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"Rick the Red" is a drug reference, not a political statement.

Just wanted to make that clear.

* Yet Another Star Wars Blog Entry

Well, OK, journal entry. You get the point. Squiggleslash posted this, and since he's banned foes I can't reply, so I'll add my 2cents here.

One thing that bugs me is revisonist history in a fiction series. Example: the whole Effram Cockran (prob. spelled wrong, who cares?) nonesense in Start Trek. "First Contact" was explained differently in TOS: The Vulcans had been observing Humans for years, but had avoided contact because Humans were so like themselves that they scared the Vulcans a bit, as we all know. Then some Vulcan ship had an emergency and called on a Human ship for help because "it was the logical thing to do." That's the real 'First Contact' as far as I'm concerned, and there's no reason why the current producers couldn't have followed Roddenberry's lead on this.

When Lucas does it to himself, well, I don't know what to think. And I'm not talking about the additional CG FX in Ep.IV, I'm talking about R2D2 and C3PO. Lucas said they are the narrators of the story, that no major plot element occurs without one of them present to observe it. OK, George, then how do you explain why C3PO doesn't recognize Owen Skywalker in Episode IV? The creepy little droid dealers didn't wipe his memory, because later he remembers Leia and Obi-Wan. And if C3PO does somehow forget his creator and the entire family where he "grew up", which are major plot elements, then how can he serve as narrator? Also, in Ep. II Obi-Wan goes to that planet where they made the clone army (again, I'm no fanboy or I'd know the planet's name off the top of my head) -- a major plot element -- without either droid present to record what happened. Hmmpfh!

Well, at least Portman's hot, grits or not.

I have not had mod points in ages. I think I may know why (or maybe I'm just paranoid). Slashdot says "Regular Meta Moderators are more likely to get mod points." I mm every time they ask, and I still don't get mod points. Well, today I negatively meta-moderated a "troll" moderation that looked awfully strange. When I read the comment in context it appears it was modded "troll" by a slashbot simply because it was critical of Slashdot itself. We all know criticizing Slashdot is not allowed, and such posts get modded "troll" so fast it has to be a bot. We know a moderator's karma is affected by meta-moderation, so what's to stop them from reversing that and bitchslapping our mod points if we give a bot negative meta-moderation? If they bitchslapped our karma for it, we'd notice, but if this "feature" only denies us mod points how can we prove it?

Thoughts?

My birthday's in May. Before I got married, each year I'd buy myself a birthday present with my tax refund. After I got married, it became our tax refund, and my birthday presents became her responsibility. Net result: I still don't have a radio controlled model airplane, or an MP3 player, or a PSP, or any of a dozen toys I'd probably have bought for myself over the years.

But this year is different. Today I get to buy, with my wife's blessing, my very first riding lawnmower. Best of all, she doesn't consider this a birthday gift, so I'm still getting one of those, too! We're on a five acre wooded lot with I'm guessing about 1 1/2 acres of grass (the rest is house, driveway, and trees). I've been mowing this on my feet, pushing a non-self propelled mower, for ten years now (well, nine - we didn't have much grass the first year after the house was built). So why do I get a riding mower after all these years? I dunno. I guess my wife thinks I'm getting old or something :-)

[she says the real reason is so I don't spend all my family time mowing the lawn. she thinks a riding mower will be faster]

But it's not all happiness here: I had to clean the garage so there's a place to put it, which I did yesterday, which is why I'm buying it today. And it's raining. And it's supposed to rain tomorrow (Saturday) too. I don't know when I'll get to use it, but that hardly matters as they have to deliver it anyway and that probably won't happen until sometime next week. But even with all that bad news, I'm still quite happy. I get to spend $2000 on a toy today, something I don't often do :-)

Update: I've had the damn thing less than three weeks, and they just took it back to the shop for the second time to fix it. I haven't been able to mow the entire yard once! I'm only halfway through and now what's left looks like a wheat field and what I've already mowed needs mowing again. Arrgggghh!

It backfired as they drove it off the truck when they delivered it, and it hasn't run right since. The dealer's been really great about it, and they're currently looking into taking it back and giving me another under Deere's 30 day return policy.

OK, so it was our fault that we spilled something on my wife's Inspiron. So we're willing to pay to fix it. It needs a new keyboard. So why does Dell make it so damn difficult to order replacement parts? I had to call the Technical Support line to be told that I needed to call the Out Of Warranty Repair line, who told me to call the Parts Department. Why isn't the Parts Department phone number listed on any of Dell's web pages? Why isn't the Out of Warranty Repair number listed anywhere? Why do Dell's parts department demand my name, address, and phone number just to quote me a price? They had the nerve to tell me they needed my personal information for unstated "security" reasons. Funny, "security" is why I'm uncomfortable giving that out. I don't need Dell spam, thank you very much. I don't much care for much of anything Dell these days.

And why are Dell's part numbers such a secret that they won't tell me the part number for my keyboard? Are they that afraid of me shopping around for a better price? Is that what this is really all about? Making sure that I'm really a business customer when I call to get the business price on a part? Or making sure I'm really a government customer when I call to get the government's price?

BTW, Dell wants $14.95 for the keyboard, which is a deal compaired with Seattle Laptop, who want $119 for the same thing. Of course, that price includes installation, as if I can't manage the FOUR screws that hold it in. $105 to replace a keyboard held in by four screws? I'm in the wrong business.

Update: The new keyboard is here and it works. And only $14.95. Not bad. Dell's service comes through in the end, but why does the journey have to be so difficult? I get the distinct impression Dell won't sell anyone a part if they won't/can't absolutely, positively identify themselves to Dell's satisfaction. Which, I guess, is Dell's right. But it's also my right to not up up with such nonsense. I'll probably go with Gateway next time (as I really, really dislike HP^h^hCompaq (had a couple Compaq laptops a few years ago and they were crap)