How does it look? I tried to let you use more of the screen for text, rather than inflicting whitespace. I also changed fonts and added a little color.

[6 June] | [7 June] | [9 June]

This morning, Jeffrey watched yesterday’s Mystery Science Theatre 3000; this time, it was a real stinker,
The Thing that Couldn’t Die. I watched a few minutes off-and-on, and I have to say that I’ve seen better acting in home movies.

Some members of our havurah at temple hosted a Father’s Day BBQ and swim party this afternoon; the food was great, but none of my family got in the water (the other kids there did seem to be enjoying themselves in the water, though).

On the way home, we stopped at REI so I could look at GPS units (anyone with advice, please e-mail or post an item in the discussion here — I want something to use in the car, not in the back country), and we also looked at aquariums at Petco. There didn’t seem to be any actual human beings at Petco, and they didn’t bother posting prices, so we left with very little more information than we arrived with, and no aquarium.

Then we came home, watched the original 1931 version of
Frankenstein (which Jeffrey didn’t find very scary; I’m afraid 10-year-olds are more sophisticated moviegoers these days than adult audiences were in 1931), called Diane’s father to wish him a happy Father’s Day, and now it’s time for dinner.

Slide Rule Universe. I remember asking my grandparents to buy me a good slide rule while I was in junior high school and promising that it would last me through college (at least). They agreed and bought me a K&E Deci-Lon (model 68-1100), which probably cost around $30. I still have it, though I don’t use it very often any more — it did last me through college, though; I didn’t buy my first calculator until after I had graduated (I didn’t need a calculator much after junior year, and they were still too expensive then (I had a friend with an HP-35, which I lusted after; she was willing to lend it to me for Economics tests, and that was sufficient for my needs)).

My grandparents also bought me the big CRC Handbook of Tables for Mathematics, 3rd Edition; that, too, is still in my possession, though somewhat underused (I couldn’t remember where I had put it and had to search several rooms to be sure of the title!). I notice that CRC Press doesn’t publish that title any more, though they still do publish the
Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.

Jeffrey is out in the family room watching Saturday morning cartoons and I’m on his computer (since it was already booted up, unlike mine). I managed to avoid hearing the (dangerously catchy) songs from Monster Ranchers, but while he was watching the show, I checked the Web and, sure enough, found the lyrics online, so now I finally understand what I’ve been hearing at breakfast on Saturdays for weeks!

And since I am updating my page today, I can be timely and say Happy Birthday, Cliff!

Software is Bizarre

So I decided to look at the latest updated Userland sites (looking to see if a friend’s site had shown up yet) and pointed my browser (MSIE) at http://www.userland.com/updates. Then I picked a site, read it, and used Alt-leftarrow to go back to the updates page. But, for no apparent reason, the updates page that MSIE chose to display was from two hours ago; hitting “Refresh” fixed it, but the same thing happened the when I returned from the next page, and the next, and the next….I have no idea how this can be happening, but then again, I didn’t decide to make the browser an integral part of the OS.

Whew! Rebooting seems to have solved the problem, at least for now. I was afraid I’d have to reinstall the OS, or maybe buy a new computer (isn’t that the usual fix for a Windows problem?) or perhaps do something even more drastic.