Rat thoughts

It's rather annoying, I go to the supermarket and about 2/3rds of the "juice" they have for sale isn't pure juice, it's a little bit of juice mixed with water and sugar high fructose corn syrup.  Some brands are as low as 1% juice!

And even when you do find something that's 100% juice, chances are it's not 100% of the kind of juice on the front label.  Recently I saw a bottle of 100% "Pomegranate" juice, but according to the ingredients list, it's mostly apple or grape juice, pomegranates are third on the list.

Lately I've been trying to drink less soda and more fruit juice, but it's really difficult when the labels try so hard to be deceptive.  Although juice has about as many calories as soda, it also has vitamins, minerals, flavonoids, polyphenols and other important nutrients.  Since I have a bad habit of not eating as many vegetables as I should, I'm hoping a glass of apple juice a day will keep the doctor away.

I wanted to check the torque of the lugs on the Ratmobile, so I stopped into the local Lowes to buy a 3/4" deep socket. There was only the one checkstand open, so I got in line. There were only 2 people in front of me, but of course, they managed to make simple transactions take forever.

I get home, and discover that the socket is just a wee bit too short, so I head back to Lowes to buy an extension bar. This time, there were 2 checkstands open. I get in the closest one, and of course, it takes forever. After waiting several minutes, I notice the other checkstand open up, so I start heading over there. But I see someone else heading for the same checkstand. He looked like he only had a single small item in his hands, so I let him go ahead of me. But no, it was an order slip, the guy was buying an appliance or something, and the paperwork wasn't done correctly, so the clerk has to call for a manager. ARGH! Meanwhile, the line I was in originally opens up, so I get out of line and RUN to it.

Geez, you have to wait in line for 10 minutes to buy a single damn tool. They REALLY need to work on their checkout.

(It turned out that, indeed, the last person to work on my wheels didn't torque all the lugs properly. Bleah.)

I keep reading of the hue and cry about Microsoft's new requirement that users must validate their copy of Windows before they can download anything from Microsoft.

I really don't see what most of the fuss is. Microsoft is a business, and businesses are in business to stay in business. Piracy hurts them financially, and if they can do something to fight it, then that's their right. It's not like they are actively shutting down people's machines, as certain other companies have tried to do in the past. Microsoft is still offering security updates to everyone, legitimate or otherwise, and they've even gone so far as to offer free or discounted copies of Windows XP if you can prove that you thought you were buying the real thing. The only real change is if you've stolen your copy of Windows, you won't be able to download all the nice goodies that Microsoft gives out for free. Big whooptie-doo.

I can see, however, how it would be a bit annoying at first for IT Managers (such as myself). Every computer in the company will need to be validated (here, that's 30-something machines) one at a time. But this is a one-time inconvenience, which will add maybe an extra 30 seconds per machine when doing the next round of normal system maintenance.

This is still much less annoying and much less invasive than some of the copy protection schemes that other companies have used, such as dongles, complicated code sheets, requiring a CD to be in the drive, installing things into the boot sector, or constantly phoning home.

So, Microsoft Validation: Bring it on!