twothirds

Bank of America just dropped a $5.95/monthly fee on me since I stopped a direct deposit into my account. Funny thing is, I had over $9k in the account, I *never* did any in-bank transactions and my account earned no interest. I am a model account holder, right? They make money off of my account. Why the hell would they be charging me for usage of my money?

Anyway, I just wanted to thank Bank of America for that $5.95 kick in the ass. That is exactly the motivation I needed to move my money into a high interest checking account at 2.5%. I have just turned that $5.95 loss into a $200+ a year gain with the earned interest. (And I get free bank to bank transfers and ATM refunds. Mmm. Gravy.)

Of course the account closure process was a total cluster. After talking with three people in the branch, I was able to walk out with a cashiers check, but my account was still open. I ended up having to call customer service to complete the transaction. Throughout this entire process, no one asked why I was closing the account. It is obvious they don’t give a shit about the customer experience.

Some day the employees at Best Buy will learn how to pick up the correct non-defective merchandise for their in-store pick-up.  So far they are oh-for-two.

Thank you for turning a five-minute trip into an hour.

Cynar is the latest addition to the liquor cabinet. Made by the Campari group, this lesser known liquor infused with 13 herbs and plants is a similar concept to its red brother (bitter apéritif). In theory you can substitute Cynar for Campari and some will swap it out for Italian Vermouth.

To get a true sense of my new purchase, my first Cynar cocktail was on the rocks with an Orange slice before dinner. The drink has a great bittersweet balance and no one herb or plant overpowers. If you can stomach Campari, your palate will accept Cynar. While Cynar will not displace Campari as my favorite spirit, it will see plenty of action in the coming months.

Some interesting Cynar drinks found on the interweb include:

Tom Waits was Here
(unknown quantities)

• Cynar
• Jack Daniels
• Triple Sec

Cin-cyn

• 1 ounce artichoke-flavored liqueur, such as Cynar brand
• 1 ounce gin
• 1 ounce sweet vermouth
• Dash bitters, either Peychaud or Angostura brand
• 2 orange wedges, sliced 1/2-inch thick

Cynar Biere

• 1 oz Cynar
• 1/3 oz lemon syrup
• 14 oz beer

Choke Artist
from The Art of the Bar, by Jeff Hollinger and Rob Schwartz

• 1 ounce Cynar
• 1 ounce Gran Centenario Anejo tequila
• ½ ounce fino sherry
• 5 dashes Regan’s Orange Bitters No. 6
• Extra-wide orange twist for garnish

Combine the Cynar, tequila, and sherry in an ice-filled mixing glass and stir. Add the bitters to a chilled snifter and roll around to coat the glass. Pour the Cynar and tequila mixture into the snifter. Garnish with the orange twist.

Download movies or download movies?.

I had a Negroni last night at Town in San Carlos. Gawd–they butchered it. I think they actually gave me an Americano (less the soda) given it lacked a kick and the drink was on the brown side. It was also served with a lemon twist. At least they were able to redeem themselves with a Chimay served in the proper glass.

I still cannot believe how many bartenders butcher such a simple drink. They are able to whip out satisfying chick-tinis with ten different ingredients and please the lady folk, but they cannot hit the mark on a drink with three ingredients of equal parts? Pretty soon I will have to start interviewing bartenders before I order a drink.

So far, my biggest Negroni pet peeves are:

Serving Up
This drink is to be served on the rocks. Given the red hue of the drink, it can easily be mistaken for a fruity chick-tini. No self respecting man wants to be thought of as a chick-tini drinker.

Wrong Twist
There are a few different variations on the proper style of orange to go with the drink. The best recipes call for a flamed orange peel. I have only seen that done at one old-school bar in NYC. Chances are you will never see this done as it is labor intensive and most bartenders don’t give a crap.

Other variations call for an orange slice. This is quite acceptable as well, but not my preferred variation.

My favorite “middle ground” is an orange twist. Although, I am not talking about one of those pre-sliced twists that have been sitting around since the shift start at 4PM. I want a fresh twist sliced out of an orange with my glass in immediate range of all the orange zest oil that will shoot out. This gives such a favorable sweet subtleness to the drink. Mmmm. Orange oil.

Wrong Ingredients
Given the drink is three ingredients of equal parts, how can anyone manage to f- this up? Seriously…..1.5 oz gin, 1.5 oz sweet vermouth, 1.5 oz gin. Done!

Too bad it is only 10AM. If it were past Noon, I would mix myself up a favorable Negroni

The main content authoring server for sun.com has been a Sun Fire 4810. (Yeah–it’s embarrassingly old.) While this machine is still holding up strong (amazingly), it’s time for some new iron. I think the SPARC Enterprise M5000 will do the job.

First, a quick and dirty before/after benchmark*

M5000

jm___@s___new:~
> ptime gcc hello-world.c

real        0.050
user        0.022
sys         0.014
jm___@s___new:~
> ptime ./a.out
Hello World
real        0.005
user        0.000
sys         0.001

4810

jm___@s___:~
> ptime gcc hello-world.c

real        0.148
user        0.002
sys         0.018
jm___@s___:~
> ptime ./a.out
Hello World
real        0.040
user        0.001
sys         0.005

* Yeah. This is one of the lamest benchmarks you can run for a multi-processor machine. I cannot wait to do some real application benchmarking.

uname output

uname -a is: SunOS s___new 5.10 Generic_120011-14 sun4u sparc SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise

64 GB Memory

Memory size: 65536 Megabytes

32 Hardware Threads @ 2150 MHz

============ Psrinfo ==========
Status of virtual processor 0 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:19.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 1 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 2 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 3 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 8 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 9 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 10 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 11 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 16 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 17 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 18 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 19 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 24 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 25 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 26 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 27 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 32 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 33 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 34 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 35 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 40 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 41 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 42 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 43 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 48 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 49 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 50 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 51 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 56 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 57 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 58 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 59 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.

It appears some spammers have used my email address as a “from” for some spam messages. Rats! At least I am a [hot] russian chick. I would hate to be viagra.

From: “Russian women” <jed@mich__wicz.org>
Subject: Still single? look at my profile, Olga from Russia

Hello!

Spring has finally come! Romance is in the air!
Beautiful and still single (!!!) Russian and Ukrainian women are eager to meet you! They have placed their profiles at SingleRussianGirls dating site and waiting for your emails.
Don’t loose time and come get registered FREE at http://HELL___IRLS.INFO/?idAff=237

I had an expensive ride the other day. While clipping into my pedals, part of the front cracked. I can still clip in, but it is time for new pedals.

I am sticking with my beloved Time RXS pedals. The cleats are walkable, the pedals slip in easy and the are low [no] maintenance. Sure they may crack after 2-3 years, but I guess I can live with that tax.

“That’s weird, I’m out of my happy pills. But didn’t I put in an order a few weeks ago?”

My regular order from drugstore.com was lost in the ether. Kudos to drugstore.com for “getting it”. I called them up about the lack of goods on a Saturday and within five minutes:

• They confirm it should have arrived
• They give me the option of refund, store credit or reshipment
• The delivery is upgraded to three-day shipping for free
• An email confirmation is waiting in my inbox before I hang up

Wow. If only everyone on the interweb did business this way.

I wonder if they will figure out my new mailing address.

It is debatable whether or not people really watch this show, but if you take away the eye candy, does anyone watch it?