Here’s to the weekend. It is too nasty to sit outside, my lawn is mowed, the rivers are all blown-out (fish aren’t biting) still, the Cubs aren’t on for another two hours, and the Croc-Pot is full already. It looks like it is time to do some more insurance research. Nice little Sunday, actually. At work we have an opt-out for our health insurance plan. It was not worth opting out, per se, when I started there. Out of curiosity, I decided to troll around to see if health plans have gone up, down, stalemated, etc. Since I still have the old S-Corp (inactive, as far as the State of MT is concerned) I started looking into business insurance quotes to boot. Interesting stuff, I swear. Let’s start with the health. When I was actively making loot as CEO/owner of Alpha Solutions Inc., I kept a Blue Cross / Blue Shield policy for my health insurance. Not much coverage, but not much cost per month. Win/Win AND Lose/Lose. Nice. If I were to do it again, I would most certainly combine my heath with my Montana business insurance (add your own state here…California business insurance, etc) for both savings and ease. I would probably increase my coverage from ‘detrimental’ to ‘actually get a sprained ankle looked at’ levels, as well. Might help. I did think this was pretty epic. I’d say that if you are zero feet tall, then maybe you should not be looking for insurance. Or, you should be looking for a great deal of insurance. Might be time to look into a talk show career, and then into the California Department of Insurance upon arriving to Hollywood. I wonder if a sub-one-foot-tall person could type with his/her tiny little fingers. Might be comical.

There is no hiding the fact that I’m a tech guy. With tech guy comes cell phone guy, and with cell phone guy comes cell phone accessories guy. Apps, schmapps…let’s kick it dirty with some ringtones! Let it be known that I am still an incredible hip-hop-head. The last thing I want is a girlie-haired guitar balladeer high singing to me that someone is trying to contact me. That sounds more miserable than dodging a call on vibrate. So bad. In order to better illustrate the point I’m trying to make, let me introduce jay - z as a robot: Awesome. Here is the run-down. Or, in hip-hop speak, the ‘haps.’ Every possible situation I could imagine encountering could be made better with a Jay-Z ringtone. Peep these haps. Call from work – It’s a Hard Knock Life. Instead of treated, we get tricked…instead of kisses, we get kicked. Call from Kate – 99 Problems. I do in fact have 99 problems, but a b ain’t one. Call from parents – New York State of Mind. I bet they would like some Alicia Keys. She sings nicely. Call from Zig – Money Ain’t a Thing. He is always broke as a joke. See? Awesome. Young Hov would approve.

-1 boring -1 small head three and three-quarter stars

Maybe it is because I turned 30. Maybe it is because I am predisposed to worry. Gout and worrying? Thanks, folks. Good looking out on the genes. I am sort of an insurance nut. Moreover, I am always trolling for deals…which puts me in a perpetual quest for both better and cheaper insurance. It is a never-ending cycle. I have (ducks jeers) had very very good luck with Geico. Not well enough to steer clear of the Insurance Information Institute website, but good luck anyhow. With two vehicles, a third on the way, health, and renter’s insurance in the fray, I need to cover my bases. Fortunately enough, Alpha Solutions Inc. is currently at an idle state per the fine State of Montana, or I would have business insurance health on my mind as well. Oh, my days with a shovel! How I miss you so! Let me count the ways…one. Getting a tan. Got a little long winded there. Anyhow, I was checking for insurance rates for my gangster whip, the 96 Yukon. Remember this guy from back in the day? Well, I still ride dirty in the Yukon. I’d like to ride cheap and dirty, so there I find myself doing things like this. I stumbled upon NetQuote, and ran through the info gauntlet. Stumbling upon this guy… Some high school? You better have some damned high school education before you get all keyboard happy and start firing your personal data into a form. Or alternatively, you should be provided with a pop-up ‘go back to damned school, idiot, then look for some damned insurance’ box. But again, I digress. Well, long story shorter, I didn’t bite. I am paying too much for the Yukon’s insurance, but I am saving a ton with my currant renter’s/Katie’s ring insurance policy. You win some you lose some. At least I am still not horsing around with small business insurance. Always keep it positive. Always.

I wish I had done this…unfortunately, I have my hands full with a handfull of LEDs. 1024 LEDs…give me a break. Osgeld (a man amongst boys) over at the arduino forums showed off his 32x32 dot matrix panel proof of concept. Take a peak at his wiring: How he managed to get that sucker up and running without smoking the shit out of his components is beyond me. Prost, sir. Well played.

Greetings and good afternoon. I thought I would go ahead and give my reader base a little info regarding Debt Settlement. Long story short, the bump provides you the info. Be debt free in 12-36 months. Get help with credit card debt via Debt Settlement. Avoid Bankruptcy, Call Now for Debt Relief 1-888-703-4948 BBB+ Member. +1 Robot MS Paint effort

I’m not one to be down-and-out-self-deprecating-bummed-out about things in general, but iRobot has just made my tri-colored LED progress look like peanuts. Tri-colored peanuts, but peanuts nonetheless. Hats off to you all, iRobot dudes. This is awesome. From spectrum.ieee.org:

iRobot released today new video of its Warrior robot, a beefed up version of the more well-known PackBot, demonstrating use of the APOBS (Anti-Personnel Obstacle Breaching System), an explosive line charge deployed by a rocket, with a small parachute holding back the end of the line. The APOBS, iRobot says, is designed for “deliberate breaching of anti-personnel minefields and multi-strand wire obstacles.” Although it may concern those who don’t like the arming of robots, it makes great eye candy for those who like robots, rockets, and explosions.

For those who like robots, rockets, and explosions? Throw in Katie and Old Milwaukee Light, and that is me to a T.

Ramiro…I dig your style. Spanish telecom extraordinaire and all around hero Ramiro Pareja Veredas has the coolest business cards ever. Printed onto a card, with a male USB interface…if you have the pleasure of getting one of these from ol’ Ramiro, you can plug it into your computer and see his HTML resume, etc. Per Ramiro himself:

Clearly, it is not the cheaper business card in the world (about 5 euros/piece for a small batch order), but it is a (relatively) small price for having a card in your pocket that has more CPU power than the computer that led the man to the moon.

I wonder if Ramiro knows about the internet…it seems like his HTML resume could easily be placed on that thing. I’m not much of a computer guy, though…I could be wrong. +1 interesting. +1 nerdy +1 moon reference -1 I’d still throw it directly in the trash, as I do with all other business cards I procure.

Yesterday marked the official iPad release in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. And our neighbors to the North, Canada. I’m trying to think of an insult to Canada, but all I can come up with is ehPad. I think I’ll go with that…Apple ehPad. We Yankees have had these around for what seems like a long time. What is the current state of the latest Apple buzz-inducing product? Well, apps, for starters. Apple managed to get a huge bump due to the iPhone developer core. Granted a bunch of the available apps are ‘iPhone ports’ so to speak, there are tons and tons of them. I really like a few of the ideas that have been thrown around. From the simple-ish ideas, like an air hockey game… …to the hholier than though less than two iPhone and an iPad having squares need not apply apps… …there are some very entertaining apps for purchase. I like that Scrabble notion quite a bit. I bet I could do that with a pair of Droids and a Linux tablet, but I digress. I need to make more money writing paid posts like this, before I can think about two Droids. Fail. The one thing that has fallen off the radar is the marketing point that the iPad was to be the Kindle killer. I have not seen any press regarding using an iPad as an e-book reader, which on the onset was one of the primary selling points. It could be an issue with battery life, with respect to the Kindle’s battery kind e-ink. More likely, it is easier to show flashy things like gaming on the units…makes for a more interesting story, I suppose. I guess I’m still on the fence. As is the case with all things techy and new, I still want one. You can keep the iPhones though…I’m not biting there. In the mean time, I’m going to see if my ehPad meme takes off.

Once again, I almost got a bag-o-crap on yesterday’s woot-off. Got to this point… Entered my card security code….and nothing. I hate woot.