This 'N That

Macs crash?  I've had my iMac for almost four years and while certain programs may have given me the spinning beach ball of death (Firefox, but I have to admit I run the beta versions), never has the whole system crashed. 

Jobs said Flash is a closed proprietary technology that should be bypassed in favor of open standards such as HTML5, a new Web technology that Apple is promoting. He said Flash consumes twice the amount of battery life for video playback, is a security risk and is the No. 1 source of crashes on Mac computers. Jobs added that it's also not suited for the touch interfaces of many modern mobile devices.

Um, Steve?  People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Apple isn't exactly known for sharing.  Not that this is a bad thing since your devices have always worked for me, but maybe you could phrase it a little differently.  What I've discovered is that I basically use my computer for email, to surf the web and to charge my iTouch so I should probably get an iPad and be done with it.  I would have room for dining room table after all that space was freed up.  Hmm, and the need for power strips would also decrease.  Win, win.

Not content with mucking up California, the Governator wants to run for president.

Not exactly a surprise.  Of course she's a liar, she slept with another woman's husband.  And it's pretty easy to see she isn't firmly attached to reality.

I am not a Madonna fan by any stretch of the imagination.  Business wise she is incredibly smart and managed to ensure that she received most of the profits from her work, unlike a lot of popular artists, but I still don't like her.  I do like Jane Lynch and because of her I now have a Madonna song on the iTouch.  A most spectacular cover version of Vogue.  I wonder why I can't get into Glee, it's a great premise and everyone attached to the project is extremely talented, but I can't bring myself to watch it on a regular basis.

Wednesday Morning Musings

The judge is crazier than the defendant.  Wondering whether the cow was confused because the defendant's penis didn't produce milk is inexcusable.  The defendant is a deviant and should be forced to get professional help.  And the judge shouldn't anthropomorphize.

If I was Michael Steele I would be careful about calling anyone a nutjob and most certainly not when they are speaking the truth.  While I wanted Bush tried for his crimes against humanity it never would have occurred to me to advocate his death, something that cannot be said of those on the right when they talk about Obama or Clinton.  Or did he miss the now famous Facebook poll asking if Obama should be killed or John L. Perry's article (now removed) stating that a "bloodless military coup" might be necessary to restore the Constitution.  That wouldn't be the same Constitution that Bush regarded as just a piece of paper is it?  And my mind is not tiny.  Because Mr. Perry once worked for Jimmy Carter doesn't make him any less of  a conservative.  Or has everyone forgotten that Dick Morris used to work for Bill Clinton?

Are some personality traits present at birth?  I used to worry a lot, mainly about aches and pains and an irrational fear of the dark, but I grew out of it in my twenties.  According to mom, and she should know, even though I was sickly (asthma), I wasn't a fussy baby.  She says I used to sit in a corner and watch people while laughing to myself.  And I'm not that much different now according to a former classmate.  I've always been an observer.  I used to wonder about it as a child, why didn't I like to participate?  I don't mind speaking in front of lots of people but I enjoy being alone even more, especially after being surrounded by excess stimulation.  When I was in high school I was known as the girl with the book because I always had one with me and would read it in a crowd of people while peeping over the top.  As an adult I prefer my iPod because most people won't bother me when I have the headphones on and I can watch them in peace.  Very weird.

Speaking of reading books, the banned book list is out.  I've read two of the Philip Pullman novels but I got bored and didn't even start the third.  I hated Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer for the same reasons.  As a child I was allowed to read anything I wanted, I read On The Beach and A Summer Place in the fifth grade and Playboy for most of my adolescence and the only influence they had was to was to increase my reading skills and to keep an open mind.  Trying to pull books from the library in an effort to protect kids from something you don't approve of is likely to lead to children who don't read at all and automatically distrust anything new to their existence.  Sort of like their parents.



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Book 'Em, Dano

I have always loved this song, it brings back happy memories for me, and yes it is on the iPod.

Rest in peace Mr. Bogle.  Many tried to imitate you, few rarely succeeded.

Musical Whiplash

I'm trying to get to sleep so I set the timer on the iPod and it obviously wasn't ready to turn off for the night.

You're So Vain - Carly Simon
Worked It Out Wrong - Chris Isaak
Street Life - The Crusaders
Just A Little - The Beau Brummels
From The Beginning - Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Car Wash - Rose Royce
Kiss You All Over - Exile
You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine - Lou Rawls
Dripping Springs, Tx - Pollo Del Mar (YouTube can be so helpful)



How will I ever get to sleep if I keep bouncing to the music?

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Fascinating

I went to see Star Trek last night and it rocked!  There was enough action to please the most die hard movie addict and very little of the moralizing that the series is prone to.  There were laughs, snickers and giggles galore, especially if you have been a Trekker for a long time.  I do have to wonder about the preoccupation with creepy crawly things being shoved into bodily orifices to control people is all about, but since it was used in two of the best movies of the franchise it must be necessary.  Too bad they didn't refer back to it or finish that part of the plot, which leaves me wondering, is it still wrapped around his brain stem?

I knew it was going to be a fun time when this started playing on the ol' iPod while I was waiting for the movie to start.


And it was immediately followed by this.


I really did enjoy the movie.  I was able to walk to the theater since it is only a couple of blocks from the apartment. I printed my ticket at home and walked right in, there wasn't a line.  The theater ended up being a little over half full (I was the only single female) and most of the people stayed until the end of the credits.  I'm going to see it again this weekend but at matinee prices. 

The casting was inspired and did justice to the original actors.  One thing I did notice was that Zachary Quinto is about two inches taller than Leonard Nimoy.  Oh yeah, Chris Pine doesn't look like his father at all, with the added benefit of not having to work with Erik Estrada.

I give it four and a half stars out of five.

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Life Without Credit

Russ over at Scholars and Rogues, has an excellent article about credit cards being equivalent to usury and used George Washington as an example as to some of the other reasons why our Founding Fathers started the Revolutionary War. One of my college professors had told us stories about ol' George's spending habits so it wasn't a total surprise but if the Founding Fathers thought that 5% interest was robbery, I wonder what they would think of us putting up with 30-36%?

I no longer carry credit cards, they won't let me have one. They don't even send me offers. Which is okay by me because when I run out of money to pay my bills and unlike my government and huge corporations, I stop spending. I just wish there weren't so many bills left over. The last few years of taking care of mom has taken a severe financial and emotional toll as it has for many in my generation. Every month I run out of money about two weeks before I run out of month. And just like a lot of other people we are falling through the cracks.

I don't own video games, I don't go on vacation to exotic places, I don't go out to eat very often and unlike some women, I only own two pair of shoes and one purse. I hate clothes shopping which is unfortunate since mom has magically disappeared almost everything I own several times. So, where did my money go? Rent, food, cell and gas. At the end of the month rent is not going to be an issue because unless a miracle happens we'll be homeless and that bill will go the way of the dodo. Thank goodness my two year contract is up with DiSH on the 17th and I can cancel the cable without penalty. Which I can also do with mom's phone as of yesterday since no one calls her and even though I have it set to answer when she flips it open, she misses most of my calls and uses it mainly to see the time. I can't justify the expense so there's another $10 a month saved.

Last year when gas was getting close to $5 a gallon here in San Jose I put myself on a gas budget. I bought a $100 gift card at Costco at the beginning of the month and when it ran out, I walked or stayed home. And even though I am not within walking distance of anything important such as food, I cut my driving by over 70%, a practice that continues to this day though now the requirement is one tank per month.

Could I use a credit at this moment? You betcha. When I bought the used 1994 Infiniti I checked Carfax for everything except how much it cost to tune it up. It never occurred to me that it would be more than $100. Boy was I naive. Depending on the place it is anywhere from $942 to $1200. Mainly for labor. You have to take half the engine off just to get to the spark plugs! Which can only be platinum. As tight as things are I would need to spread that amount over twelve months and hope that nothing else goes wrong. If I'm not willing to take that chance why would a creditor? So, I'm cleaning it and selling it this weekend.

Fortunately I do have an iPod and it will help entertain me while riding the bus. Since public transportation was one of the things that the Governator decided wasn't important enough to be funded and he had to give corporations a $1B tax break, I will walk a mile or two to get to a bus stop where I can pay higher fares and go fewer places. It's tough losing one's autonomy in California, the state isn't designed for it. On the bright side, there is the added benefit of increasing my cardiovascular health and helping me to lose weight.

Like a lot of people I've cut back everywhere I can, I even live in a crime ridden area because the rent is cheaper. Mom and I would like to move out of the state but we can't for three reasons. One, we don't know anything or anyone in the places mom wants to go so we would have no idea about the quality of the neighborhood. Two, she loses her Medicaid until residency is established and the drugs the doctor just put her on are as much as her Social Security each month so that presents a huge problem but three is the kicker. It seems we need a credit card to rent a truck. Not pay since they are only to happy to accept cash, just as security to rent.

It's sad that our nation has become the laughingstock of the world. Our news exports scenes of beautiful people doing nothing but attending parties or adopting babies while the poor and the middle class are blamed for not being one of the beautiful people. Hospitals are content to let people die in the waiting room, food banks are teeming with more people than they can healthfully feed while restaurants are throwing out unused food by the tons as the dinner rush becomes the dinner trickle. Meanwhile, those that have not only blame those that have not, they seem to spend every waking moment trying to get the last penny from those that don't have it to spare and then call them deadbeats because the have nots can't afford all the new rates and penalties on what they already don't have.

How many tent cities will it take before the populace can drag themselves away from American Idol Idle and see that the flood waters of debt are at their doorstep and still rising? How much longer will the people tolerate bailing out the banks when they can't bail themselves out of the mess they're in? Especially without a job. Telling people not to live above their means when everywhere they turn all they see is stuff that they are brainwashed into needing is like telling an eight month pregnant teenager that sex is even better after you have the baby but abstinence is the way to make your parents happy. Some other advice needs to be given.

There's a reason why Clara Cannucciari is becoming so popular that she is getting ready to release her first DVD at the age of 92. She knows a Depression when she sees one. Cooking from scratch is an art, cooking with cheaply available ingredients is magic in the land of Mickey Ds, Whole Foods and tight budgets. I remember many of those meals from when I was growing up and you know what? They still taste good. Comfort food rocks. I may like caviar and champagne but fried potatoes and club soda taste just as good when you're hungry. Plus, you don't need credit to enjoy them.

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Monday Morning Quickies

Surreal comment of the day.

With more than 265,000 people tracking his messages, President Barack Obama has the most Twitter followers even though neither he nor his staff have tweeted since he moved into the White House last month.

I haven't heard President Obama make high chirping noises either.

If your vehicle was worth hundreds of millions of pounds or euros you would think that someone would have been watching where they were going instead of driving by Braille.

Britain's government "needs to explain how it is possible for a submarine carrying weapons of mass destruction to collide with another submarine carrying weapons of mass destruction in the middle of the world's second-largest ocean," lawmaker Angus Robertson of the opposition Scottish National Party said.

Everybody knows California is having a budget crisis, but how many people know that it is because a 2/3 majority vote is needed and that the Republicans consistently refuse to see reason?  Even given the opportunity to shaft the poor, disabled and elderly, Republicans stood their ground, refusing to sign anything with a tax increase because they are math challenged.  Are they upset that the bill was drafted by five people behind closed doors and no one knows everything that is in the bill?  No!  Are they happy that businesses are going to receive a permanent tax cut?  No!  One of them has an even better reason for not supporting the budget that a Republican governor is trying to shove down our throats.

Maldonado and Schwarzenegger have a tense relationship: In 2006, the senator publicly criticized the governor for not backing his unsuccessful campaign for state controller.

"Where was he when I needed him?" Maldonado said of Schwarzenegger on Sunday. As for Cogdill, who helped negotiate the budget plan, Maldonado said: "There's a difference between managing a caucus and leading a caucus."

What?  The million dollar makeover of the state controller's office wasn't enough to buy him off?  The state is imploding and these guys are playing games because they want to be reelected by their conservative constituents.  Reelected to what is not entirely clear.  The longer they dawdle, the more dire the budget crisis becomes until the state is completely bankrupt.  Then they will be like the rest of us.  Unemployed.

There really is an App for everything.  Hmm, and all this time I thought that was illegal.

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Strange News Of The Day

Hot on the heels of my post on bras for manboobs, men now have mantyhose.  The laughter in the background says it all.  The mantyhose even come in different colors and pattersn and come complete with a special male comfort panel.  And they aren't just for cross dressers.

Does your iPod run out of juice at the most inopportune moments?  Mine does.  Did you know you recharge it with an onion and an energy drink?

I took a geometry class in college and they teacher used to do the proofs on the board.   Invariably he would get to the end  of the problem and say "oh, that's not going to work, we'll come back to it later" but we never did.   Now I know why.  Since I didn't understand the class at all I took it pass/fail and copied just enough answers from my husband so I could pass.  Then we went on to trigonometry which made perfect sense and since I had the highest grade in the class my husband cheated off of me.  Obviously geometry doesn't need to be a prerequisite for trigonometry.

Does that mean mom was supposed to live into her nineties?  She's been smoking since she was 11 and she's 78 now.  On her last X-ray a few weeks ago her lungs were clear.  Very strange.

Get caught doing something stupid by the taxpaying public?  Do what GM wants to do to hide their disdain for the have nots and get airline regulators to prevent anyone from tracking their coporate jets and all the places they go on the company dime while their companies flame out.

First your money, then your clothes.  Banks get bailed out, malls are going bankrupt, hours are being cut back and as long as Joe the Plumber and Debra the unemployed have no money to spend on anything other than food and rent there will be turmoil in the financial markets and very little in the way of positive news.  Car dealerships are closing, tire and repair shops are disappearing and Paulson keeps giving taxpayer money to those who need it the least and are willing to share it not at all.  Great plan,  I wonder what's next.  Food only sold to people in suits and ties with thousands of dollars in the bank?

Funny how people worry about the big one striking California and having us fall into the sea and totally ignore the New Madrid Fault, the site of the largest series of earthquakes (they rang church bells in Boston, toppled chimneys in Maine and cracked sidewalks in D.C.), to strike in the contiguous United States.  Plus the area gest tornandoes and remnants of hurricanes.   I think I'll stay in California and take my chances.

Programs, Programs Programs

Another program to "help" disadvantaged youth avoid crime. Partisan politics at work again. Proving once more that it's who you know (the current occupant of the White House's father), not how important or how well a program is likely to work. Oh yeah, they have so many golf courses in the ghettos and poor neighborhoods and the the kids all have transportation to the better parts of town where of course they'll be allowed to play golf. As if the country clubs of America want another Tiger Woods. It was forty two years between Althea Gibson and Serena Williams winning the U.S. Open in tennis and no other black woman besides Althea has won the LPGA since. No wonder Republican are so certain that government doesn't work. They keep authorizing money for their cronies under the guise of helping out the little man. The usual ABC commenters show their true colors. Defend, defend, defend. An administration so corrupt that we'll never find out how much of the taxpayer's money they've pissed away on programs that only benefit the people at the top.

No job, no house payment. That's usually how it works, unless you inherit money from parents and grandparents that worked so you can play at being a celebutante. The F.H.A should have known that. As well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was more like a well orchestrated plan to relieve the low end of the middle class of their money under the guise of home ownership. And just like I told all the people who weren't making a $110K a year, miss a house payment and you'll find out just who owns it.

Cupertino, we have a problem and I am really confused. The new Apple 8-gigabyte 3G iPhone will retail for $199, and that's a good thing. It would be better if it was on Verizon, but it's still a nice price. Meanwhile, an 8 gigabyte iTouch is $299 and it doesn't make phone calls or have GPS. Are they going to eliminate the smaller iTouch and force us to go with a larger model so they can justify the difference in price? Or are we being forced to into helping AT&T become a bigger monopoly than they were in the early seventies?

What about walking? Isn't that a weight bearing exercise? How about the elliptical machine for those of us with bad knees? Mom is 77, has walked most of her life, has smoked for 66 of the 77 years but she does like to sit outside. Is it the Vitamin D from the sun that has given her protection from her frequent falls, because she still hasn't broken a bone (thank goodness) and she falls more often than I'd like.

Why do I think that this program is going to increase crime against older people? Considering that one doesn't have to show ID to use a debit card and they rarely check ID when you use a credit card, I foresee the usual problems. Ooh, ooh, do you suppose it will be used as an ID card for seniors?

Oh, I thought they had learned to use poles and bait.

Yeah, well my tomatoes (since stores are pulling them off the shelves) aren't going to be ripe by Saturday and I needed some of them to make my tomato tart for the PartyLite soiree that I'm having. And since today is Tuesday, weren't they really talking about yesterday's high?

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BFD, Guess Whose Birthday It Is

If you guessed mine, you're right. Big whoop, I'm 52, though I'm pretty sure the rest of me would prefer 25. I had a really good time that year. I went to Vegas on the train for the first time. This year, not much is going to happen.

I'm one of those practical girls, in case you couldn't tell. While I don't want a refrigerator or vacuum for a gift, geek stuff is always welcome. Things that make my life safer or more convenient are also a good bet. One year my baby brother gave me a Fry's gift card for Christmas and was worried that he had offended me until he saw me squealing and running around the house. I spent that sucker the next day. Now that was one of my favorite gifts of all time. On the other hand, Mother Nature has presented me with a few really good looking tomato babies. Little green nuggets that will hopefully turn into ripe green tomatoes.

It never ceases to amaze me how people think of themselves first when they are buying you a gift. It was so hot in my car the other day that some of the speaker wires on my iPod melted in certain spots. Since I'm never without the thing, don't you think headphones would have made a great gift? I have music in my life everyday (courtesy of the radio or the iPod, I can't play a note) and I'm disappointed that something so simple escaped my friends. Especially today. Or, how about having my knives professionally sharpened, that would have been both cool and useful. A Costco cash card so I can buy gas would have changed the whole direction of my birthday, and the rest of the week. Instead, I received an expensive gift certificate to a shop I go to once every couple of years. I'll use it eventually, but at the moment I have no use for it. Unless I throw a temper tantrum and break something. :)

Birthday music for all!

My pug is cuter and would have a deeper voice.


And just because I never hear this on the radio on my birthday, it's either the day before or after, ladies and gentlemen I present to you, THE BEATLES! It may not be the greatest video but it's still the Beatles and they are singing the Birthday song.


Waah, waah, waah.

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There's No One Like You

OMG! Whatever happened to having a sense of humor? I've been reading (and starring) Stuff White People Like almost since it began. What a hoot! When he did the top 10 ten rap songs and I realized that I have a couple of them on my iPod, but Going Back to Cali by LL Cool J (this video is hysterical and helps to prove the point) didn't make the list I was so heartbroken I almost choked on my tea. I think I'm white but somebody forgot to inform the genes that determine how much melanin I display. As usual the commenters at ABC have gone off the deep end, proving that they come from the shallow end of the gene pool. Oops, Gato Barbieri just finished and the Scorpions are up, my German blood shows up occasionally.

Armchair warriors, indeed. On to the next milestone that people will ignore. The only thing that Cheney regrets is not being able to drop a nuclear bomb. He probably gets a stiffy just thinking about it. Noble, necessary and just. That would be my description of the war crimes that Bush and Cheney should both be charged with, not a description of an illegal and immoral war perpetrated on people who had done nothing and were capable (at the time) of doing nothing to us.

How can he go back to something he can't do in the first place?

I'm running the new Firefox Beta and while I like some aspects of it, I miss some of my extensions. Specifically Tab Mix Plus (just found a build that works), Colorful Tabs (now that one is working) and Forecastfox. There are a couple more that I wish were working, but I'll just have to wait.

Don't drink the water. Or bathe in it, brush your teeth or cook with it. No wonder people think that bottled water is better. If you live in Alamosa, CO, it is. Makes you wonder how many other city's community water systems are in trouble. Other than all the drugs and hormones that they admitted to a few weeks ago.

Selfish and stupid. Deliberately bringing a child into the world when one knows it will die shortly after it's born, usually painfully and completely unaware, is cruel. No matter what your religious beliefs, you are not putting the child's welfare ahead of your own personal interests. Purposefully having a child whose mental impairment means that someone will have to care for it for the rest of its life, is cruel. With the technologies of today, that child could outlive the parents by many years and then who is going to love them? Who is going to fight for the benefits that they will need? Because with the growing lack of compassion people have for those less fortunate, they will have a miserable and lonely life after the parents are gone. What kind of parenting is that? Maybe because I'm watching my mom lose her mind and realize that if it happens to me there will be nobody to make sure that I'm not living on the street that allows me to take the "cold" view.

I'm more than a little tired of the sexism/racism question in the race for president. For me it's empty suit against another dynasty. I can't and probably won't vote for Obama. I live in California so my vote really doesn't count. Otherwise John Edwards would be my candidate but the media made sure that wasn't an option for me.

Oh boy, another day, another stolen laptop with unencrypted patient data. No wonder people aren't as worried about their phones being tapped and their internet habits being tracked as they should be. With all the data that has been lost over the last five years it's no surprise that the average person doesn't care.

You don't say. Wow, a newspaper that states the obvious like it was a new phenomenon. Of course health costs are cutting into wages, Bush's plans have done so much to help the economy. Of his friends and cronies. Walgreen showed a profit for its second quarter, what a surprise. Not.

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Random Thoughts

Back in 1974 I learned to repair the guidance control systems on four (Lance, TOW, Dragon and Shillelagh) different missiles while I was stationed at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, AL. I liked the city, it was friendly and comfortable to an 18 year old out on her own for the first time. I saw Elvis, the Guess Who, and Alice Cooper at the newly built Von Braun Civic Center. I don't remember the comedian but I do remember the joke. "The Von Braun Civic Center; seating for 50,000, parking for 200." Parking was miles away. Those were good times.

One of the main reasons I prefer being single is because I am incapable of submitting to a man's will, just because he is a man. I am not a servant and never will be. Mike Huckabee is a shining example of everything that I find wrong with marriage and he isn't going to be able to hide the fact that he thinks women are supposed to be maids, cooks, breeders and whatever else his little heart desires.

The RIAA can kiss my backside. I've paid for every song I own, which is one of the reasons I now buy from iTunes instead of cds. Why should I pay for songs I don't want? I've transferred all my cds to the computer and play them in a format that is convenient to me, my iPod. It's small enough to carry anywhere which is more than I can say for a cd. If they are determined to maintain that it is illegal to transfer a song from a cd that I paid for to the computer that I paid for, then I just won't buy any more cds, not even used ones. Ever. And neither will anyone else.

Food labels have undergone several changes in the last twenty years, not all of them good. You used to be able to see the complete nutritional content but then they eliminated all but a few vitamins and minerals (A, C, Calcium and Iron). Well, they are going to revamp them again and supposedly they will let you know which foods are healthy and which aren't by using a 1 to 100 scale. I like the simple method. Cook from scratch but not everybody has the time or the inclination to do that.

Talking out both sides of their orifice award goes to the NY Times. If things are so bad, why did they hire William Kristol? He's been the chief cheerleader in the Iraq debacle and is willing to extend that mistake to Iran. Sheesh, the hypocrisy is mind numbing.

Spying, Lying And Trying

Color me not surprised. Welcome to the new world order. Just like the one Reagan supposedly got rid of in that other country that is also becoming more repressive. Who would have thought that what looked like progress on the civil rights front, that we would find new ways to return to the days of suspicion and control?

Fry's was a madhouse at 5 am, parking was a nightmare and had to be done a few blocks away. The trash these people left behind and the complete lack of manners was eye opening. Sure enough, the Mac ad was incorrect. There was no 20 inch iMac with a 2.4 GHz processor for $794, they had the Mac Mini for $594 instead. So, I bought the MX Revolution laser mouse and left. If they had had the Bluetooth iPod adapter, I would have bought the MotoRokr S9 headphones. Four hundred dollars in savings on a Mac was worth it for me to get up at five, otherwise I have the same opinion that Konagod does. A warm and toasty bed was a much better idea, but I was already up. But I won't be doing that again.

The Goldilocks method of pain control. A little doesn't work, too much increases pain and moderate amounts work quite well. Moderation, the key to a happy life.

Have you seen the list of the top fictional weapons of all time? The light saber isn't number one, but if you are a geek you will think that number one rocks. Let's shed a little light on the matter.

Racism In The News

First, a smiley. WaterTiger strikes again. I laughed. I also watched it for a minute or two. It may have been repetitive, but in extremely satisfying and entertaining way. If only it could really happen.

Dipshit O'Reilly was surprised to find that black people have manners and know how to behave in public. Now that is true racism. What a stupid git. As has been noted by many people before me, Falafel boy needs a strong dose of STFU. I can't even try to be nice on this one. FOAD.

It's so sad that outright racism is becoming more prevalent, we should have moved past that by now. A suspected neo-Nazi site has published the names and addresses of the Jena 6 and warned them to expect "justice". It's amazing to me that some people still have these strange beliefs. I may be black, but the only way I can carry a tune is if I'm holding my iPod. I can't dance and I don't have the vaguest idea of what f'shizzle means, nor do I want to.

The puppet masquerading as president keeps trying to blame Democrats for the children's health care fiasco when he is the one who's at fault. He seems to think that threatening a veto and inflammatory declarations of partisan politics will help him get his way in screwing over the children of the United States. Again. Right now some of the Republicans are openly disagreeing with Bush and threatening to override his promised veto. Or as Senator Hatch put it so eloquently, "you bet your sweet bippy". Because this is about children they might actually stick to it, but the last few years of standing up and then capitulating at the last moment have left me a little hesitant to believe the hype. Am I being too cynical? Or just realistic?

Well of course the Bush administration is going to deny chemotherapy treatment to illegal immigrants. What else can you expect from a man who believes in the death penalty? You have to follow his reasoning. They've done all the work they can, now that they're sick they are just a drain on the system and the sooner they die, the sooner they can be replaced by another healthy slave immigrant.

Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?

Return Of Normal

The annual Summer lull seems to be over and violence is returning to Iraq. Not that it really ever left. Coordinated attacks on Shiite villages by groups of Sunni backed al-Qaeda outside Baghdad and a booby trapped bicycle inside. I thought it was Afghanistan that was going to be bombed back to the Stone Age.

A different version of the same story shows up in the Washington Post but the slant is little differently focused. Security contractors are involved in another incident involving the deaths of civilians, but since they haven't had to face charges or investigations before, it will probably be replaced by bad news from somewhere else. Like the deepening political crisis and the inability to maintain a majority. The Return on Success. How can you get a return on something you never had? That's like fraud, isn't it?

Blogger Play is addicting and much more interesting than Flickr. You can sit and watch the images that people are posting to their blogs in what seems to be pretty close to real time. Utterly fascinating. Cats, kids, food, people protesting Bush, more cats and kids, anime, art, nature, kids, and world events. When you first visit the site, there is a disclaimer about how they've done their best to keep it rated PG. So one of the first images was a beautifully done charcoal drawing of a mature nude, sure to set someone off if they were watching and had that type of mindset. The ability to find more detail about the image is available by clicking on it and visiting the home blog. Best viewed in Firefox or Safari. There are some interesting blogs out there.

What do a particle physics, a mini-biography of James Cook, searching for wimps, mining tunnels beneath the sea, childhood memories, and the tallest cliff in England have in common? This wandering article from Peter Hinchey at OhMYNews.

Major flashback. Marching in the streets, protesting the war, war supporters accusing demonstrators of being Commies and defending their belief that American soldiers deserve to die a long way from home and fighting an enemy that hasn't attacked us. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Now, if only the music would get better.

I touched it and it was pretty cool. Fortunately they were out of stock or I would have spent money that could be put to good use. Like paying my bills or preventive maintenance on my car.

Sex, Clothing And Too Much Money

Wow! Burqas for everyone. Female, that is. Two articles got me going this morning. The first was about the girl who was asked to leave the Southwest flight to Tucson because some male flight attendant didn't like the way she was dressed. He felt it was too revealing and did everything in his power (falling into the give a man a uniform and he lets it go to his head category, thank goodness he doesn't have a gun to go with it) to embarrass and humiliate the girl. The people that read ABC online are puritanical to the extreme. I used to wear hot pants when I was younger and they were pretty short, nobody complained because we were all doing it. Nowadays I personally find the midriff baring outfits to be a little more than I like, but it isn't up to me.

Mom and I were walking in downtown San Jose the other night and this girl and her parents came walking by. Her skirt was so low on her hips that it was obvious she had trimmed the upper pubes so they wouldn't show. Her dad looked mortified and mom made a comment after we went past. She thought it was a little too revealing, as did I. But it isn't my place to tell people how to dress, I can always avert my eyes. Not so the commenters at ABC. 929 comments, all of them judgmental.

The second article brought out even more rigid opinions. If you don't like what's on television, don't watch it. But whatever you do, stop trying to regulate other peoples behaviors, likes and dislikes. According to one commenter, 150 million people in America go to church on Sunday. Really? They don't act like it, no turning the other cheek here.

Glamping. Another way of saying that people have too much money. Way too much money.

Playing in the background while reading the articles. I do believe the old iPod has a sense of humor.

You Don't Have To Say You Love Me by Dusty Springfield
We Used To Be Friends by the Dandy Warhols
Go All The Way by The Raspberries
Love Is Like Oxygen by Sweet
Lunatic Fringe by Red Rider
Cuts Like A Knife by Bryan Adams
Psychobabble by The Alan Parsons Project
One Night In Bangkok by Murray Head
SuperFreak by Rick James
Crazy by Gnarls Barkley

As I was adding the labels, one last jab from the iPod and it definitely made me laugh. Honestly, the thing is on shuffle. It really is.

Putting On The Ritz by Taco.

The New iPods Are Here

Gizmodo rocks!

What in the heck will I do with 160GB of memory on an iPod Classic? My first computer (IBM Aptiva 75) was only 5 GB for the whole system and most of that was occupied with Windows 95. I can't even fill up an 8GB Nano yet. Unless I download videos.

Now the iPod Touch is what I want. The same screen as the iPhone but not enough memory to make me feel that I should put just anything on it. Plus it's WiFi enabled and can access the Music Store. Web surfing with Safari. Gotta have it.


All photos are from Gizomodo.

So much for the iPod killers. NBC must be feeling pretty dumb right about now. I never buy anything from Amazon but I do from iTunes. iTunes was there for me when Comcast was trying to blackmail me into paying more for the SciFi channel. Now I have DiSH, but if there are any scheduling conflicts, I'll just find another option. There are always options and NBC tends to forget that.

The Starbucks integration doesn't do much for me since I don't drink coffee, or anything else, from Fourbucks. I wonder how close you have to be for it to work. Oh well, I'll survive.

Yippee! Now all I have to do is save up all my pennies.

If I Had A Rocket Launcher

Question of the day and quote of the week comes from Newsweek regarding the hunt for Osama, The Forgotten. Even though he has caused so much misery in his way too long time on this planet, he just hasn't been caught.

With all its spy satellites and aerial drones, killer commandos and millions in reward money, why can't the world's greatest superpower find a middle-aged, possibly ill, religious fanatic with a medieval mind-set?

Umm, this is just a guess but could it be because the crew without a clue had a different agenda, Osama had served his purpose and the debacle of Iraq was on its way to parturition? Or how about it was handled with all the grace, finesse and attention to detail that was accorded all of the other important projects that the crew without a clues has managed to screw up? There are more species closer to extinction than Osama will ever be.

The new glasses finally arrived and the world is a bit more in focus. For as expensive as they were, they should do more than that. Buying glasses is not as easy as it looks, but I paid attention and my next pair will be bought online. I need a pair of computer glasses and since I don't need to wear them in public, I can the buy cheapest frames with no frills for less than a hundred dollars at any one of the stores that were reviewed here. Not that this is a good thing, but it does make it much easier to read. Some of the websites have a light color print on a white background and focusing was hard because they blurred easily.

Speaking of hundreds of dollars, the $100 bill is getting a new look next year. Ben Franklin will move from side to side or up and down depending on how you view the bill. I don't mean to offend anyone but it sounds like it is guaranteed to keep stoners and autistics fascinated for hours.

The iPod greeted me first thing this morning with its quirky shuffle of Here I Go Again by Whitesanke, followed by The Look Of Love by Dusty Springfield, Holding On To Yesterday by Ambrosia, Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash and Turn Of A Friendly Card by The Alana Parsons Project. Nostalgia seems to be the theme. The rating system fascinates me. Since I bought these tunes individually, wouldn't they all be high rated? What is the purpose of having a category that indicates you don't like the song? Do people really buy songs they don't like? Why? I can understand if you just added albums indiscriminately but then you can uncheck the songs you don't like and the next time you sync, poof!

Which is what I want to happen to Osama bin Laden.

Tnanks to Bruce Cockburn for the title. And the sentiment.

Crossposted at the 3Bs.

Foreclosures, Food And Health

Home foreclosures are up and almost 180,000 families are looking at serious credit ramifications as well as trying to find a new home. 93% over this time period last year, with Nevada, Georgia and Michigan leading the pack statistically but California has the most overall. Almost 165,000 suffered the same fate in June.

Food is the anchor point of my day. I can be eating breakfast and about three bites in, I'm thinking about what to cook for dinner. I like to pick my vegetable individually, that way I can control the quality as well as the amount. I prefer a butcher to prepackaged meats for the same reason and I'm willing to pay for it so food is a big part of my budget. I enjoy going out but I really enjoy cooking my own food and have been enjoying the green beans, tomatoes, herbs and serrano chiles from my garden. Cooking is relaxing for me and I can and do cook for one as well as cook for more. I enjoy every aspect of cooking, from planning to chopping to consuming. I don't usually consume more than a few bites, the pleasure for me is the experience. And the absolute utter control I have over the whole process doesn't hurt either.

Mom is becoming frailer and less sure of herself by the day. It is hard to watch the woman who never let anything stop her, be so tentative at everything. From walking to making any kind of decision by herself she is more like a toddler than an adult, frightened by the unusual and forgetful of the rules. The concept of gravity has always baffled her and lately it's worse. Seven years ago I changed my plans from opening a practice in Palm Springs to being stuck in the ugly that is knows as San Jose, because her neighbors were worried that she wasn't eating. Sometimes for days at a time even though she worked and was around people all the time. If I had known then what is suspected now, maybe I could have made more of a change to her diet in order to stave off the mental decline.

Another reason to have an iPhone. When I go grocery shopping I always have my iPod, phone, ATM card shopping list. I could be down to just the iPhone and the ATM card and next year it would probably be just the iPhone. Technology can be a wonderful thing. Sometimes.

Manhattans Took Me By Storm

Won't be doing that again and for future reference, three is my limit. Hanging with the King (of Zembla, who is suffering from a touch of blogger malaise which hopefully won't turn into Ted Barlow disease), Tom and Generik can be intoxicating. In more ways than one. Catherine from the Poverty Barn is a very gracious and entertaining woman. The guys from Needlenose were there as well as other assorted BARBARians. I believe a fun time was had by all. I hope to attend the next one, but it will be just water for the hour before I leave.

This morning was the annual Kfog local music soirée in San Jose. What a blast. Mom and I went again but this time Gordon Biersch was prepared with food and drink. I scored a gift card for 50 songs and just got done downloading 30 of them. Plus I got the new music sampler that has music from Norah Jones, Amos Lee and others, along with the fourth Local Scene CD which has some really good stuff. My iPod is going to be so happy.

The only thing I can say about the bridge tragedy, is that it was just that. I do not like bridges and schedule my trips to either avoid them or to cross them at a time that won't require that I sit on the bridge because I was stuck in traffic. For many years our infrastructure has been deteriorating but nobody wants to pay to fix it, maybe some minds will be changed. It shouldn't require someone's death to make us contribute more to society but that seems to be what we are comfortable with, which is short-sighted, stupid and shameful.