Month: August 2010

DOH – car breakdown in Montana

On By Rick McIn bad news, travel6 Comments

My car is fixed, for now. About $500 total. The guys finished the repair just before closing.

____ original post:

I was half hoping my old Honda would break down in Vegas. … Have it towed to the auto wrecker. Fly home to Calgary. Simple.

For my $1600 initial cost, I didn’t expect it to last forever.

Worst case scenario → break down in the middle of nowhere.

Honda breakdown - not funny

From Livingston, I still need to get home to Calgary. How do I do that without the Honda?

I gambled. About $500 (so far) to replace the fuel pump and filter, same day.

Livingston, I presume.

social networks from MOBILE devices

On By Rick McIn internet, product endorsementsLeave a comment

This infographic, created by Jesse Thomas of digital creative agency Jess3, shows the relative size of social networks and online services …, and also shows the proportion of their user base that access the service via a mobile device.

GigaOM

Almost Famous – Tiny Dancer

On By Rick McIn movies, musicLeave a comment

Once again I ended up watching Almost Famous at a hostel. It’s a feel good experience that strangers can share.

Almost Famous is a 2000 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe and telling the fictional story of a teenage journalist writing for Rolling Stone magazine while covering the rock band Stillwater, and his efforts to get his first cover story published. The film is semi-autobiographical, as Crowe himself was a teenage writer for Rolling Stone.

The film is based on Crowe’s experiences touring with rock bands The Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. In a Rolling Stone article, he talks about how he lost his virginity, fell in love, and met his heroes, experiences that are shared by William, the main character in the film. …

Here’s one of the very best scenes.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Kate Hudson is perfect. Her Mom, Goldie Hawn, played similar roles a generation earlier.

This scene has its own Facebook page. I Like.

price of movie rental = $1

On By Rick McIn economics, moviesLeave a comment

The cost of infinitely reproducible digital ‘goods’, transferred via the web, will approach zero.

In the States, McDonalds has dropped the price on very good, fairly recent movies to a dollar a night. And that’s for a DVD with real production and transportation costs.

video kiosk at McDonalds

Some of the big Hollywood production houses try to fight Redbox. A losing battle, I predict.

why does Twitter persist?

On By Rick McIn blogs, humour, product complaints, things getting worseLeave a comment

It’s terrible.

Like Facebook with 5% of the feature set.

Yet every company, celebrity and website feels obliged to tweet. (Even me with my 3 blogs.)

Have you heard about the upcoming Facebook movie, The Social Network, based on the 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires?

If Hollywood can make an overly dramatic film about the early years of Facebook, why can’t we make an overly dramatic movie about Twitter? Or at least the trailer to that movie! …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The movie rights for Googled: The End of the World As We Know it (2009) have been acquired.

tire flies off boat trailer … I’m not nearly killed

On By Rick McIn product endorsements, travel3 Comments

You know those videos of tires flying off vehicles wrecking havoc?

I saw one yesterday.

I was driving near Searchlight, Nevada on a bleak desert highway. Temperature near 170 degrees F.

The vehicle in front of me was towing a boat. In front of my eyes the wheel broke off, rolling full-speed along the ditch. A couple of hundred yards later it crossed the highway and kept rolling off into the distance.

I swerved around the vehicle in a cloud of smoke and pieces of axle. … Yeesh.

On the bright side, my $1600 ’96 Honda, purchased in February, is still running.

Rick the STIG with 1996 Civic