JohnA lifeBlog

I won’t even speculate about how long this has been in development, but we’ve finally launched our new website powered by the very technologies we try to get our merchants to use.

The all new spiffy, crazy informative UltraCart corporate site

Using our own technologies*, we have “eaten our own dogfood.” This site demonstrates every single technology we try to persuade our merchants to employ.

Bottom line is this. We already are up to our necks in new business. Our hope is that this site will make that problem infinitely worse.

Oh, and wait until we turn on our integrated UltraROI support…

* - Most “corporate” websites are hosted on some lame shared hosting account that costs $5.95/mo. The new www.ultracart.com site is hosted on the main UltraCart server farm.

I just tried this on my personal GMail account, and lo and behold, I received similar results. Now if I could only get them printed on a T-Shirt…

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Hello blogosphere friends. I’m in the market for a non-3G iPhone 8GB. Since I live in the sticks, we do not have AT&T 3G coverage, which would kind of make the whole 3G data plan not that useful.

If you have one you want to sell, please let me know!

iPod writing is a go!

Yes, this post was sent from my iPod. Which means that I can now write drivel from anywhere I have WiFi!

I can’t believe I ever thought Sen. Obama was different than every other politician in Washington. At every turn, he demonstrates his willingness to pander to whatever crowd he is speaking to. No convictions, no consciences…. just empty promises and Reagan-eqsue speeches. Bob Barr for president, I guess…

More nation building and intervention. “No one welcomes war. … But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond Europe’s borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security,…The Afghan people need our troops…your support to defeat the Taliban..and to help them rebuild their nation”

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So, I am late to this party, but here goes.

If you are a fan of the art of movie making then you have no choice but to watch Richard Donner’s version of Superman II frame by frame. If you own the LaserDisc version of that print, go you! I own that set of discs, but don’t have a working player right now.

Richard is a genius among geniuses, and he was written off because he wouldn’t simply stamp the changes dictated by the studio in the lame attempt to achieve greater profits. He worked day and night to define Batman as a conflicted hero. This is not something easily ignored.

I rented this cut on Blu-Ray, and while I can definately tell which shots are production, and which are not, I enjoyed the end product far more than what was released into theaters.

Richard Donner’s cut is the natural sequel to the original Superman film. Donner was never given a chance to develop the ultimate villain. Instead we’re stuck with “people” like Lex Luthor. There was a world to investigate from this corpus…

Instead, the writers chose to extend the legend beyond their initial encounter. Art works best when it has some imagination to work with.

“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

Yesterday, Sen. Obama voted in the exact opposite position, as noted by Glenn Greenwald:

The Senators then voted for “cloture” on the underlying FISA bill — the procedure that allows the Senate to overcome any filibusters — and it passed by a vote of 72-26. Obama voted along with all Republicans for cloture. Hillary Clinton voted with 25 other Democrats against cloture (strangely, Clinton originally voted AYE on cloture, and then changed her vote to NAY; I’m trying to find out what explains that).

So, in honor of this change, here is my proposal for a new Obama campaign poster:

From one of my favorite blogs… Would You Shop Locally at 10+ Percent Tax?.

Every time short-sighted local governments decide to squeeze the locals, they run into my arms, happy and free.

So, I say to you Chicago, keep turning the crank! Every percent means that much more money flowing into the virtual coffers of my growing merchant base.

Ok, as most of my long time readers know, I am a total steak addict. Steak has always been my favorite food, and my favorite cut of steak is the Ribeye.

Previously, the only place I could get a USDA Prime Ribeye was from Stoney River, the most awesome steakhouse in Atlanta. Actually, in recent years, they have stopped advertising that they serve only USDA Prime beef, which means that we should defer to Ruth’s Chris Steak House. Sadly, none of these steakhouses show their prices. By visiting a industry trade site, I did find this recipe for a steakhouse in Atlanta that only serves USDA Prime. Since I have never been there, I cannot vouch for the quality. But at least they show their prices online. However, using my incredibly awesome Kindle, I asked what the average price per pound for a prepared USDA Prime Ribeye steak is. From my research, it is about $30.54. We’ll see what the Kindle researchers say. Recently, though, my local Costco featured USDA Prime Bone-In Ribeye steaks for only $8.99/lb.

Let’s compare. This is a crappy picture of the USDA Prime Bone-In Ribeye I am about to prepare:

I actually chose this picture because it shows that this steak is, hands down, the most well marbled steak I have ever prepared.

The steak was prepared and cooked using Alton Brown’s techniques for ribeye steak as demonstrated in the Good Eats pilot episode “Steak your claim“.

Bottom line is that the AB approved, home prepared Ribeye was by far the most delicious steak I have ever enjoyed.

Tomorrow’s blog will discuss the details of this test, as well as what I did to make it more enjoyable.