I admittedly have a very weak understanding of human physiology, but from personal experience that the body typically has good built in defenses. You got some nasty bacteria in you? You sneeze it out. You cut yourself, platelets come in and scab it over for protection. You get too hot, you sweat to cool yourself off. These are all pretty gross examples, I guess, but it shows a trend.

There’s one defense I can’t seem to find though. That is against stress, as in the feeling one receives when buying carpet. In fact, the body handles stress quite the opposite. Rather than start pumping out endorphins or something useful, it tends to cause physical ailments that are unpleasant and, unfortunately, add to your stress. Anyone know why that is? I don’t really expect an answer. Just musing…

Jon, our resident liquid expert, stated that our standard cups by the water cooler held 6 ounces of water (or any other liquid, for that matter). I was quite sure they held eight. We conducted an experiment to decide how much it held by filling up the cup and then pouring it into my water bottle (one of those with the volume markings on the side). Sure enough, it surpassed eight ounces and even just barely went over nine. Welp, Jon. Looks like you’re moded.

While I think Phil Stacey from American Idol this season is a talented singer, but there are definite resemblances. Don’t believe me? I threw together a side-by-side comparison of him and a Chihuahua. Thank goodness for and Paint.NET, another one of my free, must-have software.

So, working at Sewell has given me lots of fun experiences. We will take time now and again to try something a little unusual for fun/marketing. Our latest attempt is a little project called Will it Shatter, a parody of the popular “Will it Blend” videos on YouTube. So, go check it out on YouTube. Or, wait a minute! I could just post it here. Nice one, me.

So I went to play basketball with some guys from my church this morning because I’m feelin’ pretty fat. I’ve done this off and on over the past month or two and I’m still trying to decide if, though it is a good way to lose weight, it’s actually healthy. When I play in the morning I’m tired all day. I’m sore. My brain ticks just a little slower. And then I’m even more tired the next day. When it’s finally about time for me to recover, it’s time to play basketball again. And on it goes. I’m just really not sure how much good it’s doing me!

So it turns out that someone actually found thegoont.com by searching for “Changing Ringtones on Blackjack” on Google. Boy do I feel like a git (can anyone tell I’ve been re-reading Harry Potter lately?) now for not actually having instructions on it. Well, just in case it happens again, here goes…

1. Sync your blackjack with your PC (or do it through the removable micro SD card).
2. Find the directory called “rings” in the “Windows” directory. In my case, it didn’t actually exist yet, but it’s easy to create.
3. Throw in the MP3s you want to use (I shortened them to about 30 seconds with Audacity, the awesome free audio editor). Windows Mobile knows to look in that directory (\\Windows\rings) for new tones.
4. Now go through your contacts and assign them as you please.

Tips:

• The list of available ringtones is alphabetical so name your ringtones appropriately. You can even put a number in front of them to make them appear with the standard ringtones.
• Don’t set just songs that you actually like listening to. I’ve missed multiple calls because of my addicting ringtones.

So I just recently got sucked into Facebook after avoiding it for so long. It turns out that it was a really good idea as I met back up with some friends I haven’t heard from for years and got to get a pretty close to live update on what they’re doing with their lives. It’s fun to see.

This was just another example of how the web is becoming more and more of a social platform. It’s fun to see this transition from the old home pages with .midis playing and animated GIFs for as far as the eye can see. The social web now opens up interactive sites for people who would never have previously touched a PC or don’t know the first thing about coding.

Another result of the social web trend is the online dating site. These range from the paid services like eHarmony (I still don’t trust that guy on TV) to newer ad-sponsored sites like Just Say Hi. Sites like these make it easy for the sometimes-awkward socialites looking for people through the ‘net.

These sites are also good examples of a new trend in programming for the web called “Web 2.0” design. The basic idea is that the internet is molding itself to be more friendly to those who don’t want to mold themselves to it. Where it used to be reserved for the elite (or l33tz0r), it is now open for anyone looking for almost any type of social outreach.

Not much to say but, daaaang. So Zap! which makes (in my opinion) typically ugly and impractical electric cars, just unveilled their new Zap-X concept car worthy of drooling over. It’s designed by Lotus, packs some mad stats (see below), and hopefully will bring the price down step by step as it competes with my also-favorite but expensive Tesla. What can you do to support Zap? Go ahead and get some of their consumer-end portable electronic device rechargers at Sewell Direct.

Pictures and specs below.

Drive Train
100% Electric; 4 electronic wheel hub motors sporting an aggressive 644 horsepower with super capacitor energy bursts

Speed
0 to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds with top speed of 155 mph

Mileage & Range
350 miles per charge; about 1 cent per mile; rapid 10 minute re-charge; 9,000 life cycles

Interior
Seating for 5 +2 with European ergonomic design; all electronic touch screen controls on-board carputer: Windows XP, Wi-Fi, Blue-tooth, High definition video, iPod ready, Fire wire, USB2 and Mini USB ports

Extras
Keyless bio-metric entry and ignition, Photovoltaic glass:
thermoelectric, for heating and cooling, energy collecting windows
and windshields to harness solar energy

Standard Features
APX Light Weight Aluminum
Architecture Design
Electronic Braking System (EBS)
Rack and Pinion Steering
Solar Glass
Lithium Batteries
(Bio-degradable Non-Explosive)
Power Windows
Power Door Locks
Power Steering
GPS
On Board Carputer with
Full Entertainment System

Dimensions
Length: 15 4 (4697 mm)
Width: 6 8 (1852 mm)
Wheel base: 8 9 (2700 mm)
Track: Front 5 1(1554 mm)
Rear 5 1(1556 mm)

As a result of some positive hearsay regarding the movie, and in spite of the lackluster films Williams has been in recently, I decided to see Man of the Year (free with a promo code at RedBox, so don’t worry, I didn’t pay for it). The political action thriller comedy documentary love story didn’t win me over, though. It tried to be too many movies at once and wound up going nowhere with any one genre.

For example, the movie definitely has a comedic approach. The comedy is very classic Robin Williams in my book (that’s not a good thing). It was also surprisingly and unnecessarily lewd comedy with 70% relating to either boobs or farts. Simply not impressed. So, not a great comedy.

The comedy portion also served to devalue the other elements of the film, like the thriller side. A large portion of the movie (spoiler alert) was devoted to the story of the girl who works at Delacroy (I think that was the name, not worth looking up), the company that produces the polling machines for the major US elections. She discovers a horribly irrational flaw in the system that resulted in Williams’ character winning the presidential election. The company, of course, needs to stop her at all costs so the public doesn’t find out there’s a glitch, blah blah blah. Jeff Goldblum didn’t make a great bad guy, but not a bad bad guy either. But by any means, any potential moments of real suspense were watered down by a cut scene to Williams joking around with his production buddies (including Christopher Walken, who was the shining star and possibly only redeeming factor to the film).

I won’t go into detail on the rest of it. Suffice it to say that the attempt to throw in the political jabs (Dobbs’ [Williams] political stance is to pull power from the lobbyists and special interest groups to give it back to the people), a love story (of course the president falls in love with the glitch-finding girl), a tech movie (disturbingly bad logic in how she discovers the computer’s bug and what the flaw is), and so forth was simply too much for the movie. Don’t see it. Spend your $1 elsewhere, perhaps on the new Bond.

Eyner works here at Sewell Direct and is a pretty good sport. So when we went to Burger King today and saw some job applications laying out, we thought it would be good fun to fill one out on his behalf. This is a less serious version of one of the office pranks that Jim pulls on Dwight on NBC’s hit series. It’s milder in that we’re probably not going to send this in to BK for reals. But I may just stop by for another Whopper Jr. But I better not forget my cell phone, because it may wind up in the ceiling.

Pictures follow.

Front Side

Back Side