Tag: electronics
Buying American
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 “Made in the USA” seems to be a difficult task. 
For example, I’m currently looking for shoes to replace my “No Sweat” Chuck-Taylor-esque sneakers. Knowing the chips are down here in America with the economy — and knowing Nike, Reebok and the other major brands make their shoes in Asia — I’m scanning around for American made sneakers.
And what I’m finding is making me more frustrated than I already am.
Do a search on “American Made Sneakers” on Google and what is the first site that comes up? An old article highlighting the lack of such things as American sneakers.
You come across sites like AllUSAClothing and of course, some of the styles aren’t that great, but they are out there for you, and the interface is a sight better than BuyAmerican.com or other online companies taking the “Buy American” banner and running with it.
Most of the sites trying to rally Americans to buy products manufactured here at home are out of date, or so bare-bones it’s a turnoff. US Stuff is a great example. Maybe I’m so used to blogging and seeing dates over posted items to get a sense of continuity… Or the Internet standard of newest-posts-first, oldest-posts-last. US Stuff just jams it all in there and you’re lucky if any of the information is less than five years old. You don’t know how often things are updated – or if they are updated at all. And yet this is the most comprehensive list of shoemakers in the United States. It’s troubling to try to decipher everything as some of the latter information contradict the earlier info.
After some searching that US Stuff page, I did find New Balance’s “Made in America” store… But I was looking for simple and stylish sneakers — not running shoes and top-o-the-line sneakers.
How about televisions? My Sharp 26″ television doesn’t have a remote and the sound/channel control buttons no longer work right. I could use a new TV. Of course, none of the big name electronics manufacturers build in America. Most of the major electronics manufacturers of current never did… So what can I find on the subject? For starters, a 2002 article on the very fact TV’s aren’t built in America (or are hard to find). US Stuff cites several of the major players assembling their TV’s in the US (but then again, how can you trust data when you don’t know how current it is and can’t tell if the site has been updated in a while?).
But Leanblog.org — Yay! A blog post of a rather young age! — points out as of August of this year that Olevia builds their TV’s in California. Much like Dell Computers, Olevia has their parts shipped in from other places around the globe, but the sets are put together and shipped out from within the US.
Trying to find products from US Manufacturers shouldn’t be this tough, or this confusing. I don’t expect special sections of Wal-Mart or Target to be for American made goods or something like that… I just don’t expect everyone to only have the option of buying general goods stamped with “Made in China” on it, or all shirts and textiles being products of third world countries.
Consider re-investing your cash in American made products this holiday season… Well, if you can find an outlet to do as such. I welcome comments from people who want to suggest places to purchase US made textiles and durable goods, electronics and such. Also, I’d be happy to hear of name brands that are made-in-the-USA.
- CLOTHING
- All USA Clothing
- All American Clothing (added 12-02-08)
- FURNITURE
- VetMade Industries (Added 02-19-2009)
- Sneakers
- New Balance Made in the USA sneakers (added April 4th, 2009)
All Networked Up
I am as happy as a pig in shit right now. For a couple of reasons but first and foremost — because I just solved a bane of my existence.
I paid $160 bucks or close to it for 2 pieces of a WiFi Network — A Router and a Network Adapter — from Linksys. Not bad seeing I could have paid much much more but still a ton of cash at the time.
So I set up the router and then I go down to my father’s computer — mind you this is a few months ago — and I hook up the Network adapter and…
Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Bupkus. Didley Squat. Etc. (thank you Juliane Moore, your Slang Dictionary reading character Electra inspires my alternative words for nothing)
The thing wouldn’t connect to the Internet / the Wi Fi Network. The signal strength could be anywhere from 60-100 percent and nothing was going on. It frustrated the hell out of me to try, try, try, try and have every possible re-configuration amount to shit. Nothing worked. In fact, sometimes when it seemed like it was working – the computer would lock up and you would have to reboot.
I disconnected the router, disconnected the network adapter and wrapped them up and filed them away for a month or two… Which leads me to yesterday and today.
Yesterday my father is talking about going to Verizon DSL service. Now, my father isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer to go along with his other things that piss me off. He talks about Verizon offering a deal to connect ALL of your computers to DSL Internet access for “one low monthly fee” — his exact words, I swear….
I go to Verizon’s site and no where do they offer to hook each individual computer up to DSL Internet Access for one low fee. They offer Fee access the first month, 29.95 for the next two months and 34.99 each following month.
Per – Computer – Connection.
I tell my father this and he doesn’t believe me – he believes the radio ad he heard in his car. I get pissed off and prove him wrong, and show him that not only does Verizon want to get you to use their Internet access but to wire your computers all to the Internet, you have to invest in their own home networking offer as well as the DSL connection.
Ronnie got pissy at this and I got pissed off as well.
So today with my ample spare time I vow to solve this bullshit of the anti-networking WiFi network. I hook up the router again and configure it. I then hook up the network adapter to his computer. Nothing. I am running upstairs and downstairs for 2 hours trying to get this thing to work. Nada…
And then? What happens? I decide to change one frigging’ setting — installing one extra thing that Linksys’ software didn’t automatically install.
POOF — I connect to the Internet on my fathers computer, using my own broadband connection upstairs..
So my Sunday has been eventful. My weekend has been eventful for that matter. I’ll post further about this soon enough but for right now — i will just :woot and end this story
The Death of a DVD Player
I’ve alluded before on Der Stonegauge that I was an early adopter of the DVD format. In 1998 I had the money to blow so I went out and got a player before the format even took a firm hold on society. Over the years, my Panasonic DVD-A105 has shown hundreds of hours of DVD video in high quality without a ton of bells and whistles like some of the new models that come out. It isn’t a progressive scan DVD player, it doesn’t have digital zoom, or a hard drive or whatever… it’s just a solid machine that has gone the distance time and again.
I bought Star Wars original trilogy (pirates :p) on DVD when the problems really started with my player. I attempted to play each movie and I had “digital breakdowns”, so to speak. I had been noticing the machine acting funny lately besides that (even though I clean it regularly) and just giving a few more problems than normal…
Well, Star Wars seemingly did a number on the machine. I tried playing Gladiator last night and what happened was… well, I couldn’t get past certain chapters due to digital breakdown on a clean DVD along with several messages telling me I had no disc in the machine while I did.
I bought condensed air to clean my machine, I ran my DVD laser cleaner, I tried running those DVDs again and the same problems came up. The machine would lock up while having the tough time reading the discs and end up ejecting the DVD from the machine or just plain turning off.
Sadly, I knew that my 5+ year old Panasonic is on it’s last legs…
I started looking at new players today seriously with regards to replacing my machine… And as I was sitting down to write this entry, my brother dumped a new Toshiba. Personally I would have preferred to find my own system but… Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, ya know?
Gobble Gobble
Turkey Day….
Just what am I thankful for? Just what is there to be thankful for?
For starters, having readers like you actually viewing my web page. Hello, how are you? 🙂
I’m thankful for electronics and for the mesh of the electronic and the biologic that gives me a chance to hear again.
I’m thankful that George Dubya Bush hasn’t blown us all to hell yet – though I don’t think it will be much longer if the fool gets to remain in charge for a while.
I’m thankful for the internet….
For Sarah Marie….
For Target Corporation and giving a guy who can’t hear that well a chance to do a job on the sales floor.
Speaking of Target, I’m thankful I still have use of my legs, feet and arms after getting worn out pushing, shoving and lifting stuff and putting them on to shelves.
I’m thankful for Jon Gruden, for the Glazer family proving that they aren’t as incompetent as they are shrewd, for the Tampa Bay Buccaneer sand 9-2 as of this writing….
For the Tampa Bay Lightning proving me wrong and starting off very hot this season. I am very thankful for that.
For Lou Pinella Coming back to TB to coach the Devil Rays who play like Deviled Eggs.
For the Beatles and Sony Music not suing my ass, and for the fans who supported me while they threatened… I am most certainly thankful for this.
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving everyone 😀
