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I win!

I moderate every comment posted to this blog. All one of them, so far. I don’t do that to censor viewpoints with which I don’t agree (though I could). I do it to keep the spammers and other jackasses from polluting the pond here. Every once in a while I get a dozen or so bogus comments posted by lame-ass criminals trying to spread viruses, Trojan programs or porno ads. I just delete their sorry crap and go on with my life.

The Internet as we know it is under constant siege. Unfortunately most of the attacks come from outside the US, places where the local governments are unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Even more disturbing, I suspect the majority of these attacks are perpetrated by US residents, using crappy computers in crappy, backwards or unfriendly countries to avoid prosecution in the US.

The answer to this problem as it stands today is not more laws. The laws we have are easily (and universally) circumvented or ignored. The only answer I can offer up is frontier justice. In the mean time, I just play Whack-A-Mole with the spammers, thieves and other low-life scum. So far I win.

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Bonefish Grill

We had dinner at Bonefish Grill in Regency last night for the first time. The food was quite good. I believe the calamari may have been the best I’ve ever had. We also had the Bang bang Shrimp appetizer (spicy and not bad).

The menu is varies, with plenty of seafood entrees (of course) in addition to steaks, salads, etc.   I had a Caesar salad with dinner, but next time I’ll try the house salad, which looked excellent. My fish was perfectly cooked, stuffed with crab and shrimp with vegetable and jasmine rice sides.   The sauce was a creamy lemon caper sauce that worked well with the fish.

Service was a little off, but not bad — they forgot the occasional drink, but overall it was a good experience. A word of warning: the desserts are more than enough for four people. They’re enormous.

We’ll probably be back.

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The way to perfect rice

I’m surprised by the number of people who don’t eat rice because they have no idea how to cook it properly.   And let me tell you, folks, if Uncle Ben’s or Minute Rice is your idea of what rice tastes like, you have no idea what you’re missing.

The way to perfect rice is simple and doesn’t require much effort.   You can have it cooking while you work on the rest of the meal.   The method I use is Continue reading “The way to perfect rice”

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Gran Torino

We saw Gran Torino and loved it.   I was prepared for a completely different kind of movie, but Eastwood shows some pretty good character development as the story develops.

We begin by seeing Eastwood’s character at his worst, and pretty much expect to see that played throughout the movie.   We have a few surprises, however, as he gradually warms to his Hmong neighbors — and they to him.   The way the ending works out is unexpected and quite well done.   I highly recommend seeing this movie, soon and maybe more than once.   I give this a solid four stars.

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Valkyrie

We saw Valkyrie a week or so ago at the Village Pointe theater.   As we had heard, the movie was pretty good — it would have been better were it not for Tom Cruise.   The guy wasn’t terribly convincing, and the character development was somewhat lacking.   Still, it’s worth seeing the movie.   I can’t get too much more enthusiastic about it, much as I would like to.

Cruise does a pretty good job of playing Tom Cruise.   Sadly, I think Risky Business was pretty much this guy’s peak performance.   OK, maybe that’s unkind.   While checking out his other performances for those I may have forgotten, I was reminded of Collateral.   It’s perhaps the one role in which he really surprised me.   The Mission:Impossible movies were OK — as usual with a franchise like that one, it was all down hill after the first — but still, it was Tom Cruise playing a Tom Cruise-y character.

Of course it may be that I am just having more and more trouble looking past the wacko Scientology thing.   I mean, seriously.   The movie with a different lead would have been worth three and a half or four stars.   With Cruise, two and a half.   Sorry, it’s the best I can manage.

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Doobie Brothers at Stir Cove

Lisa & I saw the Doobie Brothers at Stir Cove (Harrah’s in Council Bluffs) on August 31st.   They rocked the joint!   I was a little surprised that they didn’t do a couple of songs, like Minute By Minute or What A Fool Believes, but they did spend a good hour and a half or so doing most of their really good material.   I could easily have stayed and listened another hour.

I like the venue, though now they have one of the sillier ordinances I’ve heard of lately.   You can’t smoke in this open-air venue now…   they have another area, no more than three steps outside the gate, where you can smoke.   Of course the smoke still drifts everywhere else – like I said, it’s just silly.   Further proof that professional politicians as legislators are probably not the best idea we’ve ever had.   What rational person would dream up such nonsense?

Of the four concerts we have been to there (George Thorogood, Allman Brothers, Violent Femmes and Doobie Brothers) three were outstanding shows.

Thanks, Mom!   🙂

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Lovin’ my LG Dare

So a couple of weeks ago I traded my Motorola Razr for an LG Dare (VX9700).   Suh-weet.   It’s a touch screen phone with all the toys — micro SD card memory slot, 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus, video, flash (kind of), MP3 capability, full HTML web browser, accelerometer for detecting screen orientation, you name it.   Of course the coolest part is the whole touch screen thing; it’s nice having a huge LCD that for the most part does what you want it to do.   The fact that it’s supported by BitPim makes it even more usable.

It does have a few shortcomings, but they’re minor and geeky.   I can’t send a wallpaper as a pix message, for whatever stupid reason.   Handling of MP3 playlists — well, it’s buggy as a roach motel, and basically unusable with anything I’ve tried (Windows Media Player, Rhapsody, or just transferring files in USB mode).   The web browser is a little lacking, but usable for the occasional gotta-have access.   It’s got handwriting regocnition, but like the Palm you’ve got to learn the oddball way of entering text to use it — and no, of course it’s not the same method the Palm used.   Still, though, it’s really nice to be able to turn the sucker on its side and see the QWERTY keyboard pop up on the touch sensitive LCD!   I can even type with my thumbs, making text messaging super easy.

All in all, I’m happy with it.   I’m looking for hacks to be able to change the theme and do some of the other little things that you presently can’t do, for whatever reason.   Support on the web seems to be pretty good, and there are a lot of people hacking away at it — so I’m sure things will continue to get better.

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Damn monsoons, anyway…

So I’m down here in Charlotte…   again.   And, like it once did every time I came here, it’s been raining.   Not just an occasional rain, it’s been a pretty much constant downpour from Monday morning on.   I htink I’ve seen it stop twice, for no more than an hour or two each time.

Of course I remembered to bring my sunglasses, which are still in their case in my laptop bag.   Didn’t bring an umbrella, though.   There are 2 or 3 of them sitting at home; there may even be one in my truck.   Parked a the airport.

How wonderful.

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Am I still alive?

Well, yes, for the most part…   but I haven’t been blogging much.   Let’s do a quick recap…

The high school reunion went well.   It was really good to see some old friends, make a few new ones, and generally reconnect with people.   It’s too bad some weren’t able to make it, and even sadder that one died on the way up to attend.

Pete’s back in school, getting ready for football.

I got a new phone.   It’s an LG Dare, and it’s just…   well, it’s cool as hell.   Why not an iPhone, you may ask?   Well, let’s see.   The Dare isn’t WAY overpriced, it’s not tied to uber-sucky AT&T, it’s got the features I want, it’s hackable and not tied to Apple’s cash extraction machine…   in short, why would I even consider an iPhone?

We’ve been out on the bike a few times, but not nearly enough.   The seat came back from Mean City, and it’s much, much better now.   The lawn is surviving, no thanks to me.   Have not had the Vespa out at all this summer — I need to find some time to do some engine work, again.   I’m building a new replacement for our server, which has been running Fedora Core 3 (or is it 4?) for way too long.

There.   All caught up.