Upside-Down Monitor

My friend, Chuck Bobo, has a monitor problem. It's about 7 years old and is suddenly showing his image upside-down. (My husband says a monitor may only last 3 or 4 years with heavy use.) Chuck ran a virus checker over his system and tried whatever he could without success.

Finally, he just turned the whole monitor upside down. Everything has been working fine for the past couple of days. We had quite a chuckle over his solution. Who knows how long it will keep working? This reminds me of that saying, "If Life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

GMail Tool

Here's a nice little utility. It sits in the system tray and checks GMail as often as you designate. It will tell you if there are any messages. I like it. While I am still using all of my other e-mail names, I am going to shift some of my domain mail forwarding settings to GMail.

GMail & GTray Utility

Rock Art

Here's a rock, taken as is and painted. It was not chipped or changed in any way other than to paint it. I'm getting hungry. More rocks at Surfwiz.

Jack Russell Terrier

My daughter and her fiancé are getting a female Jack Russell Terrier which will be kept at my daughter's apartment with her cat. She has never owned and always wanted a puppy (as well as her cat). She works 12-hour days and lives in such a small space that I hope things work out for them.

From the pictures she showed me, the puppy is very cute. She has never owned or tried to housebreak a puppy so it will be real learning experience for her. She is excited about it and it sounds like she has planned for it as well as she can.

Speaking of dogs, just read this about how dogs are a premium in Japan. They can be rented for an hour or a day. I think that's a good idea. People could rent a pet and find out exactly how much work is involved. (Note -- the picture here is not of her particular puppies.)

Older People

I love old people. They speak their minds without fear. Today, one dear friend saw a construction guy working on the sewage system along the path where many people walk every day. She approached him and asked why he left a terrible muddy mess beside his equipment on the greenway. Serves him right for leaving things a mess around here after the rainfall yesterday.

Another elderly friend saw a woman walking a dog without a leash. Since there is a sign clearly stating the leash law, he told the woman that she was breaking the law. This woman was a perfect stranger to both of us, but she did not get too angry. Maybe she knew that old folks don't hesitate to speak up, at least those fit enough to go walking.

Linux Versions

My husband is turning into a Linux collector. He has partitioned his hard drive and can now boot up in over a half dozen Linux versions (out of the 200 or so available). I asked him which one he likes the most. He says there are good things about all of the versions he's using, but at first glance, he likes PC Linux OS for its slick and easy to understand appearance.

So far, I like Knoppix. It runs from the CD and looks good on my system. I just need to get a wireless mouse driver and I will run it more often.

Mozilla Compatible

I love Mozilla, but I love SlimBrowser, too. They both do tabbed browsing although SlimBrowser does it more elegantly and the button on my mouse will close a SlimBrowser tab without closing down the whole program. On the other hand, Mozilla skins are better. Mozilla is not susceptible to the many bugs and viruses coming through Internet Explorer.

This blog page does not look quite right in Mozilla. It was a template that I modified. I don't know how to remove the gap between the tables that runs vertically down the page when viewed with Mozilla. I've tried several different HTML coding schemes and nothing works perfectly. I am sorry that it is not more elegant-looking. At least, it is readable.

I use both browsers regularly and hope to use more Linux OS all together (when I can get a good driver for my wireless mouse, I plan to boot up in a Linux OS, sometimes, too). These days, Linux is just safer and its getting easier to use.

I remember the dirt-cheap Linux computers sold by Sams last year (going for something like $200 because they did not have to pay the large fee to have Windows installed on them). After they sold a batch of them, we never saw them again. They did not restock. We wonder if Microsoft got to them.

Snakes and Food

I guess snakes are endlessly fascinating for some folks (as is food). The most recent searchwords leading to this page were:

I know I am always looking for another good chocolate chip cookie recipe (no, really!). I remember when people were getting to my page using Paris Hilton as a search term. Ironically, I had never used the two words together until I found search engines leading folks here. I visited an unusual Hilton Hotel in Akron, Ohio. It was built in an old oatmeal storage silo. The rooms were round -- all curved walls.

ExtremeGeek.com is a good store site. I've bought things from them. Pepitos in Alabama is a decent restaurant. I like their salsa (& chips) the best (freshly made with cilantro) and their fajitas and tacos are excellent, but don't order any salads there ... terrible salad dressing. My husband and I like to order their triple fajita dinner for two (a combo of shrimp, steak and chicken fajitas).

As for keeping snakes away from your home, I have no good answers. Probably you could adopt a couple of big pet cats. In the past, my cats have gone after a snake. They didn't touch the snake, but they were willing to chase him off the property.

I am not particularly afraid of snakes. I grew up with friends who owned snakes and got used to holding them. I don't mind snakes as long as they are not the poisonous kind and don't actually get inside my house. Anything that eats mice and other vermin is okay with me, but I think getting rid of a snake's food source might be the best way to keep them away and a cat would be good for that (getting rid of small rodents, etc.).

Joy Luck Buffet on Friday Night

We revisited this newly-managed oriental buffet on their Friday "seafood night." What a disappointment! I mean, the food was good, but they did not bring in anything special except crab legs and oysters. If you want a good seafood night buffet, go to Meteor Buffet on 72E just off North Parkway. While we like Joy Luck for a daily lunch, it was not special enough to warrant the much-higher cost at night (unless you go crazy for crab legs and oysters and then Meteor Buffet offers those plus a lot more). I liked my fortune cookie saying, though it was not really a fortune.

Large Ears

I've heard it said that cats hear better than dogs (while dogs are better at picking up smells). A friend rescued a kitten from the Humane Society. We were amazed by his large ears. She said, "I hope he grows into those ears." I wonder if his hearing will be better than other cats.

His name is Echo and he belongs to Amanda. Isn't he cute? (By the way, there are more animals waiting for a new home at the Humane Society, City Pound and The Ark (another humane society) here in town.)

More pictures of Echo: Picture 1 - Picture 2.

Summer Jobs

Possumblog asks us to answer three questions:

Here are my answers:

Gnats - Too Many of Them

Ugh! Walking this morning was painful. Expecting rain, I brought an umbrella and was hit with a sudden rainfall. Or rather, I wish it had been rain. It was a large cloud of gnats. They got tangled in my hair, down my shirt, in my mouth, covering my glasses, crawling up my arms and chest. It seemed endless and I learned the hard way that they have little stinging bites.

Continued on the NEXT PAGE -->

<--  Previous Page | Topic List for this Page | Back to Top