Dysmey Post Archive > Pages for 2005 > Late April 2005 Edition
Spring is finally here. The daffodils are in bloom. The trees are in leaf. And there are rashes on my arms and a burning in my eyes. To me spring, pleasant though it is, is not kind.
Spring is kind to my speedometer, though, because it is not squealing in the morning due to the cold. That will no doubt lull me into putting off replacing it with whatever the junkyard can find. I talked with the folks at the local Ford dealer in Muncie, who tell me that the regular speedometer for the Aspire has been discontinued as of this past January. Just as well: it costs over $200, so I'd have to visit the junkyard anyway.
I have set forth a working journals listing application on the libraries' mobile Web site. And I have added a new interface to my co-worker's mobile online public access catalog. Both need further work, and quickly too, since I have only two more months to the project.
I have expanded on that site the Reference Links page, which is a list of useful sites for mobile devices; and have proposed breaking the page up, now that it has become too big.
As I said before, the warmer weather has let my speedometer behave itself, so I can move out quickly upon starting the car rather than being forced to drive slowly until the speedometer warms up. Still, I really need to replace that thing.
Ah, Fry's Electronics: "[T]he legendary computer store that fulfills every need of its techie customers by offering junk food, soft drinks, girlie magazines, and Maalox, in addition to an enormous selection of new computers and software" (Robert X. Cringely, Accidental Empires, ISBN 0887306217, p. 33). And it's opened a new store in Fishers just off I-69 on 96th Street. It opened inside a hugh building that started life as an Incredible Universe, Radio Shack's failed attempt to compete with Best Buy and CompUSA.
Fry's had its grand opening a couple of weekends ago, but only this past Friday did I pay a visit. I was truly impressed. I saw a wall full of motherboards, hard drives, and other computer parts complement the aisles full of electronic parts, radio equipment, security systems, network wiring and equipment, software of all kinds, computer books, music CDs and movie DVDs, entertainment systems (including a sound-and-vision room to try them out), electrical appliances (including a two-tier clothes dryer whose top tier air-dries clothes flat or on a hanger), complete computer systems, USB dongles and all kinds of computer media.
The only things I could not find there are superdiskettes (although there were plenty of ZIP disks, dammit) and Verbatim DataLifePlus CD-Rs (with the substrate that lets your data last for decades).
But never mind that: Fry's Electronics is almost certain to draw the techies and even the computer-literate customers away from Best Buy (most of whose stores are becoming techie-hostile) and CompUSA (which is too bad, for it's a better store).
It's been tortuous, but it looks like Indiana will get daylight time after all, probably next year and hopefully on Chicago time. The illegal amendments meant to sabotage the bill to make daylight time legal will fail.
John Paul II, of blessed memory, was a better Pope than what the Roman Catholic Church has had in a long time. Now we have a new Pope. He was the right-hand doctrine man to John Paul II. He was a pain in the neck to American Catholics, who never got along with John Paul II and about whom it is pointless to call Roman anymore. And now, to confirm his status as the most disliked bishop of American Catholicism, the new Pope has chosen the name Benedict.
There is no more political discourse in the United States. There is nothing except angry screams, name-calling, threats and crotch-scratching hoots of apes in human skin. Whether the apes are leftist or rightist is no longer relevant, since they are too stupid and inarticulate to express anything remotely rational. The political landscape is theirs, and it can only get worse. I want nothing to do with this.