I was disappointed that this box of Wild Animal Crunch cereal does not contain bits of actual polar bears, nor did the adjacent box contain meerkat flesh.

I ask you this: How bad is this cereal if they cannot sell it for 75 cents at Big Lots?

So this is either a marketing joke by Microsoft or a solution in search of a problem. Seriously? There are people out there who need a program to turn their random verbal diarrhea into a song? Who knew?

Favorite quote: "Microsoft, huh? So it's pretty easy to use?"

If this is a real software product, it looks like MS has been stung again by marketing/ad agency types who demonstrate Windows software on a Mac (because they're more sexy-looking laptops than the typical bland WIndows laptop?). Hopefully, there's a conspiracy among creative types to do this repeatedly.

The photo above shows a light pole about 25 feet from my parents' house in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Ponca City is not what I would consider a metropolis, or even a large city (wikipedia says the population was about 25,000 in 2000), and there aren't a lot of high-tech businesses -- there are some, mostly related to the petroleum industry. Yet this pole can do something that utility poles in cities with millions more residents and many more high-tech businesses cannot do: it provides free WI-FI internet service.

Imagine my surprise when my mother asked me about an article she had read recently about "free WI-FI" that the city was providing to all of its residents! I was skeptical about such a service, and if it was actually running it probably was over-loaded and very slow. I fired up my iPhone later than night and was surprised when it found a very strong access point named "Ponca City Free WI-FI." I joined the network and noticed it was quite fast. Again, my cranky-old-man hat was firmly on my head as I imagined that a) it was almost midnight and there probably were not a lot of people using it, and b) it was just recently turned on, so perhaps nobody knew about it yet.

I downloaded a movie trailer that averaged about 130 KB/sec (1040 kbps) with a peak of about 190 KB/sec over a ten-minute preiod.

The next day, I worked from my parents' dining room and the laptop reported that during the day (when the kiddos were supposed to be at school) I was getting close to 1 Mbps down and 500-700 Kbps up. That's very, very good for FREE FREE FREE internet service (my folks' DSL line is the el Cheapo SBC special: 756/256 Kbps). My informal testing also showed that the ISP for the service is also SBC -- but I assume for a city-wide network they have more than one pipe out to the net, probably several, and if they were trying to provide a really robust system they would have several different ISPs connected. Nevertheless, I was fairly impressed with the service provided, as none of the things I attempted to access were blocked (IM, video chat, Skype phone calls, e-mail, BitTorrent), and web browsing appeared to be unfiltered, too. I tried YouTube, hulu, and even some porn sites (just to see if the network was filtered) and all loaded normally.

The system is apparently designed as a mesh, so any node that fails can be replaced in the network by adjacent nodes. The mesh also allows the ISP to connect to just a few access points and be shared across the whole city. This saves the cost of running a DSL line to each access point and is likely the only way the network could have been provided. Luckily, the project was approved and budgeted before the Global Economic Meltdown.

In my few driving outings around town, I have seen the access points on light poles all over the city. My testing has shown a good-to-great signal almost everywhere, even in the open space ("park") a block from my parents' house where there are no streets and obviously no light poles, so the signal is coming from the edge of the property.

In a rare move, the network was originally meant for the use of the city only (police, fire, city employees) but was opened up to the citizenry at large. There's more information in this press release:

http://www.myponcacity.com/cms/City-Government/wifi/wifipressrelease.aspx

So, would I move back to Ponca City now that they're on the "cutting edge" of technology and appear to be more progressive than the typical Oklahoma city? Hell no. It does make it a little more palatable to visit, however.

I will post more about this as I spend more time in town this week. I'm curious to see how good the coverage is in the "poorer" parts of town, where this service should be very welcome. Yes, SBC DSL can be had for only $20 per month, but that's on top of a basic phone line. If you could cut up to $75 per month from your budget, why wouldn't you?

Guess which state had the highest percentage of support for McCain? It certainly wasn't his home state of Arizona. Not even North, South or Even Further South Dakota (Nebraska) could match the level of voting for McCain that our dear, beloved slack-jawed yokels showed last night.

Seriously? 2-to-1 for McCain? Let me know how that works out for you.

After a fantastic Sunday of agony and pain (and a trip to the emergency room), it appears that I have some kidney stones to pass. I can not describe the pain I felt -- words fail me. I had a very small stone about ten years ago that passed without much incident and it hurt like hell. Sunday's pain was one thousand times worse.

It makes sense that the pain was worse, as the stone is much larger (11 mm). X-rays and CAT scans show that I have at least six other stones in my kidneys as well. Seems odd that I could build seven stones in less than two years, as I was X-rayed and checked for them at that time.

SInce an 11 mm stone won't fit down the normal canals, I opted for lithotripsy to reduce the size of the stones. Lithotripsy is the application of ultrasonic sound waves to crumble the stones into small fragments. Sounds pretty simple, right? Unfortunately, it's fairly painful and requires anesthesia to make the patient unconscious, so it's more involved than in-zap-out. Since I can't be normal, I will require at least two sessions as they noticed an erratic heartbeat while I was unconscious this morning.

The most fun part of all is that to expedite the release of the stones, a stent is inserted into the bladder to maximize the opening of the canal. Yep, I have a tube running from my bladder to my junk, and I can feel it in there all of the time. Blood in my urine and a continual discomfort in my nethers -- what could be more fun?

This car has more sponsors than mine.

Deputy: VW Clocked At 115 Mph On Interstate 25

I'm embarrassed to say that I have driven faster than 115 on Interstate 25... albeit down south in a rural area.

The Denver Police have a local reputation for shooting first and asking questions later/never, so I'm not surprised to see the following story of an ABC reporter/producer being shoved into traffic, then arrested via the always-popular choke hold:

ABC Reporter Arrested

I've had a few run-ins with the DPD myself (but I have never been arrested) and have to say that the behavior they exhibit here is not out of the norm. It's their city and we're lucky they can't shoot you for holding a Diet Coke -- oh, wait... apparently they can.

So the Obama 08 campaign tells me to sign up early to be notified first when tickets to the big Acceptance Show are available and that will ensure a ticket will be mine. Now they tell me I can't go unless somebody dies or has some other plans. But, hey, won't you host a watch party at your house? It will be just as fun as being there. Really, it will.

--
Apparently, I was not the only person on the waitlist who signed up for the "first come, first served" tickets within minutes of their availability: Rocky Mountain News, Westword. I find interesting the comments that claim that volunteers were baited with special all-access passes in exchange for volunteer work, only to find out they had to perform the work by a certain date that was announced after the initial sign-up. I can't understand why people were allowed to continue to request tickets if there were none left to be had.

This is not going to make the Democrats' job any easier by pissing off several (forty?) thousand locals.

One dollar is not even worth a dollar anymore!

Okay, on further consideration, this is only funny if you realize this widget defaults to showing foreign currencies in relation to 1.00 US dollars. When I looked at the widget today, it had changed to 0.97 and my first impression was that the dollar is not even worth a dollar anymore. But then again, I am easily amused.

I don't know what it means but it amuses me.