September 8, 2012

What a wonderful day! The temps are 20 degrees cooler than yesterday & it just feels great outside! No snow yet, but non-triple-digits sure is nice. I finished the 2nd edge of the afghan last night & now it's time to switch colors to white & make 1 of the 2 white strips of the remaining 6 center strips. The white strips will join to the Christmas colored edge strips that I've completed.

I had a nice long evening of Sims & created a new game in the Criminal career. My Sim moved into a nice apartment that looked more like a hotel with a walk-around outer hallway & a pool out back. the building was just 2 buildings away from where you work as a criminal in Bridgeport. When the game started, the 1st thing she did was go & get a job. Her boss, was not only good looking, but single & before the game day was out she was married & expecting a child. How's that for fast? They moved across town to his place which is farther from work, but nicer than her starter apartment. He's a vampire, so he had this dark room with a concrete coffin looking thing that he hovered over while he slept. I've never seen one of those things before in the game. Odd, but OK. When their child aged up to school-age, we needed another bed for him.

I remodeled the bedroom & added a matching bed & crib just in case his future wife was homeless (50% chance of that & then you need to make room for 3 generations in 1 house). Since Dad is a vampire, his life expectancy is about 3X that of a normal Sim. He's going to be with us for a while so we definitely need space. Now, out of the blue the vampire dies in his sleep. I've never seen THAT happen before either! WTH?! OK, so we remodeled his room to make room for the desk, PC, & portable electronic piano we had. It was getting cramped out in the living room.

We have more space now. The science facility was offering a"bring your recently departed loved one back to life" thing, so for fun I gave it a shot. So what do we have now? An undead vampire only half brought back to life. It's weird. He's a ghost ... sorta ... is transparent & floats around, but is part of the family again. He works & does everything a normal Sim does except for the being transparent & floating around part. HA! OK, this is different. But we're back to the 3 of us instead of just the 2 of us.

This morning I bought a cute little bench on eBay from someone who lives right behind us. They were super-nice & even delivered it for me since they were out & about. The seat lifts up for storage underneath. More yarn storage! YAY! It's so much cuter than the plastic boxes the yarn is currently in. :) Now the big question ... where to put it?

Kyle has been doing GREAT! I couldn't be more proud of him. He's making straight A's in school, he's doing all his homework, he's working overtime & earning money. The restaurant where he washes dishes is very suddenly short their cook, so Kyle pulled double hours yesterday & was washing dishes, cooking, waiting tables, & bussing tables. The poor kid was exhausted when he got home. Since the restaurant is in such a bad spot right now with the sudden loss of their cook, Pete & I offered to come in & help today since this is their busiest day. Kyle is asking his boss about hiring me on permanently part time. If that happens, that'll mean an additional $300 in my pocket every week. WOOHOO! I won't be here for FD calls during that time though. We'll see what happens. Milligan Water meeting Monday.

Biggest problem with professional athletes is they think the ride is going to last forever. Someone smart always tells players that NFL really stands for "Not For Long." The average pro football player's career lasts 3.7 years. That's not a long time, & the same is true in other sports, too.

Chaussure:

1: Footgear. 2 plural: Shoes.

She is 18, or at least 17 - old enough to know all about gowns, petticoats, & chaussures.

What could shoes possibly have in common with a food item made of pizza dough stuffed with cheese & other fillings? Etymologically, quite a bit. Retrace the footprints of both "chaussure" & "calzone" (a word that, like the tasty turnover itself, comes from Italy) & you'll arrive at the Latin word calceus, meaning "shoe." "Chaussure" made its way to English via Anglo-French rather than Italian & goes back to an Old French verb meaning "to put on footwear."

Don't send an attachment file unless you know the recipient can open it.

For a low-cost vacation, trade homes with a friend in another part of the country.

Grocery shop at consistent intervals. Go weekly or bi-weekly so your list is consistent. Your needs & usage habits are generally the same from week to week so your grocery list will be more consistent. With little variation in our list you're likely to get through the store more quickly.

How were World War I rulers King George V of England, Czar Nicholas II of Russia, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany related?

They were first cousins.

HubbleSite:

HubbleSite, the online home of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, invites you to help choose the world’s most popular Hubble images. Get wallpaper, Hubble facts, and more.
Hubble’s vast collection of images awaits your critical and discerning eye. Become part of the Hubble mission by voting for the most spectacular and awe-inspiring sights from Hubble’s archive.
The app provides a selection of Hubble wallpaper images, chosen and edited for visually stunning results on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Plus, get facts about Hubble history; the telescope; and the scientific discoveries it’s revealed, from the age of the universe to the mysterious force known as dark energy. The app has been optimized for iPhone and iPod Touch’s Retina display.
For over 20 years, Hubble has orbited the Earth, beaming home images of celestial splendor. Join in the excitement of the Hubble mission.

RIAA begins suing individual sharers of copyrighted mp3 files (2003):

"Nobody likes playing the heavy and having to resort to litigation," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on this day in 2003, "but when your product is being regularly stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action." The product in question was music—music in the form of digital mp3 files being transmitted among users of Internet file-sharing applications in violation of copyright laws. And while the RIAA's idea of "appropriate action" in response to digital music piracy had previously meant efforts to shut down the operators of Internet file-sharing systems, the industry group announced a new and controversial strategy on September 8, 2003: the filing of lawsuits against individual users of those systems, some of them children.

"We've been telling people for a long time that file-sharing copyrighted music is illegal, that you are not anonymous when you do it, and that engaging in it can have real consequences," said Mr. Sherman in announcing the RIAA's new enforcement strategy. By September 2003, having undertaken a massive anti-piracy public-education campaign in the months since Napster was shut down by court order in 2001, and while still pursuing a case against the Dutch operators of a "peer-to-peer" (P2P) file-sharing system called Grokster, the RIAA had decided to back up its public threats with direct legal action against individuals.

The RIAA's announcement of their first lawsuits against individuals was accompanied by statements of support from music-industry players large and small, including legendary Motown songwriter Lamond Dozier, whose plea to end digital piracy asked those who engaged in illegal file-sharing to "step into the shoes of [music professionals] who have families and children." But in fact, some of the 261 defendants sued in the first round of RIAA lawsuits were families with children—in many cases, minor children whose parents had no idea about their kids' music-downloading habits.

Federal law allowed the RIAA to seek damages as high as $150,000 per illegally shared song per defendant, but in practice the RIAA offered defendants the option of establishing a "Clean Slate" by destroying all of their illegally acquired files and paying a settlement of approximately $3 per illegal song. A little more than three weeks after announcing its new legal strategy on this day in 2003, the RIAA announced that 52 of the 261 individuals named in the initial round of lawsuits had reached such cash settlements. Within the next 20 months, the RIAA sued a further 11,195 individuals, reaching financial settlements with 2,484. None of the RIAA's cases against individual file-sharers has yet gone to trial.

Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself.

Triple Boa:

The Triple Boa chain is for those who fear nothing, living your life to the fullest. This necklace exudes strength, power, and confidence.

Which country is the largest, 2nd largest, & 3rd largest?

A. Canada

B. China

C. Russia

CAB. In fact, Russia encompasses about 6,600,000 square miles.

Who is the only actor to win Emmys for portraying the same TV character in both a sitcom and a dramatic series?

Your enthusiasm for __________ disturbs me far less than when you __________.