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Has it been quiet around here or is it just me?

Posted on November 29, 2005 at 01:17 AM

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been posting on what even this blog would deem a semi-regular basis. Hell, it's been over 3 weeks since my last post. With that being said, I hope to kick it in the ass and get back on track this week. For those of you who are curious to know what could have possibly held me back from updating this site I give you the following three lame excuses:

1. The TV series 24

Most of you have probably either heard of or seen Fox's hit TV show 24. Sure I had heard of it, but had never watched it up until about a month ago. Mistake, big mistake. For those that don't know, 24 is a show that revolves around terrorist threats in the U.S. The star of the show Kiefer Sutherland plays CTU (counter terrorism unit) agent Jack Bauer. Each season of the show is 24 hours in the life of Jack Bauer, all shot in real-time. The season begins at a certain hour, each episode is an hour long, 24 hours later the day is over along with that season.

This show is crack, pure and simple. It's basically a 24 hour long TV show. So if you start watching it you will find that one episode doesn't just end, the plot twists deeper and deeper. We here at JoeSchmidt.com started by unknowingly renting season three from blockbuster (someone who shall remain nameless grabbed it by mistake). But as soon as we were done with the first DVD we were hooked. A few DVDs later we found ourselves making last minute midnight runs to blockbuster to rent the next DVD, just to feed our new found habit. A little over a month has passed and we've finished off the first three seasons, totaling 72 episodes (which is roughly about fifty hours of our collective life that we will never, ever get back. For the record though, it was worth it).

Season 4 is available on DVD December 6th, so another small blog blackout may occur shortly thereafter. This is in preparation for the 4 hour 24 extravaganza that kicks off season 5 starting January 15th and 16th. Though I'm not sure how this blog will come to grips with having to watch 24 with commercials, plus having to wait an entire week between episodes. Not sure how longtime fans of the show accomplish this because it doesn't seem humanly possible.

2. Jim Cramer's Mad Money

Jim Cramer is a wall street stock guru, founder of thestreet.com and host of CNBC's wildly entertaining show Mad Money. On his hour long show, Jim's entire goal is to teach you about stocks, what's good and bad, but ultimately to make you rich. His show airs every night on CNBC (check your local listings) at three different times so it's not hard to miss. I think you will find Jim's extreme high energy amusing as he smashes chairs and cuts the heads off little stuffed bulls with a pocket knife, all the while dispensing sound stock market information. This show, like 24, is very crack-like in the fact that I try my best not to miss a single show.

Besides entertaining, this show really could make you some money. A few weeks ago, Jim talked about the sports clothing company Under Armour and how everyone should jump on the stock as soon as they could since it's IPO was later in the week. Jim predicted that soon after Under Armour's IPO it should be trading at least 25% higher than it's initial price. On Friday the 18th of November, UnderArmour (symbol: UARM) opened at $13.00 and closed the day at $25.30, a one day increase of 96.4%. For Christmas, this blog will be asking old St. Nick for an account with one of the many e-trading sites out on the interwebs so this blog can make a little mad money of its own..

3. Computer Meltdown

Put near three weeks ago, I arrived home on a Friday night to find this blog's main research and publishing computer had somehow shut itself off during the day. I figured maybe a windows update had shutdown the computer or possibly a power outage had temporarily silenced it. So I turn the thing back on to find it has no video and neither the mouse or keyboard were working. I plug the three aforementioned devices into another system, just to make sure, and found that indeed they all seem to be functioning. The thing that got me though was that I could hear the computer booting up and starting windows when I powered it on, I just couldn't see or interact with it. So based on this, my only conclusion was to buy a new motherboard hoping that would fix the problem.

The motherboard arrived a week ago yesterday (courtesy of ZipZoomFly.com), and after an hour or so of tinkering, I got the computer back up and running better than ever. As it turned out, I spent more time on the phone with Microsoft trying to reactivate windows xp than I did changing out the motherboard. You see, when I installed the board and fired up the computer, windows noticed something had drastically changed and forced me to reactivate windows, otherwise I couldn't log into it. This would have been all fine and dandy, had the stupid 25 character windows ID stamped on the side of the computer worked when I entered it. But alas it didn't, which then caused me to call my good friends at microsoft, being put on hold for what seemed like an eternity, and having to recite to the person on the other end of the phone a windows authorization code so long it made nuclear missile launch codes look like child's play. For that Microsoft, this blog thanks you.

Now, I have to admit. This excuse is probably the lamest of all three because, me being an IT guy (official title), computers in this household outnumber people two to one. It's just that all the software I use to write and publish this blog exist in totality on that one desktop. Sure, I could have sucked it up and blogged on another computer, but the fact is that I'm lazy and 24 is a really, really, really, good show that requires this blog's undivided attention. I'm telling you internet, it's crack and you shouldn't watch it (at least until after we finish watching season 4).

So as you can see, I've been a little distracted over the past few weeks. But not to worry, more mindless drivel about stuff you could probably care less about will be forthcoming from this blog. (Don't all cheer at once.)

Posted by joeschmidt at 01:17 AM | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us

Open your mind to lateral thinking

Posted on November 03, 2005 at 11:50 AM

Lateral Thinking is a term used to describe a technique of problem solving in which you attack a problem from different points of view rather than focusing on one approach at a time. These types of puzzles try to get you to think about outcomes that aren't usually predictable, but obvious once they are discovered. At times there can seem to be more than one solution to a given scenario. This is mainly because the information you are given to solve the problem is insufficient, causing your answer to be different from the solution given by the author. Your solution isn't necessarily wrong, just different in a lateral sense.

Here are a few of examples of lateral thinking puzzles:

The Man in the Bar

A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says 'Thank you' and walks out.

Push that Car

A man pushed his car. He stopped when he reached a hotel at which point he knew he was bankrupt. Why?

The Broken Match

A man is found dead in a field. He is clutching a broken match. What happened?

Read Paul Sloane's list of Classic Lateral Thinking Puzzles to find the solutions and test how lateral you can think.

Legal Disclaimer: This blog will not be held responsible if your brain begins to melt while attempting to solve the above puzzles. Also, we will not be held liable for any involuntary head trauma you may incur once you read the solution.

Posted by joeschmidt at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us