For a variety of reasons I never got around to watching any of the recordings of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report that piled up on my DVR during the week, so much of yesterday and today was devoted to that task.
I still have move stuff to watch, as there’s a free preview weekend of HBO and Cinemax this weekend, so there have been a couple of movies that I’ve recorded or set to record, such as Juno, which I never got around to putting in my Netflix queue before canceling my gift subscription.
I had been informed of the free preview weekend via the Verizon message center dealie on my DVR on Thursday, but had forgotten about it until yesterday when someone from Verizon called to offer me a free month of their movie package and a low(ish) price thereafter. I was tempted, but decided it wasn’t worth it, but it did remind me about the preview.
One thing I’ve noticed about free preview weekends over the years is that while they tend to air some of the bigger, more popular movies during the preview, they also tend to say “Ixnay on the oftsay-orecay ornpay.”
Even Skinemax tends to avoid airing some of its raunchier fare.
That hasn’t been the case this weekend, though, and with the multiple versions of Cinemax, that makes for a lot of soft-core porn. Ah, Herman Beeftink, how I’ve missed the melodious strains of your soft-core soundtracks…
I set a few things to record on the DVR and a few others to record on my computer. However, I found that the copy protection that’s only supposed to prevent me from viewing recorded protected content on other computers and from burning it to DVD/Blu-ray actually prevented me from watching it on the computer at all.
Sort of, anyway. I recorded Juno on the computer, and when I went into Media Center and navigated to the Recorded TV folder and tried to watch it I got a blank screen and some random noise. However, I recorded something else overnight, and this morning when I navigated to the Recorded TV folder in Windows and clicked on the file, it launched Media Center and began playing. Not sure what’s going on there.
(Note: after running into the problem with Juno, I set my DVR to record it when it aired on the West coast Cinemax channel later in the evening.)
Speaking of Windows and not being sure what’s going on, for a while now I’ve noticed something odd and mildly irritating that Windows does at random times.
I have two external hard drives, one is 250 GB, the other 750 GB, and for some reason – again, this happens randomly – when I do certain things, Windows will first poll the 750 GB drive, even though what I’m trying to do has no connection to any files on that drive, before actually performing the action.
For example, I click on the icon for my internal drive, nothing will happen, I’ll hear the 750 GB drive start to spin up, and I know that I won’t actually get an Explorer window until after Windows finishes whatever it’s doing with the external drive.
Or sometimes I’ll be surfing the Web and I’ll click on a link, there’s a pause while Windows polls the external drive, and then, after I hear the sound coming from my external drive that indicates that Windows is finished with whatever it’s doing, the page I was trying to navigate to will finally load.
The weirdest thing is when the drive polling interferes with running a filter in Photoshop. Click on the filter I want to run, wait for the drive to be polled, and then the filter preview window will pop up. Again, there’s no obvious connection between what I’m trying to do and the wackiness that Windows engages in. I’m not working on a file saved on that drive, and I don’t have Photoshop set up to use it as a scratch disk.
If I shut off or disconnect the drive, obviously, this doesn’t happen. But that begs the question of why Windows is doing it at all. After all, with the drive disconnected, the things I’m trying to do still work (and work better, as there’s no delay), so why the polling? It obviously isn’t necessary in any way for the requested action to be performed.
Anyone have any ideas as to what’s going on? As I said, it only happens at random times, and it only seems to happen with the 750 GB drive. Windows totally ignores the 250 GB one in this regard.
My Google-Fu has failed me in my quest to find an answer.
The only thing that I can think if of is that all of my music and most of my videos are stored on that drive and I have Media Center set to “watch” those folders, so maybe the timing is just coincidental. That is to say, it just happens that at that moment some Media Center process makes a scan of the folders to look for changes, and because the drive is so large and has so many files it takes a while, and there’s no connection to what I’m actually trying to do.
I suppose that makes about as much sense as anything.
In any case, I went out this morning to hit the comic shop, as that’s something else I didn’t get around to during the week, and then went grocery shopping.
I should have taken a picture, but I have to say that I was right in my prediction about how panic-stricken Northern Virginians would react to the rain and the possibility of snow/sleet – which never happened, by the way – the other night.
There was this massive gaping hole in the shelves where the bottled water should be, and the supply of milk was scant indeed. I didn’t check on the beer, but I’m sure Scott was right about that. Even the supply of Vitamin Water was almost entirely exhausted.
The funny thing is that if we get some rain, or even a prediction of rain or snow, within the next couple of days, the exact same thing will happen again. I just don’t get that. I mean, did you actually use up all of the “end of the world” supplies that quickly?
Maybe it’s something like, “Hooray! We’ve been spared from nature’s wrath! Let’s celebrate by dumping all this bottled water we bought down the drain!”
I’ve got a special message for all of my fellow Northern Virginians: It’s. Just. Fucking. Rain.
Even if it actually snows, civilization is not going to collapse. Mild wintry weather will not transform the area into some post-apocalyptic Road Warrior-style horrorscape. There will be no cannibals, or rape gangs, or a degeneration of the populace into warring tribes fighting over dog food and toilet paper.
The worst-case scenario is that you don’t go into work for one day.
Anyway, after doing my shopping I came home, watched some TV, ate lunch, took a nap, watched more TV, snacked on some stuff to the extent that I wasn’t hungry enough to make any sort of dinner, and now I’m writing this and thinking that I really should eat something more substantial.
Plus I have more TV to watch, so I guess I’ll bring this entry to a close.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Quick Shots
Pin-Up Queen Bettie Page dead at 85
This made me sad, if for no other reason than that she served as the inspiration for so much beautiful artwork by so many talented artists. One of those talented artists was the late and much-lamented Dave Stevens, whose comic, The Rocketeer, featured a character based on Ms. Page. There's a brief mention of The Rocketeer in the Reuters obituary linked above, but no mention of the fact that Dave Stevens was, in her later life, after her re-emergence from anonymity, her friend and sometime caretaker, and did what he could to help her get her fair share of the money others had made off of her image. Mark Evanier's blog, which is really the place to go for obituaries - among many other things; I realize it seems like a back-handed compliment, but the obits generally are more informative, and often much more personal - has a few interesting anecdotes about Stevens' relationship with the legendary pin-up.
The movie based on her life - The Notorious Bettie Page - was fun and entertaining, and it featured an often-nude Gretchen Mol, in the title role, which is never a bad thing. I remain eternally grateful that the producers passed on Liv Tyler, who was at one time reported to be up for the role.
Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats H0000....ly Shit! WTF????
One of the features of the site Topless Robot is Fan Fiction Friday (FFF), in which TR culls the Web for some of the weirdest and most twisted fan-written fiction that can be found. And trust me, there has been some really weird stuff featured, but I think the latest featured bit of fan work is by far the strangest I've seen, and that's including the Harry Potter/Dragonball Z mpreg slash fiction. I can't even begin to explain it, so I recommend that you see for yourself.
People tell me that there actually is decent, well-written, and non-bug fuck insane fan fiction to be found on the Web, and I'm sure that's true, but even if I were interested in finding it, I don't think my soul could take wading through the rest of it to do so. Just the snippets I read in FFF is doing enough damage to it, thanks.
New Watchmen International Trailer
This seems vaguely spoilery to me, but I'm not sure that it actually is unless you're familiar with the comic, in which case you already know what's going to happen, so...
In any case, it certainly is nice to look at, and, however reluctantly, I find myself getting more and more excited about the movie.
Bonus: Footage shown at the San Diego Comic-Con:
This made me sad, if for no other reason than that she served as the inspiration for so much beautiful artwork by so many talented artists. One of those talented artists was the late and much-lamented Dave Stevens, whose comic, The Rocketeer, featured a character based on Ms. Page. There's a brief mention of The Rocketeer in the Reuters obituary linked above, but no mention of the fact that Dave Stevens was, in her later life, after her re-emergence from anonymity, her friend and sometime caretaker, and did what he could to help her get her fair share of the money others had made off of her image. Mark Evanier's blog, which is really the place to go for obituaries - among many other things; I realize it seems like a back-handed compliment, but the obits generally are more informative, and often much more personal - has a few interesting anecdotes about Stevens' relationship with the legendary pin-up.
The movie based on her life - The Notorious Bettie Page - was fun and entertaining, and it featured an often-nude Gretchen Mol, in the title role, which is never a bad thing. I remain eternally grateful that the producers passed on Liv Tyler, who was at one time reported to be up for the role.
Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats H0000....ly Shit! WTF????
One of the features of the site Topless Robot is Fan Fiction Friday (FFF), in which TR culls the Web for some of the weirdest and most twisted fan-written fiction that can be found. And trust me, there has been some really weird stuff featured, but I think the latest featured bit of fan work is by far the strangest I've seen, and that's including the Harry Potter/Dragonball Z mpreg slash fiction. I can't even begin to explain it, so I recommend that you see for yourself.
People tell me that there actually is decent, well-written, and non-bug fuck insane fan fiction to be found on the Web, and I'm sure that's true, but even if I were interested in finding it, I don't think my soul could take wading through the rest of it to do so. Just the snippets I read in FFF is doing enough damage to it, thanks.
New Watchmen International Trailer
This seems vaguely spoilery to me, but I'm not sure that it actually is unless you're familiar with the comic, in which case you already know what's going to happen, so...
In any case, it certainly is nice to look at, and, however reluctantly, I find myself getting more and more excited about the movie.
Bonus: Footage shown at the San Diego Comic-Con:
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Coast(er) Is Clear
I spent most of yesterday in a face-to-face meeting with one of our vendors, followed by a lengthy lunch with them.
While we were at lunch I was going to send Scott a text message, and while "flicking" my way through my list of contacts I hit the entry for my brother Brad and inadvertently started dialing his cell phone, but I thought - incorrectly, it turns out - that I ended the call before it finished dialing.
Later that evening Brad called me back wondering what was up, and so I had to explain the accidental dialing.
Speaking of brothers, today is my brother Stuart's birthday. I've always thought that it had to suck to have your birthday so close to Chrismas, but I don't really remember him getting short-changed at all, so I guess it couldn't have been too bad.
Last night was Riff Trax night, though one of the movies we watched was just a regular, non-Riffed movie, the original The Day the Earth Stood Still. We're planning to see the remake that's coming out, so we figured we should watch the original. We then watched the Riff Trax version of X-Men, which was funny, but there were some Riffs that, as comic geeks, Scott and I found kind of grating. For example, there was this presumption that because it was a movie based on a "funny book" it couldn't contain references to serious, real-world events. In this case, said event being the Holocaust. Anyone who knows anything about X-Men knows that the history of Magneto, the X-Men's opponent, has long been connected to the Holocaust. It's part of what makes him tick; as a Jew he experienced persecution and the deaths of his loved ones, and as a mutant he fights to prevent something similar from happening to his people. I should think that the Riff Trax guys, of all people, would be nerdy enough to know that.
And as for the argument that something as serious as the Holocaust has no place in comic books, well, tell that to the Pulitzer Prize comittee.
Other than that they were quibbling about stupid shit like the fact that Wolverine isn't literally a wolverine.
Those irritations aside, most of their Riffs were, as usual, pretty damn funny.
We ordered a pizza for dinner. Specifically that "Pan-normous" pizza from Pizza Hut, which is actually two pizzas. I didn't think about that when ordering, so even though I ordered a Pepperoni Lover's on the whole pizza, I failed to specify that I wanted that for both of them, so one was just cheese. Oh well.
Whatever was wrong with me on the day before Thanksgiving is apparently some bug that's going around. My boss was out sick with it yesterday, and several other people (and their families) around the office have been hit with it.
Speaking of my boss, this morning she came by my cube and asked if I'd gotten the invitation to our group's holiday lunch. I said that I hadn't, and she apologized, as she'd assumed that I was on the original distribution, so she saw to it that I got the invite.
The lunch was going to be held at a local restaurant, and there was a "Secret Santa" gift exchange.
And it was today.
I ducked out a little early so that I could pick up some kind of gift ($15 limit) before heading to the restaurant. I stoped at Office Depot and picked up a 2 GB flash drive for $14.99. Technically, with sales tax, I went over the limit.
The way the gift exchange worked was that everyone picked a number. Number One then went to the table and picked a gift, and all the people thereafter could either keep the gift or swap with a person with a lower number.
My boss ended up picking - and keeping - the flash drive I'd bought.
As for me, I got a set of coasters, which was cool, because I've been meaning - and forgetting - to buy coasters for a long time. The coasters in question are the kind that you can put photos in. The idea of putting pornographic images in them amuses me, but I'll probably end up just printing out some of my drawings to put in them.
I also got a holiday ornament that has an LCD screen and flash memory that lets you display digital pictures.
Given that I don't decorate because, well, why bother, I don't have too much use for that, so I'll probably end up re-gifting it.
Driving home from the restaurant - the "lunch" didn't start until 2:30 - was kind of a pain, as I ended up leaving later in the day than I would have if I'd left from work, so there was more traffic to deal with. Plus it's rainy, so everyone on the road was reduced to the level of panic-stricken children.
I'm sure that if you went to a grocery store around here it would be sold out of milk, bottled water, toilet paper, and batteries, because ZOMG IT'S RAINING! THE END IS NEAR!
Even worse, it may dip below freezing tonight, turning it inot a "wintry mix," which is worse than a thousand apocalypses, apparently.
While we were at lunch I was going to send Scott a text message, and while "flicking" my way through my list of contacts I hit the entry for my brother Brad and inadvertently started dialing his cell phone, but I thought - incorrectly, it turns out - that I ended the call before it finished dialing.
Later that evening Brad called me back wondering what was up, and so I had to explain the accidental dialing.
Speaking of brothers, today is my brother Stuart's birthday. I've always thought that it had to suck to have your birthday so close to Chrismas, but I don't really remember him getting short-changed at all, so I guess it couldn't have been too bad.
Last night was Riff Trax night, though one of the movies we watched was just a regular, non-Riffed movie, the original The Day the Earth Stood Still. We're planning to see the remake that's coming out, so we figured we should watch the original. We then watched the Riff Trax version of X-Men, which was funny, but there were some Riffs that, as comic geeks, Scott and I found kind of grating. For example, there was this presumption that because it was a movie based on a "funny book" it couldn't contain references to serious, real-world events. In this case, said event being the Holocaust. Anyone who knows anything about X-Men knows that the history of Magneto, the X-Men's opponent, has long been connected to the Holocaust. It's part of what makes him tick; as a Jew he experienced persecution and the deaths of his loved ones, and as a mutant he fights to prevent something similar from happening to his people. I should think that the Riff Trax guys, of all people, would be nerdy enough to know that.
And as for the argument that something as serious as the Holocaust has no place in comic books, well, tell that to the Pulitzer Prize comittee.
Other than that they were quibbling about stupid shit like the fact that Wolverine isn't literally a wolverine.
Those irritations aside, most of their Riffs were, as usual, pretty damn funny.
We ordered a pizza for dinner. Specifically that "Pan-normous" pizza from Pizza Hut, which is actually two pizzas. I didn't think about that when ordering, so even though I ordered a Pepperoni Lover's on the whole pizza, I failed to specify that I wanted that for both of them, so one was just cheese. Oh well.
Whatever was wrong with me on the day before Thanksgiving is apparently some bug that's going around. My boss was out sick with it yesterday, and several other people (and their families) around the office have been hit with it.
Speaking of my boss, this morning she came by my cube and asked if I'd gotten the invitation to our group's holiday lunch. I said that I hadn't, and she apologized, as she'd assumed that I was on the original distribution, so she saw to it that I got the invite.
The lunch was going to be held at a local restaurant, and there was a "Secret Santa" gift exchange.
And it was today.
I ducked out a little early so that I could pick up some kind of gift ($15 limit) before heading to the restaurant. I stoped at Office Depot and picked up a 2 GB flash drive for $14.99. Technically, with sales tax, I went over the limit.
The way the gift exchange worked was that everyone picked a number. Number One then went to the table and picked a gift, and all the people thereafter could either keep the gift or swap with a person with a lower number.
My boss ended up picking - and keeping - the flash drive I'd bought.
As for me, I got a set of coasters, which was cool, because I've been meaning - and forgetting - to buy coasters for a long time. The coasters in question are the kind that you can put photos in. The idea of putting pornographic images in them amuses me, but I'll probably end up just printing out some of my drawings to put in them.
I also got a holiday ornament that has an LCD screen and flash memory that lets you display digital pictures.
Given that I don't decorate because, well, why bother, I don't have too much use for that, so I'll probably end up re-gifting it.
Driving home from the restaurant - the "lunch" didn't start until 2:30 - was kind of a pain, as I ended up leaving later in the day than I would have if I'd left from work, so there was more traffic to deal with. Plus it's rainy, so everyone on the road was reduced to the level of panic-stricken children.
I'm sure that if you went to a grocery store around here it would be sold out of milk, bottled water, toilet paper, and batteries, because ZOMG IT'S RAINING! THE END IS NEAR!
Even worse, it may dip below freezing tonight, turning it inot a "wintry mix," which is worse than a thousand apocalypses, apparently.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Flattery Isn't Getting Me The Hell Out Of Here
So I had an eye doctor appointment tonight.
I had a conference call scheduled at the end of the day that was supposed to keep me at work a half an hour later than usual, but most of the people who were supposed to be on it were no-shows, so I ended up only leaving about 10 minutes later than usual.
This put me at more than two hours between leaving work and having my appointment, but I didn't want to have to go home, sit around for a while, and then go out again.
So I took a roundabout path to Leesburg, then headed to Super-Target where, to kill time, I got a personal pan pizza from the Pizza Hut Express.
The reason I'd gone to Target was to pick up The Dark Knight on Blu-ray.
In fact, I ended up buying the special 2 disc limited edition with the "Batpod" replica display case, as can be seen here:
*Ahem* Neeeeerrrrrrddddddd!
After doing as much shopping as I could, I still had over an hour before my appointment, so, reluctantly, I went home.
Once I got to the eye doctor's I ended up having to wait for nearly an hour, which annoyed me because the only reason I was there was for him to see how my eyelid gunk looked now that I've been scrubbing my eyelids.
While I was there I got multiple compliments on my hair - on both its style and its color - and I was thinking, "That's nice, but complimenting my hair isn't getting me out of here any faster, or making me want to be here. Especially since most of the compliments are coming from a guy."
Eventually I got out of there after learning that I'm doing very well with the whole eyelid gunk scrubbing. So, "Yay me," I guess.
I overheard one of the patients talking about how he bought his wife a Mercedes for Christmas, which the dealership will deliver on Christmas Eve, bow and all, as a surprise.
I didn't think shit like that actually happened anywhere outside of commercials.
Anyway, that's pretty much all there is to report.
I had a conference call scheduled at the end of the day that was supposed to keep me at work a half an hour later than usual, but most of the people who were supposed to be on it were no-shows, so I ended up only leaving about 10 minutes later than usual.
This put me at more than two hours between leaving work and having my appointment, but I didn't want to have to go home, sit around for a while, and then go out again.
So I took a roundabout path to Leesburg, then headed to Super-Target where, to kill time, I got a personal pan pizza from the Pizza Hut Express.
The reason I'd gone to Target was to pick up The Dark Knight on Blu-ray.
In fact, I ended up buying the special 2 disc limited edition with the "Batpod" replica display case, as can be seen here:
*Ahem* Neeeeerrrrrrddddddd!
After doing as much shopping as I could, I still had over an hour before my appointment, so, reluctantly, I went home.
Once I got to the eye doctor's I ended up having to wait for nearly an hour, which annoyed me because the only reason I was there was for him to see how my eyelid gunk looked now that I've been scrubbing my eyelids.
While I was there I got multiple compliments on my hair - on both its style and its color - and I was thinking, "That's nice, but complimenting my hair isn't getting me out of here any faster, or making me want to be here. Especially since most of the compliments are coming from a guy."
Eventually I got out of there after learning that I'm doing very well with the whole eyelid gunk scrubbing. So, "Yay me," I guess.
I overheard one of the patients talking about how he bought his wife a Mercedes for Christmas, which the dealership will deliver on Christmas Eve, bow and all, as a surprise.
I didn't think shit like that actually happened anywhere outside of commercials.
Anyway, that's pretty much all there is to report.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Not A Great Year
My sister Kim hasn't been having a great year. Her husband Dean was in two motorcycle accidents spaced very closely together, and so far he hasn't been able to get back to work, so money has been tight.
To make matters worse, today she got in an accident herself (along with my mom, who was riding with her). No serious injuries are apparent, but there was considerable damage to the car.
Basically, some girl driving alongside of them decided to make an ill-considered last-second turn and plowed into them.
So yeah, not a great year.
As for me, it's mostly same-old, same-old. I got home and found that there was a message from my eye doctor's office to confirm my appointment for tomorrow. After listening to the message asking me to call back, I realized that I'd deleted the number from the Caller ID, and, having not realized that initially, deleted the message without writing down the number. I thought I had the number saved in my Contacts on my cell phone, but no. So I figured that I had one of the appointment cards lying around. Nope.
So I went upstairs to grab my other handset, which would still have the number in the Caller ID log. Naturally the handset had decided to take that opportunity to unregister from the base station, so I had to take the battery out, put it back in, set it back down in the base station, turn it back on, wait for it to find the base station, and then when I tried to call I got a busy signal.
By the time I finally got through the girl who answered said, "You're always so considerate about calling back."
"Yeah," I thought, as I ground my teeth to restrain my aggravation, "that's me. Mr. Considerate."
Shortly after I got off the phone with my mom, the phone rang again. The person on the other end said, "Mary." I said, "Nope." He said, "Hector?"
I thought about saying, "Yeah, it's Hector," then saying, "Nah, I'm just yankin' yer chain; it's me, Mary."
To make matters worse, today she got in an accident herself (along with my mom, who was riding with her). No serious injuries are apparent, but there was considerable damage to the car.
Basically, some girl driving alongside of them decided to make an ill-considered last-second turn and plowed into them.
So yeah, not a great year.
As for me, it's mostly same-old, same-old. I got home and found that there was a message from my eye doctor's office to confirm my appointment for tomorrow. After listening to the message asking me to call back, I realized that I'd deleted the number from the Caller ID, and, having not realized that initially, deleted the message without writing down the number. I thought I had the number saved in my Contacts on my cell phone, but no. So I figured that I had one of the appointment cards lying around. Nope.
So I went upstairs to grab my other handset, which would still have the number in the Caller ID log. Naturally the handset had decided to take that opportunity to unregister from the base station, so I had to take the battery out, put it back in, set it back down in the base station, turn it back on, wait for it to find the base station, and then when I tried to call I got a busy signal.
By the time I finally got through the girl who answered said, "You're always so considerate about calling back."
"Yeah," I thought, as I ground my teeth to restrain my aggravation, "that's me. Mr. Considerate."
Shortly after I got off the phone with my mom, the phone rang again. The person on the other end said, "Mary." I said, "Nope." He said, "Hector?"
I thought about saying, "Yeah, it's Hector," then saying, "Nah, I'm just yankin' yer chain; it's me, Mary."
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Sometimes It Pays To Not Have Friends
When I went to the AT&T store on Friday to see about getting my missing case, the guy working there said they should be getting more this weekend and that I should try coming back on Saturday or Sunday.
“Screw that,” I thought to myself at the time, but today, as I was finishing up with the laundry, I decided that that I really would like to get a case for the phone.
I figured that whatever case I would be getting from AT&T would probably suck and be cheap anyway, leading me to eventually buy a better one, so I decided to skip that step and went to Best Buy to look for one. Unfortunately they didn’t have any cases for my phone.
(Side note: While I was there, the announcer on the in-store music station said the words, “Now here’s Metallica, with The Unforgiven Three.” That hurt my soul. Sure, I gave up on Metallica a long time ago – about the time they came out with the first sequel to The Unforgiven; seriously, sequels to fucking songs? – but even so, it was painful to learn of the depths to which they have sunk.)
After not finding what I was looking for, I thought about just going home, but decided to head to the Town Center to see if new cases had, in fact, been delivered.
They hadn’t, of course, so before heading home – mostly because I had to go to the bathroom – I stopped at the larger Best Buy near the Town Center and found a case that’s pretty much the same as the case I had for my old phone, but designed specifically to fit my new phone. So I bought that and a screen protector film for the phone. I also grabbed Wanted on Blu ray, because why not? It was okay for what it was, and Angelina Jolie in high-definition isn’t anything to complain about.
This morning when I got up I put a pot roast going in the slow cooker, and it’s been steadily cooking away ever since, but while I was out and about I kept seeing various restaurants and fast food places and thinking, “I suppose I could stop there and get something to eat.” Then I would remember the pot roast and think, “You don’t have any reason to stop anywhere to get anything to eat.” But each time I saw a new place, I would go through that same thought process. “Dammit!” I finally said to myself, “You’re going to eat the fucking pot roast and like it, so quit thinking about places you can stop to get food!”
One thing I discovered on my phone is that the mobile version of Facebook works really well. Nice and clean and uncluttered, fast, and just generally one of the best mobile versions of a site I’ve ever seen.
But it’s Facebook, so I don’t really give a shit about it. It would figure that something I have only limited use for would be vastly superior to all of the things that I actually use regularly.
Speaking of Facebook, apparently lots of users were recently hit by some major worm that propagated through an app being sent to people by the accounts of friends who had been infected. The app request had text claiming that a friend had sent a video saying something like, “Check out this video of you dancing! Your face is so red!”
Aside from the fact that I pretty much ignore most of the things people send me, this particular pretext would have been utterly ineffective on getting me to click the necessary link had I received it, because my immediate response would have been, “There is no such video.”
Of course, I didn’t actually receive the thing anyway, so it’s kind of irrelevant. I guess that, like Macs and Linux boxes, I have the advantage of security through obscurity.
“Screw that,” I thought to myself at the time, but today, as I was finishing up with the laundry, I decided that that I really would like to get a case for the phone.
I figured that whatever case I would be getting from AT&T would probably suck and be cheap anyway, leading me to eventually buy a better one, so I decided to skip that step and went to Best Buy to look for one. Unfortunately they didn’t have any cases for my phone.
(Side note: While I was there, the announcer on the in-store music station said the words, “Now here’s Metallica, with The Unforgiven Three.” That hurt my soul. Sure, I gave up on Metallica a long time ago – about the time they came out with the first sequel to The Unforgiven; seriously, sequels to fucking songs? – but even so, it was painful to learn of the depths to which they have sunk.)
After not finding what I was looking for, I thought about just going home, but decided to head to the Town Center to see if new cases had, in fact, been delivered.
They hadn’t, of course, so before heading home – mostly because I had to go to the bathroom – I stopped at the larger Best Buy near the Town Center and found a case that’s pretty much the same as the case I had for my old phone, but designed specifically to fit my new phone. So I bought that and a screen protector film for the phone. I also grabbed Wanted on Blu ray, because why not? It was okay for what it was, and Angelina Jolie in high-definition isn’t anything to complain about.
This morning when I got up I put a pot roast going in the slow cooker, and it’s been steadily cooking away ever since, but while I was out and about I kept seeing various restaurants and fast food places and thinking, “I suppose I could stop there and get something to eat.” Then I would remember the pot roast and think, “You don’t have any reason to stop anywhere to get anything to eat.” But each time I saw a new place, I would go through that same thought process. “Dammit!” I finally said to myself, “You’re going to eat the fucking pot roast and like it, so quit thinking about places you can stop to get food!”
One thing I discovered on my phone is that the mobile version of Facebook works really well. Nice and clean and uncluttered, fast, and just generally one of the best mobile versions of a site I’ve ever seen.
But it’s Facebook, so I don’t really give a shit about it. It would figure that something I have only limited use for would be vastly superior to all of the things that I actually use regularly.
Speaking of Facebook, apparently lots of users were recently hit by some major worm that propagated through an app being sent to people by the accounts of friends who had been infected. The app request had text claiming that a friend had sent a video saying something like, “Check out this video of you dancing! Your face is so red!”
Aside from the fact that I pretty much ignore most of the things people send me, this particular pretext would have been utterly ineffective on getting me to click the necessary link had I received it, because my immediate response would have been, “There is no such video.”
Of course, I didn’t actually receive the thing anyway, so it’s kind of irrelevant. I guess that, like Macs and Linux boxes, I have the advantage of security through obscurity.
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