I'm a code monkey and I've been writing web code for over twelve years. People often think that because I work on the Web that I can fix their broken computers. Sure, I probably know how to fix them, but I would really rather not because I know that most people suck. MONKEYS RULE!
I'm suddenly feeling poor after some miscommunication between my doctor's office, my pharmacy, and my prescription insurance carrier. The carrier is not going to cover my new prescriptions because I just refilled my old prescriptions last week. Apparently, my carrier has some kind of monthly limit that I was not made aware of. Instead of normally paying $100, I have to pay $378 if I want to get my new medication.
Should I pay the pharmacy to get my pills and be broke? Or should I wait three weeks to resubmit my prescription, pay less but become sicker than I am now?
At this point, I'm going to have to return some Christmas gifts that I bought this morning. That should get me part of the money that I need.
After having a bad morning at the doctor's office (Is there really a good day at the doctor's office?), I spent most of the work day anticipating the arrival of what should have been a "Mint-In-Box" Trendmasters Lion Voltron that I had won on eBay. As I watched the tracking data plot it's course from one side of the country to where I lived, I was deliriously excited when it said it was on my front porch.
At first, I was impressed at the amount of packing material used by the seller. (I think a forest may have been cut down just to fill up the over-sized box). Later I realized that it was likely an attempt to hide something. When I opened the box, I noticed some big scratches and a couple of cracked pieces on the Black Lion. Then, I found that the tip of the Blue Lion's tail had been broken off. This was obviously not "Mint-In-Box." I've been a collector for a very long time and I can say that this Voltron is probably a "C5" or lower on the C Scale.
Lessons Learned: Ask lots of questions to the seller about an item and look at the pictures closely before making a bid. Don't hesitate to ask for more pictures or demand more details about an item especially if the item is pricey. Contact the seller and eBay if you feel you've been deceived. Beware of no return policies. (Unfortunately, my purchase had a no return policy)
All in all, this Voltron will be okay as a display piece although anyone with a functional eye will be able to see the broken parts. I'm considering putting this in my office since it's already damaged. At least I won't have to worry if my co-workers break it.
Below is a picture of the 1998 TrendmasterVoltron next to a 2009 Taiwanese LionBot. They're pretty much the same size with some stylistic differences. I'll write up an more in-depth review and comparison at a later date when I'm a little less pissed off about being scammed.
This morning, I was reading the USA Today's web site and I read an article that has made me somewhat furious. Basically, the article explained that some credit card companies and banks may start to charge you a fee if you pay off your credit card completely each month or if you don't carry a balance from month to month. It's apparently their response to new legislation that will limit their ability to raise interest rates in February 2010.
This means that honest and hard working people, like me, who responsibly manage their credit and minimize their debt in order to get a good credit score are going to be penalized by the credit card companies. The article says that our only options against this is to complain and ask to have the fee removed, or to cancel your account which could have negative repercussions if you're dealing with a credit card that you've had for a long time.
While eating lunch with my coworkers today, we encountered a weirdo who decided to loudly play her music from her laptop while she ate. For a while, she ate her salad without any utensils despite being on the table for her to use.
Now, I'm all for listening to music while your eating. I have found that that music sometimes helps with digestions, but do keep your music to yourself when you're dining out at a public restaurant. Some people, like me, just want to have a peaceful and relatively quite lunch break.
For God's sake, this is the exact reason why we invented headphones and ear buds so as to not bother other people with one's music. If you're reading this, Ms. Weirdo, please consider using them next time.
I'm not usually for picking on people, but this whole thing rubbed me the wrong way. I understand people's right for the pursuit of happiness, but your rights are now infringing on my rights. So now I have to invoke my right of expression to let you know that you're actions are irking the rest of the world.
Now, if you're mentally handicapped or neurologically damaged then I'll let you slide because those are the only two excuses I'll accept. If you're socially underdeveloped (or your momma didn't teach you no frakking manners), then perhaps you should get some psychological help. Maybe, you should consider getting a life coach, or maybe just consider getting take-out or delivery.
To sum up, keep your annoyingly loud weirdo music to yourself.
Well folks, I'm broke-broke. My main computer that I use at home died and I had plunk down some serious cash to get a replacement. If it weren't for the side-projects that I need to finish up rather soon, then I probably would've waited a few more weeks before getting a new computer.
At the moment, I'm ldown $900 dollars. I'm hoping that my side projects will be able to help cover this untimely expense, but I was really hoping that this money would help me get ahead with all my bills.
This whole event wasn't something unexpected. For a while now, I noticed that there was something wrong with my laptop and I've been trying my best to patch things up and work around the problems that annoyingly kept popping up. The fact that the machine would randomly reboot itself and give me more and more blue screens of death and hardware errors was a sure sign that I needed to make plans to get a replacement, but I didn't think this would happen anytime soon. To be honest, I was hoping it wouldn't happen until I got paid for my projects.
At the moment, I'm moving my files off of the old hard drive and into a one of my external usb drives. I have hooked both of them to my netbook and it is taking a very long time to move my files. Honestly, I don't think the netbook was designed for this task, but it's the only system I have access to that's working right now. I'm not worried about my data though. I have disc images of the hard drive and back ups on several other drives.
I'll write about what I chose as a replacement system in another post. Right now, I need to get by programs, applications, etc. installed and get back to work.
It's been a while since I last posted anything of substantial, but today I am to change that. Recent events at work has me somewhat perturbed and wanting to scream my brains out, but I honestly am too busy (and lazy) to do something that require that much calories.
What's gotten me riled up at the moment is how some people can sometimes act like they have no idea what they did wrong when in fact they know that they are guilty. I recently had a client who decided to delete pages off their web server and then had the audacity to come back to me to say that my custom-built content management system was bad or that I'm not keeping up with their site.
What these people didn't realize is that every time they log into the server and the CMS, all their actions are being logged. There's enough prompts before doing anything that asks whether you're sure or not to make a sane person cry. To honest, accidentally deleting something is somewhat highly improbable. The system is idiot proof and unless you're reached a threshold beyond idiot (perhaps some level between comatose and retardation), then I'm sorry but you're not responsible enough to own a web site. I'll have to become the Web Nazi and say "No Web Site for You!!!"
So, before you go and tell off your web guy, web gal, or web monkey and yell at them for their web site sucking, I need you to calm down and ask yourself the following questions:
Was it something I did to make the web site break?
Did I irresponsibly give the password to my web site to any of the following:
someone who hates me
my bastard children
my ex-spouse
a wandering hobo on the street
the prostitute I hired the other night
the cute waitress at the bar
Am I mentally challenged or have some kind of mental defect that doesn't allow me to understand the word "delete"?
Can I speak and understand American English?
Am I currently inebriated/drunk?
Am I high on illegal narcotics?
Have you recently seen Jesus/the Virgin Mary/Michael Jackson in your cereal or morning pastry products?
Do I tell everyone that I know how make web sites because I was able to save a document in HTML in MS Word?
Do I tell people that I can program web pages because I have a MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter page?
Do I pretend to know how to make web sites to impress the opposite sex and hope that no one calls my bluff ?
Am I too irresponsible or immature to own a web site?
If you answered, yes to any of these question, you should not have a web site and your so-called web guy probably thinks you're an infantile moron who deserves to eaten alive by velociraptors.
Two weeks ago, I decided that I would trade-in my Motorola ROKR Z6M for the new Motorola Evoke QA4. Little did I know that my plans to upgrade would lead me to path of disappointment and 200 miles of driving.
Everyday until my upgrade, I visited the Cellular South web site, hoping to find out when their new phones would come out. I was waiting for a new Motorola phone to be released. I wanted one that would work with my Motorola Phone Tools software which allowed me to manage my contact list, calendar, and ring tones. I was also hoping for a phone that had a touch-screen and possibly a slide out number pad since I'm used to using it for fast texting. When I a promotional email from Cellular South that the Motorola Evoke QA4 was coming soon, I was completely ecstatic. I had thought that I found the phone of my dreams. It had a touch-screen, a number pad, and a really cool looking interface. I started to visit the Cellular South web site more often to see when they would start offering the new phone available.
It was Saturday, June 27, 2009 when I found out that the Evoke was out. I drove 54 miles to the Cellular South store on Airport Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama to get the phone. I paid over $300 for the phone since I didn't really want to renew my contract (I'm proud to say that I have been contract-free since 2001).
I was helped by Shasta Crager, the Discover Center Specialist ,at the Airport/Mobile store. She showed me the basics of the phone and I was excited to see all the other bells and whistles that came with the phone. Perhaps, I was blinded by all the new fancy things that his phone could do that I forgot to ask one important thing: Could this phone support MMS/Picture message? Since the phone had a camera on it, I assumed that it could send out picture messages like all the other Motorola phone that I had owned. It seemed silly to me that they would omit such a now-standard feature. So, I didn't think much of it.
When I got home, I started to try to familiarize myself with the phone. I easily added all my contacts and WAP browser bookmarks. Eventually, I managed to set up my Gmail email account to work with the email client. That afternoon, I got a call from a friend of mine asking if I received the picture message that she sent me. I told her that I just switched to a new phone and it was probably trying to make it's way to my new phone. But, hours went by and I didn't receive the picture.
I looked into the quick start guide and then into the thick bi-lingual user manual. I read that in order for me to share my pictures, I could upload it to Picassa or send it via email using the POP account that I had set up. Nowhere in the manual did it mention how I was going to receive pictures sent to me at my telephone number. With my old ROKR phone, this was not a problem. I received my pictures like I received text message. Now, I had no clue at all.
I email Cellular South asking how I could receive picture messages. I even talked to their Twitter person. Both told me that I had to use email to send out pictures and that people could email me at my email address to receive pictures. This would all have been fine and dandy, except for one thing. I was paying for MMS/Picture messaging service. This was included with my Total Unlimited plan.
I went to the Motorola website and posted in their user support forum. Afater a couple of days waiting for a reply, a poster representing Motorola told me that the phone could not receive MMS and that it was designed that way. I would have to use the email to send and receive my pictures. Now, keep in mind that the phone only checks email ever 30 minutes, so if someone sent you a picture to your email address, you wouldn't know about it for quiet some time depending on how close you were to the next sync session.
At that point, it looked to me as if Motorola's desire to emulate the iPhone, they had also copied one of their most criticized missing feature. I asked why Motorola chose to not support MMS, but the poster declined to comment on their company's decisions and cited statistics that showed a decline in MMS use among smartphone users. Also, during my time at the forum, I discovered that the QA4 did not work with Motorola Phone Tools because it used a brand new type of operating system. This was two strikes off of my list. Keeping this phone was starting to annoy me.
So, I was now faced with either keeping this phone and paying for services that I could not use on the phone, or driving back to Mobile and returning the phone. I really hated the idea of paying for something that I can't use and the cell phone company didn't want to discount my rate because the feature is apparently part of a bundle. They did offer to turn off the service, but I wasn't going to get any compensation on my bill.
Now don't get me wrong, I love Cellular South. I've been with them since 1999. They have always been professional and provide great personalized help. Whenever I had a problem, they always found a way to help me. Well, this time they couldn't find a way for me to receive pictures sent to my phone number. It was essentially a physical limitation of the phone. There wasn't anything Cellular South or I could do. One of their customer representative, Scott Watson, explained to me that situation and offered to take my phone back for a refund or exchange as long as I brought it back relatively soon.
On Friday, July 3rd, I drove back to Mobile, Alabama to return my new shiny phone and returned to my old battle-scarred ROKR Z6M phone. In total, I drove over 200 miles back and forth from Pensacola to Mobile to resolve this issue. I had the Evoke QA4 for one week. I loved the touch screen, the full HTML browser, and the virtual full QWERTY keyboard. I can say that it was a neat phone to use albeit with some significant flaws that irked me way too much. The whole experience made me appreciate my old ROKR phone a lot more and I was reminded of that saying that goes: “not all that glitters is gold.”
For now, I'll be waiting for the next batch of phones to come out from Cellular South. I'm hoping they'll have a new Motorola phone that will meet my needs and wants. Until then, I'm sticking to my current phone and you can be sure that I'll do a lot more research on a phone before I spend any more of my time and money.
I'd like to know when I can expect a fix for my cellphone picture posts through Cellular South not rendering correctly on Utterli. It's been literally over six months since I last heard from you and nothing has been fixed. Please let me know if this something that you can not or do not want to fix. I'd like to know so I can say my goodbyes to everyone.
I have come to realize that there are other services out there that is similar to Utterli which will actually work with my cellphone company, and despite being a loyal user since the days of Utterz, I have decided that I have to move on if this issue can not be resolved.
Don't get me wrong. I have come to love this community of quirky people, and I would feel really terrible if I have to leave. But more and more, I'm sensing that Utterli is dying. I think everyone has noticed that site's front page is way outdated, and there really hasn't been any significant improvements or changes done in a very long time with the exception of the phone number changing.
Overall, I really liked Utterz/Utterli. It literally gave people a voice on the Internet and added a new dimension to people's posting beyond text and pictures. But the lack of support and lack of compatibility with my cellphone company makes it difficult for me recommend it to many of my friends who are also on Cellular South,
All in all, I know you guys are probably really busy. So, if I don't hear anything from you relatively soon, then I'll take that as an acknowlegement that you either don't care or you can't fix the problem. Either way, there is a fork in the road for me and your answer determines which road I take.
I'd like to know when I can expect a fix for my cellphone picture posts through Cellular South not rendering correctly on Utterli. It's been literally over six months since I last heard from you and nothing has been fixed. Please let me know if this something that you can not or do not want to fix. I'd like to know so I can say my goodbyes to everyone.
I have come to realize that there are other services out there that is similar to Utterli which will actually work with my cellphone company, and despite being a loyal user since the days of Utterz, I have decided that I have to move on if this issue can not be resolved.
Don't get me wrong. I have come to love this community of quirky people, and I would feel really terrible if I have to leave. But more and more, I'm sensing that Utterli is dying. I think everyone has noticed that site's front page is way outdated, and there really hasn't been any significant improvements or changes done in a very long time with the exception of the phone number changing.
Overall, I really liked Utterz/Utterli. It literally gave people a voice on the Internet and added a new dimension to people's posting beyond text and pictures. But the lack of support and lack of compatibility with my cellphone company makes it difficult for me recommend it to many of my friends who are also on Cellular South,
All in all, I know you guys are probably really busy. So, if I don't hear anything from you relatively soon, then I'll take that as an acknowlegement that you either don't care or you can't fix the problem. Either way, there is a fork in the road for me and your answer determines which road I take.
I knew that Facebook was planning some major changes to the profile home pages, but I didn’t know I would feel so much pain when it happened.
Now, I saw some of the proposed mock ups to supposedly give Facebook users a heads up for what is coming, but a picture didn’t really capture the real changes that they were proposing. Much of how things used to work has now been completely reworked. For example, the status box can now take input for your links, picture, pages, videos, etc.
This is all fine and dandy, but there’s nothing on there that says that if you attach a picture or video or link to your status, that it will not post as a status. It will in fact be posted as a pictures, video, link, and so forth.
I think they really needed to make this and all their changes clear on the get go to reduce the confusion people are experiencing especially since Facebook has been known for their great user support. I have actually had more insightful tech support from cactus plant than with Facebook.
Also, why couldn’t Facebook set up a transitional phase during which people could switch back and forth from the old way and to the new one. This time, it just seemed like they just shoved the changes in everyone’s face, which is kind of reminding me of a move commonly found in the Microsoft play book
Here's what I learned from my little quibble with BB:
1.If you spend more than $2500 at BB you become a Premier Silver Reward Zone member.
2.To maintain Premier Silver membership status, you must spend $2500 while you are a member or earn the equivalent Reward Zone points.
3.Employees at Best Buy will tell you that if you get a Best Buy Reward Zone Master Card, so you can “easily” earn points faster since you can use it at places other than Best Buy.
4.When you get a Best Buy Reward Zone Master Card, they will create a new basic Reward Zone account and not a Premier Silver account for you. Congratulations! You will now be maintaining two accounts.
5.When you buy stuff with your Best Buy Reward Zone Master Card at Best Buy, you will not qualify for any Premier Silver promotions (like free CD’s, DVD’s or earn triple points). You must pay with a different credit card or use cash and then use your old Premier Silver Reward Zone card.
6.You will contact Best Buy and ask why your points aren’t showing on your Premier Silver account. You will ask to consolidate accounts but will be told that they have system limitation that prevents them from merging accounts.
7.Best Buy can transfer your points from your Premier Silver account into your Basic Account if you would like, but they will not upgrade your basic account. If you do this, I won’t lose my respect for your intelligence.
8.Points earned using your Best Buy Reward Zone Master Card does not go towards keeping your original Premier Silver status. You must spend another $2500 in one year at Best Buy using your Master Card to upgrade your new basic Reward Zone membership account to Premier Silver Status.
9.Customer service at Best Buy are very responsive but have become trapped by their own system limitations.
10.You will feel like an idiot for getting a Best Buy Reward Zone Master Card during an economic recession. You don’t need another credit card and more credit card debt.
It was on December 31, 2008 that I decided to take a chance and order something directly from an online retailer based in China. I ordered one thing, chose the free shipping option, and added tracking to my order. So far, I'm still waiting for my package to arrive.
Now, you might be inclined to think that the hold up is actually happening on the Chinese end of things, but you would be wrong. I received constant tracking notification from the Hong Kong Postal service up to the point that it left their country. I got so much details that my spam filter was starting to flag it. Although, I didn't really need to know that each and every minute stop that my package took in China, I did appreciate the very detailed information. My last update from them was on January 8, 2009. They informed that my package had finally left meticulous hands of the Chinese people and was being passed on to the United States Postal Office.
On January 14th, my package was supposedly received and processed by the indomitable United States Postal Office in New York. It was reported on their web site that it was inspected, tagged, and set free into the mail delivery system that same day. That would be the last time I would I would hear anything new from anyone about my package.
Everyday since January 14th, I've been checking on the USPS web site to see if any new status updates had been posted. Each time, I left the site, I surfed away disappointed at the lack of change in status or additional updates.
Today, I finally called the post office and inquired about my package. I dealt with the tedious automated attendant. After being told by a recording that my package is on its way, I manage to contact a live person, who cheerfully read back the information I already had from their web site. Suffering through a little bit of friendly banter, I managed to convince the operator patch me through to the International mail department.
Upon connecting to the International mail department's representative I was asked for my tracking or label number. I complied and I was initially told that my package had not yet arrived into the United States. I quickly retorted that their web site indicated something different and that it had been received and processed here in the US. She then tells me to wait as she changed tracking systems and now confirms that it was in fact in the US.
Sounding somewhat concerned, the representative made a small comment that it was strange that my package was not registered by their system. Although, not having any real proof, she assured me that my package was on its way. She added that because my mail was of the registered variety that she believed that it would most likely take “a while” for it to be delivered. She eventually ended our conversation by telling me to either check with my local post office or just sit and wait for it to arrive.
As it stands, it's been about eight days since my package entered the US in New York and yet for unknown reason it has not yet reached me here in Pensacola, Florida.
All in all, it is now very clear to me, that the concept of "package tracking" is not the same in China and as it is in the United States. Plus, registered mail will take close to an eternity for it to arrive because "it travels under lock and key and is signed off by people at every check point."
So, my cynical mind wants to know why they can “sign for packages at each check point” but yet are unable to pass a barcode scanner over it so that their web site will reflect accurate tracking updates instead of leaving people to think that their mail is lost in some USPS black hole.
Now, I plan to go and talk to my local post office before the day is over and pessimistically expect to be told the same nonsense that I was told over the phone.
Meanwhile, I am still here asking, "Dude, where's my package?" The world may never know.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to buy a refurbished laptop “directly” from a “Tiger” online. Being a monkey and they being a tiger, I should have realized that there would be some communication issues which would lead me to be somewhat disappointed with my purchase.
The laptop I ordered was a Dell Latitude D610. I know going into my purchase that this was an older model and that it wouldn’t win any speed tests. I bought it because I had a chance to use one at my workplace and I really liked the sturdy body frame. It was perfect to use when I have to go out into the field or if I have to lend a computer to someone who is known to have the case of “The Clutz.”
When my order came, I was very excited. I must’ve opened four boxes before I managed to free the machine from its packaging. When I finally opened it, I felt my quickly heart sunk. Sure, it was the right model laptop, but the machine looked more “used” than I expected. The case had way too many scars and the screen looked a little too washed out as if it had been set on full brightness for way too long. But this wasn’t what bothered me the most.
Now, I can live with the case scars. I can convince my monkey self that they’re battle scars and that it gives the machine character. The screen being washed out is something to keep an eye out and may have to be replaced if it eventually burns out. The thing that bothered me the most is the keyboard. Yes, the keyboard looked so used up that some of the keys were shiny, but this wasn’t the worst thing. The keyboard was also filthy. Between the keys were crumbs of what I could only assume as Doritos. The keys felt greasily slick. It was as if the tiger working on the machine was sloppily eating chips on the laptop while they did their supposed refurbishing.
I called the Tiger and explained my issue. They tell me that it happens sometimes and that a system slips through the cracks and miss its cleaning session. They added that I could send it back for an exchange since it’s only been less than two weeks but I would have to pay for shipping to send it back and to get my replacement.
Now, when I buy something that is refurbished I expected it be cleaned and restored to a nice working condition. I didn’t expect it to be greasy with chip crumbs. That’s something I expect from tuna casserole.
I looked into how much it would cost to ship the laptop back to the Tigers in its original box and a burly man at the UPS Store told me that it was going to cost me close to a hundred clams.
Now being in a country where someone let a “shrub from Texas” depress the economy, I have found myself unable to spare any more clams. So, I acquiesced and decided that I would just spend five clams on cleaning supplies and clean the nasty laptop.
I spent three hours today cleaning that bloody thing. I really shouldn’t have had to do it. Apparently in the language of the Tigers, refurbished means “greasy with chips.” I’ll have to remind myself not to buy a refurb from these animals.
On rare occasions, I do break down and go to McDonalds to get a Big Mac meal. I know it’s not good for me, but sometimes you just have live a little. Plus, I’ve been craving for one for about three weeks now. So when I went to get my Big Mac meal, I was pretty excited.
Well, my excitement was killed pretty quickly and replaced with anger and frustration. When I finally sat down to eat my sandwich at the McDonalds on 9th and Creighton Avenue, I was surprised to see that my Big Mac was lacking lettuce.
So, I went back up to the counter and cashier tell me that they are out of lettuce and they are so sorry about. They didn’t offer to give me a refund. They didn’t give me an alternative. They just knowingly served me an incomplete sandwich. Sure they apologized but they made no attempt to remedy the situation. When I asked for my money back, they ignored my request and replied that they had sent someone to get some lettuce.
The thing that pisses me off is the fact that this McDonald’s actually gave me an incomplete sandwich and expected me not to notice. Did they think I was blind?
Also, how the hell does a McDonald’s run out of lettuce? How incompetent can someone be not keep their restaurant stocked with the basic ingredients of the food that they serve? Lettuce is not some unique ingredient. It’s available at any grocery store. What’s even worse is the fact that this McDonald’s is located between a 24-hour Super Wal-Mart and a Winn-Dixie. They should’ve sent someone out there to get some lettuce before they finally ran out.
Selling me a Big Mac without lettuce is like selling me a car without seats. It’s unacceptable.
So, I ordered my Eee PC last Tuesday from Amazon.com because I figured that I could save with them by getting free shipping and having no tax charged to me. Now, I think I would have rather paid a little more than be in this not-so amusing nightmare.
I check my email and find out that my order has been delayed because my credit card was declined. So, I go and check the credit card information on Amazon and discover that I had not updated my credit card with the new expiration date. I then quickly fix this and try contact Amazon to retry to charge my card.
In a little while, I get a message that says that my card refuses the charge. Apparently, my Amazon.com card considered Amazon's tries as attempts of fraudulent use. My Amazon.com credit card now doesn't want to take any orders from me at Amazon.com.
After three days of waiting for Amazon.com and Amazon.com credit card (Chase) to resolve the issue, I decided to cancel my order and use a different credit card. I won't get any points for my order and I'll be getting the bloody thing a lot later than I planned.
While I was driving home tonight, I noticed that the car in front of me was straddling the two lanes of the road. What made things worse was that it had started to rain really hard with lightening and thunder all about. The car would then start to speed up and then slow down and start speeding up again and then slow down. Then they ran a red light.
At that point, I figured that I was behind someone drunk and kept my distance from them. The world has a way with dealing with stupidity. I just hope their insurance is paid off.
Jim Davis' Garfield the Cat said it best: "I hate Mondays"
Things to make anyone's Monday crappy:
One of your company's websites gets hacked (vandalized) by zealous script kiddies making you realize that you need better defenses but you don't have the budget for it.
Your cell phone won't accept emails from your server's hacking alert system.
The network of digital signs that you maintain gets zapped by lightening.
Learning that George Carlin died and that your dream of catching his show the next time he is in the South will never happen.
You accidentally sit on your only pair glasses at work making you consider using tape to hold them together thus accentuating and validating your geekness
Learning that the reason you can't call your relatives abroad is that a typhoon had just blasted through the country.
Finding out that that 900 people are missing or dead from a ferry accident caused by the remnants of the typhoon in your mother land.
Someone at work told me that I was "thinking too much" on one of several small projects that I was working on. With that remark, I take TOTAL offense.
What am I supposed to do? Not use my brain when I work on my projects?
If that is the case, perhaps they should hire a sock monkey to do my fucking job. It is this type of irresponsible attitude (stupidity) that is causing our whole planet's social, cultural, and economic state to decay to unrepairable state. This is not even mentioning the lack of optimized and effective productivity at my workplace. Everyone just wants their shit done yesterday for half the cost (sometimes for free) regardless of the resulting half-assed quality of the product.
I'm sorry but I don't ever plan to "not think too much". In fact, I plan to think so much for the rest of my life until it kills me. If more people thought more, perhaps we wouldn't be in Iraq and the price of gas would still be $1.45.
Apple markets their Macintosh computers as being stable systems compared to PCs. Well, I just had one of the mac computers die on me at work. It seems as though the all mighty and fancy mac hard drive has died on the machine which was only used for light print design jobs. (It had Photoshop and InDesign on it). There was nothing on the system that was tasking it so much that the drive would die. So, don't believe the marketing hype. Be smart. Be frugal. Buy a PC.
I don't care if you voted for Obama or Clinton, but the fact that the Democratic party elections doesn't count in Florida isn't going to be counted because the Republican state government set the elections early is really making me mad.
It's not like the voters had a choice. The voters were just told when and where to vote.
Now, if the government plans to disenfranchise people, then I think Floridians shouldn't have to pay federal taxes next year. Why should anyone pay for a government that they didn't want to support? Didn't America once declare "No Taxation without Representation" to the British when they didn't get their vote?
It's never a good day when one of your web sites gets hit by a SQL injection attack. Aside from the hassle of restoring your backups and posting back anything that was lost, you still have to deal with patching the whole where the bastards got in.
It's a never-ending battle. Someone pisses in your garden, and so you make your fence higher. Later, someone builds a taller ladder to climb over your fence and takes a shit in your Begonias. In response, you get a guard dog to hopefully bite their ass, but then someone finds a way to feed your dog sleeping pills. Then you do something else more elaborate and then at some point someone manages to get over it and messes up your work.
Unfortunately, I know that there is no bullet proof system against such attacks. It's just a race against time to see how fast and high you can get your wall up as the bad guys are racing to build their ladders.
As for me, the whole experience is ulcer-inducing. It's as if someone raped my child and I'm helpless to do anything about it. The rapist is still out there and because the law won't let me be a vigilante, I can't kill the son-of-a-bitch. If my integrity ever does fail, I think my retaliation will be ... "epic" to say the least (and at this point, my integrity is really wearing thin.)
All I can say is that I'm thankful to God that we have back ups. Also, my site is apparently as susceptible as the City of Boston and the Veterans Affairs' web sites. They too took similar hits.
I'm really really tired of this shit happening. I wish the Government would step in to do something. They claim to be tough on terrorists... well... you've got cyber-terrorists running rampant and the govermnet is just sitting on their asses doing absolutely nothing.
All in all, I feel helpless and I feel angry. Heaven help us all if I decided to retaliate.
I was going through the Associated Press web site to get my fix of current events and news, when I came across an article titled "Their Passion is Windows XP" by Jessica Mintz.
Apparently, there are people all over the world that is fighting to keep Windows XP alive. Various online petitions and letter campaigns have been continuously churning since Microsoft announced that XP will eventually have to retire. It would seem that people just don't like Windows Vista and some are holding out for the next version of Windows. Now, Microsoft has already postponed ending full support for XP twice to keep everyone happy, but I'm not sure they'll extend it one more time.
Now, here's my problem with this. All the people I know complain about how they want their systems to be secure. So, Microsoft actually gives them a more secure system through features like the security prompts in Vista, but they complain that it's annoying. "They never had this in XP" they tout.
Well folks, that is the price of security. You either know what the hell is going on in your computer or you don't. And when you remain ignorant and let your system decided things for you, the you end up with unintentionally opened ports and your hard drive becomes the Noah's ark for computer viruses. IT'S WHY YOU WERE HAVING VIRUS PROBLEMS WITH YOUR SYSTEM IN YOUR XP SYSTEM.
I have Vista on my new laptop and I have nothing to complain about it. The interface is nice and 90 percent of my old programs work. The last 10 percent required an update from the publishers, but that was because I was too lazy to actually upgrade when I was told that there were updates available. This wasn't something that I couldn't fix through. All I really needed was a free weekend.
Now, if you want to buy a new computer, you'll have to accept the fact that you won't be able to buy an off-the-shelf machine with XP on it. Some of the machines currently out there weren't designed with XP drivers, so if you decide to down grade a newly purchased system, you'll probably go mad trying find something the totally works.
PEOPLE! You need to accept that things change. If you're happy with your XP system then keep using it. No one says that XP will stop working when MS stops supporting it. You just won't get any high level technical support for it anymore. The operating system will continue working for years and years until you realize that you're the only one using it and you look like a tech-troglodyte.
If you decided that want to put XP on a system that was designed for Vista, please don't call this monkey. Seriously. I'm tired of saying the same thing over and over again. If you want XP, buy an old computer! Don't expect me to help you put XP on some 64-bit quadra-core system that has documentations that says that they do not have drivers in XP. Because if you do, I will smack you with my tail.
