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So the first real snow has come: Erie is expected to get about 12" of wet snow tonight. Great for snowmen, bad for driving.

My dad and I took my car in to have a flat fixed and get the oil changed. I'm relieved that I made a smart "all-weather" decision in Florida seven or eight months ago despite not knowing I'd be living in Erie this winter. Carey has a final 45 miles away at 5pm, but I've strongly encouraged her to put that off until at least daytime hours tomorrow. This isn't weather you want to be driving in if you value your life.

Bummer that you can still see the screen... I could have taken the picture out the front door, but fuggit. I'd get cold. 🙂

Turns out my Survivor Electoral Math was right: Chris won 5-2. I wasn't dead on with the votes, but my tallies were right. There are usually some flips, and the flip in this case - Ami moving over to vote against the one with the penis - was more than made up for when LeAnn and Julie both voted for Chris.

In other words, after doing the math, it looks smarter for Chris to stay with his alliance with Scout and Twila. It's the only one he's really had, he doesn't come off as a jerk, and he has a good chance to win against either in the final two (and a good chance to win the final challenge against them, too - though I'm not forgetting Twila holding on with her teeth to win earlier).

That's just what happened, except the jerk part. He could have just said to Eliza "look, honey, I saved you that one time and I hope that means something, but I've got immunity and an alliance with Scout and Twila. I wouldn't win against you. I've gotta send you home."

The Steelers played a nice second half to come from 3-0 and 3-3 to beat the New York Jets today, 17-6. The Steelers were once again without Plaxico Burress and Duce Staley was once again Stale. Jerome Bettis threw for a touchdown and ran for one, so you know it was a screwy game.

The Steelers gave up only six points and no touchdowns. The Jets never got inside the Steeler Red Zone. Curtis Martin, now fifth on the all-time list having passed Bettis (sixth), was held to 72 yards rushing. Pennington threw for 198 and Roethlisberger for 144, but Chad threw three INTs: one as they were driving for a field goal and another to lock up the game. Ben threw two, too: a tip from Ward and a hail mary INT that ended the first half.

Lee Mays stepped up with one big reception for 46 yards, and Ward, Staley, and Kreider each had a multiple-catch game. The Steelers looked a tad slow to get going, in contrast to their New England and Philadelphia victories, but they showed something else today: that they can close out games hot too.

With the Steelers victory, they have clinched a spot in the playoffs and the AFC North. There's still a great amount of work left to be done, though.

Carey and I drove to Bedford yesterday to pick up her ring. I'd already picked it out a few weeks ago, and mine was waiting too.

We drove down, picked it up, had lunch with my grandma, and drove back. I called it a "hybrid" - part engagement ring, part wedding band - because we're skipping the engagement and will just get married at some point. She was worried that this meant it'd come with all-season 19" tires and a camera… I joked that it was - it will text message me the location any time she takes it off. 🙂

But seriously, I feel good about my decision. On the way home, she said "If I would have seen this one myself, it would have been the one I wanted. It's perfect."

So is she. 😀

I don't like to keep a big blacklist, instead trying to keep things fairly well pruned so that I can glance through my list.

As such, I run these scripts now and then. Here are today's:

DELETE FROM mt_ext_bl_item
    WHERE ext_bl_item_type='1'
    AND ext_bl_item_hits < '10'
    AND ext_bl_item_created_on < '2004-12-02';

DELETE FROM mt_ext_bl_item
    WHERE ext_bl_item_type='1'
    AND ext_bl_item_hits < '100'
    AND ext_bl_item_last_hit < '2004-09-12';

The first removes any items that are at least ten days old and have been triggered less than ten times. The second removes items that haven't been hit in three months and weren't ever hit too hard.

Type 1 is "Strings." I only remove URLPatterns by hand, and I've only ever removed one (to replace it with a better one).

I really only have one question about Peyton Manning: did Dan Marino throw 48 touchdowns by blatantly running up the score every week? They've won by 27, 32, 31, and 35 points in their last four wins. Against Houston, Chicago, Detroit, and Tennessee (teams that weren't going to overcome a 10-point win). In other words, were Dan Marino and the Miami Dolphins as big a bunch of assholes as Peyton and the Colts are? I like going for records, but I like having class and respect for an opponent too!

Is there no equivalent to Business Plan Pro for the Mac? Process is the only thing that comes up on MacUpdate when you search for "business plan" (well, and another one that's not even close).

Gee, look, a huge hole in the Mac market: business plan software!

Question: Do you have a digital media card reader?

My Answer: I've got a purple CompactFlash Firewire card reader from Lexar. Works great. I recommend a card reader (though not the USB ones) to everyone.

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

Question: How many pictures (digital, analog, with your cell phone) do you take, on average, in a day?

My Answer: If we're rounding to whole numbers, zero. I'll take 20 at a time, but once a month. I found out today that my camera (a Nikon CoolPix 950 or something) absolutely sucks at taking pictures at a focal length of anywhere less than a foot.

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

Question: Did you download the 30-day Motion trial?

My Answer: You bet your buttocks!

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

PayPal can now be used to purchase songs with iTMS. In fact, the first 500,000 people to sign up with a PayPal account get 5 free songs.

Are there still 500,000 people with iTunes who haven't yet created an Apple ID and have a PayPal account? And can I - a long-time customer who also has a PayPal account, set my account to prompt me for my form of payment at purchase time?

P.S. I authenticated my PayPal account within iTunes, but I don't seem to get 5 free songs. My Apple ID is not new, nor is my PayPal account. Couldn't I get at least one free song? :-O

It may just be me, but it seems like ever since updating to 10.3.6 Photoshop's been having a fight with the shift key. The shift key no longer constrains proportions while dragging or draws perfect squares or circles. When I let go of the drag, the item snaps to the proportional size, but that's often nowhere near where I've guessed it might be.

This has happened in the past a few times, and deleting the preferences has never helped. I removed the plugins (all of them), and that didn't help. Disabling the two app plugins (adobelargecursor.bundle and the same for Panther) doesn't help. In the past, I think that it's required either a Photoshop update or an OS update.

Hrm.

I don't have a mini iPod, and the iTunes Music Store doesn't have the song used in this fan-made mini iPod ad.

This is what happens when you forget that you have a Yahoo email account you've never actually used for anything.

Gee, and only 43% of it is spam? Idontthinkso.

One thing I don't see happening: RSS Spam. Unlike email, with RSS/Atom you must explicitly ask for content. It's easy to tell who "sent" it to you. The anonymity spammers enjoy is not available in RSS.