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>> current entries >> newer entries >> older entries Roomies - 1/31/10  I'm not all about grumpy and cynical: sometimes I veer into the world of cute.This is my papillon dog Trixie and my kid's cat Msfubi. They're both busy most of the time, except when they're napping, which is often. Both are on Twitter (@pappup and @BooKittyKat), where they're far more popular than I am, and the pooch has her own woofsite. Both are extremely well behaved except when together: they're a very bad influence on each other. For one, they're both more interested in each other's food and litterbox than their own, which makes for a lot of variable door arrangements throughout the day. And as cute and delicate as they may look, when they play with each other it looks more attack dog training than play. They chase, pounce, tackle, wrestle, and occasionally put the bitey on each other. It's play biteys for the dog, but the cat sometimes goes into panther mode: she'll jump onto the dog's back and sink in her claws to hitch a free ride around the room. Luckily the dog has a lot of hairs for protection, but sometimes I'll discover little puncture scabs on her sides. But the worst is when the cat grabs hold of the dog's neck from below. Those papillon ear fringes make for great handles, which in turn can create little mats that have to be cut off. Or the cat will simply pull a tuft of them out. Trixie doesn't have as much ear fringe as some papillons to start with and after a few rounds of play with Msfubi, she usually has even less. Once their WWE auditions are over, they both go back to being adorably sweet and cute, and you'd never imagine the ferocity they're capable of.  A day early, many dollars short - 1/30/10  It's not as if I'm some sort of visionary, but I have come up with a few ideas I got nothing for, but that ended up making some other folks millions. The biggest of these was probably the netbook.For years I've wondered why we all have computers that are capable of running a bank or designing NASA rockets - I mean really, who needs that much computing power? Other than banks or NASA, of course. If you've ever tried to help someone who's not good with computers clean up a virus or get their email back, you know there's just too much going on in most systems for someone who just needs basic web access or the ability to forward jokes to friends & relatives. And now, voilà, the netbook is here, and making megabucks for some.. not for me. Back in the early '90s I suggested AOL, MSIE and Netscape add a pizza icon to their toolbars. You could pre-set your topping preferences, address and credit card, and then when you got hungry while chatting or surfing, one easy click would bring the pizza dude. Now you can order online your pizza or Chinese or whoever else delivers.. I do not get a cut. I set up a number of websites back then too, some of which remain, including one pervy one. At the time I was under the influence of some misguided scruples and decided I wouldn't put blatant porn on there. A few years later I came to my senses, joined a few affiliate programs, and made a few bucks here & there. But if I'd done it in 1994, I'd be on a beach in Tahiti now, sipping from a drink with an umbrella. Usually I'm not much of an early adopter type, but I joined Twitter in 2007. I remember when @justintv was trying to catch up to @ijustine, both hoping for 1,000 followers. Back then, most of Twitter was pretty much tech-oriented, which really didn't interest me much, so I kind of let it slip. A couple years later I started Odd Twits but by then I was already too late: other lists of interesting Twitterati had already established themselves. I was the first of the many sites that follow the Big Brother live feeds to utilize Twitter for that via my Hamsterwatch site, and I was pretty much the only one tweeting updates for that addiction since Big Brother 8 in 2007. This last summer everyone else finally jumped on board, and now I'm just one of dozens. The thing is, when I come up with some nifty idea like these that fills a need, I never do the right thing to capitalize on it. Sour grapes? I suppose so. Maybe someday. Reassuring my Kindle - 1/27/10  It's feeling a bit less confident in itself than it was yesterday, before Steve Jobs announced his latest gizmo, but I told it not to worry, that I still love it, and I have no intention of getting an iPadAlthough I've had a Sinclair computer, a Timex-Sinclair, a Commodore 64, and a bunch of other relics in the past, I've never been one to get the latest gadget just because it's available. But I am a reader, and Amazon's Kindle is the best thing for us bookfolk since the invention of the library card. It's lightweight, compact, easy to use and easy on the eyes - something I gather the iPad hasn't covered yet. You know you can download and read books on a Kindle, but it has a lot more going for it. For one, there's no account or subscription fee (unless you sign up for a periodical). Also, every book available on Kindle offers a free sample, so you read the first chapter or so of a book to see if you like it enough to buy it. The samples can make for some fun reading on their own, like reading a bunch of short stories. You can click to look up a word, make notes, highlight passages, do some limited web browsing, and offload items you want to keep but don't want cluttering up your index. Most books run about $10 which is about what a paperback costs anymore, and new books are the same price. I've always had to wait a year or so until a new book was out in paperback before buying, and now I don't have to. I recently finished Stephen King's latest epic Under the Dome which cost me $10, half the price of Amazon's hardcover bestseller price and more than a third less than the $35 list price. And I didn't have to hassle the book's 1,000+ page weight. But that's not all. There are also dozens of free books for Kindle. Free as in zero dollars. Many classics are free, and a lot of publishers are realizing they can hook you in with a freebie from a lesser known author or the first book of a series. These free books rotate periodically, and a few that I've read are really pretty good - I'd never have known about them otherwise. So if you like to read, do yourself a favor and check out Kindle's features (and watch the videos on that page). Meanwhile, I'm reassuring mine that it has nothing to worry about as far as Apple's iPad announcement: I love my Kindle more than ever. You know, uh.. I mean - err.. umm, Volume 2 - 1/25/10  My day job is to listen carefully to each & every word of the corporate earnings calls I'm assigned to, and to fix up the original transcripts (hastily done in India and/or using voice-recognition software) into a verbatim version of what was said. I commented back in 2005 about the guys who are really in charge of our economy - stock analysts - and how most of them don't seem to have the ability to be able to form a sentence. As a result, I questioned at that time if they really have the chops to be in charge.Since then of course, the economy crashed. I won't say I told you so, and I'd be being facetious if I said it was due to these analysts-in-charge not having the brainpower to express their thoughts properly. However, it's been beyond interesting to watch the whole thing unfold from within (sort of). When the first rumblings of problems came along, nearly every company in every industry said, when asked, that although they'd heard the same whispers as everyone else, they weren't seeing any macroeconomic red flags in their results. The only exceptions to this were the American auto industry and banks & real estate companies (who all cited the subprime disaster originally, and later shifted to foreclosures). We all know what's happened since then, and my view of it from what I've picked up in my work is that it was a combination of those two real factors, as well as a "run on the bank" panic largely spread by the media. But more, my guess is that many Big Corporations saw it as an opportunity to cut the long-building fat and lay off thousands of workers without being fingered as villains for doing so. I don't know what part the inarticulateness of these downright dumb-sounding analsyts played in it all, but I'm guessing it had a role. Brangelina update - 1/24/10 Since I posted the following entry, questions have come out whether the two really have split or not, but where there's smoke, there's usually a fire burning somewhere. What's funny about the various did-they-or-didn't-they reports is that a large number of them, including mainstream media, refer to the possible split as a divorce - Brad & Angelina never married. Bye bye, Brangelina - 1/23/10  No sooner have I re-launched this site than news comes in from pop culture royalty: Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie are over.Back when Brad & Jennifer Aniston split, I posted a pic somewhere with the caption "If these two are tired of having sex with each other, what hope do the rest of us have?" I hate to repeat myself but seriously, if these two are tired of having sex with each other, what hope do the rest of us have? I'm back - 1/23/10  I never really left, but I haven't done much with this site for awhile. But with the Vancouver Olympics coming up soon, I remembered how much I fun I had following the Torino games here and I figured I might do that again. (You can review my take on Torino, beginning with the Opening Ceremonies, then hit "next" at the top of each entry.) I can't believe it's been four years already since we did this.I'm not sure now why I let this blog slow and eventually all but shut down, but I think it was a combination of shifting focus to Hamsterwatch to follow & report on Big Brother USA, busy with work, or a lack of interest, readership and revenue.. most likely it was a combination of all of the above. I make no promises what will or won't show up here this time, but it's likely to be a mixed bag. I won't be posting a link or live cam of the day anymore, but I will point out the coolest live cam I've seen in awhile: this little hummingbird not only has two or three teeny babies under her, but she has a very high quality live stream to keep tabs on them - check it out. I have some programming to do yet, indexes or listings of some sort to add, as well as ad placements - sorry, it's one of life's necessities. I'm regressing back to old fashioned HTML rather than use the blogware I used here before, but it should all come out the same. |
some of my other sites Hamsterwatch.com ~ Big Brother live feeds iTrixie.com ~ my papillon dog's woofsite PogoTips.com ~ tips for Club Pogo games The-Cult.com ~ fansite for the rock band NeonPages.com ~ website hosting & design  about me I could give stats & facts, but what do they mean? Let's just say I'm an aging, cynical optimist living on the West Coast, doing what I need to do to survive - just like you are comment/contact If you want to comment on anything here, say hi, or hire me for something, please send a message to @neonne on Twitter
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