Community Status Updates

When someone comes into my shop, stares intently at the menu board for 2 minutes, then orders a vanilla lattr, I can't help but wonder how they get by in the world.

This evening I dropped into Hot Tracks at Kyobo book store to browse some movies and music. I spied the latest Bon Jovi album and decided to pick it up. Normally, I prefer to buy music online, but I like to collect the CDs from certain artists. Then I noticed there was a deluxe "MQS (Mastering Quality Sound)" edition with four bonus tracks. The regular CD was roughly $25, whereas the MQS edition was around $55. "I have no idea what it is, but what the hell! I'll go for the MQS version," says...

This is what Republican governance gets you. Particularly that of the Tea Party variety. The nonsensical no-taxes-at-all-costs-cut-all-spending approach to governance has put Arizona in a serious crisis. This paragraph is one of several that demonstrates just how Keystone Copish these guy are. "Any way out of Arizona’s crisis will require raising taxes, a move that is tantamount to heresy for most lawmakers. For nearly a year, the legislature refused to approve the emergency sales-tax increa...

For a few weeks now, the POS computer at the shop has been taking forever to boot up. The anti-virus software my brother-in-law installed found nothing. Scanning through the logs turned up nothing. A couple weeks ago I installed CCleaner, but that didn't help. Finally, today, I did some intensive digging and found some stuff that raised a red flag. So I zapped all of that and boot time improved back to normal, Then I zapped that Korean AV software and replace it with AVAST (which I've been us...

Dear friends, Obamacare is not "socialized health care," but is all about regulating the existing private insurance market. "Gun control" is about regulating gun sales and increasing accountability of gun owners, not about taking guns away from legal owners or violating their 2nd amendment rights. If you have seen any new laws proposed that will result in the government storming private homes to take guns away, please show me! Social welfare has a number of goals, one of which is to help k...

Damn. This North Korea crap is affecting the market, causing the won to weaken against the dollar. That means I'm going to have less spending money on my trip to the States.

Looks like my favorite bar is out of business :-( Either that or they're doing some major renovation work (which I doubt). Rode by in a taxi this morning and some workers were inside tearing everything up. I guess that bottle of cognac I was keeping there is no more. I should have gone there last Friday!

"11 When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: 12 Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her." -- Deuteronomy 25:11-12

Just saw a Facebook thread where someone is pushing people to boycott Starbuck's because they support same-sex marriage (and using Facebook, which also supports same-sex marriage, to do so). The comments are full of ignorance, but one person at least chastised the man who posted it for wanting to force his beliefs on others (and was called a troll for doing so). Part of his reply: "Should we "impose" our values on others who do not agree?? Of course not, but I don't believe that is what is h...

Well, I can no longer call the day shift "slow." I get a rush of customers nearly every day now. Sometimes (like today) it's early afternoon. Other times (like yesterday) it's late afternoon. I wish they'd be predictable! Anyway, it seems the day I both looked forward to and dreaded has come. I need either to start coming in early to make sure enough onions are chopped and coleslaw is made, or take care of it the night before.

My computer won't boot! Seems to be just a burned out power supply. Seen that more than once. I hope that's all it is, anyway. I'll get it checked out when I have time. In the meanwhile, I've hooked up my old box. I was afraid it would feel like moving from a Ferrari to a go kart, but it's really not that bad. I'll be fine on this for a while. And, in fact, this is a good opportunity to get these two hooked up on a KVM switch or something once the new one is back in shape.

Chili crisis! It seems the distributor had a problem with the most recent shipment of chili from the States. They won't go into details, but they don't expect the next shipment until the end of April. In the meantime, we're scouring the city and buying up every can of it that we can get, regardless of cost. Good times.

Large hole appears in High Street. City authorities are looking into it.

For the first time in nearly 30 years, I'm reading through the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings again. Despite the intervening years and all the movies, it still hasn't lost its magic. I'm feeling 12 years old again. Just taller.

At what point did musicians stop releasing covers of songs from my parents' teens and twenties and start releasing them of songs from mine?