Keefer Madness

Customer Retention – Use Them To Your Advantage

// November 30th, 2008 // No Comments » // General Posts, TiVo Bytes

Anyone that knows me, knows how much of a TiVo fanboy I am. Well, we’ve got three active TiVos in the house, including a single HD TiVo in the living room, a dual tuner SD in the bedroom, and a single tuner SD in the game room. Well today, I did some cleaning up and consolidation of stuff in the game room while watching the Panthers/Packers game (holy crap DeAngelo Williams!!). The game room gets utilized very little these days and isn’t much of a game room, seeing as the only game is the broken down Back to the Future pinball machine.

(more…)

Psyched About the New Bike

// November 29th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Cycling, Personal Crap

Man I am so freakin excited! Today, we did a bunch of Christmas shopping, and we’re just about done. In with all our shopping travels across Raleigh, we also dropped my Specialized Allez Comp at our local bike shop, The Bicycle Chain to get its rear brake/wheel fixed again (it was just in the shop a week back and it seems their last attempt might have made things worst).

Several times in the past few weeks, we’ve been in there drooling over the ’09 Specialized Tarmac bike lineup, Specialized’s top of the line carbon fiber road bikes. They’ve had a white and red ’09 Tarmac SL on display with a full SRAM component group on it. It’s a gorgeous bike, but a bit too pricey for us to ever consider purchasing.

(more…)

24 Hours Can Make a Huge Difference – Central North Carolina Winters

// November 28th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Cycling, Local (Raleigh Durham), Weather

One thing I love about North Carolina, and hate at the same time are the wishy washy season transitions.

A few short weeks ago, the beginning of a group ride I did in downtown Durham left us all frozen on the downtown ups and downs. Granted, by the end of the ride, we had all shed layers and it ended up being a very comfortable, if not crisp autumn Saturday.

Yesterday, was much the same, with my group ride with the Gyros starting out a bit cool, but warming up to a fairly comfortable, yet still on the chilly side. I had a long-sleeved base layer with a thermal long sleeve jersey over top of it, along with tights, doubled-up socks and toe warmers. I had long-fingered gloves and a fleece head covering under my helmet.

(more…)

Happy Thanksgiving!

// November 27th, 2008 // No Comments » // General Posts

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone out there! I hope you had a ton of good food. We did, and I’m sure glad I got a nice 45 mile ride in this morning to offset it.

Unlocked Mortal Kombat Phrase Soundboard

// November 26th, 2008 // No Comments » // Funny Stuff, Gaming

This is awesome! A few more realistic soundbytes for Mortal Kombat and everyday life:

Exclusive: Unlocked Mortal Kombat Phrase Soundboard

Van Halen 2008 Tour Rider

// November 26th, 2008 // No Comments » // Funny Stuff, Music, Van Halen

So Van Halen is famous for their off-the wall concert tour riders especially the Roth-era fronted Van Halen. In case you’re not familiar, riders are basically the contracts bands setup with the venues they’re performing at, traditionally requesting specific foods, drinks, dressing room arrangements, etc.

It’s funny that with the addition of Eddie Van Halen’s son on bass, they’ve now got a room setup for little Wolfgang Van Halen’s tutoring. They’ve also set it up so that Roth is as far away from the other dressing rooms. I wonder if Hagar had the same requirement, especially on that last tour.

Van Halen 2008 Tour Rider

On the Tar Heel Alternate Navy Jerseys

// November 26th, 2008 // No Comments » // Sports Stuff, UNC-CH

A few weeks ago, the Heels unveiled an alternate jersey, full of Navy blue, and only a splash of Carolina blue at a home game at Kenan Stadium.

Tarheelblue.com has a whole writeup on it, about halfway down the article linked below. Here is more on the colors tradition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:

The unveiling of the navy blue jerseys for a home game followed the introduction of navy pants for a road trip to Rutgers in September. Some have complained that navy is not a traditional Carolina color (wrong, the Heels were wearing navy more than a century ago and as recently as half a century ago) and that the shade reeks too much of Duke (wrong as well, as the Blue Devils’ hue is a lighter version of royal blue).

Read more (about halfway down the article)

TiVo to Offer a Mobile Friendly Web Site

// November 25th, 2008 // No Comments » // Apple, TiVo Bytes

I’ve been eagerly eyeing the iPhone application store, hoping and waiting for an official TiVo application. There’s still nothing on that front, but TiVo has unveiled a mobile friendly web site obviously targeted for iPhone and iPod Touch users primarily.

It’s still in a semi-beta and a little slow over the Edge network, but will get a fair amount of use in our household and hopefully it’ll get a little speedier along the way.

TiVo to Offer a Mobile Friendly Web Site

No Doubt Touring

// November 24th, 2008 // No Comments » // Music

So great news today in the music world or at least in my music world. It looks like No Doubt is going out on the road, touring and getting back in the groove of playing as a band. I look forward to the tour with Gwen, Adrian, Tony and Tom. I was a huge fan of them in college and am psyched to hear an eventual new studio album.

No Doubt Official Site

A Couple of Firsts in Bike Components For Me, Planning for My Cycling Future

// November 23rd, 2008 // No Comments » // Cycling, Personal Crap

So I’ve finally entered the realm of owning more than one wheelset for my road bike, meaning in theory my days of dropping out of a criterium because of a flat are over. A friend from a local bike club I ride with cleared out some old equipment from his garage, making me the proud owner of a Bontrager Select wheelset. While these aren’t the greatest set, I now have a backup set of wheels, and ultimately, these wheels will become my workhorse off-season and commuting wheels on my ol’ Specialized Allez Comp steel-framed road bike.

(more…)