All Posts – Page 16 – Prattling Before the Pratfall

Tooth Blues

A big chunk of a molar broke off while I eating peas. Peas! This is how it goes, with getting old.

Once Upon a Time… on Amazon

I’m gonna order it! Don’t try to stop me!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F5NZ14WQ

Recently, I watched the 15-episode TV series, The Pitt, but Brad isn’t in it.

Halloween Treats

Released 12/23/67, peaked at #3, where it stayed for three weeks.

Rod Stewart at his best. Jeff Beck too, for that matter.

In 9th grade I made a cassette recording of “I Put a Spell on You” off of WBCN-FM in Boston. I probably played it a hundred times. The only thing I can think of that comes close to Screamin’ Jay’s outrageous performance is Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Yours truly in Boss Radio 66 attire (thank you Debbie and Tom!), getting ready for what turned out to be a very successful Halloween evening.

Think About It. Here’s Why.

I would suggest that physical exercise also has a similar beneficial effect.

This Changes EVERYTHING! Here’s Why.

Did I say “everything?” Sorry, I meant to say this changes nothing, except for me.

The touchpad on my Windows 11 Lenovo laptop started giving me trouble. Gradually, it got worse, until suddenly it stopped working.

The Dell all-in-one with Windows 10 I bought in Arizona for my father, then shipped back home after he died, has TPM 2 for Windows 11. But Microsoft doesn’t support its AMD processor for the update and the system was running so slowly as to be essentially useless anyway.

Hoping the Lenovo touchpad failure was in the hardware, I replaced it. Device Manager says it’s okay, but like the original pad, there is no response. I’m now wondering if it’s somehow a software problem, resulting from an update. More likely there’s a failed component on the circuit board. Checking Reddit, I saw that I am not alone in having this failure. I will never buy another Lenovo product.

Retiring the Dell all-in-one, the Lenovo took its place in the office. For the porch, there is now a Dell Inspiron laptop running Windows 11, with a Qualcomm ARM 64 Snapdragon X Plus CPU. So far, its compatibility and responsiveness are indistinguishable from the Lenovo with its Intel i7 processor.

The Lenovo laptop has only one standard USB-A connector. I used it to put an old, long idle, Belkin USB-2 powered hub back into service. It’s fully loaded with a mouse, DVD-RW drive, laser printer, and an Ethernet adapter from a previous project. One less Wi-Fi connection competing for the airwaves.

I’ll give some flavor of Linux a try on the Dell all-in-one, to see if it has some life left in it. What I don’t have is space left for it!

Mannix Women

It’s been six years since the last great pre-Covid movie, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. One of my favorite scenes shows Cliff Booth livin’ the trailer life. It reminds me a lot of how my brother lived for years, minus the dog, but with the cigarette and denim jacket.

Two Marvel Comics are shown — Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos and Kid Colt Outlaw. On TV, Cliff is watching Mannix, a show that’s mentioned earlier in the movie by Marvin Shwarz, the agent who meets with Cliff’s pal and ostensible boss, Rick Dalton.

As seen in the opening credits, the first season of the series had a computer gimmick, that was later dropped. On Facebook, actress Leslie Parrish was asked, “Are you the girl in Mannix who’s twirling around in tennis whites?”