atomicthoughts.com

Cassandra has had her cat Nika since before I’ve known her. Even though we’ve been together more than 11 years now, Nika still occasionally gives me this look that only a cat can, like “Aren’t you ever going to leave, interloper?”

Currently we have 519 hours and 35 minutes of content in our Netflix queue. At our usual average of about 1 1/2 movies a month, it’ll take us over 17 years to get through it.

And I spent entirely too much time coming up with the running time of our queue. But some friday afternoon hacking is a pretty harmless guilty pleasure.

Picard for President

A little TNG nostalgia and some Bush bashing all rolled into one! My favorite quote:

There is no way to know exactly how Bush would feel about human-android marriage, of course, but it’s not difficult to guess. (On the other hand, it would allow closeted self-hating homosexual Republican congressmen to experience lifelike anal sex without technically going to hell.)

That’s right, I said it! I have some good customer service stories to report. If you’re lucky, it could happen to you too! In order of impressiveness:

• Cox. Yes, a cable company. Now, this good service only qualifies because it was been so horrible in the past. Blast from the past: “My internet connection seems to be down.” “We’ve been getting a lot of calls from your area, so it must be down.” Thanks Einstein. Anyway, they’ve finally gotten on the ball. Last time I called them they had a message right at the front that clearly said things were down, they knew about it, and thanks for calling.

• Targus. I bought a refurbed universal charger from woot.com recently. Then I had to buy a stupid tip from targus directly, but it was still way cheaper than a replacement dell power supply. Once I had all the parts, I plugged it in, and nothing. In fact, worse than nothing. The super bright blue LED on the charging brick slowly faded to black whenever I plugged it into the laptop. It felt slightly like it was dying a slow, painful death. So I called up Targus and explained what was happening. “You need a new output cable and possibly tip. I’ll put in an order for those and you’ll have them free of charge in 10 days.” And that was it. I was floored! No shipping charges. No back and forth about stupid policies. Just instant gratification and customer satisfaction.

• Circle Saw of Tucson. If you ever need a reason to shop local, here it is. My wife went in to pick up some table saw blades they were sharpening for us. They don’t take plastic, and I had given her a number without thinking about tax. So she was about $2.50 short. The guys solution? “Don’t worry about it.” So for all your saw sharpening needs, I highly recommend them.

This is the folder I filter all the system generated emails that occur when stuff breaks.

How bad do you think my day was?

I’m still annoyed that denny’s switched their default soup from
vegetable beef to chicken noodle. Damnit!

Peope will forget what you say. They will even forget what you do. But
they never forget how you made them feel.
— Maya Angelou

If, like me, you’re in the .5% of the english speaking world who hasn’t read any Harry Potter, you missed out on all the release hype. However, if you’re also like me, the .08% of the english speaking world who knows Prince still releases new albums, you were still able to partake of some new release news.

“Planet Earth” came out on Tuesday, and it’s an okay effort. It has a lot more ballads on it than I care for. I’m not a huge ballad fan, especially from Prince, although when he does it right, he really does it right.

“Chelsea Rodgers” and “Guitar” are extremely good. “The One U Wanna C” is growing on me, as is “Mr. Goodnight.” “Planet Earth”, the title track, has some great guitar work, but the lyrics are tough to take.

Since “save PBS!” is one of the more common chain letters I get from
people who I actually pay attention to, I thought I’d note that, at
least for now, it has been saved.

http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/07/22/congress-saves-public-television-from-massive-funding-cuts/

There are some random bits of memory that stick with you all your life.
This particular one involves learning the word “Juxtaposition” from my
11th grade english teacher. She would bring in Reader’s Digest and go
over the “50 cent words” section, or whatever it was called. She went
over hundreds of words that semester, but juxtaposition is the one I
clearly remember. I’m sure there are other words that stuck with me, but
none as vividly. When I hear the word I actually flash back to my
teacher sitting in that classroom, on her stool, wearing a navy blue
skirt and … okay, maybe too much detail there.

Anyway, I was reminded of that tonight at the gym. I go to the YMCA,
which usually has a few kids and teens, and their code of conduct is
posted liberally throughout the building. Recently they’ve put up a big
“Character Counts Zone” sandwich board as you enter the main gym floor.
It talks about appropriate behavior, treating others with respect, etc.
Tonight the sign was almost directly under the fist tv on the cardio
floor, which was playing… The Godfather. I’m not sure why it was on
AMC in the first place, but they quickly changed it when I brought it to
their attention. The juxtaposition of that sign and that movie tickled
me.