In case you missed it, and I am betting the answer is no unless you leave outside of the US, John McCain announced his running mate for the presidential race, and her name is Sarah Palin. I am linking three stories to the announcement, one from BBC news, NY Times, and Wall Street Journal.
I think it is easy to see that McCain was going for the vote out women constituents, especially those Hillary supporters that are lamenting her losing to Obama. And as a pure observer in this, since I cannot vote in the election, I will say that on first glance there seemed to be a bit of panic in the voice of several Democrats I know. That said, as the dust from the announcement settles, I doubt that this will end up being as good a move as the GOP was thinking. As stated in the articles linked above, McCain's ability to target Obama for his inexperience in foreign affairs is bound to be weakend by his choice for a VP. Then again, I didn't think people would re-elect a man that sent the country to war under false pretenses.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
100 posts
I doubt anyone is reading the blog, after all it has been almost a month since I last posted anything on here. Anyway, today I am using the 100th post of the blog to talk about my horrendous relationship with Toshiba laptop computers.
A couple of years into grad. school I bought a Satellite Pro laptop to replace the aging Gateway laptop I had carried around in undergrad. The Satellite Pro A65 was a bit on the hefty side, but it was a decent laptop. As a grad student, spending $1200 on a laptop was no easy task, but I enjoyed having the flexibility to take all my work files with me. That laptop lasted a year and 1 month. 1 month past warranty the battery leaked battery acid onto the motherboard and completely killed the laptop. I was able to recover most of my files by purchasing a USB hard drive case and spending some quality hours on Google finding out how to take ownership of my hard drive (let's just say that if you have a profile in Windows that is password protected you cannot just go back and get to files under My Documents).
So, about 3 years ago, November of 2005 to be exact, I stupidly replaced my acid-leaking Toshiba with........another Toshiba, this time a Tecra A4. Now, I should rationalize my purchase by saying that a good chunk of the decision came down to me getting good financing from Toshiba, while the folks at Dell wouldn't. I loved the laptop. Compared to the bulky Satellite Pro, the Tecra was sleek. Besides, I loved the all black keyboard and case and the silver lid. Not too fancy a laptop, but it looked efficient and rugged.
One thing I did learn from Satellite Pro fiasco was that you should get the extended warranty with your laptop, which I did. So, a year and a half into my Tecra A4, the freaking hard drive dies. And I mean dies. The computer thought the BIOS was password protected, when it wasn't. After talking to the Toshiba folks, who were quite responsive and nice, I brought the machine in to a Toshiba service center where I was informed my hard drive was dead and a new one was provided as part of the extended warranty agreement.
This leads to today. On the tail end of a horrible scince day, my laptop crashed. I plugged in my USB key to transfer some files and the thing would not restart. I spent a solid 3 hours of my afternoon getting to the point where I could simply start the machine in Safe Mode so that I could backup as many files as possible. Luckily I have 2 months left on my warranty so I called the Toshiba folk who promptly told me I should try to wipe my HD clean and that if that fails I should call them back so that I can take the computer in to a dealer.
All in all, good times with Toshiba computers.
A couple of years into grad. school I bought a Satellite Pro laptop to replace the aging Gateway laptop I had carried around in undergrad. The Satellite Pro A65 was a bit on the hefty side, but it was a decent laptop. As a grad student, spending $1200 on a laptop was no easy task, but I enjoyed having the flexibility to take all my work files with me. That laptop lasted a year and 1 month. 1 month past warranty the battery leaked battery acid onto the motherboard and completely killed the laptop. I was able to recover most of my files by purchasing a USB hard drive case and spending some quality hours on Google finding out how to take ownership of my hard drive (let's just say that if you have a profile in Windows that is password protected you cannot just go back and get to files under My Documents).
So, about 3 years ago, November of 2005 to be exact, I stupidly replaced my acid-leaking Toshiba with........another Toshiba, this time a Tecra A4. Now, I should rationalize my purchase by saying that a good chunk of the decision came down to me getting good financing from Toshiba, while the folks at Dell wouldn't. I loved the laptop. Compared to the bulky Satellite Pro, the Tecra was sleek. Besides, I loved the all black keyboard and case and the silver lid. Not too fancy a laptop, but it looked efficient and rugged.
One thing I did learn from Satellite Pro fiasco was that you should get the extended warranty with your laptop, which I did. So, a year and a half into my Tecra A4, the freaking hard drive dies. And I mean dies. The computer thought the BIOS was password protected, when it wasn't. After talking to the Toshiba folks, who were quite responsive and nice, I brought the machine in to a Toshiba service center where I was informed my hard drive was dead and a new one was provided as part of the extended warranty agreement.
This leads to today. On the tail end of a horrible scince day, my laptop crashed. I plugged in my USB key to transfer some files and the thing would not restart. I spent a solid 3 hours of my afternoon getting to the point where I could simply start the machine in Safe Mode so that I could backup as many files as possible. Luckily I have 2 months left on my warranty so I called the Toshiba folk who promptly told me I should try to wipe my HD clean and that if that fails I should call them back so that I can take the computer in to a dealer.
All in all, good times with Toshiba computers.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Lesson of the Day
I have been eating corn on the cob the same way since I can remember. That is, I douse the cob in lemon or lime, add a pinch of salt, and finish it off with a healthy sprinkle of chili powder. Today, I learned that chili powder and red pepper (cayenne) are not one and the same. While you can add a bunch of chili powder to the cob and not feel much of the heat, if you add a heap of cayenne you will be asking your dearest wife why it is so damn hot in the room and why is your mouth on fire. That said, I kind of liked the cayenne.
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