Sigh, my neighbor is leaving… He and I are the only original homeowners in our neighborhood. Turn-over is very high around here. I am definitely worrying about who is going to buy the house. All I need is another loud and obnoxious dog barking at all hours of the day.

Gah! I tried to search for the house on the realtor’s site and failed. What an awful site under firefox. And I love this error message: “Your search returned 201 or more results, which is over the limit of 200 for this service. Please alter your criteria to limit your results to 200 or fewer records”. But I found it. I wonder how long that link will last… Nope. Not long at all: “There is a problem accessing this site through the requested URL. Please try again through an authorized URL”. Image wanting to link to a web site…

Driving back home, I saw a sign that read “end of section where disabled vehicles will be towed.” Less than a couple of hundred feet after that sign was a disabled vehicle. Either that person lucked out or pushed it a safe distance past the sign.

WhenI passed through Elgin, Texas. I just had to stop and try some sausages since Elgin makes some famous ones (at least around these parts). I was worried that they would be closed on New Year’s Day and I would miss this opportunity (why else would anyone drive out to Elgin?). I am glad that I went, but I do not think that I will make the drive again. Rudy’s still has the best sausages (called “hotties”. and B-B-Q in general for that matter).

I was “working from home” today and minding my own business when I heard a police siren nearby. That’s odd since my neighborhood is pretty quiet. I look out the window and see a bunch of police pointing weapons towards my neighbor’s driveway. I wonder what’s up?

Whatever precipitated it, they called an awful lot of squad cars in (at least nine). And a firetruck and ambulance as well. The police stood around my neighbor’s truck with weapons pointed while they negotiated with him. Scary. I hope everything ended well.

Yeah, right. I believe someone made a mistake. I really doubt that the “plus” version of the gasoline is 93 octane. I wonder if anyone has noticed this…

For lunch I went to the new Ikea superstore. I didn’t go to shop or to look at furniture. That will have to be some other time — but only to eat. Unfortunately for me, the restaurant is located in the middle of the store. And it takes quite the maze-like path to get there. They obviously want you to visit every nook and cranny of the store. The main path visits every square inch of the place. They do offer “shortcuts”, but they are too short and do not get you any closer to the place you are trying to get to.

I finally got there and I was rewarded with a plate of Sweedish meatballs. They offer a choice of three different counts of meatballs, a side dish of new potatoes, gravy, and some lingonberry jelly. Now this is a meat and potato dish! And it was not quite what I was expecting. I would rather of had pasta instead of the potatoes. But it was good. It was amusing to hear the cashier complain about having to count the number of meatballs to determine the price. How flawed…

And for a drink, I tried out the Lingonberry soda. Which was pretty good. It was not that powerful, but subtle and refined. I probably won’t eat there again. But I had to try it at least once.

I went into Austin to watch Babel with a friend. Since the theater is so near the Arboretum, I decided to have lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. With a name like that you know the desserts are going to be good. I liked this chain back when I was in Boca Raton, Florida. So I was happy when the restaurant took over the old movie theater location. The menu is positively ginormous. There is something for everyone to eat here. Of course, you must try the cheesecakes. They have a rather large selection of them as well.

While the lunch was great. The movie (Babel) sucked. Rather pointless. But there was a young, naked, Japanese woman in the picture. So it wasn’t a total waste of time…

A few degrees makes all the difference between freezing rain and cold rain, and between icy roads and wet roads. It also helps that the ground has retained some heat from the previous warm day…

There are a lot of breakfast taco options for me. The IBM cafeteria makes a rather generous, filling, and cheap taco. But with Thanksgiving coming up, the cafeteria is mostly closed up. On Metric I go to the Taco Shack. You gotta love a restaurant that is only open for breakfast and lunch. Why work more hours than you have to?

Today, I went to Rufi’s on Lamar. I thought I was in trouble when I noticed that the siding was removed from the building. But then I saw a sign pointing to the right. So I looked around and realized that Rufi’s had moved to a new building. They seem to be doing well.

I like breakfast taco places that have more options available to you. And this one has Mexican options out the wazoo: Chorizo, Picadillo, Carne Guisada, Barbacoa, Al Pastor, Steak Ranchero, …

Cinemark opened up a new theater recently just 2 1/2 miles from my house. How convenient! Its got 14 screens, what seems to be a smaller parking lot, and a really lame name (Cinemark 14 Round Rock). Being so close makes it possible to leave quite late and still get there in time to watch a movie. But the quickest route is Sunrise Road. So you can’t speed like you might on IH-35.

Unfortunately, they converted Round Rock’s original theater into a discount movie theater instead of a theater that shows less mainstream and more artsy movies.

I christened the theater by watching Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. This is a film that tries to push every boundary. I am surprised that it made an R rating. America needs to distribute more NC-17 and X films in theaters.

I did the early voting during my vacation, so I have already voted. Have you? This was my ballot. What I found disheartining was the fact that there are uncontested seats! And everyone of them is a Republican.

Last week I saw the documentary on HBO called Hacking Democracy. And it was absolutely shocking. It was about the lack of review of the electronic voting machines and how it could affect our democracy. What really drove the point home was when they proved just how easy it was to change votes. They went to an official Florida voting station and got an official to run a test. They created a sample ballot and, in the open, put six votes for “no”
and two for “yes”. The hacker’s only involvement was to supply an electronic memory card. Which the scanning machine validated as having 0 votes on it. When they ran the results, it came out for “yes”. This was because there were negative votes for “no” and cancelling positive votes for “yes”. Apparently, the totalling system just adds the two together and tests for zero.

Watch it on HBO, or on Google video while you still can.