A cult Classic??

I bought this CD the other day. Its very entertaining listening to my two sons trying to sing along to it. But try they do. As I understand it, this movie has already become sort of a cult classic. Themed sleepovers, group viewings, interactive movie going.

I must admit it is a very catchy soundtrack. Particularly the tune 'Get Your Head in the Game'. If you haven't seen the movie, its worth a watch, if you can catch it on the Disney Channel.

The musical scene to the tune 'Get Your Head in the Game' is outstanding - choreographed basketball, very very well done. Many many practice hours to put that scene in the can.

Internetitus

Had a bout of internetitus tonight. Our dial up internet wouldn't connect. Error 718, it said. Very serious. Second cousin twice removed from the bird flu.

So I found a phone in the house, somewhere. Never use the thing, so it was a little dusty. But anyway, after rifling through several drawers and cabinets, I also located another dusty item, a phone book. (I was gonna look up the number for Iowa Telecom on the internet, but DOH!!, the internet wouldn't connect.....) Called Iowa Telecom, went through about 1600 menus, you know, the 'if you want to hear these messages in Russian, press 1, pazhalsta' and after all that I got a recorded message saying...and I am paraphrasing a bit here...."golly but you might be experiencing a prollem with yer password and login and stuff, but after we get done the farm chores, we'll get right on it, so don't worry".

Sure enough, just after the sun went down, we were able to connect again. Apparently error 718 isn't fatal.

The Pickle, and Spring

It is now officially spring at our house. I have moved my truck to the side of the garage that does NOT have the automagical door opener, and moved my old Chevy to the side that DOES have the automagical door opener. The significance of this cannot be understated. Coupled with the knowledge that I am extremely lazy, it means that now my old Chevy (lovingly referred heretofore as the Pickle) will be my primary means of transport to and from work. Because I refuse to get out of the car to open a garage door on a daily basis.

The picture below was taken while we still lived in the beautiful state of North Carolina. Notice the sunshine. The picture was taken in March. We haven't seen much of the sun here in Iowa this March. (sigh) And since I made the drastic 'garage bay swap' the rain hasn't stopped.

So the Pickle has been rained on every day.

And tonight, the Pickle was subjected to 20 minutes in a Ford dealer parking lot, while I waited for Mrs. Grumpy to meet me there with the truck. (ya so I am a little late getting the servicing done on the truck......I was supposed to get it there BEFORE 36,000 miles, but oh well)

Nonetheless, for all the neglect and abuse the Pickle takes, it still runs a treat. Kids think its 'da bomb', and they don't have to wear seat belts cuz there aren't any!! (how did all those kids survive the 60's?)

And of course it is SUCH a chick magnet....... :-)


 

write

I can't think of anything to write. So here's a pencil, and some paper, write your own blog entry.

 

Eeeeeeek!!!!!

You can bear witness to the end of my warranty.......

Zealots....Macs, and WindowsXP

Once again I am amazed at the 'cult' of Mac. I browse the Macintosh group on Flickr, because I love pictures of Mac hardware. Mac makes the most beautiful computer hardware in the world in my opinion.

But I ran across this picture in the group on Flickr.

His caption on the pic just amazes me. I quote....

"A few small benefits of dual booting Windows XP on an Intel Mac is being able to use websites that require IE 6. "

OK, so let me get this straight. In order to use websites designed for Internet Explorer (the most widely used web browser in the world at this moment) I must reboot my Mac into WindowsXP.

Oh ya, that's ease of use for ya. Macs 'just work' they say. Sure. As long as you don't hit a website designed for Internet Explorer. Gosh, that'll never happen, will it??

(I'd still love to have a MacBook Pro....just don't take away my WindowsXP machines)

Warranty

It getting very close to that banner day. The day my 2004 F150 Ford truck warranty runs out. I have approximately 137 miles left before I click over to 36,000 miles. (The picture above was the day we brought it home, October 17th, 2003)

(biting nails)

Something just has to break soon. I've had no problems with the truck yet. So I reckon I'll get it in for service at 35,975 miles, and ask them to fix something, anything, to ward off the after-warranty demons.

Or, I could just park the dadgum truck for the next year, and drive my old Chevy.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmmm....

While my brother was here visiting, we had some interesting discussions about the relative merits of the Mac operating system, and the Windows operating systems. (both of us being gadget geeks, it was an inevitable topic). While I use both systems, and like both systems, it seems that most Mac users are zealots. Meaning there is no room for anything else. So why is it that no sooner does Apple introduce a Mac using an Intel chip, that the first thing Mac guys try and do with it is install WindowsXP??

And what about this?? What kind of free country are we living in, when one could be shot dead for walking on a neighbour's lawn?

I'm Sick of It

Its true, I am sick of it. Not sure what it is, but it's kept me in bed for two days. Any longer and I might develop bed sores. I would imagine it was all the stress of having my brother visit....HA!!! NOT. We had a great time. We'll at least I think we did. I pretty much went to work every day. But my brother says they'll come again sometime so it couldn't have been too bad a visit. Of course, my wife fed us like kings so I'd be glad to have a return visit from bro, just for the awesome food. :-P

Added some stuff to iTunes while Tim was here...

The album 'David Allan Coe at his Best' by David Allan Coe
The album 'Every Breath You Take: The Classics' by The Police
The album '72 and Sunny' by Uncle Kracker
The songs 'Follow Me' and 'Drift Away' by Uncle Kracker

Dawg Gone It

Somehow, I allowed this to happen. We have a new addition to the zoo here at the house. It seems that two dogs are not enough. We must have three.

So here she is. She needed a home or her current owners were going to have to ummmm, you know, ummmm, kill her. We couldn't let that happen now, could we? Her name is Isabel, (Izzy) and she's some sort of blend, lab and australian shepherd, or something similar.

Cute huh???

Picture Post

Since bro is visiting, I can't be bothered writing much, but here's a couple of pics.

Worth 1000 words....

Gotta love this pic....

Well....

Well, my bro and fam are here. They arrived despite the recent tornadoes, etc, that have been frolicking around the midwest.

However, my bro looks like maybe the trip took its toll on him.....

Tabbed Browsing...better late than never.

Microsoft has finally added tabbed browsing to Internet Explorer. Only about 4 years late but hey, better late than never, I suppose.

Internet Explorer 7 is available as a Beta 2 at the moment, and I am trying it out. So far so good, used it all evening with only one glitch.....I couldn't upload the photo you see below. (back to Firefox for now...)



We had a taste of summer here today. It was downright hot. Almost 80F. Too hot. Fortunately its cooling back off to the mid-40's for next week. There were some very cool cloud patterns this afternoon. I tried to capture them...they are over on my Flickr page.

Big tornado watches in effect here tonight and tomorrow. So if you never see another grumpy posting you'll know what happened :-)

Anchor Vote

So I took a poll, collected votes for best anchor on CNN Headline News.

Three people voted. Me, Myself, and I. The votes were tallied and verified by a counter of some sort, and the winner is pictured below, goes by the name of Robin Meade.



Ain't she purdy? But holy cow she must get sore smiling so dang much. What on earth is she smiling about, as she reports nothing but bad news??? How do you smile while reporting that another 75 people died in 45 new ways today?

The gal below (Adrianna Costa) gets my vote for the worst makeup on CNN. You'd understand if you happened to see her this morning. Looked like an 8 year old helped with the makeup. It was almost as pathetic as the Entertainment News on which she was reporting. At least she's got a reason to smile - she's probably having trouble not laughing at the crap she has to report about so-called celebrities.




I figured since my last posting was waaaay too serious I'd lighten it up a bit today....couple of pictures of pretty gurls, and some drivel about news.

I found it entertaining, at the very least. :-)

Rather profound, I thought.....

Finished up reading the Third Secret last evening. I thought the following little blurb was very profound. This little blurb was in a letter from the fictional Pope (Clement) to his trusted secretary (Colin). The words belong to Steve Berry, the author of the book.

"We are merely men, Colin. Nothing more. I'm no more infallible than you. Yet we proclaim ourselves princes of the Church. Devout clerics concerned only with pleasing God, while we simply please ourselves."

Applies to all of us I suppose, whether we are Pope or not. I know I go about my daily life pleasing Me as much as I can.

The Third Secret

I am reading this book at the moment. Well, actually I am typing this at this moment, but when I am not typing, or watching BBC America (its Monday night...BBC night) THEN I am reading the Third Secret.

Its all about the Message of Fatima. You want some heavy reading, read this from the Vatican.

Luckily, the book I am reading is a novel, written in such a way that I hate to put it down, and I can't wait to find out 'whats happens' at the end. I am on page 297 of 376, so I am getting close......

Oh ya, and I added the album 'Number Ones' by the BeeGees to iTunes the other day. Been jivetalkin ever since.

Academy Awards....NOT

The Academy Awards are on tonight. I not gonna watchem. I don't have to. And you can't make me. Besides, they are on ABC, which, if you'll remember correctly, only arrives at our home via antenna. Besides, they are all people that put their pants on every day same as me. Besides, who wants to watch a bunch of rich overpaid people participate in a mutual admiration juggernaut? Besides, most of them are ugly without their makeup on. Besides, there's a repeat of Cold Case on that other channel.

Boy did I add a bunch of pics to Flickr today. I fired up my Linux puter, and found a bunch of older pics on there, so I posted some of 'em. It was raining here today, so what else is there to do?

And I always knew my friend Paul was from outerspace. Here's proof.

Kids in the Car

Today, on a ride to Burlington and back, I snapped these two pics blindly from the front seat.

Sums up two personalities perfectly. Happy go lucky in blue, too serious for his own good in yellow.




And it looks like I could use a shave.

Error

Hmmm, I felt sure I would be called on the fact that there are two number 4's in my previous post. But apparently, nobody reads it that carefully, and for that I am grateful.

I think holidays are over-rated anyway.

Been driving the big truck again lately, although I have no idea why. It uses gasoline at an astonishing rate. Although the little truck is by no means parsimonious with fuel it IS less ghastly at the pumps. But the big truck has the V8 and that Magnaflow exhaust - it just sounds COOL...so as they say 'if you wanna play you gotta pay', so I pay, just to hear that V8 sound I love so much.

Hols

Trying to decide where to go and what to do for our hols (holidays) this year. Several immediate choices come to mind.

1. Stay home. Relax. Swim in the pool. Enjoy the sun. Maybe do some work about the house.

2. Go to North Carolina to visit friends, and perhaps ride the motorcycle about the mountains. An awkward proposal, since all 4 of us cannot go on the bike, and yet, if we go to NC, the bike IS coming with us. So that means I either have to drag a trailer all the way to NC, or ride the dang thing. I dunno.

3. Go to Onterrible, Canada. Visit all manner of relatives. And even more friends. (at least I think they are friends, they seem really nice). Go from house to house to house to house.

4. Go to Michigan. Visit friends there, maybe camp. While there, check out some touristy things we never did see when we lived there.

4. Go somewhere where nobody know us, and just camp. Like maybe drive over to Colorado and look at some mountains or up to Minnesota to check out the mosquitoes.

Might be easier to just work.....

In other vacation news, my brother and his family are taking some vay-cay and visiting Iowa the week after next!!!! And they've decided that since they'll be in Iowa, why not stay with us??? Wooohooo!!!! We shall have a good time. I MIGHT even take a day or two off work.