Archived News starting from 08-11-2007 and earlier
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Not quite sure what to do on a 90° day, I thought it would be fun to
work on Cougars all day in a hot barn. Luckily I wasn't the only one who had this thought and quite a few fellow owners
joined me. Once we got the first spark plug change done it was decided
grilling and lounging in
converted Cougar chairs was a better option than actual work. The last remaining Morlock also moved out today, leaving my fellow Eloi and I with an uncertain future. While the constant threat of cannibalism and caustic smoke made daily life with the Morlock stressful, his ability to maintain vauge machinery and keep us entertained will be missed. I don't doubt he'll find more Eloi to consume/befriend in his new basement.
A recent project launch at my work had me spending 12 hours a day at work, neglecting my soon-to-be-wife. Now that the project has launched (and before another one begins) I decided to take the day off and
take her to the park. Having been almost a year since I last visited, I was shocked to find a
freaky water park in the middle of the beach. Lisa was so shocked she immediately started doing
freaky stretches to compensate mentally. I was determined to find out if it was worth stripping naked and running through it wildly until I saw the $4/day fee which saved untold numbers of kids from a scarring childhood trauma. Instead, I
rode a dinosaur for free.
What do Cougar owners depressed about
Cougarfest being over do? Although listening to
Chocolate Rain and crying is the obvious answer, the correct one is to plan a
Slumber Party Supreme. Thanks to
Excelcier and LadyX the solution was implemented and brouhaha
ensued. The highlight of the event was easily the
various air mattress launches which miraculously did not break a mattress or Cougar owner.
Just when you thought Michigan might give more than a week of pleasant 75° weather, you're reminded this is a state of extremes. Extreme cold, extreme heat, or extreme cloudiness is always within a week of nice weather and today was the hottest extreme yet at 97.9°. I spent the hottest day of the summer at work, as I'm sure most people did, which made the sunny day outside less painful since I knew it was too hot to enjoy. I was planning on a fried egg photo but unfortunately never had the time to put egg to asphalt.
| +97.9 °F at 16:01 on 01 August |
Mowing my yard
yesterday I felt a sharp pinch in the back of my leg and saw a group of bees circling it. My initial attempt to swat them away resulted in a doubling of the number of bees, so my next move was to run as fast as I could completely around my house, which successfully eluded them. After I lost them, I returned to the scene and saw my mower was now taking the brunt of the attack. Satisfied my mowing was done for the day, I took off for Jairds BBQ. When I returned, I dumped a quart of motor oil into their nest in the ground and
pissed them off a final time. Hopefully the oil transforms them into super lubricating metallurgist modifiers and they bond themselves with my car to change it into a real-life transformer. Unfortunately it will probably be a Decepticon since they'll most likely still be pissed off at me. Fortunatley they stung me first so I'll have swollen to the size of a blimp and can take the abuse.
The driveway to my barn has been long overdue for more limestone rock, with some places so low it's down to bare dirt. Realizing this was an opportunity to overload my truck with excessive weight, I set off to the landscape supply place to discover limestone is only $32 a yard. Since broken limestone is 97 pounds per cubic feet, and 27 cubic feet are in a yard, I purchased the weight equivalent of my
Cougar and had it loaded into the bed of my truck for $32. (If you suck at math that's 2,619 lbs). I returned home with my
new low rider and started shovelling the limestone out onto the driveway. My second load I noticed the suspension was compressed all the way to the
bump stop (rubber thing on the left resting on the steel triangle) which meant I officially exceeded the maximum allowable cargo weight. After a total of 4 yards I decided the excitement of overloading my truck did not exceeded the exhaustion of shovelling it and quit for the day.
A
recent woot brought the
Netgear WNR834B Router to $50. I was holding out for the
gigabit edition but it seldom falls below $120 so I decided I can't have everything and grabbed the bargain. My last
router upgrade was a necessity for my then wireless media machine, but now that it's been properly wired this is purely a "looks better, runs faster" upgrade. The configuration screens between my old
WPNT834 router and the new one were virtually identical, making configuration transfer easy except for the security configuration. Apparently my 64-bit WEP security just doesn't cut it anymore since the only options on the new router are "None" or "WPA2-PSK". My older computers can't do better than WEP, so this had me bummed until I figured out I could backup the config file and manually edit it using my old routers config file as a guide. A quick restore of my hacked config file and the WEP option magically appeared. Score one for Netgear on lame software, I guess removing the option makes the router "more secure" by eliminating older protocols. As you can see, the new router looks
more menacing and has an equally impressive
light show. Both are key features that prompted the purchase.
Ron hasn't mentioned server speed in quite some time, but I'm again hoping I'll get a comment about a noticeable increase in packet handling speed.
Lisa and I had the opportunity to
play some disc golf with
Elder and his wife today at
Cass Benton park.
The Gator was a favored choice among the southerners, who played a fair game, but inexplicably had exactly one stroke more than me on every hole. This meant I won by an 18 stroke margin, proving the north can still crush the confederacy. This victory came about despite the Elder shooting my (now discontinued)
Rocket X2 into the woods with his pellet gun, a failed attempt to prevent my victory on yet another hole despite the extra stroke rule for lost discs. Lisa maintained a whine level under 30% for the day, suggesting the
Avenger served her well. Afterwards we went for some drinks and discussed my absolute superiority at the game of disc golf. A fine day indeed. The
Senator was notably absent from this outing, he obviously forgot I own an airsoft gun. He will be dealt with shortly.
Hiding from wedding planners at
Rons house, we decided to pass the time with some original
Starcraft. A perfect 75° day made staying inside a crime, so an
outside mini LAN was
formed.
The
Morlock closed on his house today, which is 4 houses down from my own. Yes, I was disappointed he didn't move to
Morlock street as well. He is now one step closer to abandoning my basement for an above-ground dwelling. This will finally answer the question regarding morlocks and their ability to change into eloi. Should he locate entirely into the below-ground area of his new house I'll continue to invite him over when my
fellow eloi gets out of hand. If, however, he spends the majority of time above-ground I'll have to start looking for a new morlock to meander menacingly and spread order through fear. The plus side of the move is a new riding lawnmower which doubles as a
sweet ride between houses. The neighborhood folk, who I've learned deem me anti-social and frequently plot my downfall, were quite amused. I already miss the morlock and he's not even gone. At least I still have the
original morlock.
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