I did not realize there were Pizza Huts in India. They appear to be marvelous institutions. There appears to be dancing and “Magic Times” to be had.

I’ll make a point to try and visit Pizza Hut next time I am in India. Which is likely never.

Because you really ought to start your hipster baby off on the right track.

I’ve become kind of a Vitamin Water fan. Not because I think it’s actually healthy or anything (the second most common “vitamin” (ingredient) is sugar), but because I like the taste. I’ve actually been drinking the stuff for like a year now. Anyway, I recently noticed (like a month ago) that there was a new flavor available called “Sync.” The cool thing about this flavor is that it includes a code on the cap that you can redeem at AmazonMP3 (for some reason it says the music comes from MySpace) for a free song. By “a free song,” they really mean $1.29 of credit, since some songs cost that much, but others actually cost less.

Because of this added value of this flavor (the other ones don’t have free songs), I’ve been kind of loading up on Sync. This also leads me to a semi-interesting economics problem. If I regularly bought MP3s from Amazon.com, I’d be doing myself a favor by getting $1.29 worth of “music” for ~$1, along with a free sugary, sorta-vitamin-y drink. This price difference was even greater when I went to Kroger and got 10 Vitamins-Water for $5!

But I don’t regularly buy music online. If I like an artist and want to support him/her/them, I’ll buy a CD, because then at least I have a physical representation of something that I can “own.” Not just bits. But what about Sync versus other flavors? While I like the other flavors (and variety is good), I’ve kind of been giving Sync an 8:2 split. So for every ten Vitamin Waters I get, about eight of them are Sync. I mean, I like to have some kind of variety! The Sync flavor is actually pretty good, too. It’s probably just about equal with any other Vitamin Water flavor.

One positive about the whole free music thing is that I’ve actually bought a lot of music. Here’s what I’ve gotten thanks to glacéau:

• Ingrid Michaelson – Maybe
• Warsaw – Rude Girl
• Jonathan Coulton – Joco Looks Back (Album)
• Ingrid Michaelson – Turn to Stone
• Ingrid Michaelson – When the Leaves
• Ingrid Michaelson – All Love

I basically got a bunch of Ingrid Michaelson singles, a ska song I liked that I didn’t have on my computer and a Jonathan Coulton “best of” album. All artists who I like and want to support. I mean, Jonathan Coulton kinda offers all of his music free anyway, so I saw this AmazonMP3 thing as a good way to send him some money (I also went to one of his concerts, which I assume helped support him (or maybe TicketMaster just pocketed it all!!!)).

Sadly, my free ride is nearing its end. The last time I went to Kroger, I bought some more Sync. When I got home and drank one, I realized the caps had changed. No more free songs! The wording on the bottle even changed to reflect the fact that there’s no song in there. I assumed the flavor would have free songs forever, but apparently not. I’ll keep an eye out for the bottles with songs, but I fear they will eventually dry out. Pun intended.

The last economics question for this blog post: If Vitamin Water presents an extra incentive with the drink, then removes that incentive later, does it hurt its sales? I used to buy the drink because I liked it. I may have replaced the reason for buying it with free songs. Now that there are no more free songs, will I continue to buy? Or will I feel robbed because I am now paying the same amount for less?

It’s been a while since I noticed this but I hadn’t written a blog post about it yet. All around Ann Arbor, you can find a distinctly unique signature of “Duck” written on stuff. From mailboxes to walls to whatever. I think I first noticed it on a paper towel dispenser at BTB Cantina. I thought it was some kind of trap where once I read it, I had a second to actually “duck” or be hit on the head by a log or something… That obviously wasn’t the case (I didn’t duck).

Does anyone know what the deal is? Is Duck a gang? Can I join? Do I want to join? Is Duck involved in illegal activities? Does Duck fight crime? I wanna know.

Apparently when he’s not rapping, Will Smith redesigns people’s websites out of the kindness of his heart (though I guess he also works it as a side business).

Oh my god. I just realized I made an almost carbon copy of this post regarding George Lucas and spamming. Am I that predictable!?

While looking at places to intern during the Summer, I came across this blog called Office Snapshots. You would think a blog that had nothing but pictures of tech company offices wouldn’t work, but oh, how it does!

The author gets pictures of offices through Flickr, or sometimes by actually visiting the offices himself. Then there’s a funny weird writeup about the company and their office. The blogger doesn’t take himself too seriously with quotes like this:

McAfee has been keeping our computers safe from spam, viruses, spyware, phishing, and the like since the 80s. They’re like the sheriffs of the web. Except they have less shoot-outs and more Internet (a lot more).

Overall, it’s a good read. There’s something really enjoyable at seeing how cool other people’s offices are versus your own. I mean, my office doesn’t even have windows, though I do get my own burgundy line of office equipment. Maybe I should send pictures to Office Snapshots to see if they’ll get posted…

2 people apparently. But now there’s a lot more posts for the phrase “died in a blogging accident” because XKCD did a funny comic.

The world may never know who died in a blogging accident. And yes, I’m repeating the phrase “died in a blogging accident” for maximum SEO goodness. Died in a blogging accident.

It has Windows Vista installed. I haven’t really ever used Vista, but I’ve been bombarded with frustration since roughtly 8:30am, so enjoy my stream of consciousness tirade while I get my mom’s computer working the way it should!

Vista: Get your act together, man! You know the first thing that happened after my mom created her admin account? “Windows Explorer is not responding, do you want to [end process] [wait] [uninstall Vista].” I would’ve chosen the tertiary, if it had existed.

Dell: What’s up with all this crap pre-installed on my system? I don’t want Google Toolbar or Google Desktop! I don’t want random Dell crap using my resources, I don’t want…

Norton Internet Security: WTF!? You’ll protect my mom’s computer for 30 days? And then stop protecting it? This seriously amounts to some kind of extortion. And why does it take 10 years to finally uninstall all of you!? And…

Vista: Why do you need my permission to do anything and everything!? Would you like my permission to change contexts? Load up the kernel? Reference and dereference memory? Because I could hit “okay” all day if you wanted me to. Okay, I’ve disabled this in the control panel. Yet I needed to restart to get it to work. Though when I restarted, Vista decided to install a bunch of security updates without asking me first. Hey, Vista, don’t assume I have all day to wait for you to install these security holes that you shouldn’t have shipped with in the first place! Oh man, I’m getting angry… At least it didn’t just restart randomly, like my own desktop has been doing lately (I disabled that, too).

Okay, so now stuff is sort of working properly. Except that Vista is actually slower than XP was before. Or maybe it’s this AMD chip that’s somehow found its way into my mom’s computer. (Full disclosure, my mom works at Intel).

Well, now to install some drivers, like the…

LOGITECH KEYBOARD AND MOUSE DRIVERS: WHY THE FUCK DO YOU TAKE UP 53.1MB!? SERIOUSLY, ARE YOU A MULTIMEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA!? AND NO, I DON’T WANT TO INSTALL YAHOO TOOLBAR!!!

To be continued…

I only remembered this once I got to Meijer. I felt really weak, and realized I should’ve gotten food first. So I sorta just staggered around, getting stuff I needed. I went to the bottle return thingy too. Due to my weakness, I think I talked to myself a lot more (“soup get!”) and weirded people out. Wandering the aisles, I was trying to figure out if I could eat anything, then pay for it later. But that doesn’t really work in grocery stores. I would’ve sampled some Jelly Bellies, but I doubt that would have satiated my weak shell of a body.

Luckily, about halfway through the adventure, I saw that the foreign-sounding lady (“here! it’s-a very good a-pumpkin cake!”) that’s always giving away free samples at the Saline Rd Meijer had setup a pumpkin cake sample area! I ate one, and told her it was the first thing I had eaten all day. Then she gave me another! She basically saved my life, maybe.

I didn’t end up buying a cake, but I did buy lots of other crap today. So thank you foreign-sounding Meijer sample lady, whoever you are!