Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

Thanks and a tip of the hat to autographedcat, who steered me towards ljArchive, a Windows-based tool which enables LJ users to download an entire archive of one's own LJ (including comments) and search through it.

With the help of this tool, I found my original list of 25 things I'd miss if I left Dayton. The list is somewhat obsolete as the local Ritter's and the Thirsty Dog are now closed. (I believe there are still Thirsty Dog brewpubs in the Cleveland/Akron area, and supposedly, their brews are bottled and available in finer beer stores.)

...how I feel about yesterday's shooting at a Knoxville, TN UU church. I'm saddened, shocked, and angered, to say the least.

Part of me wants vengeance, to put the man accused of the shooting before a firing squad. Or worse, do it in such a way to maximize his pain and agony.

Another part of me says he deserves justice, no matter how heinous his crime.

And another part of me wonders if the same could happen at my congregation. I believe we already have safeguards in place, but I should double-check.

Went to Columbus today to fill out my starting paperwork for $EMPLOYER. I still don't have an official start date, as the manager at $NEW_CLIENT is on vacation this week. I'm guessing I start either next week or the week after. A tentative date was listed; if it changes, they'll write in the new date and I'll initial it.

I also had to take the pee test, which I did after filling out the paperwork.

( Then I went looking at apartments, went shopping at Micro Center, and had lunch. )

After several hours of flipping channels over several days, it's true: 90% of television programs are crap. No wonder I watch so much sports on TV. That and the Weather Channel.

Most sitcoms leave me unimpressed, and the rest of the network fare is just plain boring. And infomercials? Oh please.

The worst times for programming are in the afternoon and late evening/early morning.

I realize that TV execs view their medium as commercials with a program around them. But if you want me to watch the program, make it interesting for me.

All of Jack and Suzanne's stuff has been moved out of their old house and into their new house a few blocks away. Now I can rest my body for a few days. And think about the amount of stuff I'd have to move when it comes time to move out of the condo. At least most of it's in boxes.

I know, this is more a topic for Monday debate/discussion and not Friday night. But I've been waiting on a freecycler with a Blackberry who was supposed to come over earlier.

Apparently the freecycle movement is catching on. Post a wanted or offer notice on the local freecycle list, and see who's interested. Sure beats setting something by the curb and wondering if it's going to be picked up before the trash men get there. And it's supposed to keep stuff out of the landfills.

However, it's been my personal experience that people are no longer in a big hurry to collect their goods. Case in point: Two weeks ago (June 24), I posted a notice for some DS/DD disks. Last week (June 30), I posted a note for some DS/HD disks. I had a few takers and offered to split the lot among the claimants. One claimant has already come by to pick them up. Two claimants asked me to mail the disks to them, which I did. (I fronted the postage, which I should get after all the boxes arrive at their destination.) I've been in email contact with two of the claimants (including the Blackberry user), but due to scheduling and timing conflicts, I've not yet been able to give the claimants their disks. Two other claimants haven't responded to their email reminders from me, and I'm about to write them off as no-shows.

Do people really have a short memory and forget (or delete) their email from previous days? Are people just too darn busy to remember? I really hate having to remind people. Or is it the high cost of gas that's making it prohibitive for people to pick up the items they claimed via the list? I've seen a few posts on the freecycle lists which state that the person wanting certain goods will only travel so far to pick up items. I wonder if that's going to be a trend. If that's the case, less and less people may freecycle.

Now that I've gone through most of my floppy disks, I have two empty media storage modules -- one for CD-Rs and one for floppies. I'm in the process of selling these on eBay. I have pictures, a description of the modules, and the weights of the modules. For those of you have already sold items on eBay, what else should I be doing?

[Updated 14:45 to add links to items]
Exponent Cassetta media storage unit for CD and DVD media
Exponent Cassetta media storage unit for floppy disks

It's time for the Capitol Steps' quarterly radio program, "Politics Takes A Holiday". If your local NPR station doesn't carry it, go here to download a RealAudio version of the program.

http://www.capsteps.com/radio/

Two weeks ago, I ordered a Creative Labs MuVo V100 MP3 player/voice recorder. Creative was running a sale on them; the 2 Gb model was around $30. I wanted the MuVo because it was a combination MP3 player and voice recorder.

It arrived yesterday afternoon. I spent a few hours last night and this morning playing with it, installing the software, and trying to get the thing to work. The voice recorder works, but I gotta crank up the volume to hear it. I plugged it in to my computer, which recognized the device but didn't (and still doesn't) assign it a drive letter. I can plug it into my laptop, which does recognize it and assigns it a drive letter. I tried copying MP3 files to it, but it stopped at around the fourth or fifth track.

I went to Creative's support page. What they suggested didn't work. I couldn't find a phone number for their support, but I found a place where I could send them an email.

I'll play with it some more, but if I don't get results within a week, I think I'll try to send it back.

Has anyone else had similar problems with their MP3 players?

Fri 6/27: Went to Buffalo Wings & Rings for lunch and downloading. (They have wi-fi!) Then did some shopping at Dollar Tree and Dollar General. Then went to a doctor's appointment. Had dinner with the Usual Suspects at Olive Garden, and then saw Wall-E. I liked it; it was cute.

Sat 6/28: Went to the local UU church for breakfast and a little bit of work on the exterior. It rained, so all we could do was to replace nails with screws and cover the screw heads with putty. Drove to Indianapolis for lunch and a ManKind Project Integration Groups Council meeting. After the meeting was over, I received a message from tollers that she was stuck in Anderson while her truck was being repaired. And so I drove to Anderson, and got lost a few times trying to find the O'Reilly Auto Parts store she was at. Eventually, I found her. We went to IHOP for dinner and good conversation, stopped at an ATM, bought a book at Walgreens, and dropped her off before heading home to Dayton. I think she tells the tale better than I do.

Sun 6/29: Overslept. Was late to UU services, but they let me in anyway. Picked up M and had a great time at Splash Moraine. Stopped for dinner at McDonald's. Called my parents. Counted and divided around 200 DS/DD floppy disks that are going to 4 people via the local Freecycle list.