Monday, September 14, 2015

Buy A Nun A Book Day... Bumped as a Reminder!

...is approaching.  I'm consulting my nunnish sources, but all the evidence points to Real Soon - September 17.  Once again, I will be sending books to the good sisters who taught me in my callow youth.

I won't have time to consult this year (my bad), but I'm sure I can find a few books that might interest them!


It's a nice way to say "Thanks"!

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Adjuncting

Doonebury pretty much nails it:



deVry in Long Beach was actually civilized.  But I discovered that, here in Eastern Pa, we seem to be considered as interchangeable parts. Plus, the students are more 'problematic'.

I don't really miss it. Which I find sad, because it used to be the most fun I could have with my clothes on.



Saturday, September 5, 2015

Annoyance

So, the appliance dealer seemingly couldn't get a replacement door for my fridge, so he offered me $100.00 to close the 'ticket'. I accepted, and with that money, ordered a new motherboard, CPU and memory for the 'media' computer.  Amazon did their usualy spiffy job of getting it to me, it was here when I got home from work last night.  Just for fun, I thought I'd install the memory, CPU and heat sink last night. I didn't feel up to the challenge of doing the whole job, so I thought I'd gut the case and install the new guts today.

Or, not.

The heat sink attachment set up is a new one to me. Instead of the old spring loaded clamp mchanism, this one has two spring loaded hollow pins that fit through two attach points on the heat sink, then snap into the motherboard. They're held in place by a second pin that gets pushed through the first pin to anchor it.

So, no new media computer today. I pinged AMD (the CPU manufacturer), to get a kit sent out, and let Amazon know that the order was missing a part. I received a reply from AMD saying they had opened a trouble ticket.
 This is an automatically generated email, please do not reply.
Dear Customer,
Thank you for contacting AMD Global Customer Care.
We have created a Customer Care Support account based on the details you submitted with your service request.
A separate email containing your service request reference number will follow.
Thank you for choosing AMD!
Best regards,
AMD Global Customer Care

This is an automatically generated email, please do not reply.
Dear Customer,
Your Service Request has been received and will be processed shortly.  Depending on the nature of your inquiry, further automated messages with additional instructions might follow.
Service Request: {ticketno:[xxxx4114]}
We thank you for your patience.
Best regards,
AMD Global Customer Care
 We shall see...

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Hometown Movies



Stumbled across this list in Timeout: Los Angeles called "Los Angeles movies: 50 films that best capture the essence of LA". While it didn't cause me to be homesick, it did renew my interest in having my own "L.A. Movie Marathon".

The list covers films from the 1940's up through2011, covering a broad range of directors, actors, and topics, from "The Big Sleep" to "L.A. Story", "Chinatown" to "Them!". If you are film junkie, it's a good quick read. Where ever possible, it has links stream and/or purchase the film.

My daughter and I bounced some emails back and forth about the list, and the aforementioned marathon. I told her I would put together a list of films that I have that would be covered under the umbrella of an L.A. Movie Marathon.  I just now finished the list, and voila':
2 Days in the Valley
Be Cool
Bewitched
The Big Sleep
Blade Runner
Buckaroo Banzai
Confidence
Contantine
Get Shorty
Heat
The Holiday
into the night (Yes, the title *is* lower case )
Disney's The Kid
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
L.A. Confidential
L.A. Story
The Player
Real Genius
Sunset
Salton Sea
Tequila Sunrise
(Italics == listed in the article)
Need to add Chinatown, The Big Lebowski, The Long Goodbye, To Live and Die in L.A., and maybe Repo Man, The Limey, L.A. Plays Itself, and Less Than Zero