triviageek

As this article shows, even the Amish have juvenile delinquents

...Callers complaining about loud music coming from a buggy led deputies to charge a 19-year-old Amish man with stealing house numbers and flower pots. David Byler was charged with theft and underage consumption of alcohol, both misdemeanors...

-- Loud music coming from a buggy, drinking alcohol, stealing flower pots. *giggle*

Hmmm, it seems I'm not the only one to have doubts about the apparent death of a very important character in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Here's a site devoted to an analysis of the evidence in the book.

This afternoon, I made a special effort to get home in time to tape (via VHS) the back-to-back episodes of the Firefly pilot shown on the Sci-Fi channel.

I didn't use the timer since the Sci-Fi channel has previously shown itself to be unreliable as to episode start times.

This time was no different; except that my VCR refused to continue recording (at the 2 hour speed) unless I used the "length" option. Which meant that BOTH the beginning of the first part and the end of the second part was cut off. ARGH!

Some days you just can't win.

It's Thursday again and no new terrorist bombings in the London subway. Yay!!!!

And isn't that a sad commentary when we feel the need to celebrate the LACK of terrorist bombings...

TV-Guide magazine as it has existed for the past few months has become a pet peeve of mine. Before that I was a long-time reader of the magazine (often a cover-to-cover reader, in fact). Yet thanks to changes inspired, no doubt, by the "vision" of it's current owner, what was once the supreme authority for "what's on TV tonight?"; has instead become a piece of junk that doesn't even carry a FULL LISTING of TV programming!!!

Why, oh why would any owner of a magazine STOP providing it's basic content? It sure defies logic to me, but that is EXACTLY what the idiot has done. For the past several months, TV-Guide has no longer provided 24 hour coverage of TV programming; instead it has been providing only listings for "prime time".

And I stopped buying the magazine.

As have, apparently, many others.

Now in the latest bid to destroy what little remains of the magazine, the current owner has decided to further limit the listings of TV programming -- thus turning the magazine into another show-biz gossip rag. Ho-hum.

At this point my only speculation is how long it'll take, before it ceases publication entirely. (Not that I care, anyway).

Well not really the dentist. It was another appointment with a dental hygienist.

This time I had a different hygienist and no back-to-back appointment with the dentist. (Although my dentist did stop by just to say, "Hi," to me, which was nice of him. He really is a nice person.)

So I left in considerably better shape than my last visit a week ago. But I still came home and took a long nap afterwards. *giggle*

And I was worried that the recipe died with my grandfather. *giggle* But here's another recipe for Moonshine.

Actually it's not the exact same recipe, since family legend says my grandfather used corn (as in ears of corn) not corn meal.

Note to any revenuers reading this -- My grandfather is dead and anything he did was during the Great Depression which was a number of years before I was even born.

This notice almost slipped past me. That guy wrote the play, The Lady's Not For Burning.

Why do I care?

Well THAT play (performed by a University theatre group) is the very FIRST one I ever saw. And at the time, I thought it was a genuine medieval play. (Okay maybe that was stupid of me.) But I really enjoyed that play. And now the contemporary playwright who wrote it has died. And I'm sorry that I missed noticing him while he was still alive (and almost missed his death notice too). *sigh*

Apparently:

I'm a generally unfuckwitted, liberal, not-too-generous, not-too-selfish, relatively well adjusted human being!

What are you?    Or    See how compatible you are with me!


Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Firefly was supposed to begin tonight on the Sci-Fi channel at 9pm. At least that's what they had initially announced.

They changed their mind and scheduled the series FOR 7PM AIRING! ARGH

Ok, I guess I should have verified the time. But their poor scheduling choice is gonna make it difficult for me to see it each week. (I mean I used to have problems getting home by 8pm in time to see Enterprise.)

What is it with broadcasters and FIREFLY? Must they ALL try to undermine it by poor or disorganized airing of the episodes. SHEESH!

It's deja vu all over again. Only this time, they're not sure whether it it's just sloppy (inept) second string suicide-bombers (remember the first string "experienced" guys are dead now) or just copycats. *sigh*

As Doctor Who once said, "Why can't people just be nice to each other? It would be such a pleasant change!"

Today is the anniversary of the first Moon landing, July 20, 1969.

I remember staying up until the wee hours of the morning to watch all of the live broadcast of the first men walking around on the moon. And at school the next day, half of my class were sleep-deprieved because they too had stayed up to watch it all.

And our teacher understood (ie. he was doing it too). Well ok it wasn't an elementary school class, this was Calculus I and maybe a lot of us were of the "techie" mindset. Still, a lot of Americans watched "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," as it happened.

And that was a fateful summer for me, inspired by what was going on, I applied for a student program to work at a high-tech company. That job helped pay the rest of my way thru college and my experience working there as a student led to offers later.

So I can connect the dots and looking back see how that summer led me to where I am now.

And today also marks the passing of an icon. Well a fictional icon anyway, Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott was portrayed by the actor, James Doohan, who died today. He along with DeForest Kelley who portrayed Dr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy have both passed on now. And I am very sorry. I loved the original show that they helped to create.

I said before that my dentist is a nice man. And I'm sure that the dental hygienist is a nice person too (she's his sister). But having back-to-back appointments with BOTH of them was not, NOT a good idea!

By the time I left their office, I was in shock. Or at least I think so. I took a wrong-turn driving away and was lost for a while -- in a place I know well -- that's also just blocks from a former residence of mine. ARGH

When I finally made it home, I had to lay down for a couple of hours just to try and recover.

I don't think I'll do THAT again. Next time their office staff suggests this kind of scheduling, I'm gonna just scream, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Ginmar has a discussion of the new Harry Potter book up on her blog (LiveJournal). This one is worth taking a gander at since her readers/commenters are adults not kids or teens.

And the rest of her blog might be of interest too. Let me see if I can explain her blog ... Ginmar is a solder. She's a FEMALE soldier. Just back from Iraq. Where she used her gun. Often. Well maybe she didn't shoot people often, but she was often the one manning (staffing) the machine gun thingie on a convoy. Ie. she's not a secretary/clerical type. Like I said she's a soldier and her blog entries of just a few months ago were covering that period.

Oh Ginmar is also a feminist. She likes guys ... just not those who try to take away her civil (human) rights. And she hates Trolls (not Harry Potter's kind of trolls ... well maybe them too ... but she especially hates blogging trolls). If you want to read the rest of her journal, just remember that it's HER JOURNAL and her opinions and she demands that others respect her rights and her right to have her own opinions.

... still reading ...

Just my luck, TWO books arrive today. *sigh*

Of course one of them is the long awaited Harry Potter. The second is a used paperback that I had ordered from BarnesandNoble.com online and which took about a week longer than it should have, to arrive. This one is a much beloved book from my childhood that I'd recently been reminded about and which I'd also been anxiously awaiting.

What to do? What to do?

I read the end of Harry Potter first.

Well I really only ordered it from amazon to get it early for skimming. I had only ever intended it to be a stop-gap until I could get the audiobook version from my library. So now I know who dies and how that book ends. (Or do I? I'm left with a nagging doubt about some "trick" or illusion and that maybe the death isn't as it really seems?)

Anyway now I can get down to reading the (much shorter) paperback from my own childhood. This book is still good. Nearly 50 years after it was originally copyrighted, there's only a couple of points that seem a mite out-of-date.

So why is "No Children No Pets" out of print?!? This book is good! And at a hundred twenty some odd pages, it's a lot easier and quicker to read that your typical Harry Potter book.

Ah well. Color me blissfully reading all this weekend.

The new Harry Potter book is due out tomorrow or at one minute past midnight for some folks. For some reason, I'm a little antsy this time. I wish now that I'd tried to find some bookstore open at midnight so that I wouldn't have to wait until tomorrow for the book.

Yeah I ordered it MONTHS ago, when it first became available for pre-order thru amazon.com but how was I to know then (when I pre-ordered) that I'd be anxiously awaiting the book tonight like all the pre-teens. ARGH!

Here's a thoughtful review of a current movie, (War of the Worlds), which I did NOT and do NOT intend to see. This guy is just a regular sci-fi fan (ie. not a professional reviewer).

And yet his remark:

One of the main concepts of the book, radio show, previous films, etc. is that mankind cannot stop the invaders. Nothing we throw at them works. The piece is, in fact, a lesson in humility for us. It's the ultimate power of the story.

... [in the new version] ... prior to the collapse of the machines, we're shown that man CAN defeat the invaders.

sorta alludes to my reason for skipping this movie. -- Ie., in my opinion, movie remakes are NEVER AS GOOD AS THE ORIGINAL!!! NEVER!!!

They are total waste of the studio's money and my time. Maybe the director and actors reap the benefit of being employed, but even their time would be much better served working on a NEW PROJECT not a #%@#-up of an already existing (often classic) movie.

Spoiler-- Shame on you if you haven't read the book or seen an earlier version -- but so you don't worry: our microscopic allies rescue us.

These are really cute error messages.

via clicked

What gadget is Guglielmo Marconi generally credited with inventing?
Answer.

Someone needs to arrest this squirrel!

Name the geyser located in Yellowstone National Park that is well known for it's regular eruptions.
Answer.

When I went back to Blogshares to check on "triviageek stock" the site was "down" for Database Optimization. Anyway they had this graphic on display instead and I thought it worth a chuckle.

The wildflower known as Queen Anne's lace is also closely related to a common garden vegetable. Name the vegetable.
Answer.

At 12:19 PM, Anonymous said:

You know when the sum total of all human knowledge can be found on the internet when a man blogs about how he makes his cup of tea.

in response to this "How to make chai in a chai-challenged office" post on another blog. *giggle*

I'll have to try it someday (when I have milk in the house). As it is, I'm still in "green-tea drinking mode" in an effort to get rid of the flu. The all-over body aches are gone today and my headache slowly evaporated this afternoon, but I still tire too easily (when out of bed for a couple of hours) and then have to resort to another nap.

Tea making post via Boing Boing

Referring to the two types of current, what do the abbreviations AC and DC mean?
Answer.

Dunno whether it's depression over the terrorist attack in London Thursday, a dental appointment this afternoon, another exposure to flu by a co-worker, or what but I've been feeling unwell since last night. *sigh*

So today, I cancelled my dentist appointment just an hour and a half before it was to have occured and slept most of the rest of the day.

I got up a couple of hours ago, ate something, ordered a book online, and now I think I'm ready to go back to bed.

I STILL feel sick.

Who wrote the Anne of Green Gables book series?
Answer.

Hmmm, a lot of other people seem to be familiar with the blogger who wrote an account of his experience of being in a subway car next to one which blew up. He's a former magazine staffer so I dunno if my guess as to his age was wrong or if a computer games type of magazine employs staff younger than your average magazine (maybe both)???

Anyway a lot of other people are praising his first person account.

Zoe whose three brothers either live, work, or were visiting in that area (of the tube attacks) at the time, has finally heard from all of them and they are fine.

And I heard from a friend of mine who, I think, lives in a London suburb, and always uses public transportation. She said she was 20 miles or so away from that area at the time; so likewise she's ok.

I'm perhaps inclined to overreact since I live in the Washington DC area where we had first the 9/11 attack on the pentagon, then a series of anthrax laced letters contaminating the mail system that delivers MY MAIL, and as if that wasn't enough, the DC area snipers were randomly targeting people quite near where I live and work. (One of the victims was shot across the street from a co-worker's home.)

And as I later learned, the snipers were regularly using a highway just a mile from my residence as they travelled about from location to location.

The British seem so much better at taking acts of terrorism in stride than me (maybe from long experience first from the Blitz and then the IRA).

What is Chlorpheniramine maleate?
Answer.

Here's a link to a post by a London blogger who experienced the terrorism today (link from Boingboing).

I don't see any bio info on the blogger; he sounds young as he's living with his mum and sister, but also mentions he's finished University so I'm guessing he must be in his 20's.

His narrative sounds to me like a good description of the experience (ie. just an ordinary day suddenly turned upside down) and shows a very human reaction to those events. I know that often when you're caught up in the midst of some enormous event you never fully realize it, it's only afterwards when you can see it in perspective that it really hits you -- as he adds in this bit when responding to his reader's comments:

y'know it's weird. I've just smoked pot, drank lager, got home, read that, and cried my heart out because it felt like I was experiencing it for the first time. Isn't stress weird.

I'm really grateful for all the good wishes. I really do feel abnormally good to be alive right now.

I'm glad too, that he and hundreds of others survived the events. I just wish everyone had; that no one had been hurt; heck, I just wish the terrorists would go out in the middle of some desert and just blow themselves up (and no one else).

106. How many times was the Roman Emperor Tiberius married? Answer.
107. From what ingredient is hominy made? Answer.
108. Constantinople is known by what name today? Answer.
109. What is the common name of urticaria? Answer.
110. A pram (short for perambulator) is the name for what in the UK? Answer.
111. Although it was later made into both a movie and TV-series, who wrote the original book entitled "The Thin Man"? Answer.
112. That Horn of Plenty used as a centerpiece on the dinner table or as a decoration elsewhere during Thanksgiving festivities has another name. What is it? Answer.
113. Who or what are Lares and Penates? Answer.
114. What color is cerulean? Answer.
115. America is named for which Italian navigator? Answer.
116. Name the older, and inaccurate, system (or theory) of astronomy that assumes the Earth is the center with the Sun, moon, and planets all revolving around it? Answer.
117. Name the paper or rolls of paper (made from a marsh grass) used in ancient Egypt? Answer.
118. The fictional TV-character Dobie Gillis often went to the park and perched on a bench near a copy of a famous statue. While there he usually assumed the same posture as the statue. What is the name of the well-known statue. Answer.
119. What is the name of the reporter who found the Martian and learned to call him Uncle Martin on the TV-series, My Favorite Martian? Answer.
120. What is the name of (arguably) the most famous painting at the Louvre? Hint: It's by Leonardo da Vinci. Answer.

Previous Trivia Summary.

This site tests What gender is your brain?

Of me, it says:

Your Brain is 66.67% Female, 33.33% Male

Your brain leans female
You think with your heart, not your head
Sweet and considerate, you are a giver
But you're tough enough not to let anyone take advantage of you!

Okay. Dunno how correct that it, but I AM female.

What is the name of (arguably) the most famous painting at the Louvre? Hint: It's by Leonardo da Vinci.
Answer.

Blogging: Group Therapy of the 21st Century?

Many Bloggers Say Writing Online Journals Helps Them Deal with Problems

This article rings a bell with me, since one big reason that I've decided to continue blogging for a while, is I've found that blogging HELPS my insomnia.

Alas, it doesn't completely CURE the problem, but it does seem to make falling asleep easier.

What is the name of the reporter who found the Martian and learned to call him Uncle Martin on the TV-series, My Favorite Martian?
Answer.

I forgot to add in my blog entry yesterday, that as long as I was calling one credit card company to cancel their card, I decided to go ahead and phone another.

So I've just cancelled TWO credit cards:

1) from the banking company that is merging with the WORST Most CROOKED Credit Card Company in existance.

2) the credit card company that lowered my credit limit from $4300. to $370. because I had left a $3.20 balance unpaid one month. As I said at the time this company is at least honest in their usury and disreputable practices. They're not outright crooks.

[I had already paid off (and ceased doing business with) the WORST Most CROOKED Credit Card Company in existance, about 5 years ago.]

The fictional TV-character Dobie Gillis often went to the park and perched on a bench near a copy of a famous statue. While there he usually assumed the same posture as the statue. What is the name of the well-known statue.
Answer.

As the joke goes, I have some good news and some bad news; which do you want to hear first?

Ok the bad news first: remember I said that I didn't mind not using the credit card from the company that drastically lowered my credit limit (as revenge for my not paying a $3.20 bill one month) because I had ANOTHER new credit card that I could use instead. Well THAT new (to me) banking company just merged with the WORST Most CROOKED Credit Card Company in existance. *sigh*

As soon as I heard the news, I phoned my new credit card's banking company and told them to close that account. When they asked why, I told them (briefly) what their new partners had done. Their person on the phone would not take "no" for an answer and keep trying to talk me out of closing the credit card. I hung up and phoned back only to get a second service rep type who again refused to accept that I wanted to close my account. This one offered to lower my interest rate. "OK", I said, realizing that this person wasn't going to listen to what I was saying either. (And lowering the rate of a zero balance has zero effect on the non-debt, but this person seemed to think that it should have been a good enough bribe to entice me to keep the account open.)

When I phoned AGAIN (on the following day) I had a very long wait before finally being connected to a person (unlike the other two calls -- hehe -- guess I wasn't the only one phoning to close their account).

This third attempt finally got me someone who was willing to accept the fact that I will NOT keep a credit card from ANY company willing to merge with the WORST Most CROOKED Credit Card Company in existence. That, in fact, their willingness to partner with that company said bad things about THEM! And this rep finally agreed to close the account.

*sigh* Now I have to find ANOTHER new credit card to replace them.

So what's the GOOD news, you ask?

Apparently the reason that the WORST Most CROOKED Credit Card Company in existence was vulnerable to the buyout/merger from the banking company was BECAUSE they have made so many people angry that they've been losing money. It seems that too many of their customers have been pissed off enough to pay down their debt or do balance transfers to other companies (who did not abuse the public as badly). *giggle* It couldn't have happened to a more deserving company!!!!

Name the paper or rolls of paper (made from a marsh grass) used in ancient Egypt?
Answer.

I wonder if anyone will get serious about Identity theft now? *sigh*

I've been doing everything that I know to do, in an effort to avoid it myself:
1. I just asked two companies to reissue their credit cards to me with new numbers (since I had transactions on them during that crucial period when info on 40 million accounts was compromised by a third party transaction processor).
2. I've had (and used) a paper shredder for YEARS to get rid of papers rather than throwing them in the trash.
3. I just got recent copies of my credit report and scanned it for errors and unauthorized entries. (Found at least one error.)

What's so frustrating is that it isn't just someone using my existing accounts that I have to worry about. Identity thieves often open OTHER accounts with credit card companies, cell phone companies etc. and proceed to run up huge bills.

Name the older, and inaccurate, system (or theory) of astronomy that assumes the Earth is the center with the Sun, moon, and planets all revolving around it?
Answer.

From MSNBC

6. Although eBay says that fraud occurs in less than one hundredth of one percent of all its transactions, victims continue to be frustrated by eBay's stance -- that buyers and sellers should try to resolve their differences on their own. Complainers about fraudulent transactions generally get only an automated response to that effect from eBay, though the company does monitor the site from bases in San Jose and Salt Lake City for fraudulent items -- bouncing blatantly fake art, for example.

After all the problems I had with the fraudulent seller, I already knew about this problem with eBay.