The Raging Tech

Did someone you know recently die? Funerals are expensive, and so are coffins. But in today’s buy-everything-on-the-internet tradition, you can absolutely find it on eBay. I first got this idea when my uncle died a few years ago. I was trying to bring some levity to give people a chance to laugh. We all missed him dearly, and he always made us laugh.

I was at my mom’s house sitting at her computer and I said “Hey, I bet we can save the family some money and order the casket online, and get it rushed. That’s probably faster and cheaper than picking one out in the store. I’ve never bought a coffin before, do they come in sizes?” and my family burst into laughter. Then they came over to see the screen, and were amazed to actually see the item for sale.

Some caskets can cost thousands of dollars. This is a substantial savings over what you’d be pressured into buying from the local funeral home. This is especially helpful if your recently deceased loved one hasn’t bothered to purchase life insurance, or they owe so much you can’t afford to bury them.

If people can sell anything on eBay, so can you! Brick-and-mortar iSold It stores are setup especially for people who don’t want to bother learning to post their own auctions or handle their own money collection. You basically pay the iSold IT store to sell it for you, and they give you what’s leftover after eBay and their fees and shipping costs.

A year or so ago, I had borrowed “The Unit” Season 1 from my friend Nathan, and I really enjoyed the show. I never got past Season 1, because at the time that’s all there was out on DVD. Enter: Netflix. I’ve added all three seasons to my queue so far, but I think the third season isn’t out yet.

I have been re-watching the first season while my girlfriend-equivalent has gone home for a week or two, because I don’t really want to start a new show without her and have her show up and I’m stuck in the middle of it and her not knowing what’s going on.

It’s not so bad with this show, because it’s serialized but you can still watch any one episode and have a good idea of what’s going on. If you’ve never seen the show, the basic premise is that there’s an army black-ops group called “The Unit” with an official cover name of “The 303rd Logistical Studies Group.”

Everyone but the soldiers and their wives think the soldiers are in some sort of clerical job. In reality, they’re going out on deployment in the far reaches of the world, kicking butt and taking names. Check it out, they’ve already got seasons 1 and 2 on DVD.

Wouldn’t it be awful if your car kept doing this? I know it’d be pretty cool the first couple of times, but after that, it’d probably just be plain annoying. I like how this resembles the internet video from a while back where the cars would transform, but it was an intended function of the car, like a security system or something? I don’t quite remember. It’s a clever ad for Chevrolet Europe, nonetheless.

Hi. Did you know that me, being able to sit here and write whatever I want, and you, being able to sit there and read it, is a freedom? I’m sure most of you know that already, because you’ve sat through History class and you know about our various freedoms from the Bill of Rights. Or if you’re in another country besides the US, you probably have your own freedoms if you’re able to read this.

But right now, in China, you can’t read or write just anything you want. China PROMISED that before the Olympics they would clean up their act. They would stop punishing and imprisoning peaceful dissidents. But instead of following-through on that promise, they’ve instead imprisoned more people, including journalist Shi Tao.

Do you know who lead the Chinese government to Shi Tao? Yahoo! did, by turning over information to their government, just to protect their relations with China.

What can you do to stand up against Human Rights Violations, such as Shi Tao’s 10 year prison sentence for sending an e-mail?

You can urge your U.S. representatives (local and state) to put pressure on the Chinese government to release Shi Tao and others who have been wrongfully imprisoned for speaking their minds.

Secondly, you can e-mail Yahoo! and call for them to be more responsible with users’ data and privacy. They should not have released Shi Tao’s information to the Chinese government. Yahoo is based in the U.S., with locations around the world. There is no reason why they should have to give up data on servers that were probably located on U.S. soil.

Finally, you can post on your own blog about Human Rights violations around the world, there’s still time today to join Bloggers Unite for Human Rights, on May 15th, 2008.

Do you rock daily with Aerosmith, Guns ‘n Roses, Ozzy, Coheed and Cambria? When someone asks if you play the six-string, do you say, “No, I play the five buttons.” Do you relentlessly air guitar to EVERY song you hear EVER, including hymns at church? Do you try to imagine what color the notes will be? Do you make discouraging remarks at neighbors who think your video games are too loud? There is a very, very good chance that you may be here to save the world, Guitar Hero.

ENGOBI, the bastard child of snack chips and caffeine, wants you to get all hopped up on their product and then film you and your friends doing your best riffs and stage dives and other cool rockstar moves, and upload it to ENGOBI.com.

In this “Don’t be a Piano Hero” contest, your video can showdown against other Guitar Heroes and you could have a chance to win an Xbox 360-enabled Fender Stratocaster, some gear from ENGOBI, and other miscellaneous prizes.

The ENGOBI girls are making their way down the coast, in the ENGOBI van, probably eating some ENGOBI, they’ll be giving away gear and letting you play Guitar Hero with your friends van side. My parents always told me to stay away from vans offering video games and snacks. However, if there are hot girls inside, I don’t see why it would be a problem.