Posts

Posted on

Well, I Can’t Blame Anyone Else. . .

. . .because I did it to myself. I bought the thing knowing what I’d find.

David Weber has a series of goat-gaggers–the Safehold series–from TOR that I find interesting but have had the same issues with from the very first book, Off Armageddon Reef (2008). Other issues have presented in the six books that have followed, but, as I said, I knew what I was getting when I bought it.

Weber still pretty consistently misuses some words. An example: he pretty consistently uses “less” when “fewer” is correct. But every time he misuses a word it does throw me out of the story.

Weber also really overuses banter in dialog. Meetings about serious matters are consistently trivialized by light-hearted banter. Some is healthy, but Weber has a tendency in everything he writes to overdo it. His Honorverse books feature too much if it for me, but not nearly as much as the Safehold books. The Safehold series doesn’t seem to have any editor handy to tell Weber, “Stop already! That’s too much!” *heh*

And then there’s the extremely irritating treatment of proper names. *gagamaggot* Zhaspahr Clyntahn? Rhobair Duchairn? It goes on and on and on. Sure, Weber “named” his Safehold characters into a corner in the first book, and there was no easy way out, especially after book 2. . . or three, four, five and six. *sigh* And this book includes a cast of characters sixty-six pages long with such names.

But still, I’ve bought every one of ’em. These last two have been ebooks, but the others, hardcopy, all but one hardback. Why?

Well, I bought and read the first one because Weber. Yes, his Honorverse books have some of the same issues (though apparently the editors at Baen are better than the ones at TOR *heh*), but they’ve still been worth my time for more than a few reasons. So, I knew it’d be readable and would at least tell an interesting story. But. . . issues. (“Lords secular and temporal”–*feh* Weber! You use that ALL the time and ALWAYS wrongly! Well, at least he didn’t include that abortion of sense in this book as he has in every other book i the series, IIRC, as well as in several of the Honorverse books.)

The rest? Well, interesting story, despite the aforementioned issues and a few others. Fun stuff on “rediscovering” technologies. Interesting low-tech milfic as well.

So. . . I buy ’em, even though I know the negatives will irk me.

Posted on

So Long, Farewell, auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

My most recent experience of the death of a loved one was about a year and a half ago when my dad “graduated”. Sixteen and a half years ago, my Wonder Woman “died” (well, that’s what the doctors called three separate occurrences within a day of “sudden cardiac death”). . . for a bit, but that only counts as a wee sample of separations to come. I thought long and hard then, as I did later with my dad’s passing, of just what death of someone I love means to me.

Personal loss, of course. Since all my loved ones are Christians they, naturally, gain/will gain. 1 Corinthians 15 explains pretty clearly:

19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.

24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.

26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

and. . .

51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Now, my Aunt Bettie is nearing her own “graduation”. Of course I am impelled to think of the loss, not only to me but to everyone she has touched, of her loving kindness, her wit and her own special wisdom. I cannot count the generosity she has poured out on just me from the days of my childhood, not the least the way she generously hosted the rehearsal dinner for our wedding at her own home (*heh* Blew my inlaws-to-be away. Righteous, dudette! :-)) or the times she served as a surrogate mom for me in the days before expensive Long Distance calls and slow snail mail bit the dust and my own mom was just not quite reachable–she was THE first person in my family to learn of my engagement to my Wonder Woman, for example. I needed that immediate, face-to-face family touch more than I really knew, and she was as thrilled for me as my own mom was later.

Now, Aunt Bettie, I hold the hope for you that I believe you hold for yourself:

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home!

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourn of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

Happy trails! Vaya con Dios. Until we meet again, Aunt Bettie.

sisters

Mom and Aunt Bettie, holding hands at the hospice.

Posted on

Fun, Fun, Fun

So, the local “fell off the back of a truck” store had some 7″ Sylvania tablets (yeh, bad rep, low spec things) marked “defective” and w/o chargers for $5. “So,” methought, “five bucks for a non-functional piece of crap. Not bad!” *heh*

Bought two. Charged ’em up (well, yeh, I do have chargers/power bricks for just about everything. Why? Do you ask? *heh*).

One powers up but doesn’t boot at all, at all. Tore it down and didn’t find anything obvious at first glance. Set it aside.

Next: the other one, very slightly different model. Refused to power on. Tore it down. Hmmm, maybe it was trying to boot and I just couldn’t tell, because. . . THE RIBBON CABLE TO THE SCREEN WAS DISCONNECTED and looked like it never had been. *sigh*

Attached the ribbon cable and secured it. Reassembled the thing. Powered on and. . . stuck at the manufacturer’s logo. Powered off. Powered on with the “three finger salute” (which for this model means Power Button-Menu Button-Screen Tap) to bring up the screen to restore the system image. Quick re-touch of the Menu Button and. . . it attempted to restore the system image. Attempted only because the system image file is. . . missing (of course).

Now, since the device isn’t recognizable to any physical computers I have that can read the utility to flash the image via USB, I need to boot a virtual XP machine that will recognize it. Yes. That’s right. NO DRIVERS FOR WIN7 or WIN8. . . or even VISTA for this device. *sigh*

Well, at least it’s fun to play with. Heck, when I get it working, I don’t really have any use for it, anyway. The only real use I have for it is what I’ve been doing with it: tinkering around.

Posted on

Is It Too Much to Ask?

I’m sort of looking, in a casual, desultory fashion, for a lil place in the “piney woods” here in America’s Third World County. Not much, just 30 or so acres or more with a looooong drive into a cleared area with gardening/livestock area and room for a small dwelling and work/livestock buildings.

The looooong drive would be so I could ask the county to give my drive a “street” name and dwelling a 911 address. I’d like the following street name to go along with my “UNwelcome mat”.

Goa-Way

UNwelcome mat

Posted on

Crockpot “Roast Beast”

Had two different smaller cuts of roast beef that added to about 4.75 pounds and a nice new, barely used, Crockpot™. Yeh, the brand even. Automagical nearly everything. Kinda cool, so. . .

Rolled the two cuts of beef around in some salt and black pepper, then rolled ’em around in a wee bit of flour. Browned ’em in a hot pan, then. . . Oh, heck, I’ll just do it semi-right:

 

Crockpot “Roast Beast”
Recipe Type: meal
Author: mnmus
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Crockpot “roast” beef
Ingredients
  • 4.75 lbs roasting beef (whatever cut you want)
  • 2 tbs oil for frying
  • 2 yellow onions
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed (not pressed or cut)
  • 5 dried serano or cayenne peppers (optional)
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 15oz can stewed tomatoes
  • 1 15oz can beef broth (I used an onion beef broth)
  • 2 tbs Kitchen Bouquet Browning and Seasoning Sauce™
  • 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/4 cup red wine (your choice)
  • Coarsely chopped carrots (optional, amount as desired)
Instructions
  1. Quarter the onions and crush the garlic. Coat the cut(s) of beef in salt and pepper, then roll them in flour.
  2. In a large frying pan, brown the beef in hot oil, adding the garlic and onions after turning the pieces of meat once.
  3. Place the beef, fat side up, in the crock pot. Add the onions, garlic, bay leaves, peppers, etc.
  4. Add the liquid ingredients.
  5. Cook on high for 30 minutes, then switch to low heat for another 6.5-7.5 hours.

 

Posted on

Part 3 of . . .n in the Continuing Saga of Westinghouse Digital’s Perfidy

The suboptimal (non)replacement TV sent us by Westinghouse Digital evidenced yet another deficiency yesterday. *sigh* Of course. Absolutely nothing the company has done to this point has evidenced any reasonable actions toward making us whole.

OK, sure, they FINALLY sent this TV that lacks features the TV we returned under warranty had, but only after I informed representatives of the company, very honestly, that my next step was legal action. So what? They send a substandard non-replacement.

Yesterday? A brief power outage wiped the TV setup. All scanned channels and other info, wiped. Not only that, but it took THREE channel scans to find the channels available to us and make tuning them possible at all. THREE, each taking THIRTY MINUTES (the TV this is supposedly a “replacement” for took no more than 10 minutes, max, to do this, and this has consistently taken multiple attempts lasting 30 minutes. . . or longer). Now, power outages are not that uncommon in America’s Third World County™ so I suppose we’ll have this to go through every time, now. (Well, maybe not every time. Additional expense to avoid it, though: add a UPS.)

Westinghouse Digital’s solution? Send THIS TV back for “replacement”. After the previous experience getting ANY kind of response from Westinghouse Digital, that’s a non-starter.

Fortunately, next month our extended service plan with a SEPARATE company takes effect. . .

Posted on

Is It Just Me?

MmmIdunno.

So, the execrable non-service personnel at the non-sufficiently-to-be-condemned Westinghouse Digital LLC, finally got a TV back to us after holding the defective one we sent back hostage for over a month of business days, claiming our replacement was “on back order.”

A credible (and genuine) threat of legal action, along with a commentary on the company’s recent class action lawsuit losses and bad BBB rating (neither of which were in evidence when we bought the product–those happened later) resulted in–surprise! surprise!–a new TV sent out that very day, and. . .

. . .it’s almost a replacement for the one they held hostage for a month of business days. Almost. Was a pain to set up (tuner refused to activate until after several hard resets) and the audio does NOT work as well as the unit this TV replaces. Cannot turn off the unit’s speakers w/o also muting the digital audio–what’s up with that? The previous unit’s TOSLINK digital audio link worked well with the unit’s speakers off. No joy with this unit. And so. . . with digital (or even analog!) audio connected to an external unit, if the TV speakers are on, the lag emulates a bad reverb. So, the TV speakers off: analog works but digital doesn’t (and analog has fewer “tweaks” available, of course).

Oh, and calling back about this, the jackass “support” person who claimed to have a “computer science degree” (which means NOTHING in relation to this issue) insisted that the coaxial digital connection was the same as the TOSSLINK (optical) digital connection on the former TV.

Asshat. Ignorant asshat. Means nothing (and is wrong anyway).
Screwed.

So, just a heads up: if you buy ANYTHING from Westinghouse Digital

1. Make absolutely certain it has ALL the features you want (the defective unit did. . . for 9 months)
2. Purchase a third party service plan and
3. If that 3rd party service plan only goes into effect after the Westinghouse Digital warranty lapses, use the product to assure it works, then BOX IT UP AND WAIT FOR THE EXTENDED COVERAGE TO GO INTO EFFECT. If you’ve purchased a three or four year service plan, you should have two or three years of protection by a reputable firm (SquareTrade is a viable option. We’ve used SquareTrade coverage and been satisfied with the service. We have another company’s extended service plan for the TV, and it covers the replacement. . . and I know people in their corporate offices. *heh*)

You do NOT want to rely on Westinghouse Digital to make you whole should one of its products be defective. Based on my experiences, the company will likely make every effort to screw you over. Just sayin’.

Posted on

Kudos. . . tempered

OK, so “city” workers here in third world county central deserve kudos for fast response. “City” planners, notsomuch.

So, spent last night vacc-ing and pumping and santitizing. The vacc-ing and pumping was at least 300 gallons of. . . sewage backup. Yeh, the sanitizing was a . . . gas. (Chlorine bleach–what I had on hand–combining with organic compounds: fun.) *sigh*

Things had slowed down a bit to the rate of about 15 gallons every half hour to 45 minutes by 8:00 this morning (cleanout to recepticle with pump). Called the “city” (yes, “emergency” number was worthless, as was number for water/sanitation department) after one such session. “City” clerk said he’d relay the message. Checked 30 minutes later. No effluent. Blockage down line had been cleared. Son&Heir told me he’d seen a “city” work truck a few minutes before heading toward a down line sewer access.

Quick response. Fast work. I wonder, though, just what someone dumped down their toilet. . . this time. (Yeh, this has happened two other times over the past 18.5 years here.)

Bad rap to “city” planners, though. The eight-inch sewer line is far, far smaller than it needs to be to serve all the households that have been added since it was initially installed. They KNOW it’s undersized, but a sports park etc. has priority over infrastructure improvements (and this isn’t the only one going begging).

But the repair crews are not too shabby (when the work order actually gets put on their list).