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Well, not really odd thoughts. Just a collection of unrelated stuff thrown together.- When money gets tight, the term "tighten our belts" is used. I just realized where that came from. I bought a belt the other day. I haven't worn a belt in 30 years, but in the last 2 years, I've lost about 15 pounds. Not that I needed to but that's the recession for you. I decided it's cheaper to buy an $8 belt than $100 for new pants.
- I was riding down the road the other day and was behind a car with a GPS stuck to the windshield. It was obviously a local car. I was thinking that, in Atlanta or Tampa, it might make sense to have one if you went to different unknown places. In a town of 40,000 people, unless you have a really bad memory, why would you need one? Especially if you are just driving to work. I guess it's the "gadget factor" striking again.
- I had to replace the fuel tank straps on my van last week. It lived in Delaware for 12 years before moving south and has a lot of undercarriage rust. I don't know why undercoating isn't an automatic thing up north. No one had them in stock, so I called the 4 main parts stores to find out who could get them the quickest. Note that there is only one company making them so everyone had to get them from the same place. Here are my results. I stopped by NAPA first. They said all they had was a universal kit that you just cut off what you need. I told them that their website listed the correct parts but they weren't interested in trying to look them up. I called Advance Auto Parts. Note that it's Friday. They said they could have them by the following Wednesday. I called O'reillys and they said they would have to email the warehouse to find out when they could get them. They said to call back between 4 and 6 pm. Autozone was my last call. They said if I order them before 1 pm, they would have them the next day (Saturday!) It's pretty bad to have one part with 4 different answers. Needless to say, Autozone got my order.
I just read an article on MSN's Red Tape Chronicles here that deals with the recent Toyota computer glitches and the future of increasingly digital control of our cars. As I read the article, it started to scare the crap out of me. Anybody who has tried to work on any newer car after years of fooling with the "old-timey" way of fixing cars is left with a feeling of frustration and anger. I acknowledge that there are benefits to computer control, such as driveability and efficiency, but there should be a limit to how much control we give the computer. The "by-wire" experts claim that our planes are already flying by wire with no glitches. That's reassuring! At least a car is already on the ground when the computer burps. Yeah, I use burp. A hiccup is too innocent! I want a mechanical connection on my steering and brakes. I know they can also fail, but when they fail, it's only after a period when you know that they are beginning to fail. With computers, there is no warning. How many of you have seen the Blue Screen of Death on your desktop? Is that what you want when you're cruising down the Interstate at 80? The article goes on to discuss driver inattention caused by the fact that cars are "driving" themselves. Drivers are too busy Tweeting and texting and the more the car does automatically, the better. I say "Take a freakin' cab if you're too busy to drive"! I don't want to be on the receiving end of shitty driving caused by the fact that someone can't focus on driving instead of their I-phone!
I read today that Google is thinking about pulling their presence from China due to China's unwillingness to stop censuring web searches. Go, Google! It's about time someone told China to kiss their ass. So many nations and businesses are falling all over China's huge population of tech-hungry newcomers to the digital age. Most all are in it for the money. They are willing to overlook the fact that China is COMMUNIST! China's government has not done one thing toward improving their human rights record and suppresses anyone or anything that threatens to expose how stupid it is to let a bunch of old school Commies run their lives. While China is emerging as a key player in the world's economy, it is only because the rest of us are willing, via Walmart and others, to buy the crappy stuff China exports. We don't have a whole lot of choice either. The profit-mongers in our country control what shows up in stores, not the consumer. I am willing to bet that if 51% of the Walmart shareholders showed up at the annual stock meeting and demanded that they get products from somewhere else, those products would come from somewhere else. The dollar talks louder than ethics these days and it's a damn shame.
My wife and I have recently joined Facebook and it has been an interesting experience. It's amazing how intertwined everyone becomes being friends of friends. It would make a good example of how STD's spread! We have resorted to dragging out the old school yearbooks to put faces to names. What I realized today that we are all old as hell!
The other day, I went outside to take out the trash and have a smoke. I was carrying one of those BBQ/candle lighters in my left hand and a bag of trash with my right hand. Apparently, these lighters are made for right-handed people, because I couldn't light the damn thing without switching hands. Left-handers, my thoughts are with you.
Ol' Bill Gates has really been pushing Windows 7 on us. Last year, I jumped from W2K Pro straight to Vista, bypassing XP altogether. 8 months later, here comes 7. Between the ads from Micro$oft about how great and error-free it is and Apple's ads about how they have always been great and error-free, I wonder why we should pay for an upgrade to 7 anyway. If the previous versions of Windows were so crappy, we should all get free upgrades! At the risk of pissing off my Mac-using friends and relatives, it hasn't always been the answer either. It's expensive owning a Mac. I guess it's like shopping at a mall store instead of Walmart. Mr. Gates has made a shitload of money by selling us a mediocre product and no amount of well-publicized do-gooding will gloss that over.
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