What can Web 2.0 Do for you?

It can reduce your cellphone bill for one.
Ever wonder how your plan stacks up against plans offered by your carrier or other carriers?
Well some very clever people have put together a nice service to help you do just that. If you are looking for a new cellphone plan or just wanting to compare how you are doing vs. the competition Bill Shrink can help you do it.
It analyzes the way you use your phone (either by what you tell them, or by importing your bill) and figures out if you could save money by going with another carrier. For the most part it does very good too.
You can set preferences for signal vs cost and filter by plans that will work with your current phone.
All of this is wrapped up in a slick interface. Interested in figuring out what the "Web 2.0" hype is about? Check out this site for a good example.

Fuck It! We are going 5

An oldie but goodie. From The Onion

Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no.

Seattle Transit

I know I'm not an official Seattle citizen anymore... but at heart I very much remain so. That coupled with my work means that I follow a lot of what is going on in and around King County relating to transportation.
I found this post from Seattle Transit Blog to be of particular interest:
Ironically the parts I like the best are not so much about Seattle area transit, but rather housing. From the article:
One thing I want to point out: a property tax levy is not more progressive than a sales tax. There seems to be this common misconception that renters don't pay property taxes, and it's only those who own homes who do. Think about this: if costs of garbage pick-up increased dramatically, would your landlord charge you for that, provide fewer garbage cans (or something), or just agree to pay the difference out of the kindness of his heart? He'd raise rent because he needs to make money. The same thing for property taxes. If property taxes go up, your landlord's property taxes go up, and he passes that onto you in a rent increase. The reason that property tax increases aren't more progressive is that the poor spend the largest percentage of their income on housing. Affordable housing is hard to find.
Housing is a big problem in Seattle, despite being partially protected from the housing market downturn there is an ever increasing disparity between housing that is affordable and housing that is accessible.
What does anyone else think?

Download Firefox and be successful!

Ok Maybe it is not that simple:
Example: 25% of the visitors we track at Squidoo use Firefox, which is not surprising. But 50% of the people who actually build pages on the site are Firefox users. Twice as many.
This is true of bloggers, of Twitter users, of Flickr users... everywhere you look, if someone is using Firefox, they're way more likely to be using other power tools online. The reasoning: In order to use Firefox, you need to be confident enough to download and use a browser that wasn't the default when you first turned on your computer.
See the full article here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/why-downloading.html

CATS! No Rush

HA! I wish Yoda was this courteous.
From http://icanhascheezburger.com/

see more crazy cat pics

32oz? Really?

Maybe I was in the "formative" years, but I remember the race to the bladder buster between AM/PM and 7 Eleven mini markets all to well. I remember what seemed like each subsequent week marveling at how enormous the 32oz sodas were, then 64oz... then... then... *BOOM* busted!
I went to this coffee place the other day, Bikini Bottom Espresso. For the record; YES! I went to see if the baristas wear bikini bottoms. I learned 2 things from my trip to my local coffee drive through:

I'm obviously not the target demographic, as when I pulled up to the window the bottoms of the barista were SO not visible. In fact I was having trouble seeing if she had cleavage or not. It seemed much more appropriate for someone with an FX50 with a lift kit who's height is measured in double digits. It was as if the coffee trailer itself was mocking my fine German auto for being so puny. It made me feel inadequate.

I also learned that we have some kind of issue with competition here in America. As I was looking at the order menu where drink names were laid out as to rows, and drink sizes were laid out as to columns my eyes marveled as they traveled farther and farther left to meet with a 32oz version of each drink. Folks that is 5 shots of espresso in what some would argue a bladder buster size. Why must we equate quality with quantity in this country. Why is it better to get a Gallon of Olive oil at Costco? Just because it is a good deal? What is happening to the quality products? Why can't we be satisfied with a 16oz drink? or 20oz? Why must we make the leap to the gigantic?Now I don't know about you all, but I've had 5 shots before... nay not all in 1 drink, but over the span of a few hours. As some of you may know, I'm no small man. At 6'4" and a svelte 260 I've been described as a "large human", haven't we all? It is with the deepest horror that I attempt now to wave you off the 5 shot configuration for your tasty bikini served (safe to assume I would wager) coffee beverage. Having imbibed all 5 of my shots spread over the course of a few hours I found myself unable to operate my auto, and NEARLY had to pull over to the shoulder of the freeway because tears of joy rippled my vision making it impossible to see. That's RIGHT! I turned into a blubbering idiot, and I'm here to warn you that It could happen to you too.
I mean a 32oz Latte is a hell of a lot of coffee! Whats next? 64oz? The beverage race of ole would seem to suggest. But it is a slippery slope... before you know it we will be getting free refills and hot dogs with our coffee, it seems like a crime.

Spanaway! Ugh!

The local Fred Meyer store is a laboratory for the effects of suburban ism on the general population, specifically when it comes to shopping. The store has isles easily two times as wide as your average supermarket. Yet every damn time I go there people continue to take up the whole isle with their shopping carts and general idiocy. For example, I visited last Sunday, there were quite a few people in the store, but not a ton. I'm walking down the isle and this large woman with her large child and her cart were taking up the whole isle. I could not comfortably circumvent (or curcumvrent LOL Gob) the trio and had to wait for either the lady or her fat child to realize that there are other people in the world and move the other two into say only half the isle.
I've been to supermarkets that were crowded, with super narrow isles (Whole Foods market off Roosevelt comes to mind) but everyone who shops there seems to have a general courtesy that allow them to pull to the side of the isle and not block the isle.
It just seems like this is such a perfect example of what I hate about living out here in Spanaway, the people. Not to say there are not kind and courteous people around Spanaway, but I've yet to find a confluence of them that lasts longer then a sub-atomic particle does. Is it any wonder that I wish to move?
*sign*