TBWAIN - AKA Jeff Svare's Blog

And why do I? Simple. I don't like my computer telling me what I can or cannot do with something I have legally purchased. I've been trying--not very hard, but trying nonetheless--to record all my vinyl to mp3. And when I say vinyl I'm including the tape used on my cassettes and 8-tracks . I also have a fully functional Marantz Quadrophonic 8-track player on which to play my aforementioned 8-track tapes. So the other day I wanted to record my copy of Wishbone Ash 's Live Dates lp. But I can't find it. So I found my cassette of the album, plugged it into the tape deck I have connected to my PC and fired up Audacity and left the room. When I came back and checked the recording, all I had recorded was the loud squeal of a over-tensioned cassette. So now I have a lost lp, a junk cassette, and no Wishbone Ash to listen to. If I buy the CD, it'll cost me $19, which is almost the same as downloading it from Yahoo or Wal-mart. If I try the Russian site, Allof...

According to Sci Fi Wire, Doctor Who will be getting a fourth season . And another old villain will make his reappearance. Maybe the fourth season will also bring some new revelations on the Time War. Care for a jelly baby?

"The beauty of Daylight Saving Time is that it just makes everyone feel sunnier," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass, quoted by Associated Press, 22 July 2005. He wouldn't have said that if he was at my house this morning. :-P I'm sorely tempted to make a comment about the absence of sunshine and the space between his ears.

TrekWeb posted an excerpt from an MTV interview with the screenwriters for ST XI. The TrekWeb article can be found here . Here's some highlights: "The challenge of the movie is to be 100 percent true to the fanbase but also to bring in a whole new group of people who've never seen 'Trek' before," Kurtzman said. >My comment: Isn't that what they've all said before? And how well did it work? Of course, this one just might do it. Maybe. Orci and Kurtzman also confirmed that the film is not in any way a prequel but a reimagining of the franchise. Whether that means a whole new look for Star Trek remains in question. "We're not going to start totally from scratch," Orci said. "We want it to feel like it's updated and of the now. That's actually the discussions we're having now: how to keep the look of the universe yet have it not look like nothing's new. It's tricky." >My comment: Reimagining is so cliche....

This is not for the faint of heart. Really. A Lego Sponge Bob at the American International Toy Fair. Photo from PCMag.com's Photo Blog. I needed this to remind me why I'm glad we got rid of the satellite dish.

I am completely comfortable with the fact that I have to pay taxes to support government services. I acknowledge the fact that I get far more in return in benefits than what I pay. What I don't like is having to pay to file my taxes. E-filing is cool. It speeds up the entire process. Getting your return to the IRS is faster, their processing is faster, and you get your money back sooner. So why is it we have to pay a fee of $15.95 to pay our taxes? It certainly can't cost that much to process a return when there's no hands touching it? It would make more sense if they charges $15.95 to process and send a refund when it was sent in on paper. When you file on paper, how many steps are involved? Lots. Copying your return, taking it to the post office, the postal service sorts and delivers the return, the IRS receives the return, they sort and deliver the return, a warm body checks the return, maybe another warm body checks the return, they approve the return, it's sen...

I live in a part of the county where many people believe in places that don't exits. It's not like people believing in Kansas, Oz, or even Neverland. In this case, many people here call places by the wrong name or mispronounce the name or even generate an entirely new word. It annoys me to no end. For example, there is a city about 90 miles from here that many people call " Evingston, Wyomin ." No, I don't think so. Please note how the "g" has shifted from the state to the city. A local institute of higher learning is called Westminister College. Nope. Try Westminster . I've often wondered when someone says " irregardless " do they mean we should regard it? Another new word that I've heard several times lately is " homogenius ." From the context, I'm fairly certain the word that was intended to be used is " homogenous ." If this new word was to be found in Merriam-Webster's lexicon, I suppose thi...

Trektoday.com is reporting that the first draft of the script includes a young Kirk and Spock, as well as Christopher Pike and Montgomery Scott. From the article: "The feature film’s storyline is non-linear, there are different timeframes addressed," the IESB article added. "This goes along with the rumors of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy's involvement." I can only say that I'm not very impressed with this revelation. Time travel is overused, and rarely well done. Going back to where we've already been, for apparently no reason other than that's what everyone else is doing, is not very compelling. And having different actors play roles established by others has only worked on Doctor Who. And maybe the three different Catwoman on the old Batman TV series. Of course, believe nothing until you get official word or see it on the screen. Read the original article at http://www.trektoday.com/news/160107_02.shtml .

Maybe. Hillary Clinton announced today that she is forming an investigation committee for a possible presidential bid. This really isn't any surprise to anyone. It's been obvious that the presidency is what she's wanted all along. And, I daresay that if she's elected, she'll look on it more as a re-election, than an election. Do you remember her famous "We are the President" statement? I'll take this opportunity to revisit an old question some people had. Why, when she was a long-time resident of Arkansas, did she run for the senate in New York, when she really didn't live there? Easy answer. A New York politician is much more visible, and wields much more influence than a senator from Arkansas. Don't believe me? Name a current senator from Arkansas without looking it up first. Hillary's platform includes health care reform. I remember Bill promising reforms to the health care industry within the first 100 days of his presidency. ...

Or not. As this is the season of Christmas cheer, peace on earth, and goodwill toward men, I thought I'd publicly air my frustrations in trying to return a piece of defective software to my local Target store. Here's the e-mail I sent to their customer service department just a few minutes ago. On Wednesday, 27 December 2006, my son purchase a computer game, Cabela's Outdoor Adventures (SKU 20102842, receipt redacted ). I installed the game, and when he tried to play it the video would not display. I then spent a considerable amount of time verifying that all the video, sound, and monitor drivers on his computer were up-to-date, and tried again, with the same result. I then contacted the manufacturer's technical support for assistance. They had no idea why the game would not work. We verified the computer it was installed on met all the system requirements before purchasing. I attempted to return the game today to the store where it was purchased and secure an in-s...

From my childhood, one of my favorite Christmas movies was The Bishop's Wife . Not the dreadful one with Denzel Washington (whose work I really enjoy, especially Crimson Tide ), but the 1947 version with Cary Grant, David Niven, and Loretta Young. I think my favorite scene was when Dudley (Cary Grant) decorates the Christmas tree using his angelic powers. During the course of the show, Dudley find himself falling in love with the bishop's wife (Loretta Young), and she with him. All because the bishop's attentions are focused more on building a new cathedral than on his wife and daughter. Years later, I began to appreciate the closing scene of the movie. Bishop Brougham is struggling trying to write his Christmas Eve sermon, and Dudley takes over the task, dictating to the typewriter what the bishop's sermon will be. It's an eloquently short sermon that plainly teaches that charity is what we should be giving to one another. "Tonight, I want to tell you abo...

Today, 31 October, a few minutes after 10 in the morning, our Miniatute Schnauzer passed away. She had two seizures on Monday, the last one continuing for over an hour and a half. When we finally got her to a vet, her temperature was over 110° F. She continued to seizure during the night, and the high temperature probably caused brain damage as well as ruptured several organs as she hemmoraged during the night. We took her to her regular vet in the morning, and we were with her when she passed away. We got Asta from county animal shelter in 1991, when she was only a few months old. She was a dear family member who grew up with our kids. We have lots of fond memories of her and will always remember that she had the softest fur of any dog, and was the most beautiful Schnauzer we had ever seen. She was called lots of things by us over the years. Ai-ai, "The Protector from the farm", schnozzler, nostril, dingy dog, Astro, paranoid pooch, and other names. Thanks for being a...

What was Gardenhire thinking? Santana had struck out 8, the Twins were down by 1 run. Santana had great stuff going, but his pitch count hit 107. Evidently that means his arm is in immediate danger of falling off. Maybe Gardy was afraid that Frank Thomas was going to homer off Johan again. So, showing no confidence in his ace, he pull him for Jesse Crain. Who immediately serves up a home run pitch to Thomas. This reminds me way too much of Game 4 of the 2005 Division Series when he pulled Grant Balfour at the beginning of the eighth inning. Santana started that game too. Johan gave up one run through five innings, and was relieved by Balfour. Balfour didn't allow a hit, and struck out two in his two innings of work. The Twins were up 5-1, and Balfour was smokin' the ball past the Yanks. What happened? Sheffield singled. Rincon throws a wild pitch allowing Sheffield to go to second. Matsui walks. Williams singles, scoring Sheffield. Posada strikes out. Ruben Sierra (remember him...

After an extremely successful career as the premiere example of carrier-based aripower, the Navy has retired the F-14. And I'm sad to see her go. The F-14, in all it's variations has been described as the 60's musclecar of naval aviation. Her replacement, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is easier to maintain (read: cheaper) and carries a heavier payload. It also has shorter range, and lower top speed. More Super Hornet specs can be found here . Most people never had the opportunity to see a Tomcat in real life. The closest most got was Top Gun or JAG . Which, I'll have to admit, isn't all that bad. But having seen VF-1 Wolfpack deployed on USS Ranger CV-61, real life was so much better. The Tomcat was a maintenence-intensive craft, requiring 40 hours on the ground for each hour in the air. But, dang. She sure was pretty. Even sitting in a hangar, she looks mean, cool, and sexy. Put her in the air, and she's mean, cool, and sexy. Here's to everyone who...

\Roddenberry taught the world to say\"Beam me up, Scotty." Actually, that line of dialogue was never uttered in an episode of Star Trek. It's a popular myth. "Mr. Scott, three to beam up." That is actual dialogue from the series. But not in the first episode. I remember sitting on the floor in front of the tv in our house on 13th Avenue South in Fargo, North Dakota at 7:30 pm to watch the first episode of Star Trek . Little did I know then what an effect it would have on my life. I was barely seven years old, but I was already a die-hard sci-fi fan. While I liked Star Wars when it came out, and anxiously awaited each and every movie that followed, they never caught my imagination as totally as Star Trek did. Maybe it was because Star Wars was about humanoid aliens and Trek was about the human experience among aliens. I don't really know. I do know the best Trek eps have always been about how our humanity reacts to the larger world around it. Some o...

After I had checked my bag at Gardermoen airport last week I decided to ask about upgrading my seat on the Copenhagen to Chicago leg of the trip. Evidently Scandinavian Airlines has some whacky policies about issuing or purchasing upgrades. There were plenty of seats available in Business class, so seating wasn't a problem. After waiting about 15 minutes for the ticket agent to help me, she said there were plenty of seats, but the upgrade would cost about 8,000.00 USD. That's Eight Thousand dollars. Eight grand. Why so bloody much? Evidently SAS' policy is that if you upgrade one segment, you have to upgrade all of them. Even the ones that have already taken place. My Chicago to Stockholm leg, for example. Last year, I missed my flight from Chicago to Oslo because of bad weather in Chicago. So I had to stay overnight on my own dime. The United Airlines people had to change my flight from Chicago so I arrived in Europe in Frankfurt rather than Munich. This change al...

I took the train from Göthenburg to Oslo today. While we wewe stopped in Halden the Norsk Tolkontroll came aboard to talk to each passenger to see if they had any goods to declare. They're just looking for the usual stuff, asking the usual questions. "Where are you coming from, where are you going, do you have any alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drugs?" They've got all the makings of Latter-day Saint missionaries. They're in the second compartment right now (15:11) and it smells like they found something. :-) I think missionaries would approve of the dress code as well. T-shirt, blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a gorgeous black cocker spaniel. Who really likes getting his ears scratched. We're just pulling into Sarpsborg . Here's the latest in a series of odd-looking rail cars. A 29.2 cubic meter, 12 thousand kilogram container with a square opening running through the center of it. I wonder what it's for? While eating out a few times in Sweden I dis...

Or, If We're in Sweden, Don't Let Me Order the Drinks Do you remember that line from Star Wars (back when it was Star Wars , and not when it was Star Wars: A New Hope ) when Han says to Luke, "Don't get cocky." Hm? I was feeling pretty good about how well I was making myself understood here in Sweden. I was able to get through Immigration, customs, buy a ticket for the bus into town, check in at the hotel, and buy a few things and ask directions. Yeah, I thought I was doing allright. Then we went to dinner. The waiter came to take our orders and asked what we wanted to drink. I said, "Vann, vennligst." Or in English, "Water, please." Then I noticed he took away all the wine glasses from the table except for mine. "That doesn't seem right," I thought to myself. I a couple of minutes he came back with a bottle of water for our table, and a few minutes later he came with a bottle of white wine for me. I said, "No thank, I ...

The men's room wall, that it. The past week we've been in Moab, Utah taking a little vacation. That in itself is another story, which I'll probably never post here, for various reasons. Moab is somthing like another city in Utah, Park City. Both are recreation destinations each shares a considerable liberal attitude, which I oftimes don't understand, and more frequently don't want to both trying to understand. They're world view is different from mine, and it's probably better that way. So at one point during the week I found occasion to use the men's room in one of the restaurants we were eating in. Glancing around I noticed the testostorone-charged sophomoric expressions that I thought dropped out of fashion when someone graduated from high school. Well I was wrong. One bit of writing caught my eye. It said, "Victary [sic] to the Iraqie [sic] resistance! Troops out now!" Of course, as with all written material of this ilk, it was undat...

SCO , the company that has made a name for itself by claiming it owns Linux and for suing IBM, has announced it's offering Unix developers $1000 USD to receive training in its EdgeClick Developer Challenge . The winner of best wireless application gets a BMW M5 or $100,000 USD. Ja, and the fine print of the agreement probably says that SCO gets the patents and all rights so they can build up their war chest . Just for giggles, I did a search on IBM's website for the term "SCO". I got 20,298 hits .