Step 1: Admit You Have A Problem

While we run our office in a frugal manner (space over a manufacturing facility, folding tables, cheap Staples chairs, etc.) we do love our coffee. We source our liquid gold (whole bean, of course) from Terroir Coffee. A shipment arrived today containing the following:

The description of the coffee, at the bottom of the label is as follows:

My reaction was “I think Mr. Howell oughtta lay off the coffee!”

Ben Blinked?

Never a great idea to get yourself into a game of chicken. I hope this ends well, but I can’t say I have a great gut feeling about it.

Joy Joy Joy

Ahhhhh…… we feel much better.

Pain Pain Pain

Somebody just take out a gun and shoot me in the head, please .

Filthy Porsche

I think my favorite thing about Grace Hanadarko is that her car is one of the filthiest Porsches I’ve ever seen. You go, Grace!

Gotta Love The Onion..

Tutto Italiano!

The Museum of Transportation at Lars Anderson Park in Brookline MA hosts the Tutto Italiano car show annually. This year’s event wrapped this afternoon, and it was a blast.

Every year the Italian motorcycle contingent grows and grows. The number of Ducati, Moto Guzzi, Aprilia, MV Agusta, and other Italian motorcycles have all but started taking over! At noon the show did their regular “deafen Boston” event with every car and bike revving to make some serious Italian noise. I was fortunate enough to be with the motorcycles at the time. Lovely! Lots of Ducati 1098 beasties rolling around, but I’m still in lust with my 999.

The Ferraris were stupendous, as they are every year. My highlights this year were the 250 Boano, the 250 GT PF Cabriolet, and, of course, the ex-Ralph Lauren 288 GTO.

I was finally able to spend some time in person with a couple of 599 GTBs. The design has yet to grow on me. I couldn’t see trading a 550 or 575 in on one unless you absolutely, positively had to have the performance improvements. And given the laws I’ve personally broken in a 550, I can’t imagine needing those performance improvements unless you live on a race track!

One of the highlights of the show was certainly my friend David’s 1958 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spyder. He’s the second owner, having purchased it in 2005. The first owner drove it for about three years and then mothballed it. David tore it apart, restored it to the nines, and it just looks amazing. Great work, bro!

Stupendous weather. Stupendous cars. Stupendous people. Great show this year.

Mille grazie!

craigslist fraudsters

The sad and frustrating thing about this news article is that many criminals aren’t as stupid as “mike”. Folks need reputation on the free online classifieds sites. Thankfully, TrustPlus launches soon…

Verizon versus Comcast

FiOS is now available at my home – Internet and phone are available now, and television is purportedly just around the corner (the town and Verizon are finally striking a deal, after much wrasslin’ on terms).

I’m thinking seriously about leaving Comcast for Verizon. The same services (Internet & TV) with FiOS appear to be about a third cheaper with FiOS – up to half the cost if you factor in the voice line and faster Internet speed.

So today I come home to find letter from Comcast informing me that as of 09/03, my HD DVR service will increase from $9.95 per month to $12.95 per month. While a $3 increase per month isn’t going to break me, the letter is devoid of any explanation as to why. A 30% increase with no material benefit. The best they can do is to say that they’re “building the next generation of DVR services and … guides”. Uh-huh. How about they fire all their DVR people, license the Tivo software, and decrease my HD DVR service by 30% instead?

On Confidence

Saw a great quote this weekend:

Nobody knows how much confidence you have. So take all you need.