Gavin Hall dot org

When being a local in Orlando anytime you visit the parks you have a single goal...to get in the background of as many pictures as possible. Sometime in high school when I would visit Orlando is when this tradition was started.

For some reason when I travel this changes from me being in the background to being in the foreground.

And Vegas was no difference. When Jason said he would give me ten bucks to jump in this girl's picture I was on it. If you look close you can see the cash in my left hand. My Internet girlfriend Willo with her cat like reflexes popped over to capture the moment as well.

Another time when in NYC for a meeting with Weblogs Inc/Blogsmith we decided to go out on our last night to see the town. Some how we ended up at a random bar with three levels. Mike, Alex and myself decided to see what the bar had to offer on all three floors.

First floor was just drinking and TV's playing the game. The second floor was drinking and dancing and the third floor was reserved for a couples going away part (I think they just got married).

Someone was just finishing up a speech and I decided that I also should send this couple off with some sage advise. I raised my glass, said a few words on their behalf and said "cheers!" as a group of confused looking people cheers-ed me back.

Although we never got a picture of the toast I think the couple took my advice to heart..."Let the bridges you burn light your path through life".

Cheers!

After getting two tickets within thirty days it occurred to me that perhaps having a radar detector might not be a bad idea. I have always wanted the Valentine One because I've read it's the best but never got around to it because the thing is pretty ugly.

Yesterday I read an article in Wired about a guy trying to beat the 32 hour and 7 minute coast to coast driving from NY to Cali and got inspired again. Why stop at Cali...I'm going to be the fastest driver to go around the world!!

...wait a minute.

So I have been putting aside 50 bucks a pay check in order to be able to splurge on the V1 and a few weeks ago I broke down and bought it.

Well at least I thought I did.

After a Christmas discussion on if leaving apples out for Santa's reindeers is or is not crazy I turned to Wikipedia for the answer.

Finding out that it indeed is crazy to offer apples to reindeers I see this little gem:

Some consider Rudolph as part of the group as well, though he was not part of the original named work referenced previously, and did not join the sleigh team until Santa rightly recognized the traffic benefits of his luminescent nose.

Rightly recognized the traffic benefits of his luminescent nose? Really?

And for the record reindeer eat mostly moss and leaves.

A few years ago while I was in a CodeJam in NY I realized I never had an oyster before. Sitting at a Legal Seafood with people who raved about oysters seemed as good of time as any to go ahead and give them a try.

Curious on how to eat them I asked Brian what the right way to do it was. He instructed me to just dump it into my mouth and just as it passes my lips he goes into a whole speech about how there is really no other way to describe it then chewing on someone else's snot. Texture, smell even the taste really. I just kept chewing and tried to swallow while he just kept going on and on.

It was the first and last time I ever had an oyster.

So it was with great pleasure I was able to send the 2girls1cup video out to the Blogsmith team as a Thanksgiving treat to be thankful for the Internet. I emailed Brian because I know something like this was just up his alley.

His response?

I just had the biggest all you can eat breakfast at The Kitchen. With a very full stomach I finally clicked your link from my laptop.

We are now even for that whole oyster thing!

Brian Alvey

And just like that, I am thankful for the Internet all over again.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A new company called 23andme.com opens to the public today. For $999 you can send them your saliva and they will provide you with your genetic makeup. You are able to login and see what diseases you are more likely to have and then can keep an eye out for those. Hopefully with regular screening and lifestyle changes you would be able to decrease your chances of having bad things happen. Remember that genetics doesn't mean destiny but instead gives you a few things to look out for.

I didn't sign up for the service for two reasons. One it is still expensive but more importantly there is no way to use the service anonymously. I can just see that it tells me I have a better likelihood of getting some strange disease and then an insurance company buys 23andme.com and I am no longer able to get insured. I don't think it will be long before anonymous testing comes out to give the information to the customer without the privacy concerns. I think like anonymous AIDS testing it is important to inform the patient more so then bothering to find out who is who.

The NYT did a story on this that is a good read. I see the power this could provide people to be able to change their lifestyles so that they could live longer and happier lives but the potential for abuse is there for sure. Alex and I were talking about this this morning and my hope is there is some legislation passed in order to keep this information out of the hands of the government or big corporations.

Your thoughts on it?

Well I'm off to Vegas for a week but I have to point out a link before I go. It's a post dedicated to pictures taken at exactly the right time...such as this gem. I think it might be time for me to buy a camera.

The only good thing about my old RAZR cell phone was the GMail app that I had on there that let me easily check my email. Today at some point Google turned on support for IMAP. This allows me to set my iPhone up to use my GMail account in basically the same way as the web interface. When I delete a message it deletes it from GMail and when I send a message it goes into my sent box.

Google gives you instructions on how to connect but you have to go to your Mail setting on your iPhone and map the inbox, send and trash directory to the folders on GMail so that it doesn't just randomly apply labels. The only trick here is that you need to map the Trash on the iPhone to go to the All Mail on the server. That will make more sense if you are looking at the settings on your iPhone.

I'm loving it so far, the only thing that is keeping me from using it 100% of the time is that it doesn't allow you to choose the address your sending from. Thats on Apple not Google though. Although google could add in IMAP push to make me just giddy.

HD was designed for football and anything to suggest otherwise is blasphemy! But damn it if Pushing Days is not just a gorgeous show. It's on ABC HD Wednesdays and the colors, sets and costumes are just fantastic and vivid.

The concept of the show is that when something dies a guy is able to touch it to bring it back to life for one minute. If he doesn't touch it again before the minute is up something else around it does.

The girl in the show looks super familiar but I just can't seem to place her. If you have a HD set I would highly suggest it.

Alex and I were talking about some kid named Nick who moved from Tampa to San Francisco and within a week of being there someone broke into his car and stole his laptop. That sucks. Then a day later someone steals everything else that he owns out of his car. That really sucks.

Alex mentioned to me about the only thing he has left is one boot. That's when you know someone hates you.

It's like getting your tires slashed. If someone slashes two tires then they are pissed at you. If they slash all 4 then they are REALLY pissed at you. If they slash three? They HATE you.

They force you to finish the job because you can't just buy three new tires due to how tires wear together.

One boot? Just as bad. A valuable lesson on why to never leave Eastern Time.

I typically won't go see a cinematic movie film without first checking MetaCritic. A few nights ago I saw they had a feature of the best and worst movies of all time. The winner (or I suppose the loser)? Biodome with a score of 1.

I'm fairly confident the only person associated with the film who's career didn't end was whoever sold drugs to the cast and crew.

If you look at the IMDB for Mr. Shore you can see he really didn't really do another movie after Bio-Dome all just TV appearances from that point on. I guess once you reach perfection why bother trying? It would be as if Michaelangelo decided to try and paint another church ceiling.

I can't even think of a reference to Bio-Dome...it was just that bad. I can't even seem to think of a worse movie. It is quite perfectly the best worst movie ever. Not to be confused with Cool Runnings the worst best movie ever.

The juice has been weezed and we thank you for that Mr. Shore.

Yesterday I went to AMSCOT for the first time. Their business model is cash advances on checks. Basically they create a mini loan for people who need money right away and don't know much about interest rates (or just have no other option). Like a pawn shop just with different collateral.

I recieved a speeding ticket a few months back and decided to damn the man and fight it. I won but I had to pay court costs and the like. AMSCOT setup a deal with Orange County where you are able to pay any fees at any of their locations (which happen to be in as many places as starbucks all of the sudden).

What stood out to me from the experience was a small customer service thing they do that I had never seen before.

You walk in and there are 15 windows but only 5 employees. They tell you to walk up to one of the open windows even if no one is behind it. You walk up and the person asks why you are there and then slides you a small tootsie roll.

umm...ok.

So he finishes up with another customer and comes back to me and asks for my ticket information. He said to hang on one second and hes going to enter it into the computer. Slides about 3 or 4 tootsie rolls over.

this guy is strange...he just hands out candy randomly?

He came back and it turns out they only take cash. I went to the ATM and came back and got another lady. Walked up she asked what I was there for and passes me a tootsie roll.

At this point I eat it and notice in the trash can next to each window is just full of wrappers. Also everyone else in there is chewing on tootsie rolls.

Anytime there is a delay where they are helping someone else or doing something for you they give you tootsie rolls. By the time you take it, unwrap it and chew it they are typically back. At first it was the strangest thing I have ever seen but sure enough when they were helping other people or working on something I had a task that kept me busy and I didn't even care they were working three windows at one time.

Although I'm sure it doesn't help America's obesity problem it is still a interesting way to handle a waiting customer.

God bless you Internets! I don't know what we did before YouTube.

McSweeney brings you a letter to Optimus Prime from his Geico auto insurance agent. It's gold.

Yay! Orlando finally has a soccer team!