The Great Wii Hunt

My wife and I recently decided to get a Wii. My parents got one for Christmas, and we’ve been over at their house playing it and waiting for the novelty to wear off. And guess what? It didn’t.

So when we found out we’d be getting a nice little chunk back on our taxes (we switched to the “married filing at single rate” payroll deduction option) we decided to get one. Well, it’s not like you can just run down to Wal-Mart and pick one up. We’ve been casually looking for about a month, but we’ve never spotted one.

On Friday, we started the aggressive searching. Of course, everywhere we went was sold out: Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart.

On Saturday, we expanded the search by turning to the phone. Some of the replies were less than energetic, and I had severe doubts that some agents were even looking. So, we used a two-pronged attack: we called, we drove, we called as we drove. Still, nothing. Though we did start putting some pieces together: Wiis arrive via UPS, not the regular store delivery trucks (this was confirmed by a couple of different retailers). I found out that UPS usually delivers to Wal-Mart late in the morning, around 11 or 12. This was a big relief – I was glad to hear that going to a store at 7am wouldn’t help.

On Sunday, we started enlisting the help of family and friends. We asked those close to us to keep their eyes peeled and their ears open. If they heard or saw anything Wii, they should notify us immediately. We continued the fruitless search online, but found nothing at the major retailers – all were SOLD OUT. We found a couple of package deals at EBGames.com, but we would end up paying around $475 and we’d get some games and accessories that we weren’t really sure we wanted or needed. Plus, the orders wouldn’t ship until 11 days later. EBay was no help at all. The Wii consoles alone were “buy it now” priced at $400. And some idiot was out there buying them all up on the live auctions with X***X profiles that were created two days ago (X being a random number or letter). We even tried searching EBay for nearby locations (to save on shipping) and found some creep in Chipley who had a sickening picture of a number of consoles all stacked up against a wall. He was selling bundles for some ridiculous amount. Cleary, a few “enterprising” morons are buying all the available stock online and in the stores to increase demand and garner a hefty markup.

By this time, the phone list had expanded to include Sears, K-Mart, FYE, and other lesser-known retailers. Still no luck.

On Monday, we found some Wii-tracking websites (like this one, or this one) that monitor online availability. We found out that UPS was delivering on the holiday, so we made another round of calls. Net result – nothing.

Today we had to go back to work. I’ll continue the search at lunch break.

Those Wacky Internet Domain Codes

Okay, so we're all familiar with ".com" as an internet domain code. I'm sure you've seen ".net" and ".org" as well. And you may even be familiar with some country codes...like Germany's ".de" or the United Kindom's ".gb".

Recently, I've seen a couple of ".tv" domain codes, and I just assumed that the preferred ".com" addresses were already taken. Actually, ".tv" is quite popular, and happens to be the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Tuvalu.

Yes, Tuvalu! It's a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Samoa and Fiji. Comprising four reef islands and five true atolls, with a gross land area of just 26 square kilometers (10 sq mi), it is the second-least populated independent country in the world. It is the smallest member by population of the United Nations. In terms of physical land size Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world, larger than only the Vatican City, Monaco and Nauru.

Any person in the world can register a .tv domain for a fee. The Tuvalu government receives a quarterly payment of US $1,000,000 for use of the top-level domain. The domain name is popular, and thus economically valuable (other similar ccTLDs are .fm, .am, .cd, and .dj). The domain is currently operated by dotTV, a VeriSign company. The Tuvalu government owns twenty percent of the company.

Here's some other ccTLDs you may or may not be familiar with:

.ac - Ascension Island
.aw - Aruba
.bf - Burkina Faso
.bj - Benin
.bv - Bouvet Island
.er - Eritrea
.fj - Fiji
.gg - Guernsey
.gp - Guadeloupe
.gw - Guinea-Bissau
.ht - Haiti
.im - Isle of Man
.iq - Iraq
.is - Iceland
.ki - Kiribati
.kg - Kyrgyzstan
.kz - Kazakhstan
.mm - Myanmar (Burma)
.no - Norway
.nu - Niue
.pn - Pitcairn Island
.re - Reunion Island
.sh - St Helena
.sr - Suriname
.tg - Togo
.ug - Uganda
.vu - Vanuatu
.ye - Yemen
.yt - Mayotte

Today in History - January 18, 1778

Captain James Cook became the first European to "discover" the Hawaiian Islands on January 18, 1778. He made initial landfall at Waimea harbour, Kauai, where he named the archipelago the "Sandwich Islands" after the fourth Earl of Sandwich, the acting First Lord of the Admiralty.

Cook returned to the islands in 1779. After a month's stay at Kealakekua Bay, on the "big island" of Hawaii, his expedition got under sail again to resume his exploration of the Northern Pacific. Shortly after leaving, the foremast of his command ship (the HMS Resolution) broke and the party returned to Kealakekua Bay for repairs. Tensions rose and a number of quarrels broke out between the Europeans and Hawaiians.

On February 14 at Kealakekua Bay, some Hawaiians took one of Cook's small boats. Cook attempted to take the Chief of Hawaii, Kalaniopu'u, as his hostage. The Hawaiians prevented this, and Cook's men had to retreat to the beach. As Cook turned his back to help launch the boats, he was struck on the head by the villagers and then stabbed to death as he fell on his face in the surf.

Remember...

...there's always light at the end of the tunnel!

Today in History – January 7, 1610

On January 7, 1610, nearly four hundred years ago, Galileo wrote a letter containing the first mention of Jupiter’s moons. At the time, he only saw three of them, and he believed them to be fixed stars near Jupiter. He continued to observe these celestial orbs from January 8 through March 2. In these observations, he discovered a fourth body, and also observed that the four were not fixed stars, but rather were orbiting Jupiter. He attempted to call the objects the Medicea Sidera ("the Medician stars”) after the Medici family, whose patronage he was trying to secure.

The names that eventually prevailed were chosen by Simon Marius, who claimed to have discovered the moons at the same time as Galileo. He named them after lovers of the god Zeus (the Greek equivalent of Jupiter): Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Galileo was perturbed by this, and refused to use the names. He referred to them instead as Jupiter I, II, III and IV, creating a numbering scheme that is still in use today.

Though his name for the bodies didn’t stick, Galileo is credited with their discovery and the moons are still referred to as Galilean Moons.

A composite image showing the relative sizes of the four moons as compared to Jupiter. From the top: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

What Is the Name of This Dinosaur?

If you said Brontosaurus, you’re wrong. If you said Apatosaurus, you’re way too smart for this blog and I would question what you’re doing here. Because frankly…you’re making me nervous.

A massive skeleton was found in 1879 by Othniel Marsh, a Professor of Paleontology at Yale University. Marsh incorrectly identified the find as a new species, and he called it Brontosaurus excelsus. What was actually discovered was an adult-sized Apatosaurus, a species that was already known at the time.

A display of the gigantic mounted skeleton (with a Camarasaurus head) cemented the name Brontosaurus (thunder lizard) into the public consciousness.

It wasn’t long before the find was identified correctly and the new name was dropped in the scientific community. However, the public had already latched on to the name Brontosaurus for the famously large creature and the term was used incorrectly for almost a century. In fact, the designation persisted as an official term in literature until at least 1974. Of course, the Flintstones didn’t help much!

Because of the wide use of the term, the words brontosaurus, brontosaurs, and brontosaurians (no capital 'B'; no italics) are often used to refer generically to any of the sauropod dinosaurs. But there is no such dinosaur as Brontosaurus.

2007 Christmas Collabo

What would Christmas be without a compilation of the greatest stars singing a classic Christmas favorite? Well, not much, I can tell you that!

Enjoy!

Featuring (In order of appearance):

Frank Sinatra

Elvis Presley

William Hung

The Partridge Family

Willie Nelson

Macy Gray

The Andrews Sisters

Stryper

Dean Martin

Manhattan Transfer

Barney

Neil Diamond

Barry Manilow

James Taylor

Clay Aiken

Jewel

Johnny Mathis

Brian Setzer

Eurythmics

Tony Bennet

and last but not least...Mr. Ringo Starr

General Mills Stock Downgraded to Mean

I found the following in Kevin Depew's 'Five Things You Need to Know to Stay Ahead of the Pack on Wall Street' for December 19, 2007. Click here for the full article.

The move by General Mills back in June to raise the price of its cereal while decreasing the box size so that customers would hopefully be fooled by the cost increase, prompted a mixed response from Wall Street analysts. Some applauded the move, upgrading the stock from "Earnest" to "Sneaky", while other Wall Street analysts found the whole thing confusing.

Here's a transcript from a portion of that previous analyst call:

Analyst: So let me see if I understand this. The price of your cereal is going up?
General Mills Spokesperson: That's correct.
Analyst: But the price per box is actually going down?
General Mills Spokesperson: Correct.
Analyst: So then how is the price going up?
General Mills Spokesperson: Because we're making the box smaller.
Analyst: Ok, but you just said the price of each box is going to be less.
General Mills Spokesperson: Yes, that's true.
Analyst: So then you're actually lowering prices.
General Mills Spokesperson: No, we're raising prices.
Analyst: How?
General Mills Spokesperson: Look, you're an analyst, you work with numbers.
Analyst: Right. Ok. I got it.
General Mills Spokesperson: Next question.
Analyst: Uh, actually, I don't get it. How can you raise the price by lowering the price?
General Mills Spokesperson: Because we're decreasing the size of the box.
Analyst: Ok, but you're charging less for each box.
General Mills Spokesperson: Yes. Because we're decreasing the size.
Analyst: Ah, I get it. So then the price is really the same, you're just making the box smaller which makes the price look lower.
General Mills Spokesperson: No, no, no! Listen. We're raising the price of our cereal.
Analyst: But -
General Mills Spokesperson: Shut up! Now listen, we're raising the price of our cereal.
Analyst: (Silence).
General Mills Spokesperson: Say it.
Analyst: We're raising the price of our cereal.
General Mills Spokesperson: Good. We're raising the price of our cereal... while simultaneously making the box smaller. Go on, say it.
Analyst: While simultaneously making the box smaller...
General Mills Spokesperson: But... and this is the important part... but we're raising the price more than we're decreasing the size of the box... go on...
Analyst: But we're raising the price more than we're decreasing the size of the box.
General Mills Spokesperson: So...
Analyst: So...
General Mills Spokesperson: That...
Analyst: That...
General Mills Spokesperson: Come on...
Analyst: Come -
General Mills Spokesperson: No, I mean, come on and follow the thought. So that...
Analyst: Oh. So that...
General Mills Spokesperson: The...
Analyst: The... price is lower?
General Mills Spokesperson: No! So that the customer...
Analyst: So that the customer...
General Mills Spokesperson: Will.
Analyst: Will.
General Mills Spokesperson: Oh good Lord. So that the customer will think the price has gone down when it's really gone up!
Analyst: Oh.
General Mills Spokesperson: See? Price increase. Smaller box. Larger price increase than smaller box.
Analyst: Right. I still don't get it.
General Mills Spokesperson: You know what? Just forget it.
Analyst: I'm going to have to downgrade your stock, you know.
General Mills Spokesperson: Good. Good. You do that.
Analyst: I will.
General Mills Spokesperson: I don't even want you to rate our stock positive.
Analyst: Good, because I won't.
General Mills Spokesperson: It would be an insult to the company for you to rate it positive.
Analyst: I'm downgrading your stock to "Mean."

I don't know who to feel more sorry for - the spokesperson getting super frustrated, or the analyst getting yelled at! Ah, capitalism...ain't it grand?

Dumb Steve Joke VI

A German, A Pole, and Dumb Steve were all hiking in the Alps. They had reached the peak, had a nice picnic lunch, and were headed back down the narrow trail when a rockslide came thundering down the mountain. All three got safely out of the way, but were perturbed to find their only path was now blocked.

They were contemplating this predicament when all of a sudden, a blinding flash of light appeared. It slowly faded, and revealed the Good Fairy smiling gently at the hikers.

"I have come to grant you all one wish," she stated. "I will turn you into anything you desire - simply shout it out and I will make it so."

The hikers were shocked and stunned, but were truly grateful for the oppourtunity.

The German began running, and when he reached the edge of the cliff he leaped into the air and shouted, "An eagle!"

POOF! The German was turned into a majestic bald eagle, who soared away gracefully.

The Pole then jumped off of the edge of the cliff and bellowed, "A hawk!"

POOF! He was turned into a regal hawk, who flew elegantly toward the horizon.

Dumb Steve thought for a moment, then ran towards the edge of the cliff. Just before he reached the edge, he stumbled and said, "Crap!"

POOF!

Florida State's Going to the Music City Bowl!

Florida State is headed to the 2007 Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl in Nashville, TN. The Seminoles (7-5, 4-4 ACC) will face the Kentucky Wildcats (7-5, 3-5 SEC). FSU fans travel well, but the proximity of the location to Kentucky's home turf should skew the crowd to Kentucky's advantage. Both teams posess talented athletes, both teams have potent offenses that (when cooperating) are capable of putting up big numbers, and both teams have wins against chart-topping rivals...so this should turn out to be an interesting matchup. You can watch the game on Monday, December 31, at 3:00pm CST on ESPN.

Kentucky got off to a quick start earlier in the year, and were ranked #8 with a record of 5-0 after beating both Louisville and Arkansas. The Wildcats were tripped up by South Carolina, but rebounded in style by defeating LSU, at the time ranked #1, currently ranked #2 and headed to the Allstate National Championship. The magic didn't last, however, and Kentucky suffered losses in four of their final five games of the season - all at the hands of SEC opponents.

The Seminoles have lost some conference heart-breakers as well, including the season-opening Bowden Bowl loss to Clemson. Florida State took the lead against both Wake Forest and Miami, but couldn't hold on. The Seminoles did manage to sparkle early against Boston College, and the 'Noles hung on to beat comeback-kid and Heisman hopeful Matt Ryan, whose BC team was ranked #2 at the time.

Bobby Bowden has led FSU to 26 straight bowl appearances, including two National Championships. The 78-year-old Bowden is the winningest coach in major college football with 373 wins, two more than Penn State's Joe Paterno. Bobby has also agreed to coach Florida State for another year, signing a deal that extends his contract through the 2008-2009 season, worth just under $2.5 million.