Google Chrome

I guess for web developers, such as myself, the news that Google Chrome passed Mozilla Firefox in user % is big news. I’ve been a fan of Firefox for years and I’ve used it exclusively. I’m not sure why I’ve never really tried Chrome… it makes sense that I do : my main e-mail account is with gmail, I use Android mobility and my search engine is always google. I’ve been have some issues with memory and firefox lately so I figured maybe it was time to give chrome a shot. I’ve been using for a few days now and I have to say I like it. It renders pages clean and quickly and my operating system seems to run faster too. Huh, could firefox just lost another user? So far, I’d say yes. I’m happy to see Explorer is below the combined total of Chrome and Firefox. That shit browser can’t die soon enough. I’m only beef, and I’m not sure who to blame for this, is the inability to easily install either Chrome or Firefox on Linux. Software that is in the software manager GUI installs and uninstalls easily of course, but these browsers aren’t in there. I have to download a file that the OS doesn’t know what to do with… It is a shame that it is such a hassle to install these browsers in Linux. Both Firefox and Chrome say they support Linux, but until it is easy to install, how many users are going to bother. Is a Linux noob going to compile from the command line? I don’t think so. I eventually got Firefox working, but a quick attempt to get Chrome running resulted in failure and a circular waste of my time. Disappointing in Linux, great in Windows.

The weekend was another blur. We got done nothing at home. My Saturday started with a massage and a haircut. Normally this isn’t an issue… but Saturday was the day of the Santa Clause parade, so I had to walk up and down Mt.Bolton (the hill heading South out of downtown Bolton) since the major roads were all blocked off. Ho-hum. The nerve weirdness in the right wrist/arm/shoulder/wtf seems to have passed. I’m not sure what that was all about but I’m glad it is gone and I can have a typical massage (neck, shoulders, back) instead of wrist and hand. After my haircut I rushed home to make myself a quick lunch, a delicious prosciutto, onion, Swiss cheese and spinach omelette. Who said there was nothing in the fridge? I was rushing because my brother-in-law was on his way over for the afternoon. The ‘women’ dared to go shopping on Vaughan Mills on a Saturday. The ‘men’ were left with running the dogs. We took them over to Palgrave forest. The weather remains really mild in the GTA… at this rate I’m doubting it will be a White Christmas. The mild weather means that all precipitation is rain… so the dog walk was muddy mess at times. It was still nice to stretch the legs. I think the dog enjoyed a longer run too. After cleaning off the dogs we had the choice of meeting up with the women to go shopping or watch college football and drink beer. *cough* The LSU v. Georgia game was great! Georgia managed to keep LSU from getting a first down for the entire first half. Something that has never happened. I guess that woke LSU up because they dominated Georgia in the second half, seemingly scoring at will.

After the ‘women’ returned from shopping, and I confirmed we still had enough money to pay the mortgage, we settled in for the evening. We enjoyed Caruso’s pizza and watched Super 8. I quite enjoyed the movie. It was a Sci-Fi Thriller centering around a group of kids shooting film for a school contest. During their shoot the kids witness a train derailment. Well, the train contained more than car parts and grain. It also had a pissed off alien that was released as a result of the crash. Enter kids on a mission to save their town. I’m usually not big on movies with kids as the led characters… but these characters were fairly interesting and suited to their dorky A/V club roles. The movie has a fair number of subplots and themes… Be nice to aliens and they may not bite your head off being one of them. The special effects were impressive, especially the derailment. A solid film, I think most thirteen+ could watch that their parents would enjoy too. There isn’t a lot of focus on ‘the monster’, I think we get maybe two or three good looks at it, so the scare factor is pretty low. The young actors were particularly good in their roles too. ⭐⭐⭐½ It was a quiet night… I think everyone was pretty content to chill out. I think the women shopped for 5-6 hours… Good lord.

Sunday seemed like more of the same. We ended up meeting my sister and JP at BestBuy in Newmarket. It was a productive day of Christmas shopping, we crossed off several people off the to-shop-for list. By this time I was starvin’ marvin’. We decided to have an early dinner at the Keg. The Keg is a little pricey. We took advantage of a gift card to lessen the bill. Dinner was yummy. I had an herbed halibut with a double baked potato and bdot had a nice steak. Miraculously I was able to move and continue shipping after that at Upper Canada Mall. We spend a few hours there then called it a night. After a long afternoon we found some energy to get some priority one groceries then went home. It was a curious weekend… I didn’t get done many of the things I thought I was going to… but getting some of the X-Mas shopping done feels good too.