October 27, 2006

           A perfect day in most ways. The cool winter breezes have arrived and it is dropping below 70 around dawn and dusk. I went into the shop around 9:00 AM and who should show up but Roberto. He went on line with a Linux experts group and they have suggested the slow problem is Mozilla Firefox. It seems there is an anti-aliasing feature that has to be disabled. I’ll have to call Mozilla because I could not find the software switch.

           This is very bad press for people that can hardly afford it. Nobody is going to adopt a new browser if it has compatibility issues with Linux. Often, the entire motive is to get away from Microsoft and this brand of problem can sink you fast. I will move to Opera over this even if I can fix it. Linux and Mozilla have all the features but what good are they if you can’t find them? The Firefox popup blocker is even harder to find than others, and it is a black eye for them for even having build a browser that allows popups in the first place. It borders on retard to ignore a known problem like that.
           Another train went roaring through the middle of town this morning, so I took this picture. Notice the distortion? I don’t know how that happened but it looks neat so I kept the photo. I went shopping for Ruth’s shelf bracket over at Barnett’s Hardward on Hallandale and Dixie. Wow, talk about high prices, around double Home Depot.
Mind you, they have tons of neat inventory where the bigger chains only sell the stuff that moves fast. Remember my quest for one of those pump-up liquid fuel lanterns that you pump up? The ones with the cloth mantels? Found ‘em at Barnett’s. Not cheap as you may have guessed, but far cheaper at $54 than the rip-off $169 they are going for on the Internet. Weren’t computers supposed to bring prices down by improving efficiency?

           That strange masseuse lady was in today, the one who can’t get her printer to work and blames it on the computer. She also wants somebody who will fix it after she gets off duty at 9:00 at night. Good luck. In a way, she is like my brother who’s definition of a jerk is anyone who won’t lend him $100.
           For the curious, here is a picture of where all these brackets and shelving are going. If you recall me saying Ruth is running out of room, wrong. She ran out of room years ago. All I can do is re-arrange. I had to stack the printers two deep. The scanner is now on top of the computer tower and the lid will only open half-way. The phone is on the wall and you now have to answer it left-handed.

           Barbara, my student, is back from Alabama. She called while I was biking around Sunrise after work. It is a town south of Bal Harbour (Ruth informs me that is the correct spelling of Harbor). There was a little Mexican café on 75th and I had a plate of rice, which may be my second restaurant meal this year. I bought some special black grapes at $3.50 a pound to make a smoothie. The bag broke open after I walked out of the store. Well! I stopped for a coffee at the local Starbucks to calm down.
           With the remainder, I’ve discovered a new recipe. It is basically a grape, banana and soda concoction with a dash of bitter orange flavoring. This flavoring is a curious Spanish marinade sauce for meat. I tried it because the label showed all natural vegetable ingredients. I added chocolate flavor. Hershey’s Syrup Lite, and it is lo-cal. I’m no expert but that is great flavor.

           [Author's note 2022: I was unaware at the time of the danger of artificial flavors or that within five years I would be permanently boycotting Hershey's over their abuse of a student work program.]

           Again, I have more photos and footage than I can display here. The quality is low, from the new DXG digital. That does not mean it is not good footage. That camera has some eccentric qualities, especially facing any kind of brighter background. Once you learn to take advantage of these, you get good results. I find I’m choosing which camera to use depending on the lighting.

           The DXG [digital camera] is, I recap, slow to bring into action rapidly, yet it eats batteries too fast to leave in a ready state. Worse, it uses the batteries unevenly so they must be replaced before going completely flat (although I switch those to the trusty Argus for their remaining life). There is no viewfinder, only the power-hungry LCD panel, but one of the worst omissions is any kind of power adapter. It is batteries or nothing. They did not even include one of those jacks for a cell-phone power pack.
           Most of the above points are demonstrated in this picture of a toadstool just outside the wig shop door. The Argus would cause foreground blurriness at this range. The picture tells a story, but if you look close, the brightness washes out any clarity on the tuffet. Did I just say tuffet? A word that is not in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary).