Ethiopian Reader, Who Are You?

I noticed today that I got 20 blog hits from Ethiopia. I rarely get African readers. Who are you? Share your eXperience of The Ernest. 

 I am veRy frustrated because iOS version 7 on Apple iPad seems to have giant flaws. I keep having to teLL the bank that I have a private connection. Popup blocking seems to work BACKWARDS. I dare not let my battery run down OR it seems impossible to get my display locked back in landscape mode. AND ... You would think that the folks (I wanted to say IDIOTs) at Apple would have figured out by now how to save something as simple as ScREEN OrIeNtATIOn between power recharging, but No! The idiots in Cupertino are just big giant idiots, too bad some of them work at Apple. And you have totaLLy screwed up something so I can't edit my blog from my iPad, screen cursor repositioning is a TOTAL failure. What is up MORONS!!! I live on my iPad as do 113 bazillion other iPad-inoids, how dare you screw up my daily life, you idoit damn morons!

On the bright side of things I am thinking about buying a laser ...............

Barking Bad

My wife was feeling bad in moderate pain talking to herself about herself. She was not enjoying the process. Then she noticed that Cooper was standing at the doorway to the room imitatingly repeating fairly much the same vocal patterns that she was making. Of course I miss aLL of this performance of empathy pain pet performance but I can clearly imagine it.

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I got our second silk screen printing press assembled so now we wiLL start experimenting with CMYK designs on darker fabrics. The inkjet photoprinter arrived yesterday and is monstrous in size to me, up to 17 inch wide material by sheet or roll, so I am getting that thing figured out. The day before that we made our final decision on an industrial embroidery machine, so that process is beginning. I have a sneaking suspicion that it is going to be my main toy to manage and tinker with for quite awhile. And just how am I going to sneak in a vacation to southeastern Oklahoma anytime soon at this rate?!?!?

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Looks like I made it back from South Dakota with good timing. Several parts where I was traveling recently now have a couple feet of snow. I think my F-350 would have done okay but I might have needed chains on the tires.

Blogger Failing Again In Several Ways

I am eXperiencing problems with Blogger again with logins. I am being forced to login way too often. Add this to the other recent development that their editor doesn't work with the latest version of iOS 7 for repositioning the cursor or performing the 'select' functionality. It also messed up the publishing date on a recent post.

Breaking Bad Mistake 5-13 & 5-14

I noticed something wrong in the gun battle between the end of episode 5-13 "To'hajiilee" and the continuation in episode 5-14 "Ozymandias".

Walt is in handcuffs in the backseat of Hank's vehicle when the gun battle starts and in the process of falling out of the seat into the floor board his eyeglasses come off. When the shooting stops in episode 5-14 Walt has his glasses back on, but no one could have helped him. His hands were handcuffed behind his back.

Let The Corruption Begin Early and Often

I found out that one of my best friends may run for election to fill a lower level judge job. I told her, "Great! I should start committing crimes and bribing you, what sort of kick back wiLL you need to throw out my charges?"

She replied that the position handled misdemeanors and laughed.

- - - - -

Elsewhere in faux news, aLL of the locations in the state of Colorado for the company "Pottery Barn" are being renovated to take advantage of recent legal changes. They wiLL be rebranded as "Pot Tree Barn" stores.

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I was wondering where my iPad was located and then found it under the pillow that was under my head. I couldn't believe that I had left it at work three nights in a row. That just teLLs you how busy I have been if I left my beloved iPad somewhere. But three days is ridiculous. Luckily my wife had brought it home. 

iOS 7 Breaking Things Badly

It appears that operating system upgrade version 7 to iOS on my iPad has messed up editing in Blogger. The cursor is veRy difficult to impossible to reposition while in HTML mode, and the WYSIWYG version has never worked properly so I guess I should try that neXt .... Nope, that stiLL doesn't work. I saw a report yesterday that Apple is not allowing downgrades from version 7 back to 6, and even forcing some devices to upgrade to 7.

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On the brighter side of things I am learning Spanish this morning from the bilingual instructions from the side of my Folgers Instant Coffee. I learned my former boss' name sounds like the word for crystal. He was a gem, a veRy brilliant man, so that fits weLL.

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There is a Breaking Bad marathon going from Wednesday evening until Sunday evening culminating with the series finale. All 62 episodes in a row, with some chunks of time to allow people to sleep. So it isn't quite a complete marathon in the way, imagining that runners in the New York Marathon stop for a little naps, hah. ActuaLLy it is faster to watch episodes on Netflix where the first 4 1/2 seasons are available without commercials. 

I don't plan to watch the marathon because I have already seen the entire series at least 4 times completely in a row. But I do plan on having at least one of my teleBisions tuned to the AMC channel for the entire time just for the heck of it. Ouch! Something just stung me in the side, right side about at the appendix level. The great outdoors is attacking me today.

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I am getting a nice printer to do fine photography prints, just not sure which model yet. Probably get an Epson.

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I just heard Steven Colbert say that he has never written fiction. Among a constant stream of things that come out of his mouth, that is probably the most inaccurate thing he has ever spouted. 

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I forgot the thing that I was going to put right here. If and when I think of it, I wiLL come back and put it in place.

Ahhhh! Now I remember! I have a new hobby. I saw a teleBision commercial for Dyson vacuum cleaners, and heard the voice of Mr Dyson, and decided to work on mimicing his sound. Not aLL the time, of course, just when I have vacuum thoughts.

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I just noticed that the AMC channel has a count-down timer in the lower right side of the screen to let you know how many days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the final episode of Breaking Bad.

I found the choices of teleBision ads interesting for Breaking Bad. I just saw an ad for electronic cigarettes called Blu. Then there was a beer in a blue bottle. These tie in nicely with the color of Walt's product. Being an organic chemist I am interested in such things as why his product would be blue considering an eXtremely pure version of methamphetamine is clear. This is ironic as I just watched pieces of my favorite episode about the fly getting in the lab and Walt going crazy during his grand battle with The Insect. 

Other commercials: Ford has a car ad with a vehicle that is similar to Walt's big black car.

My favorite commercial? The Dentyne ICE chewing gum - yes, its blue too, of course. Ice is a street name for methamphetamine.

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I had recently purchased matching coffee cups for my wife and myself. They slowly migrated from the house to the business downtown. I veRy carefuLLy put my cup in a special spot by my desk thinking, incorrectly, it wiLL be nice and safe there in my own office.

But no, someone, not the wife, decides to help me clean my office and grabs the cup with a couple old Dr Pepper cans and a styrofoam coffee cup, and most likely threw them aLL away. I had paid about $4 each for those cups. They were eXtra large, slightly imperfectly irregular, and just the right, almost my favorite, color. Sad. Perfect for coffee. Gone, I think. I have searched quite eXtensively, with no luck.

I wiLL have to check to see if the groc store has more and buy more so that we can always have our "two" cups and replace lost ones from my secret stash one at a time.

Ah, romance.

UPDATE: I found my coffee cup in the dumpster in the alley behind our business.

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Something bothers me about the final season of Breaking Bad. It's the raw material methyl amine. They go to elaborate plots and schemes and story conflicts about securing a source for their raw material.

But if Walt is such a great chemist, why didn't he just make his own methyl amine? It's a relatively small organic chemical. The Chinese are making it in bulk in the show and shipping it by simple drums and rail car. 

I'm Sorry (But Only In A Virtual Manner)

I had a dream last night that I stole my number 3 sister's car for a few minutes. A very old mint condition Chevrolet Corvette. I took it for a ride, then returned it to its garage.

In reality this sister doesn't own a Corvette nor has she ever.

So today I caLLed her to teLL her about the dream and to apologize for stealing her car. Her response was pure laughter.

But in reality she never answered the phone caLL nor did she caLL me back, so our conversation, my apology, the pure laughter, was solely contained in my brain while driving south alone at 75 mph in the middle of Nowhere Texas. But it was her voice, my memory of her laughter, that responded to my story, my dream, in my head.

Unless she reads this and figures out that she was the sister, she wiLL never know about this or what color her Corvette was.

Blue, a light shade.

UPDATE: I tried a few days later - stiLL no response. So I caLLed sister number 2 and asked her to pass along my apology to sister number 3. She laughed and said she would teLL her my dream and apology.

Only Sixty Cents

"What time is it?"

"3:36" (unspoken AM)

Pause

"I was thinking of getting rid of you. A guy came through town and offered me $37.40, but I said I have too much money tied up in you, I reaLLy need $38. But he wouldn't budge off his price, got back on his horse and rode away."

Sarcastic "ha-ha" with weLL voiced hyphen response.

"I'm firsty"

"Me too, my cup is sitting right there"

I made us both decaf coffee, Folgers coffee bags, green.

You use firsty when your throat is too parched to say thirsty.

Cooper got a bowl fiLLed with ice then topped off with cold water.

I couldn't believe how cloudy it got yesterday without a drop of rain faLLing. The morning sky is dark and clear and cool, the piece of moon tiny long sliver long gone, just stars, no sound, no insects.

I love September in Texas.

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I get two bags of grapes at the store. The store signs say they are white grapes and red grapes, but their packages have nothing and black for their labels but in my kitchen light they are definitely a pale green and a dark purple.

I eat my grapes in a 50:50 ratio, a pair of dark and light, same order throughout the eating process.

I freeze them for a few minutes right before eating, MmMmMmMmMm...

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The Navajo Nation (Navajo: Naabeehó Bináhásdzo) is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory covering 27,425 square miles (71,000 km2), occupying portions of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico. It is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction within the United States.

That means its larger than the ten smallest states individually. And, it is about the size of the five smallest states New Hampshire, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island combined.

I wondered why the sales tax on my meal was so high in Shiprock New Mexico. I was told the Navaho had started collecting some of the sales tax. With sales tax and casino earnings it shouldn't take them too long to buy back the entire country, from the Chinese.

New South Wyoming

I have recently started watching a teleBision program caLLed "Longmire". It is about a sheriff in Wyoming based on a character and series of books by author Craig Johnson.

I probably have a stronger than normal interest in the show because I have spent some time in Wyoming but never lived there. I lived several years in the neighboring South Dakota just a few miles away from the Wyoming line.

After watching the show for several weeks I sudenly discover that Longmire is actuaLLy filmed in New Mexico, not Wyoming! The state of New Mexico looks veRy similar to Wyoming. New Mexico also has a growing film and teleBision production infrastructure. 

I am not sure if it helps that Wyoming and New Mexico are both rectangularly shaped, Wyoming nearly perfect, while New Mexico has several minor misshape mistakes. Wyoming was supposed to be perfectly rectangular along lines of latitude and longitude, but the surveyors got off a bit in the rugged landscape in the northwest part.

So imagine my surprise when I see an advertisement on the A&E Channel for winning a trip to Longmire Country - and I wonder - which one? Old Wyoming or New Wyomexingico?

I went online to the Longmire website and the trip is to the real Wyoming, the Goosewing Ranch in Jackson Hole Wyoming.  Link: Longmire Best of The West Sweepstakes 

The first season of Longmire is currently available on Netflix.

Right now my body hurts from TOO much carpentry work and I plan to be on vacation sometime soon with the real Wyoming as part of my destination. I have already been to the state of South Wyoming, oops, I mean New Mexico, earlier this year for my "Breaking Bad" vacation. I took a few photos of Walter White's house in Albuquerque, but I messed up my schedule and didn't make it to Jesse Pinkman's house. The best part of Albuquerque is two restaurants: Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen and Fuddruckers

Fuddruckers has the best buffalo burger on the planet - I had TWO in the same day, a day I won't forget until mental illness erases it in 40 some years.

Pappadeaux's has a wonderful thing caLLed étouffée, and I get a mixture of shrimp and crawfish. You have to ask for the dual meat mix, I don't believe it is officially on the menu.

My June journey to and throughout Albuquerque was the first time I used a turn-by-turn voice based computer navigation system. I used mapping on my iPhone. There were veRy few mistakes from the system and it would constantly try to reroute me when I made a wrong turn, how cool. 

As I am sitting in Pappadeaux's getting ready to eat I make the grand decision: The neXt time I move the city must have a Pappadeaux Restaurant. 

So I ask my hand held wonder Apple device for the location of all Pappadeaux restaurants ...AND... it teLLs me there are NO Pappadeaux restaurants near my location WHILE I am actuaLLy sitting INSIDE a Pappadeaux restaurant. This makes me laugh a bunch. I love it when technology screws up so gloriously funny (and no one dies). Remember that the Apple device has already just led me to this current Pappadeaux. Having expensive wonderful food nearby that someone else is buying for my birthday meal helps, too. I don't know how, it just does. It's a Wyoming seafood mystery birthday miracle. 

That reminds me, I must look for buffalo to eat while wandering soon through real Wyoming.

Somewhere Between 60 and 80,000

Today I saw this in Wikipedia's "On This Day" segment:

1819 – Fifteen people were killed and 400–700 others were injured when cavalry charged into a crowd of about 60–80,000 who were gathered at St Peter's Field, Manchester, England, to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.

That seems odd to me that the guess was approximated as between 60 and 80,000. Hmmm(?) - that's just such a huge scale difference! For instance, 2 raised to the 6th power is 64 and 2 raised to the 16th power is 65536. 

Imagine a square group of people. The square root of 60 is close to 8, so a crowd of people 8 wide and 8 deep is close to 60. The square root of 80,000 is almost 253, so a crowd of people 253 by 253.

This eight: xxxxxxxx

This is 253: 
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Everything above is just silliness because I am pretty sure they reaLLy meant between 60 thousand and 80 thousand.
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In other news closer to the home front I kiLLed a scorpion today and cooked somewhere between 80 and 60,000 grams of buffalo steak. The onion soup with buffalo broth is almost finshed, mmmmmm ....  Today I am trying the soup with crackers for the first time. Lately I have been making this soup about once a week.

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My favorite new show on teleBision is "Airplane Repo" on the Discovery Channel

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I tried caLLing someone on Sunday figuring they might be home. The person (an ex-relative) doesn't answer her phone. But she did send me a text message saying she was in a meeting and requested that I send her a text message detailing what I wanted. Of course she ALREADY knows what I want. I have already sent her a couple e-mails asking for her to clear up the outstanding business debt where she owes us about $1,000. We have been waiting patiently for about two years for her to clear this matter up. I also found out she had taken part of our inventory of products and put them in storage instead of returning them to us! I have no idea whether the products are stiLL in a sell-able condition. I doubt that one more text message is going to help. I guess I could ask the person in my family who is sending her child support payments to cough up my one thousand dollars. Its too bizarre. She claims her bag of money that had our payment in it was stolen from her. But of course that wasn't my problem, and its been about two years ago that this theft-burglary  supposedly happened. That's like about a dollar a day.

There Is A Small Probability That I Might Have Saved A Small Person

As I was leaving my neighborhood yesterday morning I stopped at the end of a westbound street and a young girl, maybe 5, was playing at the street corner, actually in the street. Alone.

I grew concerned and turned off my noisy diesel truck to talk to her. This girl looked a little too vulnerable, absolutely no one in sight at a normaLLy busy residential intersection.

From the cab of my truck I asked her if her momma knew she was playing in the street and where did she live.

She said "Yes, it was okay if she played in the street" and pointed east. I turned around to look then asked her, "Where the red pickup is?" and she shook her head yes.

Without saying anything else I put on the truck's four way flashers and started walking toward the house climbing the steep driveway. I think by this point the little barefooted girl realized she just might be in trouble for playing in the street. She came walking faster and zoomed around me in through the front door as I was knocking on the door twice.

I could hear a mumbled conversation inside the house, and then a disheveled just-woke-up mother appeared and as I was trying to eXplain the street situation she was suddenly on the floor struggling with a veRy happy bulldog who was eXcited to see me and trying to escape out the front door. The mother eXplained that the little girl should not have been alone and thanked me and introduced me to Lulu the bulldog. I remarked how just a few hours ago I had been doing an art project drawing a bulldog, the school mascot for Borger High School. I rarely meet bulldogs and this was the first time I had ever drawn one.

I returned to find my truck safely blinking, window down, keys stiLL in the ignition, and then it was off to the diner for breakfast.

The Pineapple Surprise

I found an interesting surprise in my pineapple plantation. My latest planting has sprouted what appears to be TWO swirls that wiLL produce two plants (fruit) instead of just one. This is the first time this has happened to me in probably 15 plants. I don't know how rarely this occurs.

A Computer Mouse, A Norse God, and Elmer's Gloo Walk Into A Taco Bell

This July and the first third of August have turned out to our best Spring in several years.

Where did aLL the rain come from and more importantly, what has been keeping it away so long?

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How I am celebrating my father's birthday this year: I am visiting the tiny town where he was born and spending time there. I don't remember ever being there, just close by. He has been gone a few years now.

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I am attending a party soon for my aunt's wedding anniversary. I realized by closeness in the number of years married and my age that I was most likely the youngest person in attendance at her wedding.

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I am eXcited about the final 8 episodes of Breaking Bad. I have studied this show extensively, watching the entire series at least four times, a few parts researched more than that. I love finding tiny technical errors in the shooting of scenes. I actuaLLy found an out-of-place cloud in the episode where Gus and Mike meet in the parking lot at the airport in season three, episode 4, "Green Light", about minutes 30 - 32.

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I have given up trying to get an electronic technician, chemist or computer scientist job. I am now focusing on an art career, mainly commercial. Buying lotza new toys for design and production of goods. We already have several people interested in buying things. It has been fun getting to work more with the wife as weLL. 

Yesterday evening as we were getting in the car she said, "I love You (ever so slight pause goes here) Tube." In case you missed a previous story that is our new form of siLLiness that she created several days ago.

I told her that 3 percent of me was severely suddenly disappointed, wanting to -cry-, eXpecting an honest "I love you" [after this last week of torture] but the other 97 percent of me was teLLing the 3 percent to "shut up, Namby Pamby Baby, wah, and enjoy the hilarity." She just laughed at this and hinted to eXpect more similar mental abuse.

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I am designing a wasp kiLLing machine that involves PVC pipe, a Dyson vacuum cleaner, and a garden hose. I like it that the vacuum cleaner has the "die" sound in its name, appropriate.

I am confused by the latest Dyson vacuum commercial claiming their vacuum cleaner has TWICE as much suction as other vacuum cleaners. I am not sure what that means eXactly. Pressure differential from atmospheric? Volume of air? I am confused.

Their web site mentions that it is a measure caLLed air watts. Of course my first response is AbbotCostelloishly, "What, errors?"

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It bothers me that I always type the word 'there' when I knew I wanted the word 'their' and I don't catch it until I proofread. I veRy clearly know the difference between the two words, and I live in a part of the country where most of us pronounce the two words differently. 

So maybe its an aging process thing. 

Ick.

- - - - -

I hate my mouse, it is old and unreliable. I would try to make a joke that it has lost its logic but then I looked at the mouse and realized there is no C in the name Logitech immediately after the I. So the best I can say is that has lost its Logi, or borrow the C from the tech part of the name then you are left with "teh" which means nothing. A search on Logi reveals that LOGI is the stock market symbol for the company that manufactured the mouse. Wikipedia also teLLs me that Logi is the Norse fire giant, god and personification of fire. He was married to someone named Glöð. I think that would be a great name for a wife of anyone named Elmer. Then at dinner parties when someone asked, "Is that Elmer's wife?" you could respond, "Yes, that's Elmer's Gloo."

[I haven't written a Norse mythology based piece of humor in several weeks so that may not be as funny to you as it was to me. I think the anglicized version of her name is Glod instead of Gloo but when I first saw the öð part of her name I thought it was two strange O's. I know, I know, I shouldn't be eXplaining my humor but the sun hasn't come up yet today and I have been awake too long and I accidentaLLy ruined my wife's leftover Taco Bell food while I was trying to cook mine. The fine people at Taco Bell put the label wrappers on wrong.]

Now I am wondering how I combined a computer mouse, Norse mythology, Elmer's glue, and Taco Bell.

I need coffee.

Core Hell Draw - The $aga

A saga is a story that tends to sag 3/4 of the time.

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I purchased a piece of software for our budding printing business. It was CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6.

The veRy neXt day I try to purchase a drawing pad from Wacom, their model Cintiq 13HD. It is a $999 item and the smallest one of 3 in a family of products. A thousand dollars is more than what I can reaLLy justify in my brain, but I impulsively want it anyway, its a business write-off. BUT ... when the item is OutOfStock at Wacom you can't purchase it and have them eventuaLLy send it to you.

BUT ... I look around and the wonderful folks at Corel have the same eXact item, Wacom's Cintiq 13HD for sale and it too is currently out of stock, BUT ... Corel wiLL let you purchase it and they teLL you there is a 4 to 8 week wait. So I purchase it the day after the software purchase.

THEN ... on the Monday at about the same time that my CorelDRAW software is being delivered by FedEx I get an e-mail from Corel thanking me for my purchase AND ... the fun part ... at the bottom of the e-mail is a coupon for 15 percent off my NEXT purchase at www.corel.com !!! And I am thinking, man, if I just would have waited a few days I could have saved $150.

So I try to contact Corel to see if they will apply the 15 percent off coupon that is clearly tied to the purchase order number of the finished software transaction. The veRy first try dealing with the online help chat room ends with a "Sorry, I can't help you with that online, but here is a toll free number then hit extension 5"

So I try this and the person I get teLLs me that I can't use the discount on the second order because it has already taken place. And then I ask him about cancelling the order which has clearly not been processed, and he says that if I do that it will invalidate the coupon, which I think is strange because the coupon is tied to the first order with absolutely no mention of the second pending order. He says he wiLL have someone caLL me back within one hour to try to help me further in this situation.

So I wait one hour and one minute. --- No call back

I call the same number with extension 5 and the person puts me on hold to try to see what can be done.

A few minutes later I hear a strange noise and I see my phone call has been dropped.

I think "pirate noise, make an ARRRGGH pirate noise ...."

I moan sadly and non-pirate disgustingly, and I start to calculate the value of my time per hour versus the $150 potential savings, and then I get my second wind and I am in this now strictly for the enter-strain-ment value if all else fails.

I caLL back Corel with extension 5 and eXplain the entire story in great detail to someone new and this person says to hold on while he chats with some people. Several minutes later he comes back and says that he has talked to THREE people (boss sounding titles) and they have told him that the coupon is only good for SOFTWARE from Corel, not an outside item like the Wacom tablet that they are reselling. I tell him that is NOT what the e-mail coupon says, nothing about software only, it clearly states it is for purchases made at www.corel.com website, period, no restrictions, which I had done. AND ... I pointed out the falsehood of their website saying that they had knocked $200 off the regular price yielding a $999 price, when over at the manufacturer's website the item is $999 - regular price. I then told him that I was also irritated that I now have lost a thousand dollars of purchasing power on my credit card for 4 to 8 weeks while I am waiting for the Cintiq 13HD to be eventuaLLy delivered.

So he apologizes and I hang up irritated.

That was Monday

.
.
.

Today is Thursday

I go to my credit card to pay the small single charge for a monthly item on bill pay for the business. BUT I notice that there isn't a thousand dollar purchase pending at Corel ... strange. There is nothing on the credit card website that eXplains what happened to my order.

So I log onto my account at Corel - sure enough the second order has been canceLLed! 

Hmmm, Um, My My, ... I don't remember teLLing them to cancel my order for my new toy.

I check my e-mail to see if there is any notification of this activity - nothing.

I look a little farther to find an email from Corel about a different product, the twice as expensive model Cintiq 22HD - a two thousand dollar beast - $2000 - ONLY .... wait for it 

- drum roLL please -

In this e-mail they are telling me that I have not finished purchasing the Cintiq 22HD and if I complete the order TODAY they will knock $200 off the price! 

Moment of Clarity: It was hard enough justifying $1000 for the 13 inch screen wonder, but nearly twice as much money, $1800 for the larger 22 inch beast, no way, I am not poor, but I reaLLy can't justify this eXpense at all. PLUS I don't remember ever putting the 22HD on the shopping cart at the Corel website (?)

But ... just for grins I decide to see if their new "coupon" works, and I click on the link that takes me to their website. It seems to work fine. I do not complete the order process.

So, this company is NOT willing to give me $150 off my purchase of the $999 unit, the thing I reaLLy want that they have somehow canceLLed, BUT they are willing to knock "more" money off the more eXpensive item that I don't want.

So I try again purchasing my Cintiq 13HD - and encounter something positively freaky. For some reason they have mysteriously knocked another 10% - $100 - off the price!

So altogether I think I have spent an eXtra 4 hours dealing with this order mess, and at $100 savings, that would mean $25 per hour. Not bad. 

Lets hope this order doesn't get mysteriously canceLLed.

For now (4-8 weeks) I can watch other people play with their Cintiq 13HD's on YouTube. 

I love YouTube. 

Update: ARR^RG_GGh!!! It is now Friday evening and I found out that my most recent purchase at Corel was CANCELLED!!!! I have caLLed  their customer support and I have been on hold for 39 minutes and 13 seconds (So Far) and the music is absolutely horrendous. I couldn't hold it to my ear and put it on speaker phone. I wiLL let you know how things turn out .... if I ever get to talk to anyone.

I also checked my e-mail and there was no notification from Corel that my order had been cancelled. And I already know that they can communicate by e-mail on that particular account from previous order activity.

Update: About a minute later I got a recorded message teLLing me there were no people there to help me, and to leave a message for them to get in touch with me later.

Update: On Monday a rep from Corel caLLed and attempted to fix the order in their system. So hopefully the order goes through, although he messed up the Bill To address. Hopefully it works this time. The rep also gave me FREE shipping by the fastest means FedEx which I thought was reaLLy nice.

The Lost Art of Vacuum Ing

So I get my windshield replaced in my Ford F-350 truck this week. I go to the eXtra eXpense of getting a windshield with the words "SUPER DUTY" in decal s'pposedly like the factory original.

But no. The lettering is crap. (Can I use the word crap in a G rated blog? Not sure. Lets change that to used food.) the lettering is used food. 

But I don't say anything about it as I am just glad to have the big crack gone on the driver's side AND more importantly I wanted the machine to pass the Texas imposed annual inspection.

But the windshield was replaced late in the day of the last day of the month July and so I didn't reaLLy eXpect them to put the old sticker on the new windshield. They did notice that my new state license for the window was laying in the seat and it was installed.

So I go to pay for the windshield and they teLL me it wiLL be ready after their person has a chance to vacuum my truck.

I ask, " Vacuum?"

And they told me they always vacuum.

Oh. I teLL them it's a work truck. Designed to be dirty. A lot.

So I return several hours later to find a vacuumed truck, BUT they have left the old safety inspection sticker on my middle console AND there is a bunch of icky dryed paint flake looking glue semi sticky stuff scattered about which spreads easily in the wind.

So I call my favorite mechanic to get an inspection the neXt day but he teLLs me that he thinks he doesn't have the current month (August) in stock yet. But then apologizes in the neXt breath to say he was out of motorcycles and he does have stickers for trucks and cars. So he teLLs me to come by later in the afternoon when his son comes back from lunch.

So the son has me go shopping while he finishes a starter job, which is just fine with me.

So ... because I am arriving on August ONE, I thought I was going to get an August sticker, but no, I wound up getting a July sticker! So it was like I got cheated out of a month's worth of sticker-ness. But that is okay. The son is an HVAC client so the neXt time I do something for him I wiLL just charge him an eXtra $1.21 - the value of one month out of twelve for the $14.50 that I paid.

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Today is new toy day. I got CorelDRAW Graphic Suite X6, AND best of aLL its a business eXpense. We are getting into the printing business. I put together the machine for doing silk screen printing this week along with some required carpentry work, which of course means even more new toys. Heavy duty jigsaw and a compound power mitre saw complete with a laser beam. Yes. I own a laser beam. It's just a pointer that shows where the saw blade is going to do its thing. 

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I like light bulb jokes. I heard a great one today:

How many vampires does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Answer: None. Vampires like it in the dark.

I came to the conclusion that if I could travel back in time it would be to Menlo Park NJ to the point in time right after Thomas Edison created the light bulb. Why did I choose that point? So I could then be the veRy first person to tell a change a light bulb joke!

And Thomas E would ask me, "You expect people to change their own light bulbs?!?!?"

And then Thomas E got reaLLy eXcited when I told him about the time travel machine.

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I am sitting at the shop and my wife is on my left side a few feet away turning ribbon into bows. She says something to me.

This is what I hear: "I love you, too"

I am puzzled because I know she is talking to me but those four words I love you too seem veRy disconnected from our current conversation. But there is a hair dryer going 5 feet to my right, so I am thinking "What?!?!?"

So I ask her, "Did you just say, "I love you, too?"

She cracks up laughing and says, "NO! I said, I love YouTube" - because she has been learning so many crafty ideas lately.

I found this terribly amusing.

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Almost Every 42 Minutes from Latvia

I have several blogs of minor viewership for contents other than writing in English. There are blogs for Kakuro, recipes, abstract art, cartoons, photography etc. I have noticed a strange common behavior in the "readership" of these blogs: Latvia

Its a country far away from me.

Several of my blogs get a hit from Latvia every 42 minutes. Almost. There are some pauses in this behavior and I don't know why it is occuring. Who, what and why this behavior eXists is veRy puzzling.

There are source references to site http://r-e-f-e-r-e-r.com

It would be nice if this web behavior went away. It is also a waste of the good number 42.

I Used Al Qida To Take The Day Off

Because there was a global embassy closing terrorism scare I decided to take the day off and stay home. I celebrated by doing laundry and dishes. Ha!

What a bunch of idiots we have at the top running and ruining our federal government. Al Qida says, "Boo!" and you shut down a bunch of embassies. You are doing the eXact opposite thing of the correct plan of action. They are just criminals. Period. Just keep killin' 'em and slappin' them in jail permanently and maybe, just maybe, the remaining stupid idiots wiLL catch on and grow a brain cell or two and realize they should stop fighting us.

Meanwhile CNN has been going ape (bleep) crazy all day.

Just keep fighting them. Secretly. Silently. Surprisingly. Supremely. Succintly.

In more important news I have figured out the eXact perfect amount of time it takes my microwave oven to cook a package of Orville Redenbacher's Kettle Corn Gourmet Popcorn. I also multiplexed and worked on my Spanish from the package while eating the bowl of popcorn. Un poco dulce y un poco salado. The number is 95 seconds.

A Rice Shadow in the Dust by Abraham Lincoln

I went to MySpace last night to show my friend at the diner an art project where I had wrote the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln on Minute Rice with a veRy fine tipped pen. BUT ... when I finaLLy got logged into MySpace I discovered that my MySpace blog appears to be gone. I did find a picture that has some of the final words of the Gettysburg Address.

I told my friend that it appears that when I left the Gettysburg Address laying on my old table at my old house that veRy fine dust had come down between the spaces around the grains of rice, and then a mouse had came along and ate the rice, leaving a pattern, a rice shadow in the dust.

I went back today on my PC instead of my iPad and I was able to find more pictures, but not a complete Gettysburg Address, just most of it. I put a U.S. penny coin for size comparison, with Abraham Lincoln on it.

The type of pen was a Mitsubishi Uniball Signo Bit UM-201 0.18 mm gel type, that I believe is no longer available.  I think the difference in color between the third picture and the first two was just with and without a flash on the camera, because I am pretty sure I used the same pen for the entire project.

   
So imagine the grains of rice missing on the middle picture and you can get an idea of the rice-sized-holes in the fine layer of dust on the table top.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. 

We are met on a great battlefield of that war. 

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. 

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. 

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. 

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. 

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom

—and that government 

of the people, 

by the people, 

for the people, 

shall not perish 

from the earth.

Taco Bell - New Item

I reaLLy like the new smothered shredded chicken burrito at Taco Bell. I omit the sour cream.

Update: When I got my third sample (of three days) at around 11 PM it seemed like they forgot to put chicken through the entire length of the burrito, and it seemed like there was less chicken. So it was more of a buritto instead of a burrito. (ha_ha^haha) 

ActuaLLy, there seemed to be some dried out food (crunchy) as weLL, probably the rice. I am thinking that they may lower their quality standards later at night.

Ground Control To .... Baby Still

I instaLL the latest update to Google Earth on my iPhone, but a few seconds into playing with it I am suddenly 33 miles above the earth's surface. "Hellooooo, helppppppppp"

-----

I was reading CNN this morning and found out that the name of the royal baby in the UK is Still Unnamed. I thought that Still is a terrible first name but I found the middle name Unnamed an interesting choice. I am pronouncing it with a long U sound and the accent on the na, so it is You-NAH-Med, very similar to Muhhamed. I checked and there are no previous British monarchy with this name.

I asked my wife if she had heard what the royal baby's middle name was. She said, "No" - so I told her the You-NAH-Med, and her response was, "Oh My!!!" - so I am waiting now to see if she teLLs anyone.

I have decided that the first name Still should be pronounced Steel.

My wife's response a few minutes later to the complete name was, "That's terrible!"

I told her that it must be a British thing. 

I caLLed my mother to teLL her, but she just laughed. I told her those two words were actuaLLy in the CNN headline.

Dogs See Sharks In Color In Tornado

My younger son was acting goofy and so I joined in the fun. We were typing siLLy things for Google to search, and this one brought up an article about the Kennedy family, the infamous Massachusetts one. It seems they got in trouble with the Federal government for trying to save a sea turtle. THAT was the ONLY thing that Google returned in the search. BUT the neXt day when I tried it, it returned nothing. This proves that a Kennedy can deny the Internet. I have been trying my whole life (without knowing it) to find something to kinda rhyme with Kennedy and finaLLy found it, can deny, so YEA!!!) 

I found this link to the Kennedy's latest legal troubles: Free Sea Turtles 

I didn't get around to finding anything about dogs seeing in color.

I also noticed that Massachusetts is a state that sounds plural even though I am pretty sure its an old Indian name. So it made me want to check the other 49 states to see if they are plural-ish. Then I thought of Rhode Island's full legal name: 

     State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

So there is a plural. I didn't find any other states with pluralisms, but then I thought that maybe the state's name could mean something in another language that might be plural. For instance several states are Indian phrases. So I wiLL have to investigate that. Oh, I did find some plural territories:

     Northern Mariana Islands
     U.S. Virgin Islands

States:

Texas - Caddo Indian word for "friends or allies"

(I haven't finished checking aLL the states yet)

I Think I Have An Obsessive Compulsive Stalker

Someone "J" used to be my best friend for about 5 years from about 1995 to 2000, but then she moved away and we've had limited infrequent contact. While she lived two houses down the street we talked a bunch, cooked, shared stories, and baked bread. She was a front porch person. Her sister from far away asked to be my friend in Facebook. I met the sister of my BF and felt she was veRy opinionated and bossy. After a while on Facebook it seemed she started to fail in her ability to communicate, and I grew weary of seemingly somewhat artificial turmoil. So in rare form, I dropped her as a friend in Facebook, something I rarely do.

I have many names based on my legal name of Ernest. My names range from Ernest, Ernie, Ern and then from my friend J I received the name "E". Soon everyone who passed through her veRy public house caLLed me E.

So imagine my surprise a few nights ago when I received a Facebook message from my former best friend that says:

Hi Ernie, how are you doing? question. always wanted to know why you stopped e-mailing my sister. did she offend you?

I thought it was a strange request coming at around 2:30 AM, but I started a detailed reply that basicaLLy said her sister was insane ...BUT... I suddenly noticed that the message didn't begin with "Hi E" - it said "Hi Ernie" - so I erased my original reply after noticing that sure enough every former message from J had caLLed me "E".

So I responded briefly AND received no reply:

   Hi J-----!

   First of all, is this reaLLy J-----? J----- always called me E.

After two days I stiLL had not received a reply, so it made me think the crazy sister of J had hijacked J's FB account.

So I stopped by J's daughter's house right around the corner from me and got J's phone number. I caLLed her this afternoon and she was surprised that someone had used her FB messaging disguised as her trying to trick me.

The Half Hot Chicken Sandwich Was Not Obtained Bra-less-ly

"If I didn't have to put my bra on, I'd go to McDonald's."

Now that is a great advertising slogan. It made me laugh.

ActuaLLy, by the time I got those sentences typed into my iPad she had got out of her pajamas and put on her bra, and was soon on her way across town to get our 11:00 PM snacks, for man, woman and dog.

I wasn't the hungry one who started this. But as soon as she mentioned being hungry, I became hungry.

Soon I wiLL have a chocolate milkshake, fries, and chicken sandwich. Mmmmmm.....

I have a Half Hot Chicken Sandwich.

What is that?

It is my invention. I get two chicken sandwiches, one hot & spicy, the other one regular. Then I take the meat off one sandwich and put on the other, add BBQ sauce, and eat just one bun. MmmMmm...

Food has now arrived, I must stop typing now ... Pressing Publish

UPDATE:

My wife ordered two chocolate milkshakes. Her's wound up being a vanilla shake. As she was getting the chocolate syrup out of the frig to repair the damage, I said, "Well, there's only 12 ways to fix it."

She asked, "How?"

I answered, "Buy a case of 12 bottles of that chocolate syrup."

My Half Hot Sandwich was eXtremely spicy - it was as if the one hot & spicy meat pattie had so much spice that it would probably glow radioactive orange in the dark.

The large $1.89 order of french fries were absolutely horribly cold and icky.

There is currently a Monopoly Prize game playing at McDonald's for cash, food and prizes. I told my wife that it would be ironic if we got a game piece for free french fries.

She began ripping the game pieces off the packaging to check them for fries. She laughed - sure enough, the last one she pulled off revealed "Medium Fries".

Counting Backwards By Seven

I was at the doctor's office having some memory and cognitive reasoning checks.

I was doing remarkably well.

We got to this test where the doc asked me to count backwards from 100 in steps of 7, and his last part was, "... and see how far you can go."

Well, 14 x 7 = 98, and 100 - 98 = 2 .... so when I got to 2 the doc said, "That's great, now lets go on to ..."

But I ignored him and went into negative numbers

"-5"
"-12"


And the doc rudely interrupted trying to make me stop. But I remembered having to wait in the Waiting Room for an extra hour and a half beyond my scheduled appointment, and I decided it was time to waste a little of the doctor's time.

"-19"
"-26"

"Really, umm, Mr. Boston we really need to ..

"-33"


".. move on to the next tests .."

"-40"


In a quiet voice he told his nurse to get a needle filled with something .... I figured probably for me.

I pulled out a .45 automatic model 1911, and laid it on the counter and told the surprised doc that this caliber of handgun isn't divisible by seven but I did have seven shells in the magazine while loading the eighth shell into the firing chamber. But the model number 1911 is divisible by seven.

"Doc, your instructions were to count backwards from 100 by seven and see how far I could go. So we are going to be here a while. The nurse can leave."

"-47" ... ... ...

I got out my calculator to see how fast I needed to go to reach -600 in an hour and a half, and then paced myself. I thought a nice even group of 100 subtractions would suffice and be agonizingly slow.

I didn't tell him I planned to stop at -600.

It turns out that an hour and a half listening to a person count backwards by seven irritates a SWAT team, too.

So now you know why I will be gone for a long time to a special hospital with bars on the windows for the criminally insane.

(None of this story is true, but I did create the story plot with the negative numbers idea while talking to my mother about her recent doctor visit, so, special thanks to her.)

100 Years of Sentence-tude en Español

I have decided to improve my Spanish skills by reading "100 Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez in Spanish. I am translating it one sentence at a time then reading it out loud. I think I have 99.97 years to go.

So far Cooper has not objected.

-----

I went to the hardware store today and there was a pickup truck with a man sitting in the driver's seat. The name of the company printed on the door was: 

"Texas Bearing Company"

I went up to his window to ask him a question and he roLLed down the window. I asked, "With a name like 'Texas Bearing Company', do you ever get a request for a polar bear?"

He looked 15% startled, laughed lightly, and said, "No, no one has ever asked for a polar bear."

-----

I am now the proud owner of better electricity. How do I know that? 

Because I paid someone a bucket load of money to instaLL higher amperage service and there are new shiny boxes for the juice to wiggle through. Plus I had to destroy one tree in order to get the e lec trick instaLLed. That required an additioal third of a bucket of money.

(The reason I used the word 'bucket' twice is because the electric company and the tree trimming company both used a bucket truck to lift their humans high in the air.)

Tree huggers do not be alarmed, as that space wiLL be replaced by more grapevines soon. Cooper may be perplexed by the missing tree. I hope he was not emotionaLLy attached to the tree. I know he enjoys our early mornings in the vineyard.

-----

You would think that after the amount of Evian water that I have drank that learning to speak and read French would be veRy easy, but you would be wrong. Since the body is such a huge percentage water I should automaticaLLy be a French citizen. It varies by the amount of coffee I drink, as that is local water.

-----

I don't read a lot of news lately, but I have read some about Mr. Snowden. I wish to thank him veRy much for showing how much our federal government is out of control and slowly (?) becoming pre-1989 East Germany. I am thinking that maybe they could rename the place the United Stasi of America.

"People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization." - Agnes Repplier

-----

I just received a text message from Verizon warning me that I had just used 50 percent of my normal data allocation. But my month resets on the 8th day and "today" is the 3rd. So I have consumed 50 percent of the allocation but a higher percentage of the time period has concluded, approximately 25 days out of 30. So I would have to drastically increase my usage in order to be charged eXtra, so their usage warning seems silly to me. I wonder if I am missing something important in their logic (?).

-----

While I was carefuLLy putting my hands in a grapevine inspecting its wonderfulness, a bug landed on my hand and I instinctively shook it off, knowing there spiders in there. But immediately after the shake I saw what looked like a praying mantis faLLing to its doom with an accompanying inaudible tiny scream, "N0o00oooooo0oo....!!!".

I initiated a search and rescue process in the grass below to try to help the insectus neighborus nano-ite get back to the Land of Grape Leaves but he/she could not be found, so the S&R was caLLed off after 5 minutes. I avoided walking in the area for the rest of the morning.

-----

I saw in the news that the U.S. unemployment rate is holding at a steady 7.6 percent. The last time I checked my personal ME unemployment rate its also steady, a quiet unwavering 100 percent. Oh weLL, I wiLL just keep on studying Java programming and networking ... Perhaps I should study Java the country, repairing fish nets and go find work in a seaside village half way around the world.

-----

I purchased the movie Despicable Me. My friend Candra told me a long time ago that I would enjoy it, and it is delightfuLLy funny. I am going to see the sequel tomorrow as my wife is forcing me to see White House Down today.

-----

R.I.P. Douglas Engelbart - I think it is cool that your set of organizing principles for your computer science lab, termed "bootstrapping strategy", has the word ping in the middle, and the letters s,t,r,a & t on each side, although not in the same order. (To outsiders, there is a piece of computer networking humor there.)

-----

Last night my wife said this sentence and I understood her completely:

   "That didn't start doing that until I didn't do that"

Such a beautiful Word Sandwich of That, Didn't and Do

Also, an unusual high density of D's in a sentence with no E's.

-----

For some reason that I can not figure out, the tethering of my iPhone to my iPad for use as an Internet source is unreliable at times. It seems strange to me that I have to keep manuaLLy re-selecting my iPhone as a "Wi-Fi" source if the two objects are separated by a great distance and then brought back in proximity. These two devices are designed by the same company and running the latest versions of their operating systems. I don't see any optional network settings to fine tune the tethering process.

-----

Today's Dumb Cannibal Joke:

Why do cannibals prefer people named 'Fred'?

Answer: Because they prefer to have the Fred-shest ingredients.

-----

(Spoiler Alert for Despicable Me 2)

Near the end of the movie four of the Minion characters were singing the song "I Swear". My son had gone to the movie with me and a little later at the supper table we were teLLing my wife about that song plus their version of YMCA. I told my son, "That's like Boyz II Minion."

-----

In my dream last night I was eXplaining the ideal gas law PV=nRT to someone that I am pretty sure was my wife. I was also eXplaining the relationship of the molecules moving faster to an increase in temperature.

While my wife was having coffee this morning I told her about the dream, and asked her if she would like me to eXplain PV=nRT again while she was awake.

She answered with a simple, "No"

I told her, "Good, I was hoping you would say no because you did such a wonderful job of understanding it in my dream and I didn't want to be disappointed by reality."

Her reply was a sarcastic staccato slow, "Ha ha"

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I kiLLed a scorpian yesterday that I found in my laundry room. It was about the same color as my plaid long sleeve shirt and surprised me. I am sure that scorpians are kiLLed by humans with a wide variety of objects used as weapons. This one was probably a rare choice, I used a snow shovel.

You are probably wondering why I have a snow shovel in my laundry room. Answer is, I don't.

I carefuLLy carried the shirt outside to my backyard.

You are probably wondering why I would have a snow shovel in my backyard in the month of July in the Northern Hemisphere. Answer is, I am sometimes slow about putting things away in their proper place. I obviously needed a snow shovel scorpian kiLLing machine, so maybe it was in the right place after aLL. 

-----

Today I am sitting outside in a veRy light rain. I think the number of drops hitting me is about 5-10 per second.

-----

Today's breakfast was buffalo steak, then I took the drippings from that fry process and made a delicious onion soup. This was my second time to try this and I improved it by adding less Tabasco Sauce on the steak cooking step.

-----

In the state of Texas you have to show that you have proof of liability insurance before you can get an annual safety inspection.

My son went to two different safety inspection stations and was refused service because the 6 month card I gave him doesn't go into effect for 9 days. The old current one in his mother's SUV was missing. The inspector demanded a current card.

BUT ... the future card has the eXact same information as the current card eXcept for the 6 month time frame Start and End dates. AND we wouldn't have a future card if we didn't already have insurance currently, plus we have old out-of-date cards that show an even longer spectrum of being a policy holder through the same company.

AND ... the state office for getting car license plates s'pposedly has the same proof of insurance requirement BUT the last time I was doing business with them the public servant pulled up the insurance confirmation on her computer screen and she didn't even look at my card.

-----

I came across this quote while doing cryptograms:

"A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one." - Dmitri Shostakovich

I guess my mind doesn't work that way. I seem to almost always know eXactly when I am finished with a piece of art work, and get great satisfaction when I reach that point. My finished pieces then inspire me to push onward to create something different but maybe similar to the current form.

But I also like to move on to completely different kinds of eXpression. I cartooned for about one and a half years, then moved onto completely different things. PeriodicaLLy I may stiLL think of a cartoon, but it doesn't get entered into my old cartoon catalogue system. I also don't seem to have a desire to do abstract computer drawings any more. So my interests slowly evolve as an artist. But I've always liked to write, record and cook - Sharing! I don't see those going away anytime soon.