Weekly Wednesday #35

Weekly Link:
My wife wants a roomba vacuum for xmas... I think this would be much more useful.

Weekly Video:
I like finding obscure web series on youtube such as Life is Short. This three-part series is amusing, and also introduced me to the bizarre split-screen music videos of the tall blonde girl in the opening scene, Riki Lindholme, whose songs in the duo "Garfunkel and Oates" are HILARIOUS. Anyhoo, Life is short, also answering the question "Just what has Rory Gilmore been up to these days?":

Episode 2 is here
Episode 3 is here

Weekly Kiernan:
Insisting I sing along with Wiggles tunes is annoying, but what's worse is singing "Wiggle / and learn / dance to the rhythm of mu-u-sic" and being stopped by a temper-like screech of "NO DADDY! It's! AND! LOW!". And you know singing "and low" gets him going about how it's supposed to be "and learn." Ah, testing daddy's limits is fun...

Weekly Workplace:
In case you were wondering, in addition to the sunhat I received a pair of sunglasses, a beach bag and towel, and the CD "Enchanted Journey" from my coworkers. They were not waiting in my office first thing Monday morning as expected, but were instead brought downstairs by the entire staff, who hung around the door of my office about five minutes after I received notice that the latest edition of Ante Up Magazine was available for download, and about five minutes before I realized that Ante Up Magazine had finished downloading and popping up on my monitor sometime during the presentation of my "vacation gear".

Weekly WTF:
The average cellphone user (without a text messaging plan) pays 20 cents a message. The amount of data used to transfer such a message is the same, 160 characters, whether you fill the entire texting space or just send "ok". The cost of text messaging is about $1400 per megabyte. To put things into perspective, at that rate it would cost you just under $6000 to download a single MP3 to your phone.

Apparently a US Senator has written the major US carriers asking why their rates have increased by 100% in the past few years. Not only have they increased, but the price structures have increased similarly in competing cell companies, implying collusion. That's even less reason for me to ever want to send another text message...