Outsourcing schlep!

One of the biggest hassles over the years has been getting small things done that build up over time. After work, friends, family, and any type of social life, there's no time to take care of your own home. Fortunately, some amazing companies are coming up and out of San Francisco and spreading up this way.

One of them I've been using lately is check maid to clean this pile of rust up! Although if you play around with the pricing it gets pretty expensive, for my little apartment like mine, $119 is a fair price for a clean home. I spend hundreds on silly stuff all the time, so it seems only natural that I should be spending something on living in a clean environment. Dust is constantly building up from the highway in any case, and it takes awhile to clean.

And house cleaning isn't the only thing I've been getting done using cool new services. I've been using amazon's turk to help with data entry work. The amount you pay per task is mind blowing. You can outsource anything today. A quick Google search shows just how much you can accomplish with Amazon's new tool, and that's not considering the plethora of other services for everything else (Fiverr, oDesk, etc.)

Although there was a business that used to delivery groceries that was large and died, Safeway picked up where they left off and is now offering grocery delivery. Since they have the infrastructure already in place, it's working wonderfully. I've ordered almost everything I could think of right to my door. The only fee is $5 for delivery. Unfortunately they aren't always able to get everything you ordered, depending on the store they came from, but they do allow substitutes. Depending on them for fruits, vegetables, and other basics, works perfectly.

I've even had friends outsourcing their clothes shopping! One friend has a dog groomer come by as well. It's incredibly how fast everything is changing. In another decade you'll never need to leave the house, I suspect. You already really don't!

As long as I have my Macbook Pro and a solid internet connection, I suppose I'm OK with the latter! :)

More of the same

The Seattle Times reports another failed attempt to take care of it's underclass. They say they may expand plan to help the homeless.

Right.

$1.5m isn't going to make a change. What a PR stunt. The rich get richer, and the poor get trashed. These people don't want this, they simply see no way out, and a government unwilling to acknowledge their existence. This cycle of nonsense is never going to change without an aggressive movement.

It's coming eventually. I think Russel Brand summed it up nicely.

Osama bin Ladin: Was 'Justice done' ?

The world now knows the good news, Osama bin Laden is dead. I too slept better tonight having heard. To recap: U.S. special forces raided a compound 35 miles north of Islamabad, Pakistan, were they engaged the al Quida leader in a fire-fight that cost the terrorist-in-chief his life.

However, a report this morning that the raid was a “kill operation” -- from the very beginning -- is troublesome. In all likelihood, a bullet to the head was the only outcome bin Laden would accept: a martyr for his cause. Yet, to think that we had no intention of capturing him and bringing him back to the U.S. to face charges for his crimes seems more like a stain on the gown of Lady Liberty than “justice,” as President Barack Obama later told the nation.

Revenge feels nice... I know. I feel it too. Since U.S. officials first pointed to bin Ladin as one of the masterminds of 9/11, I wanted him captured or killed as much as the next guy. As time went on, my fervor for his hide turned more toward dead vs. alive -- like a gas gauge moves from full to empty with each passing mile.

With the hope of Democracy spreading across the middle east and north Africa, why would we not want to show the world a better approach? If we could capture bin Ladin, assuming we could have, why not try? Why not put him on trial and make him answer for his crimes before the eyes of the world? Let’s be honest, he would have gotten the “chair” eventually anyway.

We are a nation that purports to have a fair and just system of laws that is better than any other system in the world. It's too bad our military and civilian officials behind the raid didn’t even want to give it a shot -- figuratively speaking.

EXCLUSIVE: Police investigate early morning crash; driver missing

A silver Audi slammed into a guard rail at the intersection of Roy Street and 8th Ave North and came to rest only inches from a steep drop onto the underpass below during the early morning hours of Sunday, December 19. Police, fire and medics responded to the scene after receiving a 911 call at 3:30 a.m. but found no one inside the vehicle.

"The car must have been flying," said one officer, referring to the force needed to uproot the cement encased metal fence and to tear up the surrounding landscaping.

According to witnesses, a loud noise was heard approximately 20 minutes earlier and a passerby noticed a flashing taillight among the thick brush that line the walls of the underpass.

The scene, just a block west of the popular family-style restaurant, Buca di Beppo, is largely a commercial area. Two Lincoln towing trucks were called to the scene to wentch the car back onto the street.

The vehicle is registered to a Stanwood address and police suspect alcohol may have been a factor in the crash.

Big Victory for State Sen. McDermott

The margin of victory was wide for State Senator Joe McDermott who will now take a seat on the nine member King County Council. The openly Gay councilmember-elect was well aware of the history making moment saying that he looks forward to representing the interests of the LGBT community and the people of the 8th District.

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NASA, asteroids and cocaine: Oh, my!

While reading Google News during dinner tonight, ironically, I ran across these two stories...

Mystery object likely to be asteroid

"...this is a near-Earth asteroid about 10-15 metres across, one of approximately 2 million such objects in near-Earth space," a press release from the [Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL}] said.

"One would expect a near-Earth asteroid of this size to pass within the moon's distance about once every week on average."

THEN, I read...

Cocaine found in shuttle work area, NASA says

A bag containing a small amount of white powder residue that was later confirmed to be cocaine was discovered in the space shuttle Discovery's hangar at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The hangar, known as the Orbiter Processing Facility, is a restricted zone for shuttle workers only.

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! (Lost in Space reference)

Its Not in the PI: Play offers more than history lesson

Its Not in the PI is a play almost equally about the current state of journalism than it is about the closure of the P-I, a Seattle journalistic institution with roots going back 146 years. This North Seattle Community College production in collaboration with NewsWrights United hints at what is lost when pesky reporters (experts in their beats) stop asking questions while providing a fascinating glimpse into the life of a reporter and a newspaper.

A quarter of the play seemed like an inside joke best suited for former P-I staffers, which made up almost have of the audience on opening night. Yet, there was plenty of material left for the rest of us to consume. In one scene, a reporter speaks of his frustration with his editor after attempting to tell the tale of a Paul Allen lobbyist who signaled to hold a vote on a local stadium until one of his votes returned from the bathroom.

The production's set was sparse and the quality of acting varied among the cast but this ensemble gave a cohesive presentation and, thus, delighted this audience member. It seems appropriate that students would tell the story about the sad state of print journalism when local universities are still turning out journalism majors who face bleak job prospects – unless they aim for jobs in PR and marketing where dodging reporters and handling the media has become an art form.

A panel presentation to explore the future of news reporting in the Pacific Northwest will be held following the play on Friday and Saturday, November 13th and 14th. Tom Paulson, former P-I Science Reporter and Co-Executive Producer of Its Not in the PI, will moderate the panel of local members of the media.

Fridays-Sundays through Nov. 22, Stage One Theater, North Seattle Community College; $10 suggested donation (206-526-0063 or www.brownpapertickets.com).