Life Is Hard...

Resolutions

My resolution for 2004 is to keep a dream diary. I've had such wonderful dreams over the years, but I only remember them at random. If I wrote them down, I think I might find my muse.

Enron Math

James Lilek's Pledges:

If Bush says that ''two plus two equals four,'' I will not spit, ''Oh, that's Enron math,'' and spend the rest of the day rebalancing my checkbook in Base Eight.

But James, two plus two still equals four, even in Base Eight! Heh.

Reinstalling IE on XP

I was trying to reload Internet Explorer on a computer with Windows XP Home Edition and it was just a big pain in the butt. I found various sites with the solution of modifying the registry key for Microsoft Active Setup \ Installed Components, so you could then download and reinstall IE 6 from microsofts web site. This did not work for me. I got a message about half way through the install saying "This install can not continue because the install is not using dll's that have ben certified by microsoft."

Can you imagine that? Microsofts own IE6 download from Microsofts own site is rejected because it is not properly certified? Bizarre.

I think the only solution in this case is going to be a wipe & load.

Merry Christmas!

...And don't be a scrooge!

NA NA NA NA, NA NA NA NA, EH EH EH, GOODBYE!

WE'VE GOT SADDAM!

Another Reason To Be Glad You're A Man

To quote one of the Ugly Step-Sisters, "Ughh!! I'll make it fit!"

...Sheree Reese went to her doctor and said that she would do almost anything to wear stilettos again. ...Dr. Reese, a 60-year-old professor of speech pathology at Kean University in Union, N.J., had been forced to give up wearing her collection of high-end, high-heeled shoes because they caused searing pain.

So Dr. Reese, like a growing number of American women, put her foot under the knife. The objective was to remove a bunion, a swelling of the big-toe joint, but the results were disastrous. "The pain spread to my other toes and never went away," she said.

...

A 1991 study found that almost 90 percent of women routinely wear shoes that are one to two sizes too narrow. A 1993 study found that women have more than 80 percent of all foot surgeries, primarily because their shoes are too tight.

Narrow shoes can cause the big toe to bend outward, permanently changing the shape of the bone and causing a bunion, or swollen big-toe joint. Women have more than 94 percent of bunion surgeries, the 1993 study found. By scrunching up the smaller toes, fashionable shoes can also cause or worsen claw or hammer toes, a condition in which the smaller toes are permanently bent downward. Painful and unsightly corns or calluses often form on the tops of such toes.

EU Animal Farm

From the NY Times, regarding controversy in the European Union:

In other words, what seemed to prevail was a recognition that not all of the member states need to always be precisely equal.

Now where have I read that before?

More Snarky Criticism of the NY Times

This is from an article about the proliferation of new online music sites such as iTunes. Read carefully:

Mr. Wiser said the expanding range of music would coincide with the growing number of devices consumers will use for playing digital downloads. "It'll move outside the study and into the living room," he said.

Sony's RoomLink, for example, is a $200 device that wirelessly connects a Sony Vaio comer to a television, so users can play downloaded tracks over their home theater systems, among other things.

Other computer makers and consumer electronics companies sell competing devices or are working on them. Sometimes the devices are marketed alongside specific online music stores. Napster, for instance, rolled out the Samsung Napster MP3 player this fall. It directly connects to the Napster download service and includes an FM transmitter for listening to burned tracks.

Okay, now did that make any sense? Hmm, move outside of the "study" and into the "living room?" I didn't know the huddling masses in fly-over country were even allowed to have studies, I thought they were purely for the elitists. And what's a "Vaio comer?" And how would an "FM transmitter" be useful for "listening to burned tracks?"

The world wonders.