I’m getting antsy for my car to arrive at the dealership. It’s like waiting to hear back from an employer after a job interview. Argh.
Happy news for the neurotic, however – I Googled my Sonic’s VIN and found pictures!
Read moreI’ve decided not to donate my tax return to my old car, after all.
After considering the price of fixing my 2001 Chrysler 300M — more than $2,000 for various transmission and catalytic converter problems — it became apparent that the car wasn’t worth it. It survived nearly 145,000 miles. I decided to move on.
What’s amazing is how easy the car was to sell once I made the decision. On Jan. 24, I put an ad on Craiglist (an ad that Craigslist flagged for deletion for no good reason at all) for $750. On Jan. 25, it sold.
In the week since my 300 tried to kill me, I’ve called a lot of friends for advice. Everyone has a different take. Buy used because the depreciation of a new car is so bad. Buy new so you don’t have to worry about anything going wrong for a few years. Only lease so you’re not owning the bad years of a car.
I haven’t financially committed yet, but after considering my options (and most importantly, the opinion of the future Mrs. Kulpa), I came across a brand new car that I’ve kind of fallen in love with: A 2012 Chevy Sonic LTZ.
It’s cool looking, gas efficient, and most importantly, I qualify for the 2.9% financing over 60 months. All I’m waiting on now is for my local dealership to get the specific car I picked shipped from another dealership.
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I love gambling. Who doesn’t? There’s something irresistible about receiving money just for being right.
Not that I play with large sums – that would require having actual cash with which to bet. My bets tends to be monetarily small: A dollar, the price of a beer, the entry fee to a fantasy league.
My favorite game to bet on? Baseball, of course.
Last year, I had three notable baseball bets. I lost $20 each on two separate bets with Asshole Cousin Chad, gambling on the home run totals of Carl Crawford (I took the over on 20) and Jose Bautista (I took the over on 52). So there went $40.
But I also won $20 from my friend Bona (a good guy with a funny Twitter feed), betting that Gio Gonzalez would finish statistically better in more categories (ERA, WHIP, wins and strikeouts) than Ted Lilly. Bona is such a nice guy (and was so confident in his bet) that he offered to pay up even if the two pitchers split the categories.
So technically, I finished $20 in the hole. Except I managed to trick Asshole Cousin Chad into going double or nothing on the Carl Crawford bet over a round of mini-golf. I dominated, wiped the bet and effectively broke even on the season.
Now I’m ready for a winning 2012.
The first bet of the year is another $20 over/under, this time on the ERA of Tampa Bay’s David Price. The line is set at 3.25. I took the under.
Chad doesn’t think Price is an ace. I think his his declining WHIP and his climbing K/9 say otherwise. The bet seems incredibly winnable, so I’m going to go ahead and consider myself up $20 on the year.
Read moreI love my Apple. So does everyone else (well, except these guys and this guy). But objectively speaking, Apple’s iTunes icons have looked pretty whack since their inception.
That’s why I highly recommend replacing the icons with this set from the folks at the A2591 blog.
The directions are incredibly simple. The whole process takes 45 seconds.
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I want to give praise to Flip Flop Fly Ball, one of my all-time favorite websites. The site’s creator, Craig Robinson, combines baseball and informational graphics in a really fun and interesting way.
From Robinson:
A love of baseball plus a love of visual representations equals Flip Flop Fly Ball.
Essentially, this site is what I’d have been doing when I was 12 years old had the Internet and Photoshop been available to me in the eighties. And had I grown up in the States. As it was, I grew up in England. And I came to baseball in my thirties whilst on a business trip to New York. I went to see the Yankees play the Twins. And that was it, really.
My name is Craig Robinson. Not the guy in Hot Tub Time Machine. Not President Obama’s brother-in-law. And not the short stop who played for the Braves, Giants, and Phillies in the 1970s, either. I am a bearded, myopic, Englishman who (for the time being, at least) lives in Mexico City.
I’ve never met the man, but he seems like a helluva guy. And way, way more ambitious and motivated than the rest of us.
For instance: See that image to the right?
It’s a screen grab of every infographic Robinson has made for Flip Flop Fly Ball. I can’t say that I’ve looked at each and every one, but some of my favorites include “Welcome to Bradenia” and “The Age of the Yankees Roster.”
Robinson also has a lot of other kooky baseball- and graphics-related projects.
I highly recommend checking out his work if you have two or three days to kill next week.
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While waiting for a video project to render this afternoon, I happened stumble upon a Facebook status update from my friend Dan Stone.
Dan writes:
Why am I getting ads for being an “addiction counselor” that address me as “punk fan” and “metal fan” and why do the women in the advertisements appear to be naked and have pink hair? Is this what Facebook is using my personal information to determine?
I thought, “HEY! I like punk. I work in addiction. How come I’m not getting these ads?” My friend Nick Volkert has been documenting ridiculous Facebook advertisements for years. I really needed to see what Dan was seeing.
Sure enough, I’m getting targeted in the same fashion as Dan (minus the naked, pink-haired women).
Look, I’ve set up several company Facebook pages. I understand how these things work. But my question is: Who exactly designs these things? Why would an advertisement targeted at punk rock loving criminals use THOSE images? Are tribal face-tattooed bald guys a punk rock cliche I’m not aware of?
I will say this: They got the height right. I’m exactly 6-foot tall.
Top marks, Facebook.
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