The Garage Sale Blog Network

Signs of the times… - Aggrocrag

Signs of the times…

As many other GSBNers have touched on recently, we are living in some interesting times.

The Election 

Pretty much the entire world hates the US right now, is tired of the antics of our current government, and everything to do with Americans in general… And what are we occupying our time with?  Pig lipstick.  Yeah.  Although, I find it particularly ironic that McCain is calling the "hacking" of Palin's yahoo email account an "invasion of privacy".  Really?  This coming from one of the bigger proponents of programs like Echelon and Carnivore and programs set up to capture information of private citizens…

The Economy

While I admittedly don't understand quite a bit of the ins and outs of the "how it happened", one thing is clear: we are seeing something that hasn't been seen in a very, very long time.  No one seems to know how much worse it will get, and there is no clear answer as to how to fix it.   However, if there is one thing that I have learned it is that you can run multibillion dollar companies into the ground and it is all okay. Uncle Sam will bail the company out and, assuming that you are the CEO, you have a sweet golden parachute to make it a gentle landing for you.  Stock holders on the other hand…

However, the "big" issues aside, I have been seeing some strange stuff on the personal level as well.  While I could go on for days about all the Bad Ideas ™ that I have seen, one in particular stands out….

A Vegas Wedding

In my experience, weddings are a time to bring together two people and their respective family and friends as a symbolic and legal way of binding them. Traditionally, there is some extended courtship, from months to years, where the two get time to make sure that they are with "the one".  All pretty standard stuff that we have seen a thousand times in our personal lives as well as in romantic comedies…  Not this wedding….

To set the stage a bit, and further add to the surrealness of the whole episode, I should point out that this all took place the day after a national kickball tournament. Yeah, you read that right, grown ass men and women playing a sport enjoyed by 8 year olds around the nation.

So the next day the two people, who to this point had never even seen each other (besides living in the same city and having multiple mutual friends) meet for the first time.  They hit it off immediately and, being in Vegas, the conversation eventually turns to marriage.  One thing led to another and both being A-types, neither would back down.  To get to the point… to get married or not get married came down to a game of flip cup.

So once it was decided, we gathered up about 15 witnesses and headed to the nearest chapel to watch two people, who had known each other for less than 2 hours, get married.  For real. Legally binding. Bonus points for going down the Flamingo's waterslide directly after the ceremony. Yeah, that is for real as well.

Now, while I still find it absolutely hilarious, it does cause me to pause for a several reasons.

First: That someone actually did the most cliché thing in the book.  Honestly, who REALLY does that?  Its the subject of horrible movies with B-list celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz.  They actually met and married within a couple of hours.  It isn't like they were blacked out, wake up with sharpie drawings all over your body drunk.  They were both cognizant enough to fill out all the appropriate paperwork, etc….

Secondly: And this didn't occur to me until a few days later. I was not bothered by it at all.  In fact, I was even helping out with planning of a proper reception party (as opposed to the impromptu one we had at Margaritaville the day of).  My entire life, marriage has seemed to be that "last big thing" you do in your life.  Basically, you do that, and then you work at some job for 30 years till you can retire.  Being the big deal that I always assumed marriage to be, my own lack of concern over the Vegas marriage still worries me.  While I know that it wasn't me that married, I still can't believe that I am taking it as lightly as I am.  Hell, being in California and especially living in San Francisco, I should be one of the last people to get amusement from people making a mockery of marriage.  However, it was just too ridiculous to not enjoy it. 

Finally: And likely the most disturbing part of the whole thing is the precedent that they set.  Now, whenever someone wants to do something over the top and ridiculous to impress a group of drunken friends, they are going to have to really step it up.  The problem is, what do you do to top a Vegas wedding?  I mean, short of a major crime spree, I got nothing.  Not that outdoing my friends is something that I am ALWAYS trying to do, but I am a competitive person, and it bugs me when someone has an edge.  I even tried fake proposing to a teammate the other night….  It just didn't have the oomph that I was looking for…

So, at the end of this rambling rant, I ask you, dear reader, what can someone do to top the Vegas wedding? 

Not so "Cuil" - Aggrocrag

Hmm..  So I get news that there is a an "up and coming" search engine from 3 google alums that is going to change the way that we search, bring search to the next level, have my babies, etc…

What is this mythical search engine? It is called "Cuil" but is pronounced "cool".   Strike one for unnecessary web 2.0 "creative" naming. Check it out for yourself and see what you think.  I am going to go out on a limb and say that so far I am not impressed. Allow me to submit Exhibit 1:  The lack of the Garage Sale Blogging Network to make it onto their "industry leading index size".  Hmm… last time I checked, the GSBN turned up on all the current major players with their "inferior" index size, on the first page of said results, mind you! We are going call that strikes two and three. So until we get the Garage Sale Blogging Network on there, I am going go with FAIL.

-Aggrocrag

Technology Tester - Aggrocrag

I have a technology problem. 

None of it seems to be able to keep up with my regular use. 

I don't know if this is because of my abuse of said technology or just that things aren't engineered tough enough…  This has gone on as long as I can remember with various electronic gizmos of my earliest memories, to my most recent PCs and cell phones.  Nothing seems to last.  This is especially worrisome when coupled with the fact that the "disposable income" that it takes to replace the gadgets these days is anything but trivial….  But now I am getting ahead of myself….

Since I can remember, I have been obsessed with tinkering.  I don't know if it was the large collection of lego that I amassed at an early age or what, but to this day, I love to build things and take things apart.  So, as soon as my parents decided that it was time to give me toys that required batteries, well, they were going to be disassembled.  Unfortunately for me (and more so for the toys), I didn't quite have the necessary tools nor soldering skills to put the things back together.  Somehow, this morphed into the habit of collecting as many things as I could to try and put different parts together…  How I never electrocuted or otherwise seriously injured myself is a minor miracle.

This habit continued with varying success as I was handed down an ever increasing amount of technotoys as I got older.  If anyone in the family was getting rid of stereo, an old walkman, camera, etc… it invariably came to me.  I think that at some place at my parents' house I still have boxes of power adapters and assorted well… electronic junk.  I didn't want to get rid of anything in case I needed a spare part for something else… alright, this is dragging out…

So fast forward a few years and now I am buying my own toys and realize that I shouldn't be taking them apart just for the hell of it… you would think that they might last a little longer with this mindset, but you would be wrong.  Let's go over a couple of stats just from the past 2 ½ years conveniently broken into 4 categories for the sake of time.

8 Cell Phones

4 Digital Cameras

2 Laptops

2 Desktops (although probably enough total parts for at least 4)

Now, I won't try and say that I baby my little gizmos.  In fact I would say that I get the most out of them.  With the exception of the desktop PCs and one of the laptops, you might even say that I use them aggressively.  My cellphone (of the minute) and digital camera pretty much live in my pocket anytime I am out of the house.  I don't have any protective cases or anything, but I would like to think that I am not just throwing them around to get a rise out of them (well, there might be one exception to that rule, but that is an entirely different story)… Quite the opposite, I use them to keep in contact and to capture those moments when you don't want to have to dig around for a camera.... I mean, that is what all the people do in the commercials, right?

Breaking it down even further:

3 of 8 cell phones stopped working for no reason.  They just turned off one day and never came back from the ether. 3 of them were dropped and consequently died (one of them was dropped by a homeless person while getting off the bus to return my phone to me after I had lost it, but that's a different story). 2 of them decided that they wanted to drown their sorrows and were fried shortly thereafter.  1 of them was lost (again whole different story)

Cameras:

This one isn't too exciting.  3 gave up the ghost for no apparent reason one I lost at a bar.  Definitely my bad on the last one, whoops.

Laptops:

This one pisses me off to no end.  Knowing ahead of time my propensity to either break or otherwise have things fail, I go for the extended super duper warranty that basically says I can take a pee on the machines if it comes down to it and they will fix or replace them.  Now this sounds great, I mean, this is what I live for (not peeing on laptops, but not having to worry about them breaking).  I can do whatever I want and basically the only consequences are that I will have to send the computers in and wait for them to get fixed….  Oh…  if only it were actually the case.  To shorten it up a little… both laptops went in multiple times for the same problem to only be sent back out with refurbished parts that didn't hold up more than a couple of months… end result, shitty half working laptops.

Desktops:

Here, I have no explanation.  While I know that "mean time between failures" is no guarantee that something will last nearly as long as it says on the packaging, I would expect something that "should" last 1,000,000 hours to make it more than 4 months.  Yeah, that was the story of a couple of hard drives.  I have also gone through 2 motherboards, 3 video cards, 2 power supplies, and a handful of other random parts that seem to want to fail for no particular reason other than they belong to me.

Alright, where am I going with this?  I am not entirely sure.  I don't know if I am getting karmic retribution for the "tinkering" I did when I was younger.  While I can chalk up a couple of these to drunken accidents *cough* cell phone, cell phone, camera *cough*, I don't think the constant need to replace yet another $300-500 gadget all the time is ideal.  So what can I do about it… I will tell you….

I am hereby offering up my services as a technological gadget endurance tester.  I obviously got off to a slow start in my younger years, but I feel like I have really picked up the pace in the last few. I am confident, should you choose me to "beta test" your upcoming product, I will give it the old college try to really run it through its paces.  I mean, it is to the point where some of my gadgets just give up and nuke themselves rather than have to put up with my rigorous methods.  I am actually completely serious about this, especially if you are a manufacturer of cell phones, cameras, personal media players, and up to ultra portable laptops.  Send me your product and I will test it for anywhere from 2-6 months (that is the most anything lasts) and let you know whether or not you have yourself a flimsy toy or solid piece of equipment built for the urban jungle.  All I ask in return is that you don't hold me responsible when the thing kills itself...

-Aggrocrag

I think I miss the kitchen..... Aggrocrag (Rob)

So, after college, I decided that I wanted to be a chef.  I suppose that I should start with the fact that I have always loved cooking.  I didn't have a eureka moment where I realized that I enjoyed it, I think that it was more as a consequence of being part of a large family. With seemingly multiple occasions each month to get the whole clan together, there was always ample opportunity to help out with the cooking... So, when college was winding down, I said, "what the hell, let's go to culinary school and see if I like this for real!" Once I finished up at culinary school, I somehow talked my way into a job in the banquet kitchen at a 5 star hotel.  I could talk for days about all the crazy things that happened there, but some of my favorite memories are those "calm before the storm" moments...

Working at the hotel offered up many interesting scenarios where a thousand things could go wrong.  Most of the time, however, you knew exactly what had to be done and everything, out of necessity, was planned and scheduled with exacting detail.  However, every now and then you would get something that threw a monkey wrench in those plans...  Normally, it would end up being something out of our control and the next thing you know, your party that was supposed to eat their entrees at 7pm, is now "aiming" for 9pm and you find yourself with some free time...  very unusual, but not unwelcome!

 

I used to always like those times when you knew that you were going to be in the shit, but that you just had to wait it out...  when I was at the hotel, it happened all the time...  we would have a crew of like 8 guys there to crank out dinner for like 450..  all the prep was ready so that all we had to do was throw everything in the oven or on the stove and then plate it up... 
 
But you would get these times when the party would get delayed and you would find yourself with literally nothing to do for like an hour or two..  such a strange feeling because you know that before the night is done, you are going to be going 100 miles an hour to get all those meals out at the same time and you are wondering where the potential problems are going to be...
 
But again, you find yourself with that time...  So we would go outside and kick a soccer ball around in our uniforms and everything...  such a strange sight to see 8 guys in their chef whites kicking around a soccer ball outside of a fancy hotel... also strange since in most circumstances, it was so strict about how many hours people were allowed to work (gotta love overtime on union wages!)....
 
Then you head back inside and you kinda get mentally prepared for it, again rechecking everything once more, waiting on the final word from the front of the house that it is go time...  And then it happens…  GO! GO! GO!
 
Next thing you know, everyone is running around like mad and you are just trying to keep tabs on everything, making sure that you really did put 20 pans of salmon in the oven...  making sure that you cooked all 4 buckets worth of potatoes..  "How many vegetarians do we have??!?!"...  Are you sure that you have enough garnish ready???!  Running the numbers through the calculator one more time to make sure that you have it all exactly right, because, well, you have to...  there is no, "sorry we are out of that" or "I am sorry, you meal will be another 10 minutes".... 
 
Next thing you know, you are doing the saucing and garnishing of 450 identical plates...  You look down the long tables, making sure that the banquet servers aren't touching your plates until you are damn well and ready for them to go...  Quite a sight, all those plates lined up, steaming hot and all so perfect....  and then they take them away...
 
You realize that you just put out 450 plates of food in 10 minutes and the guests have no idea what actually happened behind the scenes...  They just have another glass of wine and comment on the presentation or make no comment at all...
 
Then you go eat the food that didn't get served... most of the time it was extra fish that people didn't want…  Or if lamb was on the menu, there would be lamb chops for days...  Other hotel workers come seemingly out of nowhere to eat the leftover food...  I mean, we just charged these people $100 each for their meals, the food better be good!
 
And then you realize that you have been there for 14 or more hours and you suddenly become so tired you don't know how you are still standing...
 
You change, go home, hit the shower, and hit the pillow...  sleep 5 or 6 hours, wake up, shower and shave and do it all again....
 
I think that I miss the kitchen!

 

Rob : Garage Sale Symbol - Aggrocrag

Where does one start when describing Rob… I guess it helps if you go back a ways…

Initially off to college for swimming and physics… he soon realized that his true talent was in planning parties. He met a ton of great people from various different groups, and partied with all of them. Many successful events later, it was time to move on… So, off to SF for culinary school, to pursue a career in the culinary arts. It was during his time here that he discovered his love for kickball. A child’s sport taken way to seriously to this day… Rob is currently coaching two teams: One for fun, and one with the sole goal of winning the national championship this labor day in Vegas.

When he is not kicking balls, figuratively as well as literally, he spends his days finding people tech jobs, private catering, and having his face melt off from his shenanigans on the weekends.

WTF, Evite ?!? - Aggrocrag (Rob)

WTF, Evite?!?

Once again we find ourselves in the middle of the San Francisco festival season.  If you are like many people I know that means a couple of things to you.  Day drinking and evites to people's parties to celebrate said festival days.  Day drinking is a topic for another day (usually a Saturday!).  Evites…  Where do I start?

It all started out so innocently enough a few years back.  Fresh out of college and off to the city, evite seemed like the perfect solution to that age old problem of how to organize a bunch of people to get together. Great for dealing with people living all over the place and their random schedules.  Just a few clicks here and there and, BAM! You were well on your way to a party of epic proportions.  Everyone that I knew jumped on the bandwagon almost immediately and things were good…

Fast forward +/- 4 years…. quite a few evites and their parties later and…. BOOOOORING!

The user interface is slow weather you are an invitee or are actually making the invite.  Oh, and while we are on the subject of making invites, feel free to navigate around and experiment with different layouts once you have entered in your oh-so-witty content (perfectly worded to lure in those out of towners to your party)....  oh wait, you remembered to click save right?  Ha, feel free to call that one a rough draft.

It seems that I am not alone in my apathy towards evite. With each successive evite fewer and fewer respond either way.  One friend (EC) calls it "eviteasaurus" which is a dig at both its aging appearance and it overall speed.  I couldn't agree more... 

Here are a couple of their "features"…

Evite Profiles:  How many of you actually have one with more than maybe your name linked to your email address?  What about pictures? And how many out there have gone through and filled out the rest of the options?  Anyone still have their hands up? That is what I thought…

Evite Messages:  Anyone at all?  Did you know that they expire after 30 days? I didn't because I have never heard of anyone using that particular "feature"...

It seems like the entire web moved on to newer and better technologies while Evite has been sitting on their ass enjoying their dominate market share.  Where once there was nothing like it in the market place, competitors have sprung up such as Socializer and MadeIt. At this point, however, nothing seems to have caught on with the initial ferocity that got evite so big, so fast. 

Am I still going to use evite, yes, because it is so entrenched as the defacto online party invite solution.  Could it be improved, absolutely.  I think that with a few decent developers in there they could get it down to a mean little web app.  So come on evite, don't rest on your laurels with you huge market share.  Spend some time to make useful improvements and maybe the apathy will subside.  Stop wasting valuable time on borderline useless features and not-even-remotely-related advertiser tie ins...

Now if you will excuse me, back to the festivals!