Best friends sharing their morning ritual

One of our dogs and a neighbor's dog are best friends, they do this every morning.

The Robert Cray song, Right Next Door (Because of Me); Is it about a rapist?

I'm a guy who is anything but a strong persuader, I totally suck at salesmanship but I have known several men that were really outstanding at it and used it to get sex from a lot of women.

I also have a daughter and two granddaughters so rape is a subject that's fairly personal for me.

Here are the lyrics..

By Jove

Caught the Moon rising with Jupiter (Jove) right next to it this evening just after the Sun had set on the other horizon, this is about as close as they are going to get in the sky this month. I have Stellarium, an open source planetarium program, on my computer and was looking to see if there was anything interesting to image and I noticed that the Moon and Jupiter were going to rise very close together so I rode my bike to a spot where I could see the Eastern horizon as well as possible, we have so many trees around here it's hard to find a place like that.

I took this image with my Panasonic ZS15 pocket P&S, 1/15 second, ISO 800

Got a Canon point and shoot? You can enhance its capabilities with CHDK

Canon Hackers Development Kit.

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK

I have a Canon S90 P&S and just tried out the CHDK firmware upgrade for it, went from 15 seconds maximum shutter to basically unlimited, I've taken 20 minute exposures already.

CHDK adds the ability to script your exposures to automatically do time lapse photography, focus bracketing and HDR bracketing. Also adds the ability to use a simple USB remote trigger for your camera and to synchronize two identical Canon P&S cameras for taking stereo photographs and adds a motion detection trigger that's fast enough to capture lightning. One more thing, CHDK allows the use of RAW files on many Canon P&S cameras that don't have that as part of the stock firmware.

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_in_Brief

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_for_Dummies

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ

CHDK also allows very high shutter speeds, up to 1/60,000 of a second, here's some interesting water splash photos taken at very high shutter speeds with a hacked Canon.

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Samples:_High-Speed_Shutter_%26_Flash-Sync



And here's someone using the motion detection trigger function to capture images of lightning.

http://www.dexterityunlimited.com/2012/04/25/thunderstruck-lightning-photography-with-chdk/

Making your shopper card count

I went grocery shopping last night, got $80 list price of food for just under $70 by using my store shoppers card to the max on every item I could. I calculate that as a 12.5% savings out the door.

The store is a bit sneaky and changes this stuff around every week so you really have to pay attention to the labels to get the most discount on what you need. It helps if you're reasonably comfortable juggling a few numbers to figure out what the best deal is and you have to be willing to forgo specific brands. The store brand of just about everything I've tried at the Ingles I was shopping last night is fine, can't really tell it from the advertised brands and it's usually (but definitely not always, pay attention) cheaper than the national brands.

I probably added fifteen minutes to my shopping last night by being careful and saved ten bucks, I figure that's not far off forty dollars an hour return and it made the difference between a bland diet for the next ten days or a more interesting one.

On the eve of Thanksgiving I want to give thanks for DU among other things

Since I'm surrounded by people who are either uninterested in politics or right wingers DU is where I come when I want some intelligent conversation. DU lets me scratch my intellectual itch and quite possibly keeps me from committing mayhem on some of my more differently clued acquaintances and family members.

Thank you all for being here and reading and sometimes responding to my brain farts I like to pretend are nuggets of wisdom but really are mostly nuggets of something considerably less beneficent. Thank you all for posting links to wonderful articles and news sources, profound and hilarious cartoons, fascinating articles on science and links to great music I've never heard before. Thank you for helping me learn to save money by giving me Frugal tips and teaching me about Energy Efficiency, helping with me with my Computer Support problems and how to eat better by Cooking & Baking.

I also wish to especially thank those of you DUers who are working and paying taxes that enable me to collect SS now as well as a little bit in Food Stamps, you guys make it possible for me to have a reasonably comfortable living despite my circumstances.

May all of you have a great and joyful Thanksgiving.

Bus tickets?

So when are the Republicans going to start an investigation of Anonymous' election interference?

Clearly even the slightest implication that a shadowy leftist organization has the power to interfere with our elections should send Republicans into instant paroxysms of rage, demanding Congressional investigations.

Remember how they went on and on about ACORN?

So when are the investigations gonna start?

I do not believe that Anonymous thwarted a Rove hack on Ohio voting machines

But I must say that the way the very possibility of such a scenario is driving authoritarians of all sorts including those on DU absolutely bonkers is deeply gratifying.

Keep it up Anonymous and those blowing their horn whether you believe it or not, I'm off to the kitchen to make more delicious

I'm not normally a big fan of the presidential pics

But this one is hilarious.