George Hotz, and 17 year old in NJ successfully hacked his iPhone to unlock it so as to make it work with his choice of cellular providers. The hack involved opening up the phone, and making some internal circuit changes and the installation of additional software and took him about 500 hours of work to finally get it right. Link

48% of all polls are totally made up. 92% of people who believe polls are factual are complete morons. 66.7258792% of people who look up polls on the internet have a hang nail. 32% of people aren't. 97% of dogs lick their own ass. 2% of dogs lick their owner's ass. 1% of dogs are killed for biting their owner's ass. 98% of statistics are manipulated.

Grrrr. Ever have an itch on your back that you just can't quite reach? It's maddening. I have one right at the bottom of my left shoulder blade that I just can't quite get at. Must be a blackhead or something. Now is when I need a girlfriend to scratch it for me. Arrrrrgh!

The new place is starting to come into some semblance of order. Well, ok, the bedroom still needs some work but it's better than it was. After finishing up the laundry, ironing, and doing the dishes, (no toenail clipping, sorry), I showered and then set about preparing a nice shave. I loaded a fresh Feather blade into my razor, selected a nice rose scented shaving soap, and set about building a good lather with my badger hair brush. The scent of the soap isn't very strong but it's plea...

As I mentioned in another article, Elie (MM) sent me some of his home roasted coffee beans as a house warming gift. Yesterday I purchased a new coffee grinder and this this morning I put it to use. I have to say that our good friend Elie is a master coffee bean roaster. This is without question the best cup of coffee I have had the pleasure of drinking in a good many years. I drink a lot of coffee while out on the road, sometimes it's good, sometimes it would be better used as a drain cle...

Well, ok, more like a slightly off cook actually. I decided to make goulash for dinner tonight. My goulash is as much an experiment as a meal. I never make it quite the same way twice and am always searching for the perfect combination of flavors and cooking technique that will achieve the ultimate goulash. Tonight's variation is to use a large pot with a vented lid instead of a deep skillet, a tad more garlic and red pepper, a little less basil, and a couple of cups of water added to the ...

The power went out about 15 minutes ago. Hottest part of the day. Figures. I'm typing this on my laptop using the cellular card. The power company here is hit and miss on restoring service. Sometimes they get things back on pretty quick, other times not so much. I'm hoping for the former as I just got back from the grocer and stocked the fridge. I'd hate to have all of my fresh foods spoil and as hot as it is today it won't take all that long for the house to get really warm inside. The...

When I got home today I found a package from Elie. It contained some of his home roasted coffee beans. I do love my coffee and this is a very thoughtful house warming gift. Sadly I won't be able to enjoy it tomorrow morning as I just discovered my grinder is busted. Argh! I'll be making a trip tomorrow to buy a new one. Thanks my friend. I am very much looking forward to enjoying it this week.

Some of the usual suspects are calling for increased taxes in order to fund bridge repairs following the tragic bridge collapse recently in Minneapolis. This is predictable and absurd as every state already receives more than enough funds to maintain their bridges and roads. The Minnesota tragedy is a perfect model for why these things aren't being done. Instead of spending money to repair a bridge that inspection reports had indicated was sorely in need, they instead chose to build a new ...

The pizza guy just showed up. I opened the door and the heat rushed in like a cop at a doughnut sale.

Geez, I've managed to go more than 45 years without ever having a chigger bite and now it's happened twice in the span of a couple of weeks. I was sitting here surfing the net and noticed that the areas around my ankles were itching like mad. I pulled down my sock tops and sure enough there were several chigger bites on both legs underneath the socks. And I haven't even been out hiking. The new boots must be working though because they were confined to the area under the tops of the socks ...

As I mentioned in another article some sort of six legged or possibly 8 legged critter or critters dined on my right foot and ankle a few days ago. So far the bites show no signs of healing and are quite painful and itchy. Itchy enough to be maddening. I have no idea what sort of critter did the biting but I'd love to knock off a few of it's relatives about now. I shot a couple of (bad) pics of the bites. Anyone have any ideas (maybe one of our resident doctors) as to what sort of creature...

The community in which I live is all private property with all privately owned streets. There are signs at the beginning of each street stating this fact along with "No Trespassing". Of course there is a certain element of society that ignores such warnings and feel that they entitled to go wherever they please even if it's illegal to do so. We get a few of these people wandering through just about every day. As there have been a few break ins most of us keep an eye out for people who do not ...

This is from the nutty site Will It Blend? I think it's a perfect treatment for an over priced phone.

When I called the phone company last week to have my service transferred to the new house the CSR mentioned at one point that I would have to contact PeoplePC to change my information with them. Huh? I have DSL so why would I have a dial up service them them? The CSR checked my billing records and found that PeoplePC had been billing me through my phone bill since March. That was news to me but explained why my monthly phone bills had seemed higher lately. To be honest when I come in off ...