November 8, 2013

KOMO News: Seattle entrepreneur testing the law with his pot delivery service (recreational MJ)

I gave this a try today. More details below the KOMO News (Seattle) story about the recreational marijuana delivery service operating legally in King County:



I've lived long enough to know that when an online advertisement includes the words, "no bullshit," it's always, always, always bullshit.

by Shampoobra

So when I saw those words on Winterlife Co-op's Craigslist ad this morning, knowing that "no bullshit" always equals bullshit, I didn't get my hopes up too high.

Okay, so there's this one first time. I admit it. One time, ever, a guy wrote "no bullshit" on a web ad, and it was true. That time was today.

I don't live in King County, and it was a long, boring, windy and rainy drive, and it sucked having to do that in my old car, and people were driving like Washingtonians, but it was totally worth it. If I lived in the Seattle area, they would have delivered it to my house. Instead, we agreed on a meeting place within Winterlife's delivery area, and the transaction was made in just a little more than the time it took me to drive there.

Keep in mind, this was with nothing more than a Washington State driver's license to prove I'm a resident and 21 years of age or older. I didn't need a medical marijuana card.

EDITED TO ADD: The recreational pot stores won't open in this state for another 6 months or more.

I got the Indica I wanted (from a wide selection of various strains), and was able to discover for the first time whether or not I like edibles. He had a great selection of those, and it turns out, I'm big fan of the edibles. Who could have guessed.

The representative I met with could have, by all appearances, fit into any job type. I used profanity a few times (bad habit), but he never did. It wasn't like doing a drug deal. He could have been an office worker or a machinist or a school teacher, and strikes me as someone I would feel comfortable having in my house. One of the unfortunate facts of pot prohibition was that we often found ourselves meeting with people we didn't necessarily trust, but this experience was as normal as any other retail transaction.

I still can't get over how easy the whole thing was. The guy I met with is one of four, and each serves a separate Seattle area. He was going to send me to the person who does the downtown area, but I'd rather eat glass than try to drive in downtown Seattle traffic. So he had no problem meeting me at a location just off Interstate 5. When I arrived in the Seattle area and called him to revise my ETA, he answered on the first ring.

Quick, smooth, professional, trustworthy ... and no bullshit.

October 24, 2013

I'm learning some amazing things about Teddy, Franklin, and Eleanor

(First, a disclaimer. I'm getting all this from the Roosevelts' Wikipedia pages, meaning I'm certainly no historian, and some of this could be inaccurate.)

Contrary to what I had previously believed, Teddy Roosevelt was not FDR's uncle. Teddy was Eleanor's uncle. Roosevelt was her maiden name and her married name. She was born Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, and married Teddy's fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

FDR's New Deal was born of a Republican's ideology. Republican Teddy Roosevelt introduced the "Square Deal" in a speech he gave a little more than a year after leaving office. He didn't live to see the New Deal.

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Teddy's mother and his first wife both died of separate causes on Valentine's Day, when he was just 25 years old. (Typhiod fever took his mother, and kidney failure took his wife. Her pregnancy had masked her condition, and she died two days after giving birth. The baby girl went to live with Teddy's sister until she was three, at which point he took custody of her.)

Teddy's second wife, Edith (who served as First Lady during his presidency) campaigned for Herbert Hoover in his 1932 reelection bid. Hoover's challenger was FDR.

October 24, 2013

Looking for Halloween costume suggestions, but the parameters are very specific

I appreciate any input. I almost never "do" Halloween, other than giving out candy to trick or treaters. So the specs are as follows.

I'm looking for a costume that:

1. takes almost no effort

2. cost nothing, or close to nothing

3. is appropriate for a party I'd rather not attend

4. is appropriate for a guy like me who doesn't really care for Halloween all that much

5. is appropriate for a Halloween party which has as its theme: "Bring something to eat that starts with a letter of the alphabet"

October 22, 2013

Age test: And just what the hell is THIS?

I suspect this one might be something I don't understand because I'm too old, not too young.

I was in a waiting room yesterday, and saw a basket with a sign: "Free stuff!" The basket contained things like condoms, laminated cards that gave suggestions on how to spot human trafficking, and this item.

I apologize for the terrible quality of the photo. I save a lot of money using this crap phone, and it's the only camera I currently own.

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The blue thing on the right is a cap. The black strips attached to the silver thing are spongy, like ink pads, but clean and dry.

The presence of a ring suggests it's an item that one might need badly enough to carry it on his or her key chain.

It's very light-weight, and other than the blue lid that caps it, the item doesn't open or close.

October 22, 2013

A friendly warning: Don’t be too quick to get rid of all those DVDs and Blu-rays

(Before I start, please understand that I don’t consider this a “problem” compared to actual problems such as poverty, sickness, the death of a loved one, a friend’s betrayal, and so on. I learned a long time ago to keep little annoyances such as this one in their proper perspective. This is simply a friendly warning to anyone who might be about to make the same mistake I made.)

I’m afraid to add up how much I’ve spent on Amazon Instant Video movies and TV shows since I bought my Kindle Fire HD. It’s definitely more than “hundreds,” but I’m not sure if I can claim to have spent “thousands.”

Adding up the total cost would make me sick, given what I just discovered, so I won’t add it up. But it’s a lot.

When I purchased season 9 of The Office on Amazon Instant Video last June, the season finale (which was also the series finale) was 52 minutes long. (It was 52 minutes long when I watched it on NBC the night it originally aired, and it was 52 minutes long when I purchased and downloaded it on Amazon Instant Video.)

Over the past four months, I’ve been slowly re-watching the season on my Kindle. Last night, I began watching the season finale again.

It was 44 minutes long. Amazon had shortened content I already “owned.”

This left me wondering why I had fallen under the assumption that physical media was somehow inferior to digital media. I have never had a DVD or Blu-ray suddenly and inexplicably become shorter in length after I watched it and put it on my shelf.

My first clue was when Dwight failed to refer to PBS as “the propaganda wing of Bill and Melinda Gates - and (addressing the camera) viewers like you” in the first minutes of the episode. It was a great line, given Dwight’s authoritarian personality. (I can’t help but wonder what was behind the decision to censor that particular line.)

But at first I just assumed my memory was failing. I knew Dwight’s PBS/Gates comment was there, because when I bought the season in June, I plugged my Kindle into my TV and watched the finale with a friend. (This was just a short time after NBC originally aired the episode.) We talked about the PBS/Gates comment at the time.

So last night, I thought at first that Dwight’s PBS/Gates comment must have been somewhere other than in the first few minutes of the episode. Then I checked the length of the episode, and that’s when I got a shock that made me lose faith in digital downloads.

At some point since I watched the finale last June, Amazon has cut eight minutes from the episode.

I called customer service, and they refunded the original purchase price. That was really nice of them (normally, a customer has up to seven days to return digital content), but I can’t see any reason to ever buy another Kindle book, movie, TV show, game, or app.

I bought the content on the assumption that it was safe on Amazon’s servers, because why would they want to lose a compulsive spender like myself? But lose me they did. There’s just no reason to keep buying content that can be altered/shortened when my back is turned.

And since I’ve gotten used to the extra space where my physical media used to be (before I donated hundreds of books and movies to charity) ... well, I guess I’m done buying those, as well.

October 16, 2013

A question for those who watch movies in theaters

I haven't been to a movie theater in years. (I like movies, but I watch streaming rentals, digital download purchases, DVDs, and Blu-rays.) The last time I was in a movie theater, texting hadn't really caught on yet.

My question is about an article I just read...

Many of the comments below the article are in agreement with the theater, and having never been in a theater while someone was texting, I can't figure out what the problem is.

It's not like I have a pro-texting position. If it's a distraction to other patrons, then I can just add it to the long list of other reasons I avoid theaters.

Is it the light of the phone that bothers others? An audio signal that sounds each time a text is sent? (I do use my own phone to send texts, but it's a silent process when I need it to be.)

October 13, 2013

Kicking for the Sunday morning lounge

I can't stop listening to this

October 2, 2013

"The bird mummies of Natron: Lake's waters petrify animals that fall in"

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/bird-mummies-natron-lakes-toxic-waters-petrify-animals-fall-8C11322626

September 29, 2013

YouTube: "The Last of Us - Alternate Ending (2nd Secret Deleted Ending)"

September 21, 2013

GTA V: I hope this heads-up will save someone a lot of wasted (actual) time and (virtual) money

Possible SPOILERS below (unless you've already completed 21 percent of the game. If you've passed 21 percent, then they're not spoilers)...

I'll tell you the "what" (non-spoiler), then the "why" (spoilers) further down this page.

Here's how I wasted a whole bunch of time and money during the first 21 percent of my first play-through (I'm planning to start over from the beginning):

I upgraded two character's cars, spending each of their savings, thinking these vehicles would be safe in the character's safe-house garages. (After all, the game tells you to store your vehicles there, and it is a safe-house, so the player will naturally feel like the safe-house garage is a good place to store a vehicle they've invested a lot in.)

These vehicles are not safe in the safe-house garages. Do not upgrade your vehicles until you've purchased a separate garage for each character. These are separate from the garages attached to the safe-houses.

So buy a garage ($30,000), upgrade your vehicle, and then store it in the new garage.

Here's why (spoilers below)...

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SPOILERS:

I had spent almost all of the fortune Franklin had accumulated, tricked out a sports car in every way possible, parked it in his safe-house garage (in the run-down neighborhood where Franklin starts out), and went on a mission. The mission ended with a gift of free rent at a luxury property Michael had just purchased. Franklin got a phone call telling him about his new residence, and stating that a crew had already moved all of Franklin's belongings to the new house. But they hadn't moved everything. The garage at the new place was empty, and the garage at the old place would no longer open.

Something similar happened to Michael. Right after spending most of his money on a vehicle upgrade, he got a message from his son saying he borrowed the car, and would return it someday.

So I'm starting over, but not only because I accidentally wiped out two of the three characters' savings. I also want to see if Franklin can avoid the green motorcycle. I've tried blowing that thing up, riding it into the ocean, and leaving it in bad neighborhoods, but it always ends up back in my driveway. My million dollar cars are not safe in the safe-house garages, but this damn bike keeps following me around like a homeless dog!