O&A Are Back!

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At long last, it’s been announced that Opie and Anthony are returning to radio. It’s great that they’ll be on satellite and should have far less to fear in terms of FCC regulations. If their show does well, I have little doubt that it will be a springboard for a lot of other great, edgy shows to move to satellite. I’m somewhat bummed that it’s XM and not Sirius for two reasons:

1) I have Sirius
2) XM is party owned by ClearChannel
Oh, and I may as well throw in a 3rd reason:
3) Schulte already has XM, so he’s better than me

When my subscription is up at the end of the year, I guess that’s my time to buy all new equipment and make the switch to XM, because it looks like they will be an XM-only program.

As Seen on TV

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Well, I’ve signed enough autographs for one day. This past Friday (or, technically Saturday) at 1:30 AM I had my television debut. I appeared on Ruckus Sound and Style on the WB. What show is that you might ask? How big a part did I play? I can answer both of those questions.

First, the show is put on by some friends of my friend Jon, so they scored us some free tickets on a Boston Harbor cruise a few weeks ago which was pretty sweet. The show is basically about local rock and metal bands… sometimes they interview nationwide bands. It airs every Friday night at 1:30AM.

As for my role, well I think the screen capture speaks for itself. In case it doesn’t speak for itself, I’m the guy in the background to the left of the show’s host. Sure, I didn’t have a “speaking part” but this is just my first role, after all.

The Olympics – More physical than you thought

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This is an interesting article I found via Fil’s Metadex about sex at the olympics. Very interesting and entertaining read.

The secret of the modern Olympics is that the athlete village, with its tightly packed collection of firm young bodies, 24-hour sports television and all-you-can eat international cuisine, has become the most exclusive VIP club in the world. It’s “a two-week-long private party for thousands of hard-bodies,” says Nelson Diebel, an American swimmer who won gold twice in Barcelona.

An interesting tidbit of information…

At the Albertville winter Olympics, condom machines in the athletes’ village had to be refilled every two hours. And in Sydney the organisers’ original order of 70,000 condoms went so fast that they had to order 20,000 more.

Good News/Bad News

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Yesterday I was, as usual, listening to kexp at work. They’re a Seattle station but broadcast over the internet as well. Because they’ve become so popular outside their region, they’ve started having events in other places. So, as I’m getting ready to go to lunch I hear the morning guy (12 PM EST is 9 AM their time) say they’re having a concert on Boston tomorrow and the first 5 people to e-mail them would get on the guest list. So, I did, and I won. Pretty sweet… I will be seeing The Ponys live at Great Scott in Allston tonight.

The unrelated but bad part is that on Tuesday I jammed my pinky finger playing basketball. As I went down to lunch yesterday, a friend of mine who broke his pinky a while back took one look and said “it’s definitely broken.” So I went to the hospital and it turns out he was right. Now I have this stupid brace on, and it’s taken me way to long to type this post because my ring finger has to type the “a” and “q” keys in addition to it’s normal responsibilities of “s” and “w”. (I don’t count “z” or “x” keys because they’re more seldomly used). So, I’ll be the one in Allston tonight with the stupid brace on his worthless pinky finger.

Anchorman – See it

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Schulte and I saw the movie Anchorman this weekend. I don’t typically post about every movie I see, but this one was worth it. Just go to the movies and see it. If you like Will Ferrell, this is him doing what he does best. The mentally retarded weatherman, Brick Tamland, was a riot also. He’s played by Steve Carell, who I knew from the Daily Show but I guess he’s been in other things too.

It’s been a while since I’ve laughed that many times in the movie theatre. Even The Matrix 3 didn’t make me laugh this much.

New Roomba – Roomba Discovery

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As an owner of the original Roomba, I received a letter from iRobot informing me of a brand new Roomba line coming out – the Roomba Discovery. The thing looks sweet. Aside from small niceties like a battery that charges faster (3 hours vs. 12) and a larger particle bin (3 times the size), there are some larger improvements. One of the two flagship features is “Dirt Detect” – the vacuum is able to detect that it’s cleaning extra stuff so it will slowdown and concentrate on those spots. The second main new feature is the ability for the Roomba to realize when it’s running out of batteries, and actually return to it’s docking station and charge itself.

When I’d first read about the “charge itself” behavior on the Electrolux Trilobite, I figured that’s why the thing cost $1800. I apparently was wrong though, because iRobot managed to add that feature and still keep the price of the thing down to $250. So, my current theory is that the price difference is probably navigation related. The Trilobite uses ultrasound to map out a room, whereas the Roomba kind of “wings it” and uses some heuristic algorithms to figure out when it’s done. One of the cool things the Electrolux does which I don’t believe the Roomba can is go back to vaccuming once it’s done charging. From what I’ve read, the Roomba will simply go back and charge when it’s done, whereas the Trilobite will charge, then take another stab at vaccuming, and then rest. Still… it’d be cheaper to get 3 f’n Roombas and let them loose at once than to get a single Trilobite (and you’d still save yourself a grand).

The Little Differences

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My last few days in London were mostly work. I’ve now moved on to Belgium, and this weekend I’m going to Amsterdam. Hopefully there will be some good stories from that trip.

Throughout my time in London, I couldn’t stop noticing the various differences betwen the US and London. Some of them aren’t even interesting really, but for some reason I found them fascinating. Aside from the ones I mentioned earlier, here they are in random order:
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London: Day 2

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I woke up and decided I’d see more of the city. I don’t know anything about the city, but the one thing I do remember from National Lampoon’s Eurpean Vacation is “hey kids, Big Ben, Parliament” as they drove around stuck in a traffic circle. I went back to the train station and found a reasonably-priced map. The map told me where I wanted to go, and what train stop I wanted. I went to an automatic ticket machine for the train and it listed a bunch of stops, but not mine. I didn’t want to wait in line to buy a ticket so I decided to walk to Westminster from where I was (Paddington).
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