Thanks Mark for turning me on to Woot... maybe.

 

I just got my second Bag of Crap today.  For those not in the Woot culture, the Bag of Crap (or BOC) is buying random products for a buck.  The great majority of people get stuff that lives up to the product name: crap.  Not literally, but crappy items.  Some people get good stuff.  So it's a lottery and you get what you get and that's that.

 

One of the fun aspects of the BOC is the mad rush to get it.  There's usually less than 5000 of them and you have a constantly-growing audience waiting for this item to appear.  When it does, it's like Cabbage Patch Doll Christmas.  A Black Friday of Internet proportions.  This product usually marks the end of another Woot culture phenom: the Woot-off.  I've always likened the Woot-off to a rock concert, where everyone gets all built up then the band plays their huge hit and the crowd goes wild, rushes the stage, and trashes everything.  Such is the Woot-off, with product after product building up the audience and finally the BOC comes on and the fans rush the servers, taking them down in seconds.

 

So the first BOC I did ok, with an RCA Lyra 20GB MP3 player.  Not that I'd ever use it, but it would be the ultimate embarassment present for a teen relative:

 

 

To illustrate the magnitude of uncool it would be...

That's the Lyra next to my Zune.

 

But back to the point, this recent BOC was crap.  One of the items was a broken RC car, returned to whatever dollar store it came from as defective.  But I showed them.  I opened that plastic crap up, glued the broken pieces back together and now I have a piece of crap RC car.  That's the game.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you have to make do with what you get.

 

I've been on a pretty big Belinda Carlisle kick lately.  I was on Zune.net checking out my profile and was surprised that I was the 2nd-highest player of that artist and not far off from the #1 spot.  The funny part that struck me was that my second most played artist was Rancid.  Now how does a record company market to someone like that?  "If you love Belinda Carlisle, you'll really love the new Rancid album."

 

Browsing around some other related artists I saw someone whose top artist was the Go Go's and their second artist was Metallica, So I'm not alone in that weirdness.

I heard on the news that another airline is going to be charging extra for baggage.  At first I was angry, thinking that the airlines are just tacking on fees for nothing.  I mean, they have the space available for baggage, why charge extra to use it.  Then I thought, well, if they reduce the amount of baggage, they lower the weight of the plane and should save on fuel.

 

So, if their prime objective is to reduce weight to save fuel, why not charge ticket prices based on the weight of you and your baggage?  A dollar a pound, or more accurately, just have an exchange rate.  Over holidays, ticket prices are $1.20/lb, during midweek, $.80/lb.  That could motivate people to lose weight and/or be more conservative in what they pack.  It also gives people the power to control their own prices. 

 

Finally, another commerical observation.  This one is a radio commerical for Mercedes Benz where they have customers giving testimonials.  This guy is going on about the service he gets from his dealer and how they sell him a new car about bi-annually.  Then he makes some inane comment about the reliability of MB.  Personally, I don't expect any car to fail within two years before I trade it in, so I guess he's got a pretty low expectation of quality.  Another female customer in the commerical sums up the MB attitude in one line: "You don't get cappuccino at the Honda dealership."  I should send her a Starbucks gift card.

Ok, this now makes three blogs that I maintain.  One for programming, one for music, and now one for just everyday crap.  A place to rant, make observations, and keep everyone that cares (and doesn't) up to date on stuff.

 

This might be the most active of my blogs or it may be the most retarded.  In any case, since my entire web life is tied to "Anachostic", I guess whatever happens, happens.

 

Wheee.  Into the known, the unknown, and the known unknowns.