Halloween 2011

Tonight was Halloween and we were up to our usual tricks. This makes seven years of handing out full size candy. The magic continues to impress. Children are wowed and often shocked at the idea of receiving and full size candy bar when the rest of the night is filled with minis. The cries of ‘awesome’ and ‘look Mom, it’s a big one’ are great. I highly recommend you give it a try.


We also carved a few pumpkins.

Mira’s Dalek

Zoe’s Frank from Donnie Darko

Michele’s Boo

Once again, I made a timelapse movie of all of the trick or treaters as I handed them candy. This time, I filmed it on my iPhone.

Halloween 2011 from Michael Pusateri on Vimeo.


As I have in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 I asked every person what they were dressed as and wrote down the answers. I am careful to ask what they are, accepting their answers rather than interpreting what I see. I now have seven years of data to compare.
Here are the top ten costumes for the last seven years compared.

Out of nowhere, Zombies grab the crown from Witch. There were also several variations on the zombie theme. Clearly, the zombie meme is growing in American culture. More homemade costume this year. Only Captain America made it to the top ten, it being the only all store bought costume.
Almost everyone had a costume this year. Only a few came close to the perilous “nothing” answer.
We ran out of candy early, going through ~230 full size candies before 9PM when we closed up. After the candy ran out, I shut down the lights and put a bowl of extra single candy we had in the house outside. Michele threw in extra energy gels and bars we get at sports expo. I wonder how much will be left tomorrow.
This year’s complete costume list of 217 people:
12 Zombie
7 Witch
6 Pirate
5 Princess
4 Dorothy
4 Fairy
4 Ladybug
4 Vampire
3 Captain America
3 Cinderella
3 Fireman
3 Ninja
3 Pirate Girl
3 Snow White
2 Alice in Wonderland
2 Ariel
2 Barbie
2 Batman
2 Cat
2 Clown
2 Cowboy
2 Indian
2 Kitty
2 Knight
2 Little Red Riding Hood
2 Monkey
2 Ninja Turtle
2 Power Ranger
2 Rose Court Princess
2 Scream
2 Skeleton
2 SWAT
2 Tiana
2 Wolverine
2 Zombie Ken & Barbie
1 60s Woman
1 80s Girl
1 A Boy
1 A Warbler from Glee
1 Angel
1 Batgirl
1 Bee
1 Beetle
1 Ben Ten
1 Bloody Nurse
1 Britney Spears
1 Bumblebee
1 Bumblebee from Transformers
1 Burger King
1 Candy Corn
1 Candy Corn Witch
1 Cheerleader
1 Cop
1 Corpse Bride
1 Cow
1 Dancer
1 Daphne from Scooby Doo
1 Day of the Dead
1 Deatheater
1 Dementor
1 Devil
1 Devil Witch
1 Disco Lady
1 Dodger Fan
1 Dog
1 Easy-E
1 Every Day I’m Shuffling Robot
1 Evil Jester
1 Fancy Kitty
1 Frankenstein
1 Ghost Person
1 Ghostbuster
1 Ghoul
1 Good Pirate
1 Gorilla
1 Goth Red Riding Hood
1 Graveyard Zombie
1 Grim Reaper
1 Hermoine Granger
1 High Schooler
1 Hippie
1 Hobo
1 Hogwart’s Student
1 Indian Girl
1 Jason Voorhees
1 Jessie
1 Jester
1 Kitty/Beaver
1 Lagoona from Monster High
1 Lion
1 Little Demon
1 Lizard
1 Mario
1 Mermaid
1 Mexican Man
1 Michael Myers
1 Minnie Mouse
1 Miss Wonderland
1 Monster Spiderman
1 Mummy
1 Mustard Bottle
1 Nerdy Zombie Soccer Player
1 Ninja Assassin
1 Nurse
1 Panda
1 Pea in a pod
1 Peacock
1 Penguin
1 Phantom
1 Pikachu
1 Pink Lady
1 Policeman
1 Princess Aurora
1 Princess Mom
1 Pumpkin
1 Robber
1 Rock Star
1 Rorschack
1 Rose Fairy
1 Scarecrow
1 Scary Axe Guy
1 Scary Thing
1 Scorpio Ninja
1 Shadowknight
1 Skull Rider
1 Smurf
1 Smurfette
1 Spidergirl
1 Spiderman
1 Sundrop Girl
1 Superwoman
1 Surfer with Bite
1 The Joker
1 Thomas the Tank Engine
1 Thor
1 Tinkerbell
1 Tooth Fairy
1 Unknown Monster
1 Waldo
1 Warrior
1 Werewolf
1 White Swan
1 Wolf
1 Wonder Woman
1 Zombie Hunter
1 Zombie Soccer Player

Secret Drink Mix

For those of you that exercise regularly, you know the importance of staying hydrated, especially when you are out for several hours.
I’ve tried several exercise drinks and never been completely happy with any of them. Sometimes they are too sweet or have a strange artificial flavor. Sometimes they just don’t sit well in the stomach. I had been using Heed for a while, but never liked how sticky it was.
I read about Secret Drink Mix launching at Interbike and decided to give it a try. I bought a few of the single use packets.


I was pleasantly surprised after my first ride. The flavor is good, but not too strong. Easy on the stomach and not sticky. I starting using the Secret Drink Mix as my regular drink. I liked the Orange and Lemon-Lime flavors. I didn’t try Raspberry, ’cause I hate raspberry. But that’s any entire rant in of itself…
The foil packets were easy use, the right amount for one bottle. Actually, I usually ride with 24oz bottles and the amount in the packet is for 16oz of water, so it’s a little more diluted than recommended. This hasn’t been a problem for me.

I read up a little more on what was going on with Secret Drink Mix. Dr. Allen Lim, the famed sports physiologist is behind Secret Drink Mix. Lim’s philosophy of sticking with ‘real food’ and avoiding gels and goos is well known. In developing SDM, they stuck to simple basic ingredients and avoided any artificial flavors, colors, or other additives. I especially that the flavor comes from ground up, freeze dried fruit.
Below is an interview from Interbike with Dr. Lim where he goes into the details.


I bought a 1 pound bag and more packets. The packets work well for carrying in my jersey pocket on long rides where I need a bottle refill. They sell a small container to hold the power. Looks like a tea container to me, but it works fine.


After several weeks of using SDM during training rides and two metric century rides, I can say I’m a believer. It’s the best electrolyte drink I’ve used. I like their philosphy of moving toward real food while riding and away from goos and gels. On last Saturday’s ride, I left my Gu Energy alone in favor of eating a sandwich and a few cookies at the SAG stops. I do enjoy the Honey Stinger stroopwafels. They seem to be a reasonable alternative to more chemically focused energy products.
If you are looking for a change in your drink, give Secret Drink Mix a try, you may like it.

Moving to electronic books

I love reading and I love books.
This is a picture of some of the books Michele and I have accumulated. This is after we have donated yearly to the local library.


Even though we both have Kindles, I still prefer to buy paper books. Can’t really put my finger on why, but I still prefer a paper book in most circumstances. I do read a lot on my Kindle and am impressed by how quickly it’s come to change what I expect out of a book.
Recently, I decided to learn how to program Ruby on Rails. My friend Yoshi, recommended a book to use. Obviously, I could have bought it electronically and had it in seconds, but instead I made a point to go to a store and buy the book. I was sure to check that it was the latest edition.

I’ve been humming along with learning for a bit and hit a stumbling block. Something didn’t match what the book said. I got frustrated and chatted with Yoshi. After looking a bit, he said, “Aw crap, you ran into the rails 3.1 change. They fundamentally
changed the way css and javascript files are stored and generated.” I was able to find some of the book errata online and move past.
This week I was continuing to work and bumped into another problem. Once again I couldn’t get an example exercise to work. After two hours I finally found someone else with the same problem and learned that .rjs no longer worked and I needed to use jQuery instead. I had wasted two hours again, because my paper book was out of date.

On the left is the printed version and on the right, the electronic version.
This is where printed books clearly fail. Technical and instructive books simply get out of date too fast these day.
The book I’m reading is from Pragmatic Programmers and they offer a great program for people with the paper versions to get electronic versions. If you go to their coupon page and prove you have a paper version, you get a huge discount on the electronic version. I now have DRM-free version in PDF, Kindle, and iPad formats.
Textbooks, I’m liked reading you over the years, but your day is done. I’m an electronic convert.

How much time America wastes in line at Starbucks

Recently, my friend Kirill asked, “Wonder how much time America wastes in line at Starbucks“. Interesting question, I thought. Let’s do the math.
According the Starbucks 10K filing in 2010, there were 11,131 stores in the US.
According to this analysis by Trefis, there are an average of 449 visits per store daily.
Doing the math: 11,131 stores * 449 visits per store = 4,997,819 visits per day by Americans.
If we estimate that the process averages 5 minutes per visit to go from entering the store to have the coffee in hand is five minutes, we get these numbers.
The time wasted in line at Starbucks by Americans, per day is:
24,989,095 minutes = 416,485 hours = 17,354 days = 48 years
Obviously these are just rough estimates, but the time is significant. Also, some might argue that time at Starbucks is not wasted, as you do get your drink or food. Everyone’s views on the value of Starbucks will vary.
Personally, I don’t mind going to Starbucks, but prefer a lighter roast coffee made from better beans.

NFL Widower

It’s September. That means that once again I am a NFL Widower.
The Superbowl is Feb. 5, 2012, so there are 5+ months of football ahead. My wife is thrilled.
I like sports. I watch football, baseball, cycling, hockey, and pretty much anything else. Sports are always better than police procedurals, medical dramas, music/dance competitions, and reality voyeur shows.
But my wife, she LOVES football.


Her favorite hat to wear out running, working in the yard, or doing anything outside is her beloved NFL cap. We’ve been through so many, you can see the amount of use she puts them through. She rejects the individual team hats. It’s the whole NFL she loves.
We have the full DirecTV Sunday Ticket so we can watch every game without fail. Now that the kids are older, she’s even more into football. I wrote about this in 2005, but now she’s taken it to new levels.
This year, she’s in a fantasy league, so we’ve expanded from beyond her favorite group of teams to in-depth analysis of every team.

On Sundays, I pretty much plan that I need to make sure that the kids get fed and all the errands get run. There are slight breaks when between the morning games and the afternoon games, and sometimes before the Sunday night game. Monday nights are football. Later in the season we get football on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday. In the playoffs we get football on Saturday and Sunday.
I’m not really complaining, it’s just that I can’t consume as much football as her.
Many guys would love their wife/girlfriend to like football, but I say, be careful what you wish for. You could end up being the one to make the snacks rather than the one sitting in the recliner with your feet up.

Ten Years

Ten years ago I was awaken by a call from my mother-in-law asking “Did you see? Did you see?”.
Ten years ago I was driving to work, to send everyone home, when I heard on the radio that the Twin Towers had fallen.
In those ten years, I have seen the best and worst of America.
I have seen honest debate about the future of our country, and I have seen citizens call each other traitors simply because they don’t share the same politics.
I have seen America unite in joy and in grief together regardless of race, gender, or politics, and yet at other times question the foundational concept of America that “All men are created equal.”
America, we are a better country than this.
Our forefathers deserve a better legacy that an era of personal name calling and character assassination.
Our descendants deserve a better future than an era focused on fear.

That which unites us is stronger than that which divides us.

The cost of comic books over time

Recently, DC Comics rebooted their entire line of stories. I hadn’t read comics in a year or two, but I was intrigued. I stopped by the local comic store and picked up the new books. The price of the new issues was $3.99 a copy.


I thought to myself that the price is really rising. When I got home, I read a great article on comparing the price of comics to the minimum wage by Von Allen.
Soon I was wondering what the relative cost of comics was in the past. I mean, I know they were 10¢ in the 50s, but what does 10¢ in 1950s dollars compare to in 2011?
So I did a little research. I looked up the cover price of comics over the years on Wikipedia and I used a site called Measuring Worth to covert prices in the past to prices today based on the Consumer Price Index.
I threw all the values into a spreadsheet.

Year Cover Cost Cost Adjusted To
2011 $ (CPI)
1950 $0.10 $0.91
1962 $0.12 $0.87
1969 $0.15 $0.89
1971 $0.20 $1.08
1974 $0.25 $1.11
1976 $0.30 $1.15
1977 $0.35 $1.26
1979 $0.40 $1.20
1980 $0.50 $1.32
1981 $0.60 $1.44
1985 $0.65 $1.32
1986 $0.75 $1.49
1988 $1.00 $1.84
1992 $1.25 $1.94
1995 $1.50 $2.15
1996 $1.95 $2.71
1997 $1.99 $2.70
2000 $2.25 $2.85
2005 $2.50 $2.79
2006 $2.99 $3.23
2011 $3.99 $3.99


Graphed it looks like this:

Looking at the graph we can see that the relative price of a comic book stayed around a buck until 1970 or so, slowly ramping up to a buck fifty over the next 15 years. That’s a 50% increase. From 1985 to 2000 the price almost doubles (100%) getting neat three dollars. From 2000 to 2011, it’s around a 33% increase.
It’s a fact that costs increase over time, so I’m not saying prices could remain at a buck forever. But it is hard to see how young kids and teenagers can get into comic books, it’s simply too expensive. For $20 you get 5-7 books. Serious comic readers will pick up 10-20 books a week. A few years ago, when I was a more regular reader, I would the totals of other people routinely $30-50 a week. That’s $120-200 per MONTH. There can’t be many parents helping pay that much for a kid’s comic habit.
Perhaps comics are now becoming a purely adult pastime. That would be sad. The joy of reading, sorting, and collecting comics was a wonderful part of my youth.

TF2 Video


Recently, I’ve been playing the the Replay editor in Team Fortress 2. It allows you to edit a video together from a round in a game of TF2. Not only can you see the round from your perspective, you can switch between the views of any player or go with a free view camera. once you’ve edited the video, you can render it out several different ways. The editor even allows you to upload the video directly to Youtube from within the game.
The most interesting part is the transition of gaming from simply playing to playing and then taking the gameplay and then remixing it into new content.
Valve, makers of TF2, held a contest called the Saxxy Awards, for the top videos in 20 different categories. Winners of the Saxxy received an actual golden statue in game for use. This blending of gameplay and community is exemplary.