All posts by rbowen

McDonands to think for us

Well, thank the stars, McDonalds is going to think for us, so we don’t have to. Because Americans are, apparently, too dumb to make decisions about what they eat, McDonalds is removing items from their menu that might be unhealthy if, say, some moron were to eat nothing but McDonalds food for a month. (And, to make it worse, he won an award for it?.) So, in an attempt to protect us from our own stupidity, they’re going to remove the SuperSize option. Perhaps they should also impose a restriction on how many times I’m permitted to eat there in a week, since *clearly* i’m too dumb to make that kind of decision on my own.

Frankly, I’m slack-jawed in amazement that people can be so dumb. Not McDonalds, of course. They’re doing the only sensible thing, in the light of getting sued because idiots don’t realize that eating nothing but burgers and fries might be a health risk. I’m gratified, however, that the courts have thrown out some of these lawsuits. I hope they also fined the lawyers in question for filing boneheaded suits.

Since first grade, we have been taught to eat a balanced diet. Folks, “balanced” does not mean one cheeseburger in each hand. I think that’s obvious to most people not intentionally trying to be obtuse.

I’m waiting for someone to sue a liquor store because they went for a month on nothing but beer and vodka, and their health deterioriated.

Clocktower port

Since Moose made some remarks about Clocktower, I went and replenished my supply of Clocktower, to see if I like it. I know I’ve had it before, but I didn’t really have any particular recollections about it.

So, several things.

One, it’s not a Port, technically, because its from Australia. But, nitpicking aside …

It’s a tawny, not a ruby. This is entirely a matter of personal preference, I like ruby ports better. And it was *very* nutty, which I actually liked.

When I went to get it, by the way, I was actually going to get a Grahams, but they didn’t have any, so I got the Clocktower. About $10 for a 750, which is not bad at all for a half-way decent Port. But I think that I might take it upon myself to share some finer ports with Moose and see what he thinks. 🙂

Caching towards St Louis

On Sunday I’ll be heading out towards St. Louis, where I’ll be teaching a week-long Apache training class.

It’s my goal, on the way out there, and while there, to cross the 200 mark on geocaches found. I’m at 122 right now, so this is a significant goal, I think.

I’ve picked out several small towns on the way out there, and made 100-cache radius searches around them, so that on the way out, I can stop frequently along the way and search. It’s about a 5 hour drive, and I expect it will take me at least twice that long.

I set up a bunch of Pocket Queries to give me the caches to load onto my Palm and GPSr, but they didn’t show up. I just figured out this morning that it’s because they come as zip file attachments, and my MTA drops zip files, due to the latest rash of viruses arriving as zip file attacments. Duh. So hopefully over the next few days I’ll get all the files that I need for the trip.

I’m driving, and I’ll be taking two laptops with me so that I’ll have all the necessary hardware and software to do this trip. I need Windows for some of my stuff, and Linux for the training class itself. So this evening I’ll be taking *everything* out of Rocinante, including the seats, so that I have room for all the junk I need to take.

I’m actually really looking forward to this trip. 🙂

Geocaching anniversary.

Slightly more than a year ago, I bought a GPSr. This has turned out to be the best luxury purchase that I have made, ever. I didn’t need it. I didn’t know what I was going to use it for. And I couldn’t afford it. But I got it, because I wanted something to play with.

Then, on March 15th, prompted by a friend (who has only just now started geocaching!) I tried out geocaching, finding my first cache in Shillito Park. The cache is now gone, although I will be replacing it for the anniversary of my first find.

Geocaching has been a God-send in a number of ways. It gives me something to do when life is depressing. It gives me an excuse to get out and go hiking, as well as specific targets to hike to. It has given Sarah and I something to do together that we both enjoy and look forward to. And it has both brought me new friends, and reunited me with friends from past years.

Psychic communication

There’s something strangely supernatural that happens when I cook. It seems to send out messages to receptive (yet annoying) people, so that, as soon as all the food is ready and I’m sitting down to eat it, they call. And, moreover, the harder I’ve worked on the meal, and the more important that it is that it be eaten hot, the longer they will yap.

*sigh*. Another breakfast ruined.

Bread machine bread

I’ve been making bread in my new bread machine for about 3 weeks now. I’m finding that it is just a little too dense. I don’t know if I need to take it out of the machine after the mixing phase and bake it in the oven, or if there’s some ingredient that I’m missing. I’m still experimenting with different recipes, but they are all a chore to chew. And, of course, the little person doesn’t like them at all.

I’m also finding that they are VERY salty. Must try with less salt.

Coffee smells

Why is it that, some mornings, coffee smells like the most wonderful thing in the world, and some mornings it smells like eau de skunk? I swear, this morning the coffee smelled like a skunk had sprayed, and then died, in my kitchen. But it was exactly the same coffee (Tanzania peaberry … mmmmm) that I made yesterday. I don’t get it.

Missing caches

Seems to have been a very bad week for my geocaches. I’ve had one reported destroyed (Wild Blue Yonder), one that I had to pull because someone forgot to put the lid on (Bush Baby) and it got soaked, and three more reported missing (Kissing Tree, Colt’s Run, and Rockfence) which I have not had a chance to go check on yet.

I should have Bush Baby back out tomorrow, but the others, I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to check on. Hopefully tomorrow morning.

Irony, thy name is Verisign

Seems that Verisign is suing ICANN for doing their job. Pretty ironic really.

As I remember it, ICANN was created in the first place because InterNIC/Verisign/NetworkSolutions was abusing the power that they had. So, this time around, Verisign again abused their power by putting the misnamed “Sitefinder” “service” in place.

For those of you who missed it, the basics of this “service” were that if you mistyped a domain name, you’d end up on Verisign’s web site.

Of course, there’s slightly more to it than that, because the internet is more than just the web. So if you mistyped an email address, that email would end up going to Verisign too. That strikes me as a tad of a security problem, to say the least.

So ICANN stepped in, did their job, and shut down this service, which was causing breakage across the Internet.

So now Verisign is suing ICANN.

And it’s even more ironic, because the only reason Verisign even still has a company is that ICANN granted them the rights to manage the .com TLD in the last reshuffle. And so Verisign is, in a very real sense, biting the hand that feeds it.

I sincerly hope that ICANN sees that the right thing to do here is to simply hand .com to some other company that can manage it responsibly, since Verisign has not only shown that they cannot, but has shown no respect for the organization that they are supposed to answer to, as well as for the Internet standards that they are supposed to be upholding.

Morons.