The Raging Tech

New Theme: Statement

The Raging Tech has a new theme, and I’ll be tweaking it as the next couple of days go by. I may not be updating much here while I do that, but you can check out some cool articles I’ve written and my business partner Frank J has written over at TechJaws.com

Bare with me, if part of the site is broken I probably know about it already, and am probably in the process of fixing it up.

Leave your comments on the general style of the new theme. I like it, I think I’m going to stick with it.

Shark Week on Tech Jaws

Tech Jaws, the technology news site that I co-operate with a fellow blogger, Frank J, is having Shark Week. What does that mean to you, readers and bloggers? It’s your chance to be featured on a high-profile, high-traffic technology news site for free!

The requirements are pretty simple, just go check out Tech Jaws’ Shark Week post and read the instructions, then leave a comment on that post, and mention you came there from The Raging Tech’s blog, and that will probably increase your chances that we’ll pick you to feature during Shark Week!

It’s Dark, and We’re Wearing Sunglasses. Hit It.

My wildest vacation was not wild as you suppose. I didn’t get drunk or go party in the city night life. I did, however, see a whole lot of culture on my stay in the Windy City - Chicago, Illinois.

Chicago is, as many of you know, the site of most scenes from the Blues Brothers movie. It’s interesting to go and try to spot all the historic sites from the movie, including the street corner in which Mr. T was an extra during the car chase scene.

Chicago is home of the blues - and boy was it easy to find! There are tons of blues cafe’s and historical museums that highlight local and famous jazz and blues musicians.

If you tune in to the radio late at night, sometimes you’ll actually hear Dan Akroyd as Elwood Blues doing a radio show!

The city tour is really where you should head if you’re interested in learning about the city and seeing the sights. Many companies offer double-decker bus tours, boat tours, and walking tours of downtown Chicago. If you’re from a smaller town, you’ll want to take precautions of course. Many morally bankrupt people will try to scam tourists and out-of-towners by pretending to be helpful and then either cheating you or giving you bad directions. If someone approaches you offering directions in exchange for a tip, ask them to take you and offer a little extra if they’re willing.

Chicago is the home of many television shows, movies, recording artists, actors, and sports figures. It’s entirely worth the time to explore this city. If you’ve never been, you should talk to a travel agent and book a tour with Trusted Tours. They’ll help you find things to do in Chicago, like sightseeing tours.

Trusted Tours & Attractions has a promo going on right now where if you sign up for their newsletter, you could win an $150 iTunes gift card. Also, if you’re booking a trip elsewhere, and were looking for say, things to do in Orlando, or Things to do in Las Vegas they have those too!

One Week Left

It’s one week left until my girlfriend-equivalent returns from out of town. I’m supposed to meet her back in my hometown where she’s visiting a friend, and I’ll be picking her up and bringing her back here.

I’ve missed her a lot, and most of you probably don’t care - but I haven’t really been as enthused about my day-to-day without her around.

She makes me happy, and it’s nice to have someone around that you know cares about you and you can share your thoughts with. Friends are good for this too, although with a couple of exceptions a lot of them have been unavailable during this past week. My friend Marq’s been good to me, hanging out and watching TV and playing video games, keeping my mind off things.

I’m off work on Friday, which I plan to spend driving to my folks’ house 5 hours away. I may see her then, we’re possibly going to see Prince Caspian (the new Narnia movie) this weekend.

You Can Sell Almost Anything on eBay

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.

The Unit: One Awesome Show

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.

What if your car kept doing this?

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.