Month: August 2008

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Surprise! Surprise!

*heh*

So, sometimes, at least when it comes to entertainment, the Great Unthinking Masses (GUMmies) can get it right. What am I talking about? Well, last night on “So You Think You Can Dance” the right person was selected by watchers of the show as “America’s Favorite Dancer” (for the 2008 SYTYCD season, that is :-)). Joshua Allen was definitely the right choice.

Now *sigh*, if only America would pay attention as closely to its politicians as it does to budding talent, we might, just might, mind you, have a bare chance of pulling the Republic out of the toilet.

Well, a guy can dream, can’t he?

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Heigh-Ho…

Or perhaps, “Eighteen tons and what do you get… ”

Well, at least I have refuge from the word (and activity) that gave Maynard G Krebs heart palpitations every time it was uttered…

Yeh, that’s the ticket: home sweet home, refuge from a world gone mad. But then…

Lovely Daughter has planned on moving back into the twc central catacombs (finished basement), which means… the room that we’ve used for storage for the past five or six years must be cleaned out. Unfortunately, that happens to be the single largest room in the house, about 10 SF larger than the living room, in fact. And it is (was) packed to the gills.

*heh*

Sooo, in the past week, as time and energy has permitted, Son&Heir and I have been sorting and re-packing and throwing stuff out, no matter how appealing the junk may be. Including, but certainly not limited to, a storehouse of “ancient” computers and computer parts, 8088/8086/286/386/486 and old Pentiums/586/686 computers, stripped of usable (or even potentially usable) parts (which are now packed away and stored much, much more compactly) and hauled out for disposal. Eleven of ’em so far.

Oh, I’m keeping 6 of the older, rarely-booted 486 and Pentium boxes, primarily just for fun, although I do have some old files archived on a 486 I really ought to transfer elsewhere. Heck, it’s an old Win 3.11 for Workgroups comp I no longer even have a network card in… getting that thing on the network ought to be a buncha fun all by its lonesome. *heh*

And then there are all the peripherals. Most of them are sorted pretty well, but many of them just need to be tossed. Who needs a bunch of perfectly usable, but slow, CD read-only drives, anyway? (OK, I’ll hang on to the NEC CD changer drive, cos it’s cool, and I can use it building a media center. A six CD shuffler would be OK in a multi-drive system. Besides, the faceplate’s already painted black, which should match up well with the rest of my components.)

And, of course, the computer related junk is just the tip of the iceberg, as it were. Boxes of books that we want to hang onto are going in pastic tubs and then into the newly-emptied storage shed outside (and yes, that was a fun chore, too :-)).

More fun ‘n’ games? Yeh, what I want to do in that room, after a thorough cleaning, is reseal and “plaster” the walls, add a ceiling fan (have one) and ethernet cabling (2 of 4 of the other rooms downstairs already have ethernet, and I think the bathroom doesn’t really need it, do you? :-)). Oh, and a little work on the closet in that room might be in order. Already have a “new” door set aside for the place and Lovely Daughter will need to pick out her own paint color(s). Yep. Another two weeks from today should be about right.

So, who needs [that word that drove Maynard G Krebs around the bend] to stay busy?

😉

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Paris Hilton for President?

For a bobbleheaded bimbo who thinks she’s lampooning Juan Mexicain’s energy policy, Paris Hilton actually makes sense in her “campaign ad” (linked above–h.t. to my Wonder Woman :-)).

Of course, “thinks she’s lampooning” is the operative phrase. While she simplifies Barack Hussein Obamassiah’s energy policy fairly well enough (“de-negativeizing” it by omitting, of course, the punitive energy taxes he wants to impose on John and Jane Doe), she oversimplifies Juan Mexicain’s policy suggestions the other direction, mentioning only the offshore drilling position he’s recently taken and omitting his seriously sensible suggestion of prize money for the development of new energy storage technologies.

Hmmm, “the old guy’s” energy policy sounds remarkably like Paris Hilton’s. I don’t know whether that’s an encouraging sign or not.

At least Juan Mexicain’s people jumped right on it and noted how much more sensible a blonde bobbleheaded bimbo’s energy policy is than a brunette bobbleheaded bimbo’s energy policy.

Come to think of it, maybe Paris Hilton as president might not be so bad considering the alternatives. What’s her position with urm, on *dang!* about illegal immigrants? If she’d come out for strict enforcement of laws already on the books on that issue, I might not even mind it when she painted the White House pink.

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Endlessly Surprising

And delightfully so.

I’ve listened to Beethoven’s symphonies–and his other works–many, many times over the years, even been privileged to be a part of performances of some of his works through the years, but one thing that is a continual surprise is that every time I rehearse (think on that word a bit, would you–sometimes my :listening” is merely reading through a score and discovering new delights in my mid’s ear–Fun!) one of his symphonies it’s fresh, new, full of delights both in things that resound in memory and that strike me brand spaking new.

Try finding that in “Top 40” pap.

Listening to number seven again today, during an extended, well-earned break, I started out feeling exhausted, filled with an almost rag doll lassitude.

First movement wiped that out in a BIG hurry!

I just love this stuff.

🙂

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The Dhimmicrappic Energy Plan

[Insert pic of “fav” Dhimmicrappic politician *spit* here]

HOT AIR!

HIGHER GAS PRICES!

MORE HOT AIR!

(At least there’s an inexhaustible supply of gasbag pronouncements from ’em. Now, if only I could run my car on their reverse peristalsis flatus… )

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Lyric help?

I need some help on some lyrics. A childhood “song” (of course it was a song! What else could it be? Better, in many ways than Top 40 crap nowadays… ) that stuck in my memory–all save two words–and pops up (though only very, very, very rarely out) at the most inappropriate times. *heh*

More below the fold… Continue reading “Lyric help?”

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“Stuff the School Bus”?

I saw what seems at first to be a really good idea when I was out picking up some groceries the other day. Local school district school bus, folks handing out a “shopping list” that read:

Help Us Stuff the Bus with School Supplies for LOCAL Xxxxx County Children in Need

Most needed items:
Crayons
#2 Pencils
Glue
Glue Sticks… etc.

The 20-or-so-item list included backpacks and other items as well, of course. (Where was my backpack when I was a kid half a century ago? Nowhere, mon frere. Now, it’s an essential? *feh*)

At first blush, this seemed a good idea. Then I began wondering how many large LCD TVs, how much beer, etc., the parents of these “Children in Need” had spent their “economic incentive” checks on*.

Perhaps it’s just my experiences while living in an “inner city” neighborhood watching neighbors “pay” for steak and lobster with food stamps then drive off in their recent model Caddy while I could only afford macaroni (because I was working). Or perhaps it’s my experience working with a homeless shelter, where half the folks who were there were “homeless” because their children wanted nothing to do with them or because they were on the lam and hiding from the law.

A myriad of other experiences led my mind to the thought, “Sure, I suppose there are some genuinely needy children, but most of this will simply be going toward enabling childish “parents” to avoid providing for their children while they greedily seek to meet their “wants”.

Nope. I didn’t even toss a #2 pencil stub in the hopper. The amount I saw there already would probably provide for the school needs of the genuinely needy kids in the county for the next few years. The rest will go to children of illegals (who should be educated in their own country), lazy bums and those who are simply working the system.

*BTW “economic incentive” moneys here at twc were not put into paying off bills, savings or such, because we made a choice to instead make some capital improvements around here at twc central. After all, this home is our single largest asset, and since it will be entirely ours next year (except for the fact that we actually–as does everyone who thinks they own property outright–simply “lease” it from our local governments who can take it away from us on a whim), keeping it in good shape makes good sense. And, since the “economic incentive” money was really just a “loan” against 2008 taxes (just wait and see), the “use it (for something durable) or lose it” principle applied big time.

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“Sitemeter down”? NOT!

A recently linked post from Walls of the City clued me into a misconception making the rounds (yeh, I’ve had emails about it since). Sitemeter is not “down” nor does having the Sitemeter code on ones blog keep folks from viewing your page… unless those folks are using the least standards-compliant browser available, Internet Exploder.

Sitemeter and Sitemeter code on a blog page pose NO PROBLEM for folks using a browser that at least makes a good faith attempt at standards-compliance. I know, because I checked with three other browsers (in two different OSes) and had NO PROBLEMS either with Sitemeter itself or with blogs with active Sitemeter code.

Here’s my remedy for the Sitemeter/blogs-with-Sitemeter-code-not-viewable/loadable-in-Internet Exploder:

For blogs using the Sitemeter code, temporarily disable the code (see the link above), then

Thump the “Stop using a crappy browser (Internet Exploder)!” bone as often and hard as you can. Strongly, and in no uncertain terms encourage ALL readers to standardize their browsing experience on a more standards-compliant browser. I prefer Opera, but FIrefox is not bad, although considerably less elegant (and pretty consistently slower) than Opera. Both are worlds and away better than Internet Exploder.

Just say No! to Internet Exploder!

For those very few sites that refuse to load unless one is using Internet Exploder(even with Opera masking itself as Internet Exploder), because of very aggressive browser sniffing, Internet Exploder still has a limited–extreeeeemely limited–use on twc computers. But except for gag use, it’s completely unused on my main machine.

Kill Me$$y$oft’s Internet Exploder! It’s just tough love.

Use a real browser. Opera, Firefox and Safari* are all more standards-compliant than Me$$y$oft’s Internet Exploder, and NONE of them have any problems with the Sitemeter code.

AND: Note Peri’s remarks in comments. Microsoft’s been aware of this bug in Internet Exploder for years and just doesn’t care. After all, it’s only Microsoft’s customers who suffer, so why should they care?

*IMO, Safari is still not nearly as good a browser as either Opera or Firefox, but it’s still at least an order of magnitude better than Internet Exploder. Yes, I have it installed both using WINE in Linux and in a Windows VM. It’s relatively nimble, moderately powerful, a good browser. And the bundled Bonjour network/printer wizard is not a bad thing for non-techie folks who have trouble sharing network resources between various versions of Windows.

Trackposted to Nuke’s, Perri Nelson’s Website, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Woman Honor Thyself, McCain Blogs, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Democrat=Socialist, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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What Argument? I Have a Race Card…

(Slipping this one in the side door… Wait for it… Wait for it… )

melancholy: mournful; depressed; a gloomy state of mind, esp. when habitual or prolonged; depression.

Warning: this is an off-beat, hard left turn in response to an unrelated situation that reminded me that I once knew a guy (I won’t call him a pastor, although he called himself that) objected to the following song as “melancholy,” sad, depressing.

All That Thrills My Soul Is Jesus

Ah, as a “pastor,” he probably was referring to the lyrics, though, since they don’t imply but strongly and unequivocally state a joyous, thrilling response to the presence of a loving God… Melancholy, depressing thought indeed.

*heh*

Just so, whenever people just plain flat ignore commonsense reasoning and facts about anything, I’m somehow reminded of this “pastor” whose objection to the above song was based on absolutely nothing inherent in the piece itself. His objections, IMO, were entirely based on his own desires to avoid the clear, unequivocal meaning and intent of the piece. So it is with darned near anyone who has more active brain cells than a head of cabbage and who at the same time utters plain nonsense, ignoring all known (to them) facts as an “argument” against something they refuse to… argue against.

Contemporary example that strangely spurred the memory above? Juan Mexicain’s handlers put out an add (correctly, IMO) suggesting The Obamassiah is an empty suit whose proposals for our current energy situation make no sense whatsoever. In reaction, instead of arguing his “proposals” (higher energy taxes, mandating lower fuel consumption, pie-in-the-sky “new energy sources” w/o oil–HOW are these things better in relieving the price at the pump? [Answer: Not at all.] Forceful assertion and boring repetition is not an argument, Obamassiah), The Obamassiah and his ‘botheads chime in with essentially, “Nanny, nanny, boo, boo, RACE CARD, nanny, nanny, boo, boo.”

*feh*

No substance whatsoever. Nada, zero, zip, zilch.

I’m no fan of Juan Mexicain, as anyone who’s read more than one post @twc recently can probably tell, but The Obamassiah’s objections to the recent Juan Mexicain ad are as nonsensical–and revealing of character–as the above (unnamed) “pastor’s” objection to the song embedded in this post was. Neither have any relationship with reality, and both arrogantly assume that any listener is too stupid or cowed or in their pocket to throw a bullshit flag on their play.

Consider the bullshit flag thrown on the Obamassiah’s race card play.

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