My view of the world

This is from PC World:
Charles Gerba, an environmental microbiologist and professor at the University of Arizona, has studied germs in the workplace and produced a series of entertaining and scary findings, such as the fact there are more germs on a typical ATM than there are on a public restroom door. Gerba has ranked telephones, keyboards, mouses and fax machines as the germiest objects in offices.

“We have jumped to the Electronic Age without bringing hygiene with us — that’s what has happened,” he said. “You learn a lot about people’s habits by turning their computer equipment upside down. It’s amazing. I can see what they’ve been eating for the last year.”

Another thing Gerba said he has found is that women typically have more germs on their keyboards and work surfaces than men do. That’s because women “tend to eat more at their desk,” he said, adding that female workers are two times more likely than their male counterparts to eat over their keyboards. But, he was quick to add, women also tend to be healthier eaters.

It looks to me, like a man’s keyboard may have bread crumbs in it but a woman’s keyboard will have pieces of apple and fruit juice.

Picture from Reuters.
Phone credit low? Africans go for “beeping” - Yahoo News

This is a cute trick that is being used all over Africa.
You call someone. and before they answer you hang up, they then see you on their list of missed calls and call you back, using their minutes.
This sounds great if you’re using prepaid minutes.

I purchased three bags of Ruffles originals in the last month.
Out of the three I got maybe 2 dozen unbroken chips.
Two came from Walmart and one came from Albertson’s. The reason they call them potato chips is because all you will get out of a bag is chips.
I remember them being a bit thicker, and able to be used for what they were intended, –dip.
Am I mistaken, or were these the chips of the old super scooper or dainty dipper ads?

The bags of Ruffles Originals contained chips that were so thin you could almost read through them, and the last bag had exactly 0 intact chips.

Lays, the company that owns the Ruffles brand, also makes the Lays wavy chips. These chips actually function as chips for dip, and not just as crumbs to be served with some young unfortunate’s lunch.

The problem is not the chips, the problem is what is represented here. If you can shave one ten thousandth of an inch off every potato chip you can save millions every year.
How many places have we seen some large corporation saving one tenth of one percent?
The cost of doing business is so great and the competition is so fierce that none of these companies will hesitate to cut corners.
Walmart forces it’s distributors to move to China all the while claiming to be a US company.

The truth is that it’s all about the Benjamins.
And nobody cares if you’re happy of not… just as long as you buy their product.

Some friends invited me out to dinner at the Melting Pot on S. Eastern near the 215.

The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant which is tucked away in a shopping center just north of the freeway.
The center is pretty much hidden by one of the power company facilities, and nearly one car in three, that passed by on Eastern, was being driven by someone using their cell phone while craning their necks to see where they were going.

Much to our surprise, on a Wednesday evening we found that we needed reservations.
Who would have thought that fondue was in that much demand.

I’m told that the fondue is nothing at all like the stuff I used to make at home.
I’d like to try it sometime. We’ll just have to remember to make reservations.

This evening we were forced to settle for Fellini’s in Sam’s Town. –What a shame.

I had the orange roughy with an apricot sauce, and a piece of three layer chocolate mousse cake for desert.
The apricot sauce was sweet without being overpowering, and balanced the crust on the generous piece roughy nicely.
The cake with it’s combination of white, light, and dark chocolates was excellent, but not overbearing like so many chocolate deserts. I do however suggest a cup of coffee to go with it.

It’s good to go someplace special once in a while.

O.J. Simpson arrested in Vegas robbery - Yahoo News
OJ says he hasn’t had much luck with the police since his wife was killed, back in ‘94.
How many times has he had to deal with the police since his trial?
And why would he think that Metro wouldn’t mind if he robbed someone at gun point.
I know they didn’t seem to want to arrest him. But when you publicly cop to a felony, aren’t you kind of forcing the issue.

OJ implicated in robbery.
LAS VEGAS, Sept. 14 — O.J. Simpson, the former football star who was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife, was under investigation Friday in what the police said might have been an armed robbery of sports memorabilia from a room at the Palace Station Hotel-Casino here.

Mr. Simpson denied that any crime had taken place. Instead, he told The Associated Press, he and some people he had met at a cocktail party staged a “sting operation” on Thursday night intended to retrieve memorabilia, including Mr. Simpson’s Hall of Fame certificate, from a dealer he said had stolen it.

First; If it was a sting, why did someone bring a gun?
Second; If this stuff was stolen, why didn’t he just locate it and call the police?
And lastly; If he admitted he was involved in an armed robbery, why didn’t the cops put him in jail?

Never mind. These guys went to a hotel room with a gun and took some property, but it only might have been an armed robbery……????

If your rich and famous, you don’t go to jail until the cops and the DA run out of ways to set you free. –Especially in Vegas.

Just a couple of fast notes on Oblivion:
I saw another dragonfly, (nicely done) and a bird, while following the forlorn watchman, unfortunately there’s no provision for shooting down the bird –yet.

When I went out to the island to rescue that Loche character, the battle between him and the orc came out a bit differently than scripted.
The little guy won.
I still got the standing over the body message, but I couldn’t move, because there’s no provision for an alternative ending.
I went back to the autosave and went through the door again, this time it ended normally and I got to finish the quest.

I installed the Ravenpride quest and found that the npcs get stuck, leaving you unable to move because the storyline requires the you talk to them before proceeding. So save often and don’t get too far ahead.

I highly recommend the English translation of the Bravil, Blood and Mud quest.
The textures are a mixture of the old and some brand new ones.
The new npcs have accents and attitudes.
The additional quests are puzzles, so the slash and slay players won’t like them.
Listen to what the npcs have to say, because the subtitles are not always complete.
The town now has a whorehouse and one independent girl, with some mildly adult dialog.
It also has a tavern that’s a good old fashions dive. —-And so on.

I just loaded Morrowind along with Tribunal and Bloodmoon.
After playing for a few minutes I adapted to the different interface and got over the incredibly crude graphics.
The basic characters don’t have much spoken dialog, but when they call you names it seems heartfelt. Unfortunately the dialog variations are very limited.
All in all the game feels like Might and Magic and the ilk. Slow, clunky and awkward, there were other games out at about the same time that did a better job on the graphics.

I have decided that Morrowind, with it’s forced exploration, was built to be played, and Oblivion, with it’s fast travel to any location you’ve ever been to, and fast travel to any city whether you’ve been there or not, it’s show everything map, and it’s “they went that-away” pointer, was built to be watched.

My advice is, if you’ve played Oblivion, don’t attempt to play Morrowind.
The awkward interface, it’s bad graphics, and pathetic terrain will drive you nuts.

In Oblivion. if you haven’t done it yet. Press the tilde then type tgm and hit enter, hit the tilde again, This puts you in god mode and you can explore all those places that got you killed before.
You also need to get the open very hard lock addon because the spell doesn’t seem to exist in the off the shelf game.
Now you can enjoy the movie.

Somebody sent me this with the comment “enough is enough.”

I restarted Oblivion, loaded Oscuro, and several other mods, including several houses I found.
I also loaded Shivering Isles, Knights of the Nine and whatever else came on the knights cd.

This time around, I was high in the mountains when I saw what appeared to be a bird in the distance and at Silorn I saw a dragonfly.
These are a good sign, if only so there are some birds to account for all the chirping.
In lost boy cave I saw two of the ghost warriors sleeping.
I also noticed that the liche ignores you and you can’t kill it, but I read that if you’re at least level 23, you can kill it and release the two souls.

If you have completed the knights of the Nine and you have any infamy at all you get the “I used to think you were….” greeting.
If you repeat you penance by going to each of the wayshrines again your infamy will be erased and everyone will like you.
In fact I had a damn sheep following me around, and a wolf just stood there and wagged his tail, a fireball cured that.

—————————
I installed the Frostcrag Spire mod, and after completing the mini quest it’s kind of cool, but you need to buy the candles when you are buying every thing else for your new home.
I think there’s a way to release the apprentice, or whatever he was, that now a golem, but I don’t care, so I haven’t bothered to figure it out.

In Deepscorn Hollow, there is the world’s most inept companion. I’ve sent him out to “kill in the name of Sithis” three time and he’s failed all three times.
The next time I’m down that way I’m going to find out if he can be killed.

Aranmathi is well done, but every time I go through the throne room I have to kill 2 or 3 people.

—————–
The whorehouse mod for the Imperial City has too many bugs for me to use it.

Oscuro’s mod sets the thieves guild to high, so you will very quickly come to a point where you will need to fence something like 50,000 to get the next big contract, this will make for a very long quest.