The Barbeque

I didn’t write about this last weekend as Willow’s death kind of took the fun right out of me. But on July 17, I had the joy of having a big chunk of my family over at our house. Ron, Jessie, and the children; as well as Connie and Dennis were all in the lower mainland at the same time. I took the day off work and Irene and I invited folks over for a BBQ, and despite me being a bit out of sorts (my “day off work” turned out to be a “half day off work”) … I think things went pretty well.

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Why am I buying non-functional clocks?

Folks following my twitters, which appear conveniently on the left side of my web page, will possibly have noted that I mentioned buying some “broken” clocks.

I’ve won two of the “broken clock” ebay auctions I’ve bid on: I may live to regret this…

I’ve actually won five out of five auctions, achieving my objective of establishing a collection of various abused antique timepieces. Why would any sane person want broken clocks? Your first mistake is use of the word “sane” in reference to me. But I’ll try my best to explain what is going on here, since there is some logic to what I’m doing.

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Cleaning composite decks

We’ve had our composite deck for a little less than a year, and I’ve not done a lot to clean it. I’ve washed it with a mop and hosed it down a few times, but it has some “ground in” dirt that I’d like something more effective for. Of course, cleaning composite materials is different than cleaning simple wood, and I want to try to do it “right”, so I started doing some research.

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Old-style destruction- the return of MechWarrior

There was a series of games I played many years ago. In these games, I was injected into a world where giant robotic machines cut lumbering, awe-inspiring paths of destruction through cities and each other. That was the universe of BattleTech and the MechWarrior game series, and it was good.

Unfortunately, the MechWarrior series came to an end some years ago- the last “real” MechWarrior game was MechWarrior 4, which came out in the 2002 timeframe. The good news: a new MechWarrior game is coming sometime in the next couple of years. And if the video (see below) is any indication, the makers of this “reboot” understand at least a little about what made MechWarrior fun.

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Cyberwar? No, malicious script kiddy

According to the lead Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra, the U.S. should launch an all out retaliation against North Korea for their role in the recent cyber attacks on American and South Korean internet targets. Unfortunately for the American people, Mr. Hoekstra is either an idiot, willfully ignorant, or intentionally twisting reality for his own political ends. The best experts in the industry agree that the attacks were launched by an attention-seeking amateur.

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iPhone 3GS overheating- not a new problem

There has been a bit of a hullaballoo lately regarding overheating problems with the latest iPhone, the 3GS. Some users have complained about the phone getting hot enough to discolour the back of the case (most visible on white iPhones), and a few have even said it nearly burnt their skin. The funny thing is that this is far from a new phenomenon for iPhone users.

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