Wall-e

Finally went to see Wall-e.

It was the first time we'd been in a movie theater for about a year. Too many idiots, screaming children, and generally rude people in theaters. Our main way of dealing with this is to project DVDs on the wall. We make our own popcorn and chill. Perfection.

Second-best is to go to an upscale theater where people know how to behave. We picked the Inwood. The audience and the movie were both delightful. Two thumbs up and all that.

roomba

Found a used Roomba on craiglist for $40. It's running around the living room now. It's pretty hilarious.

Mucho bottling

Bottled the batch[7] apple cider w/3068 weizen yeast after about three months in the primary. It was only down to 1.004 but I bottled w/4oz of priming sugar and stored it in a bottlebomb-proof container.

Also bottled half the batch[18] farmhouse (the part that didn't go onto blackberries).

Cleaned and delabeled about 50 .5L german beer bottles; They rock.

Economic Stimulus scammers

I have found three main ways that mortgage scammers try to fleece folks with misleading mail:

1. the original "Important mortgage communications -- answer immediately!" scammers, who suggest their junkmail scam is from your lender.

2. the "Important information about your VA Loan -- open immediately!" scammers, who suggest their junkmail scam is from the Veteras Administration. Nice, huh?

3. the latest one "Economic Stimulus Program -- Do not throw away! Economic Relief Voucher Enclosed.", who suggest their junkmail scam is a stimulus check (ie, from the US Treasury).

In case anyone has questions about this fine company, I have included their toll-free number below.

Center for Stimulus Relief
1-866-559-8272


Again, to folks who are getting their first mortgage: read EVERYTHING carefully, and contact your lender if you have questions about what is a scam and what is not.

BTW, my last few posts have been whines and gripes. Let me give a glowing recommendation:

Guardian Mortgage - Richardson Location
North Central at Beltline
100 North Central Expressway, Suite 150
Richardson, TX 75083
Scott Broyles treated us with respect and professionalism, and helped us get into the plain vanilla 30yr VA loan we were seeking.

So long Bagelsteins....

Bagelsteins was next to Bill's Record and Tapes, and the Dear Wife and I ate many good meals there.

Then they got weird and moved further north on Coit. We followed.

Now they've moved into North Dallas around Preston/Royal. Service, always amusingly obnoxious, has turned incompetent and the food orders are no longer as good as they were.

We are not returning. Bye, Bagelsteins, I've spent my money in your restaurant for 10 years, and you've run me off. Bah.

digital tv converter box scammers

If you are buying one of the boxes (out of your pocket or with one of those $40 cards), I advise you to buy it in a brick-and-mortar store rather than online.

I made the mistake of sending my $40 card info (and CC for the remainder) to a shady outfit that accepted orders although apparently had no compliant product to ship. They kept stringing along the customers until the $40 card expired. This behaviour has apparently attracted the attention of the feds but that doesn't help the customer with the expired card. Note that the NTIA smackdown came out after I placed my order and the customers still were not informed that their orders were in limbo and the cards' expirations were ticking along....

And they say that customer service is dead.

mild

Friday morning (the 4th) I brewed another all-grain batch of mild, and took the blowoff tube away last night. It's sitting in the Johnson-controlled fridege at 65F.