Tired but True: MUNI

I’ll summarize up top: is there anyway to find out ‘incident’ stats on MUNI? Accidents, claims, etc?

Background: I live on Corbett, lower side of Twin Peaks, right above Market. It’s a twisty street serviced by the 37. And MUNI tried to kill me.

A few months ago, I had just turned off Portola on Corbett coming down to my house, and the 37 came tearing around a blind corner, doing at least 40, and occupying 1/3 of MY side of the road. I slammed on the brakes and banked right as much as possible. Parked cars made it impossible to seek complete shelter. The 37 took my driver’s side mirror off, leaving it dangling like an eviscerated organ, and coming within about 4 inches of killing me. Plowing into a 3500 lb car with 20+ tons of piss-soaked bus would of most certainly been my death.

Did the 37 stop? Of course not. I doubt they even felt it. When I called, did they even care? “Was there witnesses? How do we know it just didn’t happen on the street?” (Never mind I haven’t parked on the street since 2002 in San Francisco, and never in this car.) The replacement mirror cost under $300 — I suppose a small price for having not died, but what really pisses me off is that I still see this, day in and day out. Reckless high-speed driving, paying no attention to those pesky lanes. From both outside and inside the bus. At least twice a week, I make some sort of comment to myself about how “the 37 almost just killed me.”

So, anyone know where I can get stats on just how dangerous that bus is?

Technorati Tags: MUNI

Mad Skillz

This one’s for the ladies:

I’m sure you’ll go far boys. That ottoman looked very impressed. *shudder*

TiVo Series 3: Rockin’ at 1TB with the eSATA Upgrade

Sweet Jesus, this not-so-secret secret works! I pumped up my T3 by another 750GB today, yielding 131 HD and 1244 SD hours (up from ~32 HD hours, which was pretty weak.) Bring it on Planet Earth, you 11-part series of HD goodness!

The one kicker seems to be divorcing your new drive results in destroying anything since the two were married. Just like in real life. Something to keep in mind if you plan to start off small.

My TiVo decided to do a service upgrade during the whole thing, but it worked anyway. I went for this Apricorn EZ-Bus DTS dealie, but only because the name was just so damn sexy. Oh, and because you want a fan on anything that runs as hot as Seagate’s 750 and gets constantly poked by your Series 3.

Something to tide you over until they enable that damn TiVoToGo. (And no, today’s service upgrade didn’t deliver that. Some additional nice-to-haves, and ever more attention paid to that TiVoCast feature that no one uses nor really cares about.)

We’ve come a long way since that first 30GB Series 1, baby.

Uh, what’s this?

(h/t TOTDT)

Highlights of a Tuesday

Mason calls this afternoon:

Oh my God! You’ll never believe what I just saw!

(excited) What?! What!

Three bees doing it! It’s a bee three-some!

(non-plussed) That’s, um, fantastic. I saw some flies do that once.

Yeah! One on top, one in the back. I’m going to go take a nap now.

Okay. Sweet dreams.

Ah, good to be me. *sigh*

Teh Stoopids: California DMV

While you can renew your registration at the DMV’s website (good!), you need to provide some renewal confirmation number you received in the mail (dumb!).

Oh, the stupids. I can understand some security if they were going to give me money, but it’s the other way around. If some tard wants to pay my DMV registration for me, go right ahead — email your address and I’ll even send a thank you muffin basket!

Food for Thought

One has to wonder, considering that a major ingredient in Cool Whip is lube (yes, that kind), do you really need the KY variety if you just eat the Kraft variety and wait a few hours?

N Baby Mascot == Good Candy

My package of Conguitos came with a free plastic Sambo!

According to their web site:

Conguitos, roasted peanuts covered in chocolate, have been on the market for over 40 years. Their mascot, the Conguito, is a familiar and endearing character.
Due to evolution and the changing times, our mascot has also evolved and slightly changed in order to adapt to the present day.
When the “Conguito” was born in the sixties the mascot was perceived as a tiny character covered in chocolate and it has slowly evolved and been updated.

Um, okay. We’re not making fun of black people, honest! It’s a tiny character covered in chocolate. Or tar. Wait, chocolate.

This all makes much more sense after listening to their kickin’ theme song. Okay, well, perhaps not.

cc: Revs. Jackson and Sharpton

15″ MacBook Pro 7200rpm Drive Upgrade

After reading this report at Xlr8YourMac, I decided to try the same for myself. That guy had a brilliant idea — buy a portable case with a 7200rpm Seagate Momentus already in it, which saves you a few bucks and gives you a home for your stock 5400rpm drive after the upgrade is complete. (Instant portable backup!)

I can’t emphasize the importance of faster drives. It’d opt for more memory and faster drives over a few hundred MHz any time I bought a new machine. This MBP upgrade is well worth it, just as a RAID for your Mac Pro really makes it a Pro machine.

The installation took less than 30 minutes. I have a few caveats:

• Carbon Copy clone your stock drive onto the new drive before beginning
• Clear off a table — give yourself plenty of workspace. Lay down a towel to protect your precious Book, and protect your Book from yourself and static electricity
• Create a way to organize the screws you remove. I labeled a few ramekins from the kitchen.
• Watch the OWC install vids as recommended. This is key and only takes 15 minutes.
• Make sure the little plastic notches in the front above your optical drive don’t pop out when removing the keyboard mechanism. I heard something jiggling around inside my case after I had nearly closed it all up. So I re-opened the whole thing fearing it was a screw that could short something out only to find the little plastic piece floating around between the motherboard and keyboard.
• Make sure you have the right screwdrivers: a Phillips Head #0 and #6 Torx. Need a PC set? This $15 set from RadioShack should suffice.
• The Seagate runs a bit hotter, and these machines run hot anyway. Give smcFanControl a shot. I keep both fans around 4000rpm and the drive is still a bit warm under my left arm.

Direct from Apple you can only get 7200rpm drives with the 17″ models. Those Books are just too large and impossible to use in anything but first class on a plane, which is why the 15.4″ers are my sweet spot. It’s a damn shame because the faster drives make all the difference in the world. My Core 2 Duo MBP “felt” slower than my previous last-gen PowerBook (which had a 7200rpm drive) until I gave it this vital organ transplant.

And no, I’m not going to post a bunch of Xbench results. It’s all about how it feels to you. If your machine feels “fast enough” for you today, then don’t waste the money.