LarryC’s World

There should be a new gold-medal sport awarded… watching the NBC coverage of the Olympics! If there was ever a more soul-deadening experience, I can’t think what it is. The nightly Olympic marathon on NBC runs (locally here in New Mexico) from 7:00 PM until 11:00 PM. Thats 4 hours of coverage. Within that 4 hours we are lucky if 40 minutes of it is actual competition. About half of the time is filled with commercials (at least 24 minutes out of every hour), the remaining time is filled with fluff pieces about (American) athletes who are not that interesting as people, and travelog’s on China. Then we have the interminable interviews, and the authoritative pronouncements from Bob Costas. The kicker is that since the Olympics are happening on the other side of the world, all of the action took place at least 12 hours before it is on TV!!

Listening to the various commentators makes me want to scream in agony. It is hard enough to determine who might be winning the competition, especially if there is no American involved, but every effort is described in terms that make you wince. Every athlete is inspirational, has battled adversity, has overcome challenges, has achieved (or not) their dream… ad nauseum! I can’t take it. Thank heavens for the online coverage, where the live broadcasts have NO narrative! The peace is wonderful. Unfortunately, the typed narrative is usually far behind the action, so determining leaders is problematic. I also have the Dish Networks channels that provide the full telecasts of all basketball and soccer matches, without commercial interruption. But I still have to put up with the sappy narrative.

So, as a public service, I am including the Slate Magazine Sap-O-Meter! This widget displays in real time the latest sap measurments from NBC telecasts.

Every year I live in the desert, we have some new plague, or unusual happening. These little critters started showing up last week. At first, we saw one or 2 while we out walking. Then they started appearing in greater numbers. Now, I am over-run with them. We had friends over for dinner Wednesday evening. I envisioned a pleasant evening sitting on our patio, enjoying the balmy weather and the views. Unfortunately, the big number of these caterpillars made sitting outside unpleasant. Stepping on them left a disgusting green mess, and there were so many, that it was hard not to step on them. If they are touched, or you try to move them, they vomit a large amount of greenish fluid from their mouths.

Well, the county Extension Agent assured us they are harmless. They are the larvae of the White-Lined Sphinx moth. The sphinx moth is the largest moth found in the desert here. They are a beneficial insect, they are nectar eaters so they pollinate plants. I did notice there were more of these guys than usual this year. Well, it turns out they were having sex and reproducing!! This is the result of their trysts. It turns out that weather conditions were perfect for these guys this year. We had a drier than normal winter, so the wasp population was down. Wasps, are natural predators for the Sphinx Moth. Therefore the moth population was up this year. Then, after the moths mated an laid their eggs, we had a very wet July. The rain caused the plants that these guys eat to sprout in abundance. So, lots of eggs, lots of food equals lots of larvae. And, apparently these guys taste bad, so none of the birds or rodents will eat them.

We have been advised that the best course of action is to just wait them out. Supposedly they will start to burrow into the ground in a week or so and build their cocoon. Out of which will come a sphinx moth! I don’t see a happy conclusion to this process. Until then,, they are decorating the side of my house. Here are some near the top of the house, with a dis-interested Gambels Quail watching.

Did I tell you about the diamondback I found under the woodpile? I’ll save that for another time.

Have you ever used Tripadvisor.com.  I don’t remember who told me about it, but it is a great resource if you are traveling and looking for a hotel, or restaurant. I used it on our recent California driving trip. A thousand miles is a bit longer than I care to drive without a break these days. When I was younger, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but today, I like to break the trip after 10 or 12 hours in the car. So, I was looking for a decent place to stay on the trip, both going and returning. On the way to California, we were traveling by way of Fallon Nevada, so I thought Las Vegas was a good place to break the trip. On our return I decided to stop in Phoenix.

For both destinations, I used Tripadvisor.com to look for a moderately priced hotel. In Vegas, I wanted something off the strip, and not to far off the highway 95. In Phoenix, I wanted something close to I-10, and would be out of rush-hour traffic in the AM. I looked for hotels using Tripadvisor. They have a neat feature that uses Google Maps to locate hotels, and then links them to their reviews. Using that I could see exactly where the hotel was located, and then could read customer reviews of the hotel.

In Las Vegas I chose the Suncoast Hotel. The Suncoast is part of the Sams Town group (Coast Casinos) and is located on the North (and west) side of town, actually in Summerlin. It was only a couple of minutes off of 95, and when we left in the morning, we would be heading the opposite direction of traffic. It was an excellent choice for us, and for anyone just traveling through, and who wants to avoid the congestion and activity of the strip. But, if you are going to Vegas for the shows and nightlife, stay on the strip. One of the other features about Tripadvisor that I like is that you can leave a review also. To read my review of the Suncoast, click here.

In Phoenix, I chose a Best Western Tempe by the Mall, in Tempe. It was only one block from I-10, and on the South side of downtown, so I could avoid traffic when we left in the morning. To read my review of this hotel, click here.

I will include a link to Tripadvisor.com in my links box on the left, and on my links page.

I guess I am obsessing about gas prices cuz we’re planning a trip to California in a few weeks, and it looks like we are going from a place of relative low prices, to some of the highest in the country. If you look at THIS MAP, you will notice that El Paso, has the lowest prices in Texas, and Las Cruces prices are moderate (less than $4.00 per gal.). This map is courtesy of Gasbuddy. Gas Buddy does a pretty good job of listing local prices, but they don’t show every filling station in town.

While our prices may be hovering near $4.00 per gallon, across the border in Mexico, gas is $2.19/gal. Some of the local service stations and repair shops are warning about buying “Foreign” gas. That’s like the warnings about buying Canadian prescription drugs. Near the border here, most of the gas they sell in Juarez and Palomas is from Western refining in El Paso!! Besides, the cars they drive in Mexico are all made in the USA (well at least as much as any car is made here now), and have those foreign names like Ford! They have the same gasoline requirements that our cars have, 87 or 86 octane, I’m not planning on driving over just to fill up my tank, though. Driving into Juarez is easy, but the return can involve lengthy waits at the crossing. What is the sense in filling up your tank with cheap gas, if you use half of it while in idle at the border crossing?

Well here’s a quick link to Gas Buddy in a gizmo. I wanted to put it on the front page, but it is not resizable like the zFacts gizmo is, so I will just add it here. I’ll also put it on my ‘Links” page, when I get the page finished.

Search for gas prices by US Zip Code

DirecTv and I have parted ways. And, it was not an amicable split. We’ve been contemplating replacing our TV for several months, and that meant going HD. A few weeks ago, I called DirecTv and asked them about HD packages. I was told, that to get HD, I would have to buy an HD receiver box for $99, and pay an additional $10 a month for the programming. I looked at online offerings, and if I were a new customer, they would give me an HD-DVR, and the cost of the package would be less than my current bill. Dish Networks had similar offers. I did a little research, and found that DirecTv’s DVR was not that great. TiVo was generally considered better, but since TiVo and DirecTv no longer worked together, there were some drawbacks, and it would cost more. The Dish DVR got better reviews, and seemed like a good compromise between DirecTv’s DVR and full TiVo.

Last week, we got around to purchasing our new TV. I didn’t go high end, but it was a decent set, and had 4 HDMI inputs (HDMI is the new standard for carrying both digital video and audio signals). The number of inputs is important when you want to attach multiple devices to your TV, like a DVD player, or a game console. After getting the TV home and setting it up (yes, standard def looks better on an HDTV), I once again called DirecTv. The customer service rep, gave me the same story. When I complained that I could get the box free if I switched to the competition, I was told “Well, the HD box used to cost $199, so you are saving $100!”. I told the rep, that if they couldn’t do better, I was going to go elsewhere for service. He said “That’s the best that I can do.” I told him “too bad”, and hung up. I then called Dish and ordered the same package I had from DirecTv. They gave me there 2 room DVR, HD programming, and all of the channels I currently get. The price is $5 a month more than DirecT, but With the free equipment, and the 3 free months of service, it is still a better deal.

Today the Dish installer came to hook things up. After he finished, I called DirecTv and cancelled my service. Less than 4 hours later, I got a call from DirecTv’s “Customer Satisfaction” department. This lady told me they would match Dish’s offer, free DVR and upgrade to HD, and wave the first year HD charges. I was ticked off. I asked why they didn’t offer that before I cancelled? She said the rep I talked to wasn’t authorized to make that offer. Too damn bad lady. If that is how you treat a customer who has been with you for 8 years, I don’t want to stay. Why didn’t the first rep direct me to someone else? Why don’t they have offers for existing customers? I would have stayed if they had just given me a break. If they had offered the HD receiver for free, not the DVR. But they didn’t, and now I am no longer a customer. I may be switching back in 2 years, but I noticed that on the Dish web site they have a tab for “existing customer offers”. That looks promising.

Comparing the 2 services, DirecTv has more HD channels than Dish. But when I did a channel by channel comparison, Dish had all of the HD channels I would watch. I mean who needs the Home Shopping Network in HD? The big difference is sports. Dish has exclusive deals with the NFL and Major League Baseball. But, since I am a 49er fan, there is certainly no reason I would pay extra to watch those pathetic souls, and baseball lost me when they cancelled the World Series several years ago. So, It’s Dish for me now. It will take a while to get used to the new channel numbers. But, I got to watch TopChef in HD tonite!!

What’s Twitter?? How to explain… Well basically it is a method to let you tell the world what you are doing at any moment. It is part of the new ‘Social Networking’ craze that started with Myspace and has now expanded into hundreds of networks. Twitter is the next step after IM. Instant Messaging lets you talk online with someone. Twitter users don’t care if you are online are not, it just sends your thoughts out into Cyberspace and if anyone cares enough to follow your ramblings, it will be sent to their Twitter account.

Twitter is currently all the rage for the geek/technorati crowd. It isn’t the only stream-of-consciousness type of web service. If you are really interested, there is also Pownce and Jaiku. But, Twitter is clearly the most widely used. Of course most people use this on their ‘web enabled’ phone, like IPhone or the fancy full keyboard models. Frankly us old fogeys usually only use our cell phones to make phone calls (go figure!!). My eyes aren’t that great that I want to srf the web on a 3 inch screen. I have a 17″ and a 20″ screen on my PC, and wish I had bigger! So, I am not about to join the Iphone PDA crowd anytime soon.

So as long as I am ranting, I don’t understand the Ipod video players. Does anyone really enjoy watching a movie on a 3 inch screen? I might watch a movie on my 20 inch Pc screen, or in a pinch the 15.4 in screen on our laptop. But a 3 inch screen!! Not for me.

Anyway, I have a Twitter account. You can see my updates in the right sidebar, and I have set it up to add my Blog posts as updates. If you want to follw me, send me an invite . My Twitter name is llsee. Oh, you have to have a Twitter account first.

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Checking my Email these days is reminiscent of a Mont Python routine. You remember…Spam Spam Spam Spam…  I don’t know what happened recently, but suddenly I have been inundated with spam. I’ve always had some spam, usually 3 - 8 a day. They used to be cyclical. For a while I would get the pornography spam, then the viagra spam, and more recently the penny-stock tips. But about a month ago, my spam count suddenly ratcheted up dramatically. Now I am getting 35 spam Emails a day, and only 4 or 5 Emails I really want to read. Even worse, I am getting it on all of my Email accounts.

I’ve had multiple Email addresses for a while. I use 1 mainly for online business (you know online purchases), one for me, one for Irene, and one for both of us. All of these addresses are now getting between 15 and 30 spam messages A DAY !!! My Email provider (actually my hosting service) Bluehost, offers the Postini spam filtering service for about a $1 a month (per address). I signed up for it and we’ll see how it works. I understand that Postini is actually a Google product. My first comment, after setting it up, is that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of flexibility for the filter settings. Guess I’ll have to wait and see.