The dangers of mayonnaise

A Texas woman was sentenced to 10 years in jail for running over the manager of a McDonald’s with her car because she wanted mayonnaise on her cheeseburger.

Waynetta Nolan, 37, showed no emotion Thursday as the sentence was read in court following a trial in which the McDonald’s manager, Sherry Jenkins, said she gave Nolan the mayonnaise she requested, but she flew into a rage anyway.

“I gave her everything she asked for — mayonnaise, no mustard, onions, everything I could possibly do for this lady. Mayo, mayo, mayo, and it’s still not good enough,” Jenkins told reporters outside the courtroom.

Nolan, who was convicted of aggravated assault for the April 23 incident, became so angry when a McDonald’s employee told her she could not get mayonnaise that she threw her cheeseburger into the drive-through the window, witnesses said.

Jenkins tried to placate her by offering a cheeseburger with mayonnaise, but Nolan continued to make demands until Jenkins finally called police.

When she went outside to write down Nolan’s license plate number, Nolan ran her over, breaking her pelvis.

Nolan testified that she was putting ketchup on her cheeseburger when she accidentally struck Jenkins.

Good to know that we can still settle disputes in a calm, rational, reasonable way (rolls eyes).

NetFlix Freak (nee Fanatic)

netflixfreak101.png

There used to be a handy little application for managing your NetFlix queue called Netflix Fanatic. Unfortunately, it stopped being available a while ago, apparently after the author’s employer claimed that the app had been developed on company time and equipment.

However, now comes NetFlix Freak — all the goodness of NetFlix Fanatic, and then some.

  • Drag and drop to rearrange movies in your queue
  • Select two movies in your queue and swap their positions
  • Shuffle your rental queue
  • Fast searching of the Netflix DVD catalog
  • Add multiple movies to your queue in one action
  • Add new movies at the beginning of your queue, the end, or shuffle your queue automatically after new movies are added
  • Keep track of who rented which movie in your household
  • Import your entire rental history (not just the last 90 days)

…and much more.

For sale: Pioneer CMX-5000 Twin CD Player

Note: This was originally posted Apr. 29th. It’s still up for grabs, so I’m moving the post to today’s date for more visibility.

Pioneer CMX-5000

Asking price: \$300.00 SOLD.

Lightly used, but in excellent condition, this unit was purchased new for \$1300 three years ago, but has sat nearly untouched in the two years since I’ve moved to Seattle and stopped DJing. I can’t say anything but good things about this piece of equipment — it’s one of the best DJ units I’ve had the pleasure to work with.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, as as I’ve hardly touched it in the two years since I’ve been in Seattle, it’s time to see if someone who can get a little more use out of it is interested. I’d prefer if someone in or around Seattle who can swing by and pick it up from me bought it (I’m in the lower First Hill area, close to Downtown), as I don’t have a car and shipping would be a major pain. I can accept cash, checks, or PayPal.

Keep reading for technical details from Pioneer’s site (I’d link directly, but they’ve gone Flash…):

Features:

[![Pioneer CMX-5000]]Auto Mix Play** Armed with an original search system, the CMX-5000 measures a track’s BPM and beat timing and then automatically changes the speed to the designated BPM, thereby realizing smooth mixing even for tracks on a single disc that have different tempos.

Three Playback Methods are Available:

  • Track Mode: Performs mixed playback alternating between tracks from discs in both decks.
  • Disc Mode: Performs mixed playback of track on a single disc in numerical order.
  • Program Mode: Performs mixed playback of tracks in any designated order.

Track Playback Time is Adjustable:

  • Short Time Change: Switches the track at a shorter time.
  • Instant Change: Switches the track at the DJ’s preferred time.

The Auto mix function is very effective in the following situations:

  • At times when there no DJ is present in stores, malls, etc., such as an weekdays nonstop background music can be played in DJ style using the establishment’s favorite selections to help creative a more active atmosphere.
  • In bars, restaurants or pubs where the staff work as DJs, the Auto Mix function results in considerable labor saving allowing the staff to devote more of their time to customer service.
  • When DJs playing at clubs, etc., need to take a short break to deal with urgent business or emergencies they can use the Auto Mix function to keep the music rolling.

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– In case of no beat music, smooth mixing cannot be performed because the BPM or beat timing of certain songs can’t be measured correctly.

**In the case of tracks on the same disc, cross fading cannot be performed.

***The CMX-5000, while revolutionary with Auto Beat Mixing capability, does have its limitations just like any electronic device. There are certain variables, that if present, will cause the Auto Beat Mixing function to not function properly. A few things must be in order for it to Auto Mix:

  • Music must be within a +/-16% ratio. If it is not within this range, not only will it not mix, but the beats will not match as well. The BPM’s will stay the same (even with the BPM sync pressed).
  • There must be a steady consistent beat in the beginning of the song. A song that starts with just vocals or off beats rhythms will not mix.
  • Any +/-16% range BPM should mix if it is has a CONSISTENT beat.
  • You must wait a few seconds for the next song to cue up, before hitting “Instant Change”. The player does have to calculate the beats of the next song. It needs just a few seconds to cue up. You will be know that it ready to go when:
    • If the next song programmed is on the other side, an orange colored “dash” going in a semicircle around the display appears.
    • If the next song programmed is on the SAME player, the autocue button quits blinking.

    The “Instant Change” button must be pressed IN TIME. If you decide to use the “instant change”, it must be done in time for it to automix.

DJ Operating Functions The CMX-5000 incorporates and upgrades the functions of Pioneer’s world-renowned DJ-use CD player — the CDJ 700S/500-II — and also boasts a number of brand new functions.

Clear Jog Dial Although the player is a rack mount component, this design results in a larger jog dial and display which together realize higher operability and easy visual confirmation of the current playback status.

Quick Start This feature permits virtually instantaneous playback with a time lag of less than 0.01 seconds from the pause condition.

Cue Functions (Cue Point/Back Cue/Auto Cue/Cue Paint Sampler) Set your own favorite playback points using the above functions. For example, with Auto Cue, you can set the start point of each track automatically.

Tempo Control The playback speed can be adjusted within three kinds of range. +/- 6/10/16%.

Master Tempo With this feature, you can change the playback speed without altering the music’s pitch.

Loop Functions (Seamless Loop/Realtime Loop/Loop-Out Adjust/Re loop) Uninterrupted sound loops can be easily arranged, and with the Re loop function you can return at any time to a previously set loop.

Playing Address The playing address allows you to check the current track’s playback situation visually in paragraph units.

BPM Counter This counter measures and visually displays the current song’s BPM (Beats Per Minute).

Legato Link Conversion for High Quality Sound Equipped with Pioneer’s original wide-range technology Legato Link Conversion the CMX-5000 is capable of reproducing sound frequencies above 20kHz which are lost during normal CD format playback.

Vibration-Proof Memory and Construction The CMX-5000 boasts excellent vibration-resistant characteristics and prevents sound jumps with the double protection afforded by a maximum 8-second vibration proof memory and a special vibration proof construction.

Slot In Thanks to this system, swapping discs is smooth and rapid, and you can say good-bye to worries about damaging the disc tray.

Mix Out The CMX-5000 incorporates a Mix Out terminal that allows use even in cases where there is only one input system, the setup is restricted to a single amplifier, or there is no mixer input margin.

Multi-Read This function plays back not only CD’s and CD-R’s but also CD-RW discs that are impossible to play on a conventional CD player.

Headphone Monitor This handy monitor function enables versatile sound monitoring.

Digital Output The CMX-5000 is equipped with a digital output terminal.

Fader Start Play/Back Cue Play Using the CMX-5000 together with a Pioneer DJ mixer, you can use the mixer’s fade, to control playback operations such as track start and return to cue point.

[Pioneer CMX-5000]: https://michaelhans.com/eclecticism/2003/04/graphics/cmx5000-2-thumb.jpg {width=”150″ height=”107″}

New TypePad features

Three new features for TypePad weblogs have been announced today at Everything TypePad:

  1. TypeList Sort Options: TypeLists can now be sorted alphabetically or by rating, in addition to ascending or descending by date added.

  2. Photo Album .zip Uploads: Rather than adding photos to photo albums one-by-one, you can now upload a .zip archive with multiple photos, which will be automatically decompressed and added to your photo album.

  3. More Privacy Options: You can now choose between no password protection, password protection for your entire site, or password protection for individual weblogs and photo albums on a case-by-case basis.

People sleep…cigarettes don't

Fire! Fire! ...cat?

Wow — scary stuff. Apparently there was a fire at James and Stacy’s apartment complex in Anchorage yesterday afternoon. Marc was kind enough to let me know about it in a comment here.

Thankfully, according to Stacy, everyone is okay, including the cat.

Anyways, aside from being just another exciting day in Anchorage, Alaska, we’re doing okay. […] The fire marshal called us and was pleased to tell us that our apartment was not the source of the fire. He couldn’t talk any further about it, but I suspect my neighbors are going to get sued because they left a burning cigarette on their back porch that happened to catch a cardboard box that was holding their ashtray. There was also a propane canister explosion. […] It was the explosion that woke James up, but the fire was already filling our apartment with smoke and the fireman ordered him out before he could get the cat. But THE CAT SURVIVED!

I’m just glad that everyone is fine. You all know that if you ever need a floor to crash on, my place is always open! Oh, sure, there’s that little matter of me being 3,000 miles away and all…but the offer stands anyway. :)

Also, a PayPal donation account has been set up courtesy of ShyWickedPixie. As James and Stacy may have just lost everything in their apartment, I’m sure they’d appreciate the odd buck or two tossed their way! I only had \$3 in my account to send off, unfortunately, but it’s something. :)

(Thanks to OccipitalDruid for pointing out the PayPal link!)

Dead Milkmen tour diaries

How very, very cool. Dean Clean, drummer for the Dead Milkmen, is posting his tour diaries from the band’s first days of touring back in 1985.

This site contains tour diary entries written by Dean ‘Clean’ Sabatino of the band The Dead Milkmen. We stopped touring back in 1994, but through the magic of modern day computer technology I can tell these stories again.

[…]

I was 23-24 years old when I wrote these diaries. I certainly wasn’t planning on publishing them when I wrote them; so reading them now either makes me laugh, cry or cringe. I will not make any claims to being a gifted writer or diarist, but the aim here is to give the reader some sense of what it was like to tour across the USA in a van with a punk rock band in the mid to late 1980’s. Some say this was the heyday of independent rock music and the college radio scene. I would bet we worked harder and played many more shows than many of today’s ‘alternative’ rock bands will play in their short-lived careers.

(via MeFi)

Amazon linking techniques

According to onfocus, Amazon has changed the way they link to wishlists, breaking current wishlist links in the process. I believe (after checking my code) that TypePad is using the correct form of link, but you may want to check your code to be sure!

Disclaimer: All link examples in the following quotes have been altered to use my Wishlist ID and Amazon Associates codes.

Public Service Announcement: If you link to your Amazon Wish List on your site, you may need to change that link. I’ve noticed that standard Wish List links are not working lately—but you won’t know whether or not it’s working if you have the Amazon cookie.

[…]

To link directly to your Wish List so others can see it, change wishlist in the URL to registry, like so:

http://amazon.com/o/registry/1P4IU0ESEJFTS

Later in the comments, this interesting tidbit of information was posted:

I stumbled across a post in the AWS discussion boards that basically said this was the officially good way to do a wishlist link (because it also includes your associates tag):

http://amazon.com/o/redirect?tag=[ASSOCIATETAG]&path=registry/[WISHLISTID]

All this reminded me of an important note from Jason Kottke regarding linking to items on Amazon with your Amazon Associates ID from last February:

I’ve noticed lately that when I browse items at Amazon, the URLs now take one of two forms:

http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684868768/ http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684868768/

The former URL style has been around for some time, but the latter is relatively new. If you’re an Amazon Associate, the proper way of linking to an individual item (per their linking guide) is to append your Associate code (mine is “0sil8”) to the first URL style, like so:

http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684868768/djwudicom-20

But if you run across an item at Amazon with the second type of URL, this won’t work:

http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684868768/djwudicom-20

Good tips all, and worth keeping in mind.