Chris Rachael and Chaz's Domestic Tranquility

WE'VE MOVED!

2008-02-24T23:12:00.002-05:00

Please change your links!

Chris Rachael and Chaz's Domestic Tranquility has now moved to WordPress. You can find our new site at: http://cncr.oseland.com

Fur and Bones

2008-02-23T00:23:00.004-05:00

To my shock and amazement, I'm actually jealous of high school students. This doesn't happen often. Most of the time you couldn't pay me to take on a gangly body where none of the parts work right yet, much less being broke all the time and feeling both totally clueless and utterly superior. However, every year 32 lucky students at Seneca high school get to take a year long class in Forensics.

I've paid for the four week version. Let me tell you, it's awesome. Since she didn't happen to have any bodies buried out on the track field, our teacher brought in owl pellets for us to dissect. I'd never heard of an owl pellet before. Apparently, owls like to eat their little woodland friends whole. They can't digest the mousy fur or shrewy bones, though, so they wait until enough of that gets impacted in their stomachs and puke it all up. Some woodsmen actually make a living collecting these balls of furry, bony owl vomit.

Excavating that thing was neat. I found parts from three of Bambi's doomed little friends. My lab partners stood two paces back, only willing to touch with tweezers after I teased the bones loose from the fur with my fingers. It was a neat reminder that most bones don't come in the neat assemblies you see in museums. The bones are all jumbled together in any old random order with bits from other creatures shoved in their for good measure. It's up to you to figure out how to reassemble the body.

As you can see, I gave it a try, but I could only take my Frankenrat so far before class was over.

It never stops

2008-02-21T17:50:00.004-05:00

Yes, Insight is up to their tricks again. I got another call this afternoon from an Insight contractor. He said if I didn't pay over the phone right now, he'd shut off my service. Hello, my service is already off! It has been for most of the last month.

This time, I was threatened with Even More Fees if I didn't pay the bribe over the phone right now.

No, he could not explain what the charges are for nor would he tell me how much the new "fees" would be. He wanted $380 right now, over the phone, or else. When asked for a paper bill itemizing the charges, he said he couldn't do that. They're not even pretending they can justify this crap in print.

Once more, we have been instructed to give them random amounts of money or they will fuck up my credit report. This is extortion.

Chaz is taking time off work to talk to Insight at the main office tomorrow. Clearly, nothing I do has been successful, so he wants to give it a try. This is costing us a ridiculous amont of time, money, and stress.

Before I pay them off, I really want a printed itemized list of exactly what they're charging us for so we can enclose it along with the letter to the Better Business Bureau and State Attorney General's office. I don't expect to get it, but a girl can dream. No, this won't save my credit report, but it will make me feel better. Maybe the next time Comcast tries to make a break into this market, my letter will add to the mass of complaints and help tip the balance in favor of switching this corrupt monopoly for one that might be a hair less abusive.

If I want to keep them from making good on their threats to my credit report, it lookis like I really am going to have to pay their entirely made up $170 charge, pay for two months of "service" wherein they mostly kept my system shut down, and pay for the rest of the random fees they're piling on as punishment for not having given in to thier extortion in the first place. This really pisses me off.

I wish I could believe that paying them off would actually work. Once someone starts making threats and demanding random amounts of money, the trust is gone. Maybe they'll go away if I pay them off and shut off my service. Maybe they'll keep sending me "bills" once my cable box is gone and my service shut off. Time will tell.

Total Eclipse of the Moon!

2008-02-19T23:39:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow night at 10:00 EST, 7:00 PST, venture out into the cold and enjoy a total lunar eclipse. Seriously. Do it. If you've never seen a Lunar Eclipse before, they're darn spiffy. It looks like the moon is bleeding, perhaps about to be split in twain as in the intro to Thundarr the Barbarian.

Pay us $170 or we'll ruin your credit

2008-02-15T19:18:00.001-05:00

Insight Cable continues to make me feel like I'm living in Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Now they want a $170 bribe. They freely admit this is not for a bill. The $170 isn't for a service or product. Nope. There's an accouting error on their part that messed up something in their computer system. No, they can't fix it. Sucks to be me. I can either cough up the $170 bribe or have my credit report wrecked by their bill collectors and remain without broadband.

I can't begin to express how much I hate this company. They won't let me pay my actual bill unless I pay the bribe, too, so late fees are being added. It's crazy. Insight employees have told me to my face that it's all totally bogus, but, in their words, "the only thing you can do is pay it." When I have some free time again, there are letters to the BBB and Attorney General's office in my future. Bribery is bullshit.

I can't beleive how many hours of my life this company has sucked up in the last few months. It's appalling.

I'm trying to focus on the positive, though. I had a very encouraging phone interview this week. When the recruiter says, "You'd be awesome for this job," I think odds are good. I'm not holding my breath on anything. I've been on a gazillion interviews in the last few months. Hopefully, they'll call back to set up an in-person interview next week.

I'm also enjoying the heck out of my forensics class. I can't believe a local high school offers an entire semester of forensics as a senior level science class. That's so cool. Four weeks is nifty. A whole year of it would be amazing. It's a great way to get kids (and the senior citizens who mostly populate my class) deeply interested in multiple branches of science.

WTF?

2008-02-14T12:17:00.001-05:00

I am lucky to be alive!

Ten minutes ago, a battered old blue sedan nearly ran me over in the post office parking lot. Feeling a bumper graze my knees was heart stopping enough, but the hood was scrawled with giant white shoepolish reading, "I AM COME UNTO YOU AND REBORN IN YOU."

What?

Get back, you parasite! I expect dinner and drinks before you come within five feet of me - and don't use that, "premature sporation" excuse! No comming. No rebirth. NO! I am not volunteering to have your alien spawn eat its way through my living abdomen before overtaking the earth.

Oh, wait. I forgot. It's okay to nearly kill people as long as you quote the Bible at them first. That's patriotic!

Volunteering

2008-02-07T18:31:00.000-05:00

To take some of the sting out of job searching, I'm volunteering with the local branch of the MS Society. It's a great way for me to use my uncanny ability to sweet talk people into charitable donations. This time, I'm working for an actual good cause instead of, say, coming up with a year's worth of Boardgames Meetup prizes.

Helping round up coffee, face painters, and a bouncy castle really makes me miss working on SF ConComs.

Second major storm in a week

2008-02-06T01:10:00.000-05:00

It's apocalyptic outside - pounding rain, intermittant electricity, a constant wail of sirens. I couldn't resist throwing on a jacket and taking a walk.

That's right - a woman walking by herself in the dark. In most cities, that would be asking for an assault. One of the things I love about Louisville is the crazily low crime rate. This is the safest city I've ever lived in. Well, unless you're within 500 feet of me on the 4th of July. In my defense, I still have all my fingers and toes - and so do the rest of you. Okay, except for John, but that's not my fault.

There's something about powerful weather that makes me want to be in it. I once sat in a windowsill watching a tornado rip down the street while my family shouted at me from the safety of the basement. No summer passes without me hanging out on the lawn in shorts and a tank top during a warm, heavy rain. Tonight, it's a clammy 60 degrees out. It'll be down to 30 by tomorrow.

My jeans soaked through within seconds of stepping outside, but it took a good six minutes before my shoes leaked.

The nearest stoplight is flashing red on all corners. I saw a car spin out of control and finally stop facing the wrong way in traffic. An ambulance zoomed around it, adding to the cacaphony of sirens.

There's something etheral about dark, empty parking lots illuminated only by flickering store signs. Any second the lights could fail entirely. The part of my brain raised on movies and TV expects vampires to crawl out of the sewers in search of human victims. After all, in Louisville Zombie season doesn't start until August.

Juno

2008-02-02T15:38:00.000-05:00

See it before the trendy popularity makes you hate it on principle. It really is a good movie.

Without giving away any plot points, one of the details I love most about this flick is it's portrayal of a great stepmother. Stepmothers get harsh treatment in both books and movies. Out here in reality, I personally don't know a bad one. Linda's been great to me. Billie's been great to Chaz. Among my friends who have stepkids, they all genuinely love them. It was awesome seeing a realistic relationship instead of the usual ugly plot device fodder.

And to our stepmoms - you both rock.

It really IS a series of tubes!

2008-02-01T17:13:00.000-05:00

A ship's anchor ripped through the undersea tubes connecting India and the Middle East to the internets.

Mutants Among Us!

2008-01-31T23:23:00.000-05:00

Okay, it's not telepathy or shapeshifting, but it turns out all blue eyed people are descended from one mutant born somewhere between 6000 - 10,000 years ago. That's around the same time as the ability to digest dairy as adults evolved in Europe and the Middle East.

These days, new mutations are popping up for HIV resistance and a skewing of the circadian rythms. In fact, contrary to the Science Fiction vision that we'll all be uniformly caramel colored people with medium brown hair and brown eyes in another few thousand years, scientific evidence indicates the rate of human mutation is actually speeding up now that we've decided this whole agriculture business means we can stay in one place and make lots of babies. That's right - civilization mutates humans!

Chattacon 33

2008-01-30T14:15:00.000-05:00

Those last couple blog entries were entirely too glum. It's time to lighten things up a bit.

Chattanooga is only a six hour drive from Louisville. That puts it well within my sphere of weekend road trips. It's been altogether too long since I went to a good, old fashioned non-commerical SF con. The dealer's room at GenCon is like walking into Nerdhalla, but there's a special something about the casual party cons.

Erin and I pulled in to Chattanooga around 6 p.m. The hotel check-in was completely smooth. While there were some comic moments waiting in the pre-reg line, I actually enjoyed the heck out of the company. The hotel was smart enough to have a waitress working the line. Some guys we'd just met bought us both drinks. When they got thier badges, we ended up talking to a woman in a corset and tutu, then Erin found a bellydancer/fellow GuildWars player while I compared notes on past cons with other people in line. Everyone was incredibly friendly. I've never been to Chattacon, but the atmosphere felt like coming home.

The Con Suite was amazing. I'm used to sodas, cheap beer, and maybe some nachos or Chex mix. In addition to the advertised buffet of Little Debbie Snack Cakes, they had 4 types of beer on tap, the usual assortment of fountain sodas, and an ever changing buffet of hot food in crockpots. Their food was honestly better than the overpriced hotel buffet. I'm seriously impressed. Con volunteers worked their butts off so random drunks wearing Starfleet uniforms and Pirate costumes could curb their hangovers with a bowl of beef and vegetable stew, red beans and rice, chilli, rice-a-roni with a generous amount of chicken, turkey and dressing, mashed yams, PB&J, and several porktastic things I didn't try. That's just what was availble when I dropped in. I know there was more.

Instead of hotel room, the Con Suite took over half an old skating rink. There was seating for around 100. Normally, I don't spend more than 20 minutes in the Con Suite all weekend, but the space, food, and beer made it a great place to meet people. When I wandered in for lunch, on Saturday I steered myself to the table of people laughing the loudest. Three hours later, we were trading phone numbers so we wouldn't loose each other at the room parties. Awesome.

Across the skating rink, Chattacon had drum circles instead of filking. This is a fannish trend I heartily support.

The daytime programming was good. For instance, I learned a lot at the Podcasting panel. However, their evening programming really shined. If your hotel has an actual theater in it, you might as well use it. Friday night, three different bellydancing acts preceeded the Molly Maguires in concert. That was pretty neat, as I've enjoyed them on The Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. I believe there was another band, then the Syrens of the South held a Burlesque and Vaudville Revue.

The masquerade was a lot smaller than I expected - only 11 entries. In fact, there were fewer hall costumes than I expect at a con. If you wanted to dress up, that was fine, but the overwhelming majority stuck with jeans and t-shirts. I suspect this was mostly due to the cold January weather and long walks between buildings at the sprawling hotel.

In my frenzy of packing, I forgot my own pirate costume (as well as Batgirl and my Ottomon getup). Nevertheless, Erin and I took the opportunity to show off in a slightly different way. While everyone else was tarting it up in corsets for Saturday night, we put on our evening gowns. From that point on, the room parties were a delight. In fact, they were so good I never made it to the dance. I don't think I made it to bed until 5 a.m. Sunday morning.

No, I don't really have any photos from the con. There were plenty of other people lugging cameras around. This con will not lack for documentation. I took half a dozen shots on my cellphone then decided to heck with it for the weekend. I'm glad I did. Someplace like this, it's more fun to be in the picture than behind the camera.

So that's the tiny sliver of fun I saw. I'd rate Chattacon a nerdtastic good time.

Adventures in Internet Service, Part II

2008-01-30T13:27:00.000-05:00

When we last left our intrepid heroine, she'd been charged with the impossible task of getting an original hardcopy of an entirely electronic document.

Since no such document exists, that obviously wasn't going to happen.

Not their problem. Insight informed me they were holding my broadband and cable hostage until I found out where they misplaced the funds. A copy of my bank statement showing I'd paid simply wasn't good enough. If they couldn't find the information using their internal computer system, what alchemy was I supposed to perform for the sake of discovery? Oh, wait. I could send my thousand cybernetically enhanced uberrats into the sewers. They'd climb up every Insight customer's toilet and search their houses for bills until they found someone with a mysterious bonus payment in my exact amount.

Screw that. I called my bank. Three customer service numbers and a trip to India later, they stopped payment on the check. There! NOW NOBODY HAS THE MONEY! The rats can stop their search for the mystery account. Can we start over from scratch?

Of course not.

It turns out Insight had the check all along. It was even somehow associated with my account, although not in a way that involved, say, paying my bill. Maybe they were using it for a complicated piece of oragami. Maybe there was an inter-office airplane fight. Regardless, one hour after the stop-payment went through, an automated call informed me my account was now being suspended for stopping payment. What? They'd already shut off my service! They denied recieving any payments since Dec. 11th! Now they were essentially admitting they had the check all along but were just holding onto it and playing mindgames with me.

I called Insight back and said look, that check's gone bye-bye. No money has been deposited into someone else's account. End of problem. Can we please just start over? Tell me what I owe you and I'll go pay in cash in person. We'll settle this today.

No deal.

When I got to the Insight kiosk in my local grocery store, they said I had a $169 credit. Buh? That completely contradicts what I'd been told an hour earlier. I tried to pay $110 for a month of service anyway, as I am SURE this is yet another bizarre error, but they didn't want my money.

At this point, I have absolutely zero confidence that Insight's cable or broadband won't spontaniously shut off the next time they decide to randomize everyone's bills. I have no idea how much money they think I owe them. Last month they wanted $485 for what should be a $110 service. Gosh, and they wonder why I called?

Chaz and I haven't had a land line in years, but we're seriously contemplating switching to DSL and buying our TV ala carte from iTunes. It feels like a lot more hassle - combined cable and internet with one bill and one provider is supposed to be EASY. After all the hours I've spent on the phone with them this month, I suspect I'd save both time and money.

(A lack of) Insight

2008-01-29T08:21:00.000-05:00

I still feel like my internal organs are in the middle of an enthusiastic boxing match. You wouldn't believe their stamina. It's a good day to head down to the basement and watch a movie to distract myself from the pain. Sadly, I have Insight Cable and Broadband.

Last week, I spent over 2 hours on the phone trying to get a mysterious $275 charge cleared up. Play that funky muzak, white boys. Two managers later, people asked how the hell I managed to screw up their systems. They'd never seen anything like it. It was apparently so interesting I got to be part of an impromptu training seminar. Huzzah!

They assured me it was all cleared up, so imagine my surprise at having no internet service or cable last night.

I know, I know, those late nights at the call center can be so lonely. I do have a lovely voice, so I understand why they long to hear from me again so soon. But really darlin's, while I'm down with food poisoning is not the time you want to hear me moan.

After a little runaround, it seems they don't have any record of a payment since December 11th. My bank, on the other hand, shows they cashed a check only 14 days ago. Today, I allegedly get the special privilege of talking to a misplaced payments counselor after I fax them a copy of my bank statement. I pointed out I have electronic statements. That won't do. They want a fax of a hardcopy. Joy.

Where are you when I need you, WiMax? I've escaped the shackles of local phone monopolies. If I can get reliable broadband, I'll download all my TV and to hell with cable, too. As many hours as I've spent with them this week, Insight should be paying me.

Hygiene is your friend!

2008-01-28T20:16:00.000-05:00

If you work in a restaurant, WASH YOUR DAMN HANDS! Every time you go to the bathroom, people. Soap. Water. Scrubby scrubby. It takes less than a minute. All the cool kids are doing it these days.

The unpopular bastards, on the other hand, give people violent and draining food poisoning. Really, it's exactly what I wanted in the middle of a 6 hour drive home after a long 3 day weekend. When I paid for my pancakes, I'd thought about picking up some ground glass to rub in my eyes for drive time entertainment, but this is so much better. Nice job!

Away in a manger, near Baptist Hospital East

2007-12-11T21:08:00.000-05:00

"It's an art project, officer."

"...really?"

"We're the three wise women. The bathrobe symbolizes home while the business suit symbolizes work."

"You're dressed as Batgirl."

"I symbolize fantasy, sir."

"...uh huh ... You put those sheep back where you found them."

Kick Old Man Winter's Cane Out From Under Him

2007-12-07T01:38:00.000-05:00

It's 32 degrees outside, sleeting, with a cold wind whistling between my door and the frame. Nevertheless, my toes are toasty. I proudly possess that most wonderous of winter inventions. Oh, yes. I feel like an anachronism in the age of electric blankets and space heaters, but I'm not too proud to admit it.

I love my hot water bottle.

Grumpy

2007-12-06T15:03:00.001-05:00

Under the best of circumstances, I'm not good at waiting. My mind won't let me start anything I feel like I'd have to drop in an instant, so it's not like I can do anything productive with waiting time. My poor head just dwells on all the things I'll be able to do as soon as the waiting is over.

I've been waiting on a repairman for the last 2 hours.

Now, two hours normally isn't enough to merit this level of grumpiness, but I waited all afternoon on Tuesday for a dishwasher repairman. Two Good Ole Boys showed up, decided that the dishwasher was irreparably broken, and left a gaping, stinking hole in my kitchen where they spilled the nasty contents of the old one.

Okay. Wednesday, they wanted me here to install the new one. Don't ask me why. It's not like I'm secretly a level 6 plumber with a +2 wrench of tightening. I rearranged my schedule so I'd be here when they installed it, only to have them end the process with whoops, sorry, we forgot a part. We'll be back tomorrow.

Okie dokie. The landlord has a key. Pop in and do it at your leisure.

Oh, no! They can't do that! I have to be here when they run it for the first time. Why? I don't understand. I don't possess any dishwasher magic. I put in soap and dishes, turn a dial, and hope I get sanitary goodness in return. That is the extent of my expertise. It doesn't matter, though, because they won't do it without me here. So once more, now with week old dirty dishes stacked all over the kitchen, I'm waiting for a repairman to please finish the job. Three days of waiting, and he's now over two hours late.

This better be the best darn dishwasher ever.

Laid back festival of lights

2007-12-04T17:50:00.000-05:00

I was amused to find Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song listed under "Christmas" at a Karaoke bar this weekend. I can't wait until Ramadan rolls through the calendar and lands in December again in another decade or so. I expect some hardcore holiday Islamic hip-hop.

Back here in the present, we have our candles, menorahs, and a couple bags of gelt. I'd planned to go all out and make some latkes tonight, but our dishwasher was removed this afternoon, leaving a gaping, stinking hole in the kitchen.

No, I don't try to steam potato pancakes on the top rack. The dishwasher was chock full when it broke. Now, the dirty dishes are spread over all our counter space and the smell of spilled, stagnant water can't be tamed by scented candles. The landlord says guys should be by with a replacement tomorrow. Tonight, we're eating out.

Parking Lot Humor

2007-11-29T22:45:00.000-05:00

"Evil Thrives When Good People Do Nothing" versus "Bush/Cheney '04."

Bridled Optimism

2007-11-09T17:11:00.000-05:00

I hate job phishers. In case you're not familiar with this, if you put up a public resume on Monster or Career Builder, you're almost guaranteed to get a few emails promising Mr. Manger Man just saw your resume and thinks you'd be perfect for a highly paid position.

At first, the emails seemed so ridiculous I wondered how anyone could fall for them. I'd get offers for teaching jobs allegedly paying $75,000 or web design work in the low six figures. Riiiight. Lately, though, the phishers are doing a darn good job plugging surprisingly relevant looking information into a form letter. Stop it, people! The job descriptions are just seductive enough, but with realistic catches. The salaries are just a hair above average for the work. A couple of them had me curious enough to google the companies.

But alas, instead of my phone ringing with interview callbacks, today my email box is plagued with identity theft scammers looking for my SSN and most commonly used login/password combinations. Sometimes the cruder ones will ask for credit card information, but I hope that's a giveaway for anyone.

There's something extra irksome about preying on people's hope for the future rather than their greed. By its very nature, applying for jobs means suspending your disbelief and hoping that you're the right person in the right place at the right time. It's all quite improbable. You keep doing it, though - sending out those optimistic letters and telling yourself gosh, this one would sure be nice. These phishers crush that hope. Get enough of these emails in a day and you start to believe there are no good jobs out there, so just suck it up and take whatever crap you can find. I can forgive scamming greedy people out of their money, but promising good work to qualified people just so they can steal enough info to ruin your life burns me up.

They Might Be...injured

2007-11-08T16:31:00.000-05:00

Some days, applying for jobs is full of excitement and promise for a new future. Other days, it's a soul crushing exercise in futility. This is not one of the exciting days.

I am, of course, in no way biased by the fact that this is my second day stuck at home with a rather seriously sprained ankle. No, I didn't sprain it dismounting that the cannon in the park Tuesday night. I sprained it strutting back to the sidewalk. Yes, I am being punished for my hubris. That or Cincinnati hates me as much as I hate the city and therefore even the soil itself latches onto any opportunity to strike out against me.

We'll ignore the fact that I was actually in Northern Kentucky to see They Might Be Giants in concert. Everyone knows Northern Kentucky is really part of the Cincinnati metro area. You can still feel the hate from across the river.

The John's, on the other hand, were pure love. They were so well loved that poor Kevin, who hadn't bought a ticket in advance, was denied admission to the concert. I tried to convince folks we could sneak him in. Heck, no one even checked for wristbands when we walked through the doors. I don't condone stealing - he was more than willing to give them money if they would take it - but if you really want in some place you shouldn't be, just walk on by looking bored and like you belong there. It works for me 7 times out of 10.

This is the second time I've seen them on this concert tour. It was well worth it, because in addition to the ongoing joy that is seeing John's live, I discovered Michael's secret night job. Mild mannered pharmacist by day, it seems he burns up the night as the trumpet player in a 3 man horn band. Don't try to deny it, Michael. The Evil Twin excuse only works so many times.

Reach Out And Read

2007-11-03T20:33:00.000-04:00

I can't bear to put books in the trash - not even horrible books I wouldn't wish on any hapless reader. This is incredibly hypocritical of me, as I discard email and other electronic files with wild abandon. However, everyone has to have a line somewhere.

Our more limited space has resulted in, for the first time in many years, a willingness to part with books I know I'll never read. Out of the entire library, I came up with... well, three boxes. It's a start, though! I'm a frequent re-reader as well as a reference hound.

Luckily, there are places willing to take books - even very bad books. If you find yourself in possession of a few you can't take the used book store (because then you'd just get exchange credit for more of the same), check out Reach Out And Read. They have a long list of places eager to accept donations of all sorts of books.

Getting Girls into Tech

2007-10-24T11:55:00.000-04:00

When other girls were in Girl Scouts or cheerleading, I was hanging out with my adoptive fannish uncles, Curtis and Richard. They built my first computer from spare parts of their own back when a home PC cost around $3000 and could do little more than word processing and spreadsheets.

To this day, that first computer is still the most amazing gift I've ever received. They introduced me to the wild idea that you could send little packets of information from computer to computer via the phone lines. As long as no one in the chain turned their computer off, that data could loop the world in an hour. They told me over and again that all I needed to do was spend a couple hours a day with a book and I could make a computer do whatever I wanted. Go ahead. Give it a try.

Instead of telling me to be careful with this expensive machine, they told me to take it apart. After all, when I went off to college, I'd need to do my own upgrades. It wasn't fragile or mysterious - it was a tool that needed to undergo constant mutation in order to do better and more interesting things.

Every girl should be so lucky.

Clearly, they're not. Female enrolment in computer science is down 80% since the tech bubble burst. Among the women I know, the only ones who understand tech are over 35. Those under 30 know how to use email, IM, and MS word. A few of them play a couple games, but most would rather play on a console if given the choice.

The best way to hook any kid on computers is through gaming. Carnagie Melon university has a free download of a nifty drag-and-drop environment for teaching programming. Alice lets them make their own games and animations while stealthily sneaking in the principles behind Java, C++ and C#. It's very cute, and a heck of a lot more accessible than a phonebook sized tome like, Teach Yourself C++ In One Hour A Day.

If you're an adult curious about what the computer geeks in your life are always going on about, download it and poke around. If you happen to have any kids in your house, leave it up and see if it catches their eye.

2007-10-23T21:32:00.000-04:00

There's something horribly disconcerting about watching news reports of wildfires devestating San Diego while it's pouring down rain here.