Very Local News

• I need to mow. Nat picked me up from work last night and I was not emotionally prepared to do the yard so I squandered the opportunity. I need to figure out how to raise the mower a notch or two. The little adjustment brackets are frozen. I figured out how to change the oil in that thing. That at least is done. The blade needs sharpening. I don't know how to do that either. Mostly, I need to get off my ass and do it.
  
• One of the podcasts interviewed some kids of a soldier. They spoke about how difficult it is to deal with school and ignorant people during a time of war. They can't watch the news for fear of hearing about firefights.  When dad came back, he hadn't just sat down and watched TV for a while. it interfered with the existing schedule.
  
• Some religious freaks are trying to say yoga is a religion and cannot be taught in public schools.  The argument goes "Kids are told at home to fill their minds with God's word. They are told at school to empty their minds in yoga." give me a break. It's not like the teachers are trying to inform the kids on how to avoid sexually transmitted disease or something.
  
• One of the best tools in photo editing software is the color level. It allows you to take a digital photo and define what is white and what is black. It should also let you adjust the center of the color. It makes a washed out picture become vibrant and suddenly a boring gray picture will have depth and definition.
  Every photo is different, but there are times I would like to run the same adjustment on a whole folder of pictures. Most software I've used in the past allows this, but not Gimp. I like Gimp, but it is insufficient for this reason. I bet there is a way, but I cannot find it.
• Somehow my Google results count went from 50 down to 10 at home. I like the longer listing. Typically my result is either the first or the thirty first entry in the results. I really do skim a bunch of results if the first hit is not obviously what I want. I have no idea how it got reset.  I do not remember resetting it. I hope my longer list of results is not something Google wants to change. I like my longer list of results. It is an emotional need as well. I hope it is not too much to ask from Google. Hey, I could set it to 100 according to their choices. I have no idea how much overhead this causes for Google.
• In a couple years there will be two billion "computers" attached to the internet. A few years more and there will be fourteen billion devices on the internet. All of this as social networks like Facebook and MySpace will decline. Places like Second Life will decline as well. People will turn to contacting people in reality.
• q:v]  "Kelly has a bunch of long bullets today."
  
•  8^)  "Yup."
• One of the podcasts interviewed the guy who invented (supposedly) the emotecon. He would only tack his name to the smile and frown faces. He griped there was no shock face.  8-O