Andy Wonders Archives - Page 6 of 23

Have You Used a Radar Dedector?

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There I am, driving in the dude-mobile, and I spot it, stuck to the windshield of the car in front of me, this little object with a row of red lights, and I thought to myself, “Self, that’s a radar dedector. I didn’t know anyone even bought them anymore. I wonder if they’re even worth it.”

I remember the days of the Fuzzbuster, and the constantly changing technology that whenever it seemed you had the latest and greatest device to let you speed, along came a different style radar gun to thwart it, finally leading to LIDAR, using fancy laser light to detect your speed, thereby reducing the effectiveness of most radar detectors to nil. For me I’m not a speed demon, in fact I’ve been ridiculed on trips with my friends as they would kindly mention that “Grandma Moses just passed you up!”, and the one time I did get a speeding ticket it was when I was clocked by aircraft on the Ohio Turnpike where, as I was cruising with most of the traffic, we all came up on a lane reduction, thereby causing everyone to slow down, and the lovely patrolman was standing on the side of the road pointing at just about every car coming up on the zone and directing them to the side of the road to get their respective tickets.

Lately many manufacturers have incorporated things light red-light camera notification and using GPS to tell you where speed traps tend to be, but as many smart-phones have an app that does the same thing, I find it a little odd that the dude in front of me had one. Sure, it can go back a while, but I do wonder: Have you used a radar dedector? If you have, I would love to know if it has been recently, and if it helped thwart the fuzz.

That’s it for this one! L8R!!

Would You Respond to an Ad Posted on the Side of the Road?

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Driving in the dude-mobile the other day I’m seeing a plethora of handwritten signs on the side of the road at intersection. Now, every now and then I see the signs for garage sales and the never-ending furniture stores announcing they are going out of business and liquidating all of their stock which always makes me wonder how many furniture stores there are, and why are they always going out of business. This time, though, was a garage sale kind of sign stuck in the ground, and written in giant marker, sloppily, it bragged that an investor was seeking an apprentice and that by working part time you could make $5,000 a month, while if you really put the full-time effort you could be pulling in $10,000 a month! “Holy cow!” I thought, $5,000 a month for a part-time job? Sweet! And I’d only be an apprentice? My God, what could I actually make if I were the “investor?”

The curious person in me wanted to jot down the phone number and call, but the logical person in me was skeptical, kind of like with the liquidating furniture stores, and figured I would just get roped into some scam where I would sink our life savings into some scam business where the way you make money is by convincing an “apprentice” to pay you money for the secrets to making money, all the while dispatching said “apprentice” to post signs on the side of the road.

I notice them all of the time, poorly written instructions on a garage-sale kind of sign, stuck in the side of the road, where I can be a painter, realtor, apprentice, and the like, all the while making exorbitant amounts of money for just a little bit of work, and I wonder: Would you respond to an ad posted on the side of the road? On a secondary note, it you have, I would love to hear your story of how that worked out.

That’s it for this one! L8R!!

Would You Go on a Water Slide Taller than The Statue of Liberty?

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The other week I’m watching the news and there is talk of a water slide that has officially broken the Guinness World Record for tallest water slide. Sure, there’s a world record for just about anything these days, so why not a water slide? Most people might probably expect the story to be at some exotic location, maybe Dubai or Kuala Lampur, you know, those places where they are building skyscrapers that touch the heavens, or maybe at some fancy Six Flags theme park, but no, instead of the United States sporting the tallest skyscraper we get to now boast the tallest water slide, and not in some huge metropolis – to ride the tallest water slide get your butt to Kansas City, Kansas (not the Missouri version), and this place called the Schlitterbahn Water Park, a chain of water parks throughout the country, but now making Kansas City famous.

The ride is called Verruckt, and clocking in at 168′ 7″, the drop is taller than The Statue of Liberty or going over Niagara Falls, and as the website lets you know, you won’t be getting a super-wedgie as this is an actual ride where you will be safely secured in a four person raft before going over a second hill a mere 50 feet.

Sure, the fact you will be in a raft might take some of the daredevil nature out of the ride, but still, it seems kind of wacky going down a water slide that would be like plunging over Niagara, though no more wacky than some of the tallest roller coasters. Me, I used to be a roller coaster kind of guy, though that has waned mostly because I haven’t been to my favorite theme part in the world, Cedar Point, in years, home to some of the best coasters and memories squiggles and of my buddy Rob doing an impression of Cornholio before we even knew who Cornholio was.

I probably won’t be making it to Schlittergahn anytime soon, but America, be proud! We have the tallest water slide, but I wonder: Would you go on a water slide taller than The Statue of Liberty?

That’s it for this one! L8R!!

Are Your May Flowers Blooming?

April is over. Thank God! I suppose it wasn’t the worst of Aprils, but after the winter we’ve had, and most people just wanting weather to be normal, this last blast of rainy weather and storms around the country just continues a 2014 of nutty weather.

The sayings go that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, well, that little lamb has turned into one grumpy sheep during April, and if April showers bring May flowers, I’m thinking the flowers of May should be overly abundant this year.

You can blame global warming, you can blame Mother Nature, you can blame God for being pissed at the world because it is accepting gay people, or, like me, you can just attribute the weird weather to, well, we’ve only got a couple hundred years of accurate weather history so we have no idea what kind of start the year 1253 got off to, but as weather years go we’ll have stories to tell the youngins in about twenty years. Me, I’m just wondering right now: Are your May flowers blooming?

That’s it for this one! L8R!!

Will They Find the Missing Malaysian Flight 370?

It’s coming on two months since Malaysian Flight 370 disappeared, and like many tragedies that so engulfed people’s water-cooler talk for a few weeks, unless you are directly involved you probably don’t really care any longer. You might have a minute or two down the road when someone will say something like “Did they ever find that airplane?” and remember it for a minute, but until they actually find the missing plane it’s almost time when the searching will stop, there will be an outcry from people with those missing that they shouldn’t stop, but the reality might set in that they may never find the plane, something in itself that seems hard to fathom these days.

I guess what has flabbergasted me the most, especially in this day and age when if allowed, I can use my phone to find exactly where in the world my friend might be at any given time with things like “Find my iPhone” and GSP tracking, that airplanes, especially commercial airlines, don’t have continuos tracking. Maybe this tragedy will change all of that, especially the thoughts that maybe, just maybe, had that capability been on the plane, if there were any survivors there might have been a chance to get to them in time, but alas, as the Titanic was missing for the longest time, it might be years and years until someone actually finds Malaysian Flight 370.

I suppose the answer might be “Yes,” but over the course of travel there have been many vessels lost at sea never to be found, though I wonder: Will they find Malaysian Flight 370?

That’s it for this one! L8R!!

Did You Know That THE CFO Smokes and is a Litterbug?

I wonder if you know that THE CFO smokes and is a litterbug. I do. Okay, I’m not exactly sure it was “the” CFO, so I’ll further explain.

The other day I find myself cruising along the highway with my honey and in front of us is a car with a vanity plate. I’m always fascinated at what people put on a vanity plate, especially since it can identify you as an asshole if you are a sucky driver, or do something, well, sucky other than driving. The car was driving fine, I mean, it was a straight stretch of road, they were a little over the speed limit, and not swerving back and forth or anything crazy like that. As I got a little closer there was the license plate: “THE CFO”. Maybe not as creative as “ASSMAN” from the Seinfeld episode, but the owner of the car was obviously proud of being the CFO, whatever CFO might stand for in this situation.

Maybe a little pompous, I thought, but hey, be proud! That was until I saw two things. Yup, there was the puff of smoke coming out of the driver side window, and sure enough, like clockwork, the cigarette butt was flicked out of the car window. Instantly my thoughts of slightly pompous turned to pompous asshole.

I have to admit that I didn’t stop the car and ask the driver if they were, in fact, the CFO, so I suppose my Daily Wonder should really be “Did you know someone in The CFO’s car smokes and is a litterbug?”, but I have to assume, especially since they were the smoker in the car (which most likely smells like an ashtray even though said tray isn’t used) and the driver of the vehicle, that whomever tossed out the cigarette butt was THE CFO. I could preach about the dangers of smoking and my mom dying of lung cancer, the dangers of flicking your cigarette butt out of the car window, or how the person should have gotten a ticket, but mostly I’ll just mention any thought of “Congratulations of achieving your success” I had in the person being The CFO went right out the window with the flick of a butt.

Mind you, this post only relates to THE CFO in Illinois, so you CFO’s in other states with vanity plates, I hope you don’t fall into this category, but all it takes is one to ruin all of your reputations.

I know cars don’t always come with ashtrays nowadays, though I’m guessing their car probably had one, however, I wonder: Did you know that THE CFO smokes and is a litterbug?

That’s it for this one! L8R!!!

Have You Shot Off a Model Rocket?

Going for a walk the other day in a nearby park I saw a group of kids in the middle of the field, huddled around something. They then scattered a bit, and I saw it there, that little stand with a long rod, and then heard that familiar “Swooooosh!” sound, and saw the rocket take off. Immediately I was taken back to my childhood, model rockets, and uber-coolness, at least for a nerd want-to-be. I remembered days of chasing down rockets caught in the wind, hoping it didn’t land on a nearby rooftop, searching the fields where we thought it touched down, and just all-in-all being amazed, and thinking it might be possible to strap more motors to the body of the rocket to get it to go even higher (it doesn’t work).

I don’t know if it was because I was smaller, or because they used a lame rocket motor, but their rocket didn’t go up that high, to the point that when the parachute deployed even I knew there wasn’t enough height to let it open up and give the rocket a soft landing. It was up, it was down, and as disappointed as I was in the height of their launch I was thrilled to see kids still launching a model rocket, they just might need some help on their choice of motor and rocket.

I’m guessing for most of the girls out there the answer is “No,” but I’m wondering: Have you shot off a model rocket?

That’s it for this one! L8R!!

Have You Changed Your Passwords Since News of the Heartbleed Bug Came Out?

A mantis praying that you change your passwords. When Target had their security breach effecting credit and debit cards you would have thought the world was coming to an end. Every news channel carried the story, new credit and debit cards were being issued, and people became afraid to shop at Target out of fear their identity would be stolen. On top of that when other places were hacked there were the same stories, especially the ones where we should change our passwords because Yahoo/Google/Adobe (that PDF viewer thing we all use)/LinkedIn were affected, and the world was coming to an end.

Now, though, when a hack that actually seems to be the mother of all hacks, the Heartbleed Bug, affecting nearly every website that used secure connections, it’s almost like no one seems to care. I heard a quick blurb on a news station when it was first announced and said to myself, “Self, that’s pretty bad,” but it was buried about five stories down into the news. A few days later the major news outlets started reporting it, but it was kind of the same “Yea, something was hacked, you should change your passwords” story, but nowhere with the “internet world is coming to an end” immediacy of other hacks.

I’m blaming the name of the bug: “The Heartbleed Bug.” Why? No one can relate. We know Yahoo. We know Google. We know Target. But what the hell is “Heartbleed?” For what is actually a hack that should entice people to change their passwords a little more diligently than the others, no one except for geeks can identity.

I’m not sure what a better name might have been to get people to care, or maybe we’ve just gotten so used to the “Change the passwords” stories we don’t care anymore, but I’m wondering: Have you changed your passwords since news of the Heartbleed Bug came out?

That’s it for this one! L8R!!

Did You Do Something “Bunny” Related for Easter?

The Easter Bunny is pooped! I know this post might be a little more religion-specific, but around Easter there are always the posts about what a bunny has to do with what is supposed to be the celebration of resurrection of Jesus after he was dead for three days. Supposedly it goes back to something about rabbits and kids, similar to Santa Claus at Christmas time, and then somehow eggs because involved, related to the rabbit even though rabbits don’t lay eggs. It’s also the time of stories about your favorite way to eat a chocolate Easter bunny, for example, to you eat the ears first, or maybe the head, or the feet. And alas, we also hear the stories about parents who rush out to buy rabbits to give their kids as a pet for Easter, quickly realized “Why in the hell did I buy a rabbit?” and then having to figure out what to do with it.

Me, it’s my time to post one of my favorite pictures, that of a giant, blow-up Easter Bunny, that, like most rabbits, had to take a potty break. With that I guess my answer is “Yes,” but I wonder: Did you do something “bunny” related for Easter?

That’s it for this one! L8R!!!

Do You Have a Twitter Account you Don’t Use?

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I tend to forget how many Twitter accounts I have. Yes, I have my personal one at @aplabis, there is @enteravenue, and then there is the slew of accounts I set up to A) Help promote some iPhone apps I have. B) Save them from squatters so someone can’t pose as names close to mine, because, you know, I’m a famous person in my own head. C) I thought they might be cool names to have someday. In all I probably have a dozen accounts, of which I really use two.

The reason I’m bringing this up is there was a report out showing that 44% of Twitter users have never sent a Tweet. I think, much like Facebook accounts people don’t use, Twitter is a bastion of accounts that people set up, followed a few people, looked at a few times, and from this report, 66% maybe even sent a Tweet, something like “Hey, this is my first Tweet!” Then, I’ll bet, most of the people go away.

Will I ever use some of those Twitter accounts? Probably not. Do I even remember the passwords? Hmm? I’m part of that 44% who haven’t sent a Tweet, but I’m wondering more about those who have an account they used before, but forgot about. With that, I’m wondering: Do you have a Twitter account you don’t use?

That’s it for this one! L8R!!!