Euro2008: I was, er, wrong- June 24, 2008 The quarters are over and boy am I surprised! Three of the four group winners lost, with Spain surviving on a (thick) thread. Germany over Portugal was easy to understand as soon as the sides lined up for the pregame anthems, the Germans towering over Cristiano Ronaldo and crew. Turkey pulled another ridiculous comeback out of their asses, scoring on literally the last kick of the match.Most annoying, the Dutch left their exciting, winning style in the dressing room and Russia did the business..http://billsaysthis.com/2008_06_01_blog_archive.phtml#6626826034169204513 Dang! I feel like using all seven of those words!- June 23, 2008 George Carlin, RIP. The man put on some of the funniest shows, consistently, for over 40 years and now he goes, heart failure on a Sunday afternoon. What a bad start for any week!Carlin and Cheech and Chong were the first two comic acts that I connected with as a teenager, with Richard Pryor not far behind. Routines like the seven words you can't say on TV and Dave's not here warped my mind in ways from which I've never recovered. And by hosting the first episode of Saturday Night Live Carlin...http://billsaysthis.com/2008_06_01_blog_archive.phtml#1953584587443879002 Testing iWidgets- June 20, 2008 A friend from those long-ago NetDynamics days has a new company that just came into public beta called iWidgets that provides a fairly simple to use, JavaScript-based tool to build a wide variety of widgets which you can then deploy on Social Networks like Facebook and Hi5, widget portals like iGoogle and embed on your blog.As a test I made a simple widget that should show the most recent five headlines from the movie review blog and here it is:Seems blank so far, but this is an early beta...http://billsaysthis.com/2008_06_01_blog_archive.phtml#1738202960696854106 Let's see if this works- June 20, 2008 The Google Mac Blog had a post today linking to the videos from the recent Google IO event. Being too expensive for me to attend, this seemed like a good thing. However, clicking the link in the post that should have taken me to the videos instead sent me to the Google Sites login page (which makes sense, they probably use Sites for these kind of pages).Google official blogs do not have comments so I can't post this request to fix the the problem directly but the blogs do have a posts that link.http://billsaysthis.com/2008_06_01_blog_archive.phtml#3809308978655571340 Home owning: Phew! Inspections complete- June 17, 2008 To say we had a little trouble with the Mountain View Building Department would be an understatement. Most knowledgeable folks I spoke with couldn't understand why we needed to take out any permits, much less two. (Late in the game we had to get a third, for the new furnace, though that does seem justified).Fortunately we had good people working for us and so when the inspector came out this morning he signed off on all three.The disconnect stems from the fact that all the work we did was to...http://billsaysthis.com/2008_06_01_blog_archive.phtml#6042469808262635977 Hosers Return!- June 17, 2008 Wow, it sure has been a long time eh The CBC and Fox are partnering to bring back Bob and Doug Mackenzie in animated form 25 years after their movie Strange Brew bombed. Good thing since neither Dave Thomas nor Rick Moranis are young enough to do the brothers justice.One surely hopes the two comics can still bring the heat, er, ice cold Molson.http://billsaysthis.com/2008_06_01_blog_archive.phtml#1608833764485511705 Home owning: Friday the 13th strikes- June 13, 2008 What a surprise! Our lovely new appliances arrived nice and early this morning and the wonderful, simply wonderful, past construction here raised yet another unbelievable annoyance: the cabinets next to where the refrigerator goes are not installed correctly so the fridge doesn't fit.I'm talking to a Home Depot associate right now to see what can be done. A swap for the next size smaller We'll see.Later: These guys treated me right. Though they apparently had no obligation to help me since the..http://billsaysthis.com/2008_06_01_blog_archive.phtml#3744434400240573756 Home owning: When this work is done...- June 12, 2008 Well, when all the work is done, and the finish line seems fairly close as we're mainly into closing up walls and ceilings, the new homestead will be really nice. The new flooring is complete, the roofer did his work days ago, the plumbing and electrical is nearly finished and the handy man is moving at good pace.The movers did their work today and I can comfortably recommend Partner Moving as this is the second time we've used them. Less than $600, including everything except tip, to move a...http://billsaysthis.com/2008_06_01_blog_archive.phtml#4069451630099288608 House shopping: Yeah, we got the house- June 10, 2008 The closing was six days late and let's just say there's very little plumbing present now that was there two weeks ago, but we're really excited and packing fast because Thursday is moving day.The contractors have been pretty good so far. Not cheap but the work looks good. All of them worked over the weekend too, to help us meet the schedule. I'll know for sure in a month but I'd probably giver referrals for each one (plumbing, electrical, roofing, flooring and general purpose work).One...http://billsaysthis.com/2008_06_01_blog_archive.phtml#8187095548556249036 Speaking of Soccer: USA Friendlies- June 10, 2008 I also saw the US national team's three recent matches away to England and Spain and home (sort of) to Argentina. The boys got better over the week, allowing one less goal each time, though the offense never clicked enough to, as ESPN's Tommy Smith repeats endlessly, bulge the old onion bag.We clearly missed Landon Donovan's creativity on attack the first two outings, obvious to a blind man once he showed up against the South Americans, though against Spain Freddie Adu showed why Benfica paid...http://billsaysthis.com/2008_06_01_blog_archive.phtml#6862876306784294940 |