I found a review of the Sony Bloggie MHS-PM5K.  It was an excellent review but it was not in English. I could still understand the review.  I want that camera.  You should wish that I do not get the camera.  If I get the camera I will be posting a lot of videos here.

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  I am in a good mood today.  I am feeling good.  We just went 20 hours without electricity because of a little snow storm here in Fort Worth.  (Well it was a big, in fact the biggest, storm for Fort Worth.)  This apartment is all electric.  So we had nothing working here.  It was dark and it was cold.
  I have been without power in the past a few times and it is never any fun.  I heard that 200K people in Fort Worth did not have power at the peak and that some still do not have power.  My heart goes out to them. 
  I remember one time in Kansas City a big ice storm took out power lines all over the KC area.  We did not have power for a couple days.  Some people did not have power for weeks.
  In Miami we were with out power for a few days.  I forget I think it was four or five days.
  That was no fun but I will take being without power in hot weather anytime over cold weather.
  We had to toss out most of our frozen food.  Thank God, we did not have a freezer full of frozen food.  My guess is that a lot of food stores have had to toss out a lot of food.  
  Having to toss out food is hard for little people like me and many others.  You sit and think is this item OK or is it bad.  You are tempted to take a chance.  I think then it comes down to is it worth it.  Do you want to take the chance that the food is good.  I tossed any food that I had any questions about.  Better safe than sorry.

  I hate ice and snow.  I am living in north Texas.  I wonder if I should have picked south Texas.

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  I have reported here on my problems with getting Charter Communications to install service.  I have also reported on their service and the Internet speed that I am getting.
  I think the full story of all this is posted on HNB: Fort Worth TX. 
  So I will not go over the details of the installation problems.  Just let me say that I got a letter form Charter Communications saying I could have TV, high speed Internet and telephone service all for $59.97 a month.  I would get free install and I could even try it free for 30 days.  It was in a letter from them and I have received two more of those letters since I took their service.
  Well I called up and said come on and install the service I will take it.  I asked if they would install outlets in the living room and my bedroom and they said yes.  Now on the phone it turned out I would have to pay $80.00 … I will not go in to the details but I said OK.  So the guy got here and said.. Oh.. No you only ordered high speed Internet service.  I said OK.. install it then and forget the phone and TV.  He said.. also that he could not install any outlets or run any cable because this is an apartment.  I said Ok just turn on the Internet for this outlet that is already here.  He still wanted $80.00 and I gave it to him and he left.
  Again I will not go into detail.. but I had high speed Internet service and it cost me $57.40 a month.
  The Charter bill is here – gives details of the first charter billing. 
  I called Charter Communications on December 14th see A credit with Charter of $2784.00!
  OK this is where I get stupid.  I called Charter Communications a couple of times to pay my bill.  Each time I am calling and using Skype to call them.  When I connect right away I tell the voice mail system I want to pay my bill.  It never ask for my user ID or anything…I know I know.. I should have been thinking… I say I want to pay my bill.  It does not ask any questions and tells me that my balance is zero.  But do I want to go ahead and pay and I say yes and I make the payment.
  Today I got a written bill from Charter Communications and it is for $108.99 and of that $57.40 is “past due.” 
  So I called the Charter Communications system to pay my bill.  I know I am not past due…Hell I want to make sure I have Internet service and I am paying as soon as I can pay the bill.  I call the system and it does not ask any questions I hit the keys to make a payment and it says you do not have any due payments do you still want to make a payment and I say NO this time and get someone live on line.
  Well the woman says what is your phone number and I give it to her and she says we do not have an account with that phone number. I give her my account number and she says.. Oh yes..you are past due. 
  I tell her I have made payment online with a credit card using this phone number and she says they have no account with that number and show no payment from me.  The only payment they show is that payment I made when they came out here to install the service on December 2nd and I gave the guy $80.00 in cash.
  Well I did not have the details of the payment(s) I made via credit card in front of me so I paid $90.00 right then to the woman to make sure I do not lose Internet service.  I will have to dig up the credit card information and call them back and see if they can find my money and credit my account.

  So a word to the wise.. Do not make a payment on the telephone to voice mail system UNLESS  the system some how tells you who you are AND tells you that you do have a balance with them that you need to pay and make sure the amount it tells you jogs with the information that you know.
  OK I admit to being super stupid to make the payment over the telephone with it said my bill was zero. 
  I guess I was stupid to pay tonight.. But I want to make sure that I do not lose Internet service.
  That $90.00 I paid tonight was food money.. So Russ and I may go hungry this month but at least we will have Internet service.  Smile

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  I am sure you have been tired of reading my posts that I do not watch TV and do not even own a TV set. 
  I have sort of loved it.  It sort of made me feel better than all the rest of you.  Smile
  I can not say it anymore.  Bummer

  Jimmy gave me their extra TV, the digital box I sent them from Miami and a set of rabbit ears. 
 

  That is not the photo I wanted to post here.  Smile but I do like the above photo.
Oh I see what I did… I took a photo of my room with the TV set but I over wrote it with the above photo.  Oh well.. I will take a photo some other time.  It is just after 0300 and no telling what errors I might make at this time in the morning.

  When I wake up today I will give the over the air digital box and TV set a try and see what it is like.  It looks like a lot of digital channels.  I mean digital as in over the air … You know what I mean.

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  I had nothing to do today… So I moved my desk and bed.  I now have my desk in front of my bedroom window.  I guess I will find out tomorrow how that works.  One thing I was thinking was that I could aim my webcam out the window sometimes. Oh hell…You know me by now.. I was not thinking…I just was in the mood for change.  It is much more easy to change the location of my desk than it is to make changes to me.

  It was my plan, this month, to buy a radio for my hobby Amateur Radio.  My plan was to spent about $200.00 on a handheld transceiver. 
  Well I guess that will have to wait.  I saw the new Sony Bloggie PM5 camera.  It cost just under $200.00 and I just got to have one of them.  It has a swivel lens for one thing.  It does 1920 x 1080 HD video.  Not that HD videos from YouTube play very well for me.  My computer is always buffering them. 

  That is my plan.  You can pre-order the PM5 now.  It will be out 02/08/2010 for the white one.  I do not think I want white.  But I want a PM5 and I want it soon.  The colors are violet, white, blue and pink.  Well I am not getting pink for sure.  I do not need to match with my dress, handbag and shoes.  Smile
  
  Google AdSense was doing very good for me last month.  This month sucks.  i have earned only $7.14 this month and today is the 10th. 

  It is 0300 hours and it is 21 degrees in Fort Worth.  I am going to bed and I will see tomorrow how having the computer in front of the bedroom window works out.

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    I just saw the Sony “Boggie” camera on the Internet.  I want one.  Soon as I see a review of it on YouTube I will post it here.  It looks like a pretty neat little camera and with the extra 360 degree lens it is less than $200.00 for it.  I got to get one.
    I will start saving my pennies for it.

   Well Russell has run out of money and can not take classes this time.  He only needed two classes to get his two year degree.  College cost a lot of money.  It cost way to much.  There is no reason for it to cost so much.  
   If the people that ran colleges were so smart they could not only hold down the costs of school they could cut costs.  Hell I bet I could cut costs at a college if I was in total charge of it. 
 
   Darlene ordered four pizzas tonight.  She got two of them for Russell and I.
   I do not like pizza anymore.  I think I got pizza burn out in Miami.  Russ was ordering them all the time.

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  I talked about this before…  I never expected to be alive in the year 2000.  When I was a kid and there was a movie or something on TV and they talked about the year 2000 that seemed like it was so far off that I never did the math to see how old I would be… I expected to be long gone and in the ground before 2000 came around.
  Well I made it to 2000 and unless something happens pretty fast here I am going to be alive in the year 2010.

  My daughter in Sweden called today to wish us a happy new year.  She is having some medical problems but she is getting excellent medical care and it is costing her nothing. 

  Jimmy went and saw his doctor today and the doctor gave him free samples of the medication he need and so he has a supply of medication for one more month.

  Dar and Jimmy will have cable TV on Saturday.  Darlene has the TV on all the time and she has not had cable in years.  She is going to enjoy TV a great deal now.
  I still do not have TV.  Not even local channels.  In fact I do not own a TV set.
  I am making it OK.  I sometimes want to watch a movie and I just can not find anything I want to see on HuLu or Netflix.

  I want to wish all of you a very happy new year.. It will be the new year for me in about five and a half hours.

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  This sucks… More snow in Fort Worth.  Today is December 29th of 2009.  I have been here about a month and a half.  I was in Miami FL for five years.  My son sent me an email from Miami the other day … He was out riding his bike for five hours and got a bad sun burn. 
  I am not going to get a sun burn that is for sure.

  My ex-wife (Darlene) signed up for a dish to get TV.  She enjoys watching TV.  She is getting the dish installed for $15.00 and will get 200 channels for $30.00 a month for one year.  After that it is $60.00 a month. 
  I wonder if they allow dish antennas installed at this apartment complex.  I have seen a couple of them but they might have been installed for a long time and they might have a new rule that you can not have them.  I she will find out.
  I think 200 channels for $30.00 a month is an excellent deal. 

  Update:  12/30/2009  They allow dish antennas here but there is a $150.00 deposit that you have to pay.  Also they only allow the antenna on the patio or fence not on the roof.  Darlene can not get dish satellite TV since the dish could not hit the satellite.
                   She canceled the dish TV and called Charter Communications.  She is going to get TV, phone service and Internet service from them.  She will pay $120.00 a month.  She canceled her AT&T phone service and DSL service.   Charter will do the "install" on Saturday. 

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I am glad that Christmas is over.  I have never been much of a Christmas person. Thanksgiving and New Years are holidays that I look forward to each year.
  
  I look forward to each January 1st starting over…I make a list of things that I want to do and things that I do not want to do and how I am going to be a better person.  At least for a few hours or a few days I think I am a new and better person.  It is like a clean slate and a fresh start.
  It sort of feels like when you come out of the confessional (if you are Catholic).  That may be the way you feel when you are “born again.” 

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It is December 24th (2009) at 9:30 AM and it is snowing in Fort Worth.  Merry Christmas to one and all.

  Yesterday the sun was out and it was a nice warm day.
  Today no sun and it has been raining and now we are getting some snow.
   It is 37 degrees at this time.

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  I had a good mail day.  I got my AARP MedicareComplete membership card in the mail today.  I was worrying because I had not heard from them.  I got the card and they say the membership kit will be here soon.
  They picked a PCP doctor for me.  I was going to pick a woman, I looked up on their site, but I guess I will just go ahead and see  Doctor Todd Cowan.  Yes, I know I can change PCP doctors.
  I did a little search on his name and I found three people rated him at www.Vitals.Com.
  One said this:

“Dr. Todd Cowan is one of the best doctors I have every had the pleasure of meeting. He is caring and will give you the information and assistance that you need to get in better health and to stay that way.”

One said he was not responsive to phone calls.  But the other said the following:

”Dr. Cowan’s problems are all his fault. His clinic is absolutely way overbooked. It seems that they see way too many patients there and are perpetually behind. It also seems that they see mostly low income and low coverage patients. That isn’t bad in itself, but it the fact of less money per patient obviously has ramifications for the quality of service. If you have a good health plan or the money to spend, this isn’t the doctor to see.Finally, he is friendly easy to talk to. However, I always feel like he’s in a rush to go somewhere else. He talks to me for only a few minutes and in that time I don’t feel like he’s cares about me understanding my medical problems. I will be getting another doctor once I have time to search.”

  I  am going to give him a try.  Hell, I belong with the low income patients but with Medicare (national health care for people over 65) I can afford any doctor I want.

  I got a photo Christmas card today from a friend in Kansas City.  I love photo Christmas cards.  I think Darlene and I only sent them out a couple of times.
  I am not sure how my friend in KC ended up with such good looking grandkids.  Smile

   I also got a cute little holiday card from Charter Communications.  They want me to switch to Charter today and get “free installation” and their “Charter Bundle” for $59.97   SMILE

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  I had a dream again that I been having…I go for a doctor's visit.  I get a ride from the doctor's office by a friend and he has his family in the car.  They drop me off near my home.  I start walking and I am in down town Kansas City (MO) but their are blocks of new construction going on with interesting building go up.  I take some photos with my digital camera.  Then I try and find my house but I am down town KC and no where near my home.
  So I walk around trying to find a bus.  I then keep walking around and I then understand there is no way I can even get close to my home from where I am.  I feel lost and then I wake up.
  I hate that dream.
  I want some nice sex dreams.  I am not a pill taker and I have never done any sort of drugs but I think there should be a dream pill.  You take the pill and then you have a nice sex dream.

  My son in Miami got his first electric bill since Russ and I have been gone.  The old bills ran $200.00 a month or more.  He got his first bill and the bill was for $65.00 for the month.
 
  The WordPress people are very close to the release of a new update for WP and it will be 2.9.  I love it when I get new updated software.

  We have all sorts of aircraft flying over us.  I wish I knew my aircraft.  Keep in mind I used to be a member of the Ground Observer Corp back in the late 50s.  But we did not have to report the type of aircraft.  So I do not remember having any flash cards to learn or anything like that at the time.  There are going to have an air show here in 2010 and it is going to run two days.  I am going to see if Jimmy wants to go with me.  The other day we can watch a lot of the action in the sky from our patio.

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  If you been reading my blog for anytime you know I like to set up sites and try things out.  I am signed up a lot of sites.
  I do not know why it is so hard for me to cancel one or do away with it.  I sign up and I like some features and I feel a connection to the site. 
  Some how last night I got the power in me to cancel three of the sites that I have not been using and updating.  It was hard but I deleted; Vox, VodPod and Vimeo. 
   Some of them were pretty neat services and looked good.  But I was never going to them or updating them and very few people were finding them so I killed them.
    God, why do I feel guilty.  Hell, I guess I feel guilty about everything.

    Now I just have to keep from signing up for other sites that I will not use.

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(CNN) — “Nearly one-sixth of teens who own cell phones have received nude or nearly nude images via text message from someone they know, according to a new survey on "sexting" from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The national telephone survey confirms parent and teacher worries that young people are using cell phones to send out and receive sexually explicit images of themselves and of romantic partners.

The 800-person survey, released Tuesday by the nonprofit research group, found 15 percent of cell-phone-owning teens ages 12 to 17 had received nude or nearly nude photos by phone. Four percent of the teens said they had sent out sexually explicit photos or videos of themselves.

Older teens were more likely to send sexual images through text messages than younger teens. Four percent of 12-year-olds reported sending sexually suggestive images by text message, while 8 percent of 17-year-olds reported texting nude or partially nude photos…”

  I want to be a teen or pre-teen again.  When I was a kid the only images I got to see was when we got a Sears or Wards catalog.  I would open it up and look at the girls and woman in their panties and bras. 
  There was no Internet or world wide web.  Plus I went to Catholic school. 
Just think about it now days…You are a kid and you have your own telephone.  Not a telephone in your room on a party-line but a cell phone.  You can take it with you AND on top of that you can no only talk to people on the phone but your friends can send you text messages and photos and video.  And a large number of kids are sending each other nude photos. 
  Hell I do not think when I was a kid that we even had TV until I was about 9 years old and then we only had one channel.
  When I went to high school I went to male only high school and not only was it Catholic it was a military school.
  My God, I got screwed… Well no that is the problem .. I did not get screwed.. I got cheated… I would love to be a kid today.

  OK OK.. part of the above was an attempt at humor.. Truth is there is a lot of danger out there for kids now day.  There are a lot of ways a kid can get into trouble with all the access they have to things.
  When I was a teen I was doing shortwave listening and active in Civil Defense and other things like that… If I was a kid now days I would not have to wait for Sears or Wards to mail a catalog … I would be on the Internet and I think it would be pretty easy for me to get in deep trouble.
  I guess it is a good thing we can not go back in time.
  I

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  I have started getting the Windows blue screen crashes.  The computer will just crash and burn.  I can be doing something or just watching a video.

    From what I can tell from checking on line it is a device driver and I been having USB problems.  It seems like everything I have is USB. 
   I will just have to try and see what is the newest USB device and try and do away with them one at a time.  Of course the newest is my USB WiFi card and I can not do away with it.  I will have to remove some of my other USB devices.
  Windows is such fun.

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  I just noticed that Firefox 3.6 beta 4 works with Netflix.  I just watched a movie streaming from Netflix using Firefox. 

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  This is a video blog update.  If you been reading the blog you are aware of this information.
I will be doing a test later to make sure you are reading Howard's Notebook. 

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  I got a Belkin G Wireless USB Netword Adapter at BestBuy today.  I came home and hooked it up and bang a wireless connection on my computer.  I waited and waited for it to disconnect me like the Linksys USB11 had been doing but I have not lost the connection.
  I had also tried in the past a Linksys PCI card WMP11 and it would disconnect me every few seconds.
  I am not sure if Linksys is the problem or if my computer has a problem but this Belkin is working great.

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  I just signed up for my Medicare insurance plan online.  I used the Medicare online site to look at plans for Texas.  Then I picked three plans to compare. 
  I compared AARP, Cigna and Universal Health Care.  The UHC (Any, Any, Any plan) I had in FL back a few years ago.
  I ended up taking the AARP MedicareComplete plan. 
  The AARP wanted no extra monthly money.  Cigna was an extra $20.00 a month.  UHC was an extra $59.00 a month.  The money did not enter into the choice.
  The AARP plan you have to use a plan doctor.  The other two you could pick any doctor which I like.
  I decided not to go with Cigna because they charged a higher amount for my Flomax than the other two plans.
  I decided not to go with the UHC plan because there was a lot of test and things that I might have to have done and they did not have a flat fee for me to pay but it was 10% or 25% for a test.  The AARP had a flat fee so I decided to go with them.

  I need to have my teeth cleaned.  My current plan pays for two cleanings a year.  The new AARP plan does not pay for cleaning of teeth.  I wonder if I can find a place to get my teeth cleaned two times before they year is over. 

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  It looks like it might be a nice (winter) day in Fort Worth.  It is 0800 and it is 25 degrees here.  It is going to get up to 45 degrees here today.  Of course it will be 85 degrees in Miami.  Oh, Miami I miss you so much.  In my old home town of Kansas City (MO) it will get to 26 today.
  The fighter aircraft are starting their flights.  I think they must be from the Carswell Air Force Base.  I am not sure if they still call the base Carswell or if it is now called NAS Fort Worth?
  I see a lot of aircraft in the air from the base.  I mostly see fighter aircraft I think. When they have their air show in 2010 I can find out more about the base. 

  I think I will go back to bed and take a little nap.  I can sleep well the Navy is in the air flying over head to watch out for me.

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