Musings, Commentaries, Photos and Reviews

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown got an earful from the Brazilian President about the current financial crisis. "This was a crisis that was fostered and boosted by the irrational behavior of people who were white and blue-eyed, who before the crisis they looked like they knew everything about economics, but now have demonstrated they know nothing about economics," -- President Lula da Silva of Brazil I want to assure everyone that I had absolutely nothing to do with this crisis. I know nothing about economics except that my k401 is greatly diminished. My eyes have invoked comments before. In China a few children would call me Gweilo and seemed genuinely afraid of me. My eye color is listed as blue on my driver license, but over time I think it is changing to more of a grey to match my financial mood. It’s hard for me to judge because I’m on the inside looking out. You decide: Lula, This is all genetically determined Thanks Maureen for writing an Op-Ed abo...

What are the rules for a mailbox? The regulation height is 42" from the bottom of the mailbox to the ground. Your house number should be clearly marked on the mailbox with painted numbers or stickers no less than 1" high. The box should be on the right-hand side of the road as traveled by the mail carrier. It should be located approximately 2' from the side of the road to ensure the carrier can get off the road enough to clear traffic. In my town there is another unwritten “suggestion”. That is to make your mailbox vandal-proof. I have had my mailbox smashed numerous times with baseball bats. Once my attention was drawn to a small fire. Somebody had set the newspaper on fire and the plastic newspaper tube was burning in spectacular fashion. For me it was a moment of suspend belief, wondering what why I was seeing this orange glow from the road side. My neighbor has constructed a mailbox that is truly awe-inspiring, only pictures can do ...

In the "old" days when I worked at Digital, we used to use VT100 character cell terminals. I always chose white text on a black background (this was a setting) because I knew that the black parts of the screen meant that the electron gun of the CRT display was turned off, and as a result the only current expended was being used on the white characters. This was partly environmental but mostly because I wanted to avoid seeing the 60 Hz refresh of a totally white background. I'm very sensitive to screen flicker and would set the refresh rate at the highest setting possible. Perhaps this is a symptom of my Asperger's syndrome but that is a topic for another post. My sister informed me of an alternative site to Google that had a black background. The name of the site is Blackle , and if you use a CRT there is a certain amount of truth to the premise that a black background will save energy. Of course most clever people have already embraced the more energy efficient LCD...

'I’m not very good spokesman, but I am happy with my new WebCam. I’m not as excited as that ShamWow guy, but this thing has a Carl Zeiss lens and is MUCH better than the old Intel ones that used to come with Gateway machines. Of course, to be useful, both parties need to have one of these things. It even worked on my Vista machine, truly miraculous.

Stop with these checks already! What do I have to do to convince this company to stop sending me blank checks with MY NAME on them? I’ve canceled my account (after I noted the interest rate would be 29.7%), I’ve informed the 3 credit agencies, dma choice and anything else I could find to stop it. Consider how these BLANK checks are sitting in our mail boxes with our names on them. The envelopes are not inconspicuous with the prominent “Capital One” logo screaming out to thieves “Take me, cash me and stick the bill to the name pre-printed on the check”. Of course the company assures us that we have zero liability if they are stolen or misused. I wondered about that a bit until I came across a small comment on the last page: $0 fraud liability claims are subject to verification and investigation. Isn’t that special? Unwanted checks arrive with MY NAME on them and the crack CSI team at Capital One will investigate if someone steals them. Sure they will! I was going to includ...

I know, you have spent a small fortune on a cat bed from Petco and the cat ignores it. I made a wonderful scratching post that the cats sneer at as they destroy speakers grills and door jams. All you need is an outdated satellite dish and a warm day: Satellite dishes are also great launching pads for helicopter type fireworks. They need a bit of a spin before they become airborne and the slightly concave area manages to both contain and facilitate their successful launch Other uses? I have been thinking of a bird bath, but I need to evaluate whether dish or DirectTV is the better choices.

I’m trying to understand why this young fearless bird is visiting my feeder. It’s behavior is very strange. It sits on the feeder but is not afraid of humans. It looks like a young bird, but I would expect that birds would be raising their young later in the spring. When I say fearless, I mean fearless: