Can you say idiot?

So, a couple months ago Lagniappe’s Lair posted on the story of a young woman who trespassed, got hurt, and expected the world to cry for her and FIX IT.  Her name was Courtney Fletcher of Mt. Lebanon, PA.  Seems Courtney got bored and decided to Google her name on the internet and was VERY UPSET to discover that the whole world didn’t cry for her, and that, infact, quite a few people thought she was a good example of the problems with today’s kids.  Go read the comments, but I shall quote a bit so you know what you’re getting into:

….benefits is my dads company i work thier and get paid to watch youtube n surf the net, then i go home to my husband my chevy camaro, and my young lifestyle, and i loive it. u all need to stop jumping to conclusions

Yes, all her comments read like that.  Oh, and apparently she sent out nasty emails to everyone who commented using the company email address.  Bets on what’ll happen once Daddy finds out she’s using her work email to get back at the “nasty” people?  All things considered I’m betting his reaction WON’T be to fire her, she comes across as one of those children who’s never been made to pay for anything they did wrong ever.


First Google apparently doesn’t want people to use iPads

by refusing to make sure various of their “NEW IMPROVED!!!!!” Blogger pages work in the iPad version of Safari, but NOW I’m intermittently having trouble typing comments in various blogs using my iPad.  And its ONLY happening when I attempt to type comments in Blogger based blogs, not on ANY OTHER webpage.  WTF?!  And yes the iPad is up to date on all updates and what not.  Actually I’m not happy about that, ever since the upgrade to iOS5 the iPad Safari has randomly crashed on a regular basis.  I say randomly, but the more intensive the webpage the more likely it is to crash.  Sigh.  Online search proved I’m not the only one with this problem and that there doesn’t appear to be an actual fix for it, just things that seem to keep it from happening quite as often.


Google is annoying me

I accidently clicked on the thing to use the new Blogger format and apparently they took away the option to switch back. God I hate this format, and they still haven’t fixed the compatibilty issues with the iPad so half the pages don’t load right. Fricken hell Google, either fix it or let me switch back for heavens sake!


Not the way to start my day

Reading my email this morning, and as I’m reading two new emails come in from Paypal. The first to tell me that my $1 charge to somerandomsite had gone though, the other to tell me that my $388 charge on walmart.com had declined. Well thats interesting, because I’ve made no such purchases.

Go hit Paypal’s site, cancel the debit/Mastercard and start the process to dispute the charges (cause of course they don’t have anyone working on a Sunday), and confirm that there are no other weird charges, and figure out where I’ve used used the card recently. And of course change my password while I’m at it.

See I don’t keep large sums of money in my Paypal, a few $, for things like iTunes. If I want to use it to make a large purchase I move money into it for that purpose. Previously I’d really only used the card for iTunes and the Playstation network. Course when the PS network was hacked I canceled that card, and the ONLY THING I’ve used it for since is iTunes. Now I don’t know if that means iTunes got hacked, though I did call them and advise them of the situation just to be safe. But theres also the intermediary companies who do the processing, and even Paypal itself, so at this point who knows.


Fruit leather, and how I discovered Arty likes cranberries and has a death wish

So, the cranberry fruit leather turned out ok, I got one tray to thin, and the other probably would have been perfect, except the thin tray was on top and so I thought I’d over cooked the whole thing, and ended up undercooking the 2nd tray.  Oh well, just means one set’s a bit chewy and the other a bit to soft.

Arty appreciated the cranberry bits that hit the floor though.  Apollo wouldn’t touch them, but Arty loved them.

And Arty has discovered that if he sneaks up behind Apollo, and ever so carefully touches his nose to Apollo’s balls and then runs for cover Apollo will chase him with all fervor and energy….

(Arty just weighed in at 8.7lbs, Apollo weighed in (last month) at 93lbs)


Home Dehydrating

So a while back I asked for some opinions and suggestions as to Dehydrators folks were using.  And a couple of you were kind enough to reply.  In the end my sister-in-law said that she’d buy it herself as a joint gift for the two of us if it wasn’t to expensive.  And since she’s got reasonable taste and is good at picking good quality items I left the choice in her hands.

We ended up with a Nesco American Harvest that is probly very like what DaddyBear and Zercool said they have.  First thing I did was hit Amazon and order the fruit leather trays (and clean screens) that weren’t included in the basic package.  They arrived yesterday, and since husband wants cranberry fruit leather I’ve a bag of cranberries thawing in the fridge.  I expect to get that started tomorrow and I’ll let you know how it works.  I also ordered (we got a bunch of Amazon Gift Certificates from family that don’t live close) The Busy Person’s Guide to Preserving Food by Janet Chadwick.  And I’m reasonably pleased with the book (which arrived today).  It looks like a nice basic guide to various techniques including, but not limited to, dehydrating things.  It doesn’t have some of the fancier recipes you can find, but if I want those then I’ll head online.  I wanted a basic reference for concepts and basics and at first look through it looks like I picked well.


Mother Nature, you can stop-it now, really

Normally by this time of the year our average temperatures are in the 20’s and teens, with drops into the single digits, and we’ve got several feet of snow already fallen and more coming.

As of the morning of Wed Dec 28th 2011 we’d had barely trace amounts of snow and temps were staying nice and warm so the water was coming down as rain instead.  However by evening of that same day we’d had several inches of snow fall.  I was thrilled, everything froze, no more mud.  Winter was finally here.

Yah, I jinxed it.

By Friday evening the yard was a swamp again, all traces of snow gone except for the excess of water on the ground.  Sunday temps hit 52f.

Monday temps crashed hard and it snowed again.  About 3 inches or so though I never heard an official count.  Temps were in the single digits all day Tuesday.

Today the only snow on the ground is in the areas that are fully shaded or where the plows left a ridge.  Temps hit the upper 40’s.  Since this is central NY state that means everyone’s running around without coats talking about the heat wave.  My yard is headed for swamp land again.  The mud’s ankle deep, but my boots are damn near clean by the time I come in because there’s so much standing water on top of it.

Can we just have a normal winter now?