After an invigorating (and when I say invigoration I mean really, really mellow) walk down to the Seattle waterfront from our house last Sunday and satisfying a viscous craving for fish and chips at Red Robin, Shelley and I were discussing the merits and pitfalls of fast food. Specifically, after seeing what some folks at a nearby table were having Shelley said something to the effect of, "I bet these burgers have way more fat than one from McDonald's." I was like, "No way..." So Shelley did the math.

McDonald's Quarter Pounder w/cheese: 510 cal. 23g of fat
Red Robin cheeseburger: 850 cal. 49g of fat

McDonald's Crispy Chicken Ranch BLT: 600 cal. 23g of fat
RR's Crispy Chicken Burger: 929 cal, 56g of fat (and that's without bacon)

Finally, the ultimate, what the two people next to us ordered today.
Red Robin's A1 Peppercorn Burger: 1400 cal, 94g of fat!!!!!!

Holy Shit.

The most calorie-packed item on McDonalds menu was the Double Quarter Pounder which is only 740 calories. You could eat 2 of those to equal the Peppercorn burger. Sort of eye-opening, isn't it?

It sure is. And I stand corrected.

Whew... this was a bit of a chore but thank heavens for friends and the Internet.

After finally deciding to get a smart phone, paying the extra monthly charge for a data plan and assuming it would be easy as pie to configure mobile access on my Exchange server I was bummed to find out that this was not the case. Turning on Mobile Access is easy enough. All you have to do is open System Manager, expand Global Settings, right click Mobile Services, select Properties and under the General tab check the two boxes under Outlook Mobile Access.

But every attempt to sync from my phone still failed. After looking up lots of sync errors and reading the same Microsoft KB article over and over, two friend of mine (Mark and Andy) finally found a site that explained it better than Microsoft and told me why everything was not working just because I had turned it on. At issue is the fact that I only have one Exchange server so it's having to perform the role of Front-End server and Back-End server. The Front-End server is the one that usually takes the traffic that is directed to your mailbox, to OWA and to OMA and tells it where to go and on what port. In my case since I had Forms Based Authentication turned on, SSL traffic was already being monopolized by OWA and so OMA was not working. Here is the fix mentioned in the link above with my edits.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MasSync\Parameters] "ExchangeVDir"="exchange-oma"

I found a ton of articles that suggested the problem was my self-signed SSL certificate and how I should go with a trusted (read: commercial and expensive) certificate authority but I'm happy to report that it was not! I just had to export the root cert from my certificate authority, copy it to my Dash using ActiveSync, double click it and it installed beautifully. No certificate errors, no problems.

Okay, so you have a web site or blog and you want to spread the word. You also want to let people easily add the URL of your site to their browser's bookmarks and your RSS feed to the reader of their choice. In the age of the Easy Button you can't expect folks to actually click two or three times to do this, oh no. Now you need to supply them with single click functionality.

Enter AddThis.

Problem solved. No more lists of buttons and hogging precious web page real estate, now you just have one button that let's people add your site or feed to whatever they happen to be using.

After a stressful week I thought I would treat myself to a massage today. Actually I called on Tuesday and pleaded for them to get me in as soon as possible. As soon as possible was 5 days later. I get things done, people. That's all I'm saying. If you want dinner reservations for say, next month sometime - you know who to call.

I show up at Spa Scotta early and go to their Quiet Room. I grab a water from the fridge and am almost tempted to rip open a bag of complimentary Ruffles on the table (Ruffles? Really? At the spa?) but I figured the crunching and bag-crackling would be kinda anti-quiet room of me. I'm lead back to the room, meet my masseuse, she's nice enough, it smells good, the chimey-Japanese-lute music is playing, I hear a small babbling brook in the distance. Masseuse girl leaves the room. I get naked and get under the blanket on my back. Mustering my relaxed face. Girl comes back in turns the lights down. Walks to the closet. I see her chewing something. It's not gum. Flashes through my mind Oh no she did not just finish her lunch in the breakroom. She's going to pop a mint certainly. She knows not to ruin my flow with lunch breath. No mints are popped. She's at the head of the massage table beginning with my neck and sure thing, I get a whiff of some meaty Kung Pao chicken. I immediately want my money back. Who does that!? I'm supposed to be all sniffing on some essential oils, listening to the creek, the fake birds, melting my cares away. Not this. I did not request the garlic dip. That shit belongs in the quiet room with the Ruffles, honey.

To me, this is a basic rule. Maybe I'm wrong. I remember my sister telling me a story of when she was in aestheticians school. The girls would get a break during the day. Some used this break to study, others get a drink, what have you. One lady used her break to pop to the shop next door for some ciggies and a chili-cheese dog with jalapeno's. My brain just sort of goes blank at that point. What on earth. Can you imagine the same fingers that had just held a Parliament and choked down a hot dog rubbing all up and down your face applying a clay mask? I realize beauty school offers some severely discounted treatments on a count of the learning curve but those poor folks needed to get paid for that trauma.

OK, so it wasn't ball parks and cigarettes but it wasn't lavender and it was about 6 inches from my face. She eventually moved down to the arms, legs and feet. And then thankfully I got to turn over and put my face in the donut. Wherein I made sure to sniff heartily as it was doused with eucalyptus. The damage was done. And god damn, I really wanted that massage to transport me to nirvana. I got about as far as PF Chang's.

Who knew a feather boa was not only good looking but good for you too... Clearly I need to rethink this whole cycling routine I have going and give burlesque equal consideration. Think of all the fabulous outfits I would be able to wear! Plus I might get tips, no none tips you when you ride your bike, that's for sure...

The Goddess Workout - Cardio Burlesque "Whip"

Just say no to boring old Lycra.

What would we do without the Internet? Well for one we'd all be wasting gobs of money on expensive tripods and taking blurry pictures. Thank heavens we have it. Say hello to the $1 image stabilizer for your camera:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1041948/1_image_stabilizer_for_any_camera_lose_the_tripod/

I have not had a cell phone (or Handy as some people like to call them) for that long; all my friends had one first. Now that I've had a few I can say without reservation that some are great and some absolutely suck. Not just sorta sucky like a non-intuitive interface or menu, but really sucky like poor reception, crap battery life, cheap construction and outrageously priced accessories. The Motorola PEBL:

that I have right now keeps falling more and more into the later category. These days the only cool thing about it is the small size and rounded corners when closed. I used to have a couple of Nokia phones and loved them. The antenna was awesome and they had the features I wanted. I even had one that was water and shock resistant, had a compass, thermometer and flashlight! It was like a Swiss Army knife and phone combined and was my favorite so far.

Since I did not want to hassle with getting [insert your favorite phone here] and then dealing with T-Mobile to activate it on their network and since a co-worker of mine already has one and I was able to hold it and play with it and since I have been wanting a smart phone for some time now I finally decided to pull the trigger on a Dash:

Oo... ah... But really, what does it get me? For an extra $20/month (unlimited Internet) I will get email, the web, minimalist versions of the most popular Microsoft Office applications and a full keyboard. Oh yeah, and the larger size that goes along with it.

But I'm still excited; like a kid who is about to get a birthday present! We'll see how long the honeymoon lasts with this piece of technology - maybe it's just me that sucks after all.

Shelley: "Have you ever heard of Twitter...?"

Martin: "Yes."

Shelley: "Can you add it to our blog?"

Martin: "Dunno, let me give it a try."

And guess what, it's not that hard. You can now see my tweets on the right hand side of the home page. This is pretty fun, I especially like being able to post (really, really small) updates to the blog from my phone. I was able to do this within minutes of signing up with Twitter. Cuz you know, everyone needs to know what Martin is up to at all times.

incredible.

You know how sometimes hearing just the right song at just the right time can mix the chemicals in your blood just so and fire the neurons in your brain just right and turn you into a weeping baby? That just happened to me. Holy crap, the human body is way too complicated...

But to the point of this post - what made me feel this way is also freaking cool! Check it out:

http://www.theunseenvideo.com/video/youmakemefeel.html

This is Mike Milosh performing "You Make Me Feel" and the song is amazing. The video is also amazing as it changes depending on your geographic location and the weather you are currently experiencing.

Now that - in my humble opinion - is what the Internet is for.

Once you try dual displays you'll never go back. That and other universal truths will soon be available in my new book...

Seriously, one thing that has always bugged me is the inability of Windows to natively show you different images on your various displays; or to be able to stretch one image across multiple displays. Well along comes DisplayFusion. Problem solved. Sometimes it's the little things.

Thanks to tech R I V E T for that one.