Man says console taken at gunpoint

What is our world coming to when people are threatening people's lives for a video game system?

Man says console taken at gunpoint: "Man says console taken at gunpoint
CPCC student says he camped out for 2 nights to get a game system
RYAN BASEN
rbasen@charlotteobserver.com

Brandon Brown planned to buy and then sell the new PlayStation 3 for a profit. Instead, the 20-year-old SouthPark resident found himself staring into the barrel of a shotgun.
Brown was one of several people nationwide, including a UNC Wilmington student, robbed of a PlayStation 3 video game console since their release Friday.
Sony released just 400,000 PlayStation 3 consoles in the United States. Dozens of consoles, which retail for $500 or $600 depending on the model, sold for well over $1,000 on eBay on Saturday.
Brown planned to take advantage of that demand. He slept in front of the Best Buy store in Pineville on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and purchased a PlayStation 3 on Friday morning. He then drove home.
About 8:30 a.m., as he was preparing to unlock the front door, he heard a voice order him to turn around. When he turned, Brown saw a shotgun pointed at him about 18 inches away. The man holding the shotgun, clad in a hooded sweatshirt and red bandana, demanded the console and warned Brown not to resist.
The robber, whom Brown describes as a light-skinned black male, snatched the PlayStation 3 and fled.
He drove an early 1990s faded red Buick, with a different-colored passenger door, Brown said.
Brown, a part-time Central Piedmont Community College student and server at a SouthPark seafood restaurant, filed a police report Friday morning.
'I think Sony needs to change their production techniques,' Brown said. 'Releasing so few (consoles) causes a lot of chaos.'
Police could not be reached for comment Saturday."

Fight the Liberals!

I am sick of Liberals educating us about their politics by using their favorite platform, the bumper sticker. Here's one way to fight the incessantly labeling morons, go to BumperTalk and order some of your own.

My favorite one says it all: "Annoy a Liberal. Work hard and be happy."

Al Qaeda crows over Rumsfeld - Yahoo! News

Thank you Democrats! Al Qaeda can't wait for our new policy. They've got 12,000 combatants ready to step into Iraq. Way to go Liberals!!!

Al Qaeda crows over Rumsfeld - Yahoo! News

Dean Karnazes Endurance 50

With all the drama surround Lance Armstrong completing his first marathon it seems like no one if paying attention to Dean Karnazes. Dean completed his 50th marathon in 50 days in 50 states with the NY marathon. Read his blog here: Endurance Is

It is absolutely amazing that the human body is capable of such a feat.

Cyclecomputer Errors Caused by Magnet Orientation by Charles Learoyd

I haven't ridden my bike in quite a while. In fact, I had to install a new battery in my Shimano Flight Deck 6500 bike computer. I had to do a complete reset of everything in the memory including gear ratios...more on this later. On my first ride, the speed shown was about double of the actual speed. I couldn't figure out why and assumed I had programmed the wheel circumference incorrectly by about half the right size(?) I finished the ride (at an average speed of around 39 mph) and promptly reset the computer. But the same thing happened next time I tried to ride.

I did a quick Google Search for "Shimano Flight Deck errors" and found this: Cyclecomputer Errors Caused by Magnet Orientation by Charles Learoyd.

My wheel magnet was not mounted at 90 degrees like the author's, however, I wondered if I was having the same symptom due to the spacing between the magnet and sensor. I decreased the spacing, spun the wheel and voila! The speed while spinning the wheel by hand dropped from 16 to 9 mph.

Apparently the spacing must be minimal...about 1/8 inch or less to prevent the sensor from seeing multiple peaks in the magnetic field. It makes me wonder what the field plot of a circular magnet looks like.

Borat Conquers Charlotte

Elizabeth and I went to the 7:20 show of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America....yadda yadda. I'll get to the point...it was hilarious! We were both crying at one point.

The showing was sold out. We bought tickets online and arrived about 10 minutes before showtime. People were streaming in, mostly 20-something young people. Since everyone was shouting to each other across us, it was obvious they knew each other. It turns out, a large continent of bank workers (I separate them from bankers) came straight from the office. I believe our immediate crowd were from the Big Bank, but I'm sure the other guys were represented.

The laughs start immediately. Borat shows us around his village and introduces us to family and friends. As soon as he gets to America, the uncomfortable stuff starts. I thought he was going to get pummeled on the NY subway. New Yorkers live up to their reputation!

The hilarity peaks when Borat and his manager get into a "wrestling" match. It's too disturbing to describe here but I had tears of laughter running down my face.

The climax of his journey is a marriage proposal to Pamela Anderson. I don't know if she was in on the joke. It seemed like she knew he was filming a movie. However, I don't know if she knew he was going to throw a burlap sack over her head and try to carry her away. Borat was thrown to the ground by her security guards and I'm assuming had to answer to the police. I hope to see some "behind the scenes" clips of that one!

There are several deleted scenes on the official movie website as well as at YouTube.com. The one about the cheese in the grocery store is awesome!

RIP: Cingular Send a Message

I used to be able to send text messages from my PC to Cingular phone users through this page: www.cingular.com/sendamessage. It made typing the messages fast, kept track of the 160 character limit, and it was free.

Cingular recently launched a whole new website...which is pretty slow, at least on my PC. (It also has several dead links.)

I can't find anywhere on the site to send text messages! I guess they figured out they were missing some revenue. So yet again a wireless carrier has come up with a way to squeeze a few more cents from the masses in the name of ARPU. Pathetic....and still no regulation about the quality of their services.

Google still has a cached version of the old page here: Send a Message