Diving right back in where I left off yesterday, let me just say that I really, really, really hate Microsoft.
There was recently an enormous update released for windows XP, I just tried to find it through their website and I honestly don’t know which one it was. I have the new computer set to automatically search for and install windows security patches, perhaps it was one of those. Anyway, I can no longer open .shtml files with internet explorer. Or, more accurately, I can no longer open them on my local machine with internet explorer, while I can still open the same file from a website with it. The reason that this irritates me is twofold. The first reason is that I liked to check my linkage before I uploaded a recently written page, the second is that it had always worked before the most recent security update. I just hate it when you fix one thing and break something else in the process.
I have tried all that I can think of to try to circumvent the problem, no go. I simply have to use the MSN service for the purposes of testing my coding now. It is not really that much of a hassle, yet somehow I find that it really pisses me off. At least that was how I was feeling when I started to type this late last night, through some experimentation I was able to make Internet Explorer open the files, though it will first open it as a text file, then if I refresh it a couple of times it will show the actual html page. Is that really supposed to happen? Am I just an idiot? If you know how to fix this, send the answer here.
• Monday night the wife and I went to check out my Brother-in-law’s new apartment. I will say this, it is a very clean little place…Emphasis should be placed on that word little. Of course he is only twenty, and I can remember some of the dives that I lived in at that age so I guess he is doing better than I did at that stage. Living on your own for the first time is a very liberating thing, so much so that I believe we all go into the process with some of those ‘rose colored glasses’ on. Not to mention that the whole place is now yours, while living at home you just got the one room. I am pretty proud of him for actually getting his own place so quickly after getting a decent job, I only hope that he is constantly looking to improve those accomodations, while still staying within his means, of course. I remember the little apartment that I moved into shortly after I turned 21, no one ever wanted to visit me there, it was just too small to comfortably fit more than a couple of people, but it is those little places that start us all on the journey into eventual home ownership.
• We were going to have dinner, and lacking any solid ideas of what anyone wanted we ended up at IHOP. I was initially thinking about trying out their chili cheeseburger, but since the wife was having a breakfast for dinner, and since I really do enjoy the staples of breakfast food (even though I never eat breakfast) I figured I would go with an omelette instead. The particular omelette that I ordered was called a “Tex-Mex”, and, strangely, is not shown on the menu at the website.
I chose that particular omelette since it had both chili and cheese, the two major driving factors in my initial chili cheeseburger selection. Here is the thing, it just didn’t seem to reach my plate quite the way it was described in the menu. The menu said it was “a fluffy 3 egg omelette with a zesty blend of chili, cheese and jalapenos.” That was more or less true; it did have all of those ingredients. Yet, in the preparation it seemed to lose some of the description. There was not really a ‘blend’ of anything. There were a total of (I would guess) roughly six large, sliced jalapenos in the omelette, as well as a little bit of cheese. On top there was a scoop of chili. It was actually pretty tasty, but I was assuming that the ingredients would all be placed together and put inside the omelette, isn’t that what an omelette is? Also, had there been some chili inside the omelette there would have been less room for the jalapenos.
I have no problems with the peppers. When the wife or mother-in-law make salsa they will intentionally try to find the hottest types of chilis that they can to try to make me cower. The best they can ever get out of me is a bit of a runny nose while eating it, but still wanting more all the same. That is regarding fresh peppers though. The jalapenos from the IHOP were pretty clearly canned, and in vinegar no less. If there is one thing that I really can’t stand it is the taste of vinegar. I can eat jalapenos all day long, but when they throw in a single ‘pickled pepper’ I have to have some other flavor to take away the nasty vinegar taste, which I had some pancakes for at the IHOP so that was fortunate.
I have seen those little diagrams showing the human tongue, the type that show that certain parts of the tongue can taste sweet, while others taste sour. I think the whole tongue can taste hot (like pepper hot, not temperature), but the part of the tongue that tastes sour seems to rule over every other part of the tongue. Don’t think that is true? Try eating a raw jalapeno, remember the heat, then try eating a pickled jalapeno. I don’t like the sour taste, while I really do enjoy really hot peppers. When you pickle a pepper you are just destroying a perfectly good, very toasty little pepper. That is no way for a pepper to end! The goal of the pepper is to make you breathe fire now, and really regret it tomorrow. Pickled peppers don’t do either of those things. Though there may be times that they do make you regret not just ordering the damn chili cheeseburger.
• Yesterday’s post actually resulted in an email. What is unusual about this (beyond the fact that that meant that someone actually read it) was that this email was asking for my opinion on the expiration of the ban on ‘assault weapons’ (which I could not find a really good news story on, but I am crutched by a dial-up connection and impatience, so knock yourself out).
First of all, the email came from someone that I do not know and who had never emailed me before. I sent that person a pretty lengthy email explaining my exact position on the subject. It is certainly a struggling little site that will send longer emails to readers than the posts that are put up in the first place, and that is me. While I am not going to quote any of either his email to me, or mine to him, I do want to touch on this subject for but a single reason. I am both for and against it.
In my senior year of high school this issue started to hit the news. Whether or not the weapons that they were calling ‘assault weapons’ were actually assault weapons, whether they should be banned, all of that sort of garbage. While in Government class the assignment came that we would break into pairs to debate the issue (one person debates for, one against, in each pair. We were given one day to prepare our arguments). There were an odd number of students in my class, but they were so evenly split on the issue that I volunteered to debate for the issue (which was my first choice) then to debate against the issue with the odd man out. The debates would be decided by a vote from the rest of the class, supposedly based solely on how convincing the arguments had been.
I was not exactly the most popular kid in high school, lots of the people in this particular class especially, didn’t like me a whole lot, but I was pretty confident that I could debate it both ways. This was in Oregon, after all, every living being (at least the male ones) in the state of Oregon really think that they should be able to have whatever guns they want for whatever reason they want them. In fact every single argument against the banning of the assault weapons was the winning one, with the exception of my opponent when I had to argue it the other way.
Having to argue for the banning of the weapons was a real stretch for me. I still believe in the U.S. Constitution enough that I know that it is our right to ‘bear arms’. I focused on the negative usages of the firearms in question to get my victory in the debate. It was not a fiery speech about the evils of guns that I used to win, it was cold, hard facts. I brought in copies of newspaper stories from the last month about gang shootings in L.A., and noted the weapon choice in each. While many of the killings were just with normal handguns, the majority of the killings of children and others that were not involved in a gang at all, were done with ‘assault weapons’. They can fire fast, but they aren’t really that accurate. Show them a few photos of dead children, who are dead because of ‘assault weapons’, and it is a pretty easy group to sway.
That all being said, I still think that it is your right to have the weapon if you want to have it. It is not like the guy who is going to spray bullets through the local day-care actually bought the gun at a store, he stole it or got it from a friend who had already used it in a murder. There are only so many of these ‘assault weapons’ that are not accounted for (at least the ones sold in the U.S.). I tried to sell a little rifle, which was mine, to a local gun store and they actually had to run the serial number on it before they would take it. These ‘assault weapons’ are easy to buy in any country other than the U.S., if we try to fool ourselves into thinking that not selling them in the U.S. is going to make safer then we are delusional.
Much like the current leadership of the Country.
Imagine my surprise when George went into his bedroom and came back with