July 21, 2008 – PenguinSix

Time to Watch the Tour de France is now.

Ok, if you’ve been uninterested or unmotivated to watch the Tour de France up to this point, the time is now to tune in. Coverage starts most days at about 8:30am on the Versus channel, which was formerly known as Outdoor Life Nework.

Yesterday the Tour started up in the Alps, where it will be for the next two days. The three top leaders are separated by all of about 10 seconds, and it is in the mountains that time shifts are the most vast. Tuesday and Wednesday see them up in the Alps, and this is probably where we’ll see the winner come forth, eventhough there is about a week of racing before Paris.

Or course there is now the annual drug issue confronting some teams, but there is also some criticism of the current Yellow Jersey holder Frank Schleck from his own team coach.

”I told Frank, if he wants to win, it’s going to hurt,” he said.

Tune in and watch the battle….

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Movie Review–The Bank Job

“The Bank Job” On DVD last weekend (I no longer get to the theater).

True story? To some extent. In 1971 £4 million robbed from a British Bank, including pictures of a ‘royal person’ in a compromising sexual position, several cabinet ministers photographed in a brothel, and a spreadsheet of corrupt policeman at Scotland Yard. Mi-5, Scotland Yard (both clean and corrupt coppers), and various London mafia types all chased down the robbers who really didn’t know what they had gotten into.

Now, is it true? No idea–the file was “D-Noticed” meaning it was headlines one day and illegal to write about it the next. Papers just stopped covering it for ‘National Security Reasons”. Some of the files are still classified (until 2054!). Movie was based on leaks and guesses….

But a pretty good movie nonetheless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bank_Job

NOTE: Plot disclosed above (if you want to rent it you’ll spoil the ending)

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Why I upgraded to the new 3g iPhone

Because it was free.

I mean basically, that’s it. My old iPhone is making its way on Ebay right now and the current prices they are fetching are incredibly similar to the price of buying a new iPhone (which I did earlier today).

I’m not one to rush and get the newest of the new simply because it is the newest, but with a chance like this to pay $0 and get a new phone I had to jump.

I was in Annapolis on another matter and called the Apple store, which the apple.com computer said was sold out. I spoke to the woman and she said ‘call back in 30 minutes’. The UPS guy at the Annapolis Apple store usually arrives about 10:30 and sure enough, he had a batch of new iPhones with him. The Apple folks told me it took about ‘10 minutes to ‘check-in’ the delivery’ and then they would be on sale.

I got to the store just as the UPS man walked out, and they made an announcement in the store that any customer looking to buy a phone should leave the store and get in line. I was 4th in line.

Unfortunately the people in front of me took a bit of time or had credit problems or whatever. Since I already had an iPhone and ATT account my upgrade and purchase took all of about 10 minutes. Others who were in line before me were still in the store.

The old iPhone went offline about 15 minutes after I left the store. The new one started working shortly thereafter. I’m now in the process of restoring from backup the contents of my original iPhone to the new one. The original is also being cleaned up for sale (note: if you ever buy Apple products, save the original box for resale purposes. Apple products get premium resale value vs. other electronics, and the original box helps).

So the upgrade is going on now and I’m off to get some lunch.

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