I’m not obsessive about cleanliness or neatness in general, but when it comes to anything that I’m going to ingest, eat off of, or which will TOUCH any such thing (i.e. people’s hands who are preparing things I will eat), I definitely am obsessive about cleanliness.  However I wasn’t always this way, and as a kid, I put a coin in my mouth at least one time.  I have no idea why, really.  But for some reason I distinctly remember the taste and feeling of it even now.  I also have no idea why that is, nor why I thought of it while driving yesterday.

My little sister IMed me this the other day, about our cat CJ:

Maria: hi
Maria: there was a spider on the ceiling and mom wacked it on the floor and CJ batted it around for a while untill it stopped movin (it wasn’t dead, it was just scared) and then he licked it up. a live spider!!!
Maria: eeeeeeeeeeeew!

"A live spider!!!"  That cracks me up  : )

In other news that isn’t funny or random, I fixed a problem on Kim’s notebook yesterday, for which she sent it back to HP twice and they did nothing but wipe the hard drive and leave the problem intact.  The problem was that it would sporadically just shut down for no reason at all, and then refuse to turn back on.  They apparently couldn’t identify the cause of problem, which is strange because it’s a common problem with notebook computers.  It stems from the fact that over time, as the receptacle for the power plug gets jostled and worn, the solder joints connecting it to the motherboard start to weaken and break.  It gets to the point that if you turn the power plug a certain way, it works fine, but bump it just a tad, and it breaks the contact.  Eventually, if it goes long enough without being repaired, there is no contact at all unless you press/hold the plug to one side, or up or down or something, and when you let go, it loses the contact immediately.

We disassembled the whole thing, which with notebooks is always a little tricky, and then I re-soldered the 3 connections for the power jack.  But upon re-assembling and testing, it was no different.  Which was pretty frustrating because the disassembly and re-assembly is quite a process -- not that it’s hard, but it’s sort of tedious because there are so many screws and different pieces which aren’t standard at all from one notebook to the next.  But I ended up doing it 3 times so by now I’m pretty good at it :)

The second time, I removed the jack completely and just soldered two wires directly into the motherboard.  This didn’t work either.  My last resort was to try maybe soldering the top of the board, too; instead of just soldering the pins when they come through the bottom, I now put some on the top too.  This was tough because there’s so little space and so many components right around the jack, in addition to the fact that the jack itself is tall and there isn’t much room to get the tip of the iron into the space around it.  I replaced the crusty old tip on my soldering iron with a nice pointy new one, soldered the tops of the pins, and that fixed the problem.

I’m pretty excited that it finally worked, because the only other source of power is the battery, which charges in the laptop through this power connection.  So basically the computer would be trash, even though the rest of the system is mostly fine, and it’s decently spec’d too -- 700MHz PIII, 384MB memory, 40gig drive, etc.  So I was really glad to be able to save the poor lappy; it’d be such a shame to have to get rid of it over something like this.

I’d like to wish a warm welcome to all my visitors looking for:

my lcd has 1 red dot how do i get rid of it

IMAO is usually pretty funny, but lately in the comments, people have been posting real news headlines and then making up sub-headlines to go with them.  They are hysterical.

Radical Muslim group Ansar al-Sunnah claims responsibility...
World stunned by use of words "Muslim" and "responsibility" in the same sentence.

North Korea ’only country on earth’ free of AIDS...
Rampant starvation cited as "miracle cure."

France Rejoices at Release of Hostages
But still smell bad, hate America

Male fish bear eggs in Potomac
Incident unrelated to male deer squirrel eggs in the Hudson

It took me a while to get that one, then I couldn’t stop laughing  : )

Rumsfeld Fires Back at Critics
Uses dual .45s; vows to strangle survivors.

Harry Potter fever strikes again
WHO blames President Bush and stolen election for shortage of vaccine

Massive "infants" galaxies found
Abortion Rights activists claim Fetal Galaxies not really alive, protest for right to abort findings

’A particularly difficult year’ for the UN, Annan says
Top customer overthrown, jailed.  Iraq freed from tyranny.  U.N. Punked by U.S.

Teresa Heinz-Kerry makes the same face that Mike Tyson does in the Nintendo game Mike Tyson’s Punch Out:

(Via Stan Shivell)

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Well, I finally got a shower mirror.  And it’s great.  The only one Walmart had was the water-runs-through-it kind, which was fine with me.  I can even shave most of my face without shaving cream now, which is pretty awesome.

And in case you were worried about the efficacy of this solution, rest assured:

Can you really trademark a phrase like that?  And... would you really want to??

Ever get the feeling that some advertising has just gone way too far?

I’ve already bought (and am attempting to use) your freakin’ toilet paper; I don’t need a commercial STUCK DIRECTLY ON the roll itself.

In other funny randomness, I came across this hilarious photo (note the fine print):

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If God wanted us to use the metric system, Jesus would have had only ten apostles.

Cool things are happening.

I got a Nextel cell phone a few weeks ago (the i95cl), at a super discount because my company has a contract with Nextel.  The phone is awesome.  But the coolest thing is the direct-connect feature (aka "walkie-talkie").  This always seemed cool to me, but I never fully comprehended the power of its awesomeness until I actually used it.  It’s easily the most fun thing of all time.  It’s like their advertisements say... life is better when you’ve got the phone with a built-in walkie-talkie.  So if you don’t have a cell phone, or if you do have a cell phone, you should get a Nextel phone ASAP.

Cool thing #2: people are sending me photos.  Photos of themselves, which is awesome... it’s nice to actually be able to see the people you correspond with online.  And photos of helicopters that they work on at crazy army-base Avionics labs.  That is unstoppable.  So, if you ever have the inclination to contact me, and I reply and say "hey, thanks for writing, what’s up?", feel free to send a photo, of yourself or something else that’s neato.

I am in love with The Postal Service.  You will be too, once you listen to them.  It was really hard to pick a song of the week from the album "Give Up" which I just bought, because there isn’t a sub-fantastic song on it.  But I settled on "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight."  So go listen to it.

Which brings me to cool thing #more: one of my neighbors/friends just opened a record store below my brother’s skate shop in my town.  How these kids are able to just open their own businesses like this is quite mind-boggling to me.  I am so impressed.  But anyway, that’s where I got "Give Up," just last night, on their first day of business.

And finally cool thing #awesome: a friend sent me a link last night to a webpage about state mottos, and it’s hilarious.  Here are a few:

Alabama
It Is: We Dare Defend Our Rights
It Should Be: At Least We’re Not Mississippi

Colorado
It Is: Nothing Without Providence
It Should Be: Too Wimpy to Cross the Mountains So We Stopped Here

Illinois
It Is: State Sovereignty, National Union
It Should Be: Please Don’t Pronounce the "S"

Kentucky
It Is: United We stand, Divided We Fall
It Should Be: Five Million People; Fifteen Last Names

Maine
It Is: I Direct
It Should Be: We’re Really Cold, But We Have Cheap Lobster

Mississippi
It Is: By Valor and Arms
It Should Be: Come and Feel Better About Your Own State

South Dakota
It Is: Under God the People Rule
It Should Be: Closer Than North Dakota

Go see ’em all here.