TRAVESTY!!
Posted: October 9, 2007 Filed under: James and the Giant Peach Leave a comment
Though this isn’t exactly breaking news, the company that makes the Pop’ables brand candies, Masterfoods, has decided to no longer produce these delectable little morsels! They have been out of production since 2006, which could explain why they have been so hard to get a hold of. This is truly a cause to mourn! These malt-ball sized treats were easily the best of the snickers line! I feel robbed as a consumer because I have been denied the pleasure of ever again tasting the soft nugget and caramel mixed with just the right amount of salted peanutty goodness! They were just the right size, and were amazingly addictive. Maybe the company cut production because the sweet little guys were just too good to be true…
Downgrade? or Upgrade?
Posted: October 5, 2007 Filed under: War and Peace 1 CommentAs you may have known, we got our hands on a free copy of the Vista Home Basic upgrade installation disc a few weeks ago and I put it on our desktop pc while the Romgi was at work one day. I will agree that it makes Windows look a bit nicer, but since we had the lowliest of the lowest versions, not much was changed from XP – except that now almost all of our computer’s thinking power was constantly being used.
The Romgi went out and bought new memory to double what was in the computer before, which meant that our upgrade was no longer free. It did speed things up, of course, but with all the stupid security popups and permissions problems, not to mention the continual delay caused by trying to delete files…I was losing my mind! Computers are not meant to be that slow. I realize this isn’t a new desktop – the Romgi got it when we started college – but it ought to be able to function with 1GB of memory…
So today, when I was finally over my battle with the stomach flu, I read a lot of articles and forum posts about how to get rid of Vista. Unfortunately, there’s no way to just get rid of the upgrade and go back to the pre-Vista computer. If you buy a computer that comes with Vista Business Edition already installed, the manufacturer may offer a free downgrade to XP, but there are no downgrade rights for Vista Home users. Microsoft says this is because they feel it would be extremely unlikely that a home user would have any reason to want to downgrade. (Don’t they read the internet?!?)
That being the case, I copied all of our documents, music, photos, game files, etc., to the other two computers in our apartment. After the Romgi came home from class he went through the files on the desktop again to make sure I got everything important; then we crossed our fingers and completely wiped the hard drive clean. It seemed to go well, so we stuck in the XP installation cd and hoped for the best.
And now…it feels so nice! Like coming out of a hot shower after you’ve been camping. Ahhh. I have plainly confessed to the Romgi that it was my fault for installing Vista to begin with, and I am very sorry to have caused so much trouble; but on the whole, I think the computer is working better now that it has less (much less!) junk on it, whether in the form of useless programs or useless operating systems.
I do agree with many dissatisfied Vista customers, going back to XP is not really much of a downgrade. Maybe if I’d had a really cool version of Vista I would have seen a big improvement from XP, and maybe Microsoft is steadfastly working on the bugs, but I don’t think I’ll be interested in “upgrading” for quite some time.
Leaping Lizards!
Posted: October 4, 2007 Filed under: Of Mice and Men Leave a commentRoni and I have had Mu for over a year now and he still seems to be doing new things all the time. Last night Roni wasn’t feeling well, so she went to bed early. I stayed up and fed Mu, Remington and Puppy their food. I like to let Mu run around because he is pretty easy to spot not matter where he goes. Remington is still a bit small to let him run around all day. Mu, however, is big enough that I can let him wander without worrying too much about how to find him later.
Anyways, back to the story. I took Mu out of his two-story condo in order to feed him. He was REALLY hungry today, even though he ate yesterday. Usually his appetite goes in waves. So after downing about 20-30 crickets, I let him wander around the living room while I brushed my teeth and looked up ways that we could grow our own food for him (if he keeps eating 30 crickets a day, we will have to buy about $3 of crickets a day in order to feed him and Remington).
I started to get tired so I hunted Mu down and put him back in his cage. He went in without much of a struggle this time. Mu is a bit emo and can get a bit upset when you pick him up to put him back in his cage; he likes to run around. So I put him back, and then go to turn off the computer when I hear what sounds like a bird chirping. Now, you may be thinking, AHA! it was just the crickets! But Mu ate almost all the crickets, and the only ones left weren’t big enough to be able to chirp. So I looked over to Mu’s cage, and he is sitting there moodily looking out of his cage. Then, while I am looking at him, he opens his mouth, tilts his head up and moves his throat while he makes the chirping sound again! It was pretty wild. I’ve never heard him chirp before, and everything that I had read up to this point had never mentioned chinese water dragon vocalization before. I kind of hope he does it again when Roni is not dead asleep, so she can hear it too!
Jarom
Mika
hilleries 
