Speed Traps

07.11.2002

Now that I'm in my old age, I tend to drive, well, I'll say "closer" to the speed limit at least, that I used to. Usually I'm with at least 5mph of the limit. As such, I'm not one to go slamming on my brakes every time I see a police car.

This morning seems to be one of those days that HPD is doing one of their "Slow Down or We'll Write You A Ticket" campaigns, or whatever they're calling it these days. This morning (6:45) on my way in, I saw 2 police cars, 1 running the radar and the other writing the tickets, at Hwy 20 and 565. They were strategically positioned on the off ramp, so tey were being more sneaky than normal. As I continued in, I saw 7, that's 7 people pulled over on the side getting their tickets. When I reached the Governors Drive exit, I saw 3 more police cars at the ready, with another one actually running the radar.

So this morning their were at least 12 cops whose sole purpose was to give out speeding tickets. I may be old fashioned, but wasn't their any real crimes that need to be solved?

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Napster Revisited

07.08.2002

Jerry introduced me to the latest file sharing utlity last week: xolox. There have been many Napster replacements, and most of them dissapear once they become popular enough to show up on corporate radar. The selection is pretty good, which is to say an ample number of people have installed the software. Most of the songs I could think of to search for showed up, at least the recent ones. So, if you're looking for a new file-sharing program/community, try this one out.

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Curse of July 4th

07.05.2002

Many years ago (about 14 I think, according to Jerry), I had my worst 4th of July ever. I was working at the hospital, on my way home, and had a flat tire. Long story short, nail in the tire, leak in the spare, finally found a tire store open on a holiday. Not the best of times.

Mom beat me yesterday. Her neighbor was mowing his grass and noticed a window screen on the ground. He came closer to look and noticed the back door was open. A couple phone calls later and me and thepolice show up to find that the back door had been forced open (even with the deadbolt locked). The weird part - nothing was taken. It was like someone came in and looked around a little, trying not to disturb anything. TV, stereo, VCR, everything was still there. Now the hard part is cleaning up and fixing the back door, but considering what could have happened, it's a small price to pay.

But I still don't like the 4th of July.

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Pan & Scan Is The Devil's Format!

07.03.2002

I'm a movie buff. If you read this and actually know me (instead of finding this by searching for Russell Crowe fansites) you already know that. And I've liked movies for a long time. Back when I started buying movies, I got a kick out of finding a movie in letterbox format. Now, with the advent of DVDs, it's almost standard for movies to be in letterbox format. Most of the time you can get both formats on a single disc. But lately, the industry has been #@$%ing with me. I've got to pay close attention to which box I'm picking up. Case in point, yesterday I picked up A Beautiful Mind (there's another of those Russell Crowe references). I didn't really think anything about the format. I pop it in to watch and notice it's full screen. I looked at the box, and right there on the bottom it says Full Screen. So, basically I just feel stupid. Makes me miss when Warner Brothers would put a nice big red banner at the top of theirVHS tapes that said "Widescreen". Now I'm just going to have to go back to paying more attention.

So, it seems that I'm dealing with unemployment pretty good, huh?

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Unemployment: Day 1

07.01.2002

Ok, it's 7:48 AM. Day one of unemployment, or as I look at it, No More Guaranteed Money Coming In. I feel.... odd. Like I need to horde things. No neccessarilly things I need (like a dictionary so I can learn how to spell things), just things in general.

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