Forecasting a Cure

It is Monday and the Dow has experienced its largest single day drop. Pretty black, I'd say. The next couple of days may be just as rocky while uncertainty prevails amid the whole economic mess... and our favorite uncle isn't there to bail anyone out. Not for the faint of heart. Well, the message from those optimists who see life through rose-colored glasses and believe in silver linings is that we will clear the hurdle in the end, and all will be good again. Have a nice day.

I don't care if Monday's black.

Tuesday, Wednesday - heart attack.

Thursday never looking back.

It's Friday, I'm in love.

- the Cure

A Time to Pass

So long my friend, you've served me well. That my trusty alarm clock has been getting me up outta bed for the past dozen years or more... possibly quite more, to the tune of possibly 15 or maybe even 20 years... it is sad that it could not have lasted forever. That feat is probably best left to a Timex, for this was a Sony alarm clock.

The model was one of the early Dream Machine models and provided a bluish-white LED display housed in a white plastic cube with rounded corners, about 5" in dimension on each side. Its analog AM/FM radio used a wheel dial to tune in the stations, which lulled me to sleep with a choice of 10 minute increments up to an hour in duration. I also had the choice of waking to music or to a beeping chirp, and the option of extending my rest every 8 minutes by tapping the wide snooze bar on top.

A button has broken and can no longer allow me to set the alarm. No matter that the Dream Machine still valiantly displays the correct time and can be used as a clock/radio; I have other timepieces and music sources. This little dream served its purpose as an alarm clock.

Yeah, I know, it's nothing special like a Grecian urn... it's just a clock. Time to die.

KOVR 13 - Sacramento, CA

This is our local CBS affiliate TV station. Many of the shows I watch happen to be on the CBS network, so this gives me the opportunity to be a guinea pig for KOVR's efforts to get up-to-speed on their digital transmissions. Whether I like it or not.

I have been receiving over-the-air (OTA) digital TV transmissions since January 2007, and KOVR happens to be one of the last local stations to completely convert. Hey, the equipment is expensive, so I understand. However, all too often I have witnessed problems with the quality of the KOVR transmissions. I ended up watching another TV program (or shutting off the TV) many nights over this past week due to the signal breaking up... badly. Video and audio are affected. Worse yet, it sometimes locks up my digital receiver, causing fine (green) vertical stridations and a high-pitched whistle. Talk about one powerful feedback! And if it is difficult to believe that this can be caused by a transmitted signal, I had the same thing happen on a different brand of digital receiver.

I would really like to know if anyone else has experienced similar problems tuning in to KOVR, or if a forum exists which tracks this. If for no other reason but to have a bit of company for my misery.

All Scrambled Up

I've been playing Scramble regularly online at Facebook.com. It is a computer word game similar to Boggle, which uses lettered dice that are randomly arranged in a grid by shaking them inside the plastic gamebox. The timer is a miniature plastic hourglass (that measures a fraction of an hour). The goal of both Scramble and Boggle is to create as many words as possible by stringing adjacent letters together, sequentially.

The parameters are determined by the players, and lately I have been playing 10-round matches, 3 minute rounds, 5-letter minimum words, no hints and no pausing. Where Boggle would occasionally be boggling, Scramble often gets me all scrambled up.

Well, Peggy Hill (from "King of the Hill", married to Hank, mother to Bobby and aunt to Luanne), Boggle champ of Arlen, Texas... let's see how you fare playing a game of Scramble over the Internet!

Texting and Driving

Enforcement of the hands-free cellphone (while driving) law in California took effect this past July. Yay. However, the folks who pushed through this bill a year-and-a-half earlier left a loophole wide open which did not place restrictions on text messaging while driving. I have heard that this was intentionally done to ensure that the bill would pass... that it did, and now our governor has signed a bill to close said loophole. I mean, texting while maneuvering a 3,500 pound mass of rolling steel (glass, rubber, plastic and other bits) at speed, in the middle of traffic?

I have said this before about the cellphone law, and I'll say it again about the texting law: how effectively will this be enforced? I've witnessed many who still blatantly have their cellphones pressed to their ears, and no doubt texting will also continue (after January 1, 2009 when the law takes effect). The side effect to introducing new laws is that it increases the number of scofflaws.

I suppose I'm picking my battles here (living in a glass house), but as a motorcyclist who has to share the road with larger vehicles, I would like that those drivers focus their attentions on driving and not these petty distractions.

The Last Summer Weekend

Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach,

I feel it in the air - the summer's out of reach.

Empty lake, empty streets, the sun goes down alone.

I'm drivin' by your house though I know you're not home.

But I can see you, your brown skin shinin' in the sun.

You got your hair combed back and your sunglasses on, baby.

And I can tell you my love, for you will still be strong

After the boys of summer have gone.

- Don Henley

The autumnal equinox falls on September 22, 2008, meaning this will be our last weekend of summer, folks. And sure enough, my silver maple tree's leaves are falling. Time to wave summer goodbye.

Rogue Cop

I rather enjoyed this excerpt from the Monday edition (9/15/08) of the Sacramento Bee (online breaking news alert):

A Sacramento police officer has posted bail after being arrested in Rocklin this weekend, according to records and police spokesmen. Jeffrey Wayne McKay, 34, of Rocklin, was arrested by Rocklin police late Saturday on suspicion of indecent exposure, exhibiting a deadly weapon, disorderly conduct and threatening to commit a crime resulting in death or great bodily injury, according to online Placer County Jail information.

It's no joking matter that we have this type of person representing the uniform, but really, is this anything new? Cops are human too. Hehe, I wonder if the news article may have been referring to his gun.

Shiatsu

My lower back was sore all day. Must've been the way I slept, since I haven't played ball since last Thursday. Oh to have a good masseur or masseuse on retainer... but such is life (well, my life anyway) and the zipcode on my mail is no place special.

The next best thing? Having my cats dance on my back would be a possible solution if it wasn't beneath them to do so. Ingrates. About 3 or 4 years ago I purchased one of those shiatsu massaging chair pads, and it works quite well thank you. The pad plugs into your household AC outlet; a pair of motorized roller balls on either side of the spine move up and down providing some kneading action.

Much kneaded action.

Locusts Too?

Over 1,000 fires burned in California. An overnight blizzard in Denver this past July (or was that August?). Disappearing glaciers and migrating species. The southeast and gulf coast hit by a barrage of hurricanes. Flooding. Tsunamis. Is there a message in this somewhere?

Vienna la tormenta!

Dilbert

I'm a working stiff. In an office. Things happen. When the going gets tough, the tough get thoughts of Scott Adams characters. The epitome of art imitating life, and heaven help us it's not the other way around.

Fringe

A new SciFi spooky TV series premieres tonight (and it is playing as I type), with the opening scene aboard a jet airliner. The passengers are overcome by some strange affliction; the co-pilot looks into the cabin to see what's going on, and upon turning back toward the cockpit, we see his horrified face melting away. His mandible manages to drop off before the scene changes to a view of the jet flying through the clouds on auto-pilot.

Yup. His mandible. How cool is that?

The New PoliSci?

(California's new fiscal year began on July 1, 2008, and we still do not have a budget. This is the longest impasse on record.)

I was never a student of political science, but there's no escaping politics either. And no escaping illogic, judged by this tidbit I found in the Sacramento Bee today:

The governor said the most important contribution he is making right now to solve the budget impasse is that he is staying in Sacramento. "Our office stays in town. I am staying in town. I said I will not leave town and I will not leave this state until there is a budget," Schwarznegger said. He said it in Burbank.

Maybe it's not the new PoliSci, but rather the same old PoliTalk.

More Sudoku

Patience and persistence and now I'm completing the more difficult Sudoku puzzles in our local newspaper! It's quite taxing on the ol' grey matter and I'm not about to win any speed contest, but it's also rewarding to be able to populate all the squares. Correctly, of course!

Give it a shot by visiting www.websudoku.com.