Adventures in Computer Disasters - part two

Bit the bullet and took the PC to my repair guy. I have hopes he can save it. I'd rather pay a couple of bills for a repair than more for a new machine at this juncture. With luck, I'll know later today whether I'm drinking in celebration or in memory of my PC. It's possible the data on it can be saved, but I'm not really holding out that much hope.

Best. Advice. Ever.

Today's "Worst Case Scenario" calendar offers a tip I feel all of us should pay heed:

How to Survive If There Are Children in Your Corn

1. Cull.
   Widen your rows so that the children are more visible as they wander among the corn.
   
2. Spray.
   Liberally hose the cornfield with holy water, which has a proven effectiveness against demon children.
   
3. Fence the perimeter.
   Enclose the perimeter of the field with barbed-wire fencing, topped with crosses to repulse further infestation.
   
4. Raze the fields.
   Burn the existing stalks and let the field lie fallow for a season. When replanting, rotate the crop of corn with soybeans instead; resume planting corn the following season.
   
5. Flee.
   If children reappear when you next grow corn, immediately abandon your field, your home, and your town, leaving behind half-drunk cups of coffee, open magazines, and tumbleweeds slowly spinning through the dusty streets.
   

My own editorial to this important advice: substititue your own symbols of faith, as needed. The soybeans really ought to drive out most demonic infestations. Demon kids hate soy. You might consider liberally adding in some broccoli as well.

Passion for the drinks

Discovered a supply of lilikoi passion fruit juice. For whatever reason, getting this in the mainland is a giant pain in the arse. Thankfully, I found a local source.

With it, I took over bartender duties today and made philippine punches.

What's a philippine punch, you ask?

Fill a blender about 2 cups of crushed ice for every drink you're making. Add 2 ounces of a light rum (Baccardi is recommended), 1 ounce of Toriani Amer (I am probably spelling "Toriani" wrong), 1/4 ounce Grenadine, 2 ounces orange juice, 1 ounce lemon juice (best if fresh-squeezed from Meyers lemons), 1/2 ounce passion fruit juice.

Blend, pour into a long glass. Add a sprig of mint. Enjoy.

To add to the joy, my dad sent his children home with some tiki bar lounge music (Arthur Lyman and Martin Denny). I now have over three hours of kitchy lounge music for Tiki bars playing on my computer.

I love my life.

Gluttony and Sloth honored

Aaah, the laziness of a four-day weekend.

I only left my apartment on the Fourth ever so briefly to have lunch at my local watering hole ("lunch" was fairly liquid, but that's no surprise) as I finished reading River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay. Nice story. Kind of a choppy ending. Not quite as enjoyable as Under Heaven but still a good read. Am now re-reading an old classic I enjoy: The Man Who Used the Universe by Alan Dean Foster. Good, clean fun there.

Actually gotten some housecleaning done, which is the only non-sloth-or-gluttonous activity I've managed. Even my car hasn't been touched since Sunday. I'm aiming for a whole week of not driving so as to see what that does with my monthly gas bill.

The heat wave broke with the visit of the summer fog to the Bay Area. Much welcome, in my book. Coupled with that, the BART strike is on hiatus until early August. It's nice to have BART back just in time for pending celebrations in the City next week and the week after.

So now I must decide: do I watch more "Person of Interest" or read more brain candy sci-fi or just websurf?

Mine is a difficult life.

Mind. Blown.

Suggested by a friend. Okay, picture this: Chiwetel Ejiofor as the Doctor. Peter Dinklage as the Master.

My brain went boom.

The Paradigm has Shifted

Co-worker to me: "You have enabled synergy."

That's it. I've accomplished my goal. Time for the weekend.

Amazing

The most surreal places on Earth.

Just... wow.

Losing that Hellish Flavor

In the late, lamented show "Reaper", the Department of Motor Vehicles was one of those places in which you could connect easily to Hell.

Not too surprising. Most folks who have been to a DMV office probably thought they were already in Hell.

I have to give the California DMV full props for turning some of that around.

Last time I renewed my driver's license, I took a good look at my photograph in it and realized I no longer even remotely resembled that photo. A change in (ahem) hairstyle, the disappearance of a beard, a transition from eyeglasses to contacts. All of that kinda made it awkward for those rare occasions when someone needed to match my photo ID against my actual face.

In the interests of keeping my life simple, I made arrangements to get a new photo taken. I even navigated the dreaded pages of the DMV and made an appointment.

See, that. That right there. That is the key to having a positive California DMV experience.

There's two lines at the DMV:

• The line for the people who make appointments.
• The line for the people who really need to get a clue.

The day of my appointment, the line was going out the door of the DMV and we into the parking lot. I quickly determined that was the line for walk-ins. The folks with appointments went to a different line.

The appointments line did not quite have a velvet rope, a concierge, and fresh coffee but the feel was infinitely more civilized and easy-going. There were maybe two people ahead of me. A few minutes later, I was chilling in a lobby chair and waiting to see my number come up on the board. A few minutes after that, I was chatting with a friendly and helpful DMV employee.

Yes, that's right. I said "friendly and helpful". I was as shocked as anyone.

A few minutes after that, I was leaving the DMV with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

I'd taken a half-day from work for something that took me fifteen minutes, all-told. I treated myself to a tasty, beer-heavy lunch that day in celebration.

A couple of weeks later, I had a shiny new license with a photograph that looked more like me.

That was also an impressive deal. I recall the DMV taking many weeks (read: months - plural) to mail stuff. These guys had it to me in about ten days, all told.

So, as I mentioned, I recently paid off my car. The bank holding the loan was typically-glacial in processing the paperwork to get the title transferred to me. I bugged them last week to find out what was going on with the pink slip.

I wanted ownership of my Precioussssss settled. Mostly 'cause I was nervous about the paperwork vanishing in the mail.

They assured me the paperwork had gone to the DMV. So I politely thanked the helpful rep and added another month to my wait.

Less than a week later, I got the pink slip in the mail from the DMV.

Bravo, California DMV! I honestly sing your praises now. You are no longer a gateway to hell, in my book.

Though perhaps it's my Pastafarian association that gains me special favor? It might simply be that they give preferrential treatment to the ministry? Hard to say.

Getting Belted

May as well get more prolific today.

Saw this "Smuggler's Belt" on Cool Material.

Neat idea, but $245 for a belt with a hidden compartment? Seriously?

A quick search of Amazon came up with no end of money belts with greater carrying capacity for far, far less.

Oh yes, there's the ones that slip under your pants (making for a really interestingly-awkward show if you're getting cash). There's the nylon ones that look like something out of Boy Scouts. And there's even leather ones (likely made from lower-quality leather).

From what I can tell, they all have greater carrying capacity than the "Smuggler's Belt".

What would make the Smuggler's Belt a thing of pure win would be a zip or velcro pocket along the length of the interior and its clever little pocket near the buckle.

That way, you could squirrel away some bills, ID, keys, or whatever that you'd only need to access in a serious situation while have a quick-access pocket for something like cab fare without looking like you're doing a drunken striptease.

Want to up the awesome factor into orbit? Take inspiration from the 686 Tool Belt (or, better yet, partner with these guys so as not to violate copyrights) and make the buckle a screwdriver/screwdrivers and bottle opener.

If a belt like that didn't sell, that would be the absolute, definitive proof I'd need that:

• We are all in the Twilight Zone (or Purgatory
• The Endtimes are drawing nigh

... or the price was set too high. I suppose that's a possibility too.

Wow, I wish I had any craft skills worth a damn.

Resolving

I'm not one to make New Year's Resolutions anymore.

The idea is sort of bullshit, as far as I'm concerned. If you need to make a change in your life, seems to me it's best to just do it instead of waiting for some arbitrary event, like New Year's or birthdays, or the like.

Not that I follow my own advice, mind you, but such is life.

Still, I suppose it doesn't hurt to set a few goals.

So here I go:

1. I resolve to test out my Cthulhu Tiki Mug with a proper rum drink (preferably a Zombie) before the end of March of 2013.
2. I will do some sort of cardio activity at least three times a week until sloth or ADD distra... ooh! Shiny thing. What was I saying?
3. I will ramp down on my impulse buy... oh who am I kidding?
4. I shall endeavor to refine my snark but deliver it only upon those who have earned the honor of my scorn and derision.
5. I shall not destroy my alarm clock in a fit of bloody-minded rage in the wee-hours o' th' mornin'.
6. I shall get the proper equipment to make my own rum cocktails before the end of August 2013 and make a mai tai worthy of my Cthulhu Tiki Mug.

Okay, no sense overdoing things here. I'll stop while the list isn't too unreasonable.

Green stuff

First there's kids making generators that run on urine. Now there's fuel derived from algae.

Interesting times, my friends. Interesting times.

This. Is. Just. Utterly. Amazing.

According to an io9 article, four teenage girls in Africa invented a urine-powered generator.

The oldest girl, per the article, is only 15 years old.

A urine-powered generator. Imagine this: toilets that essentially shunt waste directly to powering your home.

Sewage plants used as fuel stations for vehicles.

The mind boggles with the potential, should all this be on the up-and-up.

And these girls, if their invention turns out to be what it seems, deserve riches beyond the dreams of avarice for their brilliance.

Day-um.

Great Moments

Driving to work coated in zombie makeup (or am I...?) and always having someone next to me when I stop at a stop light. And seeing them do a double-take out of the corner of my eye.

Or is it my eye?

Braaaaaaaaaains.....

Make this happen!

An animated "Indiana Jones" series!

Just have to keep George out of the writing and NEVER mention Mutt Williams.

And probably avoid 'fridges. Just sayin'...

Declaration of Internet Freedom (Soapbox moment)

I'm of the opinion that - generally - petitions and the like do little substantive good in a world where money talks and bullshit walks.

Folks who protest in the streets don't accomplish much beyond getting portrayed as lunatics by corporate-owned media. The best way to exact substantive change is to pool money and rent a politician.

That said, there are a few exceptions.

Recent "grassroots" Internet movements have had some surprising traction. It's made me wonder if it's possible to move the political dialog along a bit through sheer social pressure.

So, with some cautious optimism, I forward this bit about the Declaration of Internet Freedom.

The concept is pretty sound, I suppose. Given the inability of U.S. citizenry to understand, much less defend, their own current constitutional rights, I don't have too much faith that this will go too far, but it's a start. Sometimes it's baby steps.

And sometimes I get surprised.

My Happy Dream World

In my happy Dream World:

* The sky is TARDIS blue. Daleks shoot rainbows. Literally. They shoot the damn rainbows.

* George R.R. Martin is surgically fused to a desk and fed through a complex cybernetic life-support mechanism that will keep his arms and brain alive until the Song of Ice and Fire is complete.

* We have personal flying jetpacks that do not burn your arse off when you fly.

* We have lightsabers with idiot controls to keep us from cutting off important body parts. We have stem-cell grown clone parts for the unimportant parts.

* Anyone can get married. People can't reproduce until they pass some basic tests proving they can competently raise a child and are not passing along stoopid in their genes.

* Governments spend more time taking care of the public interests and less time giving money to big business and wealthy jackasses.

* We have big space stations and thriving orbital clean-up industries to take care of frozen astronaut pee.

* Pluto is a planet.

* Mars is a tourist destination.

* People who defraud the public of millions or billions of dollars are given life in prison without parole. People who smoke pot are fine as long as they don't do it while flying around on their jetpacks.

* Uranus is a penal colony. Yes. I said that.

* "Firefly" is on its tenth season and going strong.

* Talk Like Kirk day is a national holiday.

* Talk Like a Pirate Day is bigger than Xmas.

* Pastafarianism is the world's biggest religion.

* Someone has created flying monkeys.