their audience.

You’ve probably seen the Wendy’s commercial where they say something like “Cows don’t come from Antarctica, so why should hamburgers be frozen?”

Okay, I can play with that kind of logic. “If hamburgers were meant to be square, why are the rolls round?” There, two can play that game. Continue Reading…

I just heard on the news and confirmed it here that someone is proposing deliberately making hybrid cars louder, so that people can hear them coming.

So, while we are lowering pollution from hydrocarbons by using a hybrid car, we are supposed to raise noise levels? I’m sure they don’t want it to be deafening, but still, noise is noise and unnecessary noise is unnecessary.

I’m not a tree-hugger and I think a lot of the hype over hybrid cars is just hype. But the idea that 2000 pounds of glass, metal and rubber rolling down the road could sneak up on anyone who isn’t deaf, is silly. In many years of road cycling, I know first hand that you can hear a car coming long before you hear it’s engine. The sound of rubber on asphalt is unmistakable. Continue Reading…

Well, as you read already, I bought a new laptop. The old one was getting pretty threadbare. CD drive no longer functions, battery lasts about long enough to boot up and shut down with about five minutes in between, USB jacks that are getting flaky, hard drive so full that everything is bogging down, and on and on. You know the drill. After several days wasted trying to burn files on a USB CD drive so I could delete them and make space on the hard drive, I figured it was time.

The new computer came with Vista Home Premium. Not by my choice, but that’s the only choice it came with. After a few days with it, I’m still getting used to it, but I can live with it. Continue Reading…