Pig Tales #1

From The Green Bay Press-Gazette, a slice of life article about a pig who escaped on his (her, actually) way to the butcher.

This article is funny, almost surreal. It turns out that the pig’s owner is a lawyer named Nila Robinson, from Appleton WI. She was transporting three pigs to the butcher, and upon arrival:

She delivered two pigs to a butcher near Appleton but the female pig that remained on the trailer threw a fit.

And then, unaccountably,

“She stood on her hind legs and made an ear-piercing sound,” said Robinson, who said the animal was distressed.

So, instead of than dragging the critter off the truck and leaving it at the butcher’s, the obvious thing to do is stop by Starbuck’s for a venti, double mocha, triple caramel with soy and raspberry coulis latte; Ms. Robinson did exactly that:

But the pig calmed down so Robinson decided to stop at a Starbucks in Appleton to wash her hands and get a latte.

“I would have gone through the drive-thru but the pig was lying down so I figured it was OK,” she said. “When I got back to the truck, the pig was still there.”

Not being a Starbuck’s fanboy, I didn’t realize they had drive-thru service. The pig had obviously calmed remarkably since the ear-piercing sound emissions.

The tale continues:

So Robinson drove to Maplewood Meats on Milltown Road, just off Highway 29 near Green Bay. She made it there but the pig didn’t.

So she calls local law enforcement, whereupon the big guns were brought out:

The pig finally turned up near the intersection of U.S. 41 and West Mason Street at 6 p.m. and was eventually subdued when police officers unsuccessfully employed Tasers and finally tranquilized the animal with darts. Asked what time she thinks the pig escaped, Robinson would only say, “the pig was at large for some time.”

So, the Tasers didn’t faze her.

All’s well that ends well, and the pig spent the night in the local animal shelter; Ms. Robinson picked her up the next day, and offered these words of comfort:

Robinson didn’t plan to discipline the pig when she planned to pick it up and put it back into a trailer.

“There will be modifcations,” she said. “I might have to sit in the back and play gin rummy with her. The pig humiliated me but I don’t hold it against it,” she said, knowing the pig won’t care anyway. “Pigs lack remorse.”

Wow. Read the whole article, while it’s in front of the pay/registration wall.

-k-

The Press-Gazette is soliciting pictures of the pig from their readership. They’ll post them if they get them. I’ll point to them if they show up.

I’m in touch, so you’ll be in touch.

New, Free Senseo

As I detailed here, I signed up, and was accepted, to get a free Senseo single-cup coffee maker. Mine arrived last night; it looks like the one in the post I referenced, only in black, instead of the trendy blue that adorns my office.

Details on the apparatus at the Senseo website , with all kinds of incentives to get one of your very own. Right now, they have a $20.00 AmEx gift card when you buy one. For home or work, I heartily recommend you get one if you enjoy a good cup of coffee.

I also discovered something else; examining the bag of 18 pods that came with the free machine, I see that the coffee pods are distributed by Sara Lee. Heckuva deal, because Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee. Exactly.

-k-

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Single Malt, Single Barrel, Single Cup

The above modifiers refer respectively to Scotch, Bourbon, and coffee. Having written about the first two, I figured it was time to mention coffee. I drink single-cup coffee at work, made in my pretty blue Senseo, as pictured here. I love the neatness of the whole thing; no grounds to dispose of, no filters to buy, no pots to clean to prevent science projects from taking root therein. And believe me, in my college days, I believe I manufactured cures for all the world’s diseases in the leftovers in a drip coffeemaker I was too slothful to clean.

I started out with a Melitta one:one, and thoroughly loved it. The local Target, however, became incredibly remiss in not stocking the pods that fit this particular unit. I had ordered pods directly from Melitta, and that worked well; the problem was they had an auto-delivery of a six-box assortment of pods, so I was buying six boxes at a time. I had several other coffee drinkers in close proximity to my office, so that was good. Then, these other coffee persons moved to different areas of the building, or got transferred miles away, so the necessity for a stockpile of coffee became less.

Also, after about 3 years, I figured it was time to upgrade, so the Senseo is now ensconced in my work area. And it’s great. I came across a blog dedicated to single-serve coffee a week or two ago, and subscribed to their feed. A recent post there mentioned that one could get a Senseo for free. I followed the link, answered a few not-too-prying questions, and was rewarded with a mail-o-gram saying that I had qualified for a free Senseo. I provided them the shipping address over the weekend, and in 3-4 weeks, should have another machine.

Love these internets; where else can you find a blog dedicated to the world of single cup coffee?

-k-

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A Song from the Acidman

I’d volunteered some excess tbbs bandwidth to host some of the late Acidman’s songs. There were plenty of volunteers, and my offer of bandwidth still stands for whatever tributes his family, friends, and loyal minions see fit to organize.

In the interim, I’ll try my first embedded audio in a post, and leave you with some pickin’ and singin’ from Rob Smith, the Acidman his own self; this one is entitled My Door is Always Open:

-k-

H/T: James, at The Chair and Automan, from whom I stole the “embed” stuff he used in his first embedded video post at his place.

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El Camino!

I wish this post detailed my purchase of a vintage Chevy El Camino. Instead, I’m experimenting with the Camino browser for the Mac. Firefox is fine, and it is still my default browser. I have a nasty habit of clogging Firefox with extension upon extension, until I render it unable to render. Heh.

The extension I use most in FFX is the AdBlock extension. Camino blocks ads out of the box. In addition, Camino just feels snappier in loading pages, and in navigating around.

We’ll see how it goes.

-k-

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Springtime Rites of Passage #4

When you are past that sphincter-tightening moment while TurboTax calculates the amount you owe your Uncle. Especially when it’s a net wash between federal and state.

I’ll mention again that Quicken sucks; its crash as I attempted to print my charitable contributions for last year, has sealed its fate for sure. I have been experimenting with Money Dance; now is the time to get serious about converting to that application, with whatever warts it may have. Gotta love Quicken branding; they were smart enough not to name their product something that rhymes with “blows goats.”

-k-

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I am a Dumbass

For the last day or so, I’ve noticed that my wireless mouse that attaches to the voyager laptop hasn’t been functioning well. It is battery operated, so I figured it’s time for a recharge. I plugged the USB charger into the mouse, took a little nap, and awoke to use my newly refreshed device. Sure enough, all was well, for a few minutes. Then, the mouse was as dysfunctional as before. Cursing under my breath, I checked out some other rodent possibilities via the internet. Found nothing suitable cheap enough.

Then, when I sat down just a little bit ago, I noticed the recharger was plugged into a mini-USB hub, which is usually plugged in to the laptop. The hub was not plugged in. After remedying that situation, and connecting the wireless rodent back to the charging trough, it’s little green charging light is glowing, and all’s well.

First troubleshooting rule is still Make sure everything is plugged in.

-k-

The Taxman Cometh

I’ve ranted for nearly the life of this blog (almost 6 months now, but who’s counting?) about how Quicken Sucks. Well, I fired up TurboTax 2005 for the Mac tonight, in preparation for tomorrow’s round of cursing, as we pay our annual tribute to the Powers that Be. First step was to download the updates. Crashed. Finally got TT updated, and the VA state stuff downloaded.1

Pound of flesh to follow tomorrow.

-k-

1 – Will “the software crashed” defense keep me out of Leavenworth? If not, at least Leavenworth is close to home. And I could raise birds.

Update: Oops, that was Birdman of Alcatraz. Didn’t he transfer there from Leavenworth?

MacWin Apples

Apple can, with the freely downloadable Boot Camp, now boot your Intel-powered Apple device into OSX or Windows. Fine, if you are into that sort of thing, knock yourself out. I loved the digs on the Redmondian Empire on the Boot Camp page:

EFI and BIOS
Macs use an ultra-modern industry standard technology called EFI to handle booting. Sadly, Windows XP, and even the upcoming Vista, are stuck in the 1980s with old-fashioned BIOS. But with Boot Camp, the Mac can operate smoothly in both centuries.

And:

Word to the Wise
Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.

OK, it’s dual boot. Whoop-de-doo. You’ve been properly warned. So, what killer application requires Windows? What would compel someone to leave the wonderful, Aqua, Unix-at-the-core OSX environment to fire up Windows? I’ve thought about this at some length; and here’s the answer:

-k-

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Apple Sleep Disorder

The voyager laptop has been exhibiting some sleep disorders of late; ranging from insomnia to narcolepsy. It seems to stay awake when I want it to sleep, and sleeps when I think it should be awake. Even closing the lid results in about a minute of sleep, then the blasted thing awakens again. So, it’s off to Apple support on the web, to see what can be done.

-k-

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