Humidity.....BEGONE!
For anyone that doesn’t know what it’s like in NYC during the summer months, all you have to do is go to your local health club and sit in their steam room. Yeah, it’s really similar to that. Yesterday was so miserable I think the weather guys said it “feels like” whatever the hell that means…105. Yeah, THAT is miserable. It was so humid that even inside, with the AC’s running, I had a bottle of water on my desk at work that was sweating. Miserable.
After work yesterday, I got the chance to participate in a focus group. I thought it was going to be like those terrible ones from Columbia where you go and they have you read passages and then test your memory and all that crap. But no, this one was different. We got to see a new product, then comment on it and make suggestions on how to make it better. Well this product was a projector that was about 6 inches long, 2 inches high, and 4 inches deep. It had a brushed aluminum band that went around the front and protected the lens. Looked kind of like a Canon projector, but we’re not sure. We weren’t able to see the manufacturer. Although it was a nifty TINY little thing, it wasn’t HD, and the contrast ratio wasn’t all that great….meaning that the difference between the whitest whites and the darkest blacks wasn’t as much as it should be… and the bulb wasn’t that powerful. On the upside, it had a battery pack so that you could power it on the go, and it also was about one pound, so it was super portable. I was impressed at the size, but the lack of HD really annoyed me. Although it is going to go for around $800, it still will be awhile before it comes out. It was a prototype model. Anyway.. I got paid $150 for sitting in a group for two hours talking about how to market it, who to market it to, and what we could do to make it better. It was the easiest money I have made in quite some time. Hopefully there will be more of those coming my way.
This weekend is my first Engagement Party for a friend that is getting married. It really doesn’t bother me, because some people, you look at them and you just know that it’s their time to get married. You expected it from years earlier that they would be the first ones to go. Anyway, so that’s where I get to go. It’s a pool party strangely enough, but I don’t know how much swimming I’ll be doing, especially if this “cold front” is still around
There hasn’t been any more sightings of Princess Jill. It’s pretty sad. I think that after my last intrusion, she was pretty upset. Apparently she’s a little camera shy…maybe it’s because she’s lost her girlish figure because she’s preggers (thanks Laura).
I think my next task for this blog is going to be to find out how to change it up a little bit more. It’s one thing to add in a little comic at the bottom, or add in trackers so that I can spy on who’s looking at the site, but I’d really like to learn how to REALLY change it up. I found that there are template files around, so I think I’ll start there, and see where that goes. Maybe I can find one that had RSS built into it so that I don’t have to mess with all that scripting crap that I know nothing about.
I was just looking at the calendar and WOW… there are only 11 days till the Dolphins play the Chicago Bears in the Preseason Hall of Fame game. It’s going to be ugly, considering how they JUST started practicing. Granted, they are all getting a league minimum of $540,000 a year, so I suppose that warrants being in good shape and knowing the play book. Either way, it’ll be nice to see the Dolphins at least once this year. Because of their sub par performance last year, they aren’t going to be televised all that much this year….not that they were last year either….but anyway.
Last night, Laura and I went and checked out a kegging system that was available a few blocks away from our place. Today I have to put together an estimated cost for the system. I think it would be quite ideal for us, considering how we are so damn impatient when it comes to waiting for the beer to bottle condition. With a keg system you can force carbonate the beer. That’s quite handy because you don’t have to wait nearly as long for the beer that you brewed to be ready. You could brew a wheat beer and have it ready to drink a week after you were done….or so that’s my conception of it anyway. So today, if out internet at work ever speeds up a little bit, I should be able to price out what I’d need. I may end up just calling Northern Brewer and talking to one of their people there. They are a bit more knowledgeable than I am about it.