Watching Gustav: Day 2

I'm feeling a little better about Gustav than I was yesterday.

Granted the margin of error on a forecast five days out is something like 300 miles either way, but the latest forecast from the NHC has it sitting right off the coast near New Orleans next Monday morning.

This doesn't mean we're out of the woods by any means here at Justin's Random Thoughts' Global Headquarters, but it does make me feel better about it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not wishing Gustav on New Orleans, or anywhere else for that matter, but I don't wish it on us either.

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for the next day or two.

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LOLcat of the day

Hopefully something we won't be saying with Gustav:

more animals

Gustav

Gustav looks like the first storm that will pose a serious threat to us this season.

Not that you can read too much into the historicals, but an equivalent storm hasn't come close to this part of the Texas coast since 1915 according to the map.

Here's to hoping it won't.

I'll just keep a watch on it for now, since it's well more than a week away from these parts.

At least it doesn't have a gay name like Edouard.

Technorati Tags: Gustav

I'm a whore for free stuff

Jenny, The Bloggess and co-writer of Good Mom / Bad Mom, did a post yesterday about the marketers that contact her via email every day, and goes in-depth about an exchange with one such company.

Of course, the post left me wondering something:

"Why don't companies email me wanting reviews of their stuff?"

Cause, ya know, if someone wanted to send me a new computer (ideally a laptop) to review I'd totally review the shit out of that thing.

Assuming I could keep it, of course.

So, if you've got a brand-spanking-new laptop you can bear to part with and want reviewed, my email address is justin@jrtblog.com.

Just don't expect me to be anything other than brutally honest.

(And, no, I'm not expecting to get any emails from this)

Fail of the day

see more pwn and owned pictures

Makes me hungry. For the egg thing, not babies.

Marking my place

I sing in the choir at church, so anything that helps me during the service is great.

I'd been using a tear-out in our bulletins to mark the hymns we were singing, but I felt like doing something else. Some of the folks around me had these ribbon things they used and other folks had other various ideas.

(Fun Fact: Post-It Notes were invented by a choir member at a Methodist church as a way for him to mark his hymnal.)

Well, I didn't invent the Post-It Note, but I did something that works similar to the ribbon idea, with a little help via a suggestion by my grandmother.

I took a note card, cut it down small enough to fit into the spine of my hymnal, punched five small holes in it, and tied a string of yarn to each hole.

Stick the thing in the spine and you get this:

Should do the trick.

So apparently I know them pretty well

Welcome to Stupid Quiz Sunday, in which I'll take an online quiz that may or may not be stupid and post the results.

You Know Your States

You got 8/10 correct. You've got a pretty good handle on US geography. There's a good chance you've visited at least a dozen of the fifty states.

How Well Do You Know Your States?

Big swing and a miss on how many I've visited though... it's more like seven.

Have you taken this quiz? Have a quiz you want me to take? Leave a link in the comments.

Technorati Tags: online quiz,states

My take on Biden

The Obamessiah has anointed Joe Biden as his number two man.

It just seems odd to me that Obama, the bastion of hope and change that he is, would select someone that's been serving on Capitol Hill for 35 years.

To put that in perspective for you: When Biden was sworn in, Obama was eleven years old.

Sure smells like change to me!

(Oh, and if you must ask, I call that new image "Pocket Chance We Can Believe In" because when Obama's done taxing us that's all we'll have left. I plan on using it whenever I do a post about Obama.)

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Joe Biden

BYO Big Wheel Racing

K T Cat did a post the other day about BMX being an olympic sport.

Give it a read.

Personally, I just can't get enough of this video:

He's going the distance! He's going for speed!

It looks like fun!

That might be one of those things I'll have to add to my bucket list.

Technorati Tags: big wheel racing

An interesting observation

Beers with Demo has an interesting observation involving both Bigfoot and the Edwards-Hunter affair.

Check it out here.

Computer Guts

Welcome to Friday Photo, a new feature where I share photos that I've taken with the world.

When I built my computer two years ago, I took some pictures thinking that I'd do a blog post about it.

I got tired of taking pictures really fast, so I stopped. but I still got a couple cool pictures before I did.

Maybe it's just the geek in me, but I've always found that pictures of computer guts can look pretty cool.

In retrospect, I should have used this picture instead of the stock one from FreeDIgitalPhotos.net for this post on Wednesday.

I think I'll pass...

There's no way I'd give a hotel a good review if they did this:

That's just creepy!

Technorati Tags: hotels.com,commercial

A very welcome break from the heat

We've been getting a lot of rain this week. Nothing too bad in this part of town (although there was some minor flooding in parts of town yesterday).

It's not welcome so much for the rain (although we do need it) as it is the cooling off that it's done.

Summers here are brutal. The average day is a very himid 92 with a 20-30% coverage of afternoon thunderstorms.

Yesterday it never got above 80, and that's with long enough breaks in the rain to get some stuff done outside.

It felt like October, which is probably the nicest month of the whole year in these parts, this afternoon when I walked the dogs.

Alas, this kind of weather is forecast to go away in the next few days, and we'll be back to a hot and sticky 92 this weekend.

October can't come soon enough.

Technorati Tags: weather

Appeals court: Size doesn't matter

This has to be the strangest defense I've ever heard of:

Houston's 14th Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld the conviction of a local doctor for indecent exposure.

The court rejected the argument by high-profile attorney Dick DeGuerin and his associate Neal Davis that the doctor could not have exposed himself to an undercover cop because that which is alleged to have been exposed is too small to have been seen.

It's a column worth reading to the end if just to see the details of the defense and how it was concocted.

Technorati Tags: weird

LOLcat of the day

I can relate to this one.

more cat pictures

How to get rid of the dotted underline under timestamps in some Blogger templates

(Note to my regular readers: The only reason I wrote this post is because there's not much help for this situation to be found on Google. Don't worry, I won't be blogging about stuff like this much.)

Free photos for websites - FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When I went to this template, the biggest thing that annoyed me about it, by far, was the little dotted underline thing under the timestamps. I just hated how it looked.

After literally hours of messing around, I found a way to get rid of it through CSS, thinking that there was some CSS code somewhere that was creating it.

That's not the case at all.

The timestamp is in a <abbr> tag similar to the one pasted below:

<abbr class="published" title="2008-08-19T14:00:00-05:00">2:00 PM</abbr>

The code works to show more info about the timestamp when you hover over it.

After figuring that out, I wrote up some CSS that will get rid of the underline but will keep the underline for any other <abbr> tags that I choose to use.

abbr.published {border-width:0px;}

Yes, folks, it really is that easy.

Related: Info on the <abbr> tag.

My 2008 Texans predictions

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to see any of the preseason games this year, as they're not aired in the Beaumont market for some reason, but I'm going to try to do some predicting anyway.

First let's look at the schedule:

(The team names for home games are in ALL CAPS)

September (2-2)

Sun. 7th @ Steelers 12:00 PM - I think this one could go either way, but I'll give it to the Steelers since they're at home. LOSS

Sun. 14th RAVENS 3:15 PM - Home opener against a team that struggled last year. WIN

Sun. 21st @ Titans 12:00 PM - A tough one to call either way, but I'll go the same route I did with the Steelers game. LOSS

Sun. 28th @ Jaguars 12:00 PM - We always tend to play up when we face the Jags. WIN

October (3-0)

Sun. 5th COLTS 12:00 PM - Yes they're the colts, but we're at home. WIN

Sun. 12th DOLPHINS 12:00 PM - Should be an easy one. WIN

Sun. 19th LIONS 3:05 PM - Another easy one. WIN

November (2-2)

Sun. 2nd @ Vikings 12:00 PM - I think we can pull this one off. WIN

Sun. 9th BENGALS 12:00 PM - Can the Texans tame Ocho Cinco? I think so. WIN

Sun. 16th @ Colts 12:00 PM - Can't see us winning in Indy. LOSS

Sun. 23rd @ Browns 12:00 PM - Could go either way, but it's on the road. In November. LOSS

December (3-2)

Mon. 1st JAGUARS 7:30 PM - The Texans' first Monday night affair. Seeing how they turned it up a notch last year on the Thursday night stage, I think it's safe to say they'll get this one. WIN.

Sun. 7th @ Packers 12:00 PM - Lambeau? in December? After a short week? I could be wrong here, but I don't see it happening. LOSS

Sun. 14th TITANS 12:00 PM - Another one I'd be glad to be wrong about, but Vince Young in Houston scares me. LOSS

Sun. 21st @ Raiders 3:05 PM - Easy one. WIN

Sun. 28th BEARS 12:00 PM - The Texans will wrap up the regular season and (hopefully) a playoff berth with a team that I expect to struggle this year. WIN

Total: 10-6

I'm not guaranteeing they'll do that record, but I don't think they'll go below it.

This year I'm expecting a few things. Mainly I'm expecting Mario Williams to continue showing us all why he was picked #1 overall and am hoping that Amobi Okoye will start coming into his own too. With those two dominating, O lines will really struggle.

I'm also hoping to see Matt Schaub continue to show why we traded for him and have a good year. Maybe not tear the league up, but have a good year, especially since we're looking like we'll actually have a running game this year.

And no, I'm not going to post a nude pic if they go below it this year. Or should I? I'll think about it and get back to y'all on it.

Technorati Tags: NFL,Houston Texans,Texans

Fail of the day

The great thing about idiots is that there's always a bigger one somewhere:

see more pwn and owned pictures

"Me so horny, me love you long time" spas create problems for the legit ones

Back in May a couple of day spas were busted for offering happy endings.

Since then, it turns out, the legit day spas have been having issues:

Massage therapist Crystal Christoffers has had to "strong-arm" more than one client and end the session when he wanted a bit more than the typical massage.

"Massages are for healing and getting better," said Christoffers, who works at Calder's Mane Event and Day Spa. "It's not sexual in any way."

However, after Beaumont police raided the Sun Spa and the VIP Spa earlier this spring after an undercover investigation of possible prostitution at the businesses, the therapists at Calder's got more than just a few calls from potential customers wanting something erotic.

I guess I really shouldn't be surprised that, when something like that happens, the perverts come out of the woodwork like that.

But it's not something you'd think of.

Ch-ch-changes

	Free photos for websites - FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I'm making some changes around here.

As you can see, I've gone to a new template. I like this design more and it works better with some of the other features I've added.

Like the star ratings system, where you can rate the posts. Decided to kill that one because it looked a little funny with this template

And the biggest one would be the embedded comment form.

That's right, the comment form is now on the permalink page. It's still a little screwy, as the feature's in beta, but it does all the things that the old one did, although it's a little different.

Of course, there are still a few things to take care of:

• Edit the CSS so the font for the posts and stuff is bigger. It's a little on the small side as it is. (done)
• Add the code for selective expandable posts. Changed my mind on this one, gonna go without.
• Make a new button and favicon. (done)

And that's all I can think of, but I'm sure I'll figure out more as I go along.