Take me to your robot blog

Archive for June, 2010

I didn’t read “The Catcher in the Rye” until I was in my late twenties, after I had served in the military and completed a couple years of college, so I bring a different perspective to the novel than most readers, who are probably teenagers and have read it in high school. Suffice it to say that I didn’t experience the spiritual revelations, nor do I share the literary reverence, that the novel seems to inspire.

Everybody knows the story: After getting booted out of prep school for bad grades, Holden Caulfield, the teenage hero of the novel, ventures into the wilds of New York City during the Christmas holiday. Apparently in search of himself and a meaning for his life, everywhere he goes he finds fakes, frauds, and phonies. He has some kind of nervous breakdown and ends up in a rest home talking to an analyst — which is where he’s been all along while telling his story. Holden is a likeable character, a well-meaning dolt with a big heart, and some of his observations are hilarious; and although the plot gets somewhat tedious after awhile, the revelation at the end of the novel — that Holden is in a rest home — ties everything together in a simple, plausible conclusion.

A few years later, I tried to read “The Catcher in the Rye” again — and couldn’t get past Chapter 4. Why? It wasn’t the famous swearing that irritated me; the too-many instances of “goddam this” and “goddam that” are annoying enough, but they fit Holden’s character as perfectly as his red hunting hat. It wasn’t Holden’s sarcastic remarks and observations that annoyed me; teenagers talk like that, and Holden is, after all, a teenager. The problem is, after all those years, Holden was still a teenager. Some characters seem to grow and mature with you; and when you return to them again in later years, they seem to reflect your own maturity and experiences. But Holden was still what he was before: a whiny, annoying, irritating smart-ass. I shelved the book and haven’t opened it since.
Performance Plus Remanufactured Q11X

Always wanted one of these, picked it up when Amazon was offering it for a steal of a price. After a good read through of the instructions, I strapped it on and gave it a whirl. The GPS picked up the signal quickly, the heartrate monitor worked perfectly and the data on the watch is great for challenging yourself. The device has continued to work well with no issues since I purchased. The software was easy to install and the watch syncs effortlessly.

Pros: Data captured: fantastic, every data point you could need. As I learn more about the community behind the devices, I am seeing all types of cool stuff you can do (like Geocaching, mapping and sharing routes on Google Earth or Bing Maps).
Pause feature: detects when you stop for a traffic light and autopauses the timer. Great feature, even better that it is optional to the user

Cons: Altitude tracking: only flaw I have seen so far; did a 2 mile hike that climbed ~2000 feet, device had total ascent of ~4000. I wonder if that was the sum of all time going up hill versus the true altitude change, as the course had various ascents and descents.

Overall, I highly recommend. Also, check your HSA flexible spending account rules; because of the heart rate monitor, this device qualified for reimbursement under my plan.
Manuel Fraga Iribarne El

It took me a while to warm up to reading this book. I didn’t have high expectations, but decided to given in to the hype hoping I would be mildly entertained, it’s a teenage book how bad can it be? WOW! I am concerned for my teenage nieces now. There are so many bad messages being sent to teenager in this novel, I really think the writter should have taken her time to consider her target. First, Edward is NOT a teen, he may look like one, but he is over 100 years old!!! and should not be anywhere near teenage girls!!! That is NOT LOVE! and I don’t want teenage girls to think it’s acceptable in any form. Second, Bella- don’t know where to begin with this girl, the other reviews said it best, whinning, martyr, hormonal, irrational, etc. NO girl should have such an unhealthy fixation on a man, she is very selfish, she wants everything her way or she will do anything to get it regardless of what pain it may cause her family, Edward, Jacob whom she claims to love so much. I don’t think she is as much a doormat to Edward as Edward is to her. He gives in to her demands like the parent of a spoil brat. The writer’s attempt to give her enough guilt, concern for her parents and friends are so weak, just made her more annoying. Jacob, could have been a very good character, I could have rooted for him, but again, the writter made him into another selfish, manipulative bully. Jacob wants to force his kind of love on Bella, she loves him as a friend, but he is determined to have more, no matter how many times she tells him “no” to the point of kissing her against her will, forcefully, she hurt her hand trying to stop him (this part is really disturbing to me, it’s a symptom of a larger problem in real life)and her father’s reaction to it is very “boys locker room”. Jacob again gets to kiss her by emotionally black mailing her with the old “if you won’t be with me, I will let myself be killed”. I had “Jacob” type of friends in my life and is not romantic at all. Teenager
Space Operations White Cap

We had a lot of fun with extra dart tag. This is a good buy. I am going to buy one more set.
Nerf Mega Dart Tag

The company I work for is conducting a walking competition to promote good health. We all are using this product and have found it to be accurate and easy to use. Will recommend it highly!
2x Digital Telephoto Professional

What an awful book. Written in 1951, this book originally sparked great controversy with its mature themes focusing on the teenage angst, loneliness and rebellion of the protagonist Holden Caulfield. I guess its like a really bad version of James Dean’s classic Rebel Without a Cause. Caulfield is the archetype of an underachiever. Today kids are reading about the latest sluggard – Greg Heffley from The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The characters Greg and Holden have a lot in common.

Catcher in the Rye follows the life of Holden Caulfield for a few days after being expelled from Pencey prep school as he returns home to New York City and contemplates life. Although, Caulfield does little contemplation and spends most of his time whining and complaining about everyone and everything. He sees the negative in everything (except his little sister) and makes one bad and offensive decision after another for almost 300 pages of misery. The only value I can find in reading this book today is to use Holden Caulfield as an example of what NOT to be – lazy, negative, and uninspired. Unfortunately the latest version of Holden Caulfield appears to be as popular with readers today as Catcher in the Rye was fifty years ago. When are we going to wake up and stop celebrating negative characters like Holden and Greg?
Cavalry Storage CAUM Series

You’ll have to look for an important sentence before you buy Windows PowerPoint home/student edition. It is not allowed for commercial use. That includes showing your presentation to any sort of audience – whether they pay to get in or not. Consequently you can only create presentations for your own amusement, I guess.

That was not brought forth in my purchase of PowerPoint and I’m damned mad that Microsoft got my 99 dollars without very clearly – in headline sized type – telling me the product is useless because I can’t show the presentation to anyone. I don’t know what the punishment might be. A personal whipping from Bill Gates, a fine, or what?

I’m glad to have found this out BEFORE I went to the expense of learning how to use it. I’ll just download something else – once I’ve determined they don’t care how I use it, and I guess I just eat the $99.

TOTO TSTD SMA Valve

We own atlest 3 vac cleaners.They usually die for one or another reason. When this one goes it will be replaced with one just like it..tired of throwing away good money..
Neoprene Sleeve Case Grey

This is my second ipod. My first was a third generation ipod Nano, which worked flawlessly for over two years. After those two years, I was feeling a little bored with my 8gig Nano, though it still functioned perfectly, so I went out and splurged on the ipod Touch 3rd generation. I was weary, as I heard battery life on these were short, and they had a tendency to die spontaneously, so I also purchased a $35 two-year warranty plan with the ipod. When I got home, I was incredibly happy right away. For anyone who has had an ipod in the past, syncing your content is the the same as before. For new users, all you need is itunes. Some have complained about itunes being the only way to add content to ipods, but this hasn’t really burdened me in any way. If you don’t want to use itunes for listening to music on your computer, simply download another media manager and just use itunes for syncing your ipod.

But I have spent far more time using the ipod’s Wi-Fi capabilities for internet browsing and downloading apps. Speaking of apps, it’s quite an endless spectrum. I have downloaded many apps, from games, to a GPS system, to virtual comic books. The capabilities are nearly endless. If you can imagine it, there is probably an app for it. The web browsing is quick and simple. The only complaint I have is that the screen will sometimes go from vertical to horizontal or vice versa when I didn’t intend for it to happen. As annoying as this is, it’s easily fixed by slanting the ipod back in the other direction.

As for battery life, it highly depends on what you’re doing. When listening to music, it lasts a long time. When browsing the web, watching videos, or playing games, the battery seems to just get away from you. I wouldn’t have minded if they had made this unit a bit heavier if that meant a heftier battery, but to me it’s a minor complaint. There are many things you can do to preserve battery life. Make sure to turn off Wi-Fi or bluetooth when not using them, and turn the
Skip Hop Palette Plate

8 Quart Embossed Clear