I'll be glad when WGBH (our local PBS station) stops airing Viewers' Favorites and starts showing programs that we want to watch.
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Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
RoasterBoy Playlist
Aug 27, 2008 1:52pm
18 years ago today, the sky was crying & created a Texas flood when Stevie Ray Vaughn left us
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas FloodAug 21, 2008 6:03pm
The Archive - Music Videos | thevine.com.au
The Archive - Music Videos | thevine.com.auOver the years Paul Mawhinney has amassed what has become the world's largest record collection. Due to a struggling record industry Paul is being forced to sell his collection. This is his story.
If you're lost in the rain in Juarez ...
You can use a herd of cows as your compass. According to the BBC, images from Google Earth show that cows tend to align themselves on a north-south axis.
Of course, cows won't tell you if it's going to rain. You'll need a weatherman to tell you the way the wind blows.
(With apologies to Bob Dylan's Tom Thumb's Blues and Subterranean Homesick Blues)
Of course, cows won't tell you if it's going to rain. You'll need a weatherman to tell you the way the wind blows.
(With apologies to Bob Dylan's Tom Thumb's Blues and Subterranean Homesick Blues)
Cutting costs in the most annoying ways
[I've got a feeling that this is going to be regular feature....]
- Air Canada Jazz, a regional affiliate of the national carrier, is eliminating inflatable life vests. You can use your seat cushion as a flotation device. (And, if you're traveling with a child, well, how well can Junior swim?)
- Colleges are removing cafeteria trays.
I took college.
It's college ranking time again. Although I never buy the magazine, I don't mind noting that US News and World Report once again rates my alma mater at the top of liberal arts colleges in the nation. (It's ok that we're tied with the other guys; we were slightly more selective among applicants.)
It's also important to remember that, as the Wall Street Journal tells us, for most people, college is a waste of time. Only once did my college degree come up in a job interview. That was during my first interview for a job in high tech. The interview was long and rambling, with only a little bit of discussion about the specific work that I'd be doing (editing and proofreading) and the skills that I would need to do the job.
It's also important to note that college can be a great big waste of money, too. Radar reports on the worst colleges in America. The biggest rip-off, for example, is that other college in Amherst: Hampshire College. "If college is an investment, Hampshire is a commemorative pewter tankard from the Franklin Mint."
It's also important to remember that, as the Wall Street Journal tells us, for most people, college is a waste of time. Only once did my college degree come up in a job interview. That was during my first interview for a job in high tech. The interview was long and rambling, with only a little bit of discussion about the specific work that I'd be doing (editing and proofreading) and the skills that I would need to do the job.
It's also important to note that college can be a great big waste of money, too. Radar reports on the worst colleges in America. The biggest rip-off, for example, is that other college in Amherst: Hampshire College. "If college is an investment, Hampshire is a commemorative pewter tankard from the Franklin Mint."
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Commencing to beginulate
One of the regular characters on the Simpsons is Professor John I.Q. Nerdelbaum Frink, Jr.. The professor is pretty much an animated version of Jerry Lewis's Nutty Professor.
It's then a bit weird to see Frinkspeak in a real, commercial software product. Mozy backs up files on your computer to a server. The files are backed up when your computer is inactive, so you need only set it and forget it. We've been using it for quite a while and have been pleased with its ease of use. This afternoon, however, I wanted to check on the status of the backups and so launched Mozy as a foreground process:
According to the Urban Dictionary,"reticulating splines"is "the process of combining many short lines and curves into longer, interpolated ones called 'splines'." That's really helpful, isn't it?
My goodness, I've been redorkulated.
My goodness, I've been redorkulated.
A lot of people are at home
The other day, I was trimming a couple of branches that had been taken over by tent caterpillars. To do so, I had walk along the stone wall in front of our house. All of my steps were careful except for the last one. So, I've been hobbled by a mild sprained ankle which has slowed me to the same pace as Marley when we're on our three-mile walk.
In an informal survey, I noticed that slightly more than half of the homes we passed had at least one car in the driveway, this during the mid-morning on a workday. It's interesting to think that, even during these hectic times, there's someone likely at home at your neighbors' houses. There are few people in their yards, even on a delightful, late summer's day. Most houses also have the curtains drawn, at least in the street-facing windows. (He says, writing from his upstairs room where the shades are drawn to keep the room cool.) Ah, well. Suburbia is what it is. People are at home and yet ambulances can come and go from a neighbor's house and we would know what or why.
What we do know is that, because it's late summer, some yards are full to overflowing with all kinds of growth. In one stretch of sidewalk, you'd barely know that there was a sidewalk:
Naturally, an old dog will notice some very compelling smell deep in the thicket and will anchor his nose on that spot until he's inhaling dirt. Come winter, all of that will fall back and we'll have an open sidewalk once again.
In an informal survey, I noticed that slightly more than half of the homes we passed had at least one car in the driveway, this during the mid-morning on a workday. It's interesting to think that, even during these hectic times, there's someone likely at home at your neighbors' houses. There are few people in their yards, even on a delightful, late summer's day. Most houses also have the curtains drawn, at least in the street-facing windows. (He says, writing from his upstairs room where the shades are drawn to keep the room cool.) Ah, well. Suburbia is what it is. People are at home and yet ambulances can come and go from a neighbor's house and we would know what or why.
What we do know is that, because it's late summer, some yards are full to overflowing with all kinds of growth. In one stretch of sidewalk, you'd barely know that there was a sidewalk:
Some jokes pretty much write themselves...
Apparently, during the Olympics, Chinese authorities regarded bagpipes as "some kind of weapon." -- BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | South of Scotland | Bagpipes provoked Olympic alarm
New Orleans getting ready for a big storm. Thanks, SCOTUS.
The Gun Shots: Hunting, Shooting, Politics, Entertainment, Guns, Rifles: “I just left a sporting goods store and you would think that the number-one selling item would be plywood or potable water or gasoline right now,” he said. “Apparently it is AR-15s and .223 ammo. I watched at least 20 people buy AR-15s and cases of .223.”
* SCOTUS - Supreme Court of the United States. See the Court's ruling in Washington, D.C. v. Heller (PDF file).
* SCOTUS - Supreme Court of the United States. See the Court's ruling in Washington, D.C. v. Heller (PDF file).
These times have been good for some
The Wall Street Journal reports that the number of ultraweathly, those with a net worth of $20 million or more, grew by more than 50% between 1998 and 2004. The total wealth of this group grew by two-thirds.
There was a similar jump in the number of people worth between $10 million and $20 million during that same time.
Remember, these numbers reflect growth from a time starting with the Internet bubble and ending after the bubble burst. The biggest asset for these folks was in publicly-traded stock.
How'd you do during those years?
There was a similar jump in the number of people worth between $10 million and $20 million during that same time.
Remember, these numbers reflect growth from a time starting with the Internet bubble and ending after the bubble burst. The biggest asset for these folks was in publicly-traded stock.
How'd you do during those years?
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Two's complement shift
So, in the downtown of our fair 'burb, Walgreen's is building a new store. There are lots of things silly about this:
In its new location, the former funeral home will have businesses on the first floor and apartments on the second. (You can add your own jokes about living in a former funeral home.)
Does a town of sixteen and half thousand people need three chain pharmacies with the third one on the wrong side of the road for the traffic flow? Walgreen's seems to be doing ok, business-wise, so we might think that they know what they're doing. It seems to me, however, that this is a lot of expense and a lot of noise to solve a problem that we really don't have. In addition, it will make the ride through the center of town even more difficult, pushing more traffic onto narrow side roads.
- We already have two chain drug stores, Rite-Aid (formerly Brooks) and CVS.
- They're building on the wrong side of the street. Route 122A is the major route through town, bringing traffic to and from Worcester and the Interstate highways. Traffic is bumper-to-bumper southbound in the morning and bumper-to-bumper northbound in the afternoon. (At the point that 122A goes through down, it's more of a northwest-southeast road.)
The new pharmacy is on the southwest side of the road. Homeward bound traffic, then, has to make a left turn to get into the store, slowing the already traffic, and then cross the lanes again to resume the trip. Locating the pharmacy on the right side of the road (the northeast side) would ease the impact on the traffic flow.
Does a town of sixteen and half thousand people need three chain pharmacies with the third one on the wrong side of the road for the traffic flow? Walgreen's seems to be doing ok, business-wise, so we might think that they know what they're doing. It seems to me, however, that this is a lot of expense and a lot of noise to solve a problem that we really don't have. In addition, it will make the ride through the center of town even more difficult, pushing more traffic onto narrow side roads.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Cats and dogs living together. What's this world coming to?
The Cat House on the Kings is a no kill, no cage shelter for homeless cats. Lynea Lattanzio has cared for 16,000 cats since 1992. (via Neatorama).
At one point, we had five cats and three dogs. We wound up putting a screen door on my mother's room so that she could have fresh air, but not have a cat sitting on her head at night.
At one point, we had five cats and three dogs. We wound up putting a screen door on my mother's room so that she could have fresh air, but not have a cat sitting on her head at night.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Shopping with our neighbors on a summer Sunday afternoon
If you have a choice, avoid supermarkets on a Sunday afternoon in the summer. These people, no doubt kind and gentle the other six-and-a-half days of the week, are scary creatures as they return from their weekend of fun. They're at the supermarket on desperate missions - stuff for supper, stuff for the upcoming week. There's little energy left among them and even less joy. Stay away, even if it means a dinner of friend onion rings from a can that's been in the cellar since the Reagan administration.
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