Rants

Where Did The Pictures Go?

Just back from a Master’s Miata Club function. I took a bunch of pictures, but when I stuck the card in the reader, Windows Explorer showed no files. The root directory pie chart thingie showed that the drive was nearly full, yet there were no files to be found. Crap! Google searched for smart media file recovery. The seventh one down on the page led me to PC Inspector Smart Recovery 4.44. Not only did it work like a charm, it was FREE.

The day was saved, too bad not many of the pictures were worth saving. A couple did go into the Picture Pile (a folder kept on my desktop) and might show up if they fit a theme from an upcoming photo meme.

Finally, Portable Sunscreen

Saw a display in the supermarket tonight that proclaimed, “NEW! Portable Sunscreen!” Thank god, I was tired of having to schlep back to the car to dispense more sunscreen from the 50 gallon drum the stuff usually comes in.

Hello G Force Cable

On the night I had cable internet installed I had to call the tech support phone number to set up an email address. Some one helped me nearly right away. The next two times I called, I gave up after waiting 5 or so minutes. The paranoid side of me figured that they know when somebody is being installed so the first call get answered. After that they’ve got you, so you can be safely ignored. The other 2 times were evenings, which I figured were peak times, so I thought I might try in the day. This call would be the proof or dis-proof of my theory. I guess I’m just paranoid, I got a quick answer today.

As if I must always have set amount of email addresses, to replace the recently departed Brian_the_Red@bigfoot.com address, I almost signed up for one of these, world’s longest alphabetical email address. Instead I opted for Brian_the_Red [at] gforcecable [dot] com.

Bye-Bye Bigfoot

Way back since whenever I’ve had a bigfoot.com email address. It was a thing of beauty whilst ISP hopping in the beginnings of the internet revolution. It was free and I could forward and distribute and all kinds of other helpful stuff. Over the last decade bigfoot?s free services have dwindled, a victim of their own success. For about a year or so now I have been limited to 25 pieces of email a day. Trouble with that is, with the increase in spam a person had to be lucky to be in the top 25 to get a message to me. I stopped using the address, but kept checking for old times sake. Today I terminated my account. The end of an era.

While following the steps to end my association with bigfoot, not once, but twice I had to click OK on a screen that warned: “By terminating your Bigfoot For Life account, you will no longer receive offers from Bigfoot’s Promotional partners. However, you will also have to forego the benefits of using any of Bigfoot’s services which are available only to those with active Bigfoot for Life accounts.” Did they ever think that maybe it was those promotional partners junk mail that made the service unusable?

Curry Shrimp

Donna’s mom has been our designated cook every since she moved in with us back in May of 2000. I like her cooking and Donna, well as we all do, loves her mom’s cooking. Not only because she grew up eating it, but it means she doesn’t have to do it. Mom is famous for picking a recipe and starting to cook it, before checking if all the ingredients are in the house. Most of the time she will find something that will substitute, but other times she just fakes it and adds anything. For tonight’s meal, when she came upon a missing ingredient, she just didn’t put anything in its place. As a result the meal came out a little bland; it is tough to make Curry Shrimp, without any curry power…

Here’s A Couple Of Them

They are fresh, not really new experiences. They mirror my previous experiences with these same places, so you would think I would have learned my lesson, but I am dense.

The first is Wal-Mart. We were in Hilton Head and needed one item and wanted another, figuring we could get them both at Wal-Mart we went there. Hoping that it would be different, but it was not. It must be corporate wide, because it was Saturday night, prime Wal-Mart shopping time, they only had 4 checkout lines running and there were at least 8 people in each line. We placed our purchases on an empty conveyor belt and walked out.

Second was at my old friend Popeye’s here in Aiken. We have had the worst luck at lunch time during the week, but we figured it was Sunday, might be different. What do you think? Right, same old song and dance. Both Donna and I love the food, but it is such a pain to get anything. They had a total of 3 employees handling the Sunday lunch rush, 1 counter person, 1 drive-up person and 1 cook! Not only that, but the cook was deep frying each person’s order separately or something because it was taking a long time to get each person’s order to them. So long that they asked you to sit down and they would bring it to you. This is smart, now the time that would be better spent making or taking orders was spent delivering food to customers. I vowed never to return. Who am I kidding, I’ll probably go back, I think it makes the food taste all that much better if I have to suffer for it.

What Would Jesus Do?

A friend at work has acquired a DVD of a movie that is still in theaters. He has gotten another fellow to make copies of it using a piece of pirated DVD copying software. Knowing that I had said I wouldn’t see this one in the theaters, but instead would probably rent it when it came out, they asked if I would like a copy of my own for viewing now. I said, “I’ll let you know.”

The movie, “The Passion of the Christ.”