A personal ramble tied to late-deafness, sound innovations, and upgrading a bodyworn speech processor. Ain’t technology grand?

Everyone likes seeing their name in print. Well, unless of course it’s trash tabloid-ism or an arrest warrant… But I’m not talking just-printed-on-paper but I mean a by-line of one sort or another. I can say that from experience as I’ve gotten that kick — seeing “John Fontana” linked toRead More

On the road of life, it seems like every time you hit a clear patch — something falls off the car. Every time your car gets room to run, not as many obstacles, and the engine at least sounds like it’s starting to purr…. Well, a lug nut is comingRead More

No sooner do I find myself in print in The Hockey News… The Hockey News-Sep-07-09 …do I find out I can’t find a print copy of The Hockey News in Palm Harbor. Sheesh.

Posted on Raw Charge, this piece responds to remarks made by Tampa Bay Lightning owner Oren Koules after he remarked about blogging on 620 WDAE radio.

It’s a yearly rite. Much like back-to-school shopping, or perhaps August thunderstorms (or even more appropriate, blown-out-of-proportion optimism for local football teams – be they high school, collegiate or professional): the Best of the Bay awards. The 2009 edition of said-awards is out there right now, with the opportunity toRead More

Late 2004 I had a friend I met through Yahoo chat who only had images through this weird network type thing called MySpace… She had joined the network because of the indie music scene on there and socialized with both real and online friends through there. This was before theirRead More

I’ve found myself forced to use Twitter. I’m learning the ropes and all that… And while I’ve learned plenty of do’s and don’t, I have one peeve that people ought to learn regarding Retweets: When someone Retweets (RT’s) another person’s message (rt @username ) — they can cut down theRead More

Yeah, I’m still here. Hello. Sorry I have not posted here on Der Stonegauge for something like… well, a long while. How long? So long, in fact, that it’s an opinion of a falsehood and not the truth. That’s how long. Part of it’s just lacking motivation to write somethingRead More

I’ve had “Don’t Fear the Reaper” in my mind lately, with the song wailing and images of the corpses throughout that military installation where the made-for-TV version of Stephen King’s epic, The Stand, starts. That had nothing to do with the news that has been buzzing around lately. Odd coincidence,Read More

I’m one of the only local bloggers who have any reference to the Segway and dealings of the Segway in Tampa Bay… Of course my last post on the subject was pretty negative toward the dealer. It was also published a long time ago. So — that being said, forRead More

My buddy Clark has taken the time and the effort in recent weeks to offer some very worthwhile items on Craig’s List. So worthwhile, in fact, the advertisements border on EPIC in nature! It’s a steal! Get it while you can! (and it’s humor! Yay humor!) It’s amazing! It’s spectacular,Read More

I forwarded the below email out on Thursday evening to my friends in Pinellas County) For years, I’ve believed a generalization with lawn watering, and for years I and others have acted without much thought to watering rules and restrictions.  It’s always been a very ambiguous thing that was believedRead More

A little more than three years ago, I wrote a quick post about friends from my childhood in New York and Sylvain Avenue Elementary School. I invoked a few names in said post without thinking anyone would… well, you know, come across the dang thing. It’s just one web page,Read More

Being a hockey blogger for five years, I lament the fact I am ceasing publication of new posts at Boltsmag. I plan to keep it (thank you very much, Spammers, for your interest in preying off my property) but right now my concern is elsewhere… Raw-ly so. Ladies and gentlemen,Read More

A couple of months ago I brought up the lack-of-movement in renovating the super market space at Shoppes at Boot Ranch that formerly housed Albertsons. Blame it on the economic downturn or perhaps on the fact Publix has to convert a total of 49 locations, but the Shoppes at BootRead More

Will the technological wonders never cease?!? Behold the latest offering (by way of Penny Arcade):

Looks like something is about to change for one of my web sites. Can’t give out details cuz that might ruin it. We’ll see how it goes… Lets just say Hockey will have a new address soon.

There are a lot of people around Tampa and the greater Tampa Bay area who know more about the historic Floridan Hotel in Downtown Tampa (it’s distant past, it’s declining years, it’s failed restoration attempts in the past, it’s present, etc) than I do. That being said, why does theRead More

I only had to see the dimensions of the Blackberry Curve 8900 to know it was my new Smartphone. For a couple of months (here, here, here and here) I’d been debating switching cellphone companies instead of upgrading my phone with T-Mobile, but for one reason or another I justRead More

It’s funny how some thigns come to you and inspire you to write or at least get the thoughts out someplace or another. In my case, it’s here on the Blog where the world can read, dissect, and make fun of whatever is bugging me. In this case, it’s thoughtsRead More

I got introduced to one of Sierra On-line’s greatest text-based adventures soon after it came out. It was a game called “Hero’s Quest: So you want to be a Hero”. This came out in the age of RGB and EGA graphics. But like the other “Quest” games of Sierra’s lateRead More

Did you ever browse around in a comic book store as a kid and find the Marvel “What If…?” comic books? Books that were about renown comic book characters but “What if…?” something about them was different: Part of their backstory, part of their powers, or results of one thingRead More

As a follow up to this post, I submit to you the current temperature from the Pinellas County weather station: Why couldn’t I have had this a month ago? Bah, humbug.

I have fits of giggles every time I see this…

I’ve been re-playing the old Quest for Glory games from Sierra Online the last few days. The redesigned Trial by Fire from AGD Interactive, Wages of War and Shadows of Darkness. So I’m really re-living my love for the game. Re-living it so much that I took the Famous AdventurersRead More

Financial bubbles have burst all throughout the financial industry. The two that come to mind first and foremost when I think of financial bubbles bursting are the tech bubble of the 1990’s (when IT and the World Wide Web were all the rage for scheming and dreaming on Wall Street)Read More

Anyone else catch the change to Yahoo profiles? Maybe it’s been around for a while but I only just noticed the fact that the feature has turned into a psuedo social network. Of course, they need to still do a lot of work and cut out a lot of BSRead More

The St. Petersburg Times took local area governments to task on their requests for economic stimulus project funds. Most of them were low key, beautification projects that would neither create jobs nor serve a purpose. I want to know if the TECO Line Streetcar is on this list of projects.Read More

81 degrees in Pinellas County, Florida on Christmas Eve. There are millions of Americans that have endured the cold of the late fall and the first few days of Winter with sub-freezing temperatures, snow, ice, and all the weather that marks the season (and the problems they cause). I getRead More

TampaBLAB has a new gunslinger and I am it… For the most part at least. What IS TampaBLAB? WHY am I involved? Read more to find out!

Copy Editor: “RUMORS OF OUR DEMISE HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED“; bold faced and centered across the front page. Print it. Janet Coats: What are you doing? CE: Refuting the rumors that are going around that the newspaper will be ceasing publication in the coming weeks. It’s really heinous stuff andRead More

Yeah, it’s not a science but… am I the only person who ends up reading their horoscope some days (or more days than not) and feeling like they are talking about someone else entirely and the horoscope forecast doesn’t apply to you at all?

Riviera Plaza Publix opened at the corner of Alderman Road and US 19 before the Holiday season came out in full force. Sunset Point and Belcher Road Publix in Clearwater opened on the same day. The latter of the two stores was a former Jewel Osco location, that later becameRead More

Several times a year, I get on a “buy American” tear — or at least I want to do it but I find it very difficult to accomplish such things. While I can go into any of the major retailers and buy foreign made goods… Finding ones stamped with “MadeRead More

All this talk of a Detroit bailout has had me angry. Not angry at the idea taxpayers would have to keep Detroit afloat (this is, after all, an opportunity to force Detroit to be more ambitious with CAFE standards and other such things) but it reflects so much on howRead More

I continue to believe Roland Deschain (aka Stephen King’s Gunslinger) would go into convulsions if he saw the Burj Dubai: Somewhere over 700 meters (2,100 feet for metric ignorant Americans) in height. It will be over 800 (from rumors and hersay) when completed.

I guess my most eventful day in Los Angeles in October was my last day in the city. It was not out of enjoyment, but out of “this would only happen to me — lets see how I handle the challenge.” Yeah, Johnny got himself into a bit of aRead More

Here’s a quick way to either get on my bad side or get yourself flat out removed from my friends list on Facebook: Use status updates for advertising and only advertising. I hate to break it to bloggers across the Internet but Facebook has a tool built in called NotesRead More

I started reading the works of Michael Crichton in late middle school and freshman year of High School. I read his stuff voraciously and found myself falling ever so joyfully into his worlds of tension and tech. While I enjoyed the book version of the movie that had pulled meRead More

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

The one local issue that I have hit on and written about over various mediums the last ten years is transit and mass transit here in the Tampa Bay area. This post isn’t supposed to be about hyping those letters, blog posts and what not though. It’s an election year…Read More

I’ve bought from Pizza Hut a total of 2 or 3 times in the last year with thanks to them raising prices and fees and the dropping of quality in their pies. I used to be a regular but now get better quality and better costing pies from other majorRead More

So I got to the local T-Mobile store today at Countryside Mall. First time I had actually found the location of the store inside the mall (it kept moving). And what do you know? Launch day for the G1! Who would have thunk it. While I didn’t toy around asRead More

One fo the tough things I have to do when handling graphic design is trying to eyeball graphics out to see how aligned the graphics are — or how pleasing to my eye things look in their final arrangement. It can drive me crazy. That being said, I got aRead More

All right, I don’t usually post polls here on der Stonegauge but I’m putting a poll up and inviting everyone in for discussion (yay discussion!): So, as my previous entries on this PDA future discussion have told, my contract with T-mobile expired. I’m really interested in upgrading my Blackberry 8700g,Read More

Upon arriving in Los Angeles, I was greeted by clear blue skies, temperatures in the 90’s and smog so thick that I couldn’t tell where it ended and the mountains began (that changed as I rode FlyAway closer to downtown). Yeah, I was happily back in the City of AngelsRead More

One of the minor treats being in Los Angeles late this week was the ease of gettign to and from things I wanted to check out without having to bum a ride, or take a cab. There were a few things I wanted to get done out there with nationalRead More

Airside C at tampa international is amazingly gorgeous. Now if the average age of those around me wasn’t “fossil”