Edumacayshun?

Looks like the marquee operator-changer-person needs to go back to kindergarten to learn how to spell ‘kindergarten’..

Photo taken at Smith Elementary in Lubbock, TX

Gassy Annoyance

You may or may not know, but I’m moving back to Dallas this summer. I’ve lived in Lubbock for almost eleven years now, and a few things have come to annoy me about Lubbock. This is the first of what will probably be a series of my “Lubbock annoyances”..

For some idiotic reason, Lubbock gas stations carry 86 octane as their low grade even though most (all?) modern vehicles require a minimum of 87 octane. The lone holdout to that has been 7-11/Fina stations; they carried 87 octane and charged a few cents more per gallon than other stations.

This past weekend I discovered 7-11/Fina changed to 86 octane – but it still charging a few cents more. While I’m sure that one octane difference wouldn’t cause too big of a problem, the fact that the stations carry 86 octane is annoying.

</rant>

“Undiscovered” American Idol?

So, yes.. I admit it. I’m an American Idol fan. While I don’t necessarily agree that this is the best year yet, the talent is definitely great.

Randy Jackson said something after Michael Johns’ performance last night that struck me funny.

Let me just add that this show is about being the best singer, undiscovered talent we can find.

I realize defining the word “undiscovered” is subjective; however, let’s define it as those never having a record contract. By that definition, the Top 12 isn’t as undiscovered as Randy thinks.

• David Cook – Solo album and multiple releases with the band Axium.
• Carly Smithson – Album released by a major label (MCA) under her maiden name.
• Michael Johns – Multiple releases with multiple groups.
• Brooke White – Solo album.
• Kristy Lee Cook – Solo album.

So by my count, five out of twelve have already been discovered. Should they be on American Idol? According to Randy Jackson, they shouldn’t be.

However, using that very same logic, there are a host of other previous contestants that shouldn’t have been on the show either:

Kelly Clarkson, Chris Daughtry, Carrie Underwood, Jordin Sparks, Taylor Hicks, Bo Bice, Constantine Maroulis, Mandisa Hundley, Lisa Tucker, Phil Stacey, Chris Sligh, Brandon Rogers

Don’t misunderstand me.. I don’t care that they all had records out prior to Idol. But Randy’s statement just isn’t true.

Safari, Firefox, Camino.. Oh My!

From an earlier blog entry, I’ve already explained my personal browser war. I have finally made a choice after a few software updates as well as finding some very helpful plugins.

My browser of choice is now Safari 3.1. 

First off, to address Safari’s inadequacies I outlined in my previous post:

• WordPress released version 2.5 which fixes the TinyMCE issue.
• I realized that I didn’t have that many Firefox extensions installed; and those that I did I found suitable Safari replacements.
• Having to export and import my bookmarks when they change in order to keep my iPhone up-to-date was a major pain. Using Safari obviously fixes that natively.
• I no longer use Outlook Web Access, so this is a moot point.

• GreaseKit — the Safari port of the Greasemonkey extension.
• SafariStand — various enhancements including color coded source viewing.

The two plugins require the SIMBL application to be installed.

I have two Greasemonkey scripts installed: Show Password onMouseOver and Spelling Cow all text fields.

My question to those reading this — which Greasemonkey scripts do you find indispensable?