Sydney is a two month old Dachshund/Terrier mix, about 8 lbs. so far, who we adopted yesterday at the Silicon Valley Humane Society. They have a beautiful facility in Milpitas and the staff are great. We’ve signed up for the Puppy 1 training and socialization class starting Tuesday. He’s already good about going outside and understands No.
So happy to have this new member of our family!
Sorry but I am just fed up. Mail.app, Outlook, Thunderbird, all of them are stuck in the past and the developers need to get their acts together before users collectively hunt them down for silly slapping.
The current Democratic-back health care legislation has induced more rhetoric, emotion and disinformation since the Swift Boat Campaign. A very apt comparison since there’s about as much truth in the opposition in both. “Death panels” please! Like a politician would do something so utterly guaranteed to lose votes.
Yesterday was a great day. When Clint Dempsey put in the first goal I was jumping and screaming, though I had to see the replay to believe it. When Landon drove home the second just past Julio Cesar’s leaping form I was laughing with joy and pounding the countertop.
For those of you who somehow managed to avoid seeing this result, how did you do it? LOL.
[Note: I sent this email to Safeway over a week ago and have not received so much as an automated response.]
I am very unhappy about the false promise made by Safeway regarding accumulation of 10 cent per gallon discounts. I live in Mountain View, CA, and shop at the store on Shoreline Blvd. Given that I’ve accumulated 6 or 7 and the discount expires next 10 days I tried to use it yesterday only to find out that I cannot, at least not in any reasonable way. $0.60 * 14 gallons to fill up is $8.40 (or $9.80 for 7), a meaningful amount in these days of rising gas prices.
I looked very carefully at the related pages on Safeway.com and find nothing that says the reward can only be redeemed at Safeways which sell gas, just “participating locations.” But nowhere are participating locations listed and the closest such Safeway is in Pleasonton, over 40 minutes drive from here! Past similar programs have been redeemable at the Arco next to the Safeway at which I shop.
Indeed the PowerPump Locator page lists three locations in Mountain View (when I enter zip code 94043). But instead of being places where one may redeem the reward these are the three stores you have in town and this distinction is not mentioned at all.
To me this is similar to false advertising since Safeway is creating the same false expectation that I’m getting a deal by shopping at the store. Either the company should arrange for location redemption locations or stop making the claim on every receipt I get.
[This is the letter I sent Fox Soccer Channel today in support of the Boycott Steven Cohen campaign]
To whom it may concern,
Steve Cohen has, and not for the first time, told lies about the deaths the 96 fans at Hillsborough, claiming that Liverpool fans were responsible for killing their own, amongst other lies. Is this the type of person you want representing your company? Steve Cohen has done this before, apologising when the outrage grew too large only to continue with his comments a short time later. Clearly, he will not stop, so our objective is to see him being put off air permanently.
Fox Football Phone-in used to be enjoyable and good for a laugh but now I cannot watch it at all. If there were another way for me to watch English football than FSC you can be sure I would.
I urge you to reconsider your use of Cohen.
I will be posting this message to my blog and elsewhere until your support for Steve Cohen and his lies ends.
Thank you,
Bill Lazar
http://billsaysthis.com
So the wizards at CBS have done it again. This is the network with the oldest demographic and having just turned 48 I shouldn’t be surprised that more of its shows are getting on my list. NCIS, for instance, who can resist Mark Harmon as a hardcase?
Six years ago tonight TS1 and I stood up in front of family and friends to pledge our love and lives together. Simply put, I’ve never made a better decision: no woman is a better match for me and she gives me hope that the future will be ever better.
For all of you still searching for a partner in life I wish only that you find someone as wonderful as Viv!
Six years ago tonight TS1 and I stood up in front of family and friends to pledge our love and lives together. Simply put, I’ve never made a better decision: no woman is a better match for me and she gives me hope that the future will be ever better.
For all of you still searching for a partner in life I wish only that you find someone as wonderful as Viv!
Two interesting GOP things today:
My opinion of the Republican party is no secret: I think they are, on the whole, sleazier and more hypocritical than Democratic politicians. To use less directly derogatory terms, GOP positions are based more on emotion than logic and are far less logically consistent; further they are far less open to true intellectual debate. How many officeholding Dems during the Bush years said, as Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) recently did, that his or her state should secede from the Union?
Chuck really has to come back next season. NBC Universal, please renew the show because I have to see what its like now that Bartowski will be able to hold his own in a fight!
This was hopefully a season finale and not a series finale but, if it was, then I think the writers did good. This year has seen the end, or possible end, of several shows I watch and the writers impressed me with quality finales. In this regard, compared to past seasons this has to be one of the best–though for the most part I’d have rather had more episodes.
Battlestar Galactica, The Wire, The Shield, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Life, MI-5, these are the ones I’m thinking about. The L Word was close but not quite at the same level; they did at least finally get back to the whole Jenny’s murder thing in the last episode. Life and Sarah Connor, at least as of this writing, are only on the bubble and not cancelled, though the latter seems sure to go.
There was plenty of criticism of the way Ron Moore brought the four year flight to an end. Almost everyone loved the first hour but the second not so much. I felt it was great that all the main character arcs and nearly all the questions were answered. I specifically wanted to know what the Six that only Baltar and the Baltar only Six could see were, and we got that answer. My main quibble was that the very last bit, with the two angels walking down a Manhattan street, was a ham-handed method of getting a point across.
The Wire, as I wrote a few months ago, gave us a “final season of an awesome show [of] 10 episodes that layered on the death of the American big city newspaper to a stack of stories that were already deeper than the aggregate total of the 500+ episodes of the three editions of CSI” and I like the CSIs. This was, quite possibly, the finest show produced by American television.
The Shield was another great one, very bleak (as were BSG and The Wire), but like them it ended and did so honestly within the framework created over its run. The sight of Vic Mackie forced to sit quietly at a cubicle desk for years to come was a terrific way to punish and reward the atrocious behavior we’d seen.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles finished at a point that let the creatives go forward if the show is renewed–try figuring out how they were going to explain John Connor’s trip forward and how and/or why he would come back to the present–or if not gave viewers a sense of one major part of his life coming to a close.
Let’s just hope the NBC execs have the good judgment to bring back Chuck and Life.
For a new programming project I decided to see what the whole CSS framework and grid design craze is about for myself, and to refresh my Ruby on Rails programming skills.
A little research turned up Chris Eppstein’s Compass gem. This is a very nice meta-framework, which can be used with Rails, Merb, Sinatra or other Ruby frameworks as well as pure Ruby, that combines Hampton Caitlin’s SASS gem with any of several CSS frameworks, including (at this writing) Blueprint, Yahoo! UI Grids and 960 Grid System. Blueprint seemed sufficient for my needs and the easiest choice so I went with it.
Author’s note: I tried publishing this with Blogger as a regular post but it just wasn’t working, so its available as a standalone page.
Today a man in Pittsburgh shot and killed three police officers who had responded to a report of domestic violence. Yesterday another man shot and killed thirteen people in Binghampton, NY. Both gunmen were wearing body armor, apparently prepared to take on any police response.
Online comments, in this case on the Yahoo Buzz discussion of the Pittsburgh story, are certainly not to be taken as more than anecdotal evidence of community sentiment but still I was seriously wound up by the majority of those posted as of now.
Most of the posters seemed more concerned that President Obama and the Democratic congress were trying to override their Second Amendment right to own guns than with the 16 dead people and their grieving families. A couple of particularly sad examples:
“these brainwashed killers are brought out intentionally, so to take away our 2 amendment. bring on the chaos so to create more control. gun control that is. biden is on it!” said dorite.
“Will Obama insist on calling the shooter something other than a murderer? Perhaps this event will be called a “Disturbed Citizen Confrontation.” If we can’t call terrorists “Enemy Combatants.” how can we call Americans “murderers?” said (the ironically nicknamed) Patriot.
Seriously, sixteen people who were doing their jobs or else in the same boat as the murderer are being buried and these dunces want to make up absurd claims with no basis in reality?!
Let’s for a moment, though, take them seriously. Another poster makes the valid point that the majority of gun owning Americans do not use them to murder people or commit other crimes.
Is that a good enough reason to continue allowing Americans unfettered access to all types of guns? The NRA and the rest of the gun lobby use their muscle to prevent any limitations on gun ownership.
The primary arguments I have seen are that people need guns to protect themselves and for hunting. If this is so then why are laws that cover guns and ammunition which are not used in either of them a problem?
The Second Amendment is not, after all, as absolute in its language as the First. “Congress shall make no law” is much stronger than “shall not be infringed.”
Some people will argue that what the Founders wrote should be taken literally and not interpreted, either in regards to the times in which they lived and their other writings or in light of changes since then and current thinking.
My answer is simply WTF. You want a rifle for hunting and a pistol for the house? Fine. Armor-piercing bullets and .50 caliber machine guns? Kiss my heiny.
Another argument is that if we outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns. By definition I suppose that would be true as any hunter who kept a rifle in the garage or homeowner with a .22 in the back closet would be an outlaw. But that isn’t what’s on the table, its just a strawman argument to generate emotional appeal where logic fails.
Finally some will argue that an armed populace keeps the government on its toes, from overreaching its place. When the government has Stealth bombers, divisions of M1A tanks and nuclear subs I do not believe any group of civilians will be able to achive that result.
The only answer for this is to hope some substantial portion of the military will side with, well, whichever side is actually right. Even without the military, the lack of change brought about by various anti-government groups over the last 20 years is reasonable proof that armed civilians cannot succeed.
No, the truth now is that gun owners have become religious. They speak and react with the same zealous vigor as religious fanatics–and not surprisingly there’s a serious overlap of the two groups.
In a way this strange. You shall not kill is one of the 10 commandments, stated as an absolute. Not you shall not kill except in self-defense or in order to eat (the commandment isn’t specific to humans. No killing period.
Meanwhile our families, friends and neighbors are dying in front of our eyes. Are these two men murderers? Yes. Are their guns to blame? No. But when gun-owning fanatics will not allow the least restrictions on gun sales so that clearly mentally unbalanced people can buy them, then they share blame for the result.
Last: Our literal-minded compatriots will make exceptions on the one hand, since it suits them, but not on the other even when doing so might be closer in agreement with their self-proclaimed religious beliefs.
Next time you happen to be in a conversation with a religious gun owner, have some fun and ask them how they reconcile the contradictions.
This posting is really just for my future recollection. Liverpool FC are going all guns now, following up the 4-0 win over Real Madrid with a 4-1 win at Old Trafford and yesterday’s 5-0 Anfield thrashing of Aston Villa. The latter, coupled with a second straight ManUtd loss and Chelsea’s surprising loss to Tottenham, means there are at least two teams who can win the Premier League and neither plays at Stamford Bridge… or the Emirates.
Villa were hoping to push into the top four but based on recent form this seems unlikely. Martin O’Neill is a pretty good manager but has overworked his shallow squad and its beginning to affect results. Lucky for him there’s an international break before they have to go to Manchester United.
With frontman Dimitar Berbatov likely to miss due to an ankle injury, no Wayne Rooney or Paul Scholes–both bad boys got reds on Saturday–and an off-kilter Cristiano Ronaldo, will O’Neill deploy an aggressive front line of Heskey, Carew and Agbonlahor in a 4-3-3 to try and extend Sir Alex’s misery?
The Reds go to Fulham the day before, and the Cottagers will be proud of their victory, but I think the traveling squad will be too much for Roy Hodgson’s backline, too eager to make up points dropped earlier this season that evaporated what was an eight point league table lead prior to Christmas.
Reds have won four straight, scoring 16 and conceding one–ONE!–goal since the wakeup call at Middlesboro. They’ve taken 13 of 15 possible points against the other three Top 4 teams.
Torres did not get any of the goals against Villa and that’s got to sting. Riera will want more of the plaudits he’s had the last few weeks. Reina is making the stops and setting up goals. Stevie G is being called the in-form player period, in any league.
Look out this week to see Gerrard and Benitez get player and manager of the month awards. Fulham, just look out 😉
The E Street Band Live in New York City video was blasting in HD this afternoon while I struggled with some web programming and then a song came on which is the perfect example of why Bruce and his band are for my money the greatest rock act to ever play the big stage.
Light of Day (Youtube Part 1, Youtube Part 2) isn’t one of his hits or even well-known–heck the original release was a version done by Joan Jett and Michael J. Fox in their obscure 1987 film of the same name. But the way the guys worked it up for this tour simply has everything a great rock performance needs.
“I’ve seen people lost! In envy over the New Jersey Devils winning the Stanley Cup!” he sings, and then holds his hands up in surprise as the audience hisses. “…But that’s alright because I’m here tonight on an ambassadorial mission to unite these two great civilizations,” he finishes, and then the band jumps back in to rock out the house.
I can’t explain this better but this is what I love about rock and why, despite my recent misgivings over his, er, business judgment, I can always get a thrill listening to Springsteen and the E Street Band.
The iconic image is Bruce, hands over his head and the Telecaster hanging low down his back:
All the pundits forecast that Liverpool would come out tonight to squeeze the life out of their Champions League second leg match after bringing home a 1-0 win from the Bernabeau two weeks ago. Rafa confounded everyone, including the Spanish brain trust, by having the players blaze up the field from the start and there was really no doubt at all that the Reds were moving on to the semifinals for the fourth time in the last five years.
The outcome was clear from the first Liverpool attack in the first minute when Fernando Torres took the ball at the top of the box with his back to goal, backheeled it between Fabio Cannavaro’s legs, spun around Cannavaro to the outside and regained possession to get off a shot that was only stopped by a great save from Iker Casillas.
The Reds continued pounding Real relentlessly and broke through just before twenty minutes when Torres muscled Real’s other central defender Pepe off the ball. Dirk Kuyt was just outside of them and touched the ball back to Torres in the center and, with Casillas pulled out of position, Torres needed just the lightest of taps for the goal. Torres never beat Madrid in his years with crosstown rivals Atletico but now has two in two weeks!
The Reds got a huge favor from the sideline assistant ten minutes later when he raised his flag for hand ball by Gabriel Heinze inside the box. Replays showed it came off the Argentine’s shoulder but the officials don’t have the benefit of video and Captain Stevie coolly sent the PK the other way for numero dos.
Just after the restart the Reds broke down sloppy back line passing–which they did the whole game, to be fair–and Ryan Babel drove clear to the touchline where he pulled it back to Stevie G, who scored again from a very difficult ball. Andrea Dossena, a late sub, got the final tally just before the end when Casillas could not get back to recover from one last giveaway by his field players.
Besides the score good things from this match:
Draw for the next round is on Friday. Already through are Chelsea, Villareal and Bayern Munich–the German side was especially impressive today, drubbing Sporting of Lisbon 7-1 to go with a 5-0 beatingin the first leg. Favorites to go through tomorrow are Manchester United, Arsenal and Barcelona, and though I have no idea about Atletico Madrid v. Porto I would certainly like to see my Reds draw the winner of that matchup.
In the Premier League the Reds are having a rough spell but today’s result and the 2-0 beating of Sunderland last time out should give them a good frame of mind for Saturday’s crucial visit to Old Trafford. Only a win gets them back in the title race, though a draw or a tight 1-0 loss will give them hope should the two meet later on in the Champions League.
Liverpool v. Manchester United in the May 27 final in Rome, now that would be a dream fixture!
Lines of supporters snake past the turnstiles
Boldly shouting club chants across each other
Waving colorful pennants and angry fists
Pounding out a rhythm everybody knows.
Players are out on the field warming up
Cameramen line up shots of the goals and benches
Kids climb over their seats, waving at friends
Hands sticky from pop and candy, happy.
Physios set out rolls of tape and extra shinguards
Helpers get trays of bottled water and towels
Announcers and color commentators jabber,
Rushing to scribble final notes and thoughts.
Louder than the fan’s cheers the starting whistle reigns
The referee’s arm comes down and the players jump
Home supporters shouting again, traveling fans
Hold their own, altogether shaking the stands.
Action races up the pitch with the ball flitting,
Wing to mid to fullback to striker to wing, defender
Jumping in to disrupt the play, bounding the ball
Off a leg, off the field and into the technical area.
BillSaysThis 