Happy Halloween

This evening we went trick or treating. This was Baby's first Halloween and my 9 year old's first Halloween with baby sister. They were both witches. Baby doesn't like things on her head so it was a lot of trouble keeping her witch hat on. The stores at the local mall were giving out candy so we went there first. They took in a big haul of sweets there, then we went around our complex. The office gives all of us a Halloween flyer to put outside our door if we want to give out candy, but it seems every year that number dwindles. Darn cheapskates! It was chilly outside so Baby and Mom went home after about 20 minutes. My 9 year old and I finished off the entire complex even though she fell down once and scraped up her knee. But she was a trooper and continued on and received a lot of candy. Now I get to go through the candy and tell her she can't have any of my favorites because they're unhealthy for her. Mmmmm.

Vagina Pulled By Albertsons

Albertsons supermarket chain has pulled the October issue of Seventeen magazine off their magazine racks. Why? Because the chain says customers complained about an article titled "Vagina 101" in that issue. I wonder if those complainers picked up the magazine and looked at the article before complaining or if they just saw the title and nothing else? Also, did those customers not scan the rest of the magazine rack and see half dressed women and men and many other article titles that push the bar? I'll bet these are the same people who don't want us reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or listening to The Beatles. These stories drive me MAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!! I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob!!!

Better Late Than Never

So, Mr. Sulu is gay. I always thought there was a touch of femininity in him. It took him long enough to come out of the closet, though. But apparently he has been open about his sexuality for many years...just not with the press. Well, more power to you, George. Hmmm, now I wonder about Mr. Chekov...

Too Little Or Too Much?

A taxi driver, in Dallas Texas, was recently convicted and sentenced for two felony counts of tampering with consumer products. He admitted to taking his own feces and drying it in the sun, then grating it with a cheese grater and bagging it. He then went to a downtown grocery store and sprinkled his feces on their fresh-baked goods. He targeted this particular store because he felt he was mistreated by the store associates. Customers complained to the grocer saying the baked goods "smelled and tasted like manure". Surveillance video in the store recorded him doing this twice in July and he was eventually identified and arrested. This was a disgusting act but no one was injured or became sick. His punishment...5 years in state prison. Go figure.

Potty Patrol

Ford Motor Company posted a 3rd quarter loss of $284 million. In a move to increase productivity, supervisors at their Michigan plant recently received a memo stating that they needed to monitor the time hourly workers were spending for bathroom breaks. The union contract states that workers are allowed 48 minutes per shift for bathroom breaks. Apparently, some workers are abusing this clause and are spending more than their allotted 48 minutes in the bathroom per shift and Ford blames this for slowing down production in the factory. My god, I don't spend 48 minutes a day in the bathroom even when I'm deathly ill! I would like to know what those people are doing in the bathroom for more than 48 minutes per shift. Ummm, I changed my mind, I don't want to know.

Now, here's my take on things. First, unions are a bad thing (my opinion...everyone can have one). They insist on these crazy stipulations to the contract that eventually just screws the company. 48 minutes for bathroom breaks is ridiculous! I wonder if the contract states that the time can accrue on a weekly basis? ;-) Secondly, I don't think employees spending too much time in the bathroom is causing Ford to lose sales. If you build a quality car, people will buy it. Remember, right or wrong, my opinion. And finally, on what basis did they calculate the 48 minutes per shift bathroom break? Maybe unions aren't such a bad thing afterall.

Cancun

Beautiful white sand beaches, turquoise water, ancient history, the nightlife, and friendly people. Just some of the aspects of Cancun, Mexico that I will remember for a lifetime. My wife and I honeymooned there for a week and we had a wonderful time. So much to do and see that I felt a week was not enough time to take it all in. But with the aftermath of hurricane Wilma, most of Cancun is now in ruins. Watching the U.S. and Mexican news reports, I saw video of places we had visited or passed while there. It was kind of surreal to see our hotel deserted, a shopping mall we visited gutted, and the main boulevard we traveled daily flooded and littered with debris. Stranded tourists trying to get out, helpless locals who have lost everything, chaos and looting. I know that they will rebuild Cancun, they've done it before. I just hope all the lives affected by the hurricane can bounce back as easily.

Rosa Parks

Almost 50 years ago, a 42 year old black woman in Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. Her defiance of the Jim Crow law, aka racial discrimination, ultimately led to the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act. Although she was not the first black person to defy this segregating law, she will always be remembered as the first to challenge it and so becoming an inspiration to many Americans, black and white. Rest in peace, Rosa Parks.

Brand A or Brand B?

Baby is starting to eat solids. She has progressed passed rice cereal to food with tiny pieces of stuff in them. She only has 4 teeth so I get nervous whenever she eats this food. I was in the drug store today and saw some tiny cereal nugget things that are supposed to melt in the mouth. It's supposed to be easy for Baby to chew with her gums. I still get nervous, though. I guess Baby knows that it's food because she'll put one in her mouth and eat it. But then again she tries to put everything she can get her hands on into her mouth. But here's my point. If you take a walk down the baby food aisle nowadays, there is so much stuff there that it will make your head spin. "Helps brain development", "Contains more nutrition than brand A", "Excellent source of iron and zinc". Everything says it's the best thing for your baby and it just gets confusing. I don't think there were this many options when I was a baby but I turned out relatively fine. I think.

Cheers

Went to a 50th wedding anniversary party last night. There was easily 400 people in attendance. Lots of music, dancing, drinking, and fun. I took the picture with my phone and it shows part of the dance floor. Cheers to the couple who still seem to be happily married and many more years of health and togetherness for them. My only regret at this moment is that I took bowling instead of one of those dance classes in college as an elective.

Is It Here Yet?

It has been too warm here lately. Temperatures cooled down last week to about the upper 70s for highs and lows in the mid 50s but now the temperatures are on the rise. Mother Nature is teasing me. It's the fall season and I want cooler temperatures. When is winter coming? I want snow! I want it to be cold! I like this photo I took when I first got my digital camera. I look at it now and remember how still it was outside, how quite it was, and how cold it was. So peaceful and tranquil. Oh well, there's supposed to be a weak cold front moving in tomorrow and maybe that will help cool things off a little. But no snow, though. :-(

No Matches Allowed

I recently took a flight from here to there and was reminded when I was checking in luggage that lighters (of all types) have been banned from being carried onto planes and stored in your checked luggage. This was something that should have happened at the same time they banned all those sharp objects from planes. But you can still carry matches onto a plane. Only the soft kind though. Those "strike anywhere" matches are prohibited. Really, what the heck is the difference? They both require striking the match to ignite. Or can the "strike anywhere" matches spontaneously combust under the right conditions? It would make more sense to me if ALL matches were prohibited but I'm not an expert. At least I can rest easy knowing that the DHS has everything under control and knows what's best.

Gill Man Returns

Finally! I've been griping for so long about why no one has done a remake of the classic movie "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" in these times of remake after remake. I would have preferred someone like Spielberg or even Carpenter to do this but I shouldn't complain. This new movie has the potential to be really scary if they do it correctly. Maybe they could even cast Angelina Jolie as the creature's love interest. :-p Now, if someone would only do a remake of "The Day of the Triffids".

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001348394

Yuck

Anyone who knows me is aware that I don't like bugs. The people I work with are aware of this but they always seem to get me involved whenever something out of the ordinary wanders into the office. This morning, something was trapped in the overhead lights in one of the offices. When maintenance opened the fixture, out pops a centipede. It was around six inches long, one inch wide, brown, pincers on the end, and not friendly. They trapped it in a box and had to show everyone in the office their prize catch. The Man told them to take it outside and kill it, which they did. Later, he comes to me in an excited state and asks me to go outside with him. I reluctantly follow and he takes me to where the maintenance guys killed the centipede. The guys squished the bug's head and it had become detached from the body. But the body kept crawling around in circles. I wasn't thrilled about seeing this but obviously, the Man was. Throughout the morning he kept popping into my office giving me updates about the headless body crawling around. Alas, after about two hours, he informed me that the body had finally stopped moving. Too bad! I'm going to have nightmares for the next week.

Squid On A Stick, Anyone?

Yes, I am intrigued by the unknown. Such things as Big Foot, the Lochness Monster, aliens, and haunted places are just a few of the subjects that spark my imagination. Even though some subjects like crop circles and alien abductions have been explained away as hoaxes, they still linger in the back of my mind. I've spent many hours watching The Discovery Channel specials that dealt with such things as Nessie and the giant squid. Which brings me to my point. We've known that giant squid existed because of their carcasses washing ashore or floating in the ocean and ending up in fish nets. But now that Japanese scientists have photographed one alive and hunting, my imagination is running wild with the prospects of what else is down there...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0927_050927_giant_squid.html

Ouch!

My wife and I were coming out of Walmart this evening and we were behind another couple. As we came out of the automatic doors, a not-so-unattractive blonde woman walked in through the out door (In Through the Out Door - that would make a great album name). She was wearing a tight black blouse that left her belly showing and black stretch pants. The guy in front of us whips his head and upper body around to watch her walk into the store. All of a sudden, his wife/girlfriend hits him on his upper arm (he had on short sleeves) so hard that I'm sure the whole store heard the sound of skin hitting skin. He turns his gaze on the wife/girlfriend and she said something obscene to him but in a very low tone so no one else could hear. If looks could kill he'd be among the dead. This all happened in the time frame of just a few seconds but it was funny to see. I of course did not look at the blonde and had no interest in turning my head to see her other assets. ;-)

I Want It!

I was in Sam's Club and passed the Cingular Wireless kiosk and to my disbelief, I saw the Motorola V3 Razr Black edition for $99. My disbelief does not come because of the low price but the timing of it. When the Razr first came out at the end of 2004, they listed for $599 if you bought it from Cingular. I decided to get one in February of 2005 because I needed a new phone then. At that time, it listed for $499, and Cingular had a promotion for $100 off, and I had negotiated a $75 discount through customer (non)service.

I was impressed by the phone and it's features even though it lacked a video recorder (it's in there now if you know how to unlock that feature). But just as my 30 days were coming to an end, I was having serious buyer's remorse. I had done a really good job at rationalizing the purchase but apparently I had forgotten all of them by then. I went back to Cingular and returned the phone and got my current phone, a V551. I jokingly told the associate that by next year, they would be giving the Razr away. Besides, I had read an article that Motorola was coming out with a black Razr around 3rd quarter, which I would prefer over the silver one.

The $100 off promotion ended leaving the price at $499, then a couple of months later it was down to $399, then $299, then $199, and now $99. I'm trying to convince myself that I need to get this phone now even though I know I should wait. Maybe I'll go ask my cat and see what he thinks...

The cat said wait because the V3X comes out soon and will be a lot cooler than the V3.

Chucky's Back!!!

Chucky was on our couch last night. He didn't look very happy. I don't know how he found his way back from the trash. His clothes didn't look dirty but his hair was wild. I'm pretending that he was never thrown out and just ignoring him at the moment. Our cat seems to be keeping his distance from him, too. Maybe he will go away on his own.

My Completed Adventure In Hacking

Well, I ended up using a different program than what I originally started out with to hack my mobile phone. After installing the program on my computer, all the menus were in gibberish and that startled me a bit. But after exploring, I saw the option "English" was the only thing in English in a drop down menu so I clicked that and got English menus. This program was much easier to use seeing I only had to click a "Normal" button to change the attributes, and this program actually had all the attributes listed and what they meant. As a result, all of my previously locked ringtones are now unlocked and I was able to save them on my computer. I also used a built in script to change the display on the outside of my phone. Pretty cool. Should I go on another adventure, I probably won't blog about it unless something really, really, bad happens. :-o

Will DOOM be doomed?

DOOM is probably the first computer game that I became addicted to partly because of the great graphics (state of the art at the time), first person perspective, and plot. Who am I kidding? I liked the game because I got to run around and blast monsters with all sorts of different weapons. My personal favorite was the Plasma Rifle. Oh, and being able to join forces (co-op mode) or not (deathmatch mode) with your friends in the same game via a network or modem connection made it even more interesting. I lost many hours of sleep playing this game but it sure was a lot of fun.

On October 21, the movie will be released and I'm concerned that I will be disappointed. There have been many other games I've played turned into movies. Some of them I wasn't interested in seeing (Super Mario Brothers), and others were pretty good (Resident Evil, Lara Croft). I guess we'll just have to see if this movie can make me jump like the game did.

Note: I hear that DOOM III has super graphics and is really intense. I have yet to experience it.

Adventures In Hacking

I own a Motorola V551 mobile phone which I've been pretty content with. I use a program called Motorola Phone Tools to link the phone to my PC so I can upload/download pictures and ringtones, sync my address book, yadda, yadda, yadda. My problem is that all of my ringtones on this phone are locked, even the ones I created, meaning I can't transfer them to my PC. Oh, the crappy alert sounds aren't locked so I can archive those on my PC but the good ones, some of which cost money, can't be archived. That's my gripe...I want to save the good ringtones in case I should get a different Motorola phone or if I should have to do a master reset (Cingular has asked me to do that on a couple of occasions to try to fix some reception problems) and wipe out all the downloaded stuff. Well, I've been reading various forums and I've decided to try to hack into the code to unprotect the ringtones. If this goes well, then I may get bold and try to do some other things to my phone. If anyone who knows me is reading this and you try to call and don't get an answer, then you should assume something went terribly wrong. Wish me luck!

Why?

I've been asked why my blog is titled Tom's Tommyknocker Haven, and more recently, why it's called this but my profile pic has me holding a book titled Skeleton Crew. The Constant Readers out there know that The Tommyknockers is a Stephen King book and that I should have been holding that book in the pic. Although King is one of my favorite authors, I didn't want to dedicate this blog entirely on him or his works, and since you have to decide on a name for your blog during the registration process, I was just trying to be clever and resourceful in a limited amount of time. Hence, in The Tommyknockers, King quotes from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, so I used Tom, which happens to be my real name. For Tommyknocker, I'm using the literal sense of the word...elves, leprechauns, you know, the creatures that inhabit my subconscious. ;-) And I'm also using the literal sense of haven...a sanctuary or place of safety, which just happens to be the setting for The Tommyknockers. Sooo...this blog is a safe place for my thoughts. As for the book I'm holding in my pic, I just used that because it has a cool cover.

Napoleon...The Cat

This is our cat. My daughter named him so don't ask me why his name is what it is. He's around a year old now and has been a good cat for the most part. He can be affectionate when he wants to be, and he's very good at ignoring you when he want's to be alone. And he doesn't seem to aggravate my allergies so he's just that much better. Except for when he gets into/onto places he shouldn't and especially if he should break something that my wife likes. She has a lot of rules regarding the cat but I don't think he understands them or he just doesn't care.

Anyway, in the past week or so, he has started the annoying habit of begging for table scraps. He'll sit under the table and constantly meow. If you ignore him, he'll hop up onto your lap to make sure he's getting his point across. Sometimes, if we have food on the table and aren't careful, Napoleon will hop up and enjoy people food even though he knows that is right up there at the top of my wife's "Don't You Ever Do This" list. He has food and water and the occassional cat treat so I don't understand why this is starting now. I don't recall any of my friend's cats doing this.

Regardless, I think I'll keep him even if he enjoyed eating my dinner and didn't bother to thank anyone. That is if he doesn't meet the same end as Chucky did. ;-)

Google, Google, Google

My favorite search engine is...drumroll please...Google!

Surprise, surprise, surprise! Their mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" is a fair assessment, I think, of their ability to generate accurate links when I enter search criteria. They should probably pay their pidgeons more, though. But this blog isn't about their search engine. Although I use Google for internet searching, blog searching, desktop searching, toolbars, translation tools, Blogger, and email, I wanted to talk a little about a couple of their other products that I find pretty nifty and useful.

The first is Google Earth. This program allows you to "fly" to any geographical location in the world, get directions, zoom in/out, all using satellite imagery. I like the ability to have street names displayed on the imagery as well as a plethora of other stuff. My daughter and I were using it for a homework assignment and when we were done, did some sightseeing from our computer. Too cool.

The other product is Picasa, a program that manages the photos on your computer. I have a lot of pictures on my computer and this program is working better than some of the other photo managing software I've tried. Nice interface, the ability to do basic editing (I use another program for major editing), and allows you to manipulate your photos without altering the original file. You can print different layouts and sizes (wallet size...thank you so much), burn a CD, email, and even upload directly to your blog. And it's free.

So there you have it. No, I don't work for Google or own their stock. This is my own personal and honest opinion, take it or leave it.

Sonic Commericals

I'm not one to laugh outloud during a commercial (except for during the Super Bowl broadcast), but there has been one recently in this area that made me. It was a commercial for Sonic and their Cookiedough Blast. It has a man and woman in the car, and the last thing the man says to the irritated wife/girlfriend is "you look pretty". Have you seen it? I absolutely hate all the other Sonic commercials, especially the ones with the two guys in the car. The seatbelts you see them using are fake. Reminds me of those orange things the safety patrol in grade school had to wear.

Walmart - Heaven or Hell?

As much as I hate to shop at Walmart, they do have better prices on many items that I need. Plus, it's so convenient to be able to buy a head of lettuce at the same time as a newly released DVD or a bicycle, for example, and I can make my purchases at any time of the day. This leads me to believe that everyone else in town finds this convenient also and shops there just like me.

What irks me though is that there is so much traffic inside and outside the store that what should only take 10 or 15 minutes turns into a time wasting hell. It bothers me that Walmart has like 30 or 40 registers but only10 are open. And I don't think 20 items or less qualifies as an express lane. The self checkout lanes are bad because most people seem to have lots of problems operating them or they just don't work. I once bought some beer, and nothing else, and went through the self checkout lane and waited at least 5 minutes for someone to verify that I was of legal age! They should post signs in the lines with average wait times like at amusement parks. BTW, I tried shopping after midnight once thinking there would be less people. Wrong!!! Seems there were hundreds of other people thinking the same thing. And Walmart only had 5 registers open at that time. Then, when you're walking out, how many times have you set off the security system and have an associate delay you even more by checking your receipt and contents of your cart or bag?! That embarrassing process is the icing on the cake after you've spent 20 minutes waiting in line behind someone who has sales circulars from 5 different grocery stores and wants to take advantage of Walmart's price matching. Geesh.

So the point of all this babble is this true story. My friend Jim went into our local Walmart and bought a couple of hardware items. It took 30 minutes to checkout through the express lane and as he's walking out, he sets off the security system. He continues to walk out the door and is chased down by a Walmart associate. Here is a paraphrased transcript:

• Associate: Sir, Sir, I have to check your bag.
• Jim: Why? Did you see me steal something?
• Associate: No, but you set off our security system.
• Jim: Alright, but how much are you going to pay me for my time? I'm being held against my will and you don't have any proof that I've shoplifted anything.
• Associate: What?
• Jim: Time is money and the clock is ticking.
• Associate: What?
• Jim: Let me see your manager.

Once the manager gets there, Jim explains that he's wasted enough time waiting in line and he doesn't need any more B.S. by having to be searched just because the security system went off. It could have been triggered by the other person walking next to him without a bag. Jim walked out of the store with a $50 gift card.

Since he's told me this story, I've just been waiting for that darned security system to go off while I'm walking out...but it hasn't.

Baby and Chucky

I've been convinced to blog this story. A while back while roaming the mall, my wife and I came across a little Chucky doll. It depicted the Evil Chucky, I think from Bride of Chucky...not the nice Good Guy Chucky. We bought it as a joke, but to make a long story short, our baby girl (now 9.75 months old) became attached to this ugly looking thing. She would hug it, carry it around, babble to it, but not sleep with it because the line was drawn there by my wife. I think Baby would even greet Christopher Walken with open arms and a smile. ;-) Anyway, I found this amusing, my wife did not, and I'm sure Baby's little Mr. Bear was heartbroken for being replaced by this unsightly monster. Well, one evening, I noticed Baby didn't have her new friend with her and asked my wife where it was. She explained that she had put Chucky in the trash because she didn't want friends or neighbors to think that our baby was creepy or something along that line. I didn't get upset and quickly got over Chucky being disposed of. I just hope he doesn't find his way back. Baby has gotten over the sudden disappearance of him and has since returned to giving affection to Mr. Bear and her new Elmo.

Thoughts On Blogging

I really hate HTML.

Blogging is new to me but since my friends all seem to have a blog, I thought I should probably jump on the band wagon and get one too (not that I'm a conformist or anything). I don't know what I will be blogging about or how often, but I guess that's not important because who's really going to read this anyway?

So begins my journey into the New World...

Hey, did I mention that I really, really, hate HTML?