More Exciting News for Mice

In the early days of this blog, I reported the unexpected benefits mice can enjoy while drinking red wine on first class flights.

Now scientists reveal great effects of a new drug on mouse nest-potatoes:

“Sedentary mice that took the drug for four weeks burned more calories and had less fat than untreated mice. And when tested on a treadmill, they could run about 44 percent farther and 23 percent longer than untreated mice.”

Unfortunately the drug does not build up muscle, so corpulent mice would be advised to carry large chunks of cheese for strength training.

(Don’t blame me if these blog posts are non-nonsensical. I’m just interpreting the news.)

The Effects of Identity Theft May Never End

Like a chronic disease, once your identity has been compromised, you may hear from bill collectors for years.

Two years after my friend heard from a bill collector about a phony check, he heard from a lawyer about two phony checks used in his name at a chain store. (Don’t these stores have check verification systems?)

The incidents happened in the same timeframe in 2005. It’s unclear how the bill collectors finally contacted him at his address vs. where they had been trying to contact him the couple years before.

If you file a police report once you’re aware of an identity theft, resolving these claims will be MUCH easier as you have a track record showing your innocence.

Whatever you do, deal with it immediately. It doesn’t help to ignore it; unfortunately like a bad disease it won’t go away!!

Wonderings on the Price of Fines and Tickets

Man arrested for shooting traffic camera in Knoxville, Tennessee – fined $50 (ok and the loss of his gun).

A guy overlaps into a San Francisco curb marked red by a few inches. Fine $80.

Someone is hit by a car, and thrown, while walking in the crosswalk on a green light in Virginia. The driver gets an $80 ticket for “obstructing the passage of a pedestrian.”

A world gone mad?

Community Service Instead of Traffic Fines: It sounded good at first

Seven years ago I came up with an idea for people who get moving violations: If you can tell the police officer what it was you did wrong, you could be eligible for community service instead of traffic school. At time someone whose opinion I trust said this would never work.

Well it seems the city of Oakland does have a way you can work instead of paying your fine, and depending on your violation you may be eligible for skipping traffic school.

The prospect of community service intrigued me, not even so much as saving the exorbitant fee on a ticket I received recently for a minor violation but because I was curious what the options were for service.

Unfortunately the barriers to investigating this were too high.

1) Arrive by 8am and wait for the chance to have the case reviewed after 9:30, if you’re among the first 120 cases.

2) If you don’t get in the 9:30 round, the next review time is 2pm.

Basically you need to dedicate a whole day to being assigned your community service.

I called up to ask if there’s a way to know how many hours of service you get based on the ticket. Nope, you have to go in.

It would be nice if even for people for whom time is more rare than money to be able to take advantage of this community service option. But at the cost of a day just to schedule this, it is more an option only for the jobless. Still, it’s nice that it’s an option.

Update:  Upon realizing traffic school is required in addition to paying, the idea of spending a day at the Oakland court is sounding better and better. Although I have to admit that a comedy traffic school I went to years ago was one of my best entertainment experiences ever. To this day I quote rules I learned in that class and I remember not wanting to leave after 8 hours in that room. Now that’s a testimonial!

As luck would have it I have a goal to take an improv class, so this is my chance.

RIP: The Godfather of Good Coffee – Alfred Peet

If you have the fortune to be near a Peet’s Coffee, celebrate the passing of Alfred Peet with a cup of Joe.

When I went to college at Berkeley, I first got hooked on lattes, then cappucinos, then I graduated to drip coffee. The coffee at the flagship Peet’s store on Vine and Walnut in Berkeley made killer coffee.

I don’t mean killer good. I mean it was thick, and dark, and nearly seared a hole in your stomach. It was the hard stuff. But it was good.

Today I am a confirmed coffee addict, aficionado, and everything in between – largely thanks to the legacy begun by Alfred Peet.

Things I’ve Learned This Week (a mainly California Bulletin)

1. In case you didn’t know, ” Google Needs Typists and Form Fillers -17 Aug 2007 10:40:17 -0400″ or at least that’s what the subject line of a spam told me today. I’m just wondering if they’re using typewriters and multipart forms, and if so, if my grandmother could apply.

2. In case you’re in San Francisco and want to see “Up in Smoke” you can get it at the public library on VHS. It didn’t take long for me to discover that none of the reference librarians knew what the movie was about, when I suggested they remove it. Based on several visits, where the movie was on the sorting carts, it seems to be very popular. I take a toke and all my troubles go…

3.  There’s a nicely designed website entirely devoted to West Nile Virus abatement in California, along with a form where you can report dead birds and squirrels. It’s actually a kind of neat way to familiarize yourself with native birds of California!

4.  To report reckless drivers on the highway you call 911. I thought for sure 911 should be kept open for dire emergencies, but upon investigation found, calling 911 is the M.O. for drunken or bad drivers.

5.  This is so not California specific, but I learned that hitting the forward slash key in Excel in a cell selects the File menu. For sure I thought this was due to a virus but luckily the typists at Google helped me figure out it’s a feature.

You can change the character used to select the File menu to one other than the forward slash by going to Tools / Options / Transition . You will see the / in the field. Change it to a character you rarely use like }

Why does this matter? Well especially if you are filling in a spreadsheet to document file paths for a website you may come across this.

And that is all my randomness for the day.