Day: May 31, 2007

This blog’s not normally a place where I run around screaming and yelling “Buy this! Buy that!” but I bought a product recently that saved my butt, and if any of y’all are auto tinkerers, you really ought to check this puppy out:

It’s Stanley Part #89-962, the Stanley Rotator Ratchet. From the Amazon.com description (and no, I don’t get some sort of “credit” if you click that link–I just like the product):

Provides Constant Drive Action with the Twist Action Handle. Twist Action speeds fastening and loosening. Thumb operated reverse switch and quick release button. Works in tight spaces – Requires less than 1 degree arc swing in Twist Action mode. 3/8″ drive, Pear Read ratchet design. Meets or exceeds ANSI standards.

Go find one at a local parts or hardware store and see if you can live without it. I can unequivocally state that I would not have gotten the starter changed out of my car recently had I not had this tool. The space I had to work in was just way, way too constricted to use a normal ratcheting action wrench. I may only need it once in a blue moon, but any $35-$40 tool that can save me $150-$200 in mechanics’ billing once has a place in this tightwad’s tool box. It’s an elegant solution to some thorny “mechanicking” problems.

Public health be damned, full speed ahead with whatever epidemic can take down America!

Seems to be the ACLU’s new battle cry in seeking to have a man infected with highly contagious, “extreme multi-drug-resistant TB” released from an isolation ward after he repeatedly refused to take medications to treat the deadly disease.

The ACLU says he’s been convicted of no crime and so should be allowed to run free to spread the disease. Well, that’s what their argument amounts to, since he resisted taking treatment for it before.

Next, expect the ACLU to argue for some poor schmoe who “was just running around firing his gun in the air while screaming about ‘Blue flame monstors invading from Uranus!’ He didn’t hurt anyone and isn’t convicted of hurting anyone. Why should he be locked away?”

I can recall testifying at an involuntary committal hearing about the “risky” (and dangerous to others) behavior of a woman with diagnosed TB. The judge didn’t even have to think about it. In fact, knowing it was a committal hearing in chambers for someone with TB, the judge was wearing a mask.

Smart judge.

Probably had the place thoroughly gassed before using it again, too.

Any chance that someone, somewhere can teach a verse or two of “If I Only Had a Brain” to the ACLU?

Surface, schmurface: I wanna coffee table I can put my coffee cup (and cake and magazines and feet–not all at once, of course :-)) on.

Lotsa buzz recently about Microsoft’s new foray into paradigm breaking. *yawn* As has happened so frequently, when Me$$y$oft gets into the breaking-the-mold mode, they’ve come up with a real dog of an idea: Microsoft’s new touch screen coffee table/computer called “Surface” that has some serious problems from the git go.

Anyone else see the obvious problem? Right. How many folks hunch over their coffee table that way? Maybe for a short time, but not for long. Would you be willing to sit uncomfortably for enough hours reaching awkwardly around on a coffee table sized computer touch screen to make it worth the bucks, when using a remote (or even wireless keyboard/mouse) to manipulate data on a media center PC hooked up to a nice flat screen TV while sitting back in your chair would be easier and more comfortable… and likely cost less to boot? Less? “With a price tag between $5,000 and $10,000 per unit… ” Yeh, a LOT less. You could buy one HUGE honker of a flat screen and throw in a nice media comp for those kindsa bucks.

Neat idea, Me$$y$oft, really neat, but dumb. Even if placed as a desktop replacement, the ergonomics would be a bomb. Just think it through and do a few hand-tapping exercises on a comparable area on your desk. As a concept, it’s perhaps better than Microsoft Bob (although Bob at least had the virtue of recognizing that the “new breed” of computer users coming up at the time were totally clueless), though by how much I’d be hard pressed to venture at this point.

Of course, customer use in hotels, restaurants and other commercial establishments to make interfacing with databases, placing orders, getting more information on products (the things will be able to read bar codes) makes some sense and will probably be the backbone of Me$$y$oft’s customer base for the product. But the only consumers who’ll waste their money on such a thing are folks who have money to waste and little sense about how they waste it (goes without saying, of course: they’re wasting it. *heh*)

In the real world of real people, coffee tables are to put stuff on, Me$$y$oft. Maybe use for the occasional board game or some such. Prop one’s feet on. You get the drift. Trying to make it into a surface for touch screen computing is… well, it’s not going to take the world by storm.

Another yawner from the folks who thrust Vista–which, BTW, is the OS for this gold-plated iteration of the Microsoft Bob mentality–down the throats of computer users.

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Trackposted to Pet’s Garden Blog, Perri Nelson’s Website, stikNstein… has no mercy, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Conservative Cat, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Well, the “official” start of Summer is three weeks away, but it pretty much feels like it’s here already, so here goes.

Thirteen (Good) Things About Summer:

1. Learning all over again how to deal with heat. It’s a good thing. Helps keep my brain active instead of just melting down.

2. Mowing the lawn. Sure, I’d rather just pave the thing cos I hate mowing, but I guess I can view it as exercise. It’s a good thing. *heh*

3. Sweat. I’ve never tried to be hot without sweating, and I don’t want to start now. Sweat’s a good thing.

4. ICE CREAM! OK, one Good Thing sans reservations. 😉

5. A long, cold glass of water. And another.

6. Wacthing the cats go quietly insane trying to get at the birds through the windows. Doesn’t take much to entertain me.

7. The joy of the hunt! (Every time another racoon, ground hog or squirrel thinks he/she/it can invade The Boys’ back yard. *huh* Not much chance of that. Maybe if they brought doggie treats?)

8. Lil honyocks out playing in the street til all hours. Kid sounds. Ahh, let ’em have their glad.

9. Outdoor grilling. Yeh, I can do it when it’s cold, but summer gives me the advantage of cooking and smoking mosquitoes off at the same time. I like multitasking.

10. Chiggers, ticks (eek!) and fleas, Oh! my! See #2. Yep. Exercise. *heh* See? It’s all good when it’s summer.

11. Sunglasses. During summer, my wraparound “welder’s goggle dark” sunglasses don’t look so weird.

12. Celtic skin + Sun. Ahhh! The smell of sizzling flesh! Love it!

13. NO NEED FOR SAUNAS!!! Wow! Now, that’s cool. Urm, I mean, hot.

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Noted at the Thursday Thirteen Hub and Trackposted to Right Pundits, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Azamatterofact, DeMediacratic Nation, guerrilla radio, Maggie’s Notebook, Webloggin, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Amboy Times, The Florida Masochist, Colloquium, Pursuing Holiness, Blue Collar Muse, stikNstein… has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.