July 2005 Archives

The MO got to play a new game yesterday (I wasn't invited, harrumph) and it looks like a good mind-twister: Robo Rally. At the Avalon Hill link is a tutorial that explains the moves and then an online practice-type mini-game. I'm going to blame it on being late, but I got stuck on level 4. Not feeling too bright right now, but looking forward to playing this in real life....

Forbes: Million-Euro Bugatti

Among the many options a Veyron buyer can order, are two one-carat diamonds, cut with 16 sunray facets (16 being the number of cylinders the engine features). The two diamonds reside, respectively, on the speedometer needle, and at the center of something Bugatti calls the "powermeter."

At an average of less than 10,000 miles per year, seeing a bunch of zeroes on the odometer is kind of exciting. Happy Birthday, BabyCar!

In an email exchange today, I was whinging about an upcoming business trip

Where the &*#&$ is Minnesota? Is that even in the US? Jeez. They probably speak Canadian there.

Minnesota is in between Alaska and Greenland. You have a good shot at seeing a penguin.

In one of those serendipitous moments where typos seem very appropriate, I just pasted the text "I am not yet confident of success" into an error message assignment in my code. Turns out I hadn't yet copied the real error message and I had a leftover passage from an email in my cut-and-paste buffer.

Well, I thought it was funny....

Give up, TxB. Just give up now. Buy the Xbox, buy the game. Become addicted.

The Policeman's Blog: American Rifleman Arrives!
("The land of the free-and-heavily-armed" indeed. Why, yes, I like that appellation....)

Central Market has had roses on sale for the last couple of weeks--two dozen for $9.99. How am I supposed to resist that? Roses don't last as long as some other kinds of flowers, but they are soooo pretty. The ones we bought last weekend were hot pink and yellow, and mostly gone by this weekend, but there was one flower that opened up just perfectly. It was pointing straight up, so its petals opened out around it without the whole thing flopping down off the top of the stem. I was able to keep a couple of these to mix in with the new batch so we have even more roses around the house this week. I love it....

Stuff on my Cat: Stuff on my Cat
(don't argue, just go look)

flickr: davelorenzini's photos / Tags / italy
(gorgeous!)

Melvin is pretty sure she hasn't done anything wrong lately....

Last night we went on a little dinner adventure with Andy and Louise. We tried the seafood restaurant down by the San Jacinto Monument. Turns out it's a very popular place and deservedly so. We waited about 30 minutes to get a window table (worth it!) and then gorged on delicious marine critters of every variety.

The restaurant is right next to the Lynchburg Ferry, which runs the cutest little bitty ferry boats I've ever seen.

There was a lot of water traffic in the early evening, with the ferries crossing back and forth over the wakes of huge tankers, and tugs herding along their strings of barges.

Afterwards we took them to The Point for beers and more boat-watching, but we gave up after a single beer because the mosquitoes were unbearable. On our last visit there we learned to bring cash, and now next time we'll know to bring bug spray. We'll eventually get the hang of the place....

Burning Bird: Feed the Feeds

Of course, this is my space. I should be able to do what I want with it. In theory. But lets examine philosophy of weblog ownership outside of theory, shall we?
...
Webloggers write short posts. A good weblogger is a short post weblogger. War and Peace: there was a city, there was a war, there was Napoleon, he didnt blog.
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Webloggers provide permalinks. Webloggers provide cruft-free permalinks. Webloggers provide cruft-free permalinks that they promise to never EVER break. We can die. Our permalinks cant.

When your man says he has a present for you, for no reason whatsoever, that's a good sign. When said present is a smallish light box, even better. And when said box contains an extra magazine for Flora, your Browning Buckmark .22 pistol, you know he really loves you.

We had a beautiful sky this evening. The blue was lighter and brighter, and the clouds more peachy, but you get the idea. It was enough to make people stop and stare.

Statistically, crime in our area (older neighborhoods close to downtown) increases during the summer. I don't know why this is, but it does seem to be true. Last week someone tagged a neighbor's car with a delightful stencil depicting a murder, and last night, someone looted our cars. My only satisfaction is that I know they didn't get much, because there is never anything of value in my car--my tire pressure gauge and winter gloves were still there (yes, I actually keep gloves in the glovebox)--but they did take the MO's cd case. Other than that there was nothing of interest in his car either. I guess the golf clubs were too heavy. But that's not really the point. Some creep thoroughly ransacked both our vehicles while we were sound asleep. That is creepy. The MO wasn't even supposed to be home last night. He was supposed to be on a business trip, but the weather is such mess that he never got out of the airport, despite spending over eight hours there yesterday evening. So it could have happened while I was home alone, which is even creepier. Someone tell me again why mantraps are illegal?

Update: I went to the storefront after work to report the night's incident. It's basically a closet with a counter. There was one policeman standing at the counter working on a laptop. He was nice, and memorable mainly for his incredibly deep voice, but ultimately not too helpful.

He: "How can I help you, ma'am?"
Me: "Our cars were burgled last night and I just wanted to report it."
He (sighs): "Well, I'm already working on four reports and I'm way behind. It would be three or four hours before I could get to you."
Me (noticing there is not even a chair in this room): "Oh. Well, is there a form I can take home to fill out and then bring it back tomorrow?"
He: "No. I have to do it."
Me: "Oh. When would be a good time to come back?"
He (surprised): "Uh, you want to come back? Like tonight or something?"
Me: "I don't know, when is a good non-busy time? In the morning, maybe?"
He: "No. You could come back tomorrow around 3:00."
Me: "Okay, you're usually not too busy then?"
He: "No, but I'll be here then and I can do your paperwork."

So what's magic about tomorrow at 3:00? The place opens at 6 am, you'd think maybe they wouldn't be too busy then (not that I'm going to get up that early, but hey). I don't get it, but I guess I'll try again after work tomorrow. He was definitely surprised that I said I'd come back. What gives, do people usually not report these things?

Update 2: I went back after work again today (Tuesday) and the same guy was there. He really was surprised that I came back. Anyhow, he took down all the information and gave me a little receipt with a case number, so I guess we're now officially a statistic in the "Burglary of a Motor Vehicle" column. He seemed kind of sad about the whole thing, and as I left, he said, "You all look out for each other, okay?" I assured him that we would.

hasn't been "little" for a while now, but just look at this! And he's only thirteen....

I noticed this lily yesterday morning on my way out the door. My camera lens fogged up a bit but the haze almost looks intentional.... I have no idea what kind of flower this. It only lasted a single day and I haven't seen any more of them.

What's the Rumpus: Because I could really go for one right now...
(Exactly!)

• I bought my iPod Shuffle a while ago and along with it a cassette-converter-thingy so that I can play it through the speakers in my car. This is neat because my CD player has been dead for years and my radio only gets double-digit stations (the three-digit ones squeal). Usually the double-digit thing is not really a problem, but sometimes there is nothing but talk and I want music on my commute, darn it. So, Shuffle to the rescue. And it has been great, but lately my tape deck has been having fits, too. It just up and decides to eject the cassette. Every five minutes or so. And usually it won't accept the cassette back for several minutes. So now my commute is more like push-push-push-push for several minutes til the cassette goes in, sing along for about a song-and-a-half, push-push-push-push, lather rinse & repeat. Since I only drive 11 miles to get to work, I don't get to do much singing along these days.
• The USPS has stepped up their misdelivery routine. They sent one of my postcards back to me, gave me a letter with the same house number but wrong street name (this happens a lot, but it's usually just a block or two off--this one was much farther afield), and one with not only a wrong street but a wrong city. Right state, though, so I guess that's close enough. Texas isn't that big. I'm thinking it would be nice to have a stamp of a confused postman looking at a letter and scratching his head. I could decorate the envelope with that, add the standard "misdelivered" and pop it back in the box. Wouldn't solve the problem but it might make me feel better.
• Not all Canon 4x6 photo paper is created the same. I printed two postcards last night, and I noticed that the text on the back looked pretty wet. I figured it was just because it's very humid these days, and thought they'd be okay by morning. Nope. I could just wipe the ink right off the back. Looking closer, I realized that the backs of these two are very smooth, whereas the others that I've printed have had a slightly bumpy texture, like matte photo paper. The pieces of paper are from the same bag, so I guess I'll just have to look at each piece before I use it. I hope the smooth ones are the exception rather than the rule. Update: Hair spray, a popular fixative in the rubber-stamp world, does not help.

This is some kind of orchid or cactus-y type thing that Mom & Dad bought for the MO when they were here in May. It has been growing this tall thin stalk since then and now that stalk is so heavy with flowers that it has flopped over.

The MO's green thumb strikes again!

Make: Secure Data Storage... On Your Fingernails
("Damn, I broke a nail!" could take on a whole new level of importance.)

I finally got tired of my old Epson inkjet sucking ink like it was going out of style (I mean, really, over $60 to refuel a $90 printer?) and convinced the MO to help me take advantage of a good deal on Amazon AND a rebate from the manufacturer on a new Canon Pixma (he got an Elph). (Which reminds me, I need to send in the paperwork for the rebate....) Anyhow, now I have a spiffy new sub-$100 printer that is purported to be ink-onomical (I crack myself up) and prints well to boot.

My favorite feature is borderless 4x6 printing, for which purpose I bought a big ol' pack of glossy 4x6 photo paper. Even before the printer arrived, I realized that this could be a great excuse for printing postcards--perfect size!--and reinvigorating my snail-mail habit. I had already printed a few photos intended for specific victims recipients, but I hadn't figured out what to do about the text side. I have some old mailing labels with a defunct business address, but that seemed so unelegant. Finally I decided to just run a picture through upside-down and see how it printed on the back. VIOLA! It looks splendiforous.

So now I can shop my photo for the front and then layout the text on the back and print both sides. You would think that someone who doodles as incessantly as I do would prefer to handwrite a postcard, but there's something about being able to play with fonts and colors that makes me want to print. Anyhow, three postcards are starting their journeys tomorrow. I may just pick names at random from my address book. If you want to be bumped to the top of the list, let me know ;-)

I've finally started putting my old galleries out on flickr. I decided on a badge style to use on .Nest (amazing how long that took--sheesh) and I have three of them up so far (Spain, the wedding book, and top local chef).

It has been a very sloooow weekend here. It is just so miserably hot. The a/c is on 24/7 and just can't keep up. I keep telling myself by next summer we'll have insulation and I won't have to go through this again.

Update
Hey! Cool! I have a comment on a photo at flickr! Gee, I feel famous or something :-)

This week a small tribute to Edloe: Melvin and Lorax try to capsize. You would think Melvin would be better at it 'cause she is fatter, and she rolls over onto her back a lot, but she is too easily distracted to stay that way for long. Lorax is much more relaxed, although not quite in full capsization mode here.

The Carnival this week is at Watermark.