Wednesday, October 07, 2009

How Superman Died

Playing us like cheap violins

The Coming Bait and Switch
 In a classic bait-&-switch, the sucker is lured in with the promise of gold which will ultimately be substituted for with lead.  In the Democrat's Health Care version, they point a gun at us victims while purchasing sheep's offal with our credit card. Adding insult to that injury, they then plan to switch that tripe for some Nancy Pelosi yeast infected vaginal discharge. Afterward, they'll expect praise and a raise.

Here's the plan.
A statement from Sen. McConnell on the CBO's report on the Finance Committee bill:

    “This partisan Finance Committee proposal will never see the Senate floor since the real bill will be written by Democrat leaders in a closed-to-the-public conference room somewhere in the Capitol. The real bill will be another 1,000-page, trillion-dollar experiment that slashes a half-trillion dollars from seniors’ Medicare, raises taxes on American families by $400 billion, increases health care premiums, and vastly expands the role of the federal government in the personal health care decisions of every American.”

The "real bill" is the actual legislative language that will be signed into law (if it passes); the Finance Committee will vote on a bill written in "conceptual language." As Mary Katharine writes below, the report states that "The Chairman’s mark, as amended, has not yet been converted into legislative language. The review of such language could lead to significant changes in the estimates of the proposal’s effects on the federal budget and insurance coverage."


Time for some smiting here boss, wot?


Ford Original (1 of 4)

What a Steel!
1936 Ford Tudor
 

Unplugged


Rollover

Unplugged

Rollover
   This is the 1936 Ford Tudor Sedan built for and owned by Allegheny Ludlum Steel.  This is 1 of only 4 in existence and is the only one currently in running & in road worthy condition. The car     is in exceptional condition, with the interior and the body looking great.  All 4 cars had over 200,000 miles on them before they removed them from service. 
    These cars were built for Allegheny as promotional and marketing projects.  The top salesmen each year were given the honor of being able to drive them for one year.  The V-8 engine (max 85 hp) ran like a sewing machine and was surprisingly smooth and quiet. The car was insured (we were told) for the trip to Louisville via covered trailer for 1.5 million dollars.

    We were also told that the dies were ruined , making these the only cars like this ever produced. [R.W. Forsythe]

Today's Quiz

 missed # 27, and #29
Supposedly 96% of all High School
Seniors FAILED this test... AND if that's not bad enough,
50+% of all individuals over 50 did too!!
Take the test and be surprised at what we don't know. - Merrily


 93% ain't bad, except I bet myself a billion dollars I'd ace it.  So, on the one hand I'm now rich, but the other hand took it all so .. . wait!  JFC.  Either way I'm a freaking billionaire!!   Them's Adam Smith's fabled "invisible hands" at work.. Must be.  Now where the hell did I put all that money?!?

Annoying thing # 152

Avast Ye Bloody Popups
Avast! message popups driving you nuts?


 I use Avast! anti-virus (free basic version), and it can't be beat.  Except.  Twice a day a popup window announces there are updates available. In auto update, or manual mode another popup says "Downloading Updates.  Then, another Popup announces  "Updates Installed"  Why am I saying all this?   If you use Avast! you know what I mean; if you don't, you left already.

Anyway, when it happened the second time today I flipped out. Either I stop them, or I'm unloading Avast! and finding something else.  After spending about 30 minutes reading Googled gripes with no solution, I found it.  It has to be new dammit, cause I spent an hour on this before.  Anyway, here it is. 

Right click avast  ... left click
...  -->program settings -->Update (basic) -->  Details

The default update interval was 240 minutes.  I changed it to 4320 minutes (every third day).  Tick silent running mode, and untick everything else (I did allow for reboot message).  You're welcome.

Advantage in the tall grass

Green Ball

now even I'm starting to feel bad for the guy
Linda SoG


Last word on Renewal

Epilogue


When boners came easily

Years ago I read a book about a family who pulled up stakes to sail to the North Pole, or thereabouts,  and live for a year on the family 35 foot boat. The kids would be schooled by mom, and nature. The father made a conscious decision not to take a marine radio  because, he figured, knowing they had that crutch would render them subconsciously careless.

My crutch on this adventure was  DriveImage XML V2.12, certainly one of the top ten free utilities of all time. Because I could restore  any damned thing I wanted,  I failed to make provision for saving things like bookmarks, history, add-ons etc.. Well, I can, but first I have to find the right things in the maze of Mozilla's maze of profiles, blah- blah-blah.  I's daunting. So, tonight I'll prolly restore the old, bloated  waiting-for-disaster  system I'm as least comfortable with. 

 What I accomplished by spending all yesterday reinstalling Windows.
  • Since I wiped the disk, I have a very clean system
  • I was able to install service pack 3, something I couldn't do before (for some unknown reason)
  • During the hours of waiting for updates to finish  I:
  1. Watched 5 Mad Men episodes (I'm hooked)
  2. Watched the Curb Enthusiasm  Seinfeld episode.  Clap-clap-clap
  3. Watched the first episode of Dexter (HFS!!)  My daughter suggested it.  I expected a comedy. HFS-not.  (She suggested I not  watch a single episode from season 2, which stunk, but season 3 is great).
  4. I washed the dishes (MoSop away, day  5)
  5. Changed my underpants
What I lost in the process:
  • My affable fun loving demeanor
  • 15 hours of my life
  • Years of tweaks, gizmos, and gewgaws that made life easier.
  • My sound (as in the sound stopped working after a Microsoft sound driver update caused a "near fatal error." Even though I rolled back the update and reinstalled the Sound Blaster software, still no sound.
  • My mind, my boner. .
On the plus side, the chap I bought the new software from agreed to refund my $50.  How cool is that? 

I was hopeful that after jumping through all of Microsoft's hoops I'd  be able to load Media Player 11.  Nu uh.. Without it, I lose most of my multimedia software that is now dependent on it being there.    My late F-I-L griped until the day he died that he was a Social Security "notch baby"  Well,  I'm a Media Center Edition 2002 notch baby. 


I've also put off doing so many things in real life that I don't know where to begin with those.  Time for some whiskey.