No more turn signals: are we that lazy?

I admit I have a bit of a road rage problem. But what do you expect--there are so many clueless, inconsiderate drivers. I would be fine if everyone would just drive right!

Over the past few years, I've been seeing fewer and fewer turn signals. Today on the way to work, people were turning all over the place, but I saw only two turn signals actually used.

Have we become that lazy that we can't even bother to use the turn signal any more?

I try to find other reasons why this is happening. Is it because everyone's hands are too busy fiddling with cell phones, radios, and GPSs? Was there a report I missed that claims using turn signals increases global warming?

If you're turning, let me know! That's all I'm asking. Otherwise, I get the impression you think the road is all yours and the rest of us are just in your way. And that's when I get the urge to start ramming you.

Do you use your turn signal reliably?

New personal web site

I've decided to bring my personal home site back to life and am moving the contents of my blogspot blogs to that new site. I hope to see you there! This site will no longer be updated.

Reaching the digital preference point

It happened sooner than I expected: earlier this week I reached what I'm calling the "digital preference point (DPP)".

I realized, where possible, I now prefer acquring stuff in digital format rather than in physical form. I already had been getting a lot of bills via email and the web rather than by regular mail. And the Amazon Kindle nudged me further in the digital direction--it's great having so many books portable and searchable instead of taking up space in the house.

But I hadn't really made the switch with music. That was mainly because I refused to deal with low quality DRM'ed selections from the online vendors. But that all changed this year with Amazon MP3s and iTunes Plus.

So earlier this week I was browsing the Amazon MP3 store's specials and saw Colbie Caillat's album Coco available for download for $7.99. It caught my eye because I had bookmarked it when my custom Pandora station played it for me a few weeks ago. Coco seems to have a high quality to crap ratio so I was interested in the full album. My normal M.O. at this point had been to buy a used copy of the CD and then rip it and resell it. Used Coco CDs were selling for around $6.50 plus shipping. The Amazon price for the new physical CD matched the download price, $7.99. And with Amazon Prime, shipping is free, making it the same price as the digital download.

But then I really started to think this through. Was it really worth the effort to rip this CD myself, add/fix all the necessary metadata, post a listing on Amazon and Half.com to resell it, then package it, figure out postage, and mail it once it sells? For what, the ability to make back maybe $3 or $4?

And so I purchased the digital album. It came right down to my computer and got added to iTunes automatically. I only had to fix the genre metadata (because Amazon seems to consider just about everything "Pop"). The whole thing took about one minute of my time. If I had purchased the physical CD, it would have easily taken up 15-20 minutes of my time, start to end.

Crossing the DPP makes this stuff feel more like real entertainment instead of work.

OK, this time I'm serious

I set up this blog over a year and half ago but then haven't written anything in it since. This week I decided to dust it off and get serious about it.

A lot of various topics jump into my mind day to day and some of the issues really get me fired up. A lot of my frustration is because I'm so shocked that society seems to be deteriorating so quickly and yet the majority of people just blindly let it happen. Why doesn't anyone seem to think for themselves anymore? Why does everyone just believe what the media and our politicians tell them?

I want to get some of these topics out in the open for some good discussion. I'll give you my thoughts and I'd love to hear yours, so please comment on any posts that strike a nerve or a chord with you.

Here we go! A couple of months ago I stumbled upon the blog revolution and have been enjoying reading all sorts of interesting (and many not so interesting) things netizens have to say out there.

I tend to have crazy thoughts pop into my head all the time and figured a weblog would be a great way to capture those thoughts and share them with anyone who might care. I've put off starting a blog because I wanted to develop my own blog site software for my home web site but due to work and other projects, I just haven't gotten around to it. So, for now I'm utilizing Blogger.com to get my thoughts out there. I'll revisit my own solution at some other point.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'd love to hear your comments on anything I've written here.