Friday, November 25, 2005

HITS AND MISSES SO FAR THIS WEEKEND


Well, that was very weird. I'm used to doing longer entries in Word and then copying to the journal. I'm also used to finding the little id thingies between the paragraphs. I am NOT used to finding little squigly things everywhere I put punctuation other than a period. So after e-mailing this to myself because the Mac has the printer, here we go again.

On the hit side, I have plans for later this weeked so I stayed home yesterday. Spent the day periodically refereeing encounters between the new membor of the family and her adopted "sisters." As in I have a water bottle and I "will" use it. Doesn't take much. The idea is that when the newest fur face goes back out she's relatively relaxed not feeling run out. We're moving towards Sunshine for the new one, so far she hasn't expressed an opinion. Lucky doesn't get too uptight and Misty is well Misty. Adorable, a little insecure and likely to try to go three directions at the same time. In other words, a cat. And I have just been informed by Lisa that we have a Calico Point. Looks a lot like Lisa's Choo Choo, except bigger and with shorter fur.

So far, so good. No strange little symbols. My Starry Night Backyard software works beautifully on the new PC. Turned it on about four yesterday afternoon, let it run and watched the stars come out in my living room. You can let it run in real time. It updates, say every five seconds, and the sky changes to approximately match what you would see outside. Without the lines showing you where the constellations are and without the label names, of course.You can also set it to run a little faster. You can literally watch the night sky change in one direction, reset and watch another set of stars cycle through on the opposite side of the sky. We live on the east side of a hill and we have a lot of trees and security lights in our neighborhood so I have a better chance of exploring the stars in my living room than in the backyard.

The living room was the only place the stars were coming out last night. We went straight from fog to rain. On the plus side I can see the neighbors and the temperature is about ten degrees higher than this time yesterday. On the down side it's a lot wetter.

On the miss side. the guy who was running FEMA during the Katrina disaster is starting a consulting firm. Get this, he'll advise clients how to aviod his mistakes I'm not going to hold my breath.

It appears that we're about to lose one of the three daysof the year that were considered no-shopping day for the big retailers. Yep the biggies are starting to make being open on Thanksgivig Day noises. God forbid they only have access to my check book 362 days a year. I'm trying to cut back on my shopping, not increase it. Of course they're only responding to "consumer demand." And I have a piece of real estate on the Gulf coast I'd like to unload.

It's seventeen days since the president made his "we do not torture" speech. The Register Guard is still running their big little editorials. I'm not upset that they are. I'm mad as hell that they feel they still have to. Bush, Cheny and the rest: please, please, please get a clue guys.

Back to the plus side. The picture I've posted is a beauty called the Whirlpool Galaxy. I found it on a site called the Astronomy Picture Of the Day. It's a mere twenty three million light years away. That's how it looked twenty three million years ago last July 24, 2004. It's M51 on the Messier scale and can be found in the constellation Canes Venaciti, the Hunting Dogs. That's below the curve in the handle of the Big Dipper for those of us lucky enough to actually go outside and see the stars.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The only lingering booger I've had in my journal since the whole ad-induced tachnical failure has been the "squiggly thingies" in place of certain punctuation when I cut and paste from Word.   And, of course, they don't show up until you Save, and the you have to go back in and edit them out.  Kind of annoying, but I can put up with it... for awhile, anyway.  Lisa  :-]  

Anonymous said...

They do indeed make Prozac for felines!  I have a little psycho pound cat who probably needs Xanax, but she functions just fine as long as she has some plastic to chew on.  Don't ask.  I want to maintain my position as the lone "crazy one" in the house.

xo,
Russ