UtterlyBoring.com

Nearly A Perfect First Day In The Pick 'em

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:03:58 -0800

We have our largest pool of folks ever in the pick 'em this year, even after thining off some of the folks who didn't fill out their brackets. Through the 13th game of the day, "Randal D" had picked all 13 games correct -- even all the upsets. But after incorrectly picking the last three games of the day, he's in second place behind our Canadian Invader "Andrew" who picked 14 of the day's games properly. I managed to somehow pick 12 of them right (how, I have no idea), and sit in third place right now, ahead of my boss and co-workers (which is all that matters to me, really). Dren is still bringing up the rear, just barely behind Kyle, who is trying to upend Dren from his perpetual loser spot. Thanks to today's lower-seeds winning, they both actually put points on the board.

The full spreadsheet for the day has been updated.

Last Chance To Sign Up For The Pick 'em

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:06:34 -0800

We're now up to 43 competitors in the free bracket pick 'em. I emphasized "free" because people think you have to pay for it. You don't. It's free and for fun. I don't make a dime of this. However, a lot of local businesses (and some not-so-local) businesses have thrown in some great prizes (I just added one today). These businesses deserve your support, and I'd encourage you to click on their ads that are appearing over to the right of this post or the list below, visit their sites, buy their stuff/services, but most of all thank them for participating in this bit of fun.

Entries and brackets have to be filled in by the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. We already have a record prize haul, and record number of competitors (we had 30 last year), I'd like to see us get up over 50 people before game time tomorrow. So if you haven't signed up, or your friends haven't signed up, tell everybody you know and potentially win some great prizes.

Thanks again to some of our the prize providers (some of our prizes were provided by me or by folks who didn't want credit):
Baker City Vacation Rentals
Paizano's Pizza
SUPERAntiSpyware
Mug Revolution
Jake's Diner
Dave Woodland at Signet Mortgage
Bend Oregon Restaurants blog.

Bandwidth Killers

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:17:51 -0800

Just a few videos I've had sitting here for a while... check them after the jump.

Time Killer For The Day

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:27:51 -0800

It's silly and stupid, but it's addicting as heck for some reason. It's Break The Wall. I've yet to actually break through all the walls -- anybody else make it?

Local High School Grad Now Owns World Track and Field Record

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:38:07 -0800

While it was impressive that the Oregon women won the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships (and the men placed second), the most impressive performance of the weekend was Mountain View HS graduate Ashton Eaton breaking the world record in the heptathlon, with a score that would have won him the world championships (which also occurred this weekend). If he would've competed just by himself as an individual, he would've scored in a bunch of events as well, and probably would have won a few indoor meets this year single-handedly.

In short, the guy is a stud.

The Tournament Field Has Been Set -- Fill Out Your Brackets and Win!

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:44:12 -0800

The field has been set, and it's time to fill our your brackets in the UtterlyBoring.com annual pick 'em. You have until early Thursday morning to get things filled out, so get crackin'!

Time Killer For The Day

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:24:05 -0800

Before you guys fill out your bracket later, kill off some of your morning with some cute little unicorns.

The Worst Christmas Present Ever

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:41:10 -0800

It's a bathroom scale that takes pictures of you and posts them to twitter.

KOHD Is Still Broadcasting News -- Sort Of

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:40:25 -0800

HackBend, BendTech and this site all posted stories about KOHD ceasing their news broadcasts. Well, apparently they're not ceasing them entirely, just making them much shorter with little blips through the day in between and during other shows. They're no longer doing a full newscasts, from what I can see. Over at KOHD they've updated their news schedule for the various times they'll be on TV with news updates.

I still stand by my original point that I'm not a TV news watcher (I'm rarely in front of my TV, and if I am I'm hardly ever on KOHD/ABC). I also agree a lot with Jeff over at BendTech that the problem isn't with KTVZ or KOHD, but with Nielsen. Having been a Nielsen family on a couple of occasions, I can see how easily the system could be ripe with fraud, skewed or useless data.

Biking Directions Added To Google Maps

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:42:57 -0800

This interesting new feature adds "By Bike" to the car, walking, and transit option already available for finding directions on Google Maps. Testing it around Bend a bit, it seems to do a decent job of avoiding the hills and many of the busy roads around my house (I live near Pilot Butte) and finding alternative routes, but I'd be interested in what some of the bike commuters (Monkey Boy?) in the area think about what it's telling you. If I were to bike the commute from here to my office in Sunriver it'd be an interesting ride, especially considering I don't think those roads that Google Maps recommends riding are even there or ridable this time of year.

Time Killer For The Evening

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:44:26 -0800

Taberinos is a fairly simple game -- hit the lines to get rid of them, but it's still quite fun (and has decent music, which is a rarity for a Flash game).

Reading Material

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:15:02 -0800

How to increase conversions on any Website in 45 minutes.
Why is Oprah replacing David Attenborough as narrator of Life? Personally, I think it's stupid, too, as I'd much rather listen to David Attenborough than Orpah (yes, I spelled that right -- look it up). But one redditer has a theory: "I'm sure Oprah loves nature. She's certainly eaten her fair share of it."
If you have an extra $20,000, you can buy yourself the ultimate chick magnet/repellent (be sure to read the reviews). Thanks Greg for that one.
Twilight is crap because it isn't bacon.
Why ad blocking is devistating to the sites you love. Hopefully none of you are blocking ads on this site and are helping me feed my family by supporting our advertisers clicking on an ad or two or 12.
Resume in Google Maps. Probably would be worthless for me, since most of my jobs have been in Oregon.
NewEgg selling fake Intel CPUs, though obviously not intentionally. Just the same, everybody's in a dither, even though I've never had bad luck with the Egg, and just recently discovered their business section.
The 12 biggest rip-offs in America.
What does Google suggest?
Yikes...RSA 1024-bit private key encryption has been cracked by fluctuating with the power.

Weirdest Video You'll See All Day Week Month

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:26:34 -0800

I don't know what this is, but I can't stop watching:

KOHD News Is No More

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:08:14 -0800

This news broke last week on Oregon Media Central, but KOHD made it official: KTVZ will be the only game in town for local TV news broadcasts, as KOHD is going to be rebroadcasting KEZI news out of Eugene, with a few packages created by a few Bend-based reporters. KOHD will still exist as a station, but they won't have a local news broadcast. This comment sums it all up nicely.

Honestly, I liked the look/feel of the KOHD broadcast, and felt they did have some good people, but their Web site absolutely sucked. While KTVZ's is full of ads (they have to pay the bills), at least there is useful content and conversation there. For those of us who aren't able to be in front of a TV when the news actually is broadcast on TV, online local news is important to me. Thanks to Barney's inability to ever stop working (I don't think that dude sleeps), KTVZ has the best online local news content. (The Bulletin's might be good, too, but it's mostly hidden behind a paywall.) KOHDs site was usually riddled with typos, layout errors, and ugly grammatical errors, and I never considered it a useful place for online news.

That being said, competition in a market is always good. But it appears KTVZ doesn't have any now, since KOHD and KBNZ are both just broadcasting sister-station content (and KTVZ-parent company NPG also owns the local Fox affiliate, so that eliminates the other major network).

Update: Forgot to even check, but Jon at HackBend is all over this, too. I knew about the news a few days ago as well, but with Band concerts and other family functions and work projects, this is the first I've been able to post anything.

Cascade Winds Concert Coming Fast

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:45:13 -0800

One last plug: Our concert is in a couple hours, and I hope to see some of you there!