Is it thundering where you are?

Here at exit 76, it’s pouring and thundering and lightning…ing.

Which means I’m going to have to walk to the gym in the RAIN, which is bad.

And which means how the heck am I going to entertain the kiddies? The girls are going to the mall with their grandmother, if I’m not mistaken. That’s all of the girls — Wifey, my mother, my sister, her daughter. So I guess they’ll be plenty entertained.

Wifey and I ventured down to Target yesterday. We missed the sign for route 1 and ended up on 95 and there is a target down at exit 71, I think it was. No orange juice there, if you can believe that. I did pick up a t-shirt for $5 — just a plain one, because I’m planning on wearing it to the gym. It wouldn’t do to wear a shirt that says “exit 76″ all over it. No, that’s tacky.

It’s Wednesday. Got here Sunday. I did go to the gym on Monday and yesterday, did my four miles on the treadmill. Major boring, though, without a show to watch. The TV screen nearest my machine was on MSNBC and that’s nothing but zzzZZZZZZzzzzzz, as far as I’m concerned.

There’s a Starbucks here. Not a real one. The coffee we were drinking was pretty crappy. The water here is nothing to write home about. So I’ll write to you all about it. It’s quite sulphuriferous. It took me three tries at the word “sulphur” before I gave up and used the spell-checker.

The gym opens in a half hour and Wifey is still asleep. She wants to go to the gym, and that’s why we ended up at Target, so she could get some sneakers. That and we neeed to buy some bottled water. I could have lived without the t-shirt, but for $5… well hey.

And I’ve finished my book. Vince Flynn’s Term Limits. I think it’s his first, but I could be wrong about that. Not bad for a vacation read. What should I read next? I have this copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — I actually picked it up off the swap table at the dump. Hard getting into it, though.

I hear stirring from the bed. I’m in the comfy chair across the room. This year’s room is a mirror image of the one we had two years ago. Different building, too. Weird. Eerily institutional. But I’m not paying, so I sure ain’t complaining! :) Gotta run. TTFN!

Reading this story about alleged plagiarism made me realize that if Barack Obama murdered somebody and I heard it from the Hillary Clinton campaign, it would look worse for HER than it would for HIM.

She and all of her people, they are all tattletales and would be far better served talking about HER than about HIM.

Now if HE said that SHE killed somebody… no, I didn’t hear that from him, not at all.

I’ve been organizing, as you all know, and I was just this morning going through a box of CD games. Barbie Princess Bride, Dr. Seuss Preschool, Blues Clues — all a distant memory now.

And now from my daughter’s room I hear the delightful music I haven’t heard in some time. If I knew how to embed sounds, I’d do that right now.

It’s The Sims! I haven’t had time play in a long time, what with my real simulated life. LOL!

Well I just wanted to share that.

Hope everybody’s having a better weekend than I am. My truck is hopelessly stuck in the ice on my driveway! I spent yesterday trying to free it, but nothing’s working. Long story, that — but hopefully it will have a happy ending when it continues this afternoon.

Gotta run, the doggies are whining and wifey’s away for the weeknd. I’m dog-ma and dog-paw! :)

I don’t know how to embed this Jimmy Dunn video, but you have to check it out — it’s hilarious!

Jimmy Dunn :: Brady-Moss ‘08

The works just became a barkier place.

It happens all the time when there’s a certain breed of dog in a movie or TV show… or in the news.

Don’t click the link if you’ve tivoed the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show but haven’t watched it yet.

And here’s where I have to be perfectly honest. I do record dog shows and I was disappointed to learn the result before watching it for myself.

Can you blame me? The excitement of watching group after group — the working dogs, the toy dogs, especially the herding dogs — and each winner advancing to compete for Best In Show — an excellent film, by the way, as are all of Christopher Guest’s works.

But I digress. What happens all the time is that people fall in love with breeds they see in the media, and those are the breeds the kids want when they’ve finally worn their parents down to where they can get a dog.

And do you mind if I jump up on my soapbox for a minute and say that if the parents need to be worn down, that house should not, under any circumstances, have a dog.

Anyway, the best in show at Westminster… not to give anything away, not to reveal any spoilers… let’s just say it’s one of the barkier breeds.

Kids, do the world a favor. Wouldn’t you like a nice quiet goldfish? :)

If eBay wants to stop the long tradition of feedback for buyers, fine.

But I’m going to stop leaving feedback for sellers. If sellers don’t like it, and they won’t, they can complain. And they should. Because they’re the ones paying the bills. And that’s the only way things will change back to the way they were.

Why not join me? No more feedback for buyers? No more feedback for anybody.

Just in case I need to refer back to this article on Mac OS X Tips…

Luckily, if it is a cocoa application, you can hide the Dock icon yourself. To see if it is possible, right-click (Control-click) on the application icon. If “Show Package Contents” is in the menu that appears, you can hide the icon in the Dock.

If this is the case, select “Show Package Contents” and look for the “Info.plist” file inside the Contents folder. Open this file using TextEdit by right-clicking on it and choosing “Open With - Other” from the menu.

In the file, paste the following two lines just after <dict> on the 6th line:

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>

Save the file and close it. For the changes to take effect, you need to move the application to the desktop and them back to its original location (OS X keeps a cache of the file, so you need to trick it into checking it again).

Now when you open the application, no icon will appear in the Dock. I wouldn’t recommend doing this with your regular applications like iTunes and Safari as this also has the side-effect of disabling the menu bar. This means that you will have to quit the application using the keyboard shortcut Command-Q. If the application doesn’t have any windows, you will have to quit it from Activity Monitor (in Applications/Utilities).

Of course getting back to it involves going to the Finder and clicking the application’s icon. But it’s a handy way of keeping that blogging-only browser away from the prying eyes of co-workers and other ne’er-do-wells.

That’s what I say when it’s windy out.

AUNTIE EM!!

It’s so howly out there. Hey, whatever it takes for a little change in the weather, since I do believe we’re going to see the upper half of the forties today.

That sound reminds me of being at sea… which reminds me of warm nights and hot days. Oh damn, why did I have to think about stuff like that!!

::sigh:: Oh well… Only three weeks until a few days of a warm vacay! Not quite tropical, but it will be nice. So nice.