Category: FWIW

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Ninjas?

Well, not quite…

We needed a new blender. Smoothies, etc. This looked OK and as reasonably priced at WallyWorld:

So, I picked one up. First thing off the bat, made a chocolate smoothie. OK, I guess. Certainly easier than with the hashup hand blender/mixer I had been using, but the ice bits were larger than I like, and it even missed a cube almost entirely. I suppose I needed to pulse the thing and run it longer, though.

Reasonable, and I’ll be more likely to use this to make a quick meal substitute instead of just grabbing something I probably ought not to.

Next time, it’ll be an orange-vanilla smoothie with more finely shaved ice.

Stupid name for a blender, though.

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Misplaced Attentions

Doug Wilson reminds us what we get when we place our attentions on the wrong things and listen to the wrong people:

We do not look to the modernists for anything but stainless steel despair. Bigger, faster, shinier! And we do not look to the pomos* for anything but bootless confusions. When you finally get that quorum of clowns, you are going to have a circus. What did you expect?

*”pomos” are, of course, postmodernists, that gaggle of geese to whom meaning is “just semantics“. *gag-spit*

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Thankful for Small Blessings

*heh*

Cable internet down. Our backup dialup connection died for lack of support a year ago. What to do?

Called cable “service” to report the outage. Was put on the list for a repair call… one week and a day from now. *WTF?!?* Escalated the call to a supervisor, voiced my observation that a week and a day was completely unacceptable. Put on hold. “The techs are rolling now.”

Still…

Sitting outside the county public library sucking at the thin pipe it offers, I’m grateful for small blessings. My Wonder Woman really needed to check on some grad work status, and I have my internet addiction to feed, so even a thin pipe on a shaky wireless connection is a blessing.

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Unsolicited, Unpaid Endorsement

As regular readers may recall, back in March I injured my right knee’s ACL. It’s been a decent recovery so far, but I’ve continued to use a cane, in addition to two elastic bandages and one knee brace, to support myself when walking.

And it is support, not merely for stability and balance which is why I’ve been using the cane on my right side: to take weight off the knee when walking, in order to abate the pain, and use fewer pain meds.

But today, I bought a pair of these:

and for the first time in months I could walk without a cane, without pain. Yes, walk. Without pain. Full weight on the leg. Immediately. I simply set the cane aside and walked to give it a try (well, “set the cane aside”=”held the cane just in case” but there was an immediate difference). And yes, I had tried doing w/o the cane’s support earlier, and it was like stabbing my knee with an ice pick.

Of course, I’m still wearing the elastic supports and knee brace for stability (balance is fine, TYVM), but walking. Without pain.

Wonderful.

I like these Skechers Shape Ups. Lots! Time will tell if the claims made by the manufacturer pan out for me, but the simple fact that I can walk, without the cane supporting a large part of my weight, without pain is a BIG DEAL to me.

Good Stuff, Maynard.

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More Locusts

Well, posting is going to be sparse again for the next couple of weeks. Booked to the gills, so don’t think I’ve simply stopped blogging.

More: totally waxed, right now, so this is all there is to this post. Check out my blogroll for some good reads.

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Sh*t His Dad Says

I guess I’m outa the loop. This guy’s website’s been successful enough for him to get a book deal–and a TV deal–out of it. I can see why, though, since a lot of what his dad says (as reported by him) makes sense. A sample of one of the comments lacking the usual vulgarities:

Why would i want to check a voicemail on my cell phone? People want to talk to me, call again. If I want to talk to you, I’ll answer.

Pretty much how I view telephone use. (And if I were to call you and you didn’t answer, I guess we wouldn’t talk. Works for me.)

Bonus comments:

Pick your furniture like you pick a wife: It should make you feel comfortable and look nice, but not so nice that if someone walks past it they want to steal it.

And,

The worst thing you can be is a liar….Okay, fine, yes, the worst thing you can be is a Nazi, but then number two is liar. Nazi one, liar two.

Oh, and yeh, William Shatner’s apparently involved in the TV show:

“I spent about 8 hours with William Shatner a few days ago. He’s an unbelievably smart guy. We were having a conversation about the rewrite of the pilot… “

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBz3nhPQ4oE

I dunno… the only thing I’ve really enjoyed William Shatner in is Boston Legal (he was always too over the top for me as Captain Kirk and please don’t even mention T. J. Hooker. I told you not to mention it and yet I did. *gag* *sigh* ), but I think I could watch him in something like this.

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No Redemption Absent Admission of Guilt

Or, no one can truly be forgiven if we eradicate “right” and “wrong”.

Mike Adams has a short piece that underscores some of the same issues that brought Dr. Karl Menninger, of the well-known and highly-respected Menninger psychiatric institute to write, “Whatever Became of Sin?” in the 1970s.

There are a number of problems associated with redefining all undesirable forms of behavior as “disorders” to be cured. Among them is the unanticipated consequence of depriving man of his humanity. If a man is merely a victim of some disease then he cannot really be considered evil. If he has no potential to be evil, he has no potential to be good.

C.S. Lewis pointed out another unanticipated consequence of our rush to treat, rather than punish, people who do evil things. He noted that the same intellectuals who determine when an illness has set in will also determine when that illness has dissipated. And they have a powerful incentive to drag out the entire process. Who among us would not rather take our punishment and be done with it – as opposed to waiting in perpetuity for the official clearance of a doctor?

Adams emerges at a slightly different place than Menninger, but both raise the issue of converting what is simply bad behavior into “treatable” so-called “medical conditions”.

The really critical issue to me is that wrong-doers can NOT obtain forgiveness for their wrong-doing and move on to reformation and redemption absent admission of guilt and genuine repentance–a desire to abandon their wrong-doing and change their evil ways. Yes, I said “evil”–so? 🙂 A part of admission of guilt and repentance must embrace a willingness to accept punishment and an attempt to make restitution for wrong-doing. While those last two things may stand apart from being forgiven by those they have wronged, full restoration into (whatever) society must hinge on demonstrations of willingness to make genuine restitution, however much it is possible to do so.

BTW, that last is one reason why I am a firm supporter of capital punishment for some crimes. There are simply some things for which no one can make restitution, and the criminal taking of another human life is one of them. No amount of repentance or genuine expression of remorse can restore the life (or lives) taken by a drunk driver, for example, but as long as society wrongly excuses such drunken manslaughter by giving drunk drivers a “bye” for their supposed “disease”, proper punishment of their crime (and the resultant “encouragement” of other drunks to eschew driving in the condition they created by choosing to be drunks) will not occur. (Yes, I do believe the proper punishment of someone who commits vehicular manslaughter as a result of choosing to drive drunk is execution. Preferably by having their own car–or whatever remains of it–dropped on them repeatedly, in public, until they are a greasy smear.)

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It’s the Little Things… Isn’t It?

Why do I prefer some products (various computer hardware, software, automotive, household products, etc.) over others? Usually, it seems to come down to little things.

I prefer Mobil1 motor oils, because, among other “little things”, Mobil makes a wide array of reliable, high-quality synthetic lubricants besides just motor oil, and I like having a consistent quality across the board in my automotive lubes.

I prefer ASUS computer hardware wherever possible, because I have come to find ASUS hardware to be consistently reliable and high-quality, but also–perhaps especially–because of one important “little thing”–live people respond quickly to support requests 24X7. I have not always liked the answers I’ve gotten, but I’ve never gotten any lame excuses from the support folks, either. Oh, and they all seem to be competent speakers of English. *heh*

I prefer Opera as my web browser for TONS of “little things” it does right. Built in mouse gestures that work consistently well and aren’t “broken” by upgrades like the add-on mouse gestures other browsers clumsily implement. Paste-and-go. Why the heck is that not a context menu option in other browsers (let alone, as in Opera, a quick keystroke combo)? How many times each day do folks paste links in a nav bar and then have to press “enter” or click another button to get the simple functionality of CTRL+D I have (yes, I modded the built in keystroke combo, because I have no use for CTRL+D as a keystroke combo to bookmark a site).

Speaking of modding keyboard navigation keystrokes, that’s another little thing: super simple, easy-peasy in Opera to make darned near any keystroke combo one wants.

Tons and tons of those kinds of “little things” make Opera THE choice here at twc central.

Household products? You may not have heard of the company, but for years now we have relied on the consistently exceptional quality and affordable cost of Melaleuca products, and my Wonder Woman will NOT give up her nutritional supplements the company makes. One example of affordable, high quality: the liquid laundry soap (not detergent) generally requires about 1/8 of a cup of product to do an excellent job cleaning clothes in our washer, with our small town water. That’s half what the company recommends, but it works for us. And that makes the product less expensive to use than buying something else at WallyWorld

And all the products work similarly for us. Little things like, use less (often much, much less) or simply unique properties–like the disinfectant spray that uses thyme as a primary component, for its disinfectant properties–have solidified the company’s products as our default for household needs.

Unique properties and features, customer service, consistently high quality, attention to detail: come to think if it, these aren’t “little things” at all!

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Ahh, Decompression!

A day of unscheduled time. After more than a bunch of 12+ hour days, just doing yard work and shoveling out one stall of the Augean Stable (my “office” so-called–more a junk room at present *sigh*) seems like a vacation.

Oh, catching up on “life as we know it” should fit in there somewhere, too.

Of course I’ll include a lil play time in the mix today. A start on a head-to-head between M$Office 2010 and OpenOffice on Lil Zark should make for some interesting play time.

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Week Eaten By Locusts

Locusts die by thousands… *heh*

This hasn’t been an exactly toxic week, but it’s been… interesting. The proverbial one-armed paper hanger is a slacker. Heck, I’ve not even had time to find Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind “news” to mock. Did make time to wind down a bit with the season opener of Burn Notice last night (a little disappointing, but then maybe my week colored my viewpoint).

Off to the “races” again today. 7:30. Getting a slow start today.

Say “Hi” to life for me. I don’t have time for it right now. 🙂