Computers, 2011 Budget, and a Few Thoughts
by Barry Bauer
My latest adventure with one of my electronic devices came when I had to take my desktop computer to the shop. I had one of two DVD drives that quit working and my Flash Player wasn’t recognized by my computer.
Is that called computer amnesia?
Two working DVD drives are handy for making copies of other disc, and the Flash Player is needed so I can watch episodes of TV shows on hulu.com that I missed on regular TV. Right now I’m watching episodes of “Kitchen Nightmares” and I enjoy the show and never knew it was on TV.
The host of the show, Gordon Ramsey (Hell’s Kitchen) talks my language, he swears a lot too.
They called me to say my computer was ready so I picked it up and took it back home. After hooking up all the wires that go to it I found out the DVD still didn’t work and my command bar and tool bars were missing. Also missing was my Photoshop Elements 8 program. I need that to edit my photos.
The bill I got didn’t itemize everything they did so I had no idea what to expect, I just trusted them.
I took it back the following Monday and was told that they always disable the command and tool bars and I told them that nobody ever told me. They said it causes a problem with the Internet Explorer but that wasn’t my complaint. It’s like going to the doctor to get something for a cold and end up getting your prostate checked instead.
I asked again for the DVD drive to be replaced and I wanted my command and tool bars back. I got it back later that afternoon and it had most of the things I asked done but it was still different. I can work with it for now and given time I’ll figure the rest of it out.
Now I know why Betty urged me to buy a laptop given that I tend to be lost without one. She says I mope around, can you imagine that? One thing I did do for the laptop was to buy a mouse for it. I can’t get used to a touch pad – getting old I guess.
The mouse is really slick because it has a small receiver that’s about 5/16″ x 9/16″ with no wires to mess with. It just plugs into a USB port. I’m thinking about getting one for my desktop.
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The Republicans took a bad rap on the 2011 budget and were accused of not compromising to get the budget passed. The truth is the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the White House last year and they failed to pass this very same budget for political reasons. If you guessed it was because it was an election year, you’re right. They played politics with it because they didn’t want to show their spending ways which the electorate is getting a bit nervous about. That election backfired on them because they lost control of the House.
As far as I’m concerned the Republicans folded on this budget and didn’t really pass any spending cuts that were not already there. It was all smoke and mirrors and made to look like they made great headway in reducing the ridiculous debt ran up by our government. Keep in mind that the best accountants in the country work for the government and know how to make these things look different than they really are.
Politicians have a love affair with smoke and mirrors and its cousin, the dog and pony show.
Next up is the debt ceiling battle and maybe we ought to pay more attention to European countries such as Portugal, France, Greece, Hungary, and Ireland who are going through their own economic crisis. It’s even reported that some governments over there are seizing retirement accounts.
Does that sound like fun?
Are we too big to fail? I don’t know but we’ve found out over the last few years that, “Too Big to Fail”, is a fractured statement.
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A few thoughts:
The TSA patted down a 6-year girl at an airport the other day just to prove to the Muslim World that we’re politically correct and don’t profile. A 6-year old terrorist? How damned dumb can it get in this country? Children used to be told never let a stranger touch them. What are they telling them now?
There are too many people in this country who would vote for Donald Duck as president.
The problem with this country is there’s too many dreamers and not enough realists. Dreamers spend our money faster than we can make it and realist understand there’s only so much water in the well.
Are you tired of hearing about the rights of prisoners in our jails and prisons? The Declaration of Independence says we have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These prisoners want to take these rights away from us. So I’m going to worrying about their rights . . . I don’t think so, Gram.
If Richard Nixon was a Democrat and in office today, and the liberal news media being what it is, Watergate would have never come to light.
Until the next time . . .