Man, I Love Little Buggy Science

The Human Microbiome Project - hands down, the coolest science jinkery I've heard of this week. Let's find out what all those bacteria are doing on - and in - us. It's kind of weird, though, isn't it, to think of yourself as a minority member of your superorganism...

Thierry Henry Rumours

Wow. The Champions League just concluded and the rumour season has already hit full throttle. Consider this the silliest, most wild-ass rumour about American soccer you'll hear this season...however, if it turns out to be true I'll stand in line for the season tickets.

Movie Review

Iron Man = Awesome!

This Just In....

The Black Bottom Pie at Marlene's Market and Deli is the best pie I have ever had anywhere. You must get some.

And, it's 90 degrees in the Seattle-Tacoma area and all across the region people are being blinded and confused by the bright orb in the sky...and the explosion of albino-pale white legs and torsos on display everywhere.

Oh, and I have some parenting advice over the the Mirror.

The Season Is Over...

Finally, the season that began with such promise and excitement for an Arsenal team of young, talented Gunners, has slunk to a close with 3rd place in hand after a 1-0 win over Sunderland's Black Cats. Talk about anti-climactic. The championship was ours to lose and lose it we did, with a string of draws and losses that was enough put Gooners everywhere on suicide watch.

Flamini is gone. Though not as big a loss, Jens is done. Who else might be gone over the summer and who might arrive? We have a couple of months to speculate.

On the topic of little Matty, the boy has revealed himself a right git.

Midfielder Mathieu Flamini has revealed he would have signed a new deal
with Arsenal last summer but the 'pain' of missing out on the 'Premier
League title influenced his decision to leave the Emirates.

Twits take their tail between their legs, cash in and go off to Italy, Matt. Champions take disappointment to heart and come back fired up to win. It's best we see the back of you, then.

The only silver lining, and it is the slimmest of glimmers, is that SAF's boys kept the RMA from taking a trophy, and hopefully, will do the same next week in Moscow.

Arsenal Wins. Jury Out On Comcast

The ref just blew his whistle on an Arsenal 1-0 victory over Everton. The Nick scored the only goal of the game in the 77th minute. That's about all I know because this game was not televised and I'm going from the ESPN Gamecast. Still, a win's a win. Way to go, lads. One more game to go and then we can stop thinking about Arsenal for a day or two and the immediately get back to chasing the title.

My previous post on Comcast brought an almost immediate response from the people who troll the Internet looking for such postings. While that was promising, the second stage of follow-up has not occurred. I gave them my information but have not heard from the local support staff, which was really where I was at when I posted originally.

Hot Word Love
I love words. I've got a new love interest. Thinko. It's the mental equivalent of the typo. Boy howdy, with the number of thinkos (thinkoes?) I suffer a day, I'm going to be using that word nonstop.

Why Comcast Cable Sucks This Morning

Comcast sucks? When did this become news? I've been satisfied with their cable Internet service (don't have phone), but the cable TV blows chunks of ineptitude.

some time after I upgraded to digital cable, Comcast replaced the Microsoft-based DVR programming (which had its issues, but largely worked, was intuitive, and even intelligent.) So, they replaced it with their in-house programming that is incredibly bad. How bad? So bad that it deserves to have a little janitor and 2 homemade robots appear down in the right-hand corner of the screen commenting on the ongoing futility associated with trying to operate it.)

First of all, it freezes, big time. When you are trying to run through a list of programs, or try to program a recording, it just freezes for  several seconds - for no obvious reason - then unfreezes. Of course, in this time I've punched several buttons, which it now exectues, so I get the program canceled and end up going back several menus or exiting entirely so tha tI have to repeat everything. Fun!

One of the most annoying things is that you can't program a recording of just one showing of a program. It will allow you to only record new episodes or repeats, but what it doesn't do is probably the most important thing of all. Take the MSNBC show Countdown; I like to record and watch the 5 O'Clock program every night. So, now I also have to hand delete scheduled recordings for every showing of Countdown that day (3 programs I have to erase every day). When I forget, I end up with a list of Coundtown a screen and a half long.

Overall, the new DVR service is irritatingly buggy. It's a crap product. I've complained to Comcast customer service and received automated responses that don't do anything.

It's too bad. Comcast Internet has been great, but the Cable TV is making me long for a satellite dish...