Rat thoughts

Not all my culinary efforts work out.

A few days ago I was digging through the freezer chest and came across a bag of little stuffed pasta-like things.  I assumed they were cheese ravioli, so I made a mental note.

I decided the prepare them today, so I started out making a sauce made from ground beef, onions, garlic, bell peppers, olive oil and tomatoes.

Then I started preparing the ravioli.  The first clue something was wrong was the shape of the pasta; they weren't perfectly round like most of the ravioli I buy.  They were slightly misshapen.  I just attributed it to the fact they'd been in the freezer for so long I'd forgotten what they originally looked like.

I boiled the ravioli, guestimating the amount of time required because the packaging was missing.  I pulled one out and cut it open to make sure it was done.  This was my second clue; the cheese filling was soft, orange and homogeneous.  But I just thought it was that peculiar brand of pasta.

Then I drained them, and the raviolis all stuck together.  They had a strange, sticky texture, clue number three.  I thought maybe I'd overcooked them or something.

I plated the ravioli and poured the sauce over the top.  Just as I sat the plate down in front of my roommate it suddenly clicked:  This is not ravioli!


I finally remembered that my SO had bought a package of cheese & potato pierogi from Costco a couple years ago.  I'd prepared one of the bags, but never got around to the second.  Eventually the box got thrown away and the bag migrated to the bottom of the freezer, where it lay forgotten until now.

My Verizon contract expires in a few days, and their service here is horrible (it's fun to get a call about a job and have the call drop), so I had been looking to switch providers.  I was highly impressed by the performance of my Kindle, which uses Sprint and gets 5 bars all the time.

My Dell Axim PDA is getting a bit long in the tooth (and short in the battery), so I decided to get a PDA-phone.  I have a bunch of software for Windows Mobile already, so that brought my choices down to three, the Treo 700w, the HTC Touch or the HTC Mogul.  I've dealt with Treos before and didn't like them, so it was between the Touch and the Mogul.  The Touch is a bit slimmer and came with GPS and Sprint TV capability, while the Mogul has a slide-out keyboard.  I opted for the Mogul because I tend to text more often than I make calls.

I spent Saturday night and most of Sunday installing software and getting my new phone tweaked out just the way I wanted it.

And wouldn't you know it, HTC released a ROM update Monday.  Installing the update wipes the memory on the unit, destroying all the work that I did the past couple days.  But the new ROM adds high-speed Internet access, GPS capability, a task manager, improved Bluetooth performance and some software fixes.  It's annoying that I have to reinstall everything, but the upgrade is definitely worth it.

I'll post pics and a review soon.


EDIT:  YES!!!  The new GPS capability works perfectly with Google Maps Mobile!  No need to pay Sprint $10 a month for their navigation software when I can use Google for free!

The past several days I've been having trouble with the brakes on my car.  I was wondering if maybe Jensen had screwed something up.  The brakes were very spongey and it seemed to take much longer than usual to stop.

This morning as I approached the turn onto the highway, I was nearly unable to stop in time.  I pulled onto the road, and since it was clear, sped up to 60-70 MPH and then slammed on the brakes.  Sure enough, even with the pedal to the floor, it took a fair ways to stop.  Normally when you slam on the brakes in my car, it feels like the world is coming to an end: the nose dives sharply, everything that's not nailed down goes flying, you get thrown into your seatbelt and the ABS kicks in and starts growling.  This time, the car just settled gently, no flying papers, no pressure on the seatbelt, and no ABS.  I did this a couple times, and got the same results each time.

The brakes still worked adequately to stop in normal driving (though I wouldn't be able to count on them in an emergency), so I decided to drive into town to Jensen to see if I could get it fixed.

As I approached town, the speed limit drops from 55 down to 30, and since I know that area is a speed trap, I dropped down to 30.  But my car kept speeding up.  Normally, I can coast through town without touching the gas or the brake, but today I was having to ride the brakes to keep it under 40!

I was beginning to wonder if maybe the throttle body was stuck open or something.  A fairly easy repair, but I really don't need the expense.

Then I noticed that the floor mat was curled a bit in the corner, and it was ever so slightly pressing against the accelerator.  All conveniently hidden behind my foot.  Well THERE'S your problem!  I'd been trying to fight the engine for the past several days.

Then it fell into place, I wasn't getting stuck behind an endless string of slow idiots on the freeway the other day, I kept having to ride the brakes because the car was accelerating!

Hey, at least it was a free fix.

It's very strange, out of the dozen or so people here who have RAZR phones, all but one have been putting the phone into the plastic holster backwards.

The phone quite easily fits into the holster with the screen facing outwards, and indeed, the way the clip is designed, it looks like it's made to do that (the prongs on the clip wrap neatly around the bulge of the camera.)  It actually snaps in slightly easier this way

Today I received a double-capacity battery for my phone, which makes it about 1/3" thicker and no longer able to fit into the holster.  Until I turned it around and tried to put it in screen first.  It fit perfectly.   Better, in fact, that before.  It's now plainly obvious that's the way the holster is designed:  the holes line up with the buttons, the shape of the clip fits perfectly into the bulge for the camera, and the slight slant at the base of the holster matches up perfectly with the slightly slanted bottom of the phone.

I noticed someone else putting their phone into the holster with the screen out, so I went around and asked everyone how they holstered their phone.  Only one person said screen inwards, everybody else was putting them in backwards.

I was wondering why we were having an abnormally high number of broken holsters, now the reason is obvious.