Moen Revolution

A few weeks ago, I read about the Moen Revolution showerhead on Matt Haughey’s site. Our showerhead was seven or eight years old, so I decided to give it a try.
The install was a breeze. Just unscrewed the old showerhead, applied new teflon tape, and screwed the new Moen on.


I turned the water on and let the thing rip. The first thing you notice is the handle on the bottom to steer the water. It feels natural and moves smoothly. The dial on the handle is to change the kind of water stream flowing out.

The handle does drop down a bit and was bumping into the highest shelf of the shower caddy thing. I finally removed the top shelf and all was well. Michele decided that this would ‘not do’ and is now on the hunt for a new shower caddy thing that can accomadate the size of the Moen.
This is what I would consider the main showering mode. Plenty of water and not a lot of force. The children and I both think this is better than the old showerhead.

Next I tested out the special mode. It’s described as “Moen’s patented Revolution technology takes ordinary water, spins each drop, then twirls the entire shower stream.“. Well, it’s kind of like one of those kiddy toys for the backyard that whips around in all directions. Fun the first time, but no use for washing. And the flow isn’t strong enough to be considered a massage mode.

This mode is the massage mode. But it’s not much of a massage. The stream is just more than an inch in diameter and just doesn’t have enough force to be considered a real massage mode. Now, maybe some dainty princess type might like it, but it was a disappointment to me.
Conclusion: The Moen Revolution is a nice showerhead, but it’s not revolutionary in any way except the handle. If you like the way it looks, get it. If you are looking for one of those back-massaging showerheads, this ain’t it.

Walmart

I’m on vacation here in Duck, North Carolina.
Part of the fun of being here in North Carolina is that I get to visit stores that I don’t regularly visit. The closest large store to our rental house is Walmart.
At home I don’t go to Walmart. California doesn’t have a lot of Walmart and none in my immediate vicinity. Furthermore, Michele has decided that we are Target people, not Walmart people. Not one to argue with my wife, I have not been to a Walmart in recent memory. Recent memory is the last 15 years, or the time since I moved out of the fraternity.
I was first shocked when I entered Walmart and they had boogie boards on sale for less than $10. ‘Wow, that’s a deal.’ I thought.
As I walked through the store my eyes began to glaze over like a zombie as my mouth said the words ‘Wow, that’s a deal.’ over and over. From chicken feed to video games to air conditioners to shotguns, there was nothing that Walmart didn’t have for a good price.
If not for the stern direction of my wife, all the cash in my wallet would have been sucked out into the Walmart registers. I still can’t get the image of the first-aid kit for $9.82 out of my mind.


Photo courtesy of cousin James

Here’s just one side of the sunscreen display. Amazing isn’t it?
How in the hell does someone shop regularly at a Walmart and not end up endlessly wandering the aisles looking for yet another deal?
I wonder how early Walmart opens and if those first aid kits are still on sale?

A Tale of Two Spams

I was at the supermarket the other day, in front of the Spam section and I noticed two new versions of Spam. Of course, it’s my duty to you, the loyal Cruft reader, to test them out.
Without hesitation, I picked up the cans and I now bring you, a Tale of Two Spams.


Yes, it’s the new Hot & Spicy Spam and the new Spam with Cheese.
To read the full story, click More…

Continue reading “A Tale of Two Spams”

From the closeout store

Near our house is a book closeout store. It used to be a regular Crown Books store, but at some point it transitioned into a closeout only books store. The prices are rock bottom and there’s plenty of interesting stuff. The girls and I often browse and I encourage them to choose books there.
In our last trip this book caught my eye and I decided the $4.99 price was probably low enough to take a risk.
Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics – Julius Schwartz, Brian M. Thomsen
To readers of DC Comics, Julius Schwartz is a familiar name. He was with DC Comics from the beginning when it was still All-American Comics. As an editor, he is best know for helming both Batman and Superman for long runs in the 60s and 70s. He’s less well known as the man behind the Silver Age of comics, reinventing core heroes like Green Lantern and the Flash into their modern incarnations.
Reading the book, I was suprised to learn of his huge involvement in the early science fiction scene and his role as the agent to many of the greats such as H.P. Lovecraft, Alfred Bester, and Ray Bradbury.
He played a critical role in creating the science fiction genre that I was unaware of completely. The book goes into great detail about how much money was made in those days, a half cent per word, for science fiction. This section of the obok is quite interesting, with insights into famed sci-fi writers from someone that was truly their friend.
Julius brings up a comic fact that I had never heard before. Most comics readers take it as fact that Bob Kane created Batman. the truth is that Bob Kane drew the art for Batman, but Bill Finger wrote the stories and developed most of the mythos that we associate with Batman from the Utility Belt to the Batmobile to the Joker. Props to Bill Finger for his work with Bob Kane to create the World’s Greatest Detective.
Some of the things that Julius did in the comics, I hated. He was responsible for killing Alfred and having Clark Kent work as a TV reporter. I really hated these things as core elements of the comic mythos were changed. Both plot lines were eventually ‘fixed’, but all is forgiven for two main reasons.
One, He edited the Ambush Bug comic, the greatest comic book ever written. It was the pet project of my favorite comic artist/writer, Keith Giffen.
Second, he is responsible for the proliferation of gorillas in DC Comics. Julius found out that if there was a gorilla on the cover of a comic, it sold more than comics without a gorilla. Julius didn’t need to know why, but if it sold more copies, he’s do it. For long time DC Comics readers, this should be an aha moment as to why Gorilla Grodd shows up in so many books.
The book itself seems a bit rushed in places. The creation of the fundemetal DC concept of Earth 1 and Earth 2 is breezed through in a couple of pages. You also get a taste for Julius’s feeling toward other comic book legends, but only a taste.
Julius Schwartz died in 2004 and DC rereleased several of his most famous comics in tribute. You would enjoy them if you picked them up.
For comic book and sci-fi fans, this a fun book to read. I’m now interested to pick up some books about Stan Lee and Steve Ditko to see what went on in the Marvel side of things.

A post about work

I don’t often post on my blog about work. Mainly because I know that people I work with read this site. I’ve decided that my gauge for decided what to post here should be ‘would I mention this story at lunch with co-workers?’
Now some may disagree with this self-censorship, but this is my site and I’ll do what I want.
That said, this post is about work.
For those that don’t know, I work in television and help run the technical operations for several networks owned by Disney. Last year we were asked to help run the ABC Family channel by relocating the playback to Burbank.
This task is non-trivial.
Running a television network is HARD. Building duplicate capabilities and preparing all the content, understanding the workflow, modifying existing systems, and building a multi-million dollar facility is VERY HARD.
After months of effort, long hours, weekends, 3AM upgrades, arguements, endless meetings, countless phone calls, testing, rehearsal, and bajillions of emails, we went on the air yesterday.


Early Monday morning we toook over the operation of ABC Family and like a proud father, I’m still beaming.
I am so proud of my team and my co-workers. Pulling this off is a huge achievement and I just have to brag. Like any family, we fight sometimes at work. But in hindsight it’s simply amazing to see what our team can do when we put our mind to it.

Here is part of the team celebrating the successful transition. Take a moment to look at all those individuals, each doing their part to achieve what noone could do on their own. Each person filling their role to make sure their part of the process works, allowing the next person down the chain to do theirs.
As technical people, we don’t often get much of the glory that permeates television. But you won’t find a harder working group, more committed to perfection than the team I’m proud to be a part of at Disney.
The week before, I was surprised by my boss with an improptu gathering. He presented me with my ten year plaque.

That’s me at home with the plaque. Disney is an old school company with many traditions about celebrating long time employees. In addition, I was given my ten year tie tack. If a company tie tacks isn’t old school, I don’t know what is.
Hard to believe it was ten years ago that I sat on a loading dock in Singapore eating a peanut butter sandwich when I was offered an ‘all expense paid trip to Burbank’. Ten years from the loading dock to the corner office.

My company takes many hits in the press and especially in cyberspace. Some deserved, most not. Those who know me in meatspace, know I don’t always leap to the company’s defense. I’m more content to work from the inside discussing the future and helping to open minds that are closed.
But working at Disney is something magical. For all our faults, who could ask for better company product. We try to entertain people.
If we didn’t care about the people that watch our shows and films, wear Mickey, and visit the parks we wouldn’t work hard. Disney people work hard. I see it everyday, and it makes me proud everyday, doing our part to entertain children of all ages.
So today I post about work, and I don’t care who reads it.

Yubnub

Yubnub is a cool site I found via Ztuff
Basically Yubnub gives you a command line to the essential web sites of the hardcore net junkie. Want a Technorati search on pandas? Type ‘tec pandas’. A few other good command line items are wikip for a Wikipedia search, flk for a Flicker search, or say to create a wav file of text converted to speech, or eby to search Ebay and am to search Amazon.
The best thing about Yubnub is that you can create your own commands and others can then use them. The amount of new commands people have created is astounding. This is some kick ass social software…
Take a few minutes to try Yubnub.

We Love Katamari

The girls and I really like playing Katamari Damacy together. I saw the sequel to it at E3 this year called We Love Katamari.
I finally got off my butt and can now present a video of the demo I saw at E3.
We Love Katamari – E3 2005 Demo (9MB wmv file)
They have added a new cooperative mode with bodes well for family play. Overall, it doesn’t look like any revolutionary change, which is good in my book. Take a look.