Microsoft deservedly gets dinged for its buggy software and practices.  But, Intuit is really trying to dethrone Bill Gate's alma mater. After buying the newest version of Quicken Home and Office with its free add-ons and a reduced-price Home Inventory module, I can report: The main Quicken Home and Office seems okay.When I went to register Quicken Legal Pro 2008, the web page refused. Instead it told me that support for the product expired December 31, 2008. So, this free module was already out-of-date when I bought the package.The Home Inventory program is a mess.On start-up HI asks if you want to convert the data [...]

Tony said last night that Quicken sent him email yesterday offering 50% off products for five days.  It's getting time to upgrade the version I have , so I decided to to Quicken this morning to buy the latest. When I went to the Intuit Quicken page from within my current version of Quicken, the products were at full price. No discounts, no deals. So, I cleared the cookies and went to redozdachs's CPA firm's affiliate page and tried there.  The products were all 20% off. Still not 50%, and no other deals. I cleared the cookies again and called Tony. He [...]

The rental Kia is really part of a plot by Toyota to make us love our injured Camry more.  You win -- we give! We want the Camry to come back home! We drove the 2008 (9?) Kia Spectra through the city streets and on 880 to friends in the East Bay. We felt each San Francisco pothole, every Bot's dot, and all the  highway imperfections along the route. The acceleration was jerky, too.  The overall motion was worse than in our 15-year old Honda that we sold last spring. I understand that we have to take the keys out [...]

... or how I spent my morning. Ouch! I was stopped at the red light behind other cars. He said his foot slipped from the brake pedal on to the accelerator.

So when did pleasant, catchy, melodic Mary Chapin Carpenter add bite to her music? I'm the decider like some kind of messiah, While another day passes and 100 souls gone.From "One with the Song" on The Calling. I guess there's nothing like a bad war to inspire good protest music.

When Unitarian Universalists go bad,...They become moderate ChristiansThey are elected President of the United StatesThey return to their hometown Unitarian church to bury their grandmother.From yesterday's Unitarian Universalist Pacific Central District newsletter, Pacific Currents: As you have, no doubt, heard by now, President-elect Barack Obama and his family held the memorial for his grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, in our First Unitarian Church of Honolulu. I asked their minister, the Reverend Mike Young, if he would write something about this for all of us, and he most graciously agreed: Many years ago Madelyn Dunham brought a small boy to the First [...]

During holiday visits of his Reno family, redozdachs, the Renoites, and I would often met his Uncle Maurie and Aunt Phylis at the Spinnaker Restaurant in Sausalito for brunch. Good food, a great view of San Francisco across the Bay, and easy driving for both of us made the restaurant a perfect destination for a booster shot of family gossip and seasons greetings. Aunt Phylis died five years ago, and Uncle Maurie died this past spring. Yesterday was their anniversary. Geoff, his brother Ric from Reno, and I have just returned over the Golden Gate Bride after dining at Spinnaker [...]

Equality California's email blast this morning announced that Executive Director Geoff Kors was declining the invitation to attend the inauguration. He's staying away in protest of President-elect Obama's selection of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation.  I deleted the email before I'd read and absorbed all of the rationale and justification for this action, but I figured out that Geoff couldn't lend his implicit approval to Warren's inclusion at the ceremony. I know that Geoff's stand is meant to be a principled statement.  Unfortunately, to me it feels more petty and pouty. Basically, Geoff, no one cares whether you go or [...]

President-elect Obama’s invitation to evangelist Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration has got some folks — especially some gay folks — in an uproar.  Warren backed the bigoted Prop 8 that took away rights of same-sex couples to marry. We hate his discriminatory talk and actions. At least I do. But, I might have him at my swearing in as President.  Wrong belief system, wrong about marriage, and all. […]