By the end of the day, and even this morning, my hand feels like it is going to fall off. Now I know why they make powered screw drivers.
In any event, I just love those Ikea instructions and I found at college humor some funny mocks of them. Here is one but there are plenty more. Enjoy.
I simply need to stop flying during the workday or fly exclusively with flights that have Wifi.
Yesterday, I took an 11am (Israel time) or 4am (EDT) out of Tel Aviv and to New York. The flight is about 12 hours, so I didn't land until after 4pm (EDT).
When I landed, I had 322 emails in my inbox! Probably about a hundred I needed to reply to.
I also had 750 or so items in my RSS reader to go through.
It is so overwhelming.
The only nice'ish part of this 12 hour flight was that I watched 5.5 movies.
Image credit for ShutterStock for iPhone email.
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Truth is, I was not driving that car the day they said the violation happened. I was home, in New York - not in Washington, DC, driving 62 in a 50. I know who was driving my car, but it was not me.
In any event, they did not issue me with a fine - instead they said this is a "warning" and next time, I will be given a fine if I speed.
They even have this whole web site portal to login, view the pictures and pay the fine (if applicable).
I never received one of these letters before, I hear it is illegal in some states for the police to use speed cameras - but I guess it is not illegal in Washington, D.C.
Heck, I've seen cops outside of their cars using speed guns and I've tweeted being pulled over in the past - so I guess this should go on the blog as well.
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Orthodox Jews do not eat non-kosher food. Many also would not walk into a non-kosher restaurant because they don't want a kosher Jew to see them going into the non-kosher restaurant and think that it must be kosher since that Jew went in there.
So even to use the bathroom, many orthodox Jews wouldn't even walk into a non-kosher restaurant.
Which brings up the question, can a Jew who holds by not going into non-kosher restaurants, checkin on Foursquare to non-kosher restaurant?
As I travel on Amtrak back to New York from Washington DC, I am randomly looking for places to check into on Foursquare along the way. And I am specifically avoiding non-kosher restaurants or restaurants I do not know if they are kosher or not.
Jews, what would you do?
Non-Jews, you think I am crazy? Well, some Jews think I am crazy.
And many people think I am crazy just for using Foursquare in general. :)
]]>We made it to Trenton, New Jersey and stopped there. I've been sitting in Trenton for almost two hours. My scheduled arrival time is in about 20 minutes. At this point, it makes sense for me to turn around and go back. So why don't I?
I am literally on a bridge over the Delaware river in Trenton, NJ.
]]>I got a ton of cards and gift baskets from clients, vendors, SEO folks and so on. I wanted to blog about the gifts I received that were not e-cards, physical cards and gift baskets.
Promedia Corp send me these gloves that I can wear and still use my iPhone at the same time. I have been using them, they aren't that warm, but at least I can use my phone with them!
Jim Boykin and Internet Marketing Ninjas sent me a ton of their swag this year, from shirts, 3d glasses, usb sticks, and chinese stars.
Third Door Media got me a Kindle Fire.
My wife got me stuff I need, like a new talis plastic cover for my talis bag. It was needed, my other bag was shredding!
She also got me a much needed new shaver head. We ordered it from ShaverOutlet.com - a really nice web site that even has video demos on how to install it.
My shaver head had holes it in and started to cut my face. So after a couple weeks of trying to live with the pain, I splurged the $15 to get a new head.
Also, the RustyBrick holiday gifts this year literarily rocked.
Those are some of my gifts this year.
For my past year's gifts, see 2009, 2008 and 2006. I guess I forgot to blog about the other years.
Thank you all and happy Chanukah and holidays!
]]>Today, on the way to a meeting, I saw this HUGE car fire on 287 between exit 14B and 14A.
I was able to see the the dark fog of smoke for miles and miles.
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Friday I complained a 4sq special failed me but that all changed this Sunday.
I went to Modell's, because you got to go to Mos, and I used a $10 off $50.
The cashier had no clue what it was but the manager was right behind him and the manager plugged it in.
It was cool.
Like saving money while being geeky - who doesn't.
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I noticed that several of the local shops started to display Foursquare specials on their listings.
So I tried to use one this morning at the local bagel shop.
It was for $10 off when you spend $10, so I was hoping to get breakfast and lunch for free.
But when I asked the bagel store man, he had no clue what Foursquare was and how to give me the discount.
He said he will ask the boss when he comes in but he can't give me the discount that day.
So my first attempt at using a Foursquare special failed!
]]>Now that continental and united merged, I am on a united flight and it has wifi.
Flying with Internet is amazing. I don't have to worry about landing and catching up with hundreds of emails while I find a cab.
This rocks!
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I am starting to think that people do not like me. First I had almost $30,000 in credit card fraud the other week and now I see I had almost $1,000 worth of fraudulent phone calls made from my phone system at my office.
There was about $770 worth of calls made to various locations in Africa from my phone system. Some how someone gained access to make calls from my phone system and made hundreds of calls in a matter of several hours over four different phone lines to Africa.
The crazy part is when I called my phone company, Optimum/CableVision, they said I have to talk to IDT, which is who they outsource the international calling to. My credit card bill has transactions from Optimum Voice International, but technically, IDT bills under that name. So I got IDT on the phone and they want Optimum to split the charges, but Optimum doesn't want to. They spent 10 minutes on the phone with me yelling at each other.
Currently, no one has credited me for this fraudulent calls - so I had AMEX deal with those charges.
Here is a portion of the call log:
Okay, so who has it out for me?
]]>Yea, I called, got them reversed and replaced the cards on the account with a new account.
But seriously? They didn't get picked up by a credit card fraud algorithm? This is the same credit card that declines me for filling up my car with gas or buying parking at a garage for a business trip.
There are a dozen or transactions from the same merchant, MLK. I won't say who it is, because I am not sure if they are to blame or if it is someone 'frauding' them. But, doesn't this look suspicious to you?
(Note: This is only a portion of the fraud transactions)
Again, how can an algorithm not pick these up?
The woman at the credit card company said, oh, we blocked about $5,000 worth of these charges from this merchant. I was thinking, oh, so you decided to let through $25,000 worth or so?
Anyway, no harm done to me but I feel bad for whomever got nailed with the $30,000 bill.
]]>You basically need to enable a new "international" keyboard on your iPhone to activate it. After you do that, you get these characters, plus a heck of a lot more, as options when sending text messages, emails and so on.
How do you add it?
(1) Tap Settings > General > Keyboard
(2) Tap International Keyboards
(3) Tap Add New Keyboard
(4) Locate and tap Emoji
Then when the keyboard is open, hit the globe on the botton, near the left of the space bar. You will be able to toggle through your various keyboards that way.
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The couple weeks ago, Crystal Rock came into my office claiming they can do better than Deer Park on my water bottle prices. They did and I terminated my contract with Deer Park.
Today I got a notification from Poland Spring that my home delivery is coming up. So I decided to play the termination game with them and it worked.
I called, I said, Crystal Rock offered me X dollars per bottle and I pay you guys Y. I would like to terminate my water with you guys, unless you can match. I was then put on hold for maybe 30 seconds and was told they would match it for a year.
The price difference is a savings of 50%! Water isn't expensive but 50% isn't something to laugh at.
So if you have a water service, call and threaten to terminate - it will save you money!
Image credit: Scott Bartlett / ShutterStock.
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For the first time since switching over to AT&T almost 5 years ago, the data network has gone down completely. 3G is dead on AT&T in my area, which is the east coast. It has been since at least 6:20am from when I tried it off the WiFi network.
A tweet from california says AT&T's network is also down in California. He thinks it is a conspiracy against the Occupy Wall Street folks.
I guess the reason there are not too many tweets about it is because AT&T users cannot connect to the Internet?
Do you have an issue?
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