Updates

First, I've neglected to mention that I do have the GIS data that the City of Billings promised me. First thing I noticed was that there wasn't anywhere near as much as the GIS manager tried to tell me there was; second, it didn't take anywhere near as long for them to provide it as he suggested it might. I've had the chance to go through and have a look at it, and I'm actually somewhat impressed with the attention to detail and thoroughness the city is showing.

Second, as regards my Good Deed, I got a letter in the mail a few days afterwards -- from the pastor of the church the lady goes to. In it, he thanked and congratulated me on being a decent human being (my words), and wished me well. Apparently, she told pretty much everybody in the congregation about what happened.

Finally, my blitzkreig of eBay doesn't seem to have done the slightest bit of good; not only did the stuff remain listed until the respective auctions ended, but even MORE unrelated crap turned up. Between eBay's unresponsiveness and PayPal's willingness to summarily freeze accounts without explanation, I'm about this far from telling both of them to get stuffed.

So, it's been a mixed bag since my last post. :-)

Intertoobz -- I gotz 'em

The local cable company (Bresnan) turned up yesterday (at the beginning of the two-hour window they gave me) to get me connected to their systems.

It didn't take long for the installation guy to get me hooked up with cable TV (more on that in a moment), Internet, and digital telephone (technically, 'Voice over IP', or VOIP). I've got more bandwidth than I had with DSL (though it IS somewhat clogged with a bunch of Windows systems spewing crap), and the couple of calls that I've made with my phone indicate that everything phone-wise is working well, too.

When I signed up with Bresnan, I agreed to their $100/month TV-Internet-Phone package; compared to their regular prices listed in all the paperwork they issued me, it is something of a deal. The thing is, I'm really not all that interested in the TV side of it -- I simply don't watch it that much. There are a couple of movie channels that I'll likely use a little, and a couple more specialty channels (I watched programs on the M1A1 Abrams tank and the F-117 stealth fighter on the Military Channel last night, for example), but that's about it. I simply have no interest in the myriad of food/living channels, the sports channels, the reruns of OLD programs (I Love Lucy? yeesh!), and so on. So when the trial period expires, so will the cable service, methinks. The remote they issued me for my cable box has enough buttons on it that it looks like something NASA came up with, too.

Anyway, I have a shiny new phone number (I could have kept the old Qwest number, if I hadn't told them to buzz off before the installation guy turned up), a bigger pipe for my Intertoobz, and a shitload of TV channels not to watch.

All ahead whoa

I've been keeping myself pretty well occupied with the various projects that I've got going.

I've had to order a few parts so that I can continue with my 'bot, so while I wait for those, I'm fiddling with the programming for it. I also had the chance to do a little honest-to-goodness basic electronics by troubleshooting and repairing an older electronic device for a friend of mine.

I've been "push-polled" a couple of times in the last week, and am getting a mailbox full of political bullshit pretty much every day. Has anyone ever been swayed by the mailings sent out by either of the political parties? Or is it just a waste of time, resources, and money on both sides? And more to the point, is there any way of getting OFF their fucking mailing lists?

No, you're not hallucinating

Yes, I switched to a different theme for my humble little abode here on Blogger.

I selected the previous one when I had a regular CRT-type monitor, and it worked fine -- right up until I got a widescreen LCD display, at which point it sucked. Still, I didn't bother trying to 'fix' it until today, when I decided that enough squinting to read my own damn blog was enough.

Consider yourself suitably advised that I may still change things: a different theme, or adjusting the colors, or god-knows-what.

Posting frequency

Well, now I've gone and done it...

I've set things up so that I can post to this by email -- meaning that posts will turn up whenever some Random Thought pops into my head.

Stand by to be amazed, disgusted, amused, horrified, pissed off, entertained, or anything else :-)