Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Single of the Week
An absolute classic from the 80s, grab the full 12″ version if you can find it – Venceremos by Working Week. Great latin club beat and a protest song to boot so you can feel double good getting your groove on. The following video is not super quality but any time Tracy Thorn sings live is ok by me.
P.S. Watch out for Tracy’s new album at the end of Feb. Yeah, probably only in the UK but it sounds good from the previews on her myspace page.
Getting More Expensive to Come to America
The USCIS recently published a Proposed Rule to increase filing fees for immigration forms. If you have any idea about applying for some immigration-related benefit I suggest you do it before April when these might come into effect.
| Form | Old Fee | Proposed Fee |
|---|---|---|
| N-400 Application for Citizenship | $330 | $595 |
| I-485 Application for Permanent Resident Status | $325 | $905 |
| I-140 Immigrant Worker Petition | $195 | $475 |
| I-765 Employment Authorisation | $180 | $340 |
| I-751 Application to Remove Condition of Residence | $205 | $465 |
| I-829 Petition by Entrepreneur to Remove Conditions | $475 | $2,850 |
My N-400 is complete and awaiting a stamp, and a $330 cheque.
Trying Out the New Netflix Streaming Service
As many of you already know, NetFlix has been rolling out it’s streaming service over the last month or so. On a whim last night I checked to see if it was available to me and it was. If you want to check for yourself, go to the Your Account link at the top of the page and then on the right there is was a link that was something like “tell me about streaming movies”.
I clicked to enable the service and was told I had to be using Internet Explorer! Wtf? I almost gave up right there, why are people still making websites that won’t run on FireFox? I managed to find IE on my laptop, went through the hoops (had to download a plugin or something) and was given some suggested movies to watch.
The really cool thing was that if you go to the Television category they have Little Britain, Doctor Who and Red Dwarf to watch, some great British TV! Check them out if you have a sense of humour.
Maybe I Should Go PPV
Got sent this image from the home camera this week:
If I was him, I’d be a little worried – the guy seems to have a fuzzy area where I am sure he wishes he was very unfuzzy. But science can do wonderful things so maybe it will turn out alright.
Between this and last year’s bikini-clad intruders I am definitely thinking I can set up my own pay-per-view site pretty soon. $19.95 a month anyone?
Rant of the Week
CNN this morning had a story about Muslim cab drivers in MN who refuse to carry passengers who have alcohol on their possession. At first I thought they meant beer-swilling louts but they are in fact referring to things like a bottle of whiskey wrapped in a box inside a duty free bag. The cab drivers say its about freedom of religion, its against their beliefs to carry alcohol.
What a load of crap. No one is forcing these people to drive cabs. If a pacifist went to work for th DoD and refused to write bomb-making software he’d be laughed at – why choose a job which you know may offend you? The cab drivers should stop whining and either avoid their eyes from that poorly packaged Jack Daniels or sod off and do something else. It makes me mad!
A New Server
Moved all my sites to a new hosting plan at site5.com, everything appears to be working surprisingly well except for some formatting on this page [now fixed]. I did not move the gallery as I want to find a new solution for how to display the pictures. Watch this space, as they say.
If you find any other problems, please leave me a comment or send me an email.
A Proposal for the Courts
Watching some (alleged) child-kidnapper get arraigned this morning on TV I had the following thought. We all know that everyone is allowed their day in court no matter their innocence or guilt. But I think people should be made to be more upfront when they plead not guilty. We already have ‘not guilty by virtue of insanity’ so how about ‘not guilty by virtue of wasting the court time to see if you guys can make a case, yeah I done did it but can you prove it’. Standing up and saying ‘not guilty’ when you were caught in the act annoys the heck out of me.
Still Cold
The freeze continues… mid-20s overnight at the weekend, and still just under or at freezing point since then. We’ve lost a few plants to the cold, including some shrubs that we really liked. Our trees in front of the house look dead as well but I am hopeful they will recover once the temps get back up. Of course this is nothing compared to the huge losses in the citrus and other crops in California. A head of lettuce could soon get expensive.
There Must Be Some Toros in the Atmosphere
Mother Nature was having some fun with us yesterday. In the afternoon we had a series of a 10 or so little tremors, nothing really worth talking about, biggest was a 2.7. Then overnight the temperature got down to at least 25F – isn’t this supposed to be the desert?! Back up to 60F right now, though. Looks like we are going to have sub-zero temps overnight for much of this week.
[25F is -4C for those lucky readers using a metric system]
Proud To Be An Ugly American!
No, not me, not yet anyways…. but our good friend Eric Galvan from the local rag. Its Friday so it must be rant ‘o’ the week time and Mr G doesn’t disappoint. If you want to read it, go ahead and take a look after the jump. Of course he’s trying to be provocative but I don’t think he has the intelligence to pull it off without looking like an angry jerk. I’d say but at least it sells news papers except that I don’t know anyone who admits to reading what he writes.