Timmerov's Blog
ukraine
heh. it's kinda funny that the election in the ukraine is declared invalid seemingly out of hand because the official results don't match the exit polls. hey, it can happen. it has happened. here. recently. hypocrites.
bunk beds
we got bunk beds for the boys. 6 of 7 boxes were correct. one had cherry side boards instead of natural. so we still have no new beds for the boys. it's actually worse. because the old beds have been disassembled and stored. pah. alisa convinced them to fix it. today.
vaccuum
i do most of the vaccuuming chores. am i the only one that makes patterns on the carpet with the vaccuum cleaner? squares, circles, fishbones, words, penrose tiles, etc. no? ah well. my latest favorite pattern is optimal. it fans out away from the outlet. the cord never gets in the way.
furnace
it's cold in here. the computer in the furnace blew a relay setting off smoke alarms all over the house. i'm pretty groggy first thing in the morning. it's pretty hard to think even without the screeching fire alarm chorus. alisa saved me from ripping the things off the ceiling and smashing them to bits. $600 later, i'm warm again. sigh.
wd40
wd40 should have a label on it warning that it's addictive. one day i lubed the hinges of the kitchen door to the garage. over the next several days i was spraying everything that moved: the (car's) garage door, the vacuum cleaner, my office chair, and so on. enjoy the silence.
thanksgiving
we had liver and rattlesnake. everything was delicious. we had all the normal fixin's too. but the chicken liver and sausage stuffing was the best. and the rattlesnake bread was really pretty. ask andy.
no
can there be any other answer to the question: should i put my panties on?
hockey
well, we lost in the second round of playoffs this season. it was not the game i wanted. there were several penalties. their goalie lost it with 2:44 left in the game. got a 5 minute penalty and was ejected. the replacement goalie made several amazing saves. we failed to score to tie. in fact we gave up an empty net goal. pah. timmer hate lose.
pain
so i got 2 more 20+ year old fillings replaced. the dentist decided to completely numb me up because men don't deal with pain as well as women do. heh, during my 20 years of wrestling, pain and i got on rather intimate terms. i think when women say, ouch! they mean, please stop hurting me. when i say ouch! i mean, stop that or i'll beat the living shit out of you.
seven
[continued from
six] there are now seven governments toppled by bush: afghanistan, iraq, liberia, iran, haiti, spain, and palestine.
amd
we sold some amd stock this week. it's on a bit of a tear. you all bought the last time i posted about amd, right?
goofy grin
the beautiful and talented alisa went to the doctor to treat an itchy skin rash. she got some lotion to spread all over her body. it feels really nice. and the best part is, it'll dissolve clothing on contact. so she has to stay naked for at least 20 minutes after we apply it. hence my goofy grin these past couple of days.
itunes script
i'm pretty happy with my itunes script now. it picks an album at random from my collection and plays the whole thing. in the correct order this time. it does seem to pick the same albums over and over again. silly applescript random seed.
usb hd
for my job i regularly need to move large files around. tomorrow for example we're likely to acquire 2-10 gigabytes of data. copying over wireless is silly. even over wired ethernet takes too long. hence the usb drive. finder's kinda silly about guessing how long copy operations will take. this one's been between 20 and 30 minutes for 20 minutes now.
huh?
check out this
article. apparently, the senate is considering passing a law (the intellection property protection act) that would make it okay to skip objectionable material like violence, cursing, or nudity. but skipping a commercial would be prohibited. huh?
compasses
we bought three $3 compasses for a game of knightly quest at bennett's birthday party. they didn't agree on which way was north. odd. we pretty quickly diagnosed the problem to be the metal key ring they were attached to. pretty dumb.
itunes
i copied my cd collection to my computer and ran wires from my mac through my office wall to the stereo. we had previously put speakers in my office so i could listen to the stereo. that was a christmas present from alisa years ago. god, i love that woman. anyway, itunes worked great. except i managed to copy some of the cds twice. and itunes' user interface for removing them is just wacky. it also seems to be moving the files around wherever it feels like they should be instead of the way i want them to be. booger. and last, the right speaker kept dropping out. i'd go push a button on the stereo (any button) and everything would be better. pah. finally traced it to a bad connection in the new wires. got out the soldering iron and fixed it.
election stuff
heh. if someone hacked the florida election then they didn't hack enough votes to change the outcome. which would be pretty weird. not to mention really dumb. that leaves the more interesting questions: why did a 90% registered democrat county vote 90% bush? and why is this effect greater for small counties? and why only those counties that used optical scanners?
strange results
the optical scan results from florida are perplexing. i'd really like to have an explanation. the big question is: are optical scan voting machines reliable? either they accurately counted an unintuitive voting pattern. or they didn't. seems easy enough to double check the former by going door to door in select counties in florida. if it turns out the former isn't true then we should ban the use of optical scan machines in their current incarnation. either they don't work reliably or it's too easy to tamper with them.
election anomalies
huh. there seems to be something strange going on. exit polls predicted a sweep for kerry. like to the point where someone sat bush down and told him he lost. big. what went wrong? looking closer some folks have found that the exit polls were spot on for counties that used e-voting machines. they were only off for those using optical scan. so again, what went wrong? some possibilities: 1) nothing. statistical fluctuations happen. 2) intentional fraud. someone cheated on behalf of the republicans. 3) unintentional error. "dixiecrats" register democrat. vote republican. and fib to the exit pollsters. 4) programming error. i've seen weirder bugs in code. heck, i've created 'em. 5) other. who knows. i'll keep poking. fuel for future blogs. or maybe i'll just disappear. ;->
running cables
there really isn't very much room in the crawl space under our house. bennett wanted to help me run the new cables. we took two flashlights. the first one died pretty early. the second looked like the energizer bunny until it went out. took it like 10 seconds to go from fully bright to completely out. bennett freaked until he realized his eyes had adjusted enough that he could see a little. so the little trooper crawled all the way back to mom and all the way back in again with a new flashlight. it was fun. but he doesn't want to go down the hole again.
studio tvr
i love my replay tv. but it's getting old. the remote doesn't work so well. playback often fails. the hard disk whines like fingernails on a chalkboard. so i bought a formac studio tvr. there are a few problems. the only computer i have fast enough to run the thing is my desktop machine. it's a long way from the tv. running cables under the house was no fun. (that project ate two flashlights and a lamp). the titan tv driven channel guide doesn't work with safari. there's no remote control. the studio tvr user interface is bizarre. allegedly, it's applescript-able. i will need to whip up something to drive the tv from my laptop. fortunately, i like doing this sort of thing.
election
here are my top reasons to have voted for bush: 1) you're a schmuck. two thirds of bush supporters believe falsehoods to be true. 2) you're a hawk. america is the greatest [christian] nation on earth dammit. all others should conform. or else. also lumped in with this reason is the belief that unrestrained consumption is just dandy. 3) it's his mess. let him clean it up. 4) you got confused by the voting machine and pushed the wrong button.
election
fuck. well, it /is/ his mess. he /should/ clean it up.
voting
the line was long. the touch screen ballot order didn't match the paper ballot order. the line was 2' from the voting machines so all these nice old people kept asking me stupid questions while i was trying to cast my vote. the line went through an automatic fire door that threatened to violently slam shut during a fire drill which could happen at any moment. get married. double your wife's voting power.
halloween
halloween is my favorite holiday. the time honored tradition of shaking down strangers for candy.
