The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

Most of you who read this know that before the blog I started this website about myself and other random things when I was in college. I started it back then for two reasons. First was that I was allotted a ton of free server space and figured I'd take advantage of that rather than let it go to waste. Second was that I wanted to learn how to write web pages. At that time in 1997 if you knew HTML, then you were more or less on par with just about everyone else who was making webpages. I figured if I learned HTML then it would come in handy at some point in the future. It turned out I was right because simply knowing HTML got me two jobs.

So the first incarnation of the web page would be roundly ridiculed today but was actually in line with the web pages out there at the time. It was gif heavy, and had hallucinogenic backgrounds on every page and was built with a frameset. Through the years I think I completely redesigned the site 4 or 5 times but the content never really changed much.

It started with my autobiography and descriptions of my friends and the great stories section of the page. Those were there for my friends and just because I liked to spend time writing HTML instead of boing other shit I was supposed to be doing. Eventually I added the rants page and the deep thoughts page and that was more or less the entirety of the site's content. It was a fun thing to show people and when I used to have real jobs it was fun to show people the site and it would start discussions and was actually one of the reasons that I got one of the jobs I had for a while. People I knew were failry interested in the site and it was a worhtwhile venture for a while.

The rants seem to be by far the most popular part of the site with the outside world, but also the page that brings in the weird people. The problem I have with the site is that I get ridiculous comments from people who don't read the site carefully and therefore don't realize that I didn't actually write most of the content on the rants and thoughts pages. Most of the people who actually take the time to comment or email me just say something that's enormously inappropriate. It got to the point where I slowly removed all the personal content from the site. I took off the pictures and the pages about my friends. I turned off the email link because I only got rude emails and eventually just like 150 spam emails a day. Recently I haven't even updated the site but thought about removing the autobiography part and really anything personal about it.

At this point I haven't changed a thing about the site since August of 2004. It's clearly not a priority anymore and I'm no longer especially interested in the responses I get from the rants and thoughts pages. I used to take a lot of time to post all the rants and things I recieved, but now I just don't care. So rather than continue to remove all the personal content, I think I'm just going to take the whole site down. It's not serving any purpose any more and I think I have other plans for the domain name in the near future. Peace out ChuckJerry.com. It's been real.

UPDATE: I decided to delete the whole site except the Great Stories.

First of all, this is coming from the guy who agreed with Terrell Owens when he threatened to hold out this previous football season, so I guess you should take this with a grain of salt. I don't think Alfonso Soriano should be blamed right now for his refusal to switch positions. All of the blame, absolutely all of it, should be placed on the management of the Nationals.

When they acquired him they knew of his history of not wanting to switch positions. The Rangers made it a contingency to the trade that they not contact Soriano to ask him if he'd be willing to switch positions, because they knew he'd say no. The Nationals should have seen this coming before they even made the deal.

Soriano's perspective is that he had a hard time adjusting when he was switched from shortstop to second base so as not to displace Derek Jeter. He made a lot of errors and wan't particularly comfortable for a while at that position. Now that he's gotten as good as he's going to get at second base they want to move him again. I don't think I would refuse to play, in fact when I was in high school I was moved from first base to outfield for the good of the whole team, and I wasn't paid $10 million to do it, but I at least understand his perspective. On top of all that, it has been really well known that Soriano was going to essentially refuse to switch positions.

If this pans out badly then the one who gets screwed is Soriano. In a worst case scenario he's placed on something called the "disqualified list" and not only does he not get paid, but he doesn't accrue time in the pension system and he doesn't get to be a free agent even though he only has a one year contract. But the Nationals are really the ones who are at fault for putting him in that position. One thing I know for sure is that I'd never pick a fight with Frank Robinson if I could help it, but I guess that's kindof beside the point.

I Have A Type B+ Personality

B+ You're a pro at going with the flow You love to kick back and take in everything life has to offer A total joy to be around, people crave your stability. While you're totally laid back, you can have bouts of hyperactivity. Get into a project you love, and you won't stop until it's done You're passionate - just selective about your passions Do You Have a Type A Personality?

Since I watched last year's Patriots/Eagles Super Bowl on an HDTV I had determined that I needed to get one. I didn't go out right away and get one because I thought the feeling would just blow over, or I would realize that it just wasn't worth it, or something to that effect. That never happened and so I decided that I just needed to turn around and get one. I put a lot of thought into it, over a year, actually, and decided that it was just something I needed to have. I mean, I guess I didn't *need* it, but really really wanted. Kathy was basically neutral to the idea, so I figured that was good enough for the both of us.

About a month ago I decided it was just time to get one, so I started to do a lot of research on them. I read descriptions of the differences between LCDs, tubes, plasmas, projections, and their pros and cons. I learned all about the different screen resolutions and bulb lives and so forth. Obviously I looked into the prices of all of them as well. I looked online at the options, I went in person to Best Buy and Circuit City, and finally I decided that I should actually buy one.

I decided on the Sony 50" Grand Wega. The main reason I decided to buy that one was because of the screen resolution. What I learned about HDTVs is that they come in basically 3 different resolutions, namely 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. They make ones with lesser resolutions, but if you're going to spend money on an HDTV, you really should get one of these or it's kindof a waste. The P in 720p and 1080p stands for progressive, while the I in 1080i means integrated. Progressive scans essentially smooth out the movement and get rid of any jumpiness from frame to frame and offers a better picture quality in terms of movement. Integrated picture has jumpiness issues according to most of what I read. The difference between 720 and 1080 is just the number of pixels in the screen resolution, the same way you can change the resolution on Windows from 640x480 to 1024x768, or whatever the actual numbers are if I'm saying them wrong.

Until recently you have to make a choice between basically 720p, with a smoother image, and 1080i, with better resolution. Most HDTV is broadcast today in 1080i and the TV just reinterprets the signal as necessary to the lower resolution if you don't have it. The TV I got has 1080p resolution, which is where the industry is basically heading. It's in essence the best of both worlds, with the higher resolution and the progressive scan. It will be capable of displaying images in 1080p when it becomes widely available, and, in theory anyway, will not become obsolete any time soon. That's the main reason I got this TV versus any of the other HDs that were available. There are only two 1080p TVs on the market at the moment, this Sony one, available in 50" and 60", and a JVC that's available in similar sizes. Within the next year there will be a ton of new 1080p TVs available along with a bunch of options for showing stuff in 1080p resolution.

I was watching this thing on an HD channel about the electronics corporation convention in Las Vegas and all the different companies were talking about was how 1080p is the future and all the new technology is being developed specifically for that and then I felt pretty good about spending all this money on something that will be at least up to date with the technology. The coolest thing that is becoming available to take advantage of the resolution is the Blu-ray disc. As I understand it the Blu-ray is the next generation of DVD. It has higher resolution since it was specifically developed for HDTV and the discs are capable of holding more information, 25GB per disc versus about 5GB on a DVD. A Blu-ray player would be backwards compatible with DVDs and would therefore be akin to the what the Playstation2 was to the original Playstation. It's not exactly the same as Blu-ray seems to be a whole new technology, but from a consumer standpoint it's the same because you wouldn't need to repopulate your DVD collection as you may have done between VHS and DVD. The Blu-Ray shit is going to be available in players and computer drives in May. I'll probably hold off for a while on getting one of those to replace my DVD player until the price goes down and the technology is more established, but it seems like that will be something to invest in soon enough.

In the end, I bought a TV that was a little bigger than I wanted to, I got the 50" Sony versus the 46" Samsung I had intended to get, and a bit more expensive than I originally thought, the premium was for the 1080p resolution, though I must say I did get a very good price for that particular model on a sale at Circuit City. I did buy if for significantly less than the MSRP price that's listed on the Sony site. The reason I got the bigger set is because that is the smallest available 1080p TV. It's designed for larger screens to maximize the big screen resolution. The industry seems to think it would be a waste of the technology on smaller sets since 720p resolution handles that pretty well. At the end of the day I'm really happy with it, and even Kathy has said that she likes the HDTV channels and the resolution is noticeably different and better. Combine that with the DVR cable box, and we never have to leave the house again. The only thing I don't like about it is the way the speakers stick out on the side rather than being better integrated into the main chassis. It makes the TV wider than necessary and doesn't take space considerations into mind, which was essential in my case as the TV is probably the absolute biggest that would have fit comfortably into my living room.

DIY, for those who don't spend their time thinking about anagrams for everything, is Do It Yourself. In fact, on my cable system now ther eis a DIY channel that shows all about doing shit around your own house. Anyway, today I took a step towards building my own dream home one day.

Yesterday as I walked out of my bathroom I clicked the switch to turn off the light and it broke off in my hand. It was really ghetto style. So the light was off and there was no way for me to turn it back on. Actually, there was, since I managed to use a Q-tip to pull the metal piece forward and complete the circuit to turn the light on, though that's not really a feasible means of flipping the switch. I was just interested in how the thing worked. The whole mechanism was broken so the only way to fix it was to replace the switch.

I thought about call ing maintenance, but I remembered watching my father in law install a lamp in my house and I've seen on the This Old House type of deals where they install new switches and things. I unscrewed the fixture and looked at the wiring, and it didn't seem like too big a deal. Off to Home Depot where I bought a new double switch (one controls the light and the other controls the fan).

On a side note, the first Home Depot I went to didn't have the switch I needed in white, only in an almond color, so I had to go to another one. In some odd planning world there are two Home Depots in Queens, both on College Point Boulevard, literally 1.5 miles apart. So I rode down the street and picked up the switch.

I'm making a way bigger deal out of this than it actually was. To install a switch you simply 1) turn off the power, 2) unscrew the wires from the old fixture, 3) screw the wires into the new fixture in exactly the same way, and 4) turn back on the power. It's hardly rocket science, but it's something that I would have undoubtedly called maintenance or someone to do before it occurred to me today that it probably wasn't that hard to do. The only complication was that on a double switch you have to break off a metal piece in between the two switches so that the two power sources are independent. Otherwise both switches will control both devices. That's what I did the first time before reading the instructions and realizing I had to disconnect the two.

The whole electricity concept is enormously simple. If the circuit is connected, the ight goes on, and if it's not connected you get no light. All the switch does is click into place to hold back the metal piece from connecting the circuit until you flip it on. I guess I knew that intuitiively, but I didn't realize just how simple the idea is until I was futzing with the broken switch. I guess actually generating the electricity is more complicated, but once you do that lighting shit up is actually a relatively easy endeavor, save for the issues of scale.

I'm hardly Matt Dabney, who rebuilt his whole house from scratch or something to that effect, but I'm moving up in the world. In my old apartment before we moved in we did a ton of work on it including tearing out a built in bookshelf, removing all the old carpeting, replacing the countertop and sink in the kitchen, replacing a couple of the light fixtures, some plumbing repairs in the bathroom, installing new closet rods, filling in holes in the walls, painting everything, and probably more that I'm not remembering. Most of the complicated stuff was done by my father in law, though, and I either just watched or held stuff.

I guess that's my whole story. Hardly even interesting.