Horoscope

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TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Writing in the *San Francisco Chronicle,* columnist Jon Carroll told the story of educational activist Diane Mintz. When she began tutoring elementary school kids in the Bay Area’s poorest neighborhoods, she was shocked to realize how thoroughly poverty had shrunken their horizons. Many had never glimpsed the Golden Gate Bridge, a wonder of the world that’s a few miles from their homes. Some didn’t even know this marvel existed. “Their mental map of their larger community was pinched and drab,” wrote Carroll. On occasion, those of us who aren’t so destitute suffer from a similar diminishment. For example, I suspect that many of you Tauruses are in danger of letting your vistas dwindle right now. As a pre-emptive antidote, I suggest you make pilgrimages to beautiful people and intriguing sights and exhilarating places that blow your mind in the best ways.

*Yawn*

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It took last night’s heat and humidity for and I to lug the new (to us) air conditioner out of the garage, and put it in the window.

We brought Buddy’s food and water dishes into our bedroom, put the thing on medium, and closed the door. The lights dimmed, but there were no fuses blowing, no electrical fires, and no warm power cord.

So, thanks to getting an indoor, stand-up a/c unit over a year ago, we now have a working, window-unit A/C. Some fiddling remains to get the unit perfect, and to properly fill the hole in the window next to it, but we’re good.

Buddy is (or should be) locked in the bedroom, instead of in his kennel, with the A/C on low. Not only were we not going to be able to sleep last night, but we weren’t going to put Buddy through another day of 100+ heat index weather.

This also means that I no longer have to abandon the house after work. I can turn the A/C on, close the windows upstairs, and point a fan from the bedroom into my office. We have agreed only to use the unit in hellacious (literally?) weather like this, and that there would be no cause to use it on days where the temps are in the high 70s or low 80s. With a house as drafty as ours, we’d really just be wasting electricity.

Wish good luck at her new job today; she’s been there for about 45 minutes already. :)

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“Survival is not the goal, it never was. It’s an impossible goal because in the end no one ever truly survives. No one ever has, no one ever will. So pick a new goal.” – David Gerrold

Sometimes, I’m so easy to please.

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In total contrast to the rant from yesterday evening, today has been pretty good.

We got slammed by a dissolving squall line coming in from Grand Rapids. Holy crap was that cool! The Malibu (*cue the Malibu song*) was rocking back and forth on its shocks, and I thought, “Did someone just hit me?” I look to my right, and see traffic lights, street signs, and trees getting thrashed by intense winds. So, of course, my brilliant response to myself was, “Oh.” Then I rushed home, at ‘s wisdom, to shut a bunch of windows. Then I got RAINED ON, and it was awesome.

Verizon bill is paid, and after trucking around the entire city of Lansing (west to north to east to south to west), I have procured this:

And one of these:

I’m now holed up in Theio’s, where I plan on doing some work for Smart Networks and reading Wired while basking in the wonderful air conditioning.

RANTY McRANTerson, Esq.

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I bought the PS2 so that I could play both games (mostly PS1, though the access to both PS1 and PS2 libraries is fantastic) and watch DVDs in my office. I have a small TV (13″ or so), that happens to be a TV/VCR combo unit.

This was bought in 1995, so that I’d have a TV for my dorm room. The VCR combo bit was hugely convenient, as I love movies.

The VCR part eats tapes now. I’m gonna fix it, but it doesn’t work. I CANNOT record anything with it.

And yet, when a DVD is played through my PS2, I get copy protection retardation.

I CANNOT PLAY A DVD THAT I LEGALLY PURCHASED THROUGH A PLAYER THAT I LEGALLY PURCHASED ON A TV THAT I LEGALLY PURCHASED. Okay, that my parents legally purchased.

Now I have to hook up an R/F modulator (that I already own because I’m USED to this horse shit), and consume more electricity.

Irate isn’t even the word.

All this makes me want to do is tape DVDs, once the modulator is set up and the VCR portion is fixed, and give them to people. Not that I will, but I freakin’ WANT to.

Death and destruction.

Update: Since the copy protection trigger lies in the TV itself, the R/F modulator does nothing. The irony, of course, is that while our big-screen TV, inherited from , is dead, this thing just keeps going.

Lesson learned: Never, EVER buy a TV combined with anything else.