Stuff Archives

Well, the outbound flight from San Francisco to Houston wasn't much fun given that I had to get up at 3:15 am to get to the airport. Used to be a time when I saw 3:15 when it came around rather than getting up to meet it, but those days are all but gone except for special occasions.

Three and a half hours on the plane - what is there to look forward to? Some kids movie or a cut up episode of a not very funny American sitcom? No thank you. It's the Sky Mall magazine! I have to be honest, I try and do anything to resist the urge to look at it, but at some point during the flight I will pick it up and read through. It kills me as I always think "there's no way I'd buy this crap" but always end up thinking "that'd be quite cool." So what's on my list:

- A remote control R2D2 because it would be cool.
- A hot dog toaster because it's called a "hot diggity dogger" and I think it would be so funny to tell people that my "hot diggity dogger" came in the mail or see how many conversation I can bring it up in. (I'm probably going to find that everybody already has one).
- An ice cream making machine because it's ice cream and Mr Whippy doesn't come round these parts.

That said, the best item on the list (and I need to say added recently - yep, I travel enough to have memorized the Sky Mall catalog and now look forward to changes) was a lightening detector. Bear with me on this. This device will apparently detect if lightning is coming, around 40 miles away if I remember correctly, in order that you can get to safety! Don't we have a saying about things that are rare and not going to happen that goes something like "that's about as likely as being struck by lightening"? So it makes perfect sense to come up with a device that warns you of this unlikely event. (Just in case the loud thunder noise didn't give away the fact that there's lightening in the area anyway).

Wouldn't you have liked to have been round the table when someone came up with that idea? Actually, I'd rather have been round the table when the marketing group came up with the idea of selling it on an airplane. Is it likely that someone who's paranoid enough to buy a lightening detector because they think they may get struck by lightening is going to get onto a plane?

I'll leave you with that thought whilst I go and order my hot diggity dogger!

Sprint, one of the US wireless network service providers, today announced that they were cutting contracts with 1,000 odd of their customers who have excessively used the support desk. At first this seems very alarming, however, when you get into it, these people have been calling the help desk between 40 to 50 times a month on a regular basis.

Obviously we don't want companies just deciding who they are going to allow to be their customers on an ad hoc basis, but if the facts provided about excessive usage are true then I'm all for it as these Muppets are just increasing the cost for the rest of us. Don't they have any friends?

I don't know about you guys, but we argue in our house every time we need to call customer service about anything. It usually goes something like "it's your turn because I did it last time" You've got to be really desperate to want to talk to the support desk more than you need to.

No, this isn't an article about that “special place” that you don't get to visit very often after marriage and kids. This is about Houston. That place that you do get to visit on a regular basis after marriage and kids.

Why on earth does anyone choose to live here? It's so muggy. And I'm told it's not that bad at the minute, it will get worse in August. I'm glad I'm only here for a couple of days as the heat and humidity oppressive. I have nothing against Houston - as a city, it's fine. It's just the weather.

Anyway, don't ask how, but whilst here in Houston I came across this YouTube post that I couldn't stop laughing at and I think actually fits the title “Wet and Warm” very well.

As Independence Day draws to a close, time to contemplate being American. Which I'm not, but my son is, so it's probably quite wonderful at the minute as he seems fascinated by any tiny little thing.

I think the best thing I've heard of late was on the local news. San Francisco is hosting the Major League Baseball (MLB) All Stars game. Which, most people are getting very excited about. Wereas I am probably more worried about how much extra traffic it's going to cause. (No, that's not true - it's still a sport, so I will be compelled to watch it). Anyway, back to the American thing, the news presented quoted:


Still, when you name your biggest domestic competition the World Series, what should I expect?

Then again, if I didn't like it here, I wouldn't be here. So it's time to head out and watch some fireworks go bang.

Where do you start? There are some days that are good and then there are some days that are great. Then every now and then one of those days turns up that you won't forget for as long as you live. Maybe not quite as significant as February 27, 2000 watching Matt Elliot put the winner past Tranmere, but June 24, 2007 saw Juan Pablo Montoya take his first victory in NASCAR.

One of the most exciting races I've seen (and probably because the person I was following won), but it really did seem like a great race. JP started a poor 32nd on the grid, but made a great start. Each lap he seemed to gain a place. However, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon were making a charge from the back. Circa lap 30 saw Johnson and Montoya enter probably the best battle of the race. For several laps they traded places and all the time it was painful to watch as clearly they would have been better just working together to move up positions (but, at the end of the day, it's a race so what do you expect?)

Finally pit stops split Johnson and Montoya leaving Montoya open to run his own race. Credit to Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon being the only other two drivers to pass Montoya. Gordon's seemed to be tied in to pit rotations, but Stewart's was clearly in open race. (What does Stewart need to do to win a race this season? At one point he was leading this race by a mile and clearly was the best driver on the track given clean air).

Montoya's victory has to be attributed to a great pit stop call that brought him in on the earliest lap possible to give him enough fuel to run to the end of the race. After his last pit, he exited near the front, chasing car after car and ultimately chasing down Harvick then McMurray to take the lead

After gaining the lead it was plain sailing all the way to the checkered flag. One parade lap, then the most feeble burn out as Montoya's car ran out of fuel. Having been to a lot of football games and watched the clock tick down as Leicester cling on for a victory, I'm no stranger to the last minute nail biter. That said, the last 10 laps of this race seemed to take an age and all the time I was wondering whether the 42 car had enough petrol in the tank to see it through. Fortunately enough to cross the finish line and briefly do this:

So, gorgeous weather, an afternoon drinking beer and watching your chosen driver take his first NASCAR win. Does life get any better?

Congratulations again to Juan Pablo and the Texaco/Havoline team.

For more NASCAR photos of this and other races, see the NASCAR photo page.

Between the final practice for the Nextel Cup and the Blue Lizard 200 race the message board popped up the message:

"Whad'up Cletus and Jeb? Welcome to NASCAR."

There are many questions that pop into mind here. I'll keep mine simle with "how can someone called Cletus have not been to NASCAR?"

Congragulations to David Gilliland for winning the NASCAR Grand National Division, West Series race at Infineon yesterday (aka Blue Lizard 200).


To be honest the biggest challange for Gilliland was to not run into the back of the pace truck. The race had its moments, but was somewhat marred by the number of laps under caution, particularly when there didn't seem to be that many incidents. Gilliland took first place from PJ Jones followed by Boris Said who also put in good performances.

Special mention should go to Jason Bowles in the 22 car that had one of those days where everything was going wrong. Also Carlos Contreras in the 12 car. Although neither Rick or Eric finished in the top 10, it was not for lack of trying. Both these drivers made the race exciting making several excellent passing moves in front of us on turn 7, like the one pictured below.

EastBayRag wishes Juan Pablo Montoya and the Texaco/Havoline Team all the best in tomorrow's Nextel Cup race at Infineon Raceway. After a disappointing 32nd on qualifying, JP took to the tracks today for the final practice to try and get a little more out of the car. Although the performance was better, it's going to be a long race on Sunday and there's a lot of ground to be made up. A couple of photos from this afternoon's final practice. First, JP heading into turn 4


And then next rouding turn 7

Couple of key things to note, first, these are both right turns (as this is one of the track races of the NASCAR series). Second, the clockwise direction (which would lead to more righ turns if you think about it). Anyway, with JP's experience on track circuit's a lot is hoped for this weekend, so go for it ...

.... Leisure Suit Larry?? What a brilliant game that was.

Why does this come to mind you ask? Well, over on the Graffiti Wall "somebody" stuck up something that simply says "Ken Sent Me." Made no sense to me, so I asked what it was. Apparently this was some graffiti that was written on the bathroom wall of the first LSL game. How's that for a random memory.