Oh man! If I waited until tomorrow, it would have been exactly 2 months since the last post on this blog. That's crazy!

What has been going on?
*Work
*Learning python
*Writing a python script that uses a genetic(ish) algorithm to turn 128 random circles into a target image one mutation at a time (slow, needs work, back-burner-ed for now)
*Writing an AIM chatbot at the request of spudart (right now it just repeats what you send it. add "sparxmind" to your buddy list if you'd like to have your messages parroted back to you)
*Lots of other stuff!

Now I just have to get back into the habit of posting stuff on a more regular basis. We'll see how that goes.

Awhile ago, Taco Bell began a campaign marketing the "Beefy 5-Layer Burrito" for just 89 cents. The local Taco Bell was participating at first, but after just a couple of weeks, you could hear the commercial on the radio in your car, immediately walk into the Taco Bell, and find that somehow $0.89 had turned into $1.29. Lame.

Now T-Bell has introduced four $2 meals that include a drink and a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. One of the meals is a Gordita Supreme.

The normal menu price for a Gordita Supreme? $2.09.

By paying 9 cents LESS, you can also get a drink and a bag of chips. I wonder if, when a customer orders a gordita, the cashiers are allowed to suggest paying almost a dime less and getting a free drink and chips? I doubt it.

Another interesting pricing example is the Cherry Pie at McDonald's. A Cherry Pie is 99 cents. But if you go ahead and buy two of them, the price only jumps up to $1. For just a single penny, a person can double their Cherry Pie-ness.

Pie-ness.

Subway's napkins are currently emphasizing the "healthiness" of their breakfasts as compared to McDonald's Egg McMuffin and BK's Egg & Cheese Croissan'wich.

The breakfasts listed on the napkin are the:
Egg & Cheese
Steak & Cheese
Western & Cheese
Black Forest Ham & Cheese

3 of the 4 are a "meat/protein and cheese"… the term "Western" is incredibly vague. Is it a vegetarian offering? Is it spicy? Without looking it up, I have no idea.

Is there a standard "western"? Am I supposed to know and remember it?

Every so often I run across an article about research or sometime even some company looking to embed solar panels into display technology. The idea sounds neat, even useful… until you give it another look.

Wouldn't it be AWESOME to have the screen on your mobile phone/iPhone/laptop acting as a solar panel and charging the battery?!

I don't know about you, but the last thing I'm going to do with an expensive piece of technology that already has issues with cooling itself down is.. LEAVE IT OUT IN THE SUN.

Did you miss Google's 2-day celebration of Pac-Man's 30th anniversary – where they turned the "Google" logo into a functioning Pac-Man game?

Or.. did you just not waste enough of your work day playing it?

Luckily, Google has put the game back up at http://www.google.com/pacman/ – so… have at it!

I whipped up this quick javascript which takes your hourly wage (for those of us still stuck in the race) and display a running countdown (countup?) of how much you've earned since clicking the button.

If you're viewing this in an RSS reader, this won't work, you'll have to actually click through to the post if you want to try it.

Cactus Joe (who you may know from his comments posted here) has submitted the song "A Face Like Yours" – by his band The Guppy Effect – to be in the new movie "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" (starring Michael Cera).

You can listen to the song, and vote for it by following this link: Listen to/vote for the song! and then clicking the "Vote now" button. You'll need to check your email and click the link it contains for the vote to actually count.

As of this posting, the song is #34 of 100. The top 100 go on to the next round, where the judges will weed the selection down to just 8, 1 of which will ultimately make it into the movie.

You can vote once per day.

DO IT!