And the new PSC-W7 era begins … with a photo of Tommy napping on Scott’s chair. How original.
I Must Be Getting Old
They say getting older makes you more conservative. Maybe it’s true, because when I read this over at AmericaBlog, my reaction wasn’t quite the same as John’s:
Anyone who thought this “traditional family values” garbage was only focusing on gays, well, get ready because you’re next.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Olivia Shelltrack finally has her dream home. Her family moved into the five-bedroom, three-bath frame house in Black Jack last month. But now she fears she and her fiance face uprooting their children because of a city ordinance that says her household fails to meet Black Jack’s definition of a family.
Shelltrack and Fondray Loving, her boyfriend of 13 years, were denied an occupancy permit because of an ordinance forbidding three or more individuals from living together if they are not related by “blood, marriage or adoption.” The couple have three children, ages 8, 10 and 15, although Loving is not the biological father of the oldest child.
Here’s what I simply don’t understand. They’ve been together 13 years. The have kids together. They own a home together. Why on earth don’t they just get married and be done with it?
I know, I know, they’re entitled to organized their lives the way they choose to organize them, and it’s more than a little stupid for the town to pass an ordiance like that. But really, would it kill them to just go to city hall and get the piece of paper? Especially since there are so many financial and legal benefits to being married. It’s not like being married is a Bad Thing.
Like I said, maybe I’m just too old to get it. But I don’t see what is so horribly wrong about getting married.
*sigh* Between this post, the Mark Morford thing, and my post about David Irving the week before that, I’ll probably get kicked off a few progressive blogrolls for showing DINO tendencies. I’m sorry, truly, if I’ve upset any readers. All I can say is, this is who I am; if I’m not quite as far Left as you thought, I’m sorry. I do think Joe Lieberman is a dork – does that help?
Today Was a Good Day
My sister called from Italy, my parents called from somewhere in the Carribean, and I got e-mails from a bunch of friends. I had sushi for lunch, Scott took me out to a great dinner, and even the weather was nice.
There’s two presents waiting for me in the apartment manager’s office, and I’ll pick them up tomorrow.
The older I get, the less I like my birthday, but this one was pretty damn nice. The only thing that would have made it better would have been more of my friends and family here with me.
Oh, and here’s a link to a nice story about cats.
The Last P30 Shot?
My new Sony digicam is on the UPS truck and will hopefully show up on my doorstep today. This may be the last shot I take with the Sony P30 I’ve had for some 5 years. It’s been a nice camera, but 1.3 megapixels just doesn’t cut it anymore.
On Vista
I started writing this yesterday but the power outage (now thankfully resolved) sidetracked me.
Recent IM conversation with Scott:
Me: Microsoft announced six different versions for Vista. What a support nightmare that’s going to be.
Scott: yep
Me: I’m going to stay the hell away from Vista for at least 12 months after it’s releases. You, OTOH, will upgrade to it as soon as you possibly can
Scott: You got it. Probably on my new $4000 dream computer.
Me: *shudders*
I’m the kind of Windows user Microsoft probably hates: I just want my OS to run the applications I choose to install on it, and to stay the hell out of my way the rest of the time. I don’t need a high-end desktop searching feature — I know where my personal data is and how to find what I’m looking for. I don’t want fancy 3-D versions of the alt-tab app switcher or funky integrated media capabilities. I have iTunes, an iPod, and a very nice TV and TiVo in my living room for that. I just might end up with the lowest-level version of Vista just so that I don’t have to deal with all the add-on crap the other versions will include.
Buying the low-end version of an OS kind of goes against my grain, since I more or less consider myself to be a power user. But in this case, I suspect I’ll be much happier without all the bells and whistles.
At any rate, I am quite serious about waiting at least a year post-release to upgrade (I waited a lot longer than that to go from Win2K -> XP). I have no intention of upgrading until the inevitable missed bugs, security issues, and driver problems all get resolved. Let some other schmuck do the sweating and swearing; I am not going to waste my time dealing with Microsoft’s mess for them.
And The Fun Never Stops!
There’s a nasty storm blowing through the Bay Area today. At first the reports had it that the worst impact would be up by Napa, where flooding is always a problem with heavy rains. But no, instead we got nailed with a bunch of power outages, including one Chez Lux.
As I was driving back home from work I saw some flashes of lightning and hear reports of a few small outages, but didn’t think much of it until I pulled off Highway 92 onto El Camino Real and BLAM! out went the power. I was passing by a Safeway at the time — one moment it was all lit up, the next moment nothing but a few emergency lights. A bit shocking, but also kind of neat to watch. You don’t get a front-row seat to the show like that very often. It seemed to be a fairly localized outage, because everything was still lit up as I pulled up to my intersection, but as I was waiting to make the left turn onto my street, POOF! More blackness. Not quite so cool; we have plenty of candles & energy bars in the emergency kit (plus a propane grill), but I really wasn’t in the mood for trying to make a hot meal under the circumstances.
Instead, I drove a few more blocks until I found a parking space, called Scott, and found an open restaurant for a bite of dinner. The lights were still out when I got home, so I changed into jeans, grabbed a flashlight and my laptop, and moseyed over to Starbucks for some coffee, electricity, and Internet access.
It’s not quite the evening I thought I was going to have, but it could have been a lot worse.