Mercwear.com – Curtis Morris

A co-worker sent this to me:

Happy Easter!

We were on the last few miles of a 23 mile ride today when I noticed this card laying face down on the ground, I had yet to find anything worth writing about so I stopped and picked it up. The card was laying in the turn lane of a major road so, as you can imagine it’s not in very good shape (see the pictures). My best guess on how the card ended up in the road is that the owner fueled up their car and set the card on the roof before driving off.

I hope that Natosha C. is a bit more careful with her credit cards, most of the time theses “gas� cards only have a limit of about $500 on them so if someone with ill intentions were to find it she wouldn’t be in too much trouble. I did not take the risk of seeing if the card would work, after all I am sure that is against the law and the last thing I need is a cop asking me what I am doing with someone else’s gas card.

Stats and Pictures (with the card info removed):
Estimated Value: $250.00 (this is assuming that the limit is $500.00 and the card balance is $250.00)
Condition: 4/10

Front:

Back:

I was speeding along on a short 13 mile ride today and came across this Cobra action figure from the G.I. Joe series. The figurine did not have any of the weapons that it probably comes packaged with however it was in decent shape and is surprisingly well made. With 10 movable joints and 3 screws holding him together he really sticks out when compared to some of the cheap plastic crap that I see action figures made out of today.

Stats and Pictures:
Estimated Cost: $6.00
Condition: 7/10

View all images >>>

Andrea and I made a trip to Houston today to visit Ikea, we both have friends that have given it good reviews and since she is on spring break and I took some time off work we thought we would check it out. Despite crappy weather the drive to Houston wasn’t bad at all, I was able to stay at 75mph + the whole time and we made it in up there in about 3 ½ hours.

Once we arrived at the store we both realized that it was not what we expected, we made the trip primarily to buy décor for our apartment and to look at a few lighting options for my office. What we found when we arrived was a collage students dream: Cheap furniture that looks modern and is designed to be multi functional as well as save space. There was very little in terms of paintings and other items that would fit our apartment however we were able to find a nice patio table and chair set along with some items for one of the bathrooms. One thing that was great about Ikea is the ways they find to cut costs, everything is packaged with as little material as possible and most items are self serve so you have to load the heavy stuff up yourself. After browsing for about an hour we both got a little hungry and decided to eat at the cafeteria that was located in the store, again they found ways to save money by having guests bus their own tables and limiting the menu to about 5 items. The meal cost us about $12.00 and the food was actually pretty good (Andrea had Swedish meatballs and I had Lasagna), we would later learn that you could get a hot dog and soda for only $1.50 down stairs which would have suited us just fine (I got the combo later in the day).

The trip back to San Antonio seemed quick, we made it back in just under 4 hours and stopped quite a few time on the way back for various things. We both agreed that while Ikea is a great store it simply does not have too much to offer for people that already have most of their furniture. All in all the trip to Houston was fun and I was surprised how easy it was to go there and back in a single day, the round trip mileage was 423.1 and gas cost for the trip was just under $70.00.

Today I was Biking with a few friends after work and noticed how much junk is laying on the ground in the areas we ride in. I’m sure that anyone who bikes often notices all of the trash and debris that are laying on the sides of the road during their rides however if you look close enough you will find some interesting things. With that thought in mind I am going to “open� a new section of Mercwear.com called Things found while biking or TFB for short.

This new category will simply hold the posts about certain items of interest that I have found while riding my bike, each time I ride I hope to find something to talk about here. The first entry for this category can be found below.

Item Found: DVD of the Princess Diaries 2

I coasted by this while riding down a busy street with 2 friends from work, at first I just kept going (I see a lot of CD’s on the street while riding) however one of the people I was riding with needed to stop for a moment so I went back to take a look at the disc. When I saw that it was a DVD and that it was in remarkably good condition for having been laying in on the side of the road I threw it into my Camel Back and took off. You can see from the pictures below that the DVD is perfect on the front and has only minor damage on the back. I tested it by watching the last few moments of the final chapter of the movie (there is no way I am going to watch the whole thing I just don’t have the stomach for it) and it plays fine.

My guess on how the DVD made it to the side of the road is that some parent got sick of their child watching it on the in car DVD player every time they went somewhere and just tossed it out the window. If I were a parent and my daughter (there is no way any son of mine would watch that crap!!) was watching this over and over again I would definitely take measures to dispose of the disc, however I would probably sell it on E-bay instead of throwing it out of the car after all I probably paid for it in the first place.

Stats and Pictures:
Estimated Cost: $19.99 (From BestBuy.com)
Condition: 6/10

Front:

Back:

Only damage on the disc:

Starring:

* John Travolta * Paul Adelstein
* Uma Thurman * Debi Mazar
* Vince Vaughn * Gregory Alan Williams
* Cedric the Entertainer * Harvey Keitel
* Steven Tyler * The Rock
* Robert Pastorelli * Danny DeVito
* Christina Milian * James Woods

User Ranking from www.rottentomatoes.com:
4.6 / 10

My Ranking:
4.5 / 10

Summary of the film from MGM:
John Travolta is back as Chili Palmer in Be Cool, a sequel to the comedy smash Get Shorty. This time, Chili becomes a different kind of “hit” man – he abandons the movie industry to bring his wiseguy skills and negotiation tactics to the music business.

When a friend is offed while they’re at lunch, Chili takes the opportunity to visit the guy’s wife, Edie (Thurman), and pitch himself as her new business partner at an independent record label. With a promising young pop-star-in-training as his protégé (Milian), Chili has to juggle her faux-urban manager (Vaughn), his gay, wannabe-actor bodyguard (The Rock), Russian mobsters, and an eloquent gangsta music producer (Cedric) to save the label and land a hit – and keep from getting popped himself.

My Review:
The people that really “made� this movie for me were Cedric the Entertainer, Vince Vaughn and The Rock. Everyone else in the file was simply a filler between the jokes and funny situations that these three actors would get themselves into. Travolta tried too hard and it seems like the only reason that Uma Thurman was in this film was to play on the heat that they (Travolta & Thurman) had together in Pulp Ficion years ago, anyone could have played her part. Overall I did not like this move simply because it failed to live up to the hype that was created for it in the trailers, I never saw Get Shorty and after watching this I probably never will.

Out with the old in with the color

A few weeks after I got my U2 edition ipod Apple released a 30GB version of the ipod photo for the same price I paid for mine. It took me all of about 15 seconds to determine that that was the ipod I wanted, so the same day I found out about the release I took my U2 ipod back to Best Buy and ordered the new unit from apple.com.

As a bonus I was given a free laser engraving on the ipod so I chose to have “Mercwear.com� printed on the back. Apple told me that the package would arrive within 8 days, I dreaded being without the ipod for that long however I deemed it worth the wait. Much to my surprise it took less than 4 business days to reach me and as of last night all of my songs (and album art) have been transferred to the new ipod.

Overall I am very happy with the decision I made, part of me will miss the unique colors of the U2 ipod however I think that the color of my new screen will help overshadow any doubts.

My overall opinion for the ipod photo:

Goods:
* 10GB more space than the traditional 20GB and U2 ipods
* Brilliant color screen that can display photos and album art
* Will be able to interface with my digital camera so I can transfer my pictures directly from the camera to the ipod (in essence this makes the ipod a huge 30GB memory stick!)
* Small footprint compared to the 40GB version of the ipod photo
* Optional cord is available that will let the ipod interface with your TV to display the photos

Negatives:
* Does not come with the Firewire cord (the 20GB and U2 editions do)
* Does not come with the cord that allows it to interface with a TV (40GB and 60GB ipod photos come with this cord)
* In my opinion Apple could have put some better games on this unit however at the same time I am happy they decided not to because it would take up more precious disk space.

Images:

Quick Time VR movie (5MB download)