Don't Back Down

The other day I picked up a package of The Amazing Dryer Balls at the store. At $10, the price is pretty steep - but if they could indeed save the cost of a lot of dryer sheets, I figured it would be worth it.

The end result? The advertised features work pretty well. The clothes do seem to be softer. They may or may not dry any faster. But while they help with static, they don't prevent it - so I still find myself sticking a dryer sheet in with each load to handle that problem.

That said, the dryer balls should prevent the need for more than one dryer sheet (for heavy or large loads), as they do seem to separate things well. A single sheet should then be able to take care of the static issue. I'll keep you posted on our progress with that method.

This is probably not what you think. But it's cute. I think a better ending would have been "I'm good for it - really!".

As I'm driving (shh), I notice none other than Uncle Sam out on the road, waving at people. That's nice of him. Appears he's been hired on to promote a tax service around the corner from us. I don't get it. Is he saying that I should feel patriotic when I pay taxes? Because I usually feel something completely different, and not nearly as enjoyable.

A little further down, the Statue of Liberty also put in an appearance. Say what you will about patriotism, but there's no way you'll get me to see how paying taxes can make me feel I'm being successful in the pursuit of liberty.

Did anyone else receive one of these? According to their web site, US Code Title 13, sections Section 141 and Section 193 your response is required by law.

Read "American Community Survey" »

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Read "What is safety worth to you?" »

So it seems that Movable Type (3.2 at least, may have been there longer) supports ALT-D for deleting an entry while on the "Edit Entry" screen. Unfortunately, this is also the keystroke to access the address bar in Internet Explorer. Luckily I don't use IE much. I could see that being a problem.

Read "Movable Type Key Mappings" »

A recent zoning decision has been hailed as a victory for the community. Why? Because it means that an Aldi store can't be built where they wanted to build it. Frankly, I don't see it. Aldi is Good.

I'll admit that we don't live in the fanciest part of town, and so it's understandable if you want to associate our Aldi with people who want, well, low-cost groceries. What I don't get is why that's a bad thing.

Read "Flawed Social Perception" »

I don't often talk about pictures, mostly because my own are pretty bad. But these photos fro China are too impressive not to mention. (via)

I like my Tivo. And I don't know what you could do about this sort of thing. But it just makes you wonder.

I've recently installed the Microsoft Small Business Accounting package. I have to say I'm enjoying it and think I'll keep using it. Unfortunately, I didn't like the Business Contact Manager for Outlook, as though the two would supposedly talk to one another, I didn't think it integrated particularly well on either side.

In any case, the application makes use of MSDE for database storage. This is all fine and dandy but it doesn't really help with backing up data or anything of the like. So I had to go digging through pages to find some decent Transact-SQL references. This one is to back up a database from the command line.

Read "Database Backup with Transact-SQL" »

By all accounts, the building of combined commercial, residential and retail developments is taking off. Some argue that the problem from here is that these creations are built as commercial properties becuase of zoning regulations, which in turns pushes up the price of the residentail portion, perhaps to a level where it no longer makes economic sense.

That may be true, but to me it seems more like the people who think that someone will live in the place where they work is pretty unlikely. Sure, it's nice to be located near the grocery store or some other place where you shop - but it doesn't seem to me as if the people living there will also want to work there.

Read an article in the paper this morning about Christian Throwback Jerseys, a company who provides sports jerseys, but instead of team names you get books of the bible. So look twice at that Michael Jordan 23 you see while you're out - it might say Psalm instead of Bulls.