A somewhat better day

Closing just about every program that my computer is running seems to have done the trick for getting the CD burner to work. I'd thought there was interference there somewhere. What do I need all these automatically-installed programs for, anyway? The computer seems to run perfectly fine without Systray or Taskmon or Point32 or Gwhotkey or Starter or a whole bunch of other things in my startup file that are clearly not rogue programs but whose functions I can't identify.

We're not as far as I thought we were from the CP/M days when I knew the nature and purpose of every program my computer had to run.

Anyway, that seems to have worked. anderyn, look to your mailbox.

Anybody who thinks there's anything new about the American involvement in Iraq should read about the American involvement in Mexico in the 1910s. Embarrassingly, I'd known little about this except that it happened and that it culminated in a military incursion, but I found a good account of it in the 1954 book Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era by Wilson scholar Arthur S. Link. It's positively hair-raising. Previous administrations had tried to avoid getting entangled in Mexico, but the Wilsonites couldn't wait to get their hands wet. They barged in to Mexican affairs, ordering government policies around to their satisfaction, and alienating everybody. By the time the Americans fastened their seal of approval on that charming rogue Ahmad Chalabi Pancho Villa, any chance of getting out with dignity was over. Anyone who is less than pleased with current events should be seething after reading about this nearly century-old mess. It had a happy ending, though, as Wilson finally realized he was about to plunge the U.S. into an outright war with Mexico, swallowed his pride, and pulled back.

sturgeonslawyer went to Tahoe and ate at a Fusion Mongolian BBQ. I wound up a place like that in downtown Ann Arbor when I was on my own for lunch there on my recent trip. My conclusion was that Fusion is to Mongolian BBQ as Paul Whiteman is to jazz. Maybe this was a better one, or maybe tastes just vary.

I was slightly astonished that nobody replying to my post about Whale Rider liked the film, not that there were many replies. But I'd thought it was universally beloved and that B. and I were going to be accused of being wilfully obtuse for disliking it.

All right, how about The Triplets of Belleville? I rented that, and after twelve minutes found it so tedious, meandering, and generally foul and repellent that I could take no more. I know people I'm sure would like this, but I'm not one of them. I turned it off and watched Shrek again instead.