Expensive extension chords

I am not the first to say, businesses never make their money off of what we think they do. Xerox and others don't really sell copy machines or printers, they sell toner and paper. TV manufacturers must be in league with the cable companies. Xbox sell their machines at a loss but clean up nicely on their game cartridges.

I finally figured out what Apple Comps really earn their money on. They don't sell laptop computers they sell power supplies!!! I have had an iBook for three years and have had to replace my power supply three times now. Each time it has involved tripping over the cable somehow and completely messing it up. For a new power supply from Apple it costs $75. So the picture starts to become clear.

When I tripped over my computer cable again in Las Vegas last month I thought I had really done it this time. The end of the plug broke off inside the machine and I couldn't get it out. I took it to the comp shop and the guy told me it had to be sent back to Apple and would cost $600 minimum to fix. Needless to say I was quite upset. I was considering switching to PC that day I was so mad.

I decided I should get a second opinion. I went to this other guy whose little shop was all locked up. After I knocked on the door he let me in and locked the door behind me because of the "thieves" in the area. His news was a little better. He said I had to send it in but it might only cost $200 or so. Still not happy with his estimate I looked around for one more place.

Third times a charm. The only other Apple repair place in Vegas could do it in-house and would have it ready for me tomorrow. The cost was $110 plus the power supply and I was good to go. I ended up getting a discount third-party $49 power supply on eBay so that Apple wouldn't have the satisfaction of selling me another one. I am sure they saw a commision on it somehow though.

My prediction for 2005: A continued decline in critical thinking

When I was on vacation at the Mexican border last week I had a bit of time to kill one afternoon and did something I seldom do lately. I watched broadcast TV. In my little hotel room there was a TV perched over the bed on a hospital-type mount. There was no remote so it took a bit of energy to change the channel. When the Montel Williams show came on I started to get up to see if there were any less horrible shows on other channels.

Then Montel announced who his guest would be for the hour. It was psychic Sylvia Browne with her predictions for 2005. I had heard a bunch about this woman from James Randi but had never actually seen her. Well I couldn't stomache her for the whole hour but needless to say it was just what I expected, a bunch of guesses about what would happen with celebrity marriages, the economy and politics over the forthcoming year. She looked like she didn't even have to work at convincing people of her "powers" anymore. She lazily sat in her chair like a slug with no emotion in her voice rattling off a bunch of nonsense as if she had better places to be.

So the tradition continues again this year, the usual gang of scammers and frauds spew out their psychic predictions for the year. In the past they have seldom been taken to task for failed prognastications but with the proliferation of the internet and easily accessible archives of their words that may be changing.

While some predictions may seem like merely hopeful wishes or harmless fun, it is a huge industry bilking the public of millions of dollars on fraudulent claims. They mess with people's emotions and steer them in potentially harmful directions. In the case of "psychic detectives" they waste taxpayer money by dangerously diverting legitimate police efforts away from actually solving crimes and saving lives.

If you believe there is anybody on this planet who can see the future, or that psychics are a great resource who help humankind I will leave you with one last link. This news article from a major Malaysian daily called The Star was published on December 25th 2004. It is all about a Thai astrologer/lawyer named Phinyo Phongchareon. He really goes out on a limb with a prediction that there will continue to be religious fighting in the South of Thailand. He also predicts a vague "big natural disaster" for Thailand for March.

Hmm . . . hold the phone! Did he predict a natural disaster in Thailand? What was the date of this article again? . . . Remind me again of what happened in Southeast Asia the next day on December 26th 2004 . . . A kindly psychic might have saved some lives yes? Didn't see any mention of it by this "psychic" or any others did we? (One woman who predicted a tsunami in Japan, now is trying to get credit for it by claiming to be geographically challenged)

Not knowing what the future will hold is a blessing not a curse. I think I heard it in a baseball clubhouse once: Let's take it one day at a time.

Send your money, not prayers

I have been reluctant to talk about the tsunami for several days because of a very personal reason, I did not even want to think about the tragedy. I have many friends in Thailand including one who told me the night before the event that she was heading to Khao Lak at Phang-Nga Thailand. It was an area that was completely wiped out by the waves. Thank goodness I finally heard from her this past weekend and she is doing well and reporting on the news story.

Firstly, my condolences to the friends and families of people who were not so lucky last week. You can help them out financially here or at many other spots on the web.

Now I want to tell you what has got me completely pissed off and I don't mean just a little bit. It is completely disgusting and a degradation to the victims' memories when we have religious figures say:

The people are not living according to religious virtues. Nature has given them some punishment because they are not following the path of the Lord Buddha. The people have to learn their lesson.
Sri Lanka Buddhist Monk Sumana

This bastard's words have been covered all over by the media. Do a news search and you will see for yourself. Other stories also show that christian and muslim leaders are getting into the act of blaming the dead victims. I highlighted a buddhist quote so that you know I don't fly with the PC crowd who consider that a kinder gentler religion. Perhaps it is a multi-denominational effort since the wave showed no prejudice by hitting with equal strength buddhist, muslim and hindu areas. Plus we can't forget all the christians who were vacationing there.

News stories are popping up claiming that all buddhist statues were spared and other such "miracles." A little research will reveal that what was spared was partly random and had much more to do with what the structures were made from and where they were. I guess the hindus who died while praying in a temple that was completely smashed in India, the anglican church that was destroyed or those washed away at a marian temple must simply have been praying to the wrong god.

The news media hasn't done a horrible job this time around of showing the actual science of tsunamis but any strides they have made are washed away (sorry, bad pun) by overblowing a story about surviving buddhist statues with no mention of a natural reason why they may have been spared.

Those who want to ask why this happened simply need to do one thing. Take an oceanography class! (Here is a marine sciences site a fellow family member once put up) I had to take the same one twice in high school. (The first time I took it this jackass failed me!) Thank goodness one tourist girl in Thailand payed attention in her science class and this group was able to learn lessons from past natural events. The reason people are asking "why" following this natural event is because religion has no answers for them, sorry but you will only find those in science. My favorite quote of the last week comes from one of my heroes:

Not only does science know why the tsunami happened, it can give precious hours of warning. If a small fraction of the tax breaks handed out to churches, mosques and synagogues had been diverted into an early warning system, tens of thousands of people, now dead, would have been moved to safety.
Richard Dawkins

If anything good comes out of this we will listen to Richard Dawkins and not Monk Sumana. Perhaps people and governments will accept the awesome potential power of nature and use science and technology to limit the loss of life when this kind of thing happens again.

I'm on a Mexican radio Pt. II

. . . continuing from part I

I took a seat with Chano down in the press box shortly before the baseball game started. We were joined by a guy all bundled up ready for the cold night. It turned out he was a commentator for the Aguilas' radio broadcast. Researchers and others also joined us and crowded into the tiny booth at field level right behind the on-deck circle.

Before the show started the commentator leaned over and asked me a few questions about where I was from and what I was doing at the game and such. Then before I knew what was even going on he had a microphone in his hand and was talking all about the guest he had in the booth who had come all the way from Arizona to see this game. The broadcast had started, which as far as I know is broadcast to all of Baja California, and I was the subject of the pregame show. He then stuck the microphone in my face and started asking me questions live on the air about the team in Spanish. I responded with a few simple answers in Spanglish saying I didn't really know the players and was there just for a vacation and a good time. I said I was looking forward to seeing Fernando play.

The interview just lasted for a few minutes but it was certainly not something I thought I would be involved with when I had crossed the border about an hour previously. From our little booth it was a bit difficult to see down the right field line and even first base. The commentator looked at me a few times to tell him what had happened in the game, if a player was out and so forth. He kept score on his little card and made the occasional comment. The main play-by-play guy was in another booth upstairs. The game proved to be quite historical, with both teams hitting a combined 11 homeruns and tying a Mexican league record.

About the middle of the game Chano said, "Come on!" again and I followed him to some primo seats in the stadium. They were right behind homeplate at field level behind home plate. It looked like the pitcher was throwing the ball right at my head. He introduced me to this guy who was the head of security for the Governor of Baja Cal. The beer was flowing freely, at only about a $1.35 a cup how can you go wrong?

A foul ball came back our way and hit the netting above my head. The ball rolled down the net and stuck right at the top of the backstop. I jumped up and managed to pull it out of a big hole in the net, competing with a few others for the souvenir. So now I can add a Rawlings Liga Mexicana Del Pacifico baseball to my collection of numerous balls I got years ago in Seattle.

A fellow Gringo from Washington State noticed my Mariners jacket and sort of wondered why I was so special. He asked if I was a scout. I guess he had seen me on the field and now sitting in the great seats. I told him I just knew the right people apparently. He told me his son was a baseball player for some college in Arizona and he was trying out to play in the Mexican Leagues. That guy saw me the next day again in the clubhouse and I really think he didn't believe I wasn't a scout. He went out of his way to introduce his son to me and was talking him up.

Yes Chano did tell me that if I met him again before the game the next day, I would get the same treatment. Sure enough we met out in the parking lot and he got me in free again and into the great seats behind home. That night, Wednesday, I had the pleasure of seeing Fernando Valenzuela pitch six shutout innings giving up only one hit. The Aguilas also clinched a spot in the playoffs which start tomorrow.

This story, as with everything else on skepticklish is completely true. It may not be a front page baseball news story like this one was years ago but unforgettable none the less. So if you are looking for a unique experience just jump on a rickety old bus in Mexico. You never know what it might lead to.

I'm on a Mexican radio Pt. I

My vacation is officially over on Monday so we are back to daily columns on skepticklish since you demanded it.

This past week I made it down to the city of Mexicali, just south of the border. It is the capital of Baja California, Mexico. The city is about a three hours drive through the desert for me. I pulled into a hotel on the US side in Calexico, California and walked across the border. It is not worth the hassle of driving into Mexico what with getting insurance, long waits and such.

I needed to catch a city bus in Mexico to get to the baseball stadium since it is quite a ways from the crossing point. I remembered from a similar trip last year that I needed to catch a yellow and white bus. I wasn't sure of the number, just the color. So after a few minutes when a yellow and white bus showed up I signaled for it and then stepped on and asked the driver if he goes by the stadium. He answered yes, and a passenger who was sitting in the first seat started talking a bunch about the stadium and how he worked there and I could follow him. I only understood about half of his Spanish.

So after a short bus ride we got off together near the stadium. I was a bit suspicious of this guy at first. He seemed a bit too friendly and was talking about how he had worked for the team for 28 years and knew everybody. He had even been honorary manager of the team for a day. With my lousy Spanish we were able to communicate semi-effectively. His name was Chano and if I was a friend of his then I would be in good with everybody at the ballpark. So I slightly reluctantly agreed to go along with him. He took me around the back security gate and told me to tell the guards I was going to shag balls during batting practice. The guards didn't even really give me a second look. I was beginning to believe that as long as I was with Chano I was fine.

Chano kept saying, "Come on!" and yanking on my jacket to get me to follow him around. I went where he went, and the next place he headed was the Mexicali clubhouse. We walked through there pretty quickly and out into the dugout. The thing I noticed straight away was how shabby the clubhouse looked. I suppose I only have the clubhouses at the Kingdome and Safeco Field to compare it with, both of which I have visited in years past. This place looked a bit worse than our school dressing room. I used the bathroom in their later on and found the drain was backed up.

Chano was introducing me to folks as we walked. The only one I remember though was Fernando Valenzuela. I said, "Hola" and shook his hand and Chano dragged me on to somebody else. Fernando was a guy who was playing baseball in the Major Leagues when I was still in Elementary school. I figured he must be the manager of the Mexicali Aguilas or something. I was quite shocked to learn he would be pitching in the game the following night!

We stood behind the batting cage during batting practice and he told me about how he was buddies with all the press who were there, radio and TV. He asked how I would fancy watching the game from the press box.

. . . stay tuned for Part II tomorrow