My Inventions - Like Ralph Cramden I sometimes have "brilliant" ideas. One recent one, a cell phone for women with a built in Mace Sprayer. A device halfway there is now being marketed. A pepper spray in the shape of a cell phone. A bogus phone however, not a real one like my idea.

Any trick or treaters dressed as Bloggers ? Allegedly thats a 21st century costume.
"Pajamas, a laptop, and no shower are all you need to complete the look..." — and this link, of course.

Goodwrench or Rookiewrench

Goodwrench ??- In Houston, TX at my Pontiac, Buick,
Cadillar, Hummer Dealer they have Mr. Rookiewrench, at usual outrageous
dealer pricing. I do my own service work, and get it right.

On a 2005 Vibe, they were prepared to install the wrong oil filter, the
wrong oil, and the WRONG transmission fluid. The Service Manager had no
clue. I had to teach him to read an owners manual.

And then GM ignores this complaint, and wonders why it continues to lose sales to Japanese companies.

Great New York City street vendor Hotdogs now available in Houston, TX An upscale supermarket - Central Market is now carrying Sabrett brand products. YUM! Skinless Beef Hot Dogs, and condiments: Onions in Sauce (Pushcart Style), Sweet Relish, and Spicy Brown Mustard. It's almost 1968 again on 45th street and 6th Avenue. And this (and more) could even all be ordered over the web.

GLOBAL WARMING:

We know that in recent Geologic History the climate has changed to far greater degrees than we have measured in last 200 years. Witness 4 "Ice Ages" in the Pleistocene, and higher sea levels in the past as evidenced by Gravel Terraces throught the world.

So while current climate change is a concern, it is the height of human arrogance to assume that "man" has caused it all, when we KNOW of a greater range of climatic change before humankind was a factor. With 80 % of the Earth covered by Oceans, that water absorbs more Carbon Dioxide than we can ever calculate, and the Carbon Dioxide becomes part of Calcium Carbonate in skeletons of micro and macro creatures, settling to the ocean floor and forming beds of limestone, freeing the oceans to absorb ever more Carbon Dioxide as it has throughout Geologic History, i.e. Chalk of Dover

Geologists and Paleontologists have used the remains in such Limestone beds to track the evolution of life in the past Billion years, and such evidence provides part of the proof that gives the lie to "Creationism".

Watch what you print, the government is now watching you. Can one partially get around this by buying anonymously with cash, and not registering their printer with manufacturer?

Save on an HDTV Apparently incentives given to managers at BestBuy to move high margin accesories can distort the buying process, and an astute buyer can use that to their advantage. Read about it here.

Attracting Tourists Apparently most California political entities don't do a very good job. I'm about to visit my son in Los Angeles. So 2 weeks ago, I filled out web forms to receive "tourist" information. They ought to jump on such live prospects, and send out mail immediately. Not so. It two weeks to receive my first tiny brochure. It was from Redondo Beach. Of course the brochure points to a dead "url" www.visitredondo.com/passport, when apparently its been changed to here.

A DirecTv HDTV Receiver with Tivo (HR10-250) runs on Linux, and as such can have software added to it to increase its' capabilities, like controlling it over the web. It's by now a well documented process, here, here, and here. That's just the tip of the iceberg of what can quickly be found with Google.

Yale Law School and Audio CD copy Protection: What they have to say is here

City of Houston misplaced priorities: Come to find out today that the City has secretly cancelled it's recycling program so it can devote more people and trucks to picking up Hurricane Rita debris. Some points:

1. Shouldn't the city be getting money from FEMA to cover overtime for Rita ?
2. Since when does the needs of the few (Rita trash holders) outweigh the needs of the many (every resident should have recycling).
3. Shouldn't picking up nonbiodegradable plastic (which the city sells) be a higher priority than biodegradable tree branches?

OUCH ! Just got my 2005-2006 Flu shot today, first day they were available. Just in case there's any problems this year I'm covered. This years' flu shot protects against:

• A/New Caledonia/20/99-like (H1N1),
• A/California/7/2004-like (H3N2), and
• B/Shanghai/361/2002-like viruses.
  

Thus any other type of flu outbreak isn't covered.

========================

As the Jewish holy days now unfold, in this season of repentance, let me ask for your forgiveness for my (blogging) sins (both commission and omission).

Upgrading my Macintosh G5 - It originally came with an 8x DVD burner, a Pioneer DVR-107; I have upgraded it by using a Pioneer DVR-110D 16x burner obtained cheap from Shop4Tech

Apple has instructions here.

Followup The Drive came with version 1.08 of firmware installed, which I immediately
updated to 1.17, only to have version 1.22 released on Sept. 30, so I got to update again. If I recall correctly version 1.22 allows me to read DVDs created on Rigel 4.

More HD stations for me from DirecTv, XM too: Thanks to Congress and FCC rules, you need a waiver from your local station to receive a National Network feed if you live in an area that has local channels. Independent locals usually deny them for fear of losing local ad revenue. Network owned stations usually grant them for HD channels.

Such was the case for me in Houston, TX. ABC and Fox, both owned by their respective Network granted a Waiver, and so I now receive channels 86 and 88. CBS and NBC denied waivers, so I do not receive channels 80 or 82.

It took 5 weeks from first requesting (through DirecTv) waivers, and final word from the 4 networks.

No added cost as long as you're paying for either local channels or the HD package.

XM Satellite radio will be on DirecTv for no extra cost starting November 15. Woo Hoo.
More information at directv.com/xm or their channel 800. For a standard "Total Choice" package that means 50 of the 150 XM stations, instead of the current 30 Music Choice stations.

POWER OUTAGES FROM RITA in Houston Area: Centerpoint Energy seems to be reducing by half the number of folks without power each day. One can appreciate the task seeing their map of outages.

Unloaded my Xbox on eBay today.

Post Rita : MONDAY: Almost back to normal now (on the West side of Houston), except most businesses and schools closed till Wednesday. Gasoline is now readily available, and supermarkets are open, just lacking beans, bread, milk and eggs.

If it ain't Boeing, I'm not going : Airbus Industries proves it can't keep its' planes safe.

Rita went East : Our west side of Houston got about 2" of rain (zero flooding) and wind gusts to 50 mph, and by 6:30 AM the rain which started 11 hours earlier was over although it is still windy, with gusts to maybe 30 mph. We still have power, telephone and water, so all in all the effect was far less than Alicia for our corner of the world. Only two minor issues. One, we will apparently have to wait a day or three for gasoline (although we don't need any at the moment), and a slight reallignment of the HDTV OTA antenna is in order.
Guaranteed later today and tomorrow the highways will be a mess as folks try to return home. It seems like the exodus was in stages. 900 folks in buses on Wednesday, 2,000,000 in their own cars on Thursday. Hundreds (or thousands) ran out of gas in the 2 mph traffic jam. In a last ditch effort to prevent potential tragedy, late Friday the Houston Mayor had the Transit Authority send buses out the highways to pick up motorists and get them to safety, and 90% + refused to leave their cars, as the cars were laden with valuables. Haven't heard yet if anyone stuck on the side of highway 59 NE of town suffered as a result of being stranded on the side of the road. The area around Lufkin, TX is still getting pounded by wind and rain.

FOLLOWUP: 2:45 PM, the sun is out, I've been encouraged to shelter in place and there is no gasoline in Houston. Walked 5 blocks to the local Quickey Mart and was told it would be Monday before they got Newspaper deliveries. How many tens of thousands of people will go to the web, and discover they dont need the newsprint hardcopy version, I wonder.

Hurricane Rita - Report from Houston: Not living by the coast (50 miles inland) or in a low lying area (I'm at 62' elevation) it was not suggested I evacuate by public officials, and I didn't. Nearly 2 million others have, and major interstates, now literally have a 100 mile backup/gridlock. Meanwhile back in Houston, all major roads out of town are moving at 2 mph, 95 % of gas stations are out of gas and/or are closed, and if one can get to the airport, it takes hours to get through security as TSA personnel either evacuated or couldn't get to the airport.
Heres what happened when regular people tried to evacuate. This prediction of RITAs path was spot on 36 hours before NOAA figured out the storm would land East of Galveston Bay.