Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Words cannot describe what the hell is going on in this video

It's amazing some of the stuff you can come across surfing the internet...  I really don't know what to say about this video.  The sheer randomness of it was enough for me to actually take the time to link it here.

[flashvideo file=http://mitalis-videos.s3.amazonaws.com/black-stallion.flv /]



Source: AlexKovas on YouTube

Monday, September 21, 2009

Surprise, surprise, California CRV tax rate going up and applying to more packaging

[caption id="attachment_2292" align="alignright" width="164" caption="CA is most likely to raise the CRV tax because of the legislation pulling money out of the account to spend elsewhere."]CA is most likely to raise the CRV tax because of the legislation pulling money out of the account to spend elsewhere.[/caption]

The John & Ken Show on KFI AM 640 revealed  September 15th about the California Redemption Value going up.  Chuck DeVore, an assemblyman in Orange County came on the show to clarify what changes are going into effect.

Basically the bill is going to be increasing the CRV deposit on all sodas, and now the bill will also apply to Juice containers, among other similar containers. The bill is expected to rake in another $2 billion dollars next year.

  • Expands CA's version of the bottle deposit

  • Bill has been expanded to Vegetable, Fruit, Rice, Soy and Milk containers

  • Increased the fee to the manufacturers that produce these products from 4 to 5 cents for the smaller containers, and from 9 to 10 cents for the larger (20-24oz sized) containers...Which of course the manufacturers aren't going to eat the costs, so that's passed on to us.

  • Due to the complexity of this bill, a lot of CA republican legislators were divided when it came to the passing of this bill

  • The reasoning behind the rate going up is because for the past few years, the CA legislators decided that pulling half a billion dollars from the California Redemption Rate using this money for other things including stuff having to do with greenhouse gas reductions, 22 million to the local conservation core, as well as the general fund.

  • The money for the CRV account was originally supposed to go to the system recycle those products.

  • Due to the deficit of the CRV account, CA legislators feel that they need to up the CRV cost of consumers to get back money lost from the outside spending.


As a resident of California, this sort of shit pisses me off.  For starters, we're paying extra money towards a program with the idea that this CRV money is actually being used to run the system to recycle those products.  Apparently not.  Secondly, John & Ken did bring up a valid point: by increasing the value you get back from the cans, it provides you (the customer) more incentive to spend the time to turn in those cans to a recycling center to get your money back;  however they don't want you to do that because they don't get the money when you yourself take the time recycle your cans.  They want you to throw them out in the recycled trash that gets picked up every week... That's how they make their money.

The program is flawed.

[audio:http://mitalis-videos.s3.amazonaws.com/ca-crv-tax-bill-increase.mp3]

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Never has a game like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune pissed me off so much in my life.

Well, after spending literally 4 hours on the last chapter of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune "Showdown" where you have a stand off on the cargo ship, apparently the last boss isn't killable... No matter what I try... Bullets didn't seem to have any effect, nor trying to physically hit him.  I just wanted to beat the god damn game... But after 4 frustrating hours of this bullshit I was fed up; I could not rip that game out of my PS3 fast enough to fling that god damn Bluray disc.

I must say after destroying that game, it was very satisfying.  It's too bad I didn't capture the moment on video.

Ironically, after I destroyed it, my friend Marc told me that there was a bug with the latest version of the PS3 firmware involving this game... That explains everything.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Sprint now offering customers unlimited mobile calls regardless of what network you may be calling

mobile-network-wars



Yesterday Sprint sent out an email to all their premiere customers (anybody whom pay more then $60 per month) saying tomorrow's announcement is going to be BIG.  Yesterday I was reading around on the PreCentral forums, and the rumors were that Sprint was going be offering exactly what they announced today: Unlimited mobile-to-mobile.  Meaning regardless of whose cell phone you call, your minutes won't be counted against you.

This is a pretty bold move on Sprint's part.  I'd be curious to see how the other cell providers react and if they make any changes on their end to counter this.  It's hard to argue that Sprint's plans suck, as they've always offered the most they can, at the lowest price.  Despite Sprint having the best plans, you can't argue that their coverage is the best.  Verizon definitely takes the trophy in having the best coverage, but that's not really an issue for Sprint customers as we can roam through the Verizon network at no additional cost (depending on what plan you have).

Regardless, the announcement from my carrier comes as good news to me as 99.9% of calls I make are to my friends cell phones.

Thank you Sprint.

Sources:

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

The cool way to drink water

Mr. Kitty here is apparently having difficulty drinking water from a faucet.

[flashvideo file=http://mitalis-videos.s3.amazonaws.com/not-so-smart-way-to-drink.flv /]



YouTube video courtesy from: HolaKenty

Sunday, September 6, 2009

News stories when there is no other news to talk about

I can't imagine this being being the highlight of anybody's career reporting on a story such as this:

[flashvideo file=http://mitalis-videos.s3.amazonaws.com/news-about-a-broom.flv /]