Where I bemoan the limited availability of short-grain rice in the US
One of the staples of my childhood was milkrice. Not to be confused with rice pudding, it is short-grain rice cooked in milk & sugar and served either hot or cold, with either fruit or sugar & cinnamon. I wanted to pass down that experience to the next generation, but to my dismay I discovered that it is virtually impossible to easily obtain short-grain rice in the US (Amazon.com has some Thai sticky rice, but I am not sure it is the same). Thanks to a
German deli in TX I was able to order some instant milkrice, the regular variant having been sold out. But after confirming that at least Xander likes it, I was able to get a shipment from good old Germany, thanks to his Grandma.
Labels: me, rant
Spending a Friday at home
I am off work today and used my free time to coordinate visits from a plumber, a home inspector and the cable guy. So far only the plumber was here and he tried to screw me: I called him to replace a leaking pipe from the well pump to the pressure tank. Our well water is acidic and it killed already 2 water heaters in 11 years. When the water heater started leaking a month ago I had it replaced with a plastic one with a lifetime guarantee. That's why the home inspector is coming today to inspect the new water heater. So I wasn't surprised when the plumber said that the whole pressure tank should be replaced. He could do it today for $1500 on top of the $150 I already payed just for him to come out. So I agreed, but after he left I got second thoughts. Checking the internet soon gave me a price list for pressure tanks an my 20 gallon one would run me about $330. WTF??? Including labor that is nowhere close $1500. Next I called the compny that put the tank in he house (before we bought it). They gave me a rough estimate of $550 - $650. WTF
2 ??? So I called the plumber and told them not to bother to come back. Obviously I am never using them again and will actively warn everybody not to use Scardina.
The cable guy was just here. We have problems with the digital cable with some channels either having strong pixelation and sound dropouts, a telltale sign of low signal levels or didn't show up at all. Last Sunday a Comcast tech came out and told me that my cable in the house is noisy and needs to be replaced and he would schedule a wallfish for me which would be done within the next few days. Few days passed and nothing happened. Some of the channls re-appeared, only to vanish again. I call Comcast again and this time the tech measures the signal at the drop and surprise: it is low there. He then opens the distribution box at the side of the house and finds a huge wasp nest in there. Obviously guy #1 never looked in there. Turns out that the connectors were bad in there as well. Sigh.
Here finally some more picture:
BTW,
Connor did this too Here are a couple of cute ones:.
Not that we forget Connor, he is really cute, too.
Labels: Connor, rant, Xander
Rant of the day
The rant of the day courtesy of the US Postal Service. Their tracking system is worse than useless, they should be ashamed to actually offer this so called service especially compared to he great job Fedex/UPS/DHL are doing in that area. Case in point: I sent certified first class mail on 7/6. Today the only information available is that the letter was accepted at the post office that day - nothing else. So what is the point?
Not much new otherwise, except that the Jetta (another object of pride (NOT!!), this time for German engineering) needed new coil springs and shocks after one of them broke, causing a disconcerting CLONK sound from the back when turning.
Labels: me, rant
Microsoft broke my computer
The latest automatic update (KB929338) from Microsoft broke my laptop. While it was pretty easy to recover (boot into safe mode, log in as Admin, use system restore to a point before the update) it was not straightforward to find out how to prevent the automatic update just to re-apply the patch. here are some hints: to find out which update caused problems use the Event Viewer under Control Panel >> Administrative Tools. That tells you which patches were downloaded. Next use Windows Update to list the list of critical patches, uncheck the one you suspect is the culprit and check the box that says "Hide this update.." or something to this respect. That should do it.
I am contemplating getting a Mac.
Labels: computer, rant
