When I first got into good music (ie anything but pop/radio crap), Metallica was the first band I was turned on to. This was in 1988 and their album …And Justice For All had just come out. Combined with 1985′s Master of Puppets, we listened to Metallica more than any other band, later being turned on to Ride the Lightning and Kill em All. In 1991, their self-titled (or Black) album was released, and this seemed to have a splitting effect on their fans. Folks like me who were expecting the longer, more-complex songs of three years before were somewhat disappointed with Metallica’s ‘new direction’. They seemed to me to have given into superstardom and had decided to take the easy way – James’s ‘singing’ lacked it’s raw energy and now included plenty of ‘yeahs’. Overall, especially compared to the vast array of easy, uninspired, common, formulaic music out there in the mainstream, Metallica’s worst albums are still pretty great.

I didn’t pay much attention to Metallica after 1991. I heard a couple of songs on the radio from their future albums, and can even recognize a couple as listenable. Metallica’s 2003 album St. Anger was especially disappointing with Lars’s distinctly terrible snare sound; it literally sounds like a mistake – for the entire album. Jason Newsted left and did that ridiculous show Rock Star Supernova (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Star_Supernova) (which I didn’t watch), but was replaced by ex-Suicidal Tendencies bassist Robert Trujillo in 2003.

When Death Magnetic was released in 2008, I didn’t pay much attention, but within a month or two more than one of my buddies mentioned that it was actually pretty damn good. Further, after making something of a bad name for themselves years back with the whole ‘music downloading’ thing, it was amazing that Metallica made the entire album streamable from the web site. Lars ‘fixed’ his snare sound, and as a whole the album seemed a lot more like what they’d gotten away from so many years ago. The songs were longer (in fact, only three of the ten tracks are less than 7 minutes, with none shorter than five), more intricate, and many have long, varying jam-like bridges or outros that simply rock!

Our view of the stage at Metallica. They brought the lights up for the show's final encore.

I haven’t seen Metallica before, but in my eyes their new album had redeemed them, so when the World Magnetic tour tickets went on sale in my area I decided I was going. Tickets were about $80 but we ended up with pretty good seats. October 1, 2009 came and we drove to the Bank Atlantic center in Sunrise (Florida). Another $20 to park (what a racket!), but we got there early enough to enjoy a few beers in the parking lot before heading to the door. We’d already missed the first opening band (Gojira) and heard the lines to get into the arena were massive due to ‘heightened security’. After about a half hour of waiting, the security included emptying pockets, removing belts, and walking though a metal detector. By that time we’d missed the second opener too (Lamb of God), but we didn’t mind.

Metallica started around 9pm and proceeded to rock a host of new songs from Death Magnetic, as well as plenty of older tunes for over two hours. They played from a stage in the center and used microphones all around to keep mobile and play to the entire audience. The sounds was great and they put on one hell of a show. I got to hear lots of my older favorites including One, Master of Puppets, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Damage Inc, and my all-time favorite (which I later read they hadn’t played in the US since 1997), Shortest Straw.

I’d taken a look at a wiki-like site that sports the set lists from shows so I had an idea of how their stuff would go – there were some consistent songs and some they’d mix up from show to show. They seemed to always do at least one cover as their first ‘encore’ song which I looked forward to. Sadly though, for Fort Lauderdale they chose the song Killing Time by Sweet Savage which has been one of my less-favorite Metallica covers – oh well. Overall they play 18 songs, which you can check out. We bailed during the last part of the last song which let us get to the car and get out of the parking lot before it became a madhouse. All in all, Metallica put on a great show and if you’re even remotely a fan, either old or new, I’d recommend seeing them.

In the last installment, we outlined the components that determine your credit score. These are all elements that you have control over. It’s important to realize that just two of them are responsible for nearly two-thirds of your entire FICO score, and these two can be the easiest (but sometimes the hardest) to manage.

35% of your credit score is determined by the punctuality of your payment activity. The easy way to prevent this from negatively impacting your score is to simply pay your creditors on time. All the time.

I understand that this isn’t always easy. Unemployment, medical bills, and other unforeseen financial burdens can certainly lead to ruinous circumstances. However, if you’re able to make minimum payments until a crisis is over, you’re going to save yourself in the long run by maintaining a decent score rather than having to rebuild your financial reputation. If it means “robbing (borrowing from) Peter to pay Paul”, in other words, using another source to cover a payment or two, it might prove beneficial in the long run. Of course, having a savings stashed somewhere for such emergency situations is vital; we’ll discuss this more when we touch on budgeting another time.

Your creditors are not supposed to report late payment activity to the bureaus unless a payment is at least 30 days late. Now that certainly doesn’t mean that you should postpone paying your bills for four weeks, but it does mean that it’s not the end of the world (as far as your credit score goes) if you accidentally drop your mortgage or car payment in the mail a couple of days or a week behind schedule. This of course does not take into account any other late payment provisions/penalties you may have – credit cards usually love to tack on juicy late charges as soon as they’re allowed to.

There are different notations for a payment that is 30, 60, or 90 days late and unpaid/missed payments as well. It makes sense that the longer you go, the worse the penalty could be. No one can tell you if a single 30-day late payment is going to reduce your score by two points or 20, but avoiding them altogether makes for an easy way to maintain a respectable score.

Another 30% of your overall score is calculated by what is known as utilization. This only applies to your revolving accounts (major credit cards and possibly store credit cards). It is an easy concept – basically, if you have a $1000 limit on your Visa card and you only have $500 available (meaning you also have a $500 balance) then you are at a 50% utilization for that card.

A lender wants to see a low utilization rate on every revolving credit account on your record. This tells them that even though you have available credit, you have the self-control to not run amok with it and live at your maximum debt capacity. The magic number of what’s considered a low utilization is generally 30%. This means, keeping your balances at 30% or less than your total available credit per card is vital. Read that again and make sure you understand that it is on a per card basis:

Bad Scenario: You have three revolving accounts with $1000 limits each. You have a $900 debt on one card and $0 balance on the other two. This is a 90% utilization on the one card, and even with 0% utilization on the other, this will have a negative impact on your credit score.

Good Scenario: You have three revolving accounts with $1000 limits each. You have a $900 debt, but it’s spread out evenly on all three cards – $300 each. This is a 30% utilization on each card and is much better than having any of your utilizations higher.

Make sense? You may be tempted to put all your charges onto one card – maybe that special card has better interest rates for lower finance charges, or perhaps it gets triple rewards points you can use toward merchandise or vacations, etc. Even if you pay the bill off in full each month, this can still be bad if your score is tallied while the bill is still unpaid.

These utilization percentages only impact your score at the time it is being pulled. If you’re going for an important loan where your score will play a major role in determining your interest rate (or even if you’ll get the loan at all), you’ll want to ensure your utilizations are nice and low on all revolving accounts. Be sure to do this ahead of time as it may take up to 30 days for a creditor to report your balances to the bureaus.

Ok, this covers the two major factors that can have an impact on your all-important credit score. In the next section we’ll discuss the remaining factors and what to do to help prevent the pitfalls of fraud and identity theft.

I’ve read a lot of books and have enjoyed most classics, but I used to be closed-minded about certain types of books, namely anything that was ’contemporary’ and ‘popular’. I’d pre-judge and criticize books without anything to back it up. Citing no more than random reviews (and usually the negative ones), I’d condemn and refuse to read certain mainstream novels. A conversation I had with a peer at work cured me of this ailment.

One day the topic was the Harry Potter sensation – this was after book The Goblet of Fire (buy from Amazon) was out. My friend wanted to discuss it and all I could do was spew my ignorance, calling the series “kids’ books” and “poorly-written by an amateur”. He asked the simple question, “Have your read them?” I have to admit that I hadn’t and he simply told me, “Read one and then let’s talk. The first one is short; you’ll get through it in no time.”

Out of respect to him, I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (buy from Amazon), hoping to be able to come back and say, “See – I told you so…” But this wasn’t the case and I learned a valuable principle. I’ve since read all of the Harry Potter novels recognizing why they’re so popular, and many other books (most great) that I would have avoided without this lesson.

The old me would have never read Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (buy from Amazon), but having a newly-opened mind, I read and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a non-stop adventure through discovery and history artfully assemble by a talented story-teller. There’s no doubt why it’s been a record-selling title since its release in 2003. Now, six years later, Dan Brown has provided us a new installment in the adventures of his Harvard historian Robert Langdon.

The Lost Symbol (buy from Amazon) picks up not long after the events of The Da Vinci Code, but reading the older books isn’t a requirement to enjoy the newest episode. Set mainly in Washington DC, the action takes place through the course of a single night, and Brown uses his standard formula to unfold a series of mysteries, puzzles, historical lessons, and suspense. This recipe includes a female counterpart, a villain with baffling ideologies and motivations, and the authorities in hot pursuit of Langdon as he uses his education and wits to solve a series of dilemmas.

Rather than provide spoilers or even an overview of the story, I’ll just say that The Lost Symbol is a page-turner worthy of the short time it should take to read it through. Some of the reviews out there cite a specific blemish in the novel: The ending of the book drags on for about 40-more pages than necessary getting a bit too preachy and poignant. I would agree with this; it took me one week to read the first 460 pages and another to read the last 40. This doesn’t take away from the novel as a whole though, and it is easy to understand Brown’s motivation behind the verbose finale.

Overall, like The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown’s latest is a fast-paced and riveting story with plenty of action and historic information. I’m sure Washington DC’s tourist travel will increase as a result of the many revelations found in The Lost Symbol.

As a fan of the original Japanese Iron Chef, I’ve been watching Iron Chef America since day one. The original show stuck to only three to four Iron Chefs at once. While Iron Chef America started with only three, the quickly added Cat Cora as number four and then realized they could make a whole (mini) series of competition shows, which of course everyone seems to love, to pick yet another. The Next Iron Chef debuted in October of 2007 with eight chefs battling to become a new Iron Chef. Six episodes later, chef Michael Symon, having won most of the challenges, defeated chef John Besh to become Iron Chef America‘s fifth guru.

Now, as if they needed yet another Iron Chef, Food Network is bringing back The Next Iron Chef on Sunday, October 4, at 9pm/8c. This time there are ten top chefs competing to wear the less-and-less-coveted Iron Chef crown. Being an avid Food Network watcher, I’d seen/heard of some of the first season’s The Next Iron Chef‘s competitors before (and was rooting for Chef Besh). This time around I’m unfamiliar with most of the competitors excepting one – Amanda Freitag. Chef Freitag lost to Bobby Flay on an earlier episode of Iron Chef America and is a frequent host of Food Network’s new competition series Chopped. I find Freitag to be somewhat arrogant and condescending. I’m sure she’s a tremendous cook, like all of the competitors, but her personality is a bit grating for my taste.

A full half of the chefs in this season’s competition are listed as working in New York. I get that most people think some of the best chefs work in the Big Apple, but recruiting five of ten competitors from the same city doesn’t seem appropriate – I’m sure there are marvelous restaurants all over the country (and world) who could produce equally competent chefs. Also, where are the black chefs? Not one?

Currently with five Iron Chefs and a weekly format, each chef would only compete every five weeks. Couple this with an inconsistent production schedule and the challengers choosing some chefs (Flay) more than others and you end up with only seeing the precious Iron Chefs once every few months. Now add The Next Iron Chef season two’s winner and you end up with just too many. Maybe they should make all six of the Iron Chefs compete to remain as Iron Chefs and ‘thin down the herd’ – there’s another new competition show for the Food Network!

Finally, let’s clear the air about what really goes on with Iron Chef America. I know they are the best chefs out there, and that they *could* create dishes from scratch after learning of the ‘secret’ ingredient minutes before. But let’s be real – the ingredient is no secret to the chefs. They clearly come in with a game plan and a practiced procedure for preparing and plating pre-selected, pre-tested dishes using the special ingredient that’s only a secret to the judges and audience. They play up not knowing and being surprised, but the evidence doesn’t lie. Chef’s have special plating and cooking devices that I’m sure they don’t normally carry around. I’ve seen presentations that wouldn’t have made any sense to bring the dishes for unless they already knew what they were making/plating. Answer these: Why did the chef have pig-shaped cookie cutters if they didn’t know it was Battle Suckling Pig? Why did Ming Tsai bring an air compressor if he didn’t know he was going to be making Peking Duck? Why did the chef bring obscure Jerusalem artichokes to Battle Artichoke?

Make sense now? Thank you! Now, as of September 22, 2009, a quick vote poll on foodnetwork.com listed these results:

Combine this with Cat Cora’s winning percentage of just above 50% and I think we can determine who season two’s The Next Iron Chef winner should replace.

Your Brute’s abilities to be victorious in the Arena come down to his/her weapons and skills. You’ll start with a few, but as you battle and gain levels, you gather more and more of the powerful improvements. Some of the weapons are more handy than others – there are the ever-powerful Club, Sword, and Mace, while the Fan, Racket, and Staff are not as highly sought after. Some weapon types have advantages over others – while the Club deals high damage, it’s easy to dodge, and the knife with its relatively low damage can deliver two or three blows per attack.

This is my Brute Lycantor

Along with weapons, your Brute’s ability to stay competitive (at least with equal-level Brutes) usually comes down to skills, categorized into two groups. The ‘super’ skills are rare but powerful, however the right combination of standard skills can be quite effective. A few of these include Sabotage (removes one of an opponent’s weapons per successful attack), Thief (steals an opponent’s active weapon), and Bomb (one-time-use ranged attack). With leveling, your Brute also earns attribute points, Endurance, and occasionally a pet. Pets are not only handy for providing extra attacks against your enemy, but they can also absorb the damage that would normally be targeted at you. The three kinds of pets include a simple but weak dog (of which you can get multiples), a stronger and fast-attacking wolf, and a powerful, but rare beast.

“How do I level my Brute?” you ask. Simple: Arena battles. Your Brute can have up to three battles per day. You choose from randomly-selected opponents of equal level, or you can search a Brute of your choosing if you know his/her name. The battles are cute, but there is no strategy involved. Your Brute uses his/her weapons and skills, counter-attacks, blocks and dodges, of their own volition. All you can do is hope for the best. Depending of the match-up, the sequence of skills and weapons used, and luck, the outcome varies. The fights you choose (of equal level) net you two experience points for winning or one for losing. Other players who choose to battle your Brute don’t affect your win total or experience at all. Each subsequent level is of course a bit harder to attain than the one before.

An Arena battle in MyBrute

The other method of attaining experience is by recruiting pupils. Anyone who creates a Brute through a link to your cell (home) becomes a pupil of your Brute. When a new Brute is created or levels, his/her master (your Brute) gains experience. Of course, as with anything ‘exploitable’, this has led to a group of players who have found a way to manipulate/automate this to create elite Brutes in no time flat. Here the comparison: An average Brute who battles three times a day and wins approximately 50% of the time should reach level 11 in about two months with an average of 90 wins. These ‘hacked’ Brutes are close to level 200 already and often only have 60-70 wins. Their trick: They have tens of thousands of pupils, which you can tell are created automatically with a script based on their meaningless names (i.e. ‘fheubaks’). There are tournaments every few days, but all Brutes are welcome and these cheating elites always wins so what’s the point?

All in all, MyBrute is a fun distraction, at least for a five-minute daily interlude. It’s entertaining to see your Brute defeat the other players’ and hope for the better-than-average skill or weapon as a reward when leveling. Ignoring the cheaters by avoiding the tournaments is advised – it seems the site’s owners aren’t doing anything to remove or prevent this activity. I invite you to sign up and create your own Brute – all you need to provide is a unique name for him/her and a password – not even an email is required. Join MyBrute (and become Lycantor’s pupil). Enjoy!

UPDATE (9/22/09) – Basic strategies and time-savers:

Here are some helpful hints to help your Brute along: First of all, choose your opponents whose attributes somewhat align with your Brute’s. If you have a high Agility, but relatively low Strength, pick a combatant which somewhat similar scores. This will give you a better chance of an even, and therefore winnable match. You can get the name of the available enemies and visit their cell to see if they have a battle-changing extra (like a bad-ass skill, the beast-pet, or a devastating weapon), but this is probably overkill. You get one extra experience point for winning versus losing so don’t overdo it. Be sure to battle Brutes of equal level (these are the ones that the matching page will automatically present to choose from). If you battle someone of a lower level, you will only get one experience point, even for a win.

Secondly, once you’ve battled a couple of hundred Brutes (over time), it’s not really exciting to see how every fight plays out, especially if you have multiple Brutes (like a main and a couple pupils for him/her). You can bypass watching the battles play out with this trick: When the face-off screen is ready and you go to click ‘Start Fight’, click it fast four to five times. This will immediately return you to your cell with the battle complete. You then can see if you’ve won or lost and if you want click the result to watch the battle replay. You can cut down the time to takes to cycle your Brutes’ fights tremendously with this trick. Enjoy!

Most U.S. consumer credit information is collected and kept by three national credit reporting agencies: Experian (which was the old TRW), Equifax, TransUnion. There is a fourth (Innovis), but they’re not a major player.

These bureaus maintain independent records of your credit history and activity depending on which of your creditors report to them. When applying for a loan, mortgage, credit, or similar, an agent used to have to look at your credit report and make a prediction of your likelihood of repayment. This would determine whether you got the loan/credit or not, and at what interest rate.

More and more, creditors are reliant on the FICO (Fair Isaac Corporation) score, which has become the major determinant of your overall perceived credit worthiness. Scores range from 300 to 850 (a bit different for each bureau) and the procedure for calculating the exact score varies somewhat from one to the other. The other factor that makes your scores vary bureau to bureau is that not all creditors submit your records to all three.

Your score is a snapshot of your credit history and is only good at the time it’s pulled. Because it’s based on the information in your report which can change day to day (even hour to hour), your score is not stagnant. Fluctuations (sometimes major) have been seen overnight, based on new information obtained by the bureau from which it’s pulled.

You don’t always need your scores to be maxed all the time – really only when you’re looking for credit (credit card, loan, mortgage, etc). However, it’s much easier to maintain a solid credit score than to rebuild after having it drop. Also, you don’t know when something is going to come up and you might not have six months boost your credit scores for something important.

To get you started, here are the items that play into how your FICO score is determined:

• 35% — punctuality of payment in the past (only includes payments later than 30 days past due)
• 30% — the amount of debt, expressed as the ratio of current revolving debt (credit card balances, etc.) to total available revolving credit (credit limits)
• 15% — length of credit history
• 10% — types of credit used (installment, revolving, consumer finance)
• 10% — recent search for credit and/or amount of credit obtained recently

Because these are all elements of your credit report, obtaining (on a regular basis) and understanding your credit report is crucial. You can pull your credit from all three bureaus annually for free per the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003. You can pull one at a time or all three. For a small fee, you can also get a snapshot of your score as well. This is easy to do online at annualcreditreport.com, but you can also call 1-877-322-8228 or download the PDF file.

There are also special factors which can weigh on your credit score. In the next part, we’ll discuss those and what can been done to ensure your report will provide you with the best possible score so you’ll be ready when it counts.

Continued on You and your credit (3 of 4) – The major factors influencing score

9 is entirely computer animated and runs close to 90 minutes. It features the voices of Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, and other notable actors. Featuring a fairly original story, the real appeal is the characters themselves. Dubbed by Ackers as ‘stitchpunks’, they are small, sewn-together doll-like creatures who are the last remaining ‘living’ things in a post-war world. The ‘sackboy’ characters from the PlayStation 3 game LittleBigPlanet (buyfrom Amazon) look something like these stitchpunks, though much cuter.

The story centers around the character 9 (all the characters are named by their number). He awakens to this strange world not knowing where he came from or how the world got like this (or is even supposed to be). He soon meets 2 who gives him the ability to speak and starts to tell him of the others of their kinds. They’re attacked and 9 escapes but 2 is captured and taken away.

9 is later spotted by 5 and is taken in to meet the rest of the known stitchpunks: 1, the wizened but fearful leader, 8, the loyal warrior, and 6, the prophetic oddball. Always encouraging the others to remain hidden, 1 warns 9 about the dangers of the world. 9 feels that the others are too reluctant to take action and encourages 5 to join him to rescue 2.

They are able to locate 2 but almost fail in their rescue when the creature that captured 2 is killed by 7, a fierce female warrior who left the rest of the group a while ago. The four of them are about to leave when 9 finds an artifact and unwittingly uses it to activate a dangerous ‘machine’. The remainder of the story centers around the group deciding their actions, fighting the villanous machines, and staying alive.

<Spoiler Alert> (highlight to read)

1 is basically a coward and doesn’t want to take any action against the machines. 2 is killed by the main Machine that 9 accidentally awakens. The Machine begins to build other machines to hunt down the remaining stitchpunks and the groups hideout is discovered and destroyed. The group finds 3 and 4, twins who don’t speak but open 9′s eyes to more of the history of how things in this ‘dead’ world came to be.

The Machine uses 2′s body to entrance and capture 7 and 8 and the group decides to rescue them and destroy the Machine, despite 1′s reluctance. 9 goes in alone and is able to save 7, but 8 is killed and the rest of the group deliver a ‘bomb’ to the Machine’s chamber, killing it as 7 and 9 barely escape.

It would seem that the story is prematurely over, but it turns out the Machine isn’t dead. It comes after the remaining members of the group and is able to kill 5 before they temporarily immobilize it. 6 says that the answer to freeing the stitchpunks that were ‘killed’ is back at the house where 9 was ‘born’, but only 9 believes him. The Machine then kills 6.

9 returns to the scientist’s home and discovers the truth behind the origin of the Machine and the artifact that powers it. He returns to the rest of the group who are still trying to destroy the Machine. 9 explains the workings of the artifact and attempts to sacrifice himself to the Machine to give the others time to destroy it completely, but 1 takes his place and is killed. 9 uses the opportunity to retrieve the artifact and destroy the Machine once and for all.

The artifact has the ‘souls’ of the five dead stitchpunks which the rest of the group release and the movie ends with 7, 9 and the twins as the only remaining living things. I thought they might have a way that the others could be brought back, but I always have respect for a story-teller who isn’t afraid to let some of his main characters die to progress the plot.

<End Spoiler Alert>

I’m a huge Tim Burton fan and when I found out he was one of the minds behind this film, I knew it would be something special. Also a bonus in this film was the music score which was done by Burton’s many-a-film cohort Danny Elfman.

Overall 9 was a remarkable movie in regards to story, action, characters, and overall composition. I hope it does well in the box office (it’s often difficult for a ‘different’ kind of film to win over the masses). It will definitely have a place in my collection as soon as the DVD is released.

There’s a game out there, and whether you want to be playing it or not, we all are. It’s the game of credit and it might be more important than you think. Your credit score is your financial reputation. These days it affects many of the necessary things we do – mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, and insurance are all dependent on your standing in the credit world. To make sure you’re getting the best rates on all of these, it’s important to play the credit game as best you can. Unfortunately we’re often playing by a set of rules that most people don’t understand.

Only one-third of people have actually pulled and examined their credit report. Half don’t understand what activities actually affect their credit score. 85% of us have an error on their credit report and an estimated 40% of those are paying a higher mortgage as a result of an error. An error – something that’s not even supposed to be there – doesn’t it make sense to want to fix it?

Is it starting to make sense why this is important? How about this real-world example: two people getting the same loan for the same house – $300,000. One has a credit score under 620, the other’s is over 720. Their difference in monthly payments can be almost $600. You read right – a whole $589 difference in payments EACH MONTH! When your credit score is good, lenders will compete to give you the best rates on the necessary loans in life. Over the course of years, you’ll be saving hundreds and thousands of dollars on interest – money you can spend or invest toward your future.

If we’re stuck playing the game, let’s learn some of the rules. Coming up, I’ll discuss in detail your credit score and steps you can take to make it work for you throughout your life. In the meantime, here a some common misconceptions about you and your credit (the following items are not true):

• Less credit is better (false)
• Lowering my limits will increase my score (false)
• Closing accounts will increase my score (false)
• Maintaining a balance on credit cards is necessary for a good score (false)
• Requesting my report or score will decrease my score (false)
• If I pay my bills on time and in full, I’ll have perfect credit (false)

Until next time don’t be afraid to start your own research – there’s an almost endless amount of information to be found out there – just don’t commit to paying for anything yet – you probably don’t have to.

Continued on You and your credit (2 of 4) – credit score fundamentals

Google’s official explanation was that they had taken a few (of their MANY) servers offline for scheduled maintenance. This reduction in load-handling capacity caused some of the routers to become overloaded and they then refused to handle the traffic and tried diverting it further. This caused a chain-reaction which essentially overloaded nearly all of Google’s Gmail network. Because they use another network, folks who utilize Gmail through IMAP/POP were unaffected. This was reminiscent to the Northeast Blackout which occurred on November 9, 1965 where an overloaded power relay tripped causing a chain reaction which left approximately 25 million people over 80,000 square miles without power anywhere from 3 minutes to 13 hours.

Google claims the outage lasted approximately 100 minutes. Google also claims to have a 99.9% reliability/uptime, which they exceed. There are 525,960 minutes in a year putting them at 99.98%. Folks need to remember that this small outage is a mere hiccup in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure in the two hours (and for most people, less) that Gmail was inaccessible, the world didn’t come to a screeching halt. Remember email is still relatively new – this wasn’t an issue at all only a couple of decades ago and business still got done. If your business or personal dealings are so critical, you may consider using something more reliable than email (or computers at all). Also remember, Gmail is still free and is still in open beta.

Take it as a sign – the universe may be telling you to take a break from email. Go outside. Take a walk. Instead of typing an email to someone, call them – or heck go and visit them in person. Because one of the systems we’ve become dependent on may temporarily fail, trust that it’ll probably be back. Think about the times when you might not of had that system, usually not long ago.

Ever wonder how the kids seem to get their messages out so fast? They’re not punching buttons repeatedly for each letter – they’ve learned the power of most phones’ ability to use T9 mode. Basically, it allows you to type with 10 keys (0-9) much faster then traditional ABC mode.

In ABC mode, you have to literally spell out each word by choosing each letter from each key it’s on by pressing the key 1, 2, 3 or sometimes 4 times. Here’s the typical layout (your phone may vary):

On this phone the '0' cycles valid words and the '#' is for spaces.

1: symbols and punctuation
2: abc
3: def
4: ghi
5: jkl
6: mno
7: pqrs
8: tuv
9: wxyz

So in ABC mode, if I wanted to type the word ‘school’, I’d have to press ’7′ four times, ’2′ three times, ’4′ twice, ’6′ three times, ’6′ three times (again), and the ’5′ three times. That’s 18 presses to spell a simple 6-letter word. There’s got to be an easier way – Enter T9 mode.

In T9 mode, the phone uses an internal dictionary to basically figure out what word you are trying to type from a library of available words using a given digit sequence. It works on one word at a time. To type ‘school’ in T9 mode, you’d simply press 7, 2, 4, 6, 6, 5. Since this combination doesn’t really spell many other words, T9 mode deciphers and spells out ‘school’ for you.

There are some things to bear in mind. First, it might not look like it’s getting the word right as you type it – since other, possibly more common words may use the same initial buttons as your word, you may see others words or word parts being spelled as you type. Just keep typing – trust it, it’ll resolve your key combination to the word you want. When you hit the space (usually the ’0′ or ‘#’ key) it’ll start the next word for you automatically.

Second, there are some common words that use the exact same key combinations – a fine example are the words ‘good’ and ‘home’, both spelled with 4, 6, 6, 3. If you type these and get ‘good’, but want ‘home’ instead, there is usually a quick correction. On my phone, you simply click ‘down’ on the 4-way pad to cycle through other words that are valid for the current combination (on some phones, this might be another key). You may have to do this more than once to find the correct word for certain (often shorter) combinations – 2, 6, 9 can spell ‘boy’, ‘box’, ‘bow’, ‘cow’, ‘any’, or ‘amy’ so you may have to scroll through a couple to find the right one. Still faster than ABC mode though.

When you come across a word that’s not in the dictionary, most phones will usually give you the opportunity to add it (once you’re temporarily switched to ABC mode to spell it out). Also, it’s pretty smart about punctuation – when spelling “don’t”, simply pressing 3, 6, 6, 1, 8 does the trick for me.

I hope this helps some of you (like myself) who immediately got frustrated when first trying to text and finding T9 mode worthless. Once it was explained to me and with a little practice, it made the sometimes-necessary act of texting a whole heck of a lot easier.