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Qik.com

Wow.

I helped a friend ship a house of boxes from San Francisco to Boston. They used Fix Price Move.

Here’s what my friend said who was taking delivery:

Fixed Price arrived today.   After several maddening delays and an additional $600.00 (plus the $923 already due) they delivered.   They have been a pain in the ass from the get go.   Interestingly, the truck broke down in TX and the truck it was transferred to broke down after unloading in front of my house.   Every thing seems to have survived the journey…

When Fixed Price arrived they had 3 boxes from somebody else’s load mixed into ours.   The boxes were filled with old canned food and ugly flower pots and before I could tell that they were not ours I had some colorful words for you about sending us … out of date canned food.   So far all’s well though.

$1.30lb delivered coast to coast. A bit of a PITA. At least everything didn’t disappear and get sold on eBay.

And all things being even, that’s about as good a moving experience as I’ve seen at a very good price. Specifically, it was a 2 bedroom house. I had packed up everything in boxes except 4 or 5 large pieces that they wrapped and hauled, 1,100 pounds total.

Update: Be sure to see the comment from Ben of Fix Price Move below. Be sure to read for yourself but I’d say they’re a reasonably good choice for a moving company.

Here’s an article about the Power Tool Drag Races. Written by Jessica Bruder. It’s a good article. Click the photo to see the whole thing.

It starts…

My Belt Sander Can Beat Your Circular Saw

By JESSICA BRUDER
Published: August 6, 2008

TEN feet short of the finish line, Barbie Airplane was stranded.

The cheerful contraption – a Craftsman belt sander crowned with a powder-blue toy plane – had been careening down the 75-foot racetrack moments earlier. Then the sander’s rotating belt came undone, stopping it dead.

In the neighboring lane, Heavy Metal Waste, a circular saw souped up with skateboard wheels and flaming antennas, had already rocketed past. Cheers of victory rang from the bleachers.

“Time waits for no one!” heckled the announcer. So Randy Lisbona, a 47-year-old air-conditioning engineer from Dallas, hauled his broken-down belt sander off the track to make way for the next heat.

That’s how it goes at power tool drag races. The premise is simple: Take a hand-held power tool. Rebuild it into a racing machine.

…

Charlie Gadeken, who started the haphazard sport with a co-conspirator, Jim Mason, saw the races as a way to get more people involved in creating – and not just watching – mechanical art.

…

When I was a kid, this was one of the most “oo ahh”-able things in the world. They cost like $600. Now they have them at Weird Stuff for… essentially… free. It was a hoot holding one.

This is a followup to my first posting of Fully Legal AR-15 in California. It’s gotten so many comments that it’s hard to sort through them.

Please make followup comments here. And don’t forget to read the original post!

Thank you.

I saw a converter box at Radio Shack yesterday for $60. With the $40 coupon, switching to digital will be easy.

https://www.dtv2009.gov/

See some reviews of converter boxes

My nice 19″ Neovo monitor broke a few months back. It sat in the dust for 3 months before I got it fixed. Why oh why did I wait so long?! Using only 1 monitor is like geeking with one hand tied behind your back.

Charlotte and I were there :-)

Many wonderful creations were discussed.

View the slideshow

State ban on serving trans fat first in U.S.

California became the first state to outlaw trans fat in restaurants and food facilities Friday when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill banning the artery-clogging oils and shortenings.

The bill, by Assemblyman Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia (Los Angeles County), had started heated debate in the Legislature. But many Bay Area restaurant owners say they don’t use trans fats, and others say complying with the new state law will not be burdensome.

I was going to make a T-Shirt that reads “Outlaw Trans-fats and Only Outlaws will have Trans-fats”. But reading into the issue further (IE, the second paragraph of the article) it’s more of an issue of closing the barn door after the horse has left. Or to be more gentle about it, codifying a trend in law.

This reminds me very much of what Mary Ruwart, Libertarian presidential candidate said about child labor laws. On 7-6-08 she spoke on Marty Nemko’s radio show about libertarian issues. She had said that child labor laws in the US followed on the coat-tails of trends at the end of the industrial revolution. The laws didn’t stop people from hiring child-workers. The trend of children not working in factories had already taken place.

Given the choice, people would rather not send their children to work in factories. After enough wealth had been generated, it stopped happening.

She talks about child labor law starts at 44 minutes, 10 seconds.

Here is the whole radio show (30 mb, 60 minutes), Work with Marty Nemko, July 6th, 2008.

Similarly, it’s (apparently) not difficult or more expensive to make non-trans-fat oils. Individuals, restaurants and manufacturers have already made the switch.

I said it before and I’ll say it again

Harumph!

Governor William J. Le Petomane: HOLY UNDERWEAR! People murdered? Innocent women and children blown to bits? We must do something to protect our phoney-baloney jobs people. Harumph! Harumph!
All of the governor’s lackeys but one chant along with him: Harumph! Harumph!
Governor: I didn’t get a harumph out of that guy.
Another lackey: Give the governer a harumph!
Lackey: Harumph!
Governor: You watch your ass.

If you have lots of books to get rid of, Amazon.com can be a good way to sell them. Here are some tips. I’m making this list because I just went through another round of selling stuff and want to remember it for next time.

• Find the book on Amazon via the ISBN number. It’s easy to find on the back right next to the bar code.
• Say something nice in the listing like “ships from San Francisco”. If the book is under 13 oz, you can ship it USPS first class inexpensively and legitimately mention “fast shipping”.
• Always make sure yours is the lowest price listing.
• Offering “expedited” or “international” shipping is a bother and usually not worth the money.
• Stamps.com is a bargain if you have a lot of items to ship in a month. They charge $15/month but you get to print the return address, address and postage all in one go, saving time. And you just have to copy and paste the address. Most importantly, the envelopes are then not “stamped” but “metered” and you can drop them in any USPS drop box no matter how heavy they are. USPS.com has/had a similar option on their website but it’s a pain to navigate (it’s the government, who’d have guessed!)
• Use UPS labels, 2 labels per 8.5×11″ sheet. They are free (for shipping UPS items only of course) from ups.com. I usually use the second label on the page to seal the envelope.
• Use 9×12″ manila envelopes. They are inexpensive and most books fit in them. Note that a padded mailer might cost $2.00 each while these cost $0.20 each. They also qualify as “envelopes” and not “packages” so they ship cheaper
• Use USPS “Bound Printed Matter” or “Media Mail” rate.
• Use a postal scale.
• Amazon should have a “I shipped this item” checkbox next to your sold items but they don’t. I use the change in color of a visited-link to note when I ship.