joeware - never stop exploring... :)

[EOM]

I just got some in today that I ordered, they appear to be great quality and actually even came with the bags to throw them in the washer so they don’t get damaged. I was impressed since I got 5 at $19.99 a piece.

Go to www.feelingpampered.com to get some for yourself if you like.

One problem… I didn’t think and ordered Queen size and my pillows are gigantic. Though I think they are so gigantic King size may not fit well either so I will just go buy a couple of smaller pillows for them.

Why sillk pillow cases? The story is that it will make it so my hair isn’t all messed up like it is with my flannel pillow cases (I heart flannel)… I am not sure if that will work out or not but I guess it is worth a try. At the very least they feel nice and cool which is… welll cool. 🙂

Oops… I smell my chicken thighs burning which means my green beans are probably boiling over too… Later…

What do you get when you mix not wanting to do what you should be doing and not being able to do what you want to do coupled with a headache from hell and the threat of 12 more inches of snow over night?

Well with me you get me throwing little fake mouse toys at the cat and watching her chase them around and then turning on the iRobot Roomba and watching it chase her around[1]…

    joe

[1] This appears to be its main functionality. It doesn’t really clean the rooms very well. The algorithm for its search and destroy mission on dirt I think needs a radical overhaul. Actually that would make an interesting video game in the vein of c++ robots… Make up a virtual room environment with  a floor that needs to be vacuumed with all sorts of weird shapes etc in place like a real house has (versus an empty square room) and then have the game player program the logic to clean it as fast as possible. I am pretty sure the 45 minutes per room the Roomba is said to need will quickly lose that race.

I found this to be a humourous article…

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_221.html

Does saltpeter suppress male ardor?

16-Jun-1989

Dear Cecil:
As a lad I went to the same repressive boarding school that made George Bush what he is today. As a student I believed, as did we all, that the school authorities were mixing potassium nitrate, or saltpeter, into our food to control our sexual appetites. (The food itself controlled our regular appetites.) Is this true? Was it legal? Would it have had any lasting effect on me? I shudder to think what happened to poor George. –John Daniel, Santa Barbara, California

Dear John:

The official word is that potassium nitrate (KNO3), more commonly employed as an ingredient in gunpowder, has no therapeutic value as an anaphrodisiac, contrary to legend. Cecil of course believes this. Still, when you look at what the stuff does do, you can see where the idea got started. Saltpeter can cause relaxation of involuntary muscle fiber (for which reason it’s used to treat asthma) and it’s occasionally prescribed to lower body temperature in cases of fever. From there it’s not much of a leap to think that “niter,” as it was called in the old days, might cure “sexual fever,” and in fact a few doctors urged it for that purpose centuries ago.
From what I can tell the idea wasn’t taken too seriously, but apparently sailors in the British navy leapt to conclusions when they learned that potassium nitrate was being used to preserve the meat used aboard their ships. Ever since the inmates of almost any large all-male institution, ranging from boarding schools to the army, have been convinced that the higher-ups were slipping the stuff into the mashed potatoes (or whatever) to cool the jets of the rank and file. During the world wars, for example, it was widely believed that government-issue cigarettes were soaked in saltpeter.

The truth is that even the most tyrannical general wouldn’t inflict the stuff on his men if he expected them to be of any use–too many side effects. Among other things potassium nitrate can cause gastroenteritis (violent stomachache), high blood pressure, anemia, kidney disease, and general weakness and torpor. It also has an alarmingly depressive effect on the heart. Too strong a dose and not only would you not be able to get it up, chances are you wouldn’t be able to get up, period. All in all, there’s still no substitute for the cold shower.

–CECIL ADAMS

I have been downloading music through Rhapsody lately and tried to get The Very Best Of The Beach Boys this morning and I’ll be darned if the darn thing wouldn’t let me pay for it…

So I took it as a sign from the gods of music downloads to look else where. I have Amazon Prime so figured I would just order it and get the CD and burn it… Well look at that, the actual CD was cheaper getting shipped to me than Rhapsody had the downloads… To download from Rhapsody it was $11.99, to buy the CD from Amazon it was $10.97. Then I noticed that I could download the album in MP3 from Amazon, never noticed that before (yeah, I am really observant as you may have noticed…)… So I download the IE extension to allow it and for $7.99 (yes $4 cheaper than Rhapsody) I download the album…

You know what, MUCH less painful to do as well, Rhapsody downloads in Real Networks crap ass format and then I have to burn to CD then rip from CD thereby eating up some of the quality. Amazon downloaded it and then told Media Player about it and voila I have music I can enjoy right off without any loss in sound quality…

Only complaint about the Amazon plugin… File location selection… It didn’t get the setting from Media Player where my music was kept and didn’t ask me where I wanted it, just assumed it should dump it in the garbage bin I call Documents and Settings… Just for an FYI, I keep nothing on the system disk that I care about, I consider it disposable and will rebuild my machines on a whim to avoid Windows Rot and the resulting performance hit. Actually I am WAY overdue for a rebuild now, haven’t done much of anything technical since last July.

Ok back to working on the DEC PowerPoint presentation….

…to the first official Moonshine run of 2008???

Daytona 500 baby… Hillbilly Superbowl.

Get your bottle of EverClear, think of Uncle Jesse, Bo, Luke, or Daisy and park it in front of the big screen, don’t forget to crank up the subwoofer for the engine growl.

Did I mention I like hot rods? Go NASCAR!

Well doesn’t little miss Trouble looking entirely thrilled and relaxed? I tell you she loves that bed and knows it is all hers. I sometimes think that I’m lucky to be allowed near it sometimes. She is either stretched all out across the middle of it or wrapping herself around the posts meowing like she never gets any attention. If I don’t make it nice and pretty for her every day I can tell you she is quite vocal about it. When she comes right up to me and starts talking to me I know it is one of a few things

1. Come pet me, I want to purr
2. I need a snack chop chop
3. You messed up my bed, come straighten it up so I can lay down
4. You should be in bed Mr, its late!
5. How come the bathroom (litter pan) is messy, you need to fix that right now for me.

She has turned into a whole new cat since she has gotten her new toys and rooms to play with in the new house. She is still pretty skittish around other people but as long as she is comfortable, happy, purring, hanging out with me, and letting me scratch her back that is all that matters. :o)