Microsoft Extreme Wednesday Morning Suckitude In Texas

I've not often jumped on the Microsoft Sucks Bandwagon.

Til last night when Bill Gates rudely woke me up by taking control of my computer, again, against my will. And restarted it.

Yesterday afternoon I saw that there was yet another round of security updates to prevent someone horrible from taking control of my computer (like Microsoft does).

I read the details of the updates, saw one was irrelevant to me, de-selected it and hit the cancel button.

Now, I know I can somehow disable these Microsoft XP automatic updates, I think. But, I also know that it's likely a wise plan to do the updates. But, I really do not think I was in imminent danger of attack. I should have been allowed to install and re-start when I wanted to.

A Dark Texas Morning Porcupine Rim Swim

We have had a steep drop in temperature, as in it is only 74 out there at 7 am. So, the windows are open and the A/C is not running.

As you can deduce from the picture I was in the pool, which had also cooled off, before the sun rose this Wednesday morning. Actually, the sun started to do its lighting up the day thing by the time I got to the water at about a quarter to 6. You can see a little illumination in the upper left corner above my right shoulder.

By the time I got out of the pool daylight was pretty much totally turned on. It's not as spectacular a sunrise as seeing that happen at some scenic place, like the Grand Canyon, which is on my to-do list to do today, blog about it on my Roadtripping Blog, which I've been ignoring of late.

Speaking of the Roadtripping Blog, this morning there was a comment to a blogging about biking the Porcupine Rim Trail in Moab, well, actually the trail is not in Moab, Moab is where you stay when you bike the Porcupine Rim Trail.

The comment was from Bryon T. He informed me that he was on both the Porcupine Rim ride and the Gemini Bridges ride. He told me he went there with his friend Bill. Then he referenced the group picture that was taken before the ride, telling me that he was on the far left and Bill was in the middle in blue.

I don't think Bryon has the slightest clue that the person doing the blogging was on that ride. Or that I'm to the left of Bill in the picture. Or that I drove him and Bill back to their campground after the ride. Last I heard of Bryon he was a retired Microsoft millionaire. There are an annoyingly large number of them in the Northwest. Started working for Microsoft early on, stock as part of the pay.

Since it is Wednesday, and due to that creature of habit problem I've mentioned before, I am likely going up to Southlake today and will likely go to Sprouts Farmers Market, among other things. There will not be a noontime hiking incident today. That may take place later.

YouTube video of biking the Porcupine Rim Trail below. Most brutal bike ride I've ever been on. And the most dangerous.

Microsoft's Bing Launch Flickers

This morning I was looking at my blog stats and saw someone had come to the blog, for the first time, via Microsoft's new search engine called Bing.

I'd not seen Bing, so I clicked on the search string Bing link to see what the person had been searching for in Bing that landed them on my specific blogging about A Big Foot Sasquatch in Georgia.

I think maybe Microsoft should have done some more Bing Tweaking before having last night's Bing Launch Party in Seattle, because the person from Kathleen, Georgia who was searching for info using Bing was looking for "big breasted woman in georgia" when Bing directed the searcher to this blog, which comes up #2 in Bing when looking for a big breasted woman in Georgia.

I was curious how my webpages did in Bing. In Google my webpage about Turner Falls Park in Oklahoma always comes up near the top. In Bing it didn't show up at all.

I was really not liking Bing at all at that point.

Then I looked up some of my other pages that Google does not rank as high as I might like, like Googling for "state fair of texas" usually shows up on the second page. In Bing that page was #4. I'll go see what it is currently on Google. I went 9 pages deep without seeing my State Fair of Texas webpage, then decided to look at the first page again, figuring must have missed it. I had. The fair page is currently #5.

So, I guess, other than what Bing does with Turner Falls Park and Georgian breasts, it does a good enough job, but might not be quite ready for prime time.

From what I read about Bing's Launch Party it would seem it may have been launched prematurely too. The Bing Launch Party took place at Fisher Pavilion at the Seattle Center. Around 100 Microsoft marketing people were there, plus some press people. The press people were a bit non-plussed, wandering around wondering when the event would start, not realizing it already had.

The lighting of the Space Needle was turned off. Normally the Space Needle glows in the darkness. Instead of a glowing Space Needle a bright bluish point of light took its place. This had people concerned that the Space Needle had burned out. Others thought it was a bright light beam coming from above.

The view in the picture is looking across Elliot Bay from West Seattle. That little white thing just to the right of the blue beam is the over 600 feet tall darkened Space Needle.

Few could see that a blue light spelled out BING in the grass in front of Fisher Pavilion.

Apparently the Microsoft marketing people planned a big event and then forgot to tell people it was going to happen. Then again, apparently the mysterious blue light did get people talking and people like me blogging about it this morning. Those Microsoft people are such crafty little devils.

Any of you reading this who are from Fort Worth who are wondering if that water feature you see in front of the Seattle skyline was the result of a Seattle River Vision, the answer is no. That water feature was provided naturally by Mother Nature, no rivers were altered, no use of eminent domain was abused.

And the Oscar Goes to Lulu

Long ago I used to enjoy watching the Academy Awards Show. I can't remember the last time I made it through the whole thing. Certainly not since I've been in Texas because it starts at 7:30 here and runs til almost midnight, well past my bedtime.

I think the last movie I've been to that may have won an Academy Award was Gladiator, I think that is what it was called. Russell Crowe fought Romans. I saw it in the restored Cinerama in Seattle. Paul Allen had a fondness for a landmark Seattle theater and so he bought it and restored it to its former retro glory. I remember the theater more than I remember the movie.

Lulu, you remember Lulu, I'm sure, all you who religiously read every word of my blog, well Lulu went to the grand re-opening of the Cinerama. Her first husband was there doing photographer duty. Lulu found herself talking to a disheveled looking guy. The guy introduced himself, but Lulu had no clue who Paul Allen was. She was just along for the ride. And the free food. So, Lulu goes over to tell her husband that that guy she'd been talking to had invited them to another party, after this one is done, at that EMP thing by the Space Needle. It was then that her husband, let's call him Geff, told Lulu that she'd been talking to Paul Allen. Yes, I know that, Lulu replied, to which Geff informed Lulu that Paul Allen is the Microsoft billionaire who bought the Cinerama and built the EMP (Experience Music Project). Apparently Paul Allen was quite charmed by Lulu's cluelessness and gave her a private tour of the EMP.

As you can see, Lulu is not the most culturally aware person on the planet. Which means, quite obviously, that she will not be watching the Academy Awards tonight. Lulu has a history of encounters with well-known people who she knows nothing about. She had a store in Tacoma called Frona & Zigz. It was a cool store with cool stuff in a cool part of town. A band called U2 was in town to play at the Tacoma Dome. Members of the band somehow found Lulu's store. One of the members of the band bought a vintage bicycle. When the band members left the store one of Lulu's customers came up to her and said something like "I can't believe you were talking to Bono all that time and weren't acting excited." "Bono?" Lulu asked. "Yes, the lead singer for U2". "U2? What's U2?" I do not know if all these years later Lulu has yet bothered to learn what U2 is or who Bono is.