I’ve been a Howard Stern fan for a long time – a very long time. When I was younger, I used to have a taped copy of his 1987 album “Crucified by the FCC.”

As I’ve posted before, I’m no fan of the FCC. But if you’ve read the news lately, Howard has basically turned the better part of his show into yelling about the government. I still listen, because it’s still more entertaining than the rest of morning radio, but it certainly is frustrating.

The reason his continuous rants are driving me crazy is as follows:

1. More than 15 years ago he put out a full album ranting about how he was “crucified” by the FCC. He has never stopped fighting against the FCC. This battle is not new.
2. He claims this is an assault on free speech (and he’s right), but over the years I’ve heard him (a) Laugh and make fun of Bill Mahr when he was thrown off the air for “indecent” talk during 9/11, and (b) Laugh and make fun of Opie and Anthony when they were thrown off the air by the religious right threating the FCC. Now that the attention is on Howard, he’s pissed. When the same thing was happening to other people, he thought it was a joke.
3. He’s endorsing a candidate that would do the same thing, if he were president. Rather than endorsing a party that actually cares about free speech (ahem, the Libertarians), he’s endorsing Kerry. He’s even stated that he’s not endorsing Kerry because he likes Kerry, he’s just endorsing him so Bush doesn’t win and he “sends a message.” I personally don’t think that’s a bright move.

   It would be much easier to “send a message” if you were taking votes from Bush and giving them to a third party candidate. Even if they didn’t win, you could demonstrate how you created for Bush what Nader was to Gore. If Kerry wins, not only will it be difficult to show that you really affected this (since he’s so well known already) but once he takes office, he’ll continue with the same policies which have only gotten worse over the past decades. Stern supporters have even called the Kerry campaign and been laughed at. The Kerry campaign wants nothing to do with them.

In the meantime, Howard’s show has gone downhill and is practially half political now. He said he was going to be off the air before his Vegas trip, but now that’s just around the corner and he’s stopped saying that. I’m not saying he won’t be off the air at some point, or that the FCC is right in any way, but for now the show is weak, and putting Kerry in office certainly doesn’t seem like a solution.

Callahan’s recent blog post reminded me of a lot of the ways I waste time. Some of them being moderately amusing.

Basically, I feel kind of like those guys (usually married) who have numerous weekend projects and live for Home Depot. The difference is that my projects are much more frivolous and require minimal manual labor.

• The MythTV Project. This is the one I mentioned in an earlier post which I eventually got working on my normal TV (picture here). In theory, this was a good idea. I got to play around with Linux and wound up with what is effectively a TiVo without service fees. The problem is that, as with any “project”, it doesn’t come out quite as expected. The thing locks up when it’s on the TV screen and I try anything as sophisticated as “fast forward” (even though it works fine on the computer screen). This is not to mention the fact that I generally watch less than an hour of TV a day.
• The Linux Answering Machine Project. This was another great waste of time. My intention was to have all of my calls answered by a Linux computer running VCOP with a normal internal modem. It turns out that all of those cheap modems you see are windows-only (sometimes called “Winmodems”). After buying, trying, and returning no less than 3 modems from Best Buy, I was unwilling to actually by a serial modem which surely would have worked (but would have cost $60).
• VoIP. After giving up on the answering machine, I went with yet another solution that would allow me to receive voicemail notifications in my e-mail – Voice over IP. This was another blogworthy adventure. The part I didn’t mention is that I make and receive no more than 3-5 phone calls a month from my apartment.
• Linux Router. Most people who want to share an Internet connection amongst multiple computers at home buy a home router from someone like Linksys or Netgear. That was me too, until I decided that I could put an old computer to use and make it into a router, replacing my trusty Netgear box and saving a little space under the desk. After purchasing a free network card and spending hours reading various documents on how to set one up, I’ve now chucked out the Netgear router. What have I gained in terms of functionality you might ask? Well, for most intents and purposes, nothing.
• X10. After getting a starter kit for X10 stuff, I was convinced I could automate various things around my apartment and operate them all via remote control and/or the computer. What things might you ask? Well, I really should have thought that through. The first thing to try (naturally) are lights. That’s cool and all, until you realize if you use X10 to control a light, you can no longer use your lightswitch unless you buy some extra components and install them for your switch (which I’m not about to do in an apartment). At the time, I also found my cable modem was cutting out from time to time. So I decided to hook it up to the X10 lamp module so I could easily reset it. It worked once, then it blew out the modem and I had to buy a new one. Eventually the one thing I got working was a fan, which I used to turn on at specific times and cool the apartment for when I get home. That’s helpful for a few months out of the year. I have another module on an unswitched lamp, but it only works intermittently.
• This blog. Okay, it doesn’t take much time, but the time it does take is clearly wasted.

I got a new cell phone (Motorola v600), and with it a new number. Apparently the number transfer was going to be a headache, so I’m not going to do it.

The new area code is 508 rather than 603.

For those who know my old number, my new number is this:
First digit: Old-6
Second digit: Old-3
Third digit: Old+8
Fourth digit: Old-7
Fifth digit: Old-6
Sixth digit: Same as old
Seventh digit: Old+4

Maybe I’ll send an e-mail too, for people who don’t like arithmetic. At least this way if I forget to e-mail anyone who reads this blog, they can figure it out.

And yes, I fully expect Schulte will post the decoded number in the comments.

I’m not promising it’s an interesting story, though there were some amusing moments. This is what took place in San Diego.

Two weeks ago before leaving on vacation, my receiver started humming through the speakers for no apparent reason. I bought it froma small family-owned place called Wurlitzer Stereo. The best thing about them is that they’re an authorized reseller of these sorts of products, which means they can handle the manufacturer’s warranty for you and they don’t try and sell you some additional “protection.” The component had a 5 year warranty, so I just brought it back. They tested it out, heard the humming, and brought it back to the company who makes the receiver (Rotel).

Late last week I got a call saying Rotel couldn’t fix it, but they’d give me a better/newer model. Yesterday the RSX-1055 came in and it seems to work well. It was great thing to have happen, and it left me with an even more favorable impression of the store and the manufacturer.

On my way out, the owner of Wurlitzer says to me something like “lucky for you I’m an honest guy, and didn’t keep that one and give you a 972 that a friend of mine has.” I didn’t really know what to say except “thanks”, but at the same time I couldn’t believe he even brought up the idea with a customer, much less wanted congratulations for being an honest person. Just the same, it all worked out.

At my apartment, I’m in the process of making the switch to VoIP rather than conventional telephone lines. I breifly tried Vonage, but then someone at work alerted to me to a more interesting service from VoicePulse which I signed up for and am currently running. A comparison of the various services is available here
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Pressured into subscribing to some magazines to help my little brother with a fundraiser, I subscribed to Money. With 3 issues remaining in my subscription, I get an issue with a paper jacket over it, reminding me I’m supposed to re-subscribe. The jacket said “Warning: You’re about to lose Money.” I thought that was at least somewhat clever, although probably wouldn’t call it funny.

The real funny part is when I opened it up to see what the deal was for renewal. My options were as follows:

1) 1 year subscription (13 issues) for $19.95 (save 61%)
2) 2 year subscription (26 issues) for $19.95 per year (save 61%)
3) 3 year subscription (39 issues) for $19.95 per year (save 61%)

Any moron can see that each of these offers is exactly the same price per year, and it’s a joke that they’re even listing them out like this. The really hilarious part is that they’ve highlighted the 3 year subscription, drawn an arrow to it, and written “Best Deal!” next to it.

This is Money magazine we’re talking about.

As you probably know, one of the few links to other blogs on this site is to a friend of mine who posts under the alias “Coon Dog.” Thanks to the wonder that is Urban Dictionary.com, I finally learned what he must mean by that nickname: definition here.

Now that we know it’ll be the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers in Superbowl XXXVIII, I think we should all read this article written by a [I assume highly paid] sports expert. Actually, don’t bother reading the whole thing. It’s really long and explains how the Eagles and the Colts were going to play in the Superbowl. My favorite part near the end is this, where he’s commenting on how good he is at predicting things.

So how do I know these things? Luck, I guess. I suppose you could say I’m blowing my own horn.

It’s about as funny as reading stock predictions by Wall Street experts.

As you may already know, Schulte is staying with me for a few days. He came with two free movie passes, so last night we decided to see Paycheck at a theatre in Worcester. Just before we left, there was a brief snowstorm, so the roads were all snowy and icy. Neither of us had been there before, so we printed off directions to the address online, and were on our way.

We get in the vicinity just as the movie is starting, but the directions lead us to a dead end on some dark, snowy back street. We were right next to the theatre parking lot, but it clearly wasn’t accessible from the directions we had. Not knowing our way around the area, we proceeded to drive up over a curb/sidewalk, through a fence that was left open, and back down into the parking lot. Success!

So we walk into the place, movie vouchers in hand, and look for the ticket counter. There are two people working the snack booth and a few customers in line, but no ticket-sellers to be found. So we just look for the “Paycheck” sign and head in that general direction. In addition to the lack of ticket-sellers, there were also no ticket-takers. So, we walked into the theatre and sat down. Schulte expressed dismay that he wasn’t able to use his free passes.

There are a few people in the theatre… a somewhat intimate crowd. Schulte makes some homosexual comments, and I eventually believe most of the surrounding audience thinks we’re bona fide homosexuals. I resist making any such “hilarious” comments for the rest of the evening, and go out of my way to lean away from Schulte in my chair.

The movie itself started out interesting, and proceeded to turn into your run-of-the mill crappy action movie. It might have been a decent action movie except that Ben Affleck was in it. My commentary after the movie was: “Paycheck covered the otherwise interesting topic of seeing into the future about as well as Hollow Man covered the topic of invisibility.” Incidentally, the part about seeing into the future I guess is technically a spoiler for the movie. But, don’t worry about that. They end up giving away that big “secret” about 30 minutes into the movie. The rest was pretty much like any other movie.

Unless you can get tickets for the same price Schulte and I did, I wouldn’t bother going. Even then, it’s still debatable.