aubreyturner.org

I have a simple solution to this kind of nonsense.

Snipers.

Via Slashdot we learn that some people in the telemarketing industry are on the national do-not-call list.

The home telephone numbers of 11 top executives of the Direct Marketing Association – which has waged a bitter court battle to kill a federal no-call list – are on the new registry, which would make them off-limits to those annoying sales calls.

The Courant found the DMA employees, and top executives from two large telemarketing companies, among the 50 million numbers on the Federal Trade Commission’s anti-telemarketing do-not-call list.

The DMA executives, some of whom admit they signed up to protect their own privacy, did so even as their organization waged a legal campaign to prevent federal regulators from blocking telemarketers’ calls to millions of other Americans.

Hypocritical bastards…

I received a copy of The Keller Citizen in the mail yesterday at my new house.  There was an interesting article about a new gun range planned for Roanoke (which is only about 5 miles from the house).  Unfortunately, the Keller paper doesn’t put their content online, so I had to type this in myself.

Council allows gun range planned for south Roanoke
By Linda Taylor

Roanoke gun enthusiasts will have an indoor range at which to practice thieir sport in early 2004.

The City Council voted last week to approve a zoning change that will allow Mark Honish to open the shooting range and an associated retail business in a planned development at Parish Lane and U.S. 377.

The request had been recommended for approval by the Planning and Zoning Commission on Sept. 15.

Honish said the 11,000-square-foot building will be made of tilt-wall concrete.  He added that his research had indicated a need for such a facility in the area.

“We expect this to be a family oriented facility,” Honish said.  “The whole point is to teach young people how to shoot properly.”

Roanoke resident Bill Walker raised some questions about the suitability of a shooting range within the city.

“I’m concerned about our town and the image we are going to be presenting,” Walker said.  “Are we ready for our young people to start going to a range and talking about what a good shot they are?  I’m more concerned about what a good shot they are on the basketball court.”

Police Chief Gary Johnson told council members he did not anticipate the range presenting any problems for the city.

“I am biased here because it will be a good benefit to the Police Department to have a shooting range nearby,” Johnson said.  “Mr. Honish has said it will be available to area police departments on a 24-hour basis.  If it is operated as Mr. Honish has described, I don’t see any problems.”

The vote on the zoning change was 5-1, with Bryan Baas voting against.

The gun range will be constructed just outside the Watermark Apartments complex.  Apartment spokeswoman Jennifer Sundquist said last week that the company had no comment on the zoning change.

It’s good news that we’ll have another range to use.  However, it is annoying to see people like Bill Walker who think that there’s something wrong with young people learning to shoot.  There’s a subtle assumption at work in his statement that guns are bad and that they’ll tarnish the town’s image.  I’d also be curious to know why one council member voted against this.  Did he have some legitimate objection to the zoning plan, or is he just an antigunner voting his prejudices?

In the comments to my last post, Full Auto asks about what software I’m using to visualize the paint I’ve chosen.  Last night, I went looking for software that helps you visualize how the room would look after painting.  Aside from the deceptive search result pages (i.e. stuff that uses a seemingly relevant domain name to lure you into some pop-up laden trojan-installing site), I came up with the following:

• Benjamin Moore: Personal Color Viewer.  This is an online application that lets you try out various shades of paint on their example photos.  There is also a professional version available for $10.00 (online download, CD-ROM is a little more) that lets you import
  your own pictures.  I got the professional version this morning and played with it some.  The only problem was that the color samples I liked yesterday were from Glidden and I had trouble finding ones in the program that matched well (mainly because my ability to remember colors isn’t very good).
• Glidden: Color@Home II.  This is a CD-ROM based application that lets you try out Glidden paints on your own photos.  It’s only available in stores.  I remember seeing it in Home Depot for $5.95 but I didn’t pick it up at the time.  I’m going to buy it this afternoon and give it a try.
• Virtual Painting is an online application that lets you try paints from a number of different companies.  The free trial version works against two sample photos.  If you want to upload your own photos, it costs $9.95 for 30 days of access.

I also bought Total 3D Home Deluxe 4.0 over the weekend but I haven’t figured out the program’s interface yet (and I didn’t feel like playing with it for long last night).  I may come back to it later, since it should also help me figure out room layouts.  It’s supposed to be able to let you import a photo and try out paint shades on it, but it requires you to have created a home design project first (and created the wall layouts, etc).

There are a number of other products out there, and other paint companies have their own programs.  I found this stuff by doing a Google search for interior paint software.

It wasn’t my intention to neglect this weblog, but I’ve been doing so many things lately that I didn’t get around to posting.  On Friday I visited the du Toits in their new house.  They were kind enough to offer to let me have their moving boxes (and there was good food and good conversation).

On Saturday I engaged in a whirlwind tour of the metroplex.  And it seemed that I left money behind everywhere I went.  I bought a gun safe, a bed (and mattress set), an office corner unit, and a refrigerator. 

On Sunday I packed a few things (it turns out I had three boxes of books just laying around on the coffee table and in a couple of chairs) and mowed the lawn at my current place before taking the mower to the new house. 

On the positive side I discovered that what I thought was wallpaper in the dining room is actually some kind of faux finish.  This means that it’ll be a lot easier to just paint over it.  After work today I met up with a friend of mine at the house and we considered possible colors.  I think we may have a color scheme that will work.  I’m going to try to import some pictures of the room into some software I got over the weekend and see if I can try out the color scheme in the software to get an overall view of the new colors.  If that doesn’t work out, I may buy a little of each color and just try them over the weekend.

I went over to the title company this morning and signed a dizzing array of papers.  The sellers will complete the process this afternoon, after which I will officially be the owner of a house (or at least the mortgage company will let me use it until the loan is paid off in 2033 ).  I’ll meet the agent at the house at 5:30 to pick up the keys. 

Every so often since I’ve gotten back I catch myself saying, “Holy crap!  I’m a homeowner.”  It seems a bit surreal.

Of course, one of my coworkers here brought it all into perspective when she said, “Welcome to the club of being broke all the time.”  Heh.

You should be careful before making an offer that your customers can’t pass up¹.

Darden Restaurants Inc. Wednesday said it had replaced the head of Red Lobster, its biggest chain, after an all-you-can-eat crab promotion went awry.

Darden President and Chief Operating Officer Dick Rivera will succeed Edna Morris as president of Red Lobster.

Morris, who had been in that job just 18 months, left to pursue other interests, the company said.

Darden executives said Red Lobster management had badly miscalculated how many times customers would refill their plates after paying $20 for an “endless” crab entree. Meanwhile, crab prices were going up, sending the profit margin crashing.

“It wasn’t the second helping on all-you-can-eat but the third,” said company chairman Joe R. Lee on a conference call.

“And maybe the fourth,” added Rivera.

¹ If you like that sort of thing.  I don’t eat anything that has an exoskeleton, but that’s just my personal hang-up.

I went to the range this evening.  A .22LR shell casing landed behind my safety glasses and left a nasty little burn on my face below my right eye.  I don’t like to wear a cap when shooting because they make me sweat and they interfere with the ear muffs.  But I think I’m going to start making a habit of it in the future.  Those .22 casings are damn hot.

The Federal District Court in Oklahoma City has issued an order blocking implementation of the National Do Not Call list.

The U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City said the Federal Trade Commission overstepped its authority when it set up the popular anti-telemarketing measure, according to a court decision filed late on Tuesday.

The FTC has signed up some 50 million phone numbers for the list, which was due to take effect on Oct. 1.

I wonder what the effect of the owners of those 50 million numbers calling the court would be?

A coworker sent me this today.  It sounds like something I’d do, although I don’t need the massive quantities of alcohol to get me started (I can wreck things just fine without any outside assistance).

How To Assemble An IKEA Computer Desk