Mokka mit Schlag

I thought I saw two of these last night before dinner, and I was right. This one’s from breakfast. The Pearly-eyed Thrashers and the Greater Antillean Grackles compete to steal food off guest’s plates:

Greater Antillean Grackle (Quiscalus niger brachypterus)
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Amazon doesn’t let you apply multiple credit cards to one purchase. This can be a problem when buying a high ticket item whose cost exceeds your available limit on one card. Probably not a good idea in general, but this happened to me recently when I wanted to use an American Express gift card. However Amazon does let you buy Amazon gift certificates with as many cards as you like in any denomination you like from $5 to $5000.
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This morning I refound the banded Canada Goose NA49 that I first saw in September and that’s been hanging out at least since January, 2009. I don’t see it often though so it may spend most of its time somewhere else outside the park.

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I have come to the sad realization that Barack Obama is a massive failure. Ron Paul would’ve been a much better choice in 2008 and likely in 2012, even for a left-leaning libertarian like myself. I’m not saying that I would vote for any Republican over Barack Obama. Obama is at least marginally less repugnant than most of the Fox news endorsed yahoos like Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. Nor am I saying that I agree with Ron Paul on everything. I don’t. But there seems to be no reasonable Democratic candidate who will deliver on any of the issues on which I do disagree with Ron Paul. Given that fact, the rational choice, the lesser of two evils, is the Republican. It’s not hard to see why. Just consider what Obama has delivered and compare that to what Ron Paul would’ve delivered.
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I have two desktop PowerMacs to get rid of, two Mac Minis, and one PC running either Windows 2000 or Linux. (I’ll have to boot it to find out.) Update: it’s Ubuntu and Windows 2000. If anyone wants them they’re for sale to the highest bidder. Minimum bid on all items is showing up at my apartment in Brooklyn and hauling them away. I’ll probably put them on Craig’s List or eBay soon, but in the meantime here’s what I’ve got:
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