It's All Right 2.0

Inspired by http://blogs.vocalo.org/amykr/ I thought I’d put my own list together.  These are all things that I have done at one time or another in my life, which I am intending to avoid altogether for the rest of my days.

• leave a shopping cart in the parking lot
• permit someone to cut in a traffic lane because they didn’t want to wait at the beginning of the backup
• get in a fight with someone on the internet
• borrow money with pre-payment stipulations
• smoke (unless I go to prison)
• try to impress someone with how much I know
• drink to the point of blackout
• eat while talking on the phone
• litter
• fail to record car maintenance events
• be careless while handling a catfish
• texting from the drivers seat while the car is moving
• eat a clam, oyster or mussel
• be pressured into volunteering for a job I really don’t want
• go for a year without a dental checkup
• break things when I get mad or aggravated (I have a punching bag now)
• download warez software

We are now living room consumers of streaming high-definition video on demand from Netflix, thanks to this $150 blu-ray/netflix player I picked up over the weekend.

Network connection to the living room is via a cisco powerline network extender that uses existing electrical house wiring.  I got this $90 network gadget in a random grab bag from woot.com last month for $8 shipped.    I plugged it in, and it just worked, with no throttling of network throughput, and no configuration required.   I’m getting a 10Mbs download stream at the remote hub just like I get at the source router.  That is over twice as fast as what’s needed for HD delivery.   And the added bonus is that my dish network DVR is now connected to the internet and I can manage the recordings over a web browser.  SOOO much easier to search for programming and navigate our queue of recorded programs. (Can a slingbox be far behind?)

But back to the streaming video: it almost indistinguishable from regular HD, although I did notice some visual stuttering during rapid camera pans.  We watched Julie and Julia Sunday afternoon, and there wasn’t a single hiccup in the whole movie.

Plus our first blu-ray DVD’s start arriving from netflix this week, and I look forward to that.

Hope this makes up a little bit to the family for my accidentally erasing the season finale of  Nurse Jackie,  after the series stopped airing on Showtime.

How do you deal with human error/mistakes and improve accountability?   In any event, but especially when safety is involved?

James Bagian—NASA astronaut turned VA patient safety expert—suggests in this Slate.com article to set a “blameworthy” criteria for mishaps.  His criteria is 3-fold: resulting from intentionally unsafe actions, intoxication, or criminal action (assault, rape or larceny).   I might add carelessness to that list, although from a systems perspective, carelessness can be the result of productivity standards set too high.

Bagian says that safety practices in our health care system are shameful compared with the fields of aeronautics and engineering.

Interesting series about wrongology on Slate.

Sunday Gina and I went to see the touring company of Chicago at Orlando’s Bob Carr center.  It was the final performance before they moved on, and our tickets were perhaps the best I’ve ever had at the Carr – orchestra center just 10 rows back.  Sight lines were ideal and I had no use for the opera glasses I brought along.   The Carr was nearly sold out.

I was a little surprised at the minimal staging.  The set was only a bandstand, and there were no costume changes.    However I read up later and found that this staging was characteristic of the 1996 Broadway revival of the show, which is still running today.  The original opened in 1975.    Popular thought is that the show resonated more with audiences in the 90′s era of celebrity criminals like OJ Simpson.  To me it brought to mind the media appetite for our local Casey Anthony case, a pretty young woman suspected of a particularly heinous murder.

The touring cast was polished and first rate.   Bonnie Langford was a little oldish for the part of Roxie Hart, but both she and Brent Barret (Billy Flynn) appeared in the Broadway revival at one point.  Langford is a Brit, best known as one of the 1980′s Dr. Who companions.   All cast members had near invisible body mics which were almost perfectly mixed from where I was seated.   The onstage band included a banjo player.   It was nice to hear some songs that were cut from the 2002 movie.

Stand by, I’ve got a couple of things to report on.

Rhapsody spun off from real networks and cuts its price by 33%. Wow, hope the service doesn’t die. I am a big fan and consumer.   See http://www.baribob.net/?p=612 News reports have that it went from 800,000 to 675,000 subscribers in 2009, its getting eaten up by free streaming services and youtube.

We were up and down this weekend.

1. Friday, Linda dropped her new Droid mobile device in a flooded gutter during the rainstorms, and it died.  We have no insurance and it is $600 to replace it.   It is business critical for her.
2. Friday eve Gina was ecstatic to learn she was accepted to UF – we took her and girlfriends out for BBQ to celebrate.
3. I had a great run Saturday AM, best since the marathon last month.
4. After drying overnight in the oven, Linda’s Droid booted up and appears to be running ok.  Hooray!  No visit to Verizon store at least for now.
5. Gina spent a bittersweet Saturday evening with friends who did not get into their dream schools.   Linda and I had a wonderful anniversary dinner at Nelore Churrascaria in Winter Park.  Highly recommend, for carnivores!
6. I developed a deep root toothache that kept me bedridden most of Sunday.  I called my dentist at home and he said come in first thing Monday.
7. Gina called Sunday evening to report her bumper had been smashed by a hit and run driver while parked at a friends house in Maitland.  Thanks to the Murray’s for assisting with the police call.
8. This morning, dentist tells me I have a fracture below the gumline, and best course of action is a root canal and a crown.  Ka-ching!

I saw Avatar 3D this afternoon, and it is an amazing movie.  But the digital projection technology was terrible.  There was no brightness to the screen, and no deep blacks at all.  It all looked like it was shot in a washed out fog.  If I’d been by myself, I would have asked for my money back or switched to another show with a film projector.  I have a much better picture on my HD television set.   After a while I got swept up in the movie itself and mentally adjusted to the diminished picture quality.

Funny, I can’t find any similar complaints on the web about this.  The theater was Premier cinemas in fashion square.

There is an emerging genre of edgy/sarcastic/snarky writing (on the internet? really???!) in some amazon product reviews. Check out these examples:

Quarter million dollar diamond ring
http://www.amazon.com/Platinum-Radiant-Trapezoid-Sidestones-Certified/product-reviews/B001G603AE/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

1 gallon whole milk ;”This product copiously leaks out of my nose whenever I read these reviews.” :
http://www.amazon.com/Tuscan-Whole-Milk-Gallon-128/product-reviews/B00032G1S0/ref=pr_all_summary_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

The steering wheel laptop desk I previously noted: http://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Office-WM-01-Laptop-Steering/product-reviews/B000IZGIA8/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

and of course the original, 3 wolf moon tshirt:
http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Mens-Three-Short-Sleeve/product-reviews/B002HJ377A/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1