Anyone watch "Breaking Bad"?

Impressive, dark, disturbing, apalling and .... funny.  If you watch it, you know what I'm sayin. If you don't, well, you can go to AMC's website where they have an awesome 'catch up to date' link, and various video from past episodes. 

Season 3, episode 2 trivia:

In a pathetic attemp to start a dialogue with his estranged wife Skylar, Walt shows up at the door at dinner time to drop off his son, carrying the biggest effin pizza I've ever seen.  I thought he was delivering a high-def TV of above average size.  The awkwardness of the moment was palpable as Skylar icily blows him off with every ugly weapon in a betrayed woman's arsenal (which is considerable).  You couldn't a pulled a needle out of that woman's butt with a tractor.

Beaten, he turns away carrying the giant pizza back to his car. But, in a bitter outburst of frustration, he lets go with an angry cry and hurls the pizza toward the garage where, having shed the cardboard box entirely, it lands perfectly, rooftop, cheese-side up.

Walt's departure is filmed now via a roof-cam, with the pizza in the foreground.

Well folks, I like to pissed *and* shit my pants.  The.funniest.moment.on.TV - this year if not longer.  A 'nuthin but net' pizza three-pointer from a guy who's so white his last name *is* white.
And for the rest of the episode (which was coming to a very suspenseful conclusion), all persons approaching the house are viewed from the pizza cam - the private detective, the mexican assassins - all glance at the now-decaying pizza on the roof, as if to glean something meaningful from it's presence.

Brilliant.

Ann Coulter

Shite disturber extraordinaire.   I feel sorry for people who take her seriously.

Ann Coulter is a persona, people.  The only thing about her that makes her different than, say, Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert is that she's not funny.  But she is a person who has gotten wealthy playing the role of the wicked witch, and she has a large following of simpletons who lap up the vitriol and hyperbole.  The people who find her offensive (who are legion, methinks) think that loud and vocal opposition to her comments and ideas (whoa! giving her a lot of credit with the 'ideas' thing) will somehow shut her up or damage her are *precisely* wrong.  They might as well start appending "ka - ching!" to every negative headline she garners, because that's the business model.

The locals she spoke to recently paid ten bucks to hear her off-the-wall comments for an hour.  Ten bucks.  I think about a couple hundred showed up.  That's 2 grand - not exactly enough to make a living on the rubber chicken circuit is it? More promotion is required in order get larger crowds and jack up those ticket prices, ergo she starts fanning the flames.  Like good little minions, we all start chipping in with our outrage, the press and the blogs go wild, and bingo! 

I think we should all get a cut of the door for helping out the ungrateful bitch.

I'm a songwriter. Really!

(notice I didn't use the words 'good', 'published' or 'prolific' before the word 'songwriter').

I gave it a good couple of years, and took the course and all.  I even managed to have a local act pick one of my songs up and play it.  As far as I know it is still in their repertoire (sp?), but alas, that's as far as it went.

So now I'm down to novelty stuff - I create a new song every year for our annual spring getaway with our drunken friends, and sometimes for our annual golf tournament (with the same crew of drunks).  I don't bother with original melodies for these crappy tunes, I just steal something that's recognizable and half-decent, then write my own words.  I then perform with my half-assed guitar playing and half-assed singing, and everyone seems to be half-assed happy about it.

So where are we going with this?  [thinking] Oh ya, this year's song (due in about 10 days).  I know the song I want to brutalize - an 80's hit that's burned deep into everyone's engrams - I just need to find it.  Easy, as GW might say, with 'the google'.

Not one of my searches turned up anything.  No partial string of lyrics that I thought I could remember, in spite of several dozen tries, would yield a thing.  I was stumped.   I know it goes something like "play it all right on a saturday morn", or some variation of that, as I replayed the slurred lyrics through my ash-can of a mind.

Yesterday, I found it!!  How did I get it?  By perfoming a literal search of the last thing I thought would work.  Here's the search (in the double quotes I might add):

"Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh".

Yep.  Count 'em - there has to be eight.  Then and only then will you find the Break up Song.  Damn you Greg Kihn, take an ESL class.

They just don't write 'em like that anymore indeed.

OK - I'm the worst blogger in the world

Hello, interweb:  are you there? 

I haven't even got a stray cat to visit this site.  It's not a 'friends and family' kinda blog, it's a stealth panel.  I guess I was in fact very good at the stealth thing, because so far not a single visitor has tripped over it.

When I use the 'next blog' button, I generally get family blogs - little Timmy has a new tooth / I'm an aerospace engineer and a full time mom, let's swap cookie recipes ! / We're back from our exciting trip to Omaha for the middle-school wresting tournament. 

But they seem to have traffic.....

I think I'd get TOS'd if I posted a pic of mysef' in a leopardskin thong, so I just have to think of things that people might wanna read about.  Or just treat it like a diary and assume no one will ever read it.  Yeah.... that's it ... who needs readers anyway?

This Prius guy who was out of control

... for how long?  Standing on the brakes didn't work, and he didn't want to turn the car off in case the steering wheel locked (I don't think it works that way,  you have to have the car in park don't you?), and he was 'afraid' to put the car in neutral.  What good fortune that he was on a clean and green expressway with light traffic at the time and not, say, at the farmer's market trying to find a parking space.

Even before Toyota tested this car and cast doubt on the story I thought it didn't pass the sniff test.  I cannot imagine a an engine and drive train so powerful as to override 4 disc power brakes.  My car is not a Prius - it has 270 horsepower - and if I stand on the brakes it goes nowhere, period.  I also have a classic car with a monster V*8, 325 horse and *drum* brakes (technology developed by the Ford Horseless Carriage and Cattle Company), and there's no contest between the binders and the power train; the brakes win every time.

Having said that, one must ponder the notion of the mysterious ETS (Electronic Throttle System).  My experiece in technology causes me to raise an eyebrow at the thought of software, *kaff kaff*, helpfully assisting me guide my car through the asphalt jungle.  Plus, most of us now are familiar with and trusting of ABS, which is simple logic designed to keep your wheels turning even under maximum brake pedal force.

But I have a hard time believing that HAL is under the hood conjuring a perfect storm of maximum throttle and and minimum braking.  Also why are these episodes never repeatable under the scrutiny of mechanics and engineers?

I really think the NTSB should get involved.  These guys, the airplane crash tin-kicking detectives are pit-bulls when investigating for root cause, and the technology wouldn't intimidate them one whit.

Error 1303: Installer has insufficient privileges (Adobe) Windows 7

After a dozen years of being a taker, not a giver, on these interwebs, I'm coming out.

The new supercyber HP laptop has been working well, and I'm collecting and re-installing stuff as I go along, like Adobe reader.  So imagine my surprise when the wizard tells me that I don't have enough privilege to install in the programs/x86 folder.

I am the sole user account with full administrative access, according to control panel, so how can this be?  After almost an hour on the web trying to sort out WTF might be the problem, I give in and call ... tech dude.  Tech dude is actually a good guy, everybody knows a tech dude (in fact I used to be a tech dude, back in the Windows 3.1 / DOS 6 days).  Tech dude ain't no dummy, and like a lot of tech dudes out there, he's a bit of a Microsoft apologist (why not? The littany of MS quirks and foibles feed his family and pay for his WRX) and knows most of the issues and solutions the minute they're on the web.  Anyway, I'm making a short story long so let's cut to the chase.

The error is a red herring.  You have all the access you can get, so don't be thinking you can go into user accounts and fix it.  It's here:

1. Start / Control Panel
2. System and Security
3. Under the heading "Action Center" click Change security account settings
4. [slide that little bar down from 'notify' to 'never notify'
5. Ignore goofball warnings (like a some rogue malware is going to be foiled by Windows notification? Gimme a break.  This just prevents proper software from installing).
6. Click OK
7. Re-boot
8. Roll a zoomer and find a spark - you need to chill
9. Install away, McDuff!

There.  As far as I know, you won't find this on the web (in so many words anyway) for Windows 7.  Impress tech guy by telling him you figured it out all by yo'sef.

The best case against Darwinism I can think of ...

An overwhelming number of grown, supposedly educated, adults who disbelieve in the Theory of Evolution have managed to survive long enough to procreate.  Nuthin' but ressurection, miracles and the talking snake for these folks.

:-p

I guess that's why its 'survival of the fittest', not 'survival of the smartest'.  But really, folks - if evolution can't weed these chuckleheads out, what good is it? 

Things I learned from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Author of the Black Swan.

• We think we're smarter than we are
• We think things are more organized than they are
• Luck plays a role in everything, and might be more of a factor in business success than any other variable
• The most significant socio-economic events of the last century were totally unanticipated
• It can be easier to predict the future than explain the past
• Beware of anyone calling themselves an expert - in some disciplines, expertise is not attainable
• Somehow, it has become allowable for executives to personalize gains and syndicate lossess
• Hang on for the ride: we've got some doozies coming our way in the next while, and we don't (can't) know what they are

Screwed, Blued and Tattooed: The last Trifecta

Ponderings of an idiot, I looked this up.  What could it possibly mean?

There seems to be two camps: A) a Navy term relating to the rite of passage in becoming a sailor, with "screwed" and "tattooed" being obvious (no word on whether the sex is necessarily hetero), and "blued" having something to do with getting your uniform. Hmmm ... thought swabbies wore whites, and B) (from urban dictionary):

Unlike the imaginative explanations given, the definition goes way back to early machinists. After inspecting a finished manufactured or repaired part, the Toolmaker/machinist would:
1 tighten all parts and screws (Screwed)

2 Use Blueing a blue paint-like stain that stuck easaly to metal (blued) and

3 Put his inspectors mark through the blue paint with a sharp scriber (tattooed)

I have to say the Navy explanation seems to be in the reverse order of how I'd imagine such a ritual, but I'm a landlubber.    The manufacturing explanation seems like post-hoc theory. 

Let the mystery be ....

Intelligent, Funny and Hot: Trifecta #3

Not a real trifecta.  There's much more at stake here, such as masking the all-too-common Snobby, Moody and Self-centered with the above.

I say go for the woman is upset (but not TOO upset) about her sick dog, has a dent in the fender of her car, has little CC debt, and considers wearing a bra to be optional.

And who's funny, intelligent and hot. 

Problem is she has to like you, which narrows the field considerably.

Quality, Price and Service: Trifecta #2

Assign 100 points to each of the three categories (300 possible).  Let's call it the CDT scale.  Anyone claiming to offer a product that scores more than 200 in total is either lying, or has something spectacular and unheard of.

Conversely, it's remarkable how many examples we can find that score well below 100 CDTu (units).  A friend of mine owned a Jag in the 1990's, and he felt the score would be below 50.  He lamented the fact that he could have had a Lexus, plus money in the bank, had he not been such a brand-name snob. (Lexus = great car + great service + ouchy price = 200-ish CDTu.  Honda = good car + adequate service + not bad price = 200 CDTu.  (Just so's we don't appear to favor imports: Cobalt might be = adequate car + adequate service + great price = 200 CDTu)).

Other examples?  Sony broke the north american TV market open in the 60's/70's with NO service network.  Zero.  If it broke you were farooked.  They built them so they wouldn't break + charged a decent price + zero service = (close to ) 200 CDTu.

Yes, there are examples north of 200, like the Vietnamese guy who cleans up my yard in the spring.  He's a superman, does a spectacular job, and charges me about 150 bucks for what would equate to 6 - 8 hours work for me.  I give him 250 + CDTu.  But there's far more examples of, say, a trendy restaurant charging too much for decent but unspectacular food, and making you feel like it was your honor to sit and wait for hours to get it. 

The local auto parts store has really good prices on brand-name stuff.  And they have an army of friendly energetic kids running around helping, but mostly they're ..... re-stocking the returns from angry customers who were sold the wrong thing.  I spoke with the manager and he said his repeat business was from people who learned to figure out what exactly they need before-hand.  Good product, good price, but we're effing dummies ....

Interesting way to get your 200 points, pal.

People, Process, Tools: Trifecta #1

That's all there is, folks.  A poor team excels in zero or one of these.  A good team can get away excelling in  (any) two of them.  An excellent team needs all three.   There, I just saved you 1200 bucks for a seminar, or 30 bucks for a business book.
How many people know this?  Shockingly few, especially the fine folks who dubbed the SWAT team SWAT.  Special weapons (tools) and tactics (process).  Really?  You could dress me up in fatigues, give me an M16, teach me all the tactics and then send me out there? (you wouldn't want that, trust me).

A swat team is an example of a high-performing team becuase of the investment in special people, and the people don't even get credit in the branding.

I've been voted off or banned from a few boards ...

for the simple reason that I don't 'fit in'.  They're right, I don't.  The trick to learn is, I suppose, don't be all upset about it. 

 Assholes .....

The world is not square, nor plumb nor level.

Still, a man scribes a perfect arc.
What grander notions folly; A fool’s mission to hammer into submission for what?

 … a minute?

A circle perfectly conceived in an imperfect mind:  Nature’s true geometry, the middle finger, remains unimpressed.
My silent mentor shakes his head.