- My brother totaled his car a few weeks ago. He emerged without a scratch (thank goodness), but now he needs a new car. My family always buys American cars. My entire immediate family was born in Detroit. Two of my four grandparents worked for the automobile industry. I have over 100 relatives in Detroit, and the American automobile industry employs a good portion of them...in short, my family has a genetic obligation to buy American cars. The problem is, what exactly defines a car as American? Is it a car that is built by a company that originated in America, or is it a car that was actually manufactured in the United States? Pehaps it is a combination of the two. Here is a list of all the automobiles currently manufactured in the United States. This list use to be much longer:
http://www.uaw.org/uawmade/cartruck2006.cfm
- In December, I bought a new cell-phone. I purchased the Motorola/Verizon RAZR V3c. It's razor-thin, and has a very futuristic look to it. A friend of mine bought the black version of the RAZR, which is provided by Cingular. My phone is charcoal grey, and I am horribly jealous of the "Black Razor" (inside joke for those who roleplay with me.)
The Verizon version of the RAZR has an abhorrent user interface. For the past few weeks, I have been researching how to change the firmware (the software that runs my cell-phone) to the standard Motorola software that comes with non-Verizon RAZRs. A few days ago, I finally took the leap, and "flashed" (uploaded software) my phone to the official Motorola software. I knowingly voided the warranty doing this, but I dont care. I want my phone cutting-edge, and I wont settle for inferior software. Unfortunately, my phone lost the ability to send/receive pictures and I lost internet access. I soon fixed both of those problems by editing the hexadecimal code inherently stored in the phone. The phone now works better than Verizon had intended it to. I get better reception, the battery lasts longer, and the phone is no longer saddled with a pathetic user interface.
I did all this thanks to a wonderful little website called Howard's Forums. It is, by far, the busiest messageboard on the internet related to mobile phone technology. If you have any questions whatsoever about cell-phones, go to the following website, and I guarantee you will find the answers you seek:
http://www.howardforums.com
- In 1986, Frank Miller crafted the greatest written comic book ever (IMO), Dark Knight Returns. He has written several other Batman-related comic books in the past 20 years, but none of them comes even close to Dark Knight Returns. Miller is currently writing a Batman comic-book I am sure to purchase. Batman takes on Al-Qaeda! The comic will be called Batman: Holy Terror, and is due to hit the stores in 2007.
The comic book industry has a history of placing fictional super-heroes against real-world villains. Superman and Captain America regularly duked it out with Nazis. Iron Man comics from the 60s, 70s and 80s are loaded with cold war villains. I think its completely appropriate for Batman to go after terrorists. If Al-Qaeda led an attack on Gotham, Batman would certainly go after the perpetrators. Read more about the new comic at the following link:
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=1616836&page=1
- Once or twice a week for lunch, I eat a sandwich at a Subway's shop close to my work. I have been cutting back on the frequency in which I visit this particular Subway shop, because the Diet Coke I order doesnt taste as good as the Diet Coke I order from other fast-food places. Now I know why the soda tastes bad at this particular Subways:
http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=25442
- Another step closer to a hyper-drive:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/06/hyperdrive/
- Scientists in a remote part of New Guinea have discovered over 100 new animal and plant species. Dont we live in the 21st century? Havent we covered every inch of this planet by now? How is this possible? When I read an article like this, I feel like I am some kind of 19th century British aristocrat, learning for the first time about some nut named Darwin and his crazy boating trip off the coast of South America:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002789051_lostworld07.html
