FlashFlight Illuminated Flying Disc

Posted on July 26, 2007 by Doug Porter

A group of friends have recently started playing Ultimate Frisbee on Thursday evenings (ok, I know it should just be called Ultimate since Frisbee is a trademark and flying disc is the proper trademarked term, but frisbee is much more recognizable to my audience). If you are not familiar with Ultimate, it is pretty much like football played with a frisbee except that it is non-contact and you have to stop when you catch the disc. Check out these 10 Simple Rules for Ultimate for a more detailed explanation. It is a great sport and also good exercise. I highly recommend checking it out (if you are in Mobile, come join us on Thursdays, otherwise look for a league here: Ultimate Players Association).

So I was reading Brian Battjer’s photoblog site (warning some content NSFW) and ran across this entry about his trip to Japan (man that guy has a wild life). In that entry (Ctrl-F for frisbee) he shows off his illuminated flying disc from FlashFlight. After seeing this I knew I must have one, so I popped over to their online store and ordered up this combo

of their red illuminated disc and their plain white Ultimate disc. A bargain at $27 plus shipping (which was $6 to Mobile).

I received the discs a couple of weeks ago and I must say they are absolutely incredible. The illuminated disc is powered by a watch type battery and light is provided from an LED. The interesting part is that there are fiber optic lines that run to the edge of the disc so that all of the disc’s surface get lit up. It comes in many different colors with the red getting the longest battery life (150 hours!!). At night the light up disc looks like a little flying red UFO when thrown. It is a great fun to throw and very entertaining at outdoor parties. It is also incredibly durable. No matter how many times I said don’t throw the disc in the pool because I’m not sure what will happen, it of course ended up in the pool. 3 or 4 times actually. And guess what….nothing happened. It kept on glowing and did not end up electrocuting anyone in the pool. When I got home that night I removed the battery and let it dry out, and it is still going strong. For you purists, their illuminated disc is 185 grams which is 10 grams heavier than the regulation disc but it flies great. It actually flies better than regulation in the wind due to the increased weight.

The plain white ultimate disc (regulation 175 grams) is also a great disc. We used it at our last game and other than my complete lack of talent in all things frisbee-related it performed flawlessly. It is also extremely durable. Teddy spent an entire afternoon (sorry Teddy 🙂 ) the other weekend trying to see how many times he could skip it off of the asphalt with errant flicks or nosedive it straight into the pavement from 30,000 feet with flawed hammer throws and other than lots of nicks and scrapes it still flies great.

So, run don’t walk to their site and see if there is room for a FlashFlight disc in your life. You will not be sorry.

Of course the real question is whether my light up disc will make it through airport security next month when I head out to California to see Brian and Rob. After reading tales like this, I wonder.

Posted in Misc, Reviews | 4 Comments

Deadeye Dick Plays Reunion Show at House of Blues

Posted on July 22, 2007 by Doug Porter

One of my favorite bands from the mid 90’s is reuniting for the first time in 8 years to play the House of Blues in New Orleans, LA this Saturday, July 28, 2007. I’m talking about the one and only Deadeye Dick. You may remember them from their song “New Age Girl” (iTunes Link) off of the Dumb and Dumber soundtrack. I first saw them back in 1995 or 1996 (can’t recall which) at Bayfest in Mobile, AL. They put on an absolutely rocking performance (it was the first live Rock show I ever saw and it definitely left its mark). I purchased their album (they were touring in support of their second album “Whirl” (iTunes Link)) and saw them a couple of more times over the next couple of years as they would pass through the city on tour.

Unfortunately after their second album did not match the sales of their first album that came from being included on the Dumb and Dumber soundtrack, they split up. Most of the guys continued working on various projects in the New Orleans area.

So it was with great pleasure that I noticed them on the lineup for House of Blues this Saturday on July 28, 2007. They also have a Myspace page up with some additional info here: Deadeye Dick Myspace page. From their page I found out they actually wrote and recorded, but never released a third album called “In Effect Groovy” that can be purchased from their Myspace page (the Myspace song purchasing interface is terrible, but if you persevere you can eventually buy it). It has a great sound that fits their traditional rock and roll type feel. I recommend checking it out. And if you were a fan from the old days, head over to New Orleans and catch the show. Tickets are $13.50 available through Evil Ticketmaster (which probably means they are about $20 after junk fees). Here is the direct link.

Hope to see you there.

Update:
Ticket Price: $13.50
Convenience Charge: $6.65 (doesn’t feel very convenient to me)
Building Facility Charge: $1.50
Order Processing Charge: $1.67

So, the grand total for a $13.50 ticket is $23.32 or to put it differently, a 72% markup!!

I hate you TicketMaster

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

B.B. King June 2007

Posted on June 12, 2007 by Doug Porter

We headed out to the B.B. King show tonight at the Mobile Saenger Theater. I had never experienced The King before and the Saenger was the perfect venue for the show. If you have never been to an event at the Saenger, I highly recommend it. It has great old architecture, the sound quality is great, and there are no bad seats in the house.

Back when tickets went on sale months ago, we were poised on the Evil Ticketmaster site clicking refresh repeatedly waiting for tickets to go on sale and trying to get the best seats possible. Even with two of us at work simultaneously trying to get tickets the best we could manage was row N (which is not a bad seat but we were hoping for maybe second row). We wondered how one got those good seats up front and we found out tonight at the show. The new director of the Saenger mentioned that by contributing $100 to their foundation (Centre for the Living Arts you get to purchase tickets one week early. I will be joining their foundation shortly, so let me know if you want me to try and get you tickets for any upcoming shows that have not gone on sale yet.

The opening band for B.B. was the Wes Jeans Band led by Wes Jeans who hails out of Marshall, TX. This 26 year old really wails on the guitar. He put on a great show and really got the crowd good and warmed up. I look foward to catching him solo some time in the future and picking up his latest album. He and his trio of musicians played a great 30 minute set.

Next up was the B.B. King Orchestra to prepare us for the King’s entrance. They are a great band and play super tight. You can tell these guys have been together for a long time and really know each other’s playing styles. They played around 20 minutes to get us ready and once the King came out the real magic began. His performance is a mixture of songs interspersed with stories about growing up in Mississippi and adventures he has had in his life. He played an hour and a half and had the crowd eating out of hand by the end of it. His skill and performance would be impressive for someone in their 30’s but at 81 what B.B. King does is absolutely unbelievable. I pray I still have the dexterity in my hands and a booming voice like his when I reach that age. All in all an amazing show. You must go check him out if you get the chance.

The only downer of the night had to do with some seating issues. For about the first 30 minutes of B.B. King’s performance the entire row in front of us was empty. Unusual since these were $70 seats and it was a sold out show, but nonetheless it was what it was (and it gave us a great unobstructed view from our row). About that time a guy and his girlfriend decide to upgrade their seats to that row. This fella decides that his unoccupied, unpurchased, unassigned seat of choice is the one right in front of me. This would not normally bother me, but this guy had a seriously gargantuan head. As he sat down, stage right disappeared entirely. Now obviously these were not their seats, but since B.B. was off center towards stage left, I figured I would not worry. Then the girl went off to fetch another of their friends (another sign these were not their seats, in addition to her constant nervous looking around).

Well anyone that has shared seats in a venue knows that everyone comes up with a placement of their head and then leaves it there so the person behind them can see in between people’s heads. Well after a while, Mr. Caveman head decided to slowly lean to his left obscuring my view of the King. Now I thought about fetching the usher but at this point I figured we had about 20 minutes left in the show so I would try and be mellow. So to let Mr. Potato Head know what was up, I decided to start lightly kicking his seat. He turned around to ask me to stop (you know, disturbing his enjoyment of his $40 upgraded to $70 seat) so I felt compelled to ask if those were his assigned seats and if he had a ticket that could prove it. He of course claimed they were so I left it at that since he straightened his head and body up restoring my view of the great one and his guitar Lucille.

Now I wouldn’t bring him and this experience up except that after the show was over, as everyone was leaving, he decides to turn around and give me the evil stare down the whole way as he exits. Now I ask what kind of stupid, macho guy attitude makes you stare down the person that decided not to report you to the usher and get you kicked from your usurped seats? He should have been very thankful that I didn’t, and he got to enjoy a great view (while inconveniencing others in the process) but somewhere in his head he felt like he had been wronged by me calling him on it. I’ve seen this before and this is a huge problem with the youth these days not thinking or taking responsibility for their actions. Always someone else picking on them. (Yeah, don’t I sound like the mean old man yelling at the kids in his yard). Oh well next time, I’ll just report them straight away if they annoy me.

This kind of thing happened to Casey and I when we saw Three Doors Down and Lynyrd Skynyrd in Biloxi last year. We had a guy upgrade his seat to right in front of us and he smelled absolutely awful. It was really repulsive and unbearable. I had to tap him on the shoulder and tell him he had to move or I was going to fetch the usher. He persisted in wanting to know why I wouldn’t let him stay and I had to let him know that his B.O. was about to make my girlfriend sick. But instead of getting kicked by the usher he decided to move on his own. Much happier ending than my interaction with this Cro-Magnon loser.

Posted in Music | 2 Comments

April 2007 Free Credit Report – Equifax

Posted on May 1, 2007 by Doug Porter

Belated writeup but here we go. As many of you may know, you are entitled by law to a copy of your credit report from each of the 3 credit bureaus once per year. It is a good idea to spread these out and request one report every 4 months. This lets you keep an eye on your credit report throughout the year and makes it more likely that you will quickly notice any inaccuracies or problems with the report.

I just retrieved my credit report from Equifax and all is well. Another 4 months and I’ll check with TransUnion.

To request your free credit report go to: AnnualCreditReport.com

The credit report is free, but the credit bureaus try and convince you to pay for additional services (credit score, credit monitoring, etc). So be sure to say No to any of these items if you want a truly free credit report.

Now go ahead and pull yours and make sure everything looks ok. It is a sad fact of life that your credit history is extremely important and can open or close many doors based on what information it contains.

And if you really want to spice up your love live with your significant other, how about exchanging credit reports with that special someone. Honesty in a long-term relationship is very important, and if you can’t be open about your financial standing then you really aren’t sharing everything. Plus, nobody wants to find out a week after the honeymoon that your partner is $50,000 in credit card debt 🙂

Also here is a link to the Federal Trade Commission’s site regarding your free annual credit report: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/freereports/psa.html

Posted in Credit Report, Privacy | Leave a comment

Unofficial Ron Paul RSS Feed

Posted on April 30, 2007 by Doug Porter

So in the same way as my previous two unofficial RSS feeds, I have created a new one. This one takes the writings of House Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) from his House.gov website and puts them together into an RSS feed (since that is really the only way I consume the news these days aside from Reddit.com).

The feed is available here:
http://www.theportermethod.com/ronpaul/index.rss

For those of you that have not heard of Ron Paul, he is a Republican member of the House of Representatives representing Texas that is running for President in 2008. Though he is running for the Republican party nomination he doesn’t really fit the Republican party of today. He tends to be more of a Libertarian in his views or possibly a Thomas Jefferson style Democrat from the days of old. I recommend you check out what he has to say. His message fits with what most of my friends and I think is important for our country going forward. Check out his Wikipedia page for some more information.

If I had to sum up his platform, I would say Common Sense, Personal Freedom and Responsibility, Limited Government, Fiscal Restraint, and State’s Rights. He always looks to the Constitution for guidance in his voting and is not afraid of standing up for his beliefs. And get this, he actually reads the full text of all of the bills he votes on (related see the Read The Bills Act). Contrast this with the majority of Congressman that have no idea what is contained in the bills they vote on (the Patriot Act comes to mind, also the Campaign Finance Reform bill that the Congress voted on and then had to bring in special trainers to teach them how to follow it).

Also, this is one candidate I actually contributed money to (first and probably only time ever) since he really needs help getting his message out. You can help out too by donating here or buying some swag from his cafepress store. He may not win the nomination (probably won’t due to lack of funds), but if he can just get his message out on a national level I think it will get people thinking about what is important long term in this country.

Also, if you want to check out the Ruby script I am using to put this feed together, you can download it here: ronpaulfeed.rb

As with the other feeds, if anyone associated with Ron Paul’s organization would like me to send this feed to them nightly for their use just let me know.

Posted in Politics, Privacy, Ruby, Technology | Leave a comment