Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Friday, June 03, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Goodbye, Sarah Jane :-(
I just heard that Elisabeth Sladen died on April 19, of cancer. Elisabeth was the actress who played the role of Sarah Jane Smith, companion of Doctor Who back in the '80's, when Tom Baker was the Doctor.
I loved the 2006 episode "School Reunion" where she ran into the Doctor again, during David Tennant's time, and enjoyed her spinoff series that followed.
Elisabeth was still active up to the end. I will miss her.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: 
sad
Current Music: Karma Chameleon-Culture Club-Billboard Top Hits: 1984
Deepest Sender
Another blogging client, implemented as a Firefox plugin. It's called "Deepest Sender", and it appears that it works for Blogger and LiveJournal. So far, so good.
Current Location: Baypath
Current Mood: thirsty
Current Music: Not In Love
Qumana and Blogger
Trying Qumana as a blogging client, it won't load old posts from this blog. Will it allow posting? Seems to work fine with LiveJournal...
Powered by Qumana
Departure of the Mysterious Non-Smoking Man
He Who Shall Not Be Named came visiting from Another Land for a few days. He's heading home to his Secret Lair this evening, with gifts for his family. Adios, until next time!
The video from Wednesday's BLU meeting was somewhat spotty; the camcorder had been in photo mode, and we didn't catch the error until well into the meeting. Fortunately, we were recording the audio separately, so at the very least we can post the audio.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: 
contemplative
Current Music: Welcome To The Jungle-Guns-N-Roses-Greatest Hits
Google Video, R.I.P.
Last week I received notice that Google Video will no longer host videos, and that my immense archive of BLU meeting videos will be deleted in early May.
I downloaded my archive in it's entirety, to Pegasus, and then proceeded to upload all five of them to YouTube. Alas, YouTube required me to split them into 15- minute segments before it would accept them.
Over the weekend I searched through a bunch of old removable-IDE drives that I had used for backups in the past, and I found several more BLU meeting videos that had never been on Google Video. I copied them to my laptop, then transferred them to Pegasus during this week's BLU meeting.
When I uploaded them to YouTube, I discovered that YouTube now allows me to upload them as a single file, and I no longer have to split them into 15-minute chunks. Hooray!
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Blogging from the iPad
Found a LiveJournal app for the iPad, and giving it a try. Works OK, but suffers from the inherent suckiness of the on-screen keyboard. Would probably be fine if I had a good Bluetooth keyboard. At the moment I don't have *any* Bluetooth keyboard at all.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
G'Kar's "Declaration of Principles"
The universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice.
The language is not Narn, or Human, or Centauri, or Gaim or Minbari
It speaks in the language of hope
It speaks in the language of trust
It speaks in the language of strength and the language of compassion
It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul.
But always it is the same voice
It is the voice of our ancestors, speaking through us,
And the voice of our inheritors, waiting to be born
It is the small, still voice that says
We are one
No matter the blood
No matter the skin
No matter the world
No matter the star:
We are one
No matter the pain
No matter the darkness
No matter the loss
No matter the fear
We are one
Here, gathered together in common cause, we agree to recognize the singular truth and this singular rule:
That we must be kind to one another
Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us and each voice lost diminishes us.
We are the voice of the Universe, the soul of creation, the fire that will light the way to a better future.
We are one.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Are you sick of highly paid teachers?
Are you sick of highly paid teachers?
Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit!
We can get that for less than minimum wage.
That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan-- that equals 6 1/2 hours).
Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.
However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.
LET'S SEE....
That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here! There sure is!
The average teacher's salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days == $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student -- -a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)
WHAT A DEAL!!!!
Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Waiting for Series 6...
Finished up the Total WHO Marathon just in time for Christmas! I had begun months ago with the first 26 seasons, from 1963 to 1989, then caught Paul McGann's 1996 movie, then raced through the Chris Eccleston and David Tennant years, and finally watched "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang" on Festivus Day, December 23.
Just in time for "A Christmas Carol" on Dec 26. Kazran Sardick, half-way out of the dark!
Now the long wait for Series 6, which should begin airing in the Spring...
Current Mood: 
accomplished
Current Music: Good King Wenceslas
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Writer's Block: Immerse yourself in an online sport.
If you could immerse yourself in an online sport and get a real workout, what activity would you want it to be?
My response:
Synchronized Thumb Wrestling :-)
Monday, November 01, 2010
Grumble
Czy wesołe święta złowieszczej, duchy i czekoladki!
Tried to say "Happy Halloween" to a couple friends from Poland, but it seems Poland doesn't exactly have a word for Halloween. Thanks to Google Translate, I came up with the greeting
Thursday, October 28, 2010
A Trip to Italy
Been watching the old Doctor Who episodes from 1963. They went from 1963 AD to 100,000 BC, then to Skaro to meet the Daleks for the first time, then the TARDIS is almost destroyed! After fixing the problem, they run into Marco Polo and get stuck for a while.
Once they get away from Marco, they run into an alien planet with acid oceans and glass beaches. Following that, they get tangled up with the Aztecs. Back to another alien planet after that, to be trapped by telepathic aliens. Home again to the French Revolution, which wraps up Season 1.
Partway through Season 2 now, and they're about to drop in on Nero, presumably to watch Rome burn...
Current Mood: 
amused
Thursday, September 02, 2010
15 Albums
The rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what albums my friends choose. (To do this, copy and paste the text of this note, click "+write a note" directly above and to the right of this note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note -- directly below.) Quickly, and in no particular order...
John Abreau
- Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
- Pat Benatar - Crimes Of Passion
- Laura Branigan - Touch
- Aerosmith - Greatest Hits
- Weird Al Yankovic - all albums
- Orleans - Orleans II
- Big Daddy - Cutting Their Own Groove
- James Taylor - Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon
- Simon and Garfunkel - Bookends
- Manhattan Transfer - Down In Birdland
- Lovin' Spoonful - Do You Believe In Magic
- Fleetwood Mac - The Dance
- Lionel Richie - Greatest Hits
- Emily RIchards - I Should Be FLying
- Genesis - Invisible Touch
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
What's the deal with Microsoft Office 2010?
Gotta test it first, then discuss with the boss to decide when we upgrade everyone. I've suggested OpenOffice in the past, but that always falls on deaf ears. Everyone is apparently addicted to Outlook. Even the Mac users are eagerly awaiting Outlook on the Mac, which they expect in 2011.
Of course, the Mac users are also pushing the iPad as an essential new business tool.
Hopefully the time travel project won't be unduly delayed by the Office Upgrade Treadmill. We're already 10 years behind schedule. CEO thinks we can make it up in the end. Once the technology is working, we can party like it's 1999 again, because it will be.
Just hope there are no more screwups like last time; otherwise we could be partying like it's 1599!
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Writer's Block: Fan love
Who is your favorite TV character of all time? Why did s/he make such a big impact on you? Do you collect any memorabilia? Did s/he inspire you creatively in any way?
Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. The show explored the concept of honor, and showed a man of peace struggling to cope with a very violent environment. I found the show during my teens when I was still figuring out who I wanted to be, and Duncan became one of my biggest role models.I've collected replicas of a few of the swords he used on the show, a pendant of the Watcher logo, and of course the DVDs of the show.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Flock on Windows?
Trying something else...