Or maybe I'm just boring as hell right now.
I've really wanted to post something worth a damn for the last few days...and I've got nothing. Needless to say, this is making me all shades of nutso.
I'm really hoping it doesn't take a "bolt out of the blue" to provide inspiration. I hear they hurt.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Ratatouille
I made ratatouille (of a sort) for dinner last night. We don't really like eggplant so much, so mine has zucchini, tomatoes and onions. That's all seasoned with olive oil and salt and pepper. Then it's topped with some mozzarella, parmesan and bread crumbs (also mixed with a little olive oil).
This is what it looked like before it went into the oven. It looked almost exactly the same when it came out (40 minutes at 400º), so just look at the same shot twice.
This guy helped.
This is what it looked like before it went into the oven. It looked almost exactly the same when it came out (40 minutes at 400º), so just look at the same shot twice.
This guy helped.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Hey! It Snowed!
And I took pictures of it from inside the house.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
And I paid a neighborhood kid to do my shoveling. He did a really nice job...doncha' think?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
And I paid a neighborhood kid to do my shoveling. He did a really nice job...doncha' think?
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Nobody Ever Mentions Clement Weather...Even When It Is.
There's a storm headed my way and the folks on the news are...uh...
fuh-reeeeeaaaaking out! O.K. fine. We might get 6"-10" of snow...or 10"-15"...or 3"-6". You never know. It may go one way or the other and then we either get nailed or we get squat.
Those aforementioned folks on the news have been getting shriekier and shriekier about it as the day has gone on. I bought some salt. Yawn.
So, a little while ago, I decided to take a look at the weather satellites online, like maybe I can predict this stuff better than the guys with expensive haircuts. And imagine my horror to discover that they've been deceiving us. Snow? Hell! There's a big-assed green cloud headed my way. It's huge. And it's green! And it's headed right for me. (It looks like it may have already gotten all my friends on the eastern seaboard south of me. It was great knowing you guys.)
Here's a closer shot. Still Green. Still awesometacularly gigundous. Still headed right at me! What the hell is that thing? Some kind of gas? Locusts? A massive concentration of greenhouse gasses? (Damn you world leaders for waiting until this week to not really decide anything.)
Pardon me while I join the freak-out.
This sucker is supposed to hit around 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. If you don't hear from me before or after this crap hits, well, it'll be because I'm preparing and then exercising Escape and Evasion. In preparation, I'll be re-reading World War Z and The Stand. Those should both have some good practical suggestions.
Update: Saturday 12:20 p.m.: Zero snow flakes so far. Shoveling is extremely difficult due to lack of resistance of non-existent snow drifts.
Update: Saturday 1:00 p.m.: Rumor has it that it is now snowing in Elizabeth, NJ. Terror is increasing. Panic building. Wow...this is just like War of the Worlds.
Update: Saturday 1:24 p.m.: Flakes! of Snow!
Update: Saturday 4:02 p.m.: So, it snowed for a little while...not very heavy. This is what it looks like right now.
But the forecast still says we're gonna get as much as 18" by the time it's over tomorrow morning. Go figure.
fuh-reeeeeaaaaking out! O.K. fine. We might get 6"-10" of snow...or 10"-15"...or 3"-6". You never know. It may go one way or the other and then we either get nailed or we get squat.
Those aforementioned folks on the news have been getting shriekier and shriekier about it as the day has gone on. I bought some salt. Yawn.
So, a little while ago, I decided to take a look at the weather satellites online, like maybe I can predict this stuff better than the guys with expensive haircuts. And imagine my horror to discover that they've been deceiving us. Snow? Hell! There's a big-assed green cloud headed my way. It's huge. And it's green! And it's headed right for me. (It looks like it may have already gotten all my friends on the eastern seaboard south of me. It was great knowing you guys.)
Here's a closer shot. Still Green. Still awesometacularly gigundous. Still headed right at me! What the hell is that thing? Some kind of gas? Locusts? A massive concentration of greenhouse gasses? (Damn you world leaders for waiting until this week to not really decide anything.)
Pardon me while I join the freak-out.
This sucker is supposed to hit around 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. If you don't hear from me before or after this crap hits, well, it'll be because I'm preparing and then exercising Escape and Evasion. In preparation, I'll be re-reading World War Z and The Stand. Those should both have some good practical suggestions.
Update: Saturday 12:20 p.m.: Zero snow flakes so far. Shoveling is extremely difficult due to lack of resistance of non-existent snow drifts.
Update: Saturday 1:00 p.m.: Rumor has it that it is now snowing in Elizabeth, NJ. Terror is increasing. Panic building. Wow...this is just like War of the Worlds.
Update: Saturday 1:24 p.m.: Flakes! of Snow!
Update: Saturday 4:02 p.m.: So, it snowed for a little while...not very heavy. This is what it looks like right now.
But the forecast still says we're gonna get as much as 18" by the time it's over tomorrow morning. Go figure.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Al Franken...American Hero.
I thought this was an absolutely delicious moment.
"Oh, really!" "Yeah, really Joe...STFU."
"Oh, really!" "Yeah, really Joe...STFU."
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Verizon, You've Got Some 'Splainin' To Do!
In the 2-plus weeks since I bought my Droid, I've had a few...glitches. I've been learning to use the thing and learning how to touch the screen just right so that I'm not just mashing everything at once, but the little bastard has been uncooperative in some other ways.
First, I had a recurring problem in that anyone I called heard an awful echo on the line. I never heard it on my end, so it took a while to figure out what was going on. Once I understood what was happening, I called Verizon.
Verizon Tech Guy: Good Morning. My name is ________ and I'll be your Tech Support Dude this morning. How can I help you?
Me: Everyone I call complains of a terrible echo on the line.
Verizon Tech Guy: I'm sorry. I can't understand you. There's a terrible echo on the line. Is there another phone you can call from?
Me: D'oh!
Eventually, after a series of "soft" resets and some other stuff, they asked me to go into a Verizon Store to get a "hard" reset. That took an hour and a half and seems to have gotten rid of the echo.
Then there's my email problem. Sometimes I don't get any emails. I've deleted and reentered the account about ten times. I've changed the port settings as directed by the Verizon DSL guy*. Sometimes, when resetting the email, the whole thing just gets stuck in an infinite loop, trying to confirm the settings. Since my email is on a web server (also Verizon), it stays on the server until eventually I get it on my computer (on Entourage) and it gets deleted from the server. I want it to stay on the server until I have the option of saving it to my hard drive. But the problem there is that the phone "sniffs" for email as often as I tell it to (every 15 minutes), and it seems to decide that some emails are so important, I should see them over and over and over again. (I was informed of a Macy's sale 7 times yesterday).
The guy from Motorola said I should take the phone into Verizon and trade it in for a new instrument. That was the only thing he could think of at this point. I'll be doing that later today.
But the coolest thing is that my first bill since buying the thing showed up this morning. When I switched to Verizon to get this phone, Verizon became the exclusive agent for all of Nathan's communications options. I have Verizon for my landline. I have Verizon for my DSL. I have a wireless card so I can get online with my laptop anywhere. And I got the cell phone with unlimited everything because in 2-plus weeks of having it, I've used 1272 minutes, 390 text messages, and 208357.88 kb of ... something. I'm on the thing a lot when I'm in the middle of a job.
But the thing is, they explained how they'd be able to bundle my services and give me some steep discounts. After the bundling, I should be paying slightly under $200/mo for everything. (And I'm supposed to be able to downgrade my calling plan between jobs when my usage isn't so high.) They explained that my first bill would be a little higher because of some one-time activation fees (which should have amounted to about $35.00). So, you can imagine my reaction when I saw the first bill this morning...for $386.00.
Verizon! You've got some 'splainin' to do!
------------------------------------------------------------
* One of the major frustrations in all of this is the number of companies you have to deal with to make one little phone work. Motorola makes the phone. (They're the only ones to acknowledge that their piece of the pie...the instrument itself...might be the problem.) Verizon Wireless which provides the phone service insists that my email problem originates with Verizon DSL, which is an entirely different company! Verizon DSL, of course, points their finger in the other direction.
First, I had a recurring problem in that anyone I called heard an awful echo on the line. I never heard it on my end, so it took a while to figure out what was going on. Once I understood what was happening, I called Verizon.
Verizon Tech Guy: Good Morning. My name is ________ and I'll be your Tech Support Dude this morning. How can I help you?
Me: Everyone I call complains of a terrible echo on the line.
Verizon Tech Guy: I'm sorry. I can't understand you. There's a terrible echo on the line. Is there another phone you can call from?
Me: D'oh!
Eventually, after a series of "soft" resets and some other stuff, they asked me to go into a Verizon Store to get a "hard" reset. That took an hour and a half and seems to have gotten rid of the echo.
Then there's my email problem. Sometimes I don't get any emails. I've deleted and reentered the account about ten times. I've changed the port settings as directed by the Verizon DSL guy*. Sometimes, when resetting the email, the whole thing just gets stuck in an infinite loop, trying to confirm the settings. Since my email is on a web server (also Verizon), it stays on the server until eventually I get it on my computer (on Entourage) and it gets deleted from the server. I want it to stay on the server until I have the option of saving it to my hard drive. But the problem there is that the phone "sniffs" for email as often as I tell it to (every 15 minutes), and it seems to decide that some emails are so important, I should see them over and over and over again. (I was informed of a Macy's sale 7 times yesterday).
The guy from Motorola said I should take the phone into Verizon and trade it in for a new instrument. That was the only thing he could think of at this point. I'll be doing that later today.
But the coolest thing is that my first bill since buying the thing showed up this morning. When I switched to Verizon to get this phone, Verizon became the exclusive agent for all of Nathan's communications options. I have Verizon for my landline. I have Verizon for my DSL. I have a wireless card so I can get online with my laptop anywhere. And I got the cell phone with unlimited everything because in 2-plus weeks of having it, I've used 1272 minutes, 390 text messages, and 208357.88 kb of ... something. I'm on the thing a lot when I'm in the middle of a job.
But the thing is, they explained how they'd be able to bundle my services and give me some steep discounts. After the bundling, I should be paying slightly under $200/mo for everything. (And I'm supposed to be able to downgrade my calling plan between jobs when my usage isn't so high.) They explained that my first bill would be a little higher because of some one-time activation fees (which should have amounted to about $35.00). So, you can imagine my reaction when I saw the first bill this morning...for $386.00.
Verizon! You've got some 'splainin' to do!
------------------------------------------------------------
* One of the major frustrations in all of this is the number of companies you have to deal with to make one little phone work. Motorola makes the phone. (They're the only ones to acknowledge that their piece of the pie...the instrument itself...might be the problem.) Verizon Wireless which provides the phone service insists that my email problem originates with Verizon DSL, which is an entirely different company! Verizon DSL, of course, points their finger in the other direction.
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