Month: April 2011

Dog Gone It

Gozque – Spanish for small yapping dog.

The Red Sox finally won a game. The starting pitcher for the FRS gave up 6 runs in 7 innings and lowered his ERA by nearly 10! As a bonus the 9 -6 win came against the dreaded Yankees.

We rode the tandem to work today and it was a great ride. It is Spring Break around here for the schools and it is amazing the amount of traffic that eliminates. During school time we see maybe a dozen cars, but today we were lucky if we saw 3.

My dabbling in Ubuntu Linux, will always be just that, just dabbling. Late last night I discovered that you cannot stream Netflix in Linux. Plus I should read my own posts…back last October when I loaded it on the laptop I realized that my most used Geocaching program doesn’t have a Linux version.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
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Maverick Meerkat

Installed Ubuntu 10.10 on the laptop this evening (again.) It went fairly well, the only real hiccup was I had to repair windows to get it to start up when selected from the boot loader. I have toyed with Linux before, but prompted this I read that Windows 8 is in the works and and they are going to include the most hated part of the current versions of Office, the Ribbon…

The only thing I think I will have real problems with in a full-time transition to Linux is the lack of Paint Shop Pro. I know there are probably plenty of potent image editing software programs out there, but I have so entrenched in PSP that anything will have a big learning curve. I have even found a theme that makes the desktop look a lot like Windows 7 to ease the visual shock.

I have forgotten just how much I like the looks of no ClearType.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
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Oh & Five

Columbus: It’s amazing how fast the world can go from bad to total shit storm.

9:45 PM
I sit down at the PC and check on the FRS score – ooh, only losing 3 to 2 in the sixth, we’re still in this one.

By the time I get logged into Gameday Audio the Indians have scored another run, it’s now 4 to 2.

Why, oh why, MLB.com, when I click the audio button on the web page of the Boston Red Sox do I get the Cleveland radio announcing team. You would think if I’m on the FRS page I would get the WEEI crew of Joe Castiglione & Dave O’Brien.

By the time the audio player is loaded and I have changed broadcasting teams, I hear like two pitches called and then on the third pitch some moke for the Tribe hits it into the right field seats with two runners on base. 7 – 2.

9:50 PM
I close the Gameday Audio player and open up Winamp to listen to the soothing sounds of GotRadio New Age Nuance.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 988

Two Hundred Thirty Four

That is the number of days in the countdown widget until we get a new car and that equates to Saturday November 26th. According to a web article I just read (Five Tips That Can Save New Car Buyers a Bundle) that is pretty much the best time to buy a new car. According to Tip #2 the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are the lowest for new car showroom traffic. And Tip #3 the best week to buy a car is past the 3rd week of the month. Saturday is the only negative as that is the busiest day of the week at dealerships. May have to add a couple days to push it until Monday or Tuesday of the following week.

Right now the front runner in my book is the Genesis Coupe, but it has a couple of negatives. As for the co-signer of the loan goes, it is the fact that it just might be too sporty. My concern is that the car has its very own active internet forum, GenCoupe.com. This means there are also several “tuner shops” with loads of neat gee-gaws to make your car your own. In just a few hours I have imaginably spent several hundred dollars already. There are the OEM fog lights to be added to my base level car, $79. Replacing the stock Hyundai logos with spiffy winged ones from the Korean version of the car, $99. Rear window spoiler, $225 and matching rear lip spoiler, $245.

We have still to drive the Accord Coupe and so far, with out driving it, all we have for a negative is Honda’s stupid Big Deal commercials.

Of course there are a couple of wildcards still out there, the Genesis coupe is do for a mild refresh and maybe they will perk up the interior (it looks a little dated compared to the new Sonata and Elantra) and maybe they will do something about the pinched look of the frontend. Or maybe they will make it worse… The other is that maybe by this fall details of the next generation Miata might be available and we will be tempted to wait for it into 2012.

Started down, went up, still up.
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The World Is My Oyster

Not me, but the woman in the car with two kids I saw Saturday.

As we like to do on Saturday morning we have breakfast at DD. I get a small coffee with cream and sugar to go along with, aptly, a coffee cake muffin. Donna gets a toasted plain bagel with butter and cream cheese on the side and washes it down with a small hot chocolate/no whipped cream. We then, if possible, sit at the stools looking out over the parking lot and read the store’s copy of the Saturday WSJ.

Near the end of our breakfast this Saturday I notice a small 4-door car pull into the nearly empty parking lot and stop smack in the middle of the traffic lane. I could see a short overweight woman behind the wheel. At first I thought maybe she was trying to figure which spot to pull into, but she didn’t move. After about 30 seconds, both back doors open simultaneously and out out step two kids, a boy and a girl. They both look to be somewhere between 9 to 12 years old, maybe 5′ tall and weigh about 200 pounds. They close their doors, start walking into Dunkin’ Donuts and mom starts to drive off.

I go into full cranky old man mode: I say, inside my head, to myself, “This is the last place she should be bringing those kids for breakfast, they need a little lean protein, a small glass of juice and some exercise. And I can’t believe she is just dropping these kids off. Where is she going? Back down the street a bit to buy a lottery ticket?” But she doesn’t go far, she pulls into the opposite side of the lot to park, taking up the better part of two spots with her 1998 Ford Escort. This sets off another volley, again inside my head, about how people can’t park worth a flip, either through arrogance or ignorance (kind of wish I had one of these handy.)

For all I know my crappy attitude towards this family is totally unfounded. It could be that the woman just got Social Security check on Friday and could finally pay to get her car out of the shop, where they still haven’t fixed the power steering right and she has a few dollars left over so she can buy her two grand-kids, who she rarely gets to see, a couple of hot chocolates on this chilly morning.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 986

9-5 12-5 5-1

We got our baseball preview issue of Sports Illustrated last week and guess which team they picked to win the American League East? The Boston Red Sox. They picked the Red Sox to beat the A’s in the Division Series and the Sox to beat Twins to win the American League and play the Giants in the World Series. Who did they pick to win the World Series? Right. The Red Sox. SI isn’t the only ones singing the praises of the Boys from Beantown this year either.

Maybe the players believed with all that good press and they would just have to show up to crush their enemies, see them driven before themselves, and to hear the lamentation of their women! Or maybe they forgot that this season started before the first weekend in April not after it. But for whatever reason, the FRS were soundly beaten by the Texas Rangers in the first three games of the season by a combined score of 26 to 11 (see post title.)

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 986

Aiken Horse Show

The above is not a photo run through some sort of plug in filter to make it look “artistic”, but an actual image captured by my digital camera (click on the image to see what it should look like.) It started today while we were at the 2011 Aiken Horse Show in Hitchcock Woods. All of a sudden the LCD on the back of the camera looked all purple and scrambly. I spun the mode dial and it cleared up. It happened again and I cleared the same way. It would crap out randomly, sometimes I’d get 10 pictures and others only a couple. After awhile nothing would get it out of “Purple Expressionist” mode, even resetting the camera to its default state. Do you think I need a new camera? I do.

So I did some shopping this evening and ended up buying another Panasonic. The recently deceased TZ3 was purchased in August of 2007 and if I can interpret the file numbering system it took 5,946 images. The new camera is a model ZS5 that is 12 megapixels instead of 7 and has a 12x zoom instead of 10 with a slightly wider angle setting of 25mm instead of 28. It has a panorama assist mode and those manual exposure controls I wanted back in 2007, but didn’t get. At 7.3oz it is 2oz. lighter and is almost exactly the same overall size. The LCD viewfinder is a bit smaller at 2.7 inches instead of 3, but that should help increase battery life. (I wonder if they use the same one?) It is black in color instead of blue, $100 cheaper and should be here Wednesday.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
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