Friendster wannabe, Orkut, just deleted the accounts of several of my online chums, LanguageHat, Quonsar, and Madamjujujive. Their crime? Using aliases instead of their real names. The horror! They're coming for me next, no doubt.

I really expected better from a Google-related service, but it's becoming increasingly clear that it's only raison d'être is as a clandestine information-gathering tool. Why else would they be insisting that members use their real names? I wonder when they're going to start selling personal statistics to businesses?

Good thing that most of my personal info was bogus. Pricks.

UPDATE: as expected, I received a nastygram from the Orkut brownshirts demanding that I drop my nick and use my real name, or else face "account suspension without notification". Could these clowns be any more clueless and heavy handed? Google may be great with search engines, but that's about it.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 8:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

We all went to see the Bamboo Orchestra last night. Imagine Blue Man Group-type percussion mixed with traditional Japanese melodies. I loved the unique look and sound of the instruments; the Maui had a very full and round tone, while the Shakuhachi was utterly beautiful and haunting.

I've had a pretty busy day today, thanks to the capricious whims of Mother Nature. A major winter storm moved through our area on Thursday night, dumped 8 inches of wet, heavy snow over everything, and left me with a colossal mess to clean up in our backyard.

I live on a heavily wooded lot that has huge white pines on the northern end. The heavy snow made several extremely large branches snap off on Friday morning while I was in our sunroom drinking my coffee. The branches fell on our deck and split the railing off of one side; one also fell against a cedar that's right next to the big picture window in the sunroom. The cedar was the only thing that kept that branch from breaking through the window as I was standing there. Pretty close call!

I came home from work early on Friday and my son helped me saw up some of the branches and haul them off. The wind was blowing and I could still see a couple of cracked branches that looked ready to fall, so I decided against being accidentally trepanned by a falling log and went back into the house.

I got up early this morning and took a chainsaw to the remaining branches. When I was done, I had a pile of branches about 5 feet high. I don't think my old chipper-shredder's going to be able to handle that load. I managed to repair the railing enough so it should pass muster when we start showing our house in a couple of weeks, but I'll have to replace it when the snow melts.

I spent the rest of today cleaning house. Our realtor's coming over in a couple of hours so we can sign the paperwork to get our home on the market again. We tried to sell it last year, but got no offers. Hopefully, it'll move this time. I'm getting too old to do this much yardwork.

Dinner awaits. MrsBaliHai is burning filet mignon and using my best port to make a reduction. I guess that's my punishment for blogging when I should be cooking.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)