Jefflog

Here’s a tip for Windows users that I just came across: in some applications (Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Word, to name a few), if you hold down Control while using your mouse’s scrollwheel, the text will zoom and shrink.

In Firefox and IE, the behavior is as you might expect, (i.e., scrolling the wheel down zooms in, scrolling up zooms out) but my version of Word seems to have it backwards: scrolling down makes the text smaller, and scrolling up makes the text larger. I wonder if this is documented in the Word Annoyances book.

Jim Cramer of The Street explains in a recent article why we shouldn’t expect oil prices to get lower any time soon.

The collective thinking [of oil companies] went something like this: “You can fool me only so many times. We are not going to open and explore new fields; we will just pump a little more and it will cool the price.”

Well, it didn’t. Not this time.

[...]

To me, that means “Get used to these prices.” We won’t see any decline in them until these new fields — not drilled yet — come online. That will be 2007 at the earliest.

I was a big Bloom County fan as a teenager. I had bought most of the books and read them dozens of times through the years.

When my parents dropped by a couple of months ago, they left a few boxes of my memories, including the five Bloom County books I had. I’ve been going through them again, and they’re still as funny as ever. Even Hong seems to enjoy them.

The books apparently aren’t worth much, though: you can buy them used from Amazon for as little as 13 cents. Needless to say, I’m stocking up on the books I’m missing from my collection.

I upgraded the processor in my computer this week. When I first bought my computer two years ago, I opted for the least expensive processor available as an option: a 2Ghz Celeron. I figured at the time that a) a 2ghz Celeron would more than meet my needs at the time (it did), and 2) I would be able to upgrade it in the future simply by buying a new processor, when prices had come down.

I decided it was time to make that upgrade. I did careful research, and figured out that the maximum processor that my motherboard would support was a 2.8Ghz Pentium 4, with a 533Mhz bus speed. I searched for the best price, and found it at newegg.com, for about $165. A few days later, I had it in my hands.

Funny thing is, it didn’t work. Turns out I had bought the processor made with the 90nm manufacturing process (”Prescott”), and these required a higher voltage than my motherboard could provide. I debated sending it back, but after waiting on hold with customer support for half an hour, I decided to get a new motherboard from a different retailer instead. That cost me another $99.

Got the new motherboard on Friday, and installed it yesterday. The experience was kind of fun, trying to figure out where each wire was supposed to go. It cost me more than I would have liked in the end, but now my system is better future-proofed, with gigabit Ethernet, 6-channel audio support, and support for 4 gigabytes of memory and even faster processors. When I need another upgrade two years from now, I should just be able to simply pick up a faster processor off of eBay for dirt cheap and plop it into my computer. Assuming I do a better job with my homework next time, that is.

We took Maggie out to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum today. After all, it’s the best children’s museum in the country according to at least one ranking.

We know she’s a bit young to really enjoy most of the things there, but we also know that she likes going out in public and seeing new things, and boy did she ever. She was kind of tired, but that didn’t stop her from having a good time until she completely zonked out in the car on the way home.

You know how all plastic bags have a warning on them saying “This bag is not a toy”? I always thought that was obvious, until seeing my own baby interact with one. Guess what? They think it’s a toy! (Don’t worry, Mom, we’ve only given it to her until close supervision.)

You can make the same case with those silica packets you find in packaging that proclaim “DO NOT EAT”. I never had the inclination of, “oh, something just fell out of the box of my new digital camera, perhaps I should taste it“, but you know, that’s exactly how babies are. They just go around looking at things thinking to themselves, “I wonder if that would taste good.”

This weekend, we sold our Honda, brining us back down to being a 1-car family again. Since both Hong and I work from home, the second car was just taking up space in the garage; heck, even before Hong was working from home, it was a rare occasion when I’d need to head out while she was at work, and even then I could have ridden my bike most of those times.

Well, we managed to get out to a couple of local festivals in the past few weeks, but never saw any fireworks because Maggie would get too fussy staying up so late. Nevertheless, we indulged in our favorite festival vendor food, including ribs, gyros, and Polish sausage sandwiches.

Alas, regarding those Polish sausages, they weren’t very tasty this time around. I’ve learned to make them at home, and not only do they taste better than the ones you get at the festival, they’re much cheaper. Here’s how to make your own Polish sausage sandwich.

Polish Sausage Sandwiches
Serves 6.

Ingredients:

• 6 bun-length Polish sausages (we like the Johnsonville brand the best)
• 3 green peppers
• 2 small onions
• 6 bratwurst buns
• Cooking spray
• Water

Instructions:

1. Cut the peppers into thin strips about 1 inch long. Slice the onions lengthwise, then quarter them. Cut the sausages in half lengthwise, making sure not to cut all the way through, and fold them so they lay flat.
2. Put some cooking spray in a pan and set the stove on high heat. Put the peppers and onions in the pan and cook for 5-10 minutes until they’re somewhat wilted, stirring constantly. Add some water to the pan every minute or two to prevent the pan from overheating.
3. Take the peppers and onions out of the pan, and put in the sausage, skin side down, for about 3 minutes. Continue to add water as needed.
4. Flip the sausages over, then put the pepper/onion mixture back in the pan. Cook for another 5-10 minutes until the onions start to caramelize, adding water when needed and stirring the mixture around every so often.
5. Heat the buns in the microwave for about 45 seconds. Put one sausage in each bun along with a generous supply of peppers and onions.