Month: October 2005

Old Jack was sitting like this in a pile of curbside trash Friday afternoon in the ‘hood. Frankly, I can’t see why Jack was put out with the garbage. He looks perfectly frightening. Isn’t that the function of a Jack-O-Lantern? Perfection. It’s a curse I tell you.

My 50th birthday ended up being rather low key yesterday for reasons beyond my control. But that’s okay. My friend took me out to dinner and we enjoyed way too much seafood. We decided kind of spur-of-the-moment, relatively speaking, that we would go to Austin today for the Texas Book Festival and Halloween on 6th Street tonight. It sounds like a pretty full day provided we take off for Austin — about a four-hour drive — at the time we said we would shoot for which is about 9 a.m.

I’ll take my camera and we will see what develops. Oh. That’s kind of a bad pun isn’t it? Darn. Happy Halloweenie!

Well, obviously I only got half of my wish. The Astros won the National League. They could have won the World Series. But they didn’t. I’m just amazed they went as far as they did considering the dismal first half of the season. So, yeah I’m proud of them and what they accomplished. A half a wish is better than none at all.

Yahoo’s Pop-Up Blocker on its toolbar told me how to make those annoying spyware messages go away. So it seems to be working for now at least.

In the meantime, I am going to be busy turning 50 tomorrow so I doubt I will do a whole lotta blogging. What am I going to do for my birthday, you may ask? Besides freaking out you mean?

No I’m not really freaking out. Not yet. One way to look at it is I will at least be turning 50 as opposed to not being here. Some of my friends didn’t make it nearly that far. And even though I may have a few creaking joints here and there, I still have some young ideas. I think I really do need to start enjoying life more though as well as doing some things I might not otherwise do. Exactly what I’m talking about, I have no clue.

As for plans tomorrow, I do have plans for tomorrow night but the details have yet to be nailed down. We shall see what we shall see.

No, I am not for torturing those who have become detainees or combatants or whatever they are calling prisoners of war this week. Heavens no! I am for torturing those who unleash spyware or adware that gets into our computers and can be quite a pain in the butt.

I have had my first encounter with spyware today and while I have a couple of scanning systems to ferret these evil bastards out, I still get a message about every 10 minutes telling me I have critical errors and need to go to such and such a Web site. And be sure to BUY their system! One might put these spyware practices into the category of both fraud and extortion. So here is what I think should happen in no particular order to those caught sending out spyware:

*Hanging by the thumbs
*Keel-hauling
*Water boarding
*Placed in stocks
*Listening to amplified screams of babies
*Cut by paper
*Horsewhipped
*Stoned
*Buried in the ground to their chin
*Made to listen to “Feelings”
*Gassed with cow flatulence
*Shocked with AA batteries
*Shot with pellets containing fire ants

And when they finish with THAT person, he or she ought to go to the slammer for a long, long time.

It’s been a rough day. I’ve dealt with computer issues all day as well as retail idiots. Hmm. Retail idiots? Think about that one. So have a little fun, look and listen about what it’s like in our favorite action hero/California governor’s neighborhood.

Click here

Thanks to Huff Po for that one.