iPod recovery

For those interested in the accounts of the Utah Valley iPod thefts and their recovery, I could no longer find the “headline” article because it was too old to be browsed to, but the cracking of the caper can be found here.

The break in the case came when Mom saw her jobless, moneyless son sporting a new iPod… I bet Thanksgiving is going to be a little awkward at their house this year.

–Howard

And HERE’s what’s wrong with the media…

A couple of weeks ago the front page of the local paper announced that $15,000 in iPods had been stolen in a wee-hours smash-and-grab burglary. The article went on to talk about how iPods were a hot target for burglars and thieves, and so on. It wasn’t so much a news article as it was a FUD article — fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Make us scared, make us worry, make us buy tomorrow’s paper.

A week later the same paper buried an article describing how police tracked down the burglars and recovered all but two of the stolen iPods. The perps are in jail or juvie awaiting trial, and the stolen property is back in the hands of those to whom it rightfully belongs. But that article isn’t SCARY enough, so it’s back in the “police beat” section of the paper.

*sigh*

–Howard

The Turkey or the Table?

I learned an important lesson a few years back when my sister-in-law Rebecca brought piles and piles of variety to our shared Thanksgiving table. We already had turkey, mashed potatos, stuffing, gravy, rolls, and maybe a side of green beans, but with her contributions the “dish-count” sprang to something like twenty.

For me, the turkey was the important part. For her, it was the “spread.” There had to be lots of variety, such that you could never hope to eat more than a spoonful of everything without bloating.

I’ve since seen the light, myself. Turkeys are hard to cook correctly*, but a cornucopic feast is actually pretty simple if you plan ahead, and invite contributions from the invited guests.

So… what do YOU think?

–Howard
*NOTE: Don’t give me this “oh, but it’s so simple” crap… if you cook the whole bird at once, then by the time the dark meat is cooked to perfection, the white meat is dry and awful, unless you perform some serious thermodynamic voodoo. I have very high standards for the meat I eat, thus, “hard to cook correctly.”

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