Sometimes you don't want to really get info, just a good answer.

Does anyone else get this?

OK, what I'm about to describe will have some people think I'm crazy.

Every now and then, I'll get to listening to some audio and if it has a certain quality in it, I find that my right ear or eardrum twitches while listening to it. And I can get it to stop with only 2 methods: stop listening or plug my left ear. I don't know if it's got something in the audio spectrum that makes my right ear twitch, but I find this annoying. Plugging my left ear stops it for some reason.

Tell me I'm not crazy.
 

Chibi-pop Manga recipe for Beef Bowl

I had this recipe on a Geocities page that didn't get archived, but thankfully I had it saved on an external drive. I had a recent request for it, so might as well put it on my blog, and thoroughly noted.

Gyu-don (aka Beef Bowl)

Source: Chibi-Pop Manga issue V.1 #3, November 1998, from "Ask Takashi" by Takashi Harada, page 42.

Chibi-pop Manga lasted only 9 bi-monthly issues. A sad fate for what was a wonderful publication that wasn't by one of the big guys, it was done in by distributors who weren't paying their bills. But their issues will continue on in my collection. I have added some notes to the list of ingredients to help. Of course, like okonomiyaki and monja-yaki, restaurants in Japan offer gyu-don.

First you have to prepare for "rice". (4 servings)

12 2/3 ounces rice, cooked
14 ounces beef, thinly sliced
1 onion, appr. 5.25 ounces

Sauce
10 ounces dashi (dashi is a broth, like konbu dashi)
2 tablespoons mirin (It's a kind of sweet sake; if you can't find it, go ahead and leave it out)
3 1/3 ounces sake
5 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons sugar (optional)

Cooking directions

1. Cut beef into 2 inch pieces. Cut onion in half lengthwise and slice thinly.
2. Place all ingredients in a skillet, bring to a boil, add beef and onion, and cook for about 3 minutes.
3. Place hot rice in bowls, and transfer beef topping onto rice.
4. You can add red-dyed ginger on "gyu-don."

Takashi adds you can add raw egg and oshinko. Some people like to dip their gyu-don into the raw egg. And since there's no vegetables in gyu-don, people order the oshinko. Add them to the table when you cook and serve gyu-don!

---

Tired and exhausted

I spent several hours on a DVD project for my older sister. She presented me with 40 MOV files that usually clock in at a crappy 15 fps and MediaCoder converted a lot of those just fine. But then I'd run into a MOV with erroneous data saying that it plays at 60 or 75 fps. What's strange is that these older format MOV files would not play in VLC, and VLC plays almost anything. Well, to be more correct, it played the audio, but the video caused it to crash. MediaCoder IDed the video as a Sorensen type of MOV stream.

So those that correctly came out at 15 fps, I used MediaCoder. Those that didn't, I had Super force the input frame rate at 15 fps to get an AVI which then I had MediaCoder convert again - mainly because I needed files running at 900 kpbs, and the closest Super will let me select is 912. And I needed stuff in which the audio remained in sync with the audio.

In the end, after finding out each set of clips made for 1 longer clip, I took all those converted pieces into VirtualDub and appended them in groups as designated by their file names and according to content that I saw so they'd be in order. If you've worked with VirtualDub, you know how picky it is that all streams you append be all the same - same resolution, same frame rate, same video bit rate, same audio sample rate, same audio channels, and same audio bit rate. Maybe a few other things I don't know about. But if everything agrees, VirtualDub appends it and works with AVIs only. Very handy in its Direct Stream Copy mode. It even fixes AVIs with bad index tables.


And after looking at the converted pieces, I found 1 extra piece that I didn't need. The DVD took almost 4 hours to generate. It doesn't look or sound all that bad on the TV considering the small 320x240 resolution, nor does it sound bad considering the 22050 hz sample rate of the audio.

Sharing musings from my posting on Facebook

I imagine people have noticed I don't post as much as I used to. It's too easy to get on Facebook and put stuff up there. I will try to gather a few bits at a time and post on my blog so it's around for more than a week, not as ephemeral as Facebook is. I just have to remember to paste in Notepad, edit, then copy and paste here, otherwise I'll post a lot more than I want to.
=============
Received Lands End catalog in the mail. I didn't request one. I have never ordered from them. My mom did, even when she had no business doing so. Got on their website and stated the same facts.

I've decided to treat hangup phone calls as those from my mom. Some days she tries a lot, some days she doesn't try at all. At least she's trying even if there's no message.

So how does this work? I called an accountant on info I need for permits or licenses I need to start my tiny business, and I get a call back this morning saying they're not taking any new clients. That's not what I called about, but not taking new clients? I don't get it.

I had to look it up

Somewhere I remember writing down what Mom and I usually had on Thanksgiving for the big meal. For some reason, I had to look up to remind myself what all I wanted to get. As it turns out, I had most of it covered or at least got it in order. The last part was the corn casserole. I totally forgot what it was, and online I found people mentioning a Scalloped Creamed Corn Casserole. I looked at one of the recipes and decided that it was the one I made some time ago.

I should have been taking notes all those years at my grandparents' house. My mom's mom made really good food, and lots of it. Somewhere I have her recipe cards and I should do something with them. They were tucked away in a kitchen drawer when I found them. The one thing I won't have is her right there telling me what she didn't write down on those cards.

It's still pretty hard having Thanksgiving and not having much to be thankful for.

PLEASE!! SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP SOPA

Stop online censorship!

Nice display.

I finally made a phone call

I finally made a phone call in the quest to get information for something I've been writing. This is a major thing for me because if I can deal with someone online and through email, I'll do it that way. I had to go the phone route because of trying to get the info I need via email previously and it didn't go anywhere. Why have a business website with email if you're not going to use it? I really hate having to use the phone, but sometimes you just need to. They asked for a few particulars and said they'll get back to me. I don't know when, but at least I'll have my info, probably.

A 2nd phone call to another number got a disconnected message.  So that's probably out of business or just has another phone number. So for that 2nd bit, I need to find another source.

I think there's a 3rd or 4th number I might have to call. Some info I need I was able to find online, and some I have to email people to get it.

Now Open And They Have Manga!

My friends said they were out and about on Friday to see that Books-a-Million had finally set up shop in the former Borders location, and I went up on Saturday to check them out, mainly because I was concerned if they would have manga. As it is, they were still "moving in" but they were doing good business anyway. And they do INDEED have MANGA. To me, my last memory of being in Borders during the clearance sale placed the Manga section right where I found it on Saturday. SAILOR MOON AND SAILOR V are IN STOCK. I was so worried that the new edition of the manga would be without representation in my area and I'm glad to see it happening.

 

Books-a-Million appears pretty serious about manga, and I even saw some stuff from Del Rey from before Kodansha took over, and if you look they had some older stock which is nice to see but I would hope it sells eventually.

There seemed to be some need for organization as some of the books were not sorted right. Maybe that's the function of the top shelf? Speaking of shelves, it seems much if not all of the former Borders store fixtures were mostly still there.

I hope Books-a-Million doesn't do what Borders did and move the manga away from the front of the store to the back, where it's a long walk. I would appreciate wider aisles because of the occasional "reader not a buyer" customer.

I was hoping to find With The Light books I didn't get during my last visit to Borders ie The Borders Clearance Store, but failing that I caught up on Bunny Drop.

As I paid for my selection, the cashier mentioned their Frequent Shoppers (as I'll call it) card. It had a fee, $20 a year, to save on purchases. Wait - the Borders Rewards card didn't have a fee. How does it make sense to pay something to save money? I don't get it. I declined signing up for their card, but did mention I was glad to see Sailor Moon and Sailor V in stock on the shelves and the place open again as a bookstore. The cashier informs me that the previous day was their first open at this location.

Definitive Complete Kaitou Saint Tail CD Listing

I don't know why I've been on a Kaitou Saint Tail obsession lately, but I present here the Definitive List of CDs for Kaitou Saint Tail.

Saint Tail CDs 
Singles
PODH-1282 OP1 Crossing over time
TADX-7420 ED1 Junshin
PHDL-1061 OP2 Seiko Matsuda Let's Go Running Towards Tomorrow
TADX-7430 ED2 Upside Down
PODX-1006 Image Song: A Feeling like "Love"

TADP-1010 Image Song Yume Miru Melody

PODX-1008 Image Song E Yume, Miyou!

DDI-8001 Magical Voice File 1
7DDP-8001 Magical Voice File 2

Notes: Seiko Matsuda's CD single was not marketed with any anime images on it due to her request. The Magical Voice File CDs were given to those who bought the Laserdisc sets.

Full CDs:
POCX-1013 BGM OST 1
POCX-1034 BGM OST 2
POCX-1036 All Star Song Collection 
POCX-1046 Musical OST
TACX-2497 Best Songs
POCX-1062 Best of Best

Maybe 1 good thing so far about Windows 7 Starter (at least)

One thing I noticed that Windows 7 is useful for is the ability to load Quicktime MOV files into the version of Movie Maker Windows 7 has and be able to save a perfectly converted WMV video file. I don't have anything that can handle MOV files and keep the audio and video in sync, aside from uploading the clip to Youtube and grabbing an MP4 of that.
 

04Caddy parking fail

From one Annoyance to Another

GRRR... I submitted my Ohio HEAP application a couple of months ago. Today I get a letter to remind me to re-verify for PIPP +. So I call the 800 number, it says it doesn't know if they've received my application. The website for checking on the application's status is down. I sent a note via their website form page asking about this. It'll be a headache to re-submit another copy and run around copying everything it wants. This isn't the first time an envelope of mine was lost, but this was very important.

I might have to go to the Community Action Agency to make sure this is taken care of.

(the following is censored.)

UPDATE: I called the proper people and found out they do indeed have my information. I don't know why that letter had to be sent out if they had it. I should be able to know more soon.

UPDATE 2: I got a letter indicating my application was processed and approved.

Painful back spasms

I don't know what happened, but I managed to wake up Sunday with my back in lots of pain if I moved the wrong way. Ibuprofen helps with some of the pain, but in general, standing up was not fun. I managed to get some sleep and woke up with less pain but still annoying. I've tried to twist my back and see if anything would pop into place, but it was stubborn. This is all quite odd because I haven't had this happen to me in quite some time. At some point I will get angry enough to really give my back a decent therapeutic twist and get it to where it's supposed to be.

Thankfully, while I was in college I got a helpful tidbit from one instructor - a finger to the ear. There's an accupressure point in the ear which helps back pain and I had to use it to relax enough to get some sleep but still ended up sleeping in.

I really hate back pain. I can only begin to image Mom being in pain all the time from her injury.

Suite PreCure musical at "poruto youroppa"

I'm always searching for videos when it comes to things like Heartcatch Prettycure or this year's Suite Prettycure. Sometimes I find interesting bits like toy commercials. Japanese TV commercials are my favorite because they're so creative for the short amount of time they get.

And it seems for quite some time, there are these "kigurumi" shows for the various Pretty Cure series. They really stepped it up for Heartcatch. Maybe they've been good all along and this was the first one that really got coverage. This would be on some level with the Sailor Moon musicals which ran for some time after the end of the series.

I've found several shows for the Heartcatch girls. I see that they change throughout the year, based on which characters are in the anime that month. They also change a bit between venues, and sometimes they're the same.

I've been able to find these shows for the Suite Precure series, and finally got to see one that the poster labelled with the word (among others) "poruto youroppa." It had some elements I saw in a short Heartcatch musical clip. This one was in 3 pieces and runs about 50 minutes. What I was surprised to discover is that it really doesn't seem that long because a lot is always happening at any one moment, and I was also able to follow most of the story.

Hibki, Kanade, and Ellen were just about to enjoy a picture book that Kanade brought with her, but Trio the Minor turned it evil with a Negatone and captured Hummy. The girls get sucked into the story book. Hibiki finds herself in the story of Momotarou, Kanade is in Snow White, and Ellen finds herself in Peter and The Wolf (or perhaps The Boy Who Cried Wolf?). They befriend the various characters and manage to find the exit out of the book. The Oni in Momotarou is defeated but becomes Momotarou's friend, the wicked witch in Snow White is shown how to make delicious apple desserts instead of sour apples, and Peter apologizes for lying about the Wolf. Interspersed through the story are some musical dance numbers, any one of them not all that long, and the action bits have some neat wire tricks and some special effects, if you want to call them that.

Best part is near the end when the Prettycure girls and some of the characters go into the audience and dance. The Heartcatch musical had this, too, and I'm sure it's moments like these that leave an indelible memory with the younger fans. And at one point I was thinking that it would be awesome if Cure Muse shows up - and then she DOES.

Thankfully, the software I have was able to massage the 3 pieces into 1 coherent whole and no out of sync audio.

 

Persistent annoyances

I keep getting hang-up calls. They don't hang up when I answer - they hang up when they get the outgoing message from the answering machine. Tonight was unusual in that I got 2 of these in a row, withing seconds of each other. If you can't leave a message, stop calling here and wasting your time.

Important next few days

Well, maybe not really that important. It's just that time of year in October where I remember what happened 2 years ago. I may not be crying as much, but the depression is still there.

I might end up staying up for 3 days straight like I did then. The absence makes things painful to deal with. I'm tired a lot. I'm not even sure if I get enough sleep. It's just being here and have this big empty part of my life just sitting there and reminding me of what happened.

The general overall happiness that used to be here just isn't here anymore. At times, I find it hard to get motivated to do things I need to do. A good dose of ibuprofen helps a lot. I guess this part of the year will always be hard for me to get through.

 

Soon To Be Books a Million

What happened to me this past month?

I would really like to know what happened to me this past month. I got to talking to the counselor today and when asked how I was doing, I had the observation of how this month started out really crappy and depressing, but for some reason I got around to feeling not as bad as compared to a few months ago. What the hell happened?

Did my nieces staying over for a few nights next door do something? My sister giving away my mom's expensive adjustable bed? (Compared to what she claimed she got for it and the Craigslist ad I found, she practically gave it away. It wasn't costing anyone anything to just keep it around or put it upstairs. It wasn't hers to sell and I never got offered any money from the proceeds which were pitiful at best.) Working on my business plan? Making pizza twice in one week? I really have no idea what happened. August ended up being an odd month for me.

How can I keep this going, my counselor asked me. I noticed that I must have just kept from thinking about things, had things to do. I still haven't seen a doctor for a physical like my younger sister wants me to do. I figure she's mad at me in regard to what happened to mom. It's always been if something went wrong and I was nearby, it's my fault. I probably should see a doctor about a physical checkup, but I'd like to know how my younger sister dealt with things in regard to mom.

Just feeling better without a reason isn't a good thing. I don't do things like that. In a way, it's more or less denial in my opinion.

Borders clearance makes me sad

Well, I held off going to Borders until I saw that they increased the amount of the clearance discount a bit, up from 20% off. For a store that's going out of business (when it could have been saved in my opinion), the parking lot was packed. That also meant the inside of the store was not just packed as well, but the air conditioning wasn't able to keep up.

I managed to find where the manga books were, and ended up finding 4 books. Bunny Drop 1 and 2 because of seeing the anime airing in Japan. Omamori Himari V.1 because I missed ordering it and I've kept up on the series. And Inukami V.3 (not ominbus edition) because I had V.2 Ominbus edition which has books 4 to 6, completing the series.

What I had hoped to find was books of Love Hina by Tokyopop that I don't have, missed ordering due to not paying attention to them for some reason. Kodansha is reprinting the popular series in omnibus format, but I'd like to avoid rebuying material I already have. Also hoping to finally complete my own set of "I"s manga, but like Love Hina, they didn't stock stuff that old. *sigh* I might also try to find books of Eiken that I don't have.

I made the mistake of taking only 3 ibuprofen for pain, and barely managed to walk through the store. I had hoped to find books by Anthony Bourdain, but it seems they sold out already or they just got moved somewhere. Also hoped to find Wandering Son Book 1 after finding out it was available by Fantagraphics, another title I saw the anime based on the original manga. It's hardcover, which may also add to explain why I've not kept up on it.

What was odd was seeing all those candle and fragrance and perfume products on some shelves. These weren't there before the clearance, were they? I mean, nothing says clearance more than selling that sort of stuff, does it? Most shocking was seeing all the clearance signs hanging up everywhere. I guess if you're going out of business, you might as well blow the budget on signs. I kinda wish I could afford to buy some store fixtures, like a table or shelving unit, but the prices are too high for a casual purchase.

I finally made it up to make my modest purchase after sweating like crazy in the waiting line, and made the comment to the cashier that I guess my Borders card won't be good for much, and the lady says "We're not Borders." Excuse me? The name Borders is on the receipt (along with All Sales Are Final / No Returns, I might add), and Borders is on the bag, which I'll consider collectible. Hopefully talks with Books a Million will resume for that location, or some other bookstore chain (Hey, Barnes & Noble!!) moves in.

500 posts!

Finally got to 500 posts so far!
At any rate, I had a rough night last night. I went up to go to bed, and I had been dealing with some wetness on the floor upstairs in front of the air conditioner.  Tonight I found out where it was coming from. I had used an old LJS work shirt as a means to plug the gap beneath the unit to keep out bugs, but somehow water was finding its way to the shirt, and then the shirt wicked it down to the floor.
So I pull the front off the unit and find out why. It's supposed to drain water away from the cooling coils and drain outside, but some gooey smeary kind of gunk had formed in the water (I had been running it nearly continuously during this past month). So something like wild yeasty snot formed in the thing. Great.

Lacking any handy drain cleaner to drip into the water tray, I tried some distilled vinegar and some enzyme cleaner I use for urine spots. I saw all this crap and wondered just how far inside the air conditioner it went, and I don't know what I was going to accomplish by trying to put my fingers in the air output vent while it was still on, but it's enough to say that getting a small chunk of skin from a fingertip sliced off was enough to make me wake up (I was rather sleepy or about to be asleep at this time) and my back was yelling at me for the prior manipulation of the unit to encourage whatever water was in the thing to drain out in some manner.

After panicking for a few minutes, finding a usable band aid, and dealing with that emergency, I manage to get the vinegar (to work on the plugged up stuff) and the enzyme cleaner (also to work on stuff), and put the unit into a fan only mode for the night.

I woke up uncomfortable, saw the temp was 77 in my room, and checked the unit to see mostly clean cooling coils and such. I now have the unit at a more pronounced angle to make sure water drains out, and plugged up the gap at the bottom again.

It also took me a few hours to deal with my lingering sleep deprived pain and after some ibuprofen and Coke Zero (the caffeine helped), I recovered enough to be functional.

And cut a latex glove finger for my injury.

On other notes, the dialup ISP sent me a letter thanking me for the letter I sent them. I managed to print that before the ink cartridges in the Dell A920 decided they were going to go empty. I had one color cartridge hanging around for this event, but the yellow wasn't working and the magenta was too dark. The black cartridge had been sitting around and when it went in, it prints not a consistent stream of ink but some odd randomized spritz of ink. So I was able to get a refund for the color cartridge, and I ordered another pair off Amazon. I noted the proper Lexmark cartridge numbers for this printer since they're supposed to be the same thing, and at one point I thought Lexmark ink was supposed to be cheaper. Maybe it was the Kodak printers that were supposed to have less expensive ink.

A work in progress

I cancelled WebTV

Just dropping a note that I finally made the move to cancel WebTV, so my webtv email address should not be used anymore. I don't have access to WebTV right now due to cancelling it so I can't send a note via that route, and the nice lady said I have up to 6 months after today that if I should get something like the Broadband MSNTV box, I could reactivate it on that, since the new box has updated features. But I have more than one computer around here to get me on the net, and I paid for both Road Runner and a dial up ISP since my mom passed away (After her buying spree in 2002, I was forced to pay for both WebTV and the dialup because she became irresponsible about paying the right bills). It doesn't make sense to pay for 2 ISPs anymore.

Just a heads up in case an email gets sent to my webtv address and it bounces.

On a side note, as a result of MSNTV upgrading their "Junk" email filtering, I was forced to indoctrinate a Hotmail address (or Windows Live ID) that also remotely fetched my WebTV email, and some messages did migrate to that.

I finally got off all the saved emails, saved webpage URLs, and my inbox off their servers. Adieu, WebTV. It was a nice 14 years. I will miss using their Newsgroups.

On another note, Ikkoku Meiro no Croisee has been pretty good. Though I still long for a Menma and a Victorique figure and not an expensive dollfie.

Move away from WebTV practically complete

Aside from things on other user accounts on our terminal, I'm pretty much done with moving what data I wanted to save from my 14 years using WebTV (now MSNTV) to my Yahoo! address as well as web pages I made saved onto a thumbdrive for hopefully hosting somewhere else. I just don't know where to put them at the moment.

I didn't know that the email servers on WebTV would save data for accounts where email was disabled, because I re-enabled it on one account (that Mom took over for her continued pervasive eBay shopping spree) and found some old emails I had saved.

I found a few interesting and memory jogging notes on my Mom's account that put a lot of things into perspective.

It was during August 1997 when we bought the first WebTV terminal and I ended up being able to sell a Defender upright arcade machine (I had knocked the cabinet apart with a rubber mallet) for about $80 to some guy from Pittsburgh who showed up in person and was more than happy to take it off my hands. I used that money for things I bought for my first trip to Canada and to the first Anime North. I learned after that first year to take more money on subsequent trips to Anime North.


It's going to be hard to turn off WebTV and dialup, but I imagine the money I save will go toward paying bills.

Linksys router dropping connection is aggravating

So Sunday I get online to do some things and the net connection drops for some reason. The Linksys router which has worked flawlessly for months is acting up. Maybe the power supply is going bad? Maybe the firmware needs updating? It did it twice in the span of minutes and it did that again today just out of the blue. Maybe the cable modem is going bad? The Data Received LED lights up and then goes out after operating for a while after plugging it back in. Then there's the blinking LED from the cable modem to the router that shows a device is plugged in. It was blinking irregularly on Sunday.

I did confirm the firmware appears to be old and I did check the number of the new version. Hopefully it will update and not become a brick.

My anxiety and stress go up each time a reliable piece of equipment suddenly decides to act up.
 

July so far...

July so far has been a mix. I've had pain and tiredness a lot. I had to catch up on sleep due to some of this tiredness. Ibuprofen doesn't always work. And July 4th was interesting in that our redneck neighbors set off sticks of dynamite. Well, it might not have been that, but what they did explode shook the house several times each one went off. I was trying to get to sleep last night when I was woke up by our dog at 3 A.M. She snuck upstairs to my room because of something, which I had to get out of bed to set her straight. I don't know what she heard and I couldn't have slept that soundly that I didn't hear more explosions, but I got up and let her do her business. Among this, I found Negi had caught another mouse and was doing his growling while holding his prize in his mouth. While Melody did her business outside, Negi dispatched the mouse as only Negi does by eating it. He did spend sometime outside in 2007 when that horrible lady was here, and I imagine he got some natural snacking goodness by catching a few mice, so he knows what to do. Quite unlike a week or so ago when Marmalade caught one but somehow left it in an odd place. On the chair in the bathroom but under the bag I have toilet paper in, on top of the Mr. Dippy ad thing. At first I thought it was a toy, but it was too big and too real to be a toy. When I realized what it was, it was summarily flushed down the toilet.

So I caught up on sleep, and then lost some of it again...

Frustrations and annoyances

So I sent off payments like I do around the beginning of the month. One was to the dialup ISP I use WebTV through. It's probably a good idea I've been making some moves to cancel our long-time use of WebTV even in spite of the recent upgrade in the email handling of spam. Anyway, I got a call last Monday, 9 days after my payment to the dialup ISP was sent. The nice lady explains that they haven't received it yet. 

Great. Just flipping great. It'll cost me $15 to sent to Western Onion to find out if the thing was cashed or not. And the Post Office for some reason doesn't offer Delivery Confirmation for just regular envelopes. This is really stupid. You can send something Certified, but not the cheaper confirmation for a regular envelope?

I don't know when I'll get around to being able to trace that first attempt at paying the dialup ISP. Maybe in the next few weeks I'll get that access back and finally have WebTV cancelled once and for all. I'll miss using it and the access to Usenet newsgroups when so many other ISPs have cut it off for stupid reasons.


UPDATE: GOOD NEWS: I sent in a replacement payment to the Dialup ISP Certified over the weekend. The lady picking up the mail for them, while she was signing for it asked the postmaster at the post office about the missing payment. AS IT TURNED OUT, NOT ONLY was my payment Correctly Addressed, but IT GOT PUT IN THE WRONG MAILBOX, NEXT TO THE RIGHT BOX - ALONG WITH A FEW OTHERS AS WELL.


When it comes to mail delivered to post office boxes, they really need to pay attention and allow for a check of boxes. Possibly those misdelivered envelopes were in boxes not used by anyone.

Super 8

It's rare for me to do a movie review on my blog, so don't let me break this tradition by much. I was intrigued by the trailers for Super 8. Speilberg's name was associated with it even though he didn't write or direct it. Was it good? I'd say it was "Meh" and tell you to wait until it comes out on home video formats and rent it. At least if you must, go to a cheap matinee showing.

I'm not so much reviewing the movie that I'm going to do here as an account of what I did to go through to see the movie. The Alliance Cinemark 5 has state of the art digital projection, but the sound system is severely underutilized. Admittedly, the movies do cost less than other theatres in the area, but there's no excuse for not using the 6 speakers on the walls that go along with the ones near the screen. If there's a bass unit, I don't know if it's on. Plus the volume from what speakers are being used is clearly not high enough. The impact the movie could have had was hampered by a less than satisfactory sound system. Also, I had to put up with some idiot high school student (presumably) and his date continually talking for the first 45 minutes of the movie. I mean who the hell goes to a movie and sits there bullcrapping about stuff that's not the movie? I hissed a terse "Please shut the hell up" at them and the volume of their inane banter did decrease. Go outside to talk; you go into a movie to see a movie, not talk.

The movie itself seems to be mis-named because I expected a suspense and intrigue flick surrounding a reel of Super 8 film shot by accident that some kids were using to shoot a little movie they were making. "Super 8" is what you'd call a Classic 1980s sci-fi flick, and it makes pain-staking effort to reinforce it's supposed to be set in the early 1980s, which is why the kids are using a Super 8 movie camera and not videocameras.

I expected an all out conspiracy fight for the film the kids shot, unknowingly, after a mysterious train accident. I'm not going to give away how this was possible, because it's one of the movie's great moments. However, the story never goes in that direction and the existence of the footage on the Super 8 film the kids shot becomes secondary. It's not the film I was expecting which I felt would have been a better story. It's as if they couldn't come up with a better name.

How to straighten a truck frame, redneck style

I didn't hear this going on at the time, just moments ago, but my older sister did and just got done telling me about it. 

Apparently out front, within mere feet of the front door of Apartment B, our redneck neighbors that live across the street from us were trying to straighten out a truck frame.

However, they were using another truck to do it and trying to do this in the road, not on their property.

Imagine 2 trucks attached to each other by the towing hitch, heading in opposite directions. Now imagine this dangerous scene within 5 feet of your front door on the road. I went out to see the skid marks on the road from this.

My sister was in the right to yell at these idiots because they were endangering other people and personal property. She says some lady also from over there was yelling at her (apparently with no teeth) for yelling at the 2 idiots trying to straighten out a truck frame! Mentioning something about having kids and all, what this has to do with what was going on with the two trucks, I don't know.

My sister believes people like them aren't worth suing because they likely have nothing and or have no insurance for stupid things like this. If I had seen this as it was happening, I would have taken pics, but also advise them that they'd better have insurance and be ready to file a claim as we'd be suing them. I'm sure the event of the chain or whatever they used to hook the 2 trucks together snapping wasn't considered at all.

If you want to straighten a truck frame, you have to go to a garage and take the truck apart. It also costs a lot of money for the labor to do something like this. I would imagine there's some welding involved.

Fighting, burning, and now this. I wish I had the money to buy up these surrounding houses.

And another thing: The rednecks have this big ass USA flag draped across and over their huge wood pile. Nothing wrong with a flag, but does it have to be 8 feet tall?

The best part of this was one guy apologizing and they did leave.

ADDITIONAL:  Later that night, there were 2 ambulances that went rushing down the road, so maybe that was them somewhere else? Who is to know?

Young drivers out and about yesterday

Yesterday I'm doing a few things. Getting water jugs filled, a few foodstuffs. I go to one store in town where they still have the water jug filling machine set at 25 cents and while I get out of the car, I see a girl in a billowy yellow dress and a boy get in a car. Oh, I guess the Spring Formal aka Prom (why is it called Prom?) is tonight. I file that away, fill my jugs and get on with things to do.

Some time later while at Aldi's as I go in, I hear rescue vehicles screaming in the distance, and by the sounds of things, they're going away from where I am. I get done with what I get there and leave, deciding to go right home.

It's a good thing I'm not quick on the accelerator, because as soon as the light turned green for me, I went to turn right out of the parking lot, and I barely managed to keep from getting hit by a black SUV from my left. The driver clearly was not paying attention to the red light he had - clearly red long enough for him to see it. I recall the driver was in the vehicle with someone else (which I managed to see in the split second the damn vehicle sped right in front of me - and there were witnesses), and was able to determine it was an underage driver at the wheel. I was so mad I fumbled around before managing to sound my horn. It must have shaken the other driver up because he did brake and slow down. I wasn't sure if he thought I was coming after him, and I really should have after seeing him pull into the used car lot a block down the road to let him know how close he came to having his insurance premium get more expensive or cancelled altogether and me getting a new car (among other problems).

Anyway, after a few minutes of going towards home, I come to the crossing of where two state routes meet, and the scene of a traffic accident. That's where the rescue vehicles were going.  I see a girl in a familiar yellow dress - just odd that a while before they were in town. I don't know who was at fault, but seeing another girl in the gathered group of onlookers in a purple dress, I guess a more than a few prom attendees' evening just got more complicated if not cancelled altogether. A gray car and a black SUV collided at the light at that intersection.

Makes me wonder how many other high school prom attendees were involved in collisions this weekend. I saw a stretch limo SUV earlier getting fuel. That's the way to do it - hire a limo and driver. I would think that's much safer even if it costs some money to rent one.

I WOULD have to find that stuff NOW dammit...

So my sister asks about a noise maker that helps people fall asleep. I
know Mom used it when we were out at my grandparents' house and I seem
to remember seeing it here after we moved in. She needs it to fall
asleep because of some ringing in her ears.

When I got a moment, I decided to check out the dressers Mom has and had
her stuff in. The one tall dresser didn't have the noise maker.

Then I turned to looking in the drawers in the other dresser.

While I didn't find the noise maker unit, I did freaking finally run
across the Go Lite Mom got for Seasonal Affected Disorder (or Depression
in my Mom's case) as well as the other basket Mom bought for her walker.
I have NO IDEA why the Go Lite was even in the drawer. But that f___en
basket!!! We searched ALL OVER for that damn thing! Mom was hoping to
use it because it held onto her walker better than the one I kept
repairing. I think it got stashed away in the dresser when my other
sister came out one January (I seem to remember this being around New
Years) and helped organize and clean things up. Only nobody reminded
anyone where things got put.

I JUST HAD TO RUN ACROSS THAT DAMN BASKET NOW, DIDN'T I? I saw that
thing in the drawer and called out "MOM, I FINALLY FOUND THAT GODDAMN
BASKET!"

And her Go Lite. Why was it stashed in a dresser drawer when it was
something she needed? She was hoping to find it and show one doctor she
went to about things since the doctor expressed interest in seeing the
device, perhaps recommend it to others.

But I didn't turn up the noise maker. My back was yelling at me over the
exertion, so I took a break and decided to check out the toy box /
storage bin. It wasn't in there either (so it must be in a box upstairs
in that... room), but I managed to find something else. I knew it when I
saw it what the hell it was... Dammit. The yellow piece that went on the
... water reservoir for Mom's BIPAP machine when you needed to rinse it
out and clean it. We lost that at some point and I spent 2 years holding
my fingers over the holes when I rinsed it out with a little vinegar to
remove the annoying particulate build-up inside it. Why the hell did it
end up in with the toys?

Going through the toys was depressing. It certainly was full of the love
my Mom had for her grandchildren. It makes me depressed to realize that
when I finally start a family, my children will never meet a grandmother
that would have loved them a lot as well.

I just HAD to find all 3 of those items today. I still have so much of
Mom's stuff here. I don't know what I'm going to do with a lot of her
books. I will keep some, but there's a lot I have no desire to keep, and
since nobody in the family has voiced any interest (which is a damn
shame), when I sell or get some amount of money out of them, I will use
it as I please and if anyone has a problem, they'll just have to deal
with it.

Dumping WebTV soon

Just letting everyone who needs to know that I'm making plans to cancel
our dialup ISP and WebTV services soon. I've already saved all the
webpages I created and some a friend has on here as well, but I've got
some more details to deal with such as saved webpages and emails. This
will take some time to clear out.

If anybody wants something, grab it now. I need to find a free personal
webpage host that lets me upload my own HTML and pictures similar to
Geociites' File Manager.

Which is odd to be getting rid of WebTV when I got a notice loading up
my email that MSN is offering (requiring is more like it) Windows Live
ID shtuff and wouldn't let me delete email until I created one.
(f__kers).

I've gotta change something around here

So today almost like out of the blue my sister asks me to check grandpa's push lawnmower because, as I suspect, for the past couple of days we've both noticed how much the grass has been growing and as such needs to be mowed. I know if Mom was looking at it from the bathroom window, she'd be saying the same thing.

She basically wants to see if it'll start. She put more oil in it (I don't think it really needed any more), and I see it's been left out front. So I do the usual prime push on the rubber bulb that primes it. I do this about 10 times, because it's been months since it was started. I'm sure lots of places say you should drain the gas from the tank for winter storage. This is something I don't do. I've never done it. I'm sure the more inclined and able people do this, but I'm not that sort of person.

So I prime and pull the rip cord. It's not even firing. I realize this sort of thing will require more priming - after all, it's sat around for months unused. It will require more than the usual amount of priming. I check the gas and add a little still in the old metal gas can. How old? My grandfather has had it for years and never bought a new one. Still in great shape.

The addition of a little more fuel to the mower obtains the desired result. The mower fires up to life and runs just fine. Some preliminary white smoke belches from the muffler (if it is a muffler), and after a while it subsides, but the mower is doing its job.

I would think my sister would suddenly appear, offering to take the reigns of the mower at this point. Certainly it's loud enough to tell her that yes Andy can do something for once and actually got a gas mower started after being in storage. But no. Anywho, I decide that for once I need to get up and do something. The problem here is that I usually plan for events like this. This means the use of some ibuprofen. Whatever I do these days usually requires some planning for the pain I get for payback for doing anything.

First goings of mowing the small side yard near the driveway (car park if you like) are not so bad. Toward the middle and clearly towards the end of doing this mowing I am winded. I do not recall ever being in this much pain for a simple mowing job as this. I try to breathe deeply, and it takes much of my quickly disappearing stamina just to pull through. I managed to finish the task, but not before I'm wheezing, pain in my windpipe, desiring of more comfortable surroundings and some water.

At first, before even this happened, I had been inside getting annoyed by the growing coldness, and I turned up the heat. But coming back in, the heat was overwhelming and I turned it back down. It doesn't help that indoor humidity is above 50% while during the winter I observed no more than 20%.

I really need to change something in my lifestyle and get more in shape so that I don't ever experience pain like that again. My big problem is that I don't know how to change it. Running up and down the stairs or something, any kind of physical activity just to be doing something instead of depressed and bored watching TV or trying to start my computer service business.


 

Seen At Big Lots: Wireless Mouth

And look! It's on sale!

The Dell CRT monitor is probably going bad

I've noticed for the past couple of days the Dell CRT monitor is doing this little flicker jumpy thing, like it jumps back and forth vertically like a couple scan lines. It doesn't happen when it's first turned on. It is about 6 or 7 years old by now (Mom got the computer in 2004 if I remember right). I would think it could be dusty inside. TVs also act up when too dusty, so perhaps this is the CRT showing dusty signs.  Maybe I just need to disconnect, open the case, and blow it all out. I do have a backup monitor which has a bad wire (the red cuts out if the cable isn't properly placed) just in case. Maybe it's time to find a decently priced LCD monitor. I don't know.

Always something

Sherriff called on redneck neighbors fighting out in the street

Ookami-den for the Nintendo DS

It's been about a year since I found a used but in good shape copy of Ookami for the PS2. I had traded in a bass fishing game Mom bought but never played (probably due to not having a fishing controller if there was one) and got a paltry 63 cents for the exchange. I had to also go online to find the cover to print out and a PDF for the instruction manual. I am thankful that Capcom supports their games in that manner.

Now I find out about a sequel game for the Nintendo DS, Ookami-den. After about 10 hours into game play, I'm stuck. But some reflections on what I've played so far.

There's no longer this nit-picky annoying collecting of 100 strings of beads. You don't have to feed any animals. I like that there's still the blooming of trees. Most of the locations in the original game are here and some new ones as well. So if you're used to Shinshu Field and the guy who does pottery there, you know you'll see that again. There's plenty of signs that this is a sequel - time has moved forth and some things are slightly different. It's nice to see more of the story.

What I greatly miss is seeing this game on a big screen TV. I guess I could still plug the audio out of the DS into the Dolby unit with a patch cable instead of using headphones. The look and music of the PS2 game are re-created for the DS, though there are more areas per game part likely due to the less RAM in the DS. I was used to Shinshu Field being one area in the PS2 version.

Funny how a lot of the treasure locations are the same, and there's new puzzles to figure out. I decided to go the Greenhorn aka Easy route to play even though I know what to expect in this version for the DS.

Brush techniques have to be re-learned again. You have different friends accompanying you in various parts. I was able to get to a point where I'm going to have to backtrack a bit due to unfinished business in one part. At least now there won't be a feeling at one point going "Is this all there is?" like I did last time only to find out there's more.

Some control of the camera is lost but the user interface helps make up for it. I like one difference from the original: No Falling Off of Cliffs. Or at least less of it.

I have lost sleep due to playing Ookami-den. I was up until 3:30 am last night before I realized I was up that late. It was similar to last year while playing Ookami on the PS2, but not quite as late.

I doubt there's a walkthrough to help me figure out what I forgot in the previous spot...

I'm glad I saved the gift card to help pay for this.

It's Gone!

Richardson's hardware got knocked down. We lived there for 6 years after my mom got divorced. His wife was my 1st grade teacher at West Elementary, which closed as a school and was sold in the past year. I pretty much grew up here. My younger sister started life here. My cat Queenie, a Siamese, died here (we lived in the apartment upstairs). I kept my bike in the basement. At first, the owner let his father live in the downstairs apartment. I should find the pictures I took while we lived there in the 1970s.

I had seen the place fall into disrepair and neglect. It made me wonder who owned it now. You could see the old hardware store display windows filled with boxes, and the kitchen downstairs had the floor collapse. It just boggles my mind because the area where it stood doesn't seem as big now. I guess the work that happened on the road out front was the gas line being disconnected.

Gotta love Google Maps Street View.

Facepalm

"If you decorate your Easter eggs with a
camouflage design, you just might be a Redneck."

Just Got done visiting here

Going through some stuff

For some reason I decided to go through some of the CDs and stuff Mom has around here. I find she bought, while we were out at my grandparents' house, some DVDs of Roy Rogers that she never even opened. I imagine she bought these and then hid them or definitely intended to watch them. I don't even know where she found them. The Elvis movies were opened, but they might have been from Half.com. And she might have watched them when I was at work back then. She could get around rather well, but as my mind flashes through things, her mobility gradually declined.

I found home video tapes of stuff she recorded, and it's sad to see her there doing things just barely 11 or 12 years ago. She bought our VHS-C camera in late 1999, and she got to use it quite a bit. She went to a few festivals - there's some tapes I hope I still run across and copy to DVD. First time at Jacobs Field on Mother's Day in 2000. The time she visited my older sister when she lived in Ann Arbor and went to the Windsor Casino and went to a Detroit Lions game on Thanksgiving. I really hope I find that tape.

It make me depressed to see some of that again, but things like Makenzie (then my only niece) watching and playing along with My Neighbor Totoro made me happy that I found it again, glad that I was able to record that, but sad that things turned out the way they did.

Anywho, some of the CDs I might look to taking to one of these places that buy or exchange your unwanted media like CDs and DVDs and see what I can get in exchange. I really don't need cash for these CDs. Stuff I really have no interest in. I guess if other family members really wanted them, they'd have claimed what they wanted already.

I am keeping some of Mom's CDs. At least the stuff I also like. I see no reason to get rid of all of Mom's stuff at the moment.

Annoying!

Power out again! 5:23 pm

How we were affected by the 2011 storm (so far anyway)

Last night I was watching Tosh.0 on Comedy Central, and around 23
minutes into the latest show, the power hiccups and so does the
satellite box. Dammit. It's having troubles locking onto the signal, so
I knock some ice off the dish. That helps things, but then 3 minutes
have passed. Another 2 minutes possibly left, and the power drops out
for a brief moment and comes back on.. ARGH...!!! And then just as the
box is getting done with that, the power goes out AGAIN. It comes back
on and then out for the rest of the night after 10:39 pm. The UPS keeps
1 light and the router and cable modem powered for about an hour or so
before it beeps continously and I shut it off.

Anywho, I find the electric company outage reporting number and go to
use the wired-in phone, the one that works when nothing else will and
report things. I get told due to the overwhelming weather related
problems, it might not be until 12 noon Wednesday for most areas, and
even then, there's spots that won't get power until later in the day.

It's going to be a long, cold night.

Schools are closed, Cleveland is in a state of emergency. There's ice
everywhere there's snow. And ice where there isn't snow.

Wake up this morning to find that the report of above freezing
temperatures was accurate, as some of the ice is gone now. A green tarp
put out front to keep water from leaking in has actually backed up water
to the door and leaked underneath it. It's just in the carpet on the
front porch... Not much but that tarp needs moved or adjusted.

At 8:59 am, the power clicked back on. I started cranking the heat and
getting things powered on. The satellite easily finds a signal. My car
which was covered with ice last night isn't covered this morning. But
now we have a howling wind and I don't need that.

Oh wow. I hear the fire siren from in town now. At least some part of
Minerva had power last night. I saw the orange glow of the sodium lights
over the distant tree line in that direction...

Some people who went to Dizzney World for the week aren't missing
anything. I wish I could not be missing it with them.

Heartcatch Pretty Cure ends and I has a sad

I wanted to see Dark Precure get her ass handed to her and feel good
about it. I wanted to see this series last another year. It got me
through a very tough time last year. Around this time last year I was
deep in depression because my mom had suddenly passed away and none of
us got a chance to say goodbye. I mostly sat around, did very little (I
did work on some figure kits but after I was done with them...) and all
the shit with the anime club, the convention, and life in general came
crashing down on top of me and life pretty much stopped.

I sat and cried a lot. I watched a lot of TV. Then there was Heartcatch
Precure. Its opening song was a bright spot in a dark room. I had
something to look forward to.

Dammit, I wish I was able to afford ordering the toys from Japan.
Dammit.

I liked how the episodes played out over the year. The summer episodes
covered Erika's club going to the beach and working on things for the
fall culture festival. Erika's lack of ambition in cleaning her room or
doing summer homework. Then the culture festival came along and that
turned out pretty awesome.

They got to be on the Uta Gassen over New Year's Day. I still wish I got
to see that clip of Morning Musume in their red china dresses a few
years ago, according to a note a friend sent me.

There were the various action stage shows that played throughout Japan
througout the year. There are lots of clips of these shows on Youtube.
Look carefully and you might find pieces of entire shows. I found 2
complete shows. One recent show had Kumojacky, and ones I've seen all
year had Cobraja as the bad guy. I didn't see any with Sasorina in it,
or maybe I didn't file that away and I probably did. All of them were in
the musical over the summer. According to the last couple of episodes,
the Heartcatch winter musical is playing now. It started on Christmas.
Maybe that will also get released on DVD. At least the show will be
released on DVDs in the coming year so maybe there'll be extra stuff on
them. Dammit Toei - you had a good thing here.

I hear the show was darn popular and the movie was a big hit.

Then I see a photo from someone in Japan - a bin of small Cure Marine
plushies discounted to 100 yen each. It's like giving them away!!!
Dammit!!!

I must get some sleep. 2 am and there's a coating of ice on things
outside. I don't know if it'll freeze solid with the layer of water on
it. Storm, what storm.

Ripped out pants, gee thanks

So anywho I'm doing my things today, and at one point I decide to visit
a Gamestop store in one plaza because it's on the way through the area
while I'm doing things and I wanna check on a couple things and maybe
get them with the gift card.

I park facing towards the rest of the parking lot and mind you, this was
on a slight incline. Because of this, I will from now on try parking as
close as possible to the store in situations like this from now on.

tonikaku, I have the car parked. And I begin walking towards the
Gamestop store. Suddenly my right shoe / foot gets told that it's
suddenly going to slide out from under me. And in doing so, my shitty
pants that I have on (let me correct that a little - the fabric is just
fine, the stitching in any clothes I wear really needs reinforced from
now on) rip from the crotch to one side on the left and down the right
leg inside seam. Quite a bit. If I wasn't wearing underwear, I'd have
flashed a couple people who saw me slip.

I didn't see any ice - I guess you could call it black ice. My plans for
the day got put on hold. I may have (or it felt like it anyway)
dislodged a few bones and joints fighting to keep my balance and not
fall on my fucking ass. I managed to not fall down and instead climb
back in my car, pride bruised (if not killed entirely) and I go home to
change and then mend the blown stitching with heavy duty button thread.

WHAT THE HELL IS IT WITH THIS PUNY THREAD THEY KEEP USING!!
GODDOMMITTTT! I really need to send a letter to King Size and tell them
to stop using wimpy shitty thread in their products. This has been the
bane of my existence. Clothes that fit, but held together with puny
thread. It needs to be thicker and more resistant to body oils /
whatever they're called / possibly sweat. It needs to be more "manly"
thread, Tim Taylor-ized thread. I've tried nylon thread and it still has
a problem of breaking down.

On another note, I've found that by telling Paint Shop Pro that my sheet
of paper is just 1 more inch longer, I can get it to print on most if
not all of the length of an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. I really hate that
lower half-inch margin Print Layout kept screwing me with. So I said
"OK, custom size paper 8.5 x 12.5" FTW!!! Really helpful when printing
DVD insert cards.

Jan 20th - Happy birthday to Becki Doland (in memory of her anyway) and
Elizabeth Cox, who lives in Ravenna and has tried very hard to not get
in contact with me and in fact probably has ignored or not gotten my
messages sent via Facebook, Deviantart, and MySpace. And I posted a
video of her that I recorded on Youtube, too.

Don't you just hate it when you drive somewhere and you either get
tailgated or people drive kinda too far away from you? I mean, there's
got to be the 'right amount' of following distance that makes you feel
OK about driving somewhere. If they follow too close I get pissed, but
then I get uneasy when they don't follow close enough. "Do they know
something I don't? Are my tires getting ready to explode? Is there
something coming out of my exhaust pipe? WHAT!!!???"

Anyway, I'll show those pants who is boss. I repaired them with button
thread and I hope to go back there tomorrow and finish what I planned to
do. And I'm parking right in front of the damn place and tell them to
get their property manager to salt down more of that fucking parking
lot.

K-power magazine

Some people don't remember the great 1980s computer magazines. I still
have a fondness for them. Scholastic would not be left out in their
publishing empire of various stuffs. They had Family Computing which had
some nice programs you could type in your computer in BASIC and other
things and run them. I see today's people calling "typing in a program
printed in a magazine" as Coding. No, you're not "coding". You're Typing
in a program printed in a magazine. When you're writing a program,
you're coding but only then!

Anywho, a hole in my collection that I really wanted to fill was the
earlier issues of K-Power magazine, Scholastic's computer magazine for
kids. I barely managed to snag 2 of the run without covers. There were
only 8 issues printed all in 1984 - thereafter it was folded into Family
Computing as a small section. There were a few other special books, but
the magazine itself was special.

In today's technology and all, it's now possible to have an electronic
copy of those issues, and I stumbled across one such site with K-Power
and Family Computing in PDF format. I'm glad I also found a torrent for
K-Power magazine PDFs because the site was missing 2 files and I had the
torrent download those missing files.

It's interesting going through the articles. Too many articles begging
kids to not "steal" software or use their "hacking" skills to disrupt
stuff. There was one guy who spent his own money to press a small record
of music he composed on a computer - and the surprise of all from that
is the guy has it on his website! Search for "Classical Mosquito" and
you can find MP3 files (well, in M3U format which just has the MP3 link
in it and you download that) of the guy's record. Some files are missing
from his website, but Classical Mosquito is indeed there.

The ads could have been left out. Really annoying ads. Some articles
would be page of article, page of ad, another page of article, another
annoying ad. Not all ads were annoying, but some look out of place. I
need a PDF editor that can delete pages.

It was nice to finally see the missing issues of K-power. Chuckled over
some kids who sent in programs being described as "a real hacker's
hacker." Yeah, right. Whatever. I spent time converting some Apple Basic
programs to Atari BASIC since I understood what was common to both.

I'll bet any kid who got their photo printed in K-power got beat up
later on or at least was full of themselves afterwards. The editorial
staff was always looking for stories of kids at the time who did
something with a computer. And I wonder why K-power lasted only 8 issues
on its own.

There were other things Scholastic published, like the 10 book "Micro
Adventure" series. I had managed to collect them all some years ago
after a lot of searching. It was rather exciting and unique at the time
to read a well-written adventure story and have a BASIC program to help
move the story along. In fact, there were several programs in the book
you had to type in at various points in the stories.

Re: my counseling

The guy I've been seeing has seen that I've been progressing and dealing
with my mom's passing well. I still have flashbacks of that last week.
Sometimes I wake up in tears. Other nights I've found myself still awake
at 2 am. This is a recent trend. I try to fall asleep but instead find
myself still awake as late as 3 am.

Retry: Addendum on the Takhar incident

Blogger's email to blog feature has been f^cking up lately. I'll have to
re-register my keitai a different way.

I took a little time to read the email from Takhar to the Ohio AG
office.

As it turns out, this was something sent to them from the Bookspan Book
Club on December 9, 2010. The account info they got did not include a
phone number so they did various searches to find one, and presto, they
came up with my phone number. However, the address they were sent did
not match my address they somehow found. I don't know how they matched
the phone number.

So I don't know who it was who owes money to Bookspan Book Club. It was
probably someone who used to live here but now doesn't and hasn't been
here for some time now.

I just find it odd that stuff like this happens without more checking
and oversight.

And additional to that: Ohio Edison placed my mom's arrearage on her
electric bill with a collection company. They fully well KNOW my mom had
passed away. Who do they flipping think will pay the bill? There's no
estate as it was, and even if there was, it's insolvent. They're getting
a Drop Dead letter.

If I were to take a guess as to how much debt my mom left behind, it
would be over $7,000. And the law states nobody is responsible for it. I
don't have to pay it and that's that. The companies who foolishly took
on this task will have to write it off.

Ohio Attorney General resolved the Takhar Problem

I had not realized I accidentally sent my complaint in to have it
replied to at my other address instead of to Yahoo!, but I got a nice
email from the Ohio Attorney General saying they had contacted The
Takhar Group and advised them to stop contacting me. The reply from
someone in connection to that company said they used search services to
pair up my phone number with the address of someone else they were
apparently after. I don't know who they were really after - but this
sort of thing brings up this issue:

WHY DON'T THEY CHECK THE NAME OF THE PHONE NUMBER WITH THE NAME OF THE
PERSON THEY REALLY WANT TO CONTACT?

We've gotten phone calls looking for other people who have lived at this
address, but it's annoying to think they're just pairing the address
with the phone number and ignoring the name. They _USED_ to live here
but now they don't. I mean, who would go through so much trouble to
change the name on the phone number in the listings and still be at the
same address? People move and frequently take their number with them. I
think these companies are stupid in that they don't look for the person
and address first, then do another database match up search to make sure
they have the right phone number. It's common sense to do this. Making 2
databases that linked with a common data attribute was a basic lesson in
SQL.

We've even gotten mail for other people at this address and they've not
been here for over 4, going on 5, years now. Jamie Joy? Who the hell is
Jamie Joy? I think another name was Robert Smith.

The reason I did not contact Takhar Group directly is that I've heard of
other people contacting them and finding out Takhar tries to get people
pay for something they don't owe.

I've not gotten any more calls from Takhar Group and I find it really
annoying they called outside of permitted hours and on days they're not
allowed to call. Thank you Ohio Attorney General office. You got me the
desired results. I sent Takhar a letter after the first call and then
got 2 more calls. After the 2nd, I turned over the matter to the AG's
office.

2011: Year of the bunnygirl, and something I've noticed

OK. ignore that first part even if relevant.

I've noticed I dislike having whiskers. I'm lazy in that I don't like to
shave often. But the sensation of facial hair is uncomfortable. I find
it feels like hundreds of little annoying pinpricks all over my face. I
woke up in the middle of the night to use my electric shaver to get rid
of them. If I shave too often, I tend to get irritated skin even when
using shaving foam with aloe (can't shave when too short as it's counter
productive), then get bleeding bits which I use my styptic pencil on
(which I like to say is made from Stypticin which it isn't) and that SOB
thing stings. And aftershave also stings.

So it's a toss up between shaver and foam (which also produces
sensations that really bug me when the blade is getting ready to go dull
and I've got facial hair that's not really suited for a shaver like
that) and using my electric shaver which can also be annoying in that it
pulls at whiskers in the wrong way if not handled correctly. It also
helps to clean, lube, and use sharp cutting thingies that mine uses, one
of those Norelco types.

There are also little noises produced by operating machines of various
types that I'm sure most people tune out but I hear them and sometimes
bug me. I can't describe that well because I never know what'll pop up
and bug me.