Checked back earlier this week and they have finally gotten the link for downloading the track fixed, only took a 6 weeks. If I did not keep finding more music there that I want to get I would just cancel, this almost sounds like an ad but really, they have been adding quite a lot that I like and will eventually buy, hopefully they don’t “upgrade” the site again for a while, it is just barely working now.
Tue 22 Nov 2011
eMusic FAIL
Posted by tom under General
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I have been a subscriber to eMusic.com for at least a couple year now, I have always been pleased with the experience, good music, good price and downloading music was simple. They recently redesigned their website and it is now and complete disaster. I can no longer download in either Firefox or Chrome which limits to me the execrable microsoft internet explorer, one of the worst jokes foisted on humankind. Even in that I still have trouble downloading, if the title is too long then the download button moves when I hover over the entry and no longer works. Such a mess, suppose I should just suspend my account until they fix their website.
Fri 16 Sep 2011
Just posted this on Facebook:
ABC news just said the satellite that is going to deorbit next week is going to “burn up when it hits the scorching hot ring that surrounds the Earth.” Wow, they should not report science topics when they don’t know something as simple as why objects falling to Earth from space burn up.
Wanted to have it over here too for my own archive and because it is so amazing that they would say something so absolutely wrong.
Thu 9 Jun 2011
Washington’s newest teacher!
Posted by tom under General
[2] Comments
Three long years and finally she is done, now we wait for the official papers.
Thu 4 Nov 2010
New Olympia flea market
Posted by tom under General
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Friend recently launched a new site. It is a for a flea market/bazaar in Olympia which he is setting up, it is called
Olymarket. Have to check it out next month.
Wed 24 Feb 2010
iTunes was driving me nuts!
Posted by tom under iPod
[2] Comments
But it is all OK now. After a recent update to iTunes (one of the version 9 installs) I found that a smart playlist I had setup was no longer getting synced. This was quite irritating since it was a playlist of podcasts I had setup for when I am driving around, I set it to play and I don’t have to mess with the device again. For the past few weeks I have been trying off and on to find a solution to this and was getting quite frustrated until I finally noticed someone on a board say turn on playlist syncing under podcasts. I read that and thought there is no playlist option there, well I go take a look and realize that Apple added a new option for playlists on the podcast tab but it is below everything else so you don’t see it until you scroll down, subtle that since there was never a need to scroll before. I look down there and lo and behold there are all my playlists (smart and regular) which include podcasts, click the one I want and it syncs over properly. Glad to have this working again, hopefully this will help someone else from going nuts over this change.
Sun 31 Jan 2010
Reality is for suckers
Posted by tom under General
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I had started this a while and forgot to publish it, so a little old but that does not mean the idea has lost merit.
Saw a reference to an interesting post over at John Dvorak’s site today. He was referring to an editorial which appeared at the The Independent, a British publication. A very interesting read, for the most part summed up what I have been thinking these past few weeks.
One of the replies I found most interesting was someone who was obviously against the current plan begin proposed which would include a public payer option and held up as examples that the current system works people who are getting good care on the Medicare system. I guess someone forgot to tell this guy that Medicare is government run and paid for health care paid for by taxes on all.
Sun 31 Jan 2010
An interesting article
Posted by tom under General
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Found this BBC article today and figured others would find it interesting also. On the site I found it at I was looking at some of the comments and began to wonder, were we reading the same thing? To each their own I guess.
Sun 31 Jan 2010
Taxes update
Posted by tom under General
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Took a look at my T-Mobile wireless bill this weekend and the city utility tax charge is still there, bit more than bothersome that. I did a little searching and found that Olympia levies a 9% taxes on phone service. So I called them up again asking where I can send information showing that my address is not in the city, will hear back from someone this week.
Upon reflection, I realize this would make a lovely class action lawsuit. There must be many thousands of people out there who are being charged these fees for localities they do not reside in and do not realize it.
It also occurred to me that I bet the sales tax they charge is also at the Olympia rate, not only does this compound my irritation but it is illegal. The law is that they must charge the rate for where the service is delivered, my house in this case. Perhaps a call to the Department of Revenue is in order to get these guys smacked down.
Sat 21 Nov 2009
City taxes
Posted by tom under General
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Something for those of you out there who don’t live in a city. I was just looking at my cellular bill and noticed they are charging me a City Utility Users Tax. Well, I do not live in the city and feel that I pay enough in sales taxes which I cannot avoid to the city when shopping that I need not send more of my money to them. I called the company to get rid of this and was told that they base whether to charge this tax on the zip code which very inaccurate, my zip code covers two cities and about a quarter of the county. Hopefully they can clear this up and I can stop having to pay about 3.50 a month for service I don’t receive, not much but it does add up. If you don’t live in the city then check your bill and make sure there are not any incorrect charges there.
Mon 16 Nov 2009
Convert .tod to mpg
Posted by tom under General
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Finally found a quick way to convert the .tod files which my JVC camcorder produces into the much more usable mpg format. I have tried the ffmpeg method but when I use that the resulting files cannot be opened in my editing program which does me no good. This same editing program also has a batch convert option, I just pull that up and point it at the directory full of tod files and tell it make me mpg files, takes a little while to run the convert but it is really only the time it takes read in the file, swap a few bytes and write it back out. The program is called VideoRedo, I have the TV Suite version, I really like it. The program will also pull in my TiVo files and allow me edit them for output to a DVD. I see that this version costs a bit at $75 but I think it is worth it.
One note, if you are doing this then first specify the output directory then add the files to convert, this way the resulting batch file will have the correct output path.
Tue 18 Aug 2009
SSMS Project List Sort
Posted by tom under Programming
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https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=263095
and mark the suggestion as very important and perhaps even validate the problem.
A workaround is available but is most certainly not ideal. Many thanks to Jasper Smith for creating this tool.
Thu 11 Jun 2009
As they say, don’t talk politics
Posted by tom under General
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I was chatting with a friend at work Thursday afternoon when someone who sits nearby joined in. Somehow the discussion turned to government regulations and after a short while this other guy was getting quite angry about this topic. There was no way to just discuss this with him, his viewpoint appeqrs to be the only one that matters and any competing ideas are so wrong and dangerous they have to be literally shouted down with vulgar language.
In a nutshell, his contention was that the government required banks to make loans to people who could not afford them and that this is what has lead to the current economic problems. At the time I was too flabbergasted at his reaction to respond but it occurred to me later even if that was the case, the banks were not required to structure these loans to fail or make them without performing due diligence. Our current problems were not the regulations fault but greedy banks looking to grab whatever they could damn the consequences. (Of course, there is a lot more to this topic but I will leave those books to someone else to write.)
I don’t care for induhviduals who hold such extremist views that a simple debate is just not possible. The only way to discuss current events with these induhviduals is when one just agrees with everything that is said, that is not a debate or discussion though.
Sun 7 Jun 2009
Mariners game
Posted by tom under General
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Heading back to Tacoma on the sounder train. Very cool, free parking and an hour ride to Seattle. The only drawback is the train leaves Seattle only 35 minutes after the final out which does give much time to hang out. Perhaps next time will go north on the train and then take the bus back, havt to check the schedules. By the way, the Mariners won, yeah!
Thu 28 May 2009
Just thought I throw this out here in case someone else has the problem and does not feel like plowing through the hundreds of comments on other sites. My lovely little iPod Touch decided that it did not want play networking anymore, going into the settings menu yielded the message No wi-fi and the wi-fi menu was not even available, it was disabled for some reason. Very annoying as I had to go check twitter, withdrawal symptoms were setting in.
Well, thankfully the solution was pretty simple, just enter the Setting menu, then choose General, spin to the bottom and choose Reset. Now choose the Reset Network Settings option and the menu should be enabled now. Unfortunately you will have to reenter your long and nasty key but it will after that which is the goal.
Thu 28 May 2009
Bing?
Posted by tom under Web Fun
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(Oops, forgot to publish this last week.)
There must be someone at MS with a sense of humor after all or perhaps John Cleese is consulting for them. Monty Python had a scit where a medical machine was brought into a hospital whose only redeeming value was that it went bing! Funny that MS wants associate their search engine with something that did nothing except cost money.
Tue 14 Apr 2009
Global warming?
Posted by tom under General
[2] Comments
I have been hearing a lot more talk lately about how global warming is bunk. Or that if it is happening then mankind is not to blame, that what is happening is just part of a natural cycle.
Let’s look at it this way instead, no matter how one feels about this topic the actions that would be required to reduce CO2 emissions will have the added benefit of reducing the amount of pollution that is generated which will in turn improve air quality. That will mean we all would be healthier for not having to breathe the junk combusting fossil fuels produces or eating foods contaminated by the same.
Think about it, actually being able to see a blue sky in the middle of a big city.
Wed 25 Mar 2009
First post from ipod
Posted by tom under General
[2] Comments
Just trying this out, picked up the wordpress app for for my iPod. Pretty nice can do all usual stuff on the blog and I don’t have turn on the big computer. I am being so green.
Mon 23 Mar 2009
Odd phone call – scam?
Posted by tom under General
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Just got a call from “cardholder services” letting me know I could lower my interest rate to 6.9%, just press nine to talk to operator. I was curious so I bit, first thing I ask the person who comes is what bank are you from and her reply is what card do you have? OMG!! They call me out of the blue and expect me to give them my credit card details, I politely said sorry and hung up the phone. Look out people, the scammers are out in force.
Tue 3 Mar 2009
My 15 minutes?
Posted by tom under General, Web Fun
[2] Comments
I think that I got my 15 minutes of fame today, while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Daily GizWiz, a letter I sent was read out. A couple weeks ago I had sent in a letter asking Leo Laporte to not sing with the jingles, when I was listening episode 769 in my car the dissonance between Leo and the music was really quite bad, the guy does great shows but can’t carry a tune. That’s fine, he does audio not music podcasts. I suppose I should follow up that letter with one extolling the good things about the Daily GizWiz show, might take a while to find them though. (If you listen to this show long enough you would understand this statement)
I suppose I do at least owe an apology to the all the other Tom Stidham’s out there (I know you are out there somewhere), I did not put my city in the letter which would mean everyone else who also has my name might have been asked if the letter was from him, no doubt leading to much confusion. Sorry about that, will try not to overlook this in the future.
Oh well, if you want to hear this for yourself have a listen to the podcast over at Leo’s site.