Calvin & Hobbes Thought For the Day February 27, 2007
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For Christmas the Parental Units bought me one of the several Calvin & Hobbes comic collection books. They bought this particular one because the Maternal Unit misunderstood a casual reference I made sometime ago about wanting the Complete Collection. Oh, well – I’ll get it and The Farside someday.
I’m enjoying it slowly. I read one the other day that made me LOL.
Calvin & Hobbes are lying around outside somwhere. Hobbes asks, “Do you believe in God?” Calvin ponders. “Well somebody’s out to get me,” he responds.
Zapped! February 26, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Science & Technology.comments closed
I wish it was just a lame Scott Baio movie. Unfortunately, it’s also the state of my home computer. Me+static electricity(Pow!) = Fried Laptop. It’s not going to recover by itself this time either. All I can get now is a black screen with a blinking cursor. Crap.
Anybody out there have any idea of what’s likely to be damaged? Did I kill the CPU or the motherboard or both? Can it be fixed, and how much $$ if it can?
*****UPDATE*****
I hit the power button when I came home just on the off chance and a few minutes later…
BEEP! BEEP!
I was in another room. I dared to hope. I came back to the computer – text on a black screen! An error message about boot problems. Yah, no shit: a big chunk of the weekend with of periodic start ups and shut downs with nothing but a black screen and a little blinking line. Hit F-something or another to quit and F-something else to resume. Resume!
It took an hour to boot up – but it was useless when it did. I powered it down and up and now, once again, it acts like nothing had happened. The Lifebook is: Hard To Kill.
Obviously, I’ve been waaaayyyy misunderestimating this thing. I’ll see it in the grave with a stake through its CPU before I’ll announce it’s death again, that’s for sure.
Todaze Work Blahg February 23, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Science & Technology.comments closed
Mr. Weasel asks us what we did at work today. He gets to do fun stuff in Milkworld. For the entirety of today, and most of this week I was gridlocked in Excel-land, looking at stuff like this:
While looking at this, I get to decide what numbers get to be bolded and which ones do not. Red numbers are often bolded. Sometimes pink ones get bolded too. Black ones rarely do, unless they are doing something clever near red or pink ones. You didn’t know looking at numbers could be so RACIST did you? You probably thought that we lived in a country where numbers were judged by the content of their character, and not by the color of their font, didn’t you? You would be wrong if you did.
Anyway, the spreadsheets I look at have some 30 columns and about 76 rows, and each one is on it’s own tab. I have about 280 Excel tabs of this stuff to look through. It’s about a half-million cells I have to look at. At least twice.
Coins Updated February 22, 2007
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My Paternal Units managed to secure me a roll of the new dollar coins at a bank today. A roll is 25 new coins. They are going to issue four new coins a year until 2016 ending with Nixon. Except by then Ford, Reagan and (likely) Carter will be eligible so another 2017 edition likely.
Okee doke. I’m dedicated to picking up an uncirculated roll of every one of these issues, from both the Denver and Philadelphia mints for $400 a year. Here’s an interesting fact – the mint mark and the traditional Latin unity slogan is inscribed on the edge of the coin this time around.
WordPress is FUBAR Right Now February 21, 2007
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No posting
Ghost Rider February 19, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Art, Home, Science Fiction & Fantasy.comments closed
I like to get to the theater early so there’s no rush to get the tickets and popcorn and whatnot and then climbing over people to get to the seats. I also really enjoy the previews of the other movies. So, before I start my brief review of Ghost Rider I’ll review the previews :-D.
First up – 300. I’m sure you’ve all seen the one released on the intertubes a while back. This was the first time I’ve seen it in the theater. WOW. That looks Mighty Impressive. It’s gonna have one hell of a body count. I saw mounds of dead people in some shots. Big ones. It comes out soon too – March 9th. Definitely a must see.
Next one started off with a bunch of aerial shots of the Fabulous Las Vegas Strip at night! The party never stops in Las Vegas! Then, the scene turned. Whoops! This movie is set in a post-Apocolyptic Las Vegas! Oh, cool! Milla Jojovich is back for more general kickassery in Resident Evil 3: Extinction. Yes, yes – I know. You thought the first two sucked and you can’t believe they’ve made another. Well, they did. Deal with it. It comes out sometime this fall.
Lastly, Spiderman 3. As we’ve seen from some of the promo pictures out there we know that Spidey gets to tangle with Venom in this round, as well as the Hobgoblin again, and some other sand-dude. Not sure what his deal is, but we’ll find out. Anyway, it looks like it could be the best one of them all. It’s in the summer line-up of course.
Okay, now Ghost Rider. Three word review: It’s a Hoot! I really enjoyed it. Lots of cool special effects, an interesting plot, and a satisfyingly crunchy ending. I liked the characters and Nicholas Cage was good as Johnny Blaze. It was a little slow-paced at the beginning, but the rest of the movie more than made up for it. There ya go. I don’t like to write up lengthy reviews that reveal most of the movie. I don’t like to read or watch them before I go see something either.
Ghost Rider is also one of those movies that most everyone else who goes to see films will hate. If either of them go see it, misters Ace O’Spades and Dave at Garfield Ridge will undoubtably trash it from one end to the other.
Happy Birthday George Washington! February 19, 2007
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Yah yah, I know it’s actually “President’s Day” but I’m old enough to remember when Washington and Lincoln each had their own birthday celebrated. It’s closer to George’s real birthday than Lincoln’s so there. Anyway, I have the day off so I slept in until 8:30 and I’m gonna go see Ghost Rider. I’m sure it’s going to be one of those that I will enjoy very much but everyone else will pan.
Movie review later!
New Coins! February 15, 2007
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As you’ve already heard the U.S. Mint is putting out a new line of dollar coins. I love coins. I love the word “coin”. I started collecting coins when I was a kid when one of my Christmas presents was a coin book, coin collector’s album, coin tubes and a U.S. Mint proof set of the coins in circulation in the year of my birth. The albums were for the Lincoln penny and they started issuing those in the year 1909. Heck, even a kid can start collecting pennies! One of my most prized coins is my 1909 V.D.B. (no, it’s not the very rare 1909 S V.D.B, but still).
I’ve been collecting the new state quarters of course. I have three sets started. I’ve had some difficulty in finding some of the early ones made over at the Philadelphia mint, and I kick myself whenever I remember I didn’t hang on to some of the early atheist coins (the motto “In God We Trust” was left off the first issues). Aside from that it’s been fun. I always glance at my change looking for new quarters and periodically I get surprised with a new design. Yeah, I could find out the issue schedule and designs online before-hand, but I like finding them when most everyone else does.
Anyway, they’re going with images of the past POTUSians (I want to write that as POTI) on the obverse in order of the occupants. This weekend I’m gonna run down to the bank and get maybe $30 worth. As the article I linked to notes, these new ones probably aren’t going to be circulated any better than the Susan B. Anthony or Sacajawea coins before them. It’s the dollar bill that prevents this of course. It would make sense to phase out the paper stuff for the coins. The coins wear better and they’re far more cost-effective for the U.S. government (and U.S. taxpayer) to issue than the paper ones. Still, we’re reluctant to give up one of the most iconic images in the entire world for some marginal cost efficiency trade-off. Will the day ever come when our nation stops printing the “Greenback”? Heh, not if the Illuminati have their way.
Oh, one of the things they could try is to make really beautiful coins again.
First Class! February 13, 2007
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My Parental Units currently live in Virginia but they are selling their house and moving back to the Las Vegas area this Spring. They asked me to help them drive back the two vehicles loaded with the stuff they want to handle personally. I agreed of course, but I didn’t know until tonight that they paid for a First Class ticket to fly me out there! My protests were shoved aside – First Class. I get to find out what it’s like on the OTHER side of the curtain next month. I look forward to a very pleasant plane ride. 🙂
The two vehicles we’re driving back are a Chevy Silvarado pickup truck and a Cadillac sedan. The plan is to take about a week to travel across the country. We’re not looking to set any land speed or endurance tests here and we’ll go by the southern route to avoid any Global Warming influenced nasty late winter things that might arise on the middle-to-north routes. I’m a bit disappointed at this since this is likely the last “Road Trip” I’m going to take with my parents and we have never took the northern cross-country routes. No, instead we will take the very familiar and safe southern route across. Oh well – I expect that it will still be fun.
Aliive? It’s ALIVE! IT’S ALLIIIIIIVVVVE!!! February 12, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Science & Technology, Strange & Unusual.comments closed
Apparently it didn’t want to go away with the cart! Just on an “Ah, what the hell” feeling I went ahead and hit the power button on my home computer tonight after work. HOLY CRAP! It fired right up! Back from the dead like nothing had happened. Heh, it really is a “Lifebook” :-)!
The Center of the Anomaly 
