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My Aztek was financed through GMAC. On December 19, I called to inquire about the payoff on the account and was told $4990.28. The due date was December 23, and after that date, the loan would get interest at about $2/day. I received this quote while speaking with someone, and so I then asked what would happen if they didn't get or process the check immediately. The woman on the phone told me that "if it's under $25, we close the account." In other words, on a $25k loan (or whatever it was), they don't worry about the last tiny bit.

A check was sent on December 23. It was not received or processed until January 6. I called several times between those two dates inquiring when they'd process the account. It does not take two weeks for the mail to get from here to there. Being Christmastime, it would take, at most, five to six days.

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Every time I launch Safari - whether it's after a crash or after a restart or after me quitting Safari manually - the "Enable plug-ins" option in the "Security" preferences is disabled.

I have Saft installed, but none of its settings seem to be affecting this issue. I can check the box and Safari works properly, but the next time I launch Safari it's unchecked once again.

I can save other preferences and their on/off state is preserved. The permissions are correct.

-rw------- 1 iacas admin 16573 Jan 17 13:24 com.apple.Safari.plist

So what's going on? Safari 2.0.3 (417.8) and Mac OS X 10.4.4. As I said, Saft and not much else non-standard installed. More notes will appear in the comments as I trouble-shoot this issue. I wanted to get the symptoms here first.

Question: Should Bush be impeached?

My Answer: Judi thinks so. With a little bit of persuasion, I might say yes, too. My hesitance to give an answer is only due to the fact that I've not followed politics much if at all since the last election.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: Do you like the iLife '06 packaging?

My Answer: Most do not here. I like the size and shape of the new packaging, but I neither like nor dislike the packaging compared to last year's. Last year's left too much to the unknown, but was creative and cool. This year has a nice theme, with the DNA strip, but it seems to focus solely on movies. iTunes, iPhoto, and GarageBand - while all with movie components, are generally not thought of as "movie" apps.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

A long-time MacPal Pro of mine has finished up one of his first desktop software apps, Notae. It's a $15 desktop notepad similar, I suppose, to VoodooPad. It's well-crafted and it looks great.

Notae can import, edit, classify, search, and export your notes. It's Cocoa-based, so a lot comes "free" including support for .doc and .xls documents. Yep!

So, check it out.

The Pittsburgh Steelers beat both the Blue & White and the Black & White on Sunday in a nail-biter that should have spared the nails of thousands. Perhaps the Zebras felt they had to protect their equine pals. Let me count the most obnoxious of the "calls" (or non-calls) made by the men in stripes:

1. Ben shuffled the ball cleanly to Verron Haynes. Haynes is tackled before the ball gets there. The ball traveled across the line of scrimmage. No pass interference called.
2. Antwaan Randle El was basically tackled by Marlin Jackson well before the ball got there. Again, no PI call. This was on the Colts 15 yard line and would have led to at least three points, perhaps seven. Instead we were forced to punt.
3. Manning was sacked at the one but the ball was in the end zone - that's a safety. It doesn't matter where his feet were at first contact, just the ball. Two points taken from us here.
4. Troy Polamalu intercepted a pass. Duh. Eight point differential here even if the Steelers fail to advance five yards for even a field goal. As many as 15 point swing on this call alone.
5. As far as I know, there's no such thing as a "redo" in pro sports. Since when can the refs whistle a play dead with four Colts in our backfield pre-snap and not call something? Faneca moved, but if the refs didn't see it, surely they saw the guys in our backfield? No call?
6. Countless times Steeler pass rushers were drug to the ground. Look up the definition of "holding." Very few holding penalties.

All told, we lost a minimum of 3+2+8 = 13 points and as many as 7+2+15 = 24.

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Question: Is New England the greatest football team of all time?

My Answer: Hell no! I'll take four Super Bowls in six years (gee, guess who), including back-to-back and then back-to-back wins, over three in four years any time. I also think that the 49ers, Packers, Cowboys, and some other teams were better. New England was helped with the "tuck" and a weak, weak, weak NFC. Don't get me wrong - they're way up on the list - but best ever? Nah.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

We've had about three days of snow in the past 45 days. It's 62° outside right now. I'm gonna try to play golf tomorrow, and I'd have played the past three or four days if I didn't have to be here at home painting the kitchen.

With gas prices as high as they are, this warmth couldn't have come at a better time, eh? As someone who works from home (and thus, doesn't drive much), I kinda miss the snow.

Plus, with weather like this in December and January, you damn well know it's gonna snow in April and May. 😛

No, it's not, and those that want to complain that Apple has suddenly become Non-Public* Enemy #1. Hogwash, people:

However, this isn't about the MiniStore itself. It’s about Apple's attitude in rolling this change out to the millions of iTunes users, without as much as a peep about what's going on behind the scenes

Frankly, I'm not so quick to jump on Apple. They're one of the few companies I "trust." If they did something bad, sure they should tell people. But asking Apple to disclose every little change such as this is akin to asking everyone to affirm that they won't go murder someone each and every day. In other words, if you don't do anything "bad," why bother people? The Mac OS is built to get out of the way but inform the user before something 'bad' happens.

* "Non-Public" being "Private" or "Privacy." Weak, I know. Really weak.

P.S. The Boing Boing fellows predictably and routinely over-react to things like this.

Question: How much do you think a carpet installer makes per hour?

My Answer: I would have thought $50/hour, tops. I was wrong.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Read about it here. While I am of the opinion that the Lugz/Eminem ads are surprisingly similar, to this latest charge I must ask one simple question: how many different shots could one possibly get inside Intel? In other words, so what if the motions of the machines are similar? They do the same things over and over again. If the same machines are filmed, you're gonna get the same footage, roughly.

Apparently, Flip4Mac can "play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) directly in QuickTime Player and view Windows Media content on the Internet using a Web browser."

If it works, awesome!!!

See, now that's funny. If you believe in a god of some form or another, you probably realize now he or she (or it) has a sense of humor, too.

Question: When was the last time you went to the dentist? When they're cleaning your teeth, are your eyes open or closed?

My Answer: Today. Prior to that, waaaaaaay too long ago to mention. I keep my eyes open, though sometimes I close them and almost drift off to sleep or play a round of golf in my mind. I don't mind the dentist, but I wouldn't get my teeth cleaned for fun either.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

What the fuck kind of stupid name is MacBook Pro?