japadamus.com » 2008

Oct 29 2008

Pakedamus: 16GB, $24

Woot! has a pretty good deal right now with the Kingston 16GB flash drive for just $24. Remember like a year ago when just 1GB was like $50? Now 16GB for half of that? What a deal!

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Oct 28 2008

Week 8 Recap

Published by japadamus under fantasy football

So, the Titans are the real deal. They came into tonight’s monday night football game undefeated, but they really didn’t get the credit they deserve due to a weak schedule. Well, tonight they beat the Colts by 10 points…and really did an incredible job of containing manning and the Colt’s sporadic run game.

Not only that, but the Titans actually came back from a 3rd quarter deficit to win by 10 points. They scored 24 points before the Colts got a last minute TD in garbage time.

They’re the only undefeated team in football, and they really played like it tonight.

In other news, Kansas City RB Larry Johnson has been benched for the past two weeks following an assault charge. Now, normally I’m really big against NFL players misbehaving, but I think in Johnson’s case this suspension is a bit much.

Ok, so I have him on my fantasy team, but really that has nothing to do with it. His ‘assault’ wasn’t a real physical hand-to-hand assault…he didn’t hit, push or slap anyone. All he did was spit a drink into some girl’s face.

Now, it’s clear that Johnson doesn’t have a great history. He drinks, and gets into these retarded fights with woman. His last charge was for shoving a woman, which is clearly assault.

But I would argue that the drink spitting is actually an incredible display of restrain on Johnson’s part. Looking at his past arrests, this is really nothing. As least he’s showing improvement. But still, the Chiefs are freaked and they’re benching him for the foreseeable future. That’s my third top tier player, after Brady and Kitna, that are not going to be playing anytime soon.

Oh, and you know that girl deserved at least some spit in her face. Lets be real. He’s a huge NFL star with a $19 million contract…he must have been provoked.

Mike Singletary coached his first game for the 49ers this weekend…and it was pretty ugly. The niners lost 13 to 34, and I’m thinking that perhaps I should retract my prediction that they will make the playoffs this year. At 2-6 they’re just a few games from being completely out of the running altogether.

But Singletary did go a good job of getting his players in order. He benched QB JT Osullivan after the QB fumbled and threw an interception that was returned for a TD. Not only that, but he sent Tight End Vernon Davis to the locker room after Davis committed an unsportsmanlike penalty and then threw a tantrum on the bench.

I really like what Singletary did with Davis. The TE was acting like a baby, talking back to his coach and not taking any responsibility for his actions. In fact, he continued to proclaim his innocence after the game was over. I’m glad someone is finally holding the players on the niners accountable for something…now they just need a few wins.

I also need to point out that even though my team has been decimated by injury, I still pulled out a win this weekend in the Lawyer Bowl. A big win too…like, almost 30 points. I don’t mean to brag, but it doesn’t happen very often, so deal with it. Plus, no one on my team scored more than 15 points…I got an all around consistent effort from all my players. Good job guys!

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Oct 25 2008

Game 2 of World Series gets second lowest rating ever

Published by japadamus under sports

The Rays and Phillies aren’t a great matchup, as I’ve mentioned before. Sure, as El Jeffe pointed out, the Rays have made a huge turnaround since last year. But still, their team is a bunch of relatively poorly known players.

And so, the series has suffered in the ratings. Game 2 ranked second to last among World Series games with an 8.1 share. The opening game did slightly better, with a 9.1.

Bud Selig is wishing right now that the Red Sox pulled off a game 7 victory, for what would have surely been another classic come-from-behind series for the sox.

I caught some of game one and game two, and actually both games were fairly exciting. One thing that was kind of boring was that there was not a whole lot of scoring. Sure, pitching duels are interesting, but I’d really love to see some power hitting.

I do love how Fox has the super slow motion pitch camera, though. They have this view where you can see the ball as it is released from the pitchers hand. Then the camera follows the ball towards the batter, and he resolution is so high you can see the spin on the ball. It is actually very impressive.

I just wish there was something that would make me care about who wins.

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Oct 25 2008

McCain staffer faked it

Published by japadamus under politics

Yesterday a staffer for John McCain’s campaign reported being assaulted by an Obama supporter. The girl, who is still in college, claimed a black Obama supporter also carved a ‘B’ into her face…presumably standing for ‘Barak’.

Well, the girl admitted that the whole story was a fake today. What gave it away? Well, for one, the ‘b’ written on the girl’s face was backwards…like, if you were cutting a ‘b’ into your own face while looking into the mirror.

That kind of gave it away for police, and eventually the girl caved and gave up her story. She should have just stuck with the story and said the black guy who assaulted her didn’t know the ‘b’ was backwards.

Clearly, this girl wasn’t the smartest of staffers. I wonder how she got her eyes black and blue.

McCain and Palin both called the girl to give their support. Now, well, it looks bad.

She should have just stuck with ‘o’ for obama. Even this girl couldn’t get that one backwards.

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Oct 22 2008

Woot! Off, recession edition

Published by japadamus under Pakedamus

Times are tough…so it’s a perfect time for some cheap electronics. Anyone need a cheap Dyson vac? Or how about a USB pole dancer?

True, some of this stuff is…well…a luxury. But you won’t need financing or corporate paper to buy it. I’m guessing they’ll be a ton of great deals this woot off.

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Oct 20 2008

The real Palin on SNL

Published by japadamus under politics

For the past several weeks Tina Fey has been absolutely hilarious with her dead-on impersonations of Sarah Palin on SNL. Well, this week the real Sarah Plain actually came on the show and did a couple of skits of her own.

I’ve heard mixed reactions to Palin…most opinions I think really reflect political viewpoints that an objective dissection of her performance. One thing, I have to give her credit for showing up. I mean, SNL has been brutal to Palin over the past few weeks and it’s impressive that she actually responded by doing the show.

I suppose that is kind of McCain’s style as well. But for Palin, it’s ballsy. She’s really making the most of her 15 minutes…assuming at least, McCain loses in November. As much as I think she’s an idiot or ridiculously right wingy, I gotta give her props for showing up.

So how did she do?

Well, she didn’t really do a lot. Most of her lines were really just conversational dialogue…nothing that interesting…just really playing the ‘the actual sarah palin is here’ shtick. She also participated in a rap…well, she didn’t do any rapping herself, but she did do a bit of dancing.

It was decently funny.

You can argue that this is bad for the McCain campaign, but at the end of the day I don’t really think it’s gonna have any effect. She didn’t make any huge errors on the show, and she wasn’t sooo great that viewers would switch over to the right.

Check out the videos below:

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Oct 20 2008

The bored series

Published by japadamus under sports

So, it’s all set. Despite a stunning game five comeback and an impressive game six win, the Red Sox lost in game seven, sending the Devil Rays to the World Series.

Now, I’m not a big fan of baseball…but I know a little. And what little I know tells me that this world series is going to be booorrriiinnng. I mean, the only big star that I know at least is Howard, who I actually saw play in San Francisco this year. He homered…it was impressive, but what else is there?

Anyway, I’m sure I don’t really appreciate the finer aspects of baseball, but this year I was really hoping for a Chicago series, or the return of Torre, or at least another Red Sox series.

Oh well, if you’re gonna check it out, game one is on the 22nd.

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Oct 18 2008

The Best Selling Jerseys in the NFL

Published by japadamus under Bob Loblaw

CNBC is reporting the top ten jerseys in the NFL this year. And, really, what’s up with the Cowboys?

There were 4 Cowboys in the top ten, including their tight end Jason Witten who ranked number 8. Surprisingly, TO made it only to number 10.

Favre was of course #1…which probably is making him some nice cash. In hindsight, this move to New York was probably the best way to end his career and prepare for retirement.

Six out of the top ten are white guys, and half were QBs. Even though he’s out for the year, Brady made it to number 5.

The complete list is below:

1. Brett Favre, New York Jets
2. Tony Romo, Dallas Cowboys
3. Eli Manning, New York Giants
4. Marion Barber, Dallas Cowboys
5. Tom Brady, New England Patriots
6. Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Vikings
7. Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts
8. Jason Witten, Dallas Cowboys
9. LaDainian Tomlinson, San Diego Chargers
10. Terrell Owens, Dallas Cowboys

One response so far

Oct 18 2008

Died and gone to japa heaven?

Published by japadamus under Bob Loblaw

Look, I’m a japa and I love musubi. Some people don’t get it. Rice with a little meat? Maybe just some nori? Is that really food? Yes. It’s wonderful, relatively healthy and quite filling. Musubi evokes memories of home lunch and afternoons at grandmas. Even though when you think about it, a musubi really only requires slightly more work that putting a bowl of rice in front of our kid.

Well, there is now a dedicated musubi shop in Hawaii. It’s called Mana Bu’s, and so far the place has gotten 4 star reviews on Yelp.

The concept is simple…a wide variety of musubis. And of course some other japanese pupus. And, oddly cupcakes.

But still, it’s been a long time coming, and this implementation of the musubi shop looks absolutely wonderful. I love the idea of walking into a shop and being faced with rows and rows of little musubis. I can’t wait until I go home for xmas and get to ry this place.

It’s located on 1618 King Street in Honolulu, right down the street from Punahou. Someone please try this place and post a review.

2 responses so far

Oct 18 2008

Disney coming to Hawaii

Published by japadamus under news

Times have been tough in Hawaii. As in, former Aloha stewardesses working at Whole Foods. But it looks like the mouse still believes in Hawaii. Disney plans to open an $800 million resort in Hawaii in Ko Olina.

To be clear, Disney isn’t building an amusement park…but they do have a pretty huge parcel of land where they plan to build 350 hotel rooms and 480 timeshares. The hotel will feature some volcano themed pools and your typically hawaiian-style hotel gimmicks.

It actually looks pretty neat…and it will mean some big time money being funneled into the islands.

The choice of Ko Olina is questionable though. I mean, it’s not exactly a big tourist destination. You’re far from waikiki. In fact, you’re pretty far from everything. Will J’s stay all the way out in Leeward when Ala Moana is so far away? And how strong will the tourist industry be in 2011 when the resort is supposed to open?

One more thing, isn’t Ko Olina a biiit to close to Waianae families? I see horrible stories of families getting car jacked on a frequent basis, which would really be some bad PR for the islands.

We’ll see. At least the resort will employ about 1,000 people. Jobs are something the islands are always short on.

3 responses so far

Oct 16 2008

Scooby-Scooby-Doo — the iRobot Scooba

Published by japadamus under tech, shopping, Bob Loblaw, review

Okay, so as Japa, El Jeffe, and Jak all know, I really wanted a goddamned Scooba to appear on woot.com. It was 6.5 months since it was last featured on the site, and I had only recently realized that I am indeed the perfect storm of tech geek and lazyass to covet a robot that mops floors. I hoped that it would be useful in keeping my apt. hardwood and lineolium floors cleaner since L.A.’s air is sagging with soot.

I tried it out tonight in my lineolium kitchen, which is approximately 24-28 square feet. Not too large, but it definitely needed mopping. I’m not trying to be gross, but when you have 2 cats, windows open to L.A. soot, and just random drops of dried liquid, you need to mop more often than you’d like. This is the best test for the Scooba. I didn’t vaccuum or sweep before using the Scooba.

The Scooba has a 4 part system — vaccuuming, washing, scrubbing and squeeging. Another great aspect is that it has separate chambers for the clean and dirty water, so it’s not just using dirty water all over the floor. The Scooba is about 6 inches larger in diameter than the Roomba and is much higher. It has a detachable water tank that fits into the electrical portion of the robot.

The Scooba manuevered remarkably well and was about as loud as the Roomba. Like the Roomba, it has the similar sort of seemingly random circular pattern of moving about the floor space. It left a very thin layer of water that quickly dried, and did a surprisingly good job of scrubbing the dried liquid stains off of the floor. The one thing I had concerns about while watching it operate was that it did not seem to do a good job of vaccuuming as I saw a fortune cookie paper fortune getting pushed around the floor. However, when I emptied the vaccuum bin, there was an astonishing amount of hair and bits of dust in it, so apparently it does a good job of vaccuuming smaller items. The dirty water chamber contained dark grey, opaque water. So, apparently it does its job.

The one big issue I had was the battery life. After about 20 minutes, the Scooba stopped and chimed the odd 4 tone noise without any additional beeps afterward, which wasn’t listed in the manual. I have this problem with my Roomba, too, and I figured out that it basically means the battery needs to be recharged or just taken out and put back in. I tried the latter and it didn’t work, so I just called it quits at that point as the Scooba had covered most of the kitchen floor. This was a big disappointment to me. Admittedly I didn’t charge it 16 hours that the manual suggested for a first time use, but the indicator light indicated after 4 hours that it was charged. Plus, the manual also says that the battery should be charged for 3 hours before each use, which requires a fair amount of forethought, which isn’t always my strength in househould cleaning.

El Jeffe says that I could do the same mopping with a mop and a bucket in a shorter amount of time and for much less money. Both of these points are true, but really, if you’re as lazy as me, you’re not going to be mopping the floors every week. Okay, hell, even every month. Maybe every 6 months. So presuming you use the Scooba more often than that, then I feel like you’re actually saving time. Plus, there’s the dirty water issue, and I dislike that about the usual mop and bucket water stuff.

Overall, I’d say the Scooba does its job and does it well. I’ll have to see how the Scooba holds up over the next few months. Amazon had a bunch of mixed reviews about the Scooba’s longevity. I got a $33 warranty through a 3rd party warranty provider precisely because of the problems with maintenance. Water + electronics = maintenance problems. Shocker.

But, getting back on point, I’m not sure if this review has done a good job of recommending the Scooba or if it’s made you decide to keep on your socks when you come to my apartment. If you can get a brand new Scooba for $180 (It normally retails between $300-400 new), I’d recommend getting one. And hopefully you won’t need to wear socks in your apartment after using the Scooba.

2 responses so far

Oct 14 2008

I don’t like the Hawaii quarter

Published by japadamus under Bob Loblaw

Next month, the Hawaii state quarter will be released. The state quarter program started ten years ago, and it will end with Hawaii, the 50th state.

Now let me say this…I don’t like the Hawaii quarter at all. In fact, I kind of hate it.

First of all, why is Kamehameha on United States currency? I mean, if you think about it, he was the ruler of a foreign country which had a lot of beef with the United States. Kamehameha was never a part of the United States - he wouldn’t want to be…and I’d bet he wouldn’t really be thrilled about being featured on the currency of a country which essentially raped and pillaged his people while spreading deadly small pox.

In fact, Kamehameha was kind of racist against Americans. He didn’t even let foreigners own land…remember, not letting people of a certain race own land…that went over way differently in the U.S., and the people who made those rules aren’t celebrated…except maybe in the south.

And I don’t really think Kamehameha was a super nice guy. Sure, he did unite the Hawaiian islands, but he did so by doing things like throwing people off of cliffs. He pretty much went around the islands, killing off other sovereign nations quite violently. Today, that is called genocide.

Even after Hawaii was united, it’s not like Kamehameha was a compassionate guy. If you broke kapu then he would kill you. And, for your haoles, breaking kapu is not necessarily a huge crime…it can be something as small as killing a protected animal or fishing in the wrong area. That’s pretty rough.

I mean, there was really nothing American about Kamehameha. He was a king…he wasn’t elected…there was nothing democratic about him at all. If he was around today the U.S. would probably be making plans to invade his country right now.

Is that the right thing to have on the Hawaii quarter? I would be more comfortable with something lame like a flower or a rainbow or a surfboard…something nice, something happy, something that would make people say, ‘I’d like to visit that state and contribute to their tourism industry.’ Instead, we have the Hawaiian Genghis Kahn.

And the thing is, all of us who grew up in Hawaii have been kind of desensitized to Kamehameha. We’re taught that he was a great guy and we celebrate his birthday.

But, when mainlanders see the Hawaii quarter and look at this strange guy in a cape, loin cloth and oversized helmet, they’re gonna wonder wtf is up. Then they’ll look up who is actually on the Hawaii quarter, and when they read about Kamehameha on wikipedia I don’t think they’ll be impressed. In fact, I think they’ll be scared.

I’d really prefer something simple like Wisconsin’s quarter. Cow. Cheese. Corn. Forward. Four things that, even if they don’t make you happy, don’t evoke any negative feelings. And perhaps you’re a big fan of cows, cheese, or corn, and you’ll think of visiting Wisconsin. After all, those things are on their state quarter, this is something that the state must really care about.

Now, back to the Hawaii quarter. Picture of islands, fine, I get it. Unintelligible phrase in Hawaiian. Great idea, lets have a foreign language on United States currency. Then Kamehameha, the genocidal ruler that will kill you if you fish in his fish pond. That doesn’t really make you want to put on an aloha shirt and hop on a plane.

One response so far

Oct 13 2008

The Happening - makes you want to kill self

Published by japadamus under Bob Loblaw

I liked the first few M. Night Shyamalan movies. The Sixth Sense is a classic, Unbreakable was pretty good and the one with the aliens was decent. Each of these films balanced suspense with the supernatural, which worked well, even if the dialogue was sometimes below par.

But M. Night’s next two movies weren’t great. They made a decent amount of cash, but were mostly panned by critics. They certainly didn’t come close to The Sixth Sense, which was nominated for a bunch of Oscars.

So, The Happening was kind of a critical movie for M. Night. It would really show if the magic was over, or if M. Night could either reinvent himself or resurrect his unique kind of mystery/suspense genre.

Well, the magic is over.

The Happening is horrible. Like, I actually stopped the movie 30 minutes in to make sure I was watching the correct movie. Not only did M. Night fail to break out of his overplayed genre, he really seems to have lost his touch.

The Happening is about a bioterrorism attack that makes people commit suicide. Apparently, the bio agent bypasses some sort of inhibitor in the brain, so people that are exposed just find the quickest way to kill themselves, whether it’s slicing your own wrists with glass or laying down in front of a lawn mower.

So, there’s panic. But it turns out that this isn’t really a bioterrorism attack…it’s actually plants that are releasing the bio agent. Plants? Yes, plants. Sigh.

The heroine in the movie is Mark Walhberg who is trying to save his wife and their friend’s kid. At first they think that only cities are being attacked. Then, the attacks start targeting smaller cities. Eventually, Walhberg discovers that the plants only attack large groups. But even that ends up being incorrect when the plants attack an old lady that’s by herself.

You, as the viewer, really have no idea why any of this is happening. All you know is that Walhberg keeps coming up with new theories as to why the plants are attacking humans, until ultimately Walhberg, his wife and the girl are faced with death.

But they don’t die, of course. Why? Because miraculously the plants stopped emitting the suicide agent just a couple of minutes before Walhberg and crew went out in the open.

The problem here is that this plot is really, really tough to stomach. Walhberg gives an example of algae suddenly turning toxic and killing swimmers. Ok, fine, so lets suppose that plants can turn toxic. It’s a big stretch to buy that plants can all of a sudden mutate to release an agent that specifically targets a certain part of the brain that is the only thing preventing people from killing themselves.

Not only that, but all plants mutate within a few hours of each other. Well, at least all plants in the North East United States. What? Exactly.

So, only plants in the North East are affected, but, as Walhberg points out, plants can communicate, so all plants in the North East start to mutate on cue, chasing down the few survivors that have fled from cities. Apparently, plants to the west can’t understand the accent of plants in New York and Boston (and really, I can’t fault them here…fuggedaboudit) so they don’t start releasing their suicide agents.

Of course, M. Night movies always have a twist, but the twist in The Happening is so boring it barely even qualifies. At the end of the movie you see Walhberg and his wife and the girl all good and happy. But then M. Night shows Paris or something and the same suicide thing starts again. Hopefully, this is not the signal of a sequel…although the prospect of a sequel is at least a more reasonable cause for suicide than angry plants.

My feeling here is that M. Night just doesn’t care anymore. The script is sloppy, and the dialogue is canned and predictable. As director, M. Night clearly just hired a big name in Walhberg, and made sure the trailers seemed real mysterious. He also threw in the apocalypse and terrorism themes in

Archive for October, 2008