Thursday, December 20, 2007 - Dell support

I just got off the phone with Dell support. They told me to call their credit card verification line and gave me the following phone number: 866-477-3355. Imagine my surprise when I called the line and got... sex chat!!

Turns out I missed a digit, the real number is 866-447-3355

Saturday, December 15, 2007 - Thoughts on the presidential primary debates

I recorded the Democrat's debate at UNLV a couple of weeks back and the Republican's debate in Iowa a couple of days back and finally got around to watching them both.

There is no doubt in my mind that Joe Biden is my lead candidate. Unlike all the other Democrats he was direct, honest, took a position and god forbid, answered the question asked.

My view of Hillary/Obama (Hillabama? Clintarak?) has sunk to a new low. All they did was dance. Not only did they refuse to answer most questions, they would not take a position on anything, and they tried to be all things to all people. Grow a goddamn backbone and tell me WHAT DO YOU STAND FOR?? Not having the balls to take a position on the debate floor leaves me worried what will happen when they have to make these decisions for *real*.

I don't want to blame the candidates entirely because the moderator *was* pretty bad, but *MAN* the Republicans are boring people! I am less familiar with their lineup, but I had some distinct impressions coming out of it. Mitt came off much the same way that Edwards comes off - too slick for his own good. My lead man McCain didn't impress me that much but I had a good impression of Mike Huckaby.

You do have to wonder what Dennis Kuinich and Alan Keyes were doing there. Both were summarily ignored for most of the questions and both were (understandably) visibly irritated by the end.

I have been paying closer attention to the Republican side lately because I am soo disillusioned with the poor selection on the Democratic side. In the very likely case that Biden does not win the nomination, I really have NO IDEA who I will vote for...

Thursday, December 13, 2007 - The new look

Ok, as you can see, I have been working on a wholesale revamp of the main page of the site. The initial motivation was to use blogger as the publishing mechanism so I didn't have to hand code HTML each time I wanted to make a new post.

However, I didn't want this site take on that generic "blogger look," so I have spent a fair amount of time bludgeoning blogger (say that 10 times fast) into emulating the look and feel of the original Salim's World (we'll call it Salim's World Classic). Having to take a really close look made me realize that Salim's World Classic well, kinds sucks. Sure it was passable in 2000 when the web was a much nerdier domain and engineers regularly designed web sites, but now the world has moved on and Salim's World remains stuck in the time of hanging chads and Battlefield Earth. People look in pity as they drive past Salim's World, the cool kids laugh at him behind his back, the jerks laugh at him to his face. He was in sore need of an overhaul.

Well, "Salim's World Classic" is no more, today I roll out, "New Salim's World."

In the spirit of what I normally subject you to, instead of waiting another couple of weeks and rolling out the site when it is done, I'll throw it out there and let you watch the annoying process of me tweaking it. The great thing is, blogger now give me commenting functionality so you can let me know what you think.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - It's back!

This is sweet! I missed my Bush-Monkey rotating pics!