Back in August I wrote about working on a co-worker’s home computer that was attacked by viruses and Trojans. At the time I wasn’t able to really fix it, just make things a little better. After a few months the computer became so busy running all of its viruses and processes that it ceased functioning and you couldn’t even start any programs. I knew this time that rather than try and fix the computer it was time to reformat the hard drive and start over with a fresh installation.
100 Things to Do
This is another thing that Don sent me. I have been to 10 of these places (I list them at the end; 3 in the top 10) and have seen two more in person but not been inside (Versailles, the Kremlin). Sadly I never went to The Temple of the Emerald Buddah while I was in Thailand and when I was in Beijing I decided to sleep in instead of going with my friends to The Forbidden City that day.
Here are the Top 100 “wonders”, but Don called this his Ultimate To Do list. He has been to 15 of these.
1 Pyramids of Egypt
2 Great Wall of China
3 Taj Mahal – India
4 Serengeti Migration – Kenya/Tanzania
5 Galapagos Islands – Ecuador
6 Grand Canyon – USA
7 Machu Picchu – Peru
8 Iguazu Falls – Argentina & Brazil
9 Bali – Indonesia
10 Amazon Rain Forest – Brazil & Peru
Straight Dope
One of my Peace Corps buddies, Don, who still lives in Thailand sends me e-mails. Apparently he is on a mailing list with straightdope.com because a lot of the things are articles from there. One interesting one lately was about refrigerator doors. I’ve always heard how important it is to take them off when you throw a refrigerator away, but never could figure out why they would be so dangerous. This points out that old timey refrigerators had latches that held them shut from the outside. With any refrigerator made in the last 40 years the doors aren’t a problem though you still hear about how dangerous the doors are. There are all kinds of things like that at Straight Dope.
Shopping with Susan
Today Susan and I had a lot to do. First we were going to Rhodes Furniture to pick up a new chest of drawers I had ordered from them (to replace the blue one that Grant and I used when we lived in the Silvastone basement). Then we were going to Fernbank to see the frogs exhibit (I would still like to take Kelly and Claire when they get a chance) where Susan found some things to buy at the gift shop. Then we were going up to Gwinnett Place to visit Honda and Toyota dealers and test drive some cars Susan was thinking about getting.
The Oscars
I thought the Oscars were pretty good, but I made good use of my DVR to fast forward over most of the slow spots. The songs didn’t seem that good. It’s a pathetic year when you have to pick two foreign movies to come up with five decent songs. I don’t see why they couldn’t get the original singers. Certainly Antonio Banderas didn’t sing that song in the movie and I know Beyonce couldn’t have been booked for three movie songs. If you’re not going to have the original singers do their songs, then what’s the point?