A month after the new Rockville City Council took office, a new majority voted 3-2 on Monday to adopt a weekly refuse collection schedule and scrap the twice-weekly pickups maintained by their predecessors.

«snip»

Marcuccio, who participated in the pilot program, echoed other residents’ objections to weekly service. The trash in her weekly receptacle "stinks to high heaven" in the summertime, she said during the council meeting.

"Just to go to once a week is not lowering the price," she added. "I hope people understand that. It’s simply lowering the rate the price will rise."

The change in frequency is projected by staff to save the city more than $600,000 in fiscal year 2009 and more than $850,000 the following budget cycle. Those savings reflect personnel and equipment efficiencies, but do not mean the $32.70 monthly rate is going to decline.

[ Rockville trash vote overturned ]

Since this appeared to be one of the largest factors in the recent election, the message seems to be heard loud and clear. What I find disappointing is Marcuccio's lack of understanding of the complete issue. It's not all about the money. Reduced numbers of trash collections should encourage all of us to think twice about what we throw away, how we throw it away, and how we can improve our waste management. Personally I have been happy as a lark with the Rockville paper recycling. At first I assumed it was like many places and all I could recycle was newspapers, but I read the recycling page more carefully and what constitutes "Mixed Paper":

• Cardboard/cardboard boxes (Corrugated cardboard)
• Magazines, catalogs, telephone book, computer paper, paperback books, unwanted mail
• Newspapers (including inserts)
• Paper (computer and office and other clean and dry paper)

This now includes enough paper materials that I have about 2 bags every 3 weeks of stuff that would usually just get land-filled. Sure I would prefer to keep my fees down, but more importantly I would like to keep Rockville's land fills empty. Oh, and remember Rockville, recycling is mandatory not optional.

Lunchies!, originally uploaded by cafechimp.

French Onion Soup, Corned Beef, Turkey, and Swiss pressed sandwich, Salt & Pepper chips, and Coca-Cola.

Taking a little bit of inspiration from Panera Bread and their Pick Two Combo, I whipped up a café lunch today. The French Onion is courtesy Pacific Natural Foods, though I did sauté the onion that went in it. A couple of tiny toasts on top and some Gruyère cheese and voilà! The pressed sandwich is on Rosemary Boule and pressed up in my Faux Foreman. Accompanied with Salt and Pepper Kettle Chips and a Coca-Cola and we're talking one yum-o sammy!

Taco Bell [will] introduce... a breakfast menu in the next couple of years.

[ Yum looks to boost U.S. sales using rival's methods - Yahoo! News ]

Yes, I know, you either hate the Bell or love it, and I for one love it. And no I don't want to hear that you think some other Mexican/Tex-Mex/Tejano place is better, I eat at all of them. From Taco Bell on the low end up to Frontera Grill (I hope, some day) on the high end. But breakfast? I usually like a bagel or croissant. I've tried breakfast burritos, but they aren't so easy to come by. But some Taco Bell breakfast? That'd be hard to avoid...

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass Nintendo DS Nintendo Everyone A

I've finally finished. It seems to take me much longer to finish DS titles, as I like to save them for when I'm traveling to ensure that I have a good game to play. Phantom Hourglass filled in a few travel spots on my recent trip to Indonesia, but I didn't finish it before returning home. Enter my Mother and her showing much that she was past me in the game, so I made a bit of effort and I'm done.

So, how was it? Contrary to what I've read on-line, I didn't find the game too short. The graphics, music, sound, and writing all seemed like a direct continuation of Wind Waker, but in a new side quest ala Majora's Mask. Oh, and that's a good thing. The Phantom Hourglass that gives the game it's name is a fun new dynamic, even though at first I dreaded it a bit (since I'm a "spend time and hunt and gather" kind of player - once you play you'll see what I mean). Of course if you are a Zelda fan boy like me, you've already got this, and probably already finished it, but I'm sure some people wouldn't mind a bit of a push to actually put the game in their DS (read: Nate).

Sarongs are worn by both men and women in many parts of the world, but especially in south and southeast Asia. This long, brightly colored fabric can be worn on a hot summer day, while lounging around the house, sitting by the pool, and even while entertaining guests for a casual, backyard dinner. Sarongs are extremely comfortable, striking, and versatile, and you don't need to be in an exotic locale to wear one.

[ How to Wear a Tube Sarong (Men) - wikiHow ]

I maintain, however, that the gentleman in these pictures is wearing it backwards. The stripe of extra color was worn in the back by every single Indonesian I saw in Indonesia, which makes sense because then the seam would be hidden in the folds in the front, a much more elegant solution.

Thanks Scot, your IM compelled me to visit spock.com:

And therefore social spam a dozen other people...

Well, I now can't get rid of my Windows Vista Sidebar. I had some Outlook gadgets on there like my schedule, and the weather, and a gadget that tells me when to pray, but now I have the one gadget to rule them all:

Listen to XM Radio on your sidebar! Modified from the GNU code developed by ShadoHawkShadoWorks and falconguynaz, we've added a few new modifications and improvements to the mix.

[ Windows Live Gallery ]

XM provides a web-based player which (of course) sucks because it's a web-based player. Does anyone use a web page player for their music? With a bit of research you find that XM can be played through Napster (which is just a skinned, hacked-up Microsoft player), but even though I had it installed I never used it.

This sidebar widget is about as perfect as you can get. It's there all of the time. Doesn't seem to take up many resources when not being used (and hasn't skipped yet even under heavy CPU usage). It can keep track of favorites, help you purchase the music you're listening to on Amazon.com, has a separate volume control, basically it rocks.

Eid-al-Adha is expected to be on December 20, 2007 (Thursday) in Middle-East, most of Africa, South America, and North America.

[ Moonsighting.com ]

DC Eid committee has coordinated one big Eid Prayer for the DC area, which is cool, but they aren't so convinced about the date:

Wed Dec 19 or Thu Dec 20, 2007

[ Official DC EID Site ]

Guess we'll have to wait another week to see what they decide...

Update: The Fiqh Council of North America has a press release that addresses the confusion. Apparently Eid-al-fitr is clearly defined by the moon and in their opinion fully calculable. Eid-al-adha, however, is defined by hajj and the actions of the hajjaj in Saudi Arabia, so in their opinion Eid-al-adha is set by Saudi Arabia when they set the time for the hajj activities. And since this year Saudi Arabia announced that the 1st of Dhul-hajjah is December 10th on our calendar, it should follow that Eid will be on the 19th. DCEid website hasn't been updated yet, though.

Update: DC Eid committee has posted that prayers will be on Wed. Dec. 19th.

Update: IMAAM concurs.

Wii Zapper with Link's Crossbow Training Nintendo Wii Nintendo B

Here's a gimmick for you, they've taken your light gun and turned it into a TV remote that you play games with, so this is a plastic TV remote holder that turns the controller back into a light gun. If you have been waiting for the return of Duck Hunt, then you probably already bought this. It was only $20 and I used my coupon from my recent Super Mario Galaxy purchase, so I'm not out much. Does it play like Duck Hunt? No it takes quite a bit more skill, you actually have to point it at the ducks stalfos, targets, etc. A much more varied game than Duck Hunt too, and with levels stolen straight out of Zelda: Twilight Princess, you pretty much know the engine is smooth and the sound is good. Is it a good buy? Depends on how much you like shooting. Perhaps a good *stocking stuffer for the Nintendo loving gamer in your life.

* Or Day 1 Hanukkah gift. Or for non-Jews and non-Christians a small gift on some holiday, or whenever. As if I had to explain all of that.

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles Nintendo Wii Capcom USA Mature B

Comparisons to House of the Dead are expected, and well deserved, for this on-rails shooter title. Rented it from GameFly and just happen to have picked up the Wii Zapper today, so I gave it a whirl.

If you liked House of the Dead and wish you could play it at home but with a better story, and you loved Resident Evil or never had the chance to play the Resident Evil series than this is the game for you. If that doesn't apply, you still may enjoy this game anyway. The engine is smooth, the story is well known, and the action keeps you coming back for more. I only played through the first few levels before returning it for a few reasons: don't much like this genre of game, not enough thinking or choosing for my taste and they didn't plan on the Wii Zapper. There are a number of times you have to hit the A button, and with the Zapper that just isn't going to happen in time.

Since I am under the impression that I have tons of free time, I'm starting a second blog:

Welcome to my blog about being Muslim and having a mobile life (or at least craving your resources wherever you go). Ever since accepting Islam some 13 or so years ago I have tried to figure out how to get my resources to go with me. I want to know the prayer times, hear the Athan, read my Qur'an, and so on. Finally today I decided if no one else was going to publish a guide, I might as well step up and do it.

[ Muslim To Go ]

Crazy, eh? Perhaps crazy to think I have the time, but I don't know too many people who are as obsessed with mobile devices as I am, and even fewer who are Muslim. And since I've had multiple people ask me how I got my phone to do the call to prayer, and now I'm obsessing over the Amazon.com Kindle device (and how great it would be to have a portable library including religious texts) I might as well blog about it and share the wealth. So if you know a Muslim who is always staring at his/her gadgets and asking "why can't this do more for me", send them my way...

So many people are hatin' on the Vista these days, I still like it. However, as with anything, there are a few irritances. In my case I program in .NET on my computer, and sometimes I send emails with my code. I could easily test this in XP using the IIS SMTP server that was included with XP. For security reasons Microsoft decided to not only not pre-install the SMTP server, but make it disappear. This means you need an external SMTP server to test any code that uses email, or it throws errors. Erg. So I went searching for a replacement (since Microsoft isn't bringing one) that will allow me to get my test environment back, and today I found one:

SmarterMail Free Edition is limited to 10 email users on a single domain, and includes all the functionality of SmarterMail Enterprise Edition.

Unlike trial software or shareware, free SmarterTools products contain no time limits, popup nag screens, or functionality limits (besides the user limit mentioned above).

[ Free Edition | SmarterMail 4.x | SmarterTools Inc. ]

After installing I had to find the settings and move the SMTP to 127.0.0.1:25 so I didn't need to do odd settings on my programs, but since I no longer have any other SMTP server, that should be fine.