HEB (and other off-brand / store-brand) Colas

When HEB first appeared, I really didn’t think much of it.  Most of the reason comes from the tiny store they built in Port Arthur.  They bought a parking lot because the building wasn’t for sale, but the parking lot was owned by someone else.  It was a tiny, crappy store.

The HEB stores in the Austin area are amazing.  Like most stores these days, they off a store brand for many items.  In fact, in some cases, you can’t get what you really want because the store brands take up room that other varieties of the standard brand would take up.  Take, for example, Pop-Tarts.  If you want anything other than brown-sugar cinnamon or strawberry Pop-Tart, you’re out of luck at HEB.  Believe me, the store-brand Pop-Tart equivalents are terrible.

The trick economically, is to find as many store brand products as you can stomach.  My family has dropped our weekly grocery bill about $50 by substituting many name-brand items for store-brand items.  Especially things with guaranteed content like cold medications and shampoos.

One of the strangest substitutions like this (at least for me) is HEB Colas.  I tried them for the first time because they were 8 bucks for four 12-packs and cokes were 12 dollars for three 12-packs.  Now that’s economically sound… even if they aren’t perfect.

However, I was amazed.  The HEB cola is full-bodied, not to sweet, but sweet enough and it has that pleasant bite to it that a strong coke has (you know, like the ones from Mexico that don’t have to deal with all the FDA crap).  When cold, they do make have that satisfactory quality of being easy to chug and are generally smooth.

Plus, there are some flavors I like.  I have very rarely seen an HEB cherry coke, but not often.  The Dr. Pepper equivalent (Dr. B of all things) is excellent and really tastes better (and is smoother) than Dr. Pepper.  The HEB Orange Soda isn’t perfect.  I find it a little too sharp and tangy to be really satisfying.  The sugar content is a little high too.  My wife loves the things though.  I tolerate them so I get a case every now and again.

The story only gets better…

I’m approaching middle age (approaching like a skydiver whose chute has failed to open) and I now have a very sedentary job (welcome to the cube farm).  So I’m a little concerned about my expanding middle section.  I’ve tried diet Cokes before and found them nauseating at best.  So one day, while Lexie and Xander were out and about, I grabbed a $0.50 20-ounce HEB Diet soda.  I was amazed!

It totally lacked that bitter aftertaste from Diet Coke.  In my opinion, it is actually smoother than any regular cola.

So, I have switched entirely to HEB Diet Colas (with half of my colas being the caffeine free variety)… yes, I’m getting older dammit.

Thank you HEB.  My waist line, my family, and my pocket book appreciate the HEB Colas.  I used to spend five dollars a week on cokes (5 20-ounce).  Now between 5 and 4 dollars (depending on the sales) will get me over two weeks of drinks (24 12-ounce drinks at two a day means 12 working days of cokes for the same price).

Try store-brands, find the ones you like and stick with them.  I’ve dropped my grocery bill 33%.

Chumley the Troll in Shadowrun

About 16 years or so ago, we had a fairly regular Shadowrun game going.  For those not familiar with Shadowrun, it was basically what happened when you combined the (slightly) future world with the fantasy world.  There are/were cyborgs, robots, very modern weapons, cars, AIs all combined with magic, elves, dwarfs, shamans, dragons, gods, swords, etc.  Very neat and the books aren’t too bad either.

Anyway, my character in this game was my favorite all time character I ever played in a role-playing game… Chumley the Troll.  Chumley was a fairly likable fellow.  Part of Shadowrun was that a person could be born a human, then change into a metahuman (elf, dwarf, wendigo, whatever).  Chumley was born a man and joined the British Army as soon as he was able.  He went through special forces training, until an injury changed his MOS to armorer (fixer of guns).

Then, he changed.  It started by eating two or three times normal at chow.  He’d sneak in an extra MRE or two each day.  This gave him about 8000 calories a day.  Then the pain started.

When he came to a few weeks later, he was 8 foot 6 inches and weighed almost 400 pounds.  He had lost many, many IQ points, but was epically strong.  He had become a troll.

Over the next few years, he made his way to Egypt… Britain being a proper civilized country wouldn’t allow to him to remain in the country must less the military.  He worked odd jobs and made some good money.  Then he joined a group of thieves.  That’s when the fun began.

He carried a pair of shotguns, but his favorite weapon was a titanium rod tht was five feet long and two inches in diameter.  When he hit things, they went flying.

For one mission, the team had to infiltrate the magical material storage lab of the University of Cairo.  The client wanted a particular bunch of stones… part of the teams payment was anything else they wanted to take.  The lab was guarded by some serious nastiness.  We had a pass key, but it could only be used by someone magical, but a mage or shaman would be too powerful and easy to spot.  Everyone turned to the only metahuman in our party… Chumley.

So he walks in with three of the team behind him, dressed in lab coats with an illusion spell on everyone.  We get past the human guards and into the back area and come to the first door.  Chumley, whose hands are the size of small watermelons is trying to slide a magical key card through a slot in the wall.  In real life I was rolling a bunch of dice.  The first roll failed, we made it by one on the second roll and narrowly missed setting off the alarm.  Everyone (RL and game character) breathed a sigh of relief.

Then we came to the second door into the lab proper.  Again I had to make two rolls (two was all we had or alarms would sound).  We were sweating at this point.  Finally the storage room door.  We dropped the illusion and I prepared to swipe the card one last time.

I rolled… counted up the 6s and failed… by a  lot.  The team was freaking out at this point.  It was actually quite comical.  The battle-hardened role players wouldn’t hesitate to send our characters into a major fire fight with impossible odds, yet we were all sweating as a troll swiped a magnetic card through a door.

I made the final roll and missed… by one 6.  One of the team mates reminded me that once a night, I could change one die to a 6 if I used a karma point.  Everyone held their breath as I check my character reference sheet to see if I had a Karma point.  I did.  We were in… at least I was.

So a truly gigantic troll eases into this tiny little storeroom.  The door closes behind me so no one else could get in.  I had a giant bag and was staring at hundreds of tiny little drawers with magical materials, stones, and metals of various purposes and properties.  Then I realized the fundamental flaw in our little caper.  I was playing a British troll… who, while quite smart for a troll… well that’s like being the best hockey player in all of Ecuador.

The drawers were covered in funny little squiggles.  I turned my head to the team and said, “I can’t read Arabic.”

The team totally erupted.

Eventually, I ended up dumping almost everything in the drawers into the bag and one of my teammates managed to find the Arabic symbol for the material the client wanted.  He drew it on paper and I held up drawers until the rest of the team said that they matched.

That entire night, not a single shot was fired from any player and it was the single most stressful role-playing game I’ve ever been in.

Chumley ended up having a wizards ensorcell the titanium rod so that it was really potent.  We’re talking knocking down small buildings here.

I’m Scared for the Future of Our Country

Here’s the thing:

The democrats are in charge.

The republicans are batshit insane.

No one trusts the libertarians.

Everyone thinks the greens are totally nuts.

No one likes communists.

 

Now that I’ve pissed everyone off.  Everyone agrees that a monopoly is a bad idea.  Competition is good for consumers and no competition is bad for consumers.

The same thing is true for politics.  Democrats are in the ascendancy.  That’s fine, at least they aren’t (mostly) batshit insane like the republicans, but without the competition from the republicans, there will be no efforts for the democrats to change.  Instead, there will be a huge play for control.

Why aren’t the republicans a threat to the democrats anymore?  The Bush years and Palin episodes are going to taint the republicans for some time to come.  A large number of republicans have completely gone over the edge into religious fanaticism.  Everything from a congressman asking permission of their bishop to vote for a bill.  [Which incidently is basically giving control of the US to an agent of a foreign government.]  To some recent episodes in Texas with a republican trying to have Joe McCarthy taught as a great American hero.  Here are some fascinating quotes from Cathi Adams, new chair of the republicans in Texas.

So, where do we fit in?  Well, it’s very simple.  We are screwed.

Our educational system is really feeling the pain of this.  Health care is even worse.  Civil liberties are not improving under Obama as he told us.

I’m scared.  I really am.

Who will I be voting for?  I’ll want to interview the Libertarian candidate heavily, but libertarians are my play book right now.

 

Battlestar Galactica vs. USS Enterprise

Science fiction fans often pit their favorite hero/ship/weapons against each other in to see who would win and it invariably comes down to who talks loudest.  I attempt to match two fairly common vessels against one another.  In point of fact, I dislike both series slightly so I’m not nearly as biased as most.

The Contenders

In one corner of the solar system, we have the USS Enterprise, a Constitution class Heavy Cruiser of the United Federation of Planets.  For the purposes of this post, I will be using the Constitution class ship from Star Fleet Battles with the + refit.  For those that aren’t familiar with Star Fleet Battles (shame on you), the Constitution CA+, has 4 forward firing photon torpedoes.  These torps fire in a 60 degree arc centered on the centerline of the ship.  It also has eight phaser-1s.  These are the large, heavy phasers that you generally see in the various series.  At least two phasers can hit any target around the ship.  Directly forward, six phasers can be brought to bear.  Finally, as far as weapons are concerned are a pair of phaser-3s.  These are light phasers primarily for missile and fighter defense.  Defenses include some quite heavy energy shields that are effective against energy and particles.  Maneuvering is provided by both impulse and warp engines.  In Star Fleet Battles, all combat is conducted at low FTL speeds.

Constitution with + refit

In the other corner, the Battlestar Galactica, a Galactica class battlestar.  For the purposes of this post, I will be using the re-imaged battlestar.  The ship is nearly a mile long and contains a minimum of 80 active fighters.  Weapons include 24 twin mount anti-ship gun turrets, some 514 twin mount point defense guns, and at least 12 launch tubes for nuclear and (presumably) non-nuclear weapons.  Defense is mainly heavy, dense armor, capable of withstanding a strike from a medium range nuclear weapon with the ship remaining functional.  Maneuvering is provided by large, powerful engines and a separate FTL jump drive.

Galactica class battlestar

The Battle

If these two belligerents happened upon each other in deep space, the battle would very likely be a total draw with the more damaged ship escaping at FTL speeds.  Since the two ships have completely different styles of FTL travel, there is almost no way for one ship to chase the other, provided it can go FTL.

The battlestar will have the maneuverability edge in non-FTL combat.  That’s what it’s designed for after all.  However, it is much easier for the Enterprise to make very short FTL hops to gain position.  Edge to the CA+ here.

The Enterprise should be able to shrug off most of the battlestar’s weapons.  Photon torps are matter/anti-matter and a CA+ can take 3 torpedo hits on the rear shield (the weakest) before damage can be transmitted to the ship.  However, the battlestar has LOTS of weapons.  If the battlestar can hit the CA+, then it should be able to do a lot of damage, pretty quickly.  Even if the 48 heavy cannons do 1/20th of the damage of a single torp, then a alpha strike hit on the CA+ will cause some significant shield degradation.  A hit is by no means guaranteed though and the estimate of the battlestar’s main cannons is probably very optimistic.  Nuclear weapons are another story and could cause serious damage t the CA+.  However, there are only 12 launchers and they are not FTL.

On the other hand, the CA+ doesn’t have nearly the weapons that the battlestar does.  Since photon torps are physical objects, then the sheer amount of point defense fire from the battlestar would make it very difficult for the CA+ to hit with missile weapons.  The phasers are relatively short ranged and weak.  A photon hit would cause significant damage to the battlestar, but the phaser hits might wipe out a weapon mount.  Since the main weapons of the Galactica did survive a direct hit from a nuke, phasers might not be nearly as effective here.  There are also very few weapons on the CA+.  For every phaser-1 that the CA has, there are 6 heavy cannons and there are 128 point defense guns for each photon torpedo launcher.

Edge:  This is a tie

Now we haven’t mentioned the battlestar’s primary weapon system here.  The 80+ fighters and raptor multi-role small craft.  In a strict space battle, these will be almost useless as the CA+ can just FTL beyond the range of the fighters.

No effect on outcome.

Fixed Defense

The previous describes a strict space battle… an encounter if you will.  Which would never happen between these two ships anyway because of the nature of their FTL systems.  Much more likely would be one or the other defending a fixed point (planet, space station, convey).

Battlestar as Defender

This is much more interesting battle as the FTL capable Enterprise can come from any direction and the battlestar will be forced to remain very close to the target.  If this is a space station, no problem, but a planet will cause a huge blind spot for the battlestar.  On the other hand, here’s where the Vipers and Raptors come into play.  The battlestar can create a sphere of small sensor posts (the small craft) at long distances from the target.  With the Raptor’s jump drive, they could actually beat the warp drive CA+ back to the target and the battlestar can jump or maneuver into position.

Basically, no matter what the warp drive ship does (theoretically), the battlestar can always preempt it, and with a little luck do some damage during each run in.  However, the battlestar must be lucky and stay lucky.  One mistake and it’s all over for the battlestar’s defendee.

CA+ as Defender

Again, the battlestar’s jump drive will play a huge role here as it can be in position and firing before the CA+ is aware that it is present.  This will give the battlestar an edge in any attack scenario like this.  If the CA+’s shields are down, a few lucky hits could cripple it.  The fighters provide a huge edge here.  They could be dropped and come in on a completely different vector from the battlestar, forcing the CA to accept one attack while dealing with the other (the smart CA+ will go for the battlestar here) or the fighters could lure the CA+ away from the target whlie the battlestar pops in to destroy it.  Again, the defender must be very lucky or the target will be crushed from many directions at once.

Other Considerations

The main factor outlining a duel between these two ships are the engines.  It is much more likely for the Enterprise to get a lucky hit on the engines, crippling the battlestar.  No matter what, the battlestar must work it’s way through the shields to get to the CA+’s engines.  In spite of the sheer volume of fire coming from the battlestar, this will be difficult at best because of the Enterprise’s warp drive system.

The battlestar’s fighters are almost useless against the CA+.  They just don’t have the speed and the CA+ can disengage at will.  If the Enterprise has damaged engines, then even with full shields, the battlestar will destroy it in seconds.

In a chase situation, I have to give the edge to the battlestar.  The jump drive is much faster than warp drive and can be used for many days at least 33 minutes apart.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, a fight between these ships would be interesting.  It really would depend on who makes the first mistake.  I must give a slight edge to the USS Enterprise though.  The always on FTL drive and shields give it a much needed maneuverability and survival time against the battlestar.  Please keep in mind that this is a very slight edge.  A combat between these ships will either end in a draw or be over in minutes at best.

Wall Mounted DVD Player

OK, so we have wall mounted TVs… but we still have to have  a shelf or table in from to f the TV for all the crap we need to make a TV run.

Shelf:

CONS:  unsightly piles of equipment, wires hanging behind, easy to damage

PROS: Easy to install (mostly), easy to access equipment.

Shelves just don’t do it for me.  I have a lot of DVDs, DVD players, X-boxes, DVRs, etc.  That equates to a lot of wires and piles of remotes and other equipment.

Entertainment Center

CONS: Very large, wasted space in front of or behind ultra thin TV, difficult to rearrange or rewire equipment, exceedingly difficult to move, expensive

PROS: Generally looks nice, hides unsightly wires, DVD cases, etc.

I generally prefer entertainment centers, but they are large and really nice ones are really expensive.  The cheap ones are, well, cheap.  However, they do come with plenty of storage and hide the wires quite nicely.

Rack Mount

CONS: Expensive, not matched to other furniture, heat, sometimes difficult to rewire

PROS: very organized, very cool for technofiles

These are neat setups, but generally require an entire room devoted to the equipment.

My Solution

I want the various manufacturers of A/V gear to make wall mounted equipment.  The trays (DVD/CD/Blu Ray) should flip out like some CD players.  The equipment should be vertically usable instead of horizontally usable.  The display would be on what used to be the top of the device.  (Which is now the front.)

As far as wires, I think that high speed wireless should be sufficient these days for the local transmission of A/V signal.  The wireless system will come with a pair of devices that match to the popular wiring systems.  Except that the wires are very short an end in a small transceiver which are matched in frequency and security system.

So no wires between equipment any more.

Finally, I want a PC station between the TV and the various pieces of equipment.  That PC will contain a software system that will allow it to store signals from the DVD, DVR, whatever as an appropriate file type (MP3, MP4, AVI, whatever you prefer).  This would be like a super DVR, where anything that heads for the TV will be stored on your own personal server so you can view it again later.

Telecommunications

I just spent a very frustrating 2 hours on the phone with various AT&T divisions.   I finally got some resolution to a variety of issues.

Do you want to make more money than anyone?  Here’s how…

Start a telecommunication company that actualy charges what you say you’re going to charge.  You will drive every other telecommunications carrier out of business.

Kansas Evolution Hearings

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/kansas/kangaroo.html

I know this is old news (2005), but I just got around to reading the transcript (link above) today and I thought it very funny… and somewhat sad and pathetic.  Of course, these kinds of things are still going on.

If you are really bored, you can read the complete transcript, but I’ll hit the highlights for you.

Witnesses for the anti-evolution committee of the Kansas Board of Education: Jonathon Wells, Mike Behe, Stephen Meyer, Mustafa Akyol (A Turkish Muslim, not a US citizen).  There were about 20 or so total.  Many with PhDs in Theology and Philosophy… a few science teachers (sigh).

Witnesses for the pro-science team: none.

Counsel (for lack of a better term): 3 or 4 members of the Kansas State Board of Education (each with an opportunity to question).

Counsel: 1 guy who knew what the hell he was doing.

Organization: Each Side would call their witnesses (experts?!?!?) and question for 40 minutes or so.  The opposing side would then have half that time to cross-examine, then the calling side would have half of that time for redirect.

Funny Result: Even without calling any witnesses, and the deck full of anti-evolutionists, and the moderator obviously against him, and very hostile witnesses, the science team kicked ass.  It wasn’t even close.  Anyone with half a brain is able to see the religious motivation for changing the Kansas Science Standards.

It really is funny.

Playing Movies and SMS on my Samsung EPIX

First, we finally got new phones (and carrier and phone numbers).  If I haven’t contacted you with my info yet, then shoot me an e-mail and I’ll get it to you.

We bought the Samsung EPIX.  This is a fantastic machine.  Windows and AT&T together couldn’t destroy the power of the phone (and a little judicious hacking).  The keyboard is firm and responsive, the touch screen doesn’t mind some abuse, the machine is tough, yet easy to carry.  Windows mobile 6.1 is not a terrible OS.  Windows Media Player Mobile is HORRIBLE.

First you need two programs to help with video playback.  You could probably make do with one, but there’s a good reason for both.

YouTubePlay – This program lets you A) go to youtube.com and watch videos and B) plays any flv video files.  The latter is actually more useful for me as I tend to download the flv from youtube to watch at my leisure.  It’s also a small file and a pretty good player.

TCPMP – This is a very good media player.  However, something to keep in mind is that because Microsoft is proprietary, any Windows Media File will play poorly on the EPIX.  They will play with TCPMP, but TCPMP must use the Microsoft codex and it slows down and makes the playback jerky (too the point of unwatchable for me).

Amerisoft DVD Ripper and File Converter – These are the only pay programs I have, but they are freaking awesome.  During the evaluation period, I ripped an episode of SG-1, downloaded to my EPIX, and watched it… smooth and beautiful.  So I don’t have a problem paying for this one.

BTW: I have a 4g micro SD card and all the videos saved to that.

Regarding WiFi:  I prefer having fast internet (especially at home), so I turned off the proxy (connections tab in settings folder).  Unfortunately, if you do that, then you can’t use AT&T for SMS messaging.  I think there is a way around that, but I haven’t gotten all the details yet.

My solution is actually pretty simple.  GMail.  Set up IMAP for Gmail and you can send almost anything you want that way.  My wife sends me pictures via Gmail and then sends a quick text message to check the e-mail.  It’s not quite as fast, but on the plus side, those pictures are now available on any internet connected PC and my home e-mail system as well.

I cannot wait for Fennec to come out.  That’s the Firefox for mobile phones browser.

Anyway, I hope this helps some with the EPIX.  Great phone… just some details that AT&T and Microsoft think that they are god’s gift to technology.  Some of us actually prefer things that work though.

Round Rock Sports Complex

DON’T DO IT.

Please understand, I’m a recent transplant to Round Rock.  However, I’ve come from an area that recently did the same thing that the city managers here are considering (in process of).

None of these projects have EVER made money for the city, county, region, etc.  NEVER.

Do a google search on “Ford Park, Jefferson County, Texas”.  Jefferson county built Ford Park without consulting the voters.  It cost about 20 million once everything was said and done… then it cost 1 million to 1.5 million per year.  That was what the county gave to Ford Park every year to keep it solvent.  It was billed as the greatest entertainment center in Southeast Texas.

We had two concerts per year that may have been half filled.  We had the Regional Softball tournament and a rodeo.  That’s it.  The entertainment complex was empty the rest of the time.

It will not work.