Artistic Chinese Creations

Also check out this website for some Rat products.

Year of the Rat

"Rat has strong associations with material success such as wealth and other luxuries of life. It is their aggression, charm, hard work, discipline and passionate nature that gives an edge to their persona in comparison to others."

Chinese New Year is coming up, on February 7, 2008. Click here for more.

Chicken Little

U.S. spy satellite is dead and ready to fall out of earth's orbit... the question being "where and when do you suppose it will land hardest?".

On the Books

I'm talking about new laws in effect, or about to become law.

We're in the middle of several storm systems (today being a brief lull... more rain to come this evening). While driving home from work on a couple of occasions, I noticed that not all the cars on the road have their headlights turned on. This is relevant because California law stipulates that this is required if you are using your windshield wipers. I may have been guilty on occasion, only because my headlights turn on automatically depending on the ambient light conditions (if the sensors determine that it is dark enough).

Of course, the alternative is to not bother using the wipers while your headlight remains turned off. I don't believe it is law requiring the use of wipers when it's raining cats and dogs.

Since this seems to be the type of frivolous law that would be difficult at best to enforce, I wonder how law enforcement personnel are to handle the many potential abusers when the hands-free cellphone law goes into effect this July? I am all for any means to get people's attentions back to driving rather than occupying themselves with distractions. I'd like to see data collected that may determine cellphone usage as possibly contributing to accidents, and slap on stiffer penalties for the indiscretion.

Another law on the books here in California makes it illegal to toss burning objects from a moving vehicle. The verbiage is probably a euphemistic attempt to acquiesce those yoyos who insist on tossing their cigarette butts out the window. Cops seem to be exempt... and could be why this law is (IMHO) rarely enforced, if at all.

There should be a law that outlaws laws that are either nonsensical or difficult to enforce.

Requiem for a Tiger

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

(search the Internet for more of William Blake's poem)

Investigators are still uncovering details of the Christmas mauling by Tatiana, a tiger which was housed at the San Francisco Zoo. Two brothers and a teenage friend were allegedly taunting Tatiana while intoxicated and possibly under the influence of marijuana, in which the 17-year old friend died.

"Clearly there's the lesson to be learned here,'' said zoo spokesman Sam Singer. "The lesson is that it's not a good idea to drink, it's not a good idea to be high on dope, and it's not a good idea to taunt a man-eating tiger.''

Elsewhere in this AP news article:

Bekoff said taunting is common at zoos. He said students in his animal behavior courses during the 1990s found that 20 to 25 percent of zoo visitors taunted the animals - especially predators such as lions and tigers - by mimicking, yelling, throwing things at them or otherwise aggravating them.

You capture and cage these wild animals, only to have them endure the gawking and taunting. Maybe they should best be left back in the wild where they belong, safely removed (in part) from the threat of mankind. Let's cage their human predators instead.

For those who are not familiar with the story, Tatiana was shot and killed that night.

Hindsight

I have always heard that hindsight is 20/20... and does that ever ring true! Apple Computer has been in the news quite a bit lately, especially with the advent of the iPod, iTunes, iPhone and at the recent Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas they introduced a near paper-thin laptop computer.

Twenty-twenty?

What was it? Four, maybe five years ago that Apple took a beating to the point where their stock was trading for around two or three bucks per share? I entertained the idea of picking up a good number, especially at that price, but it was anyone's guess where the company was headed. Today, the stock went down slightly... and is valued at just under $170. What I could have spent then would now have filled my coffers with about $100 grand.

I should have had more faith in Steve Jobs. I believe I have an eye appointment coming up next month... but I'm betting they won't have a cure for hindsight.

Vista

Is anyone else out there using Microsoft Vista? I have been playing with a copy of Vista Home Premium for nearly a week now (having read a bit about this latest OS beforehand... most of it filled with caveats). It's not the speediest thing, and the noob paranoia factor harkens back to the ol' AOL days where hand-holding seemed to be priority one. I'm kinda liking the Sidebar tho', customizing it the way I had done with my PDA.

Another downside (and I really can't blame Vista) is that the time I am spending familiarizing myself with the OS is cutting into some serious housekeeping. But if not this, it would probably have been something else.

Life-sized Porn

The 150" plasma display from Panasonic (on the right, alongside last year's 103 incher) is the ticket for watching your favorite porn! That is, if you can pony up the 6-digits to snag one of these. What's next, 3D and 21st century virtual reality?

Get me to a holodeck!

Slacker

You're on your computer, maybe the TV is on... maybe not. Or perhaps you have the radio playing in the background. If neither is conveniently nearby or turned on, you have the Internet radio alternative.

I came across this website while perusing some tech geek magazines.

I've been listening to this for the past week instead of firing up the mp3s in my collection, providing me an opportunity to experience songs with which I am not familiar.

Check it out!

And Then The Wind

All this wind just blows!

Today's storm has brought down power lines and many trees, and tossed about property that wasn't securely tied down. Watching this evening's news revealed more traffic collisions had occured than is imaginable. Some of the fallen trees have destroyed parked cars and crashed into homes. My truck was okay while it sat at the light rail station, although the trains weren't running resulting from this abhorrent weather (a coworker's husband drove me from work back to the parking lot). The trees surrounding my house were still rooted, although my yard was littered with some branches, none so big as to cause noticeable damage, if any. The rainwater level rose on my back patio due to the poor drainage, so water leaked into the mudroom. Damn. Good thing I have a wet/dry vacuum cleaner. I was most worried about my 10'x10' canvas topped metal gazebo; the winds were more violent than I have ever experienced. Whew, it was still standing and appeared unscathed.

However, half my backyard redwood fence had blown over (onto my side), knocking over a metal citronella torch and nearly disrupting some stones I set up around a little pond I've been working on for over the past year. Hah, did I not previously hint that when it rains, it pours?

C'est la vie!