Here’s a video from Los Straitjackets.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls9-smAgSRI[/youtube]
Daylight Savings Time Is A Joke
We “sprung forward” over the weekend, or at least most of us did. Daylight Savings Time went into effect Sunday morning, and as usual, my sleep cycle is screwed up.
Someone computed that the “opportunity” cost of changing the clocks twice a year (if you figure it takes 15 minutes to change all your clocks) was something like $1.7 billion. That’s the time it takes times an average hourly rate of $17 ish times the number of people in the US.
That’s one hidden cost. Another hidden cost is productivity. If you follow your circadian rhythm after DST goes into effect, you’ll end up going to sleep one hour later. So instead of going to sleep at 11 pm, you go to sleep at midnight. If you get up at 7 pm, you’ve lost an hour of sleep. You’re going to drive to work groggier, be less productive at work, and be more tired at the end of the day. And in this current economic situation, anything that reduces productivity should be done away with.
Ben Franklin is credited with coming up with Daylight Savings Time. But it seems he suggested it more as a joke than anything. He says that he woke up early one day in Paris, and found that the sun was already up (at 6 am). He then calculates how many pounds of candles would be saved if people used daylight instead of candlelight (kind of like the “early to bed, early to rise” saying).
No one took the idea seriously until the World War I. The Germans adopted it early in the war, and the US adopted it late. It was ultimately repealed in the US in 1919 because it was so unpopular.
I daresay it’s pretty unpopular now, especially after Congress added a few more weeks to DST. The kicker there is that they used numbers from the 1970’s that touted how much energy would be saved. The government entity that produced those numbers not only says they’re out of date, but they’re wrong. So Congress passes a law based on faulty or inaccurate information. What else is new?
We need to repeal this stupid law. Or at the very least, split the difference, and “spring ahead” a half hour one time, and be done with it.
H/T: Failed Success
World’s Largest Record Collection
Paul Mawhinney began collecting records (for you kids out there, a “record” is a flat disc you put on a “record player” in order to hear music) 60 years ago. He now has over 1,000,000 records and his collection is worth millions. But he’s put the collection up for sale due to declining health and other reasons.
Here’s a short video about the collection:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWyMjzVXq7Y[/youtube]
I don’t know why someone like Paul McCartney wouldn’t buy this. This collection needs to be kept intact.
NASCAR: The Big One
I was a little surprised with this last Daytona 500, or at least the coverage of it. Normally you hear drivers complaining about restrictor plates and how those plates are dangerous because they cause “the big one”. Never mind the fact that most of those “big ones” are caused by driver error (or if you’re Junior, stupidity). Somehow it’s those plates that cause big pile ups.
But if you look back at the history of the Daytona 500, you’ll find that they had “big ones” before restrictor plates. As a matter of fact, in the 1960 500, they had the biggest ever “big one”: 37 cars. Yes, 37 cars were involved in one wreck on lap one of the 1960 Daytona 500. The field was pretty big too: 68 cars.
My point here is that big wrecks aren’t caused by restrictor plates; they’re usually caused by human error or mechanical failure. I’m sure people will say that restrictor plates cause the cars to be bunched up together, and that’s true to a certain extent. But cars are going to be bunched up together on other tracks. Take Bristol (please). Wrecks involving 25% of the field happen there regularly, but all we hear is the NASCAR propaganda that Bristol is one of the most exciting tracks they race on. Bull.
Anyway, here’s a little video of that big wreck at Daytona in 1960.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Eb3Sf6Kf1I[/youtube]
NASCAR: Random Racin’ Ruminations
SHOOTOUT: Rookies shouldn’t be allowed in the Shootout. Enough said.
TRUCK SERIES: The truck series new rule about not having more than five men over the wall at a time showed itself to be stupid the other night. Trucks would come in and either get tires or fuel, then circle back around and get fuel or tires. I can see only having 12 pit crew members as a valid cost cutting measure. But it doesn’t make sense to force the trucks to make two pit stops under one caution. NASCAR already extends cautions too long to allow teams to pit; this just makes them even longer. If they want to do something crazy, why not have a rule that makes teams choose between fuel and tires on a pit stop under caution? In other words, if a caution comes out, you can pit, and you can choose to change tires or fill up with fuel. None of this “double dipping” nonsense we saw the other night.
LOGANO: I’m a little tired already of people telling me how great Joey Logano is. It kind of puts me off of him, especially when there are others as (if not more) talented than he is. Gibbs should have let him run a couple years in the Grand National series before giving him a Cup ride.
GRAND NATIONALS: (Since I don’t get paid to mention the series sponsors, I refer to it by its old name, the Grand National Series.) Saturday’s race was pretty decent. It shows that NASCAR should have left that aero package on the Cup cars up until the new car was mandated. They passed, they ran three wide, and, they didn’t have “the big one”.
RETIRING DRIVERS: Memo to Mark Martin and Bill Elliot – if you’re going to retire, then retire. I realize Mark is back to a full-time ride this year with Hendrick, to try to accomplish something he could never do with Roush (that is, to win a championship). But a few years ago, he announced he was retiring. Aging drivers run the risk of falling into the Petty/Waltrip trap: continuing to drive way past the time they should have gotten out of the car. Take a page from Rusty Wallace and Dale Jarrett – just retire.
PAINT SCHEMES: I have to say, I really like the scheme of the 24 Cup car this season. Don’t know what it is, but it’s really sharp. And who would have ever thought we’d see a #43 without a trace of Petty Blue? Seeing that it really solidified the fact that Richard Petty is now just a figurehead in “Richard Petty Motorsports”.
START TIMES: I realize the broadcasters want me to watch the pre-race shows, but frankly, I’m not interested. I want to see on my DVR’s guide when the actual race coverage starts. Back when I was a bigger fan, I watched all the coverage I could find. But now I actually have a life, and I’ve got other things to. By combining the pre-race coverage with the actual race coverage, I’m prevented from time-shifting the race without paying a little attention to the pre-race show. NASCAR has the start time on their schedule on their web site, but it was still 20 minutes earlier than the actual race start. And one more thing: NASCAR needs to move the start times up. This race should have started about two hours earlier than it did. If it had started earlier, it would have been over by the time the rain came.
ANTHEM: One of my pet peeves is the performance of the National Anthem. Nine times out of ten it’s just awful: the performers try to “make it their own” or show their improvisational skills or whatever. The one before the Daytona 500 was no exception. I don’t know who the guy was, but it sounded like he’d rather have been anywhere else but Daytona. Who auditions these people?
SELLOUTS: They said during the broadcast that it took until Saturday night to sell out all the seats for the 500. And for the first time I can ever remember, Bristol has season tickets available. Perhaps this might give the promoters a clue that their product is overpriced.
COMPETITION CAUTIONS: If NASCAR is going to mandate that teams come in for a competition caution to check tires, then the teams should restart in the same order they were running in before the caution. This is not like a caution for a wreck; this is something the teams have foreknowledge of. Plus, they shouldn’t let them make any chassis adjustments. Just change four tires, fill up with gas, and go back out in the order you came in.
SPONSOR RESTRAINT: It’s obvious that Verizon and AT&T have a TON of money to spend in sponsorships. That’s why it’s mind boggling that NASCAR would give the series sponsor exclusivity. So we have two sponsors that could help underfunded teams being shut out. As a result, they’re paying the TV networks instead of teams. I think one of the interesting side effects of the exclusivity deal is that AT&T and Verizon have more mentions during the broadcast than Sprint.
ROUGH DRIVING: Apparently there’s a different standard for rough driving in the Grand National Series than there is in the Cup Series. Jason Leffler did a move similar to Dale Earnhardt, Jr., but got penalized five laps for it. Imagine if it’d been Kyle Busch who’d made that stupid, boneheaded move that wrecked the whole field. We’d never hear the end of it. Busch showed a LOT of class and maturity in his interview after the wreck. Earnhardt’s excuse during the rain delay rang hollow. What, he doesn’t have a brake pedal?
2009: I was kind of excited for the racing season to get started back up again. But after seeing NASCAR’s blatent favoritism toward’s Dale Jr., it’s put me off. I’d kind of planned on watching more races this year than I had in the last few years, but I think I’ll probably have other things to do most weekends. So, thanks NASCAR. You’ve lost a fan, again.
Raising Sand, Redux
Well over a year ago, I wrote about the collaboration between Robert Plant and Allison Krauss, two artists that couldn’t be more different.
They’d just released a collaboration called Raising Sand. It had all the earmarks of a great project: two incredible vocalists and an incredible producer in T Bone Burnett.
But to me, the music wasn’t up to the abilities of the vocalists. It seemed like the music just laid there and didn’t do anything.
I guess someone somewhere liked it, at least enough folks in the Recording Academy at least. It won a total of five GRAMMYs the other night: Record Of The Year, Album Of The Year, Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals, Best Country Collaboration With Vocals, and Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it. The songs are just awful. Burnett, Plant, and Krauss could have picked much better songs. With all the talent here in Nashville, there’s really no excuse to record such lousy songs. And then to win not one but five GRAMMYs?
I’m here to say that this emperor has no clothes.
Jacob Moon
Since the title of this blog came from a song by Webb Wilder, I think I’m going to try to start blogging more about music. So, here’s a video of a song that was originally done by Rush on their Signals album (yeah, I have the vinyl album). But this guy, Jacob Moon, does a very interesting cover of the song, called Subdivisions.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4vd9OVLO7Q[/youtube]
Seagate Drives
This is why I don’t buy Seagate hard drives. Some of their recent hard drives had bugs in the firmware, which made the drives useless. Seagate released a firmware patch, but the problem is that the patch pretty much “bricks” some 500 gig drives.
I guess you could say I’ve always tried to avoid Seagate drives. Back in the days of 10 megabyte drives, the were bad to have a problem called “stiction”. The head would accumulate dust on it, and when you powered down the drive, that dust on the head would stick to the platter. Then when you turned the drive back on, the platter wouldn’t turn. You’d have to turn it off and on a couple of times to dislodge the junk from the platter.
Obviously they haven’t had that problem in a long time, but it goes to show you how one or two bad experiences with a product can shape your opinion of the company for years.
Happy New Year!
Hope everyone has a great New Year.
Merry Christmas!
I hope everyone out there has a great Christmas.
I think I’m gonna stop blogging until after the first of the year. Not much politically going on (except the usual Chicago corruption stuff).
Music wise I think we’re going to go see Webb Wilder on the 27th, and Hillbilly Casino is playing a ton of shows out at the Opryland Hotel, so we may check out one of those.
Have a good holiday everyone.