A variation on the 5-question meme. Ask me anything, up to 5 questions. Questions will be screened to protect your privacy (I will gladly un-screen yours by request), answers will be public but won't say who the questions are from unless you have asked to be un-screened.

No question is taboo, or too stoopid, or too technical.

No cons for me - not into sorcery, don't like LA. But very happy to hear from all the good people who had a good time there. Also didn't do T-day, except by accident. I thought I might be going north, but couldn't get an affordable flight and also didn't want to panic. Turns out all three of my sisters are going to be there this week, as well as a cousin I have only seen once in the past 25 years. I'll go up during the year-end shutdown. The accident was finding that the only restaurants open in my area were 1 Chinese and 1 Indian. I chose the Indian, which actually had a buffet with turkey and stuffing.

---

Early this morning (like just after midnight) I found what I thought was a great deal on an HP netbook on amazon.com, and placed an order. At 6 am I woke up realizing it was older technology, and sent a message to the seller to cancel the order. Seller said it had already shipped. I know that was BS because the tracking info I received three hours later was just a note from UPS saying they received the pickup order. More research showed Best Buy had a deal on a netbook which had everything I wanted except 2GB or RAM (it has 1GB) and battery life is "only" 5 hours. $100 less than the amazon one. 2GB of RAM is about $60, and there may be a longer-life battery for about the same amount (though 5 hours is fine for what I need).

This morning after getting my nails done I went to BB and examined their netbook collection, but they did not have the Samsung on display. I found one boxed and ready to go, and bought it after the salescreature showed me their demo unit which was locked in a cage out of sight. Talk about hiding the sale items! $269 for a unit comparable to several others in the $350-$400 range.

Got it home and fired it up, and saw why they were hiding it. It took 2 hours for it to self-install the humongous amounts of bundled software, and another half hour to pretend to run a full backup, even after I had changed the partitioning to not create a backup partition. What idiot wastes 60GB of a 160GB drive as a backup partition? If the drive dies, you lose the backup too. Sheesh. After the faux backup was complete, I confirmed there was only one partition, and removed the backup software. Everything I'll be keeping on the netbook will be a copy of stuff on my main PC.

Once everything was installed, it ran fine. I plugged in my external optical drive and installed Office and the micro bluetooth adapter I'd used on the now-old ASUS Eee. Finally got frustrated with how slow the ASUS 0.9 GHz no-cache processor is, and only having 8GB of room on the C: drive. I expected the solid state drive to be faster than a mechanical one, but it isn't. Just waiting for a browser to launch could take 5 minutes.

I still have a couple of minor things to install on it, shouldn't take long. Windows 7 starter doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, which means it runs faster. I don't think I'll "upgrade".

Meanwhile, I'll send the HP mini back when it arrives, which will probably be next week coming from NJ by ground during the holiday season. Or I could sell it on eBay I suppose. It really is a good deal, I should be able to get what I paid for it, if not more.

While I was writing this I spent another $85 for an 8-hour battery and 2GB of RAM for the Samsung.

---

Watched some football - was impressed by the 49er win, it was very definitive. Not so impressed with the Ravens overtime win. Considering half the Steelers' stars were on the bench, the game was way too close. Baltimore's QB is one of the worst passers in the league. Looks like the Seahawks also won today.

---

Plans for tomorrow:
Call Radiocat and schedule Domino for treatment
Online work-from-home conference, then go to the office
Monday Night Football. So many choices for dinner. :-)

Spent most of today with food. Yesterday I bought way too much of it, and as a part of being in denial about that set out a glass baking pan, dumped in most of a bottle of sherry and slid in the eight steaks to marinate overnight on the kitchen counter. This morning I peeked into the freezer and saw I was wasting a lot of space thanks to where I usually put the ice trays, and after some stunning feats of Pythagorean prestidigitation, aided by the intelligent application of zip-lock freezer bags, I was able to fit half the marinated steaks into the freezer.

One of the other steaks I pan fried for lunch, and the rest were cut up into bite-sized pieces and thrown into the crock pot along with coconut milk, straw mushrooms, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, baby corn and a tablespoon of Thai green curry paste. Some of that will be dinner when I am done writing this.

Watched some of the BC-Maryland football game, mostly because my nephew is an Terps alum and his parental units are fans. Unfortunately they snatched defeat from the very jaws of victory by running it up the middle on their final 4th down of the game. May as well just wave the white flag if you're going to do that against anyone except the Detroit Lions.

During the curry prep my electric can opener let out a painful-sounding shriek and refused to open any more cans, electric or otherwise. So I hopped into the car and went to BB&B for a replacement, but got sidetracked for about an hour at Best Buy next door. They had a bunch of netbooks on sale, all for around $350-400, all with more oomph than either my old Asus Eee PC or my laptop, both of which cost significantly more. There was a really sweet Nokia "Booklet" which AT&T was selling - it has 3G built in, and for a mere $299.999999 plus a 2-year contract for data service, it could have been mine. List price on this puppy is $600. The data plan is $60/month so by the end of the year the data plan alone would be $120 more than the value of the netbook., No thanks. They had a Gateway and an HP which were almost comparable (no 3G) for $350 each.

Finally left and bought the can opener next door, came home and did some research, found Verizon had a similar deal on an HP netbook, $199 instead of $299, but the same $60 data plan locked in for two years. After some searching I found the HP which I saw at Best Buy, but with a better wireless card and bigger hard drive for the same price, and ordered it.

In other news, Domino is not responding to the hyperthyroid meds, and for what a year's supply costs she can get "cured" by irradiated iodine therapy, so I got a reference from Dr. farmount for a clinic called Radiocat (love it!) which has a branch in San Mateo. They don't work weekends, so I left a message on their machine somewhere in EST land. Will try to remember to try then early Monday morning. The goal is to have her back home well before the Xmas break so I don't have to worry about her when I'm gone.

Now I'm hungry. Dinner calls.

Went to see Precious at the one small theater in PA where it's playing. It is beyond excellent. It needs to be given full distribution. You need to see it.

Director Lee Daniels has put together an amazing cast. Who knew that Mo'Nique could give an Oscar-worthy performance as a psychotic abusive welfare momma? Who knew Mariah Carey could be so convincing as a cynical dowdy Brooklyn Jewish social worker? I walked out of the theater not believing it was her. Lenny Kravitz as a male nurse? A lot has been said on TV and in the press about the woman playing the title role,  Gabourey 'Gabby' Sidibe.  There is a lot of talent there, I hope we'll be seeing more of her in the future. Paula Patton as alternative school teacher Ms. Rains is a babe - she reminded me of Phylicia Rashad in The Cosby Show. Where has she been hiding?

There are a lot of small parts in this film, but no small actors. Everyone in the cast brought out as much of his/her character as there was to bring. That's the mark of a fine director. The film was shot on a budget, but the tech never gets in the way of the story. There are some minor editing mistakes, but they are on transitions which are just setting us up for the next scene. Makeup is so good it isn't even there. Costuming has its moments during the title character's fantasy sequences, and she gets to wear some great outfits. Queen Latifa would be proud.

The screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher is powerful, visual, articulate and real. Based on the novel Push by Sapphire.

Many of my friends will urge you to see the movie for nits powerful message, its overwhelming window into child abuse, incest, AIDS, the welfare culture, etc. I'll urge you to see it for wall to wall superb performances such as we have not seen on the screen for a long time.

Bill Holmstrom was the state rep for Astoria, Oregon when I lived there, and his crusade to get a recycling law into place earned him the title "Bottle Bill".  The bill passed in late 1971 and I moved to Astoria at the start of 1973.

Sen. Holmstrom had some catchy slogans for the bottle bill, and while I can't recall them at the moment, what with the passing of the decades and a memory like a colander, I know all of them had to have been better than California's amazingly lame "It's good for the bottle, it's good for the can". 

Every time I see that slogan (and it is at the entrance to every grocery store and any other place bottled or canned beverages are sold), I get the urge to hunt down the person who thought it up, and rinse his/her/it's mind out with soap. Obviously the lobotomy was a success. Because when you stop to analyze this slogan, not only is it awkward phrasing, it's wrong. Recycling destroys the bottle. It destroys the can. Okay, so some of the bottle is made into another bottle, maybe, and some of the can may become another can. But that's not what the slogan says.
      

In the spirit of constructive criticism, I suppose I should propose a better recycling slogan. More than one. And invite you to vote on them and make your own suggestions.

So twist my arm, why don't you?

Poll #1490919 In Hoor of "Bottle" Bill Holmstrom
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 0

Check the ones you like

View Answers

Get off your can and recycle
0 (0.0%)

Don't mess with California
0 (0.0%)

Recycle: It isn't taxing
0 (0.0%)

Yes we can (and bottle, too)
0 (0.0%)

Ready for change? 5¢ for small 10¢ for large containers
0 (0.0%)

Thanks to everyone who voted and several others who gave me feedback IRL. The final choices are at this link with thumbnails ( behind the cut. )
The jellyfish photo was far and away the most popular, Reflections, Half Dome, Butterfly, Krathong (the pink thing), Thai Chili and Pelican tied for 2nd. The rest were pretty even, so I chose my favorites: The Crayola rocket montage was built specifically for the calendar, so that's in, the Full Moon night shot is in there because my dentist loves it and it will make a great cover, and four people told me they liked the crane (bird) which was originally going to be in the poll but a brain fart got in the way.

Comments welcome, especially if you think a particular picture should be on a particular month. 

I'm sitting in the recliner with Pumpkin splayed across the right arm purring up a storm, and I have a mini day dream. I'm in the cubicle of a big burly red-headed guy, 40-ish, the pumps iron type, he's wearing a white dress shirt and his hair is in a crew cut. He's explaining something to me on his whiteboard, and the last item on this erasable spread-sheet is the number 273. I point out to him how 273 doesn't look right to me, and suggest it should probably be 234 or maybe even 237. He's non-committal, smiles and nods me out of the cube. Two or three steps out of there I turn back and see the whiteboard has 273 x-ed out in red and 237 up above it in purple, with a question mark.

If you haven't already (and thanks to those who have!) - vote for your favorites here

but I didn't get online for the dog and pony show till after 8. Couldn't handle what would have been 8 hours of online conference calls with one 15-minute break and one half-hour break, especially since I had other work to do and am only supposed to work 8 hours a day.

Boss canceled one of the meetings, so there were two half-hour breaks.

---

After the meetings (ended at 2:00 or so) I picked up a prescription at Kaiser, then went to Fry's for a router and some network cables. Went to the office and did some work/play with the system, chatted a bit with a couple of co-workers.

Home, set up the router, I'll wait till tomorrow morning to test the VPN connection since everything else looks fine. TiVo found its wireless address immediately, which was a problem actually because I hadn't even changed the DHCP addressing scheme, so the address it was assigned had to be revoked twice before I was able to assign it the one I wanted. It's a D-Link N/gigabit router, white with pretty blue lights. Very pretty, which is what really matters, right?

---

Plans for tomorrow:
Dentist appointment
Work (have me a doc or two to read)
Stay out of grocery stores

Vote for your favorite photos here

Last night I had a fever and headache and no appetite, felt like I was starting to catch something, so at about 8 I took some ibuprofen, which didn't help, so at 9 I took some acetaminophen, and curled up in bed with a book, which helped a lot. I also fired up the Eee PC, since I didn't feel like sitting in front of the big PC in the computer room.

Woke up this morning feeling fine. 

Go figure.

Today I went for a massage, a woman who works in her home, a very nice apartment complex just of 101 and Lawrence. Looking online at the floor plans, it's only about $100 a month more than what I'm paying, and they have washer/fryer in the units, so I think I'm going to call them next week and ask what their cats policy is, and look into moving there early next year if the prices & policies are right. The massage was adequate - a mix of all the Asian forms - good enough for me, not good enough to recommend to a friend.

Tried to go to Pet Club in the Costco shopping plaza, but the entire population of north Santa Clara and south San Mateo counties decided to do their Thanksgiving shopping at Costco, and it was a total mess, so I wove my way to an exit and went home. I don't know who designs the Costco parking lots, but all the ones I've been in are engineered for maximum chaos and frustration, with no thought to how pedestrians with shopping carts will get safely to their cars.

The el cheapo camp chair which I bought on my way to Pinnacles this summer for $12 is starting to shred, so I went online and bought a hevy duty replacement, and since all the camping stuff is on sale now I also ordered a replacement for my moldy queen sized air mattress and two basic summer weight zip-together sleeping bags. Thanks to water damage and squirrels, I am down to one slightly nibbled bedroll. I suppose I should go to OSH and buy a garden trunk or something to store the camping stuff in out on the patio.

One of my favorite web sites has been hijacked. They have two DNS addresses, one is their full name and the other is an acronym which redirects to the first one. The acronym gives a "server not found" error and the full name gives a 404 for a bogus site name.

No plans for the rest of the day except my 9 pm phone call to the folks. Probably will watch some football. Definitely will have some lobster thermidor for dinner, and baggy/freeze the rest for later. Last night's is untouched and there are at least 4 servings.

Which reminds me: Fannie Farmer Cookbook total FAIL: Their lobster thermidor recipe starts by slicing 2 cups of mushrooms and sautéing them in 5 tbsp of butter. And that's the only time the mushrooms are mentioned. At the end of the recipe you're left with an oven pan filled with beautiful golden brown baked meal, and a side of cooked mushooms. I added them to the mix after pouring the thermidor into the pan.

It took three trips to the dumpster to get the stuff off the balcony which has been sitting there anywhere from 2 days ago to 3 years ago. That was after I took Clorox spray and wipes to the second of the now-retired clumping litter automatic litterboxes.

There are perfectly good (and fairly expensive) litterboxes, and I am wondering what to do with them. 
LME9000

Poll #1488596 Litterbuggery
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

Should I

---

It's been busy at work. Busy doesn't stress me, but having four almost equally important and almost mutually exclusive projects which each could easily require my full attention is making me feel mentally drawn and quartered. I am:

• Helping build a video server lab
• Becoming an expert at running our video server app
• Proofreading documentation
• Creating test plans and test cases

Got my first full paycheck direct-deposited last night. And with the horrible delayed pay scheme I've already earned the next one and half of the one after that.  Two non-paid days this coming week, though, and no pay for the 7 work days between 12/24 and 1/1, which means the January 20 payday will be mighty meager. 

Poll is here:
http://howeird.livejournal.com/956331.html

Please note we are not considering parallel parking in this poll. :-)


Poll #1487448
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

When I park my vehicle, I prefer to

If you answered "Depends":

I think people who back into parking spots are

I'm putting together a 2010 calendar, and need help paring down my 88 finalists to 13. Check out this link and let me know which ones you would pick.
http://howeird.livejournal.com/955010.html

Last night was supposedly the peak of the Leonid meteor showers, so after work I went home, had a snack and took a nap, and then put on my very warm Seahawks stadium jacket and went out to the parking lot across from Shoreline Amphitheater, which has pretty much a 360° unobstructed view, pulled out my camp chair and started watching the sky. That was at about 1:40 am. After a few minutes my brain kicked in, I pulled out my phone and fired up the Google Sky app, and found the constellation Leo. Turns out I was facing right at it, but it was still low in the sky, in the glare from San Jose. After an hour and only seeing one major shooting star (and maybe three small blips) I drove to Safeway to pick up some stuff on my routine shopping list (and waste some time) and then went back to the parking lot. It was 3 am, and just as I was pulling the camp chair back out of the trunk a big shooting star flashed across the star right across Leo. I sat down expecting more. But for the next 15 minutes that was it, and it was getting cold (~ 40°) so I packed it in. Very disappointing.