Category / Bill Bickel

by CIDU Bill

Totally OT other than the fact that the lightning was why today’s CIDU went up half a day late

robin computer

Okay, so big boom and the neighborhood went dark. Once power was restored and my wife switch on her computer (Compaq PC) this afternoon, this was the screen and the computer isn’t responding to any keyboard commands. We rebooted several times, with and without various accessories attached.

Any suggestions other than “Well, the computer lived a long and full life”?

(In hindsight we should have unplugged it to eliminate any chance of a sudden power surge doing damage, but that’s not the sort of thing you think of when everything’s dark at 4am)

by CIDU Bill

Just FYI

I am way behind on e-mail, and am likely to remain so for the remainder of the month. On top of that, as I mentioned in another thread, I just discovered that GMX has been shunting a bunch of messages directly into the Trash folder.

Not Spam. Trash.

No clue why, but I’m going to have to do some virtual dumpster-diving.

Please rest assured that no e-mails are being ignored, even if they’re not getting responses.

by CIDU Bill

מחוץ לנושא [OT]

I know there are a number of Israelis who visit here regularly, so perhaps somebody can provide some answers.

Saw The Band’s Visit yesterday (which takes place in Israel). Granted, my Hebrew education ended fifty years ago (almost to the day), so I know this will seem presumptuous, but a sign referring to cellphones as פלאפונים just looked very wrong to me (and when I got home, I couldn’t find any such translation).

And continuing my pickiness, one of the songs referenced “like a deer in the headlights.” Is this really a phrase in Israel? Do they have deer in Israel? Honestly that question had never occurred to me before yesterday — but even if they do, “deer in the headlights” just seemed awfully American.

(spoiler: the score was written by an American)