Category Archives: Misc.

When will I learn…?

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
Body of Proof – S01E01 – Pilot
I’m only 10 minutes or so into the pilot episode and so far, it seems like it’s the Bastard child of “House” and “Bones”, which may not be a bad thing, but unless the show gets a little better I’m not sure this is going to be one I’ll continue following.

*Random Question* OR *Random Quote*
No matter how many times it happens in the past, it will continue into the future… eating while watching Bones, CSI, Criminal Minds, or any other show of that nature is a BAD idea.

*Dates* – B = Birthday; E = Event; W = Weekend; X = Closed

Holiday/Event Date Notes Marker
Palm Sunday April 17th W
Erev Passover (Seder) April 18th Closed April 18-20 X
Passover April 19th – April 26th Normal Business April 21-26 E
Good Friday / Earth Day April 22nd X
Easter April 24th W

*College*
Still ‘on hold’ I guess… ?!?!

*Work*
See new “Dates” area for a few details of office closings.
Possible new promotion will be starting next month, more details once things get finalized (based on negotiations).

*Medical*
They figured out the issues with my jaw are due to “TMJ” (too lazy to grab a Wikipedia link right now) but essentially the hinge on the right side of my jaw is kind of ‘borked’ which beyond pisses me off since most of the time I can barely open my mouth enough to eat anything wider than a Pop-Tart… thankfully (or not; according to others) even with this limit doesn’t stop me from talking… most of the time. 😛

*Gadgets*
No new ‘gadgets’ per se, but I guess video games kind of fit here too and I’m not going to bore people listing games, but I will make this simple comment… when a game is released on both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3… it’s BULLSHIT the local Wal-Mart doesn’t carry the PS3 version half the time (or more). Our local Wal-Mart’s game selection is a fucking joke… the selection has been getting smaller and smaller for PS3, yet they maintain roughly the same quantity of PS2 games… go figure.

*Travel*
Nava invited me to spend a few days with her and her family for Passover and Adina thought that with Joseph turning 4 this June it’d be good for him to spend some time with someone that knew his father so well… It was an honor they thought I could bring justice to keeping JJ’s legacy alive for his son. Sadly, with everything that’s been going on the last few months, I don’t think I can afford to make the trip (I was supposed to arrive there on the 17th).

Category: Misc.

A “Special Edition” post…

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
Was watching “Salt” (2010) (sadly, my subtitles for the Russian didn’t work), followed by “Due Date” (2010).

*Random Question*
If the movie “Due Date” was real, since Zach’s character caused most of the ‘issues’, how much, if any, legal trouble would Robert’s character be in when everything was all said and done?

I’ve slowly been migrating to a centralized format for my blog posts and I kind of like doing it via the headings like the one above. However, as you noticed, I’m just writing this time and there’s a semi-good reason for that.

We’re almost done with the third month of the year and I have little to show for it… no ‘real’ New Year’s resolutions to speak of and even if I had them, I’d probably broken most, if not all of them by now anyway, that’s why I gave up on that tradition years ago. Hell, I’m a 30-year-old guy that has been essentially sitting on my ass for the last four years, not because of being lazy (although I am in a lot of aspects) but due to a genetic crap shoot that almost ruined my life.

It’s weird that people diagnosed with cancer tend to tell time in a different way, some count days or weeks since diagnosis, others count from official day of remission… well, as of today (2011/03/22) it was 1,513days or 216weeks 1day since I was originally diagnosed and although I’m getting healthier again, my life has changed so much that to a certain point, some aspects are over and there’s no getting any of it back.

Throughout my life I’ve only done a small handful of things I’m proud of, serving in the Navy being the largest… but there’s many things in my life that saying I’m not proud of would be a vast understatement. If you know me, even if you pretend to know me, you probably can think of a pile of things in that list, but do me a favor, don’t remind me, don’t bring any of it up with others… I want to attempt to leave the past where it should be. The largest thing screwing with me about all these thoughts I’ve had is that my memory over the last four years is spotty at best, partly from “Chemo Fog“/”Chemo Brain” and apparently some genetic things I should have had to contend with for many more years (Alzheimer’s). Over the last week couple weeks, things have been hard hitting about my life, my choices, my friends, my family… it’s getting to the point I may have to seek help again.

I just hope that if I seek out a new pyschiatrist, it will work this time, although the last time I talked with one I didn’t have as much ‘baggage’ to talk to them about and it didn’t help that the supposedly unbiased ‘doctor’ turned out to be a lacky that took one semester at a community college and was someone from the past of one of my parents. I would normally justify a comment like that with “not saying they said/did anything wrong” however there were times while talking to them they brought my parent into it when it obviously had nothing to do with them. For example, I remember one week entering their office with my left hand wrapped up in an ACE bandage or something from punching a guy that essentially attacked a female friend of mine. Instead of asking something about “How’d you hurt your hand?” they asked when the last time I saw my parents. {Before anyone gets any ideas, I’m not being specific on this idiot for a reason, and NO it has nothing to do with any form of abuse from/against anyone, last I heard that ‘psychiatrist’ was fired anyway, so whatever}

To keep the rest of this post on some form of rational flow I figured I’d go through the posts I’ve made so far this year and just do updates to crap I’ve already brought up instead of bringing up a new pile of shit that is my life.

*College*
I ‘finished’ the two classes I was in (which I have to repeat again) and I’m not exactly sure what’s going on or how I’m going to proceed since there was a break last week and when I logged in yesterday for my class it says I’m not in any classes right now and if I check on my Academics Schedule where it normally lists the classes start and end date just says “Future” for start date. The last few months of college have been very stressful, with a mix of stress, lack of time from doctor appointments and other random crap going on, even to a small amount of “Van Wilder Syndrome”. The Medical section may give you a little insight to some of this.

*Work*
See new “Dates” area for a few details of office closings.
We’ve added a few more ways to donate to our team for Relay for Life before this summer’s event, but sadly the different ways we utilize don’t communicate with each other, so you’d have to add all the funds between services to get the total and none of them will be accurate (for the overall total). This is yet another reason I didn’t want to split it up, but some people seem to have issues with certain types of donations, maybe for tax reasons, personal privacy, or whatever. In any case, we will annouce the overall total sometime closer to the actual Relay which will be held July 15th.

*Medical*
I brought up a few things last post (Feb. 16) and figured I’d expand on them a bit more. At this point, I’m positive I managed to piss off at least one of the doctors as shit has gone downhill even more. Let’s run a quick timeline of the last month…

  • Feb. 13th – My regular Jan-Feb script for pain meds ran out.
  • Feb. 15th – Had appointment with the pain management clinic I mentioned in the boonies.
  • Feb. 15th – Saw my primary care to request different PM setup, promised a call in 24hr.
  • Feb. 16th – Got a call with a promise for different arrangments… they never followed through.
  • I have never taken any drugs that were not perscription and have never abused those that were…
    however, when you stop any drug this abruptly… Withdrawl is a BITCH…
  • Mar. 4th – Around this day is when I stopped popping Ibeprofun like Tic-Tacs… not because of decrease in pain, but worries for my internal orgin.

*Birthdays* – Will be replaced with with “Dates” section.
Mainly due to a few jackasses bitching at me, I’m going to give up this section and only post birthdays in which there are other relevant reasons for it… a party, important age, whatever. P.S. You’re a douche Donny.

*Dates* – B = Birthday; E = Event; W = Weekend; X = Closed

Holiday/Event Date Notes Marker
President’s Day February 21   X
Ash Wednesday March 9    
Daylight Savings March 13 Annoying as shit W
St. Patrick’s Day March 17    
Purim Multi Sundown March 19 through Sundown March 20 W
First Day of Spring March 20    
April Fool’s Day April 1    
Passover Multi Sundown April 18 through Sundown April 26 X

*Gadgets*
Instead of repeating what I’ve already mentioned in previous posts about the phone, iOS, etc. I’ll just point out that as I figured, I’m blowing most of my iTunes cash on apps instead of music. As of the last check I did, according to iTunes I have 19GB of apps installed on the iPad and 7.9GB installed on the ViPhone… less than 5GB of free space left on the ViPhone as well, which may make me rethink some of the memory hog apps and even removing images from the phone since I have those on the iPad as well, but I’ve had times where I’ve been out and about and wanted to show something off to realize that my iPad is home and my phone is in my pocket.

Back in January I mentioned Gelaskins and not that long ago I managed to score some sweet ones for a few of my devices. I was going to showcase them kind of like how I did the three in that post, but instead figured I’d like to their product pages to send them the traffic. For my ViPhone, iPad, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 S, and my laptop.

The new eSATA Tower is working out great and with the extra storage capacity has actually helped with some of my automation routines since it gives me a larger ‘scratch‘ area while processing. I’d cringe to think how it would have been if it was USB 2.0 or almost cry if it was still the USB 1.1 days.

*Travel*
Due to recent financial set backs, I’ve had to pretty much abaondon any hopes of travel, personal, business, pleasure, etc. for the forseeable future. 🙁 Stupid car, stupid bills, stupid me…..

*Updates/Upgrades*
For people that use WordPress for their blogs (Third Party/Private Server, not on WordPress.com) and use the Stats Plugin (version 1.8.1 or lower) and have noticed their stats are now broken on some, if not all, of their blogs, this is a known issue. If you dig around their support forums you’ll probably find posts telling you to email their support or use the contact page, which in my case, like others was kind of useless as it appears either a bot catches the message or the responder just doesn’t seem to ‘get’ what is being said and asking for more information when you’ve already given enough. Anyway, to fix this issue (at least it worked for me and was reported as working by others) is to grab the new “Jetpack” plugin by WordPress which gives you a newer version of the stats plugin (in turn fixing the issue) and many other cool features, additions. Do yourself a favor and at least check the site out if you host your own… Since I don’t host any blogs with WordPress.com directly I’m not sure what, if any, help this plugin will do for those people as it’s promoted for those that host elsewhere, so if you use their direct service and install this, bitch/praise them if it borks/fixes something. I’m going to look into it more later, but it appears if I configure all the stuff that comes with Jetpack I can probably dump some of the other plugins used and give it more of a unified feel.

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

My car… and a Charity

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
The South Park Movie – Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

*Quote of the Moment*
Saddam: “Let’s start by building a big statue of me, right over there where that fat kid is standing!”
Cartman: “Hey, don’t call me fat, butt fucker!” {Lightning shoots from Cartman’s hands}
Kyle: “Yeah Cartman, Do It!”
Cartman: “Damn, Shit, Respect my fucking authority”
Saddam: {Screams} “Hey, you need to watch your mouth brat!”
Cartman: “Dog shit taco”
Saddam: {Screams more} “Quick Satan, do something”
Cartman: “Try this on for size….. Blood Drips, Frozen Tampon Popsicle”
Saddam: “Hey buddy, I know I was mean before, but don’t worry, I can change!”
Satan: “Oh!”
Cartman: {Sarcastic} “Ok”
Most of the entire cast: {gasps}
Cartman: “Not…. …. Fuck, Shit, Cock, Ass, Titties, Boner, Bitch, Moth Pussy, Cock, Butthole, Barbara Streisand”
Saddam: {Screaming in agony} {To Satan:} “What are you waiting for bitch, destroy him!”
Saddam: {To Satan:} “Come on you weak stupid cum bucket, save me!”
Satan: “That’s it, I have had enough of you” {Throws Saddam into the pit of hell}

*College*
A few nights ago, I spent somewhere around 5-7 hours writing different papers for my Cultural Diversity class and I wanted to thank Nathan for being the great friend he is and keeping me on point with my homework by keeping me from getting distracted and also to bounce a couple ideas off, of things I wasn’t 100% sure if I understood or something I just read wrong apparently. Ironically chatting about stuff that wasn’t even relevant for the assignments gave me ideas that I wouldn’t have normally had. Similar to the way Hugh Laurie’s character of Gregory House gets inspiration from the oddest things on the show House. As far as my other class, I’ve finished writing the framework for my new portfolio site and have it running on my test server but don’t want to move it to the production server and main domain until I add more and tweak it out a bit more.

*Work*
Tuesday the 15th was the Survivor’s Dinner for this year’s Relay for Life but sadly due to a useless trip I had to make for a doctor’s appointment (will explain below) I wasn’t able to make it to the dinner and as far as I know it was still held on schedule.
Either way, with the Relay being 149 days away (from the time of this post) we now have two ways of donating

  • My Relay for Life personal donation page
  • Via the link near the top left of the blog. When using this link; the company “GoFundMe” which provides the service; takes a 5% cut, but the remaining 95% is collected and added manually to the personal donation page.

As many of you know, in my personal life, I’ve been trying my best to show my support to The American Cancer Society, mainly with the “Relay for Life” since I was diagnosed back in January 2007. Originally I was collecting donations via Word-of-Mouth and presenting them throughout the year, either by a check to their local office or in person at one of their events. However this year, I’ve decided to ‘step it up’ in hopes that I/we’ll be able to donate more money, more often.
If collecting donations via GoFundMe works out, we may randomly cycle through a few different charities throughout the year and possibly figure out a way for our customers to help in deciding which charities are featured.

*Medical*
There’s been non-stop medical issues, complications, doctor appointments, etc. so far this year, but thankfully once the latest few things get straightened out the rest of the way, things should calm down sometime soon. I’m pretty sure I pissed off one of my doctors last month because after I got the last refill on my medications he stated he would no longer prescribe my medications and instead I would have to see an actual pain management specialist from now on. The problem with that is by the time they were able to get me a doctor for that I was scheduled for my initial appointment 62 hours after I ran out of medication and the doctor was in a really inconvenient location that was all hills and shitty roads full of pot holes. A.) My back, stomach, and bladder can’t handle that kind of drive. B.) My car can’t handle that kind of drive. C.) Even with GPS, it’s “Boonies” enough to still get lost… and D.) You get the idea.
So after I made the drive over there today, I explained to them that I wouldn’t be able to do that, so they called my primary care doctor to inform them and I stopped there on the way home, however my doctor wasn’t in the office today so they claim someone will give me a call tomorrow to let me know what’s going on… I guess I’m going to have to continue popping Ibuprofen like tic-tac’s and pray that it keeps enough of the pain at bay, if they don’t figure something out tomorrow I’ll have to head back to the Emergency Room and see what they tell me, but probably wont help me much in the long run.
I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and may contact my back specialist to start a new round of treatments since the services they provided seemed to be the most helpful yet, granted I’ll most likely wait until I finish college so they don’t interfere with each other anymore.

*Birthdays*
Christina – Feb. 15

*Gadgets*
Pre-Ordered my Verizon iPhone (32GB) at 2:47am on Feb. 3rd, a full 13 minutes before the pre-order officially started and I received it on the 7th. I love Android devices, don’t get me wrong, but to me, the largest benefit to the iPhone is the fact I already have an iPod Touch (64GB 3rd Gen.) and an iPad (64GB Wifi) so I no longer have to buy a second copy of a program specific to my phone when I most likely already owned a similar app for another device.
I finally got my 4-bay eSATA RAID Tower that I plan on JBOD’ing with a few 2TB drives to add some more storage on the Media Server. Although I probably wont do a write up on the new eSATA tower, I may still get around to doing a write up on the Media Server Automation that I have setup on the Windows 7 Ultimate x64 tower. Depends on how well I can concentrate on doing it… and how lazy I feel at the time, so you never know.

*Travel*
I’ll potentially be out of town for a few days this weekend, depends on if I can get away or not, but if I can, it should be peaceful.

*Updates/Upgrades*
Got some great ideas coming up before the end of the month, will let you know details later.

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , , ,

Spam, Gadgets, Doctors, and College… (not in order)

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
Finished a 4 hour Smodcast Marathon and now watching the newest episode of Kevin Rose’s Foundation (Guest this week, Jeff Smith of Smule)

*Quote of the Moment*
No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. – Henry Adams (1838 – 1918)

*College*
On Monday (2/7) I started both Cultural Diversity and my Portfolio Presentation classes, so I sent the usual email to my Professors about my medical stuff and a few other pieces of important info like I always do and they both responded the way everyone else has. For some strange reason when I logged into the campus last night to write some of my Discussion Board I noticed they changed my instructor for my Diversity class without telling me, so I shot off a new email to her as well before writing something like 5 or 6 DB’s (only required to write one for today per class). Obviously haven’t gotten anything back yet for that, but oh well, after my doctor appointment later today I’m going to visit a few people out of town and going to have them give me a hand (mainly for concentration reasons) with some of the homework before I go to class tonight.

*Work*
As most of you know, for the past few years we have been supporting the Relay for Life, held by the American Cancer Society and this year is no different. On Tuesday, February 15th the Kickoff Event starts in the Community Room of SUNY Morrisville (Norwich Campus) at 5pm with the Survivors Dinner, with the Opening Ceremony starting at 6:30pm at the Fairgrounds where they are normally held. As always, we’re trying to raise money for the event and all donations are welcome. (We donate multiple times throughout the year if you’d like to donate but can’t get the money in on time.)

*Medical*
I’ve been going through the next steps for a majority of the issues I’m dealing with now and things are going well for the most part, things are advancing but some of it slower than I’d like. As people may have noticed from prior posts, I normally don’t have any issues talking about my personal or medical issues, etc. but a majority of what I’m dealing with now, I’ll probably be vague at best if I bother to post on it since there are a few things I’d like to keep personal in my life.

*Birthdays*
No one’s name pops in my head right this second and I’m too lazy to look right now, so if your birthday is this month, let me know and I’ll add it, otherwise… :p

*Gadgets*
As of a few hours ago, Verizon and Apple have opened up their ordering systems for the new CDMA based Verizon iPhone and it requires the latest version of iTunes to be able to activate it. Since I got my 32GB Verizon iPhone back on the 7th I must say, it’s just as I thought it would be… I’m not going to go into the whole “OMG, it’s an iPhone on Verizon” or even a normal “iPhone… yay!” type crap, I’m just glad that since I already have an iPad and iPod Touch I no longer have to purchase a second copy of a program just to use it on my phone which is what I had to do on my Android based Droid X. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the Android OS, but as stated, I’m sick of buying a secondary copy of an app just to have that functionality since I most likely have something similar for my iPad/iPod. I guess it also helps that I managed to sell my Droid X to a friend of mine (with accessories) for roughly what I ended up paying for the iPhone, so it worked out great.
I’ve also got the new drives for the Media Server in and I’m just waiting on the new NAS RAID (eSATA) box to arrive (should be here by Friday) so that I can migrate some of the drives out of the tower and JBOD them into the NAS box (for power consumption reasons) but this will allow me more room for airflow in the server box as well.

*Travel*
Currently have an upcoming trip planned where details may be given later, pending on contract negotiations.

*Updates/Upgrades*
Logged in last night to check a couple things and think of a ‘game-plan’ for the current post and noticed that I had 249 spam messages from a lot of morons and a few dumb-asses. After deleting all the spam and upgrading all the plugins I started to write some code for a new project, but hit a little mental road block so I took a break and ended up writing the DB’s that I mentioned above. After the DB’s I talked with a friend on Yahoo for just a bit before starting this post and I keep getting side tracked with everything else going on. But anyway, it’s just after 6:30am so I figured I’m going to attempt a short nap and after I finish my stuff today I may write another post or add more to this one.

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Customizations, Opinions, and My Mood? (::Updated::)

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(::UPDATE::)
I know I said I would do the update on Monday after the doctors, but for some reason I was hyper as hell that entire day and felt very weird. Anyway, I didn’t get home until kind of late, got side tracked with schoolwork and a project, then to top it off when I finally fell asleep around 4 or 5am I pretty much slept ALL of Tuesday away. I got up once around 5:45pm when a friend stopped by and woke me up, I used that time to have a pee break, apologized to him, sending him away and going back to sleep. I got up around 4am this morning (Wed.) and have felt like hell. In fact, less then 5 minutes before signing on to update this post I was standing on my porch (can’t smoke in doors) and vomiting over the railing, no clue why, but it’s typical in my life these days.

*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
“Wicked Lake” (2008) – So far this is a really messed up movie… can’t really call it a ‘horror’ movie, but it’s about as far from a ‘family’ movie as you get. Since I’m working on other stuff and writing this I’m not overly paying attention, but what I’m assuming are all family members (the guys) all need to die for being this screwed in the head and the stuff they’re doing to the hotties. ::Update:: Turns out the hotties were some kind of creatures that killed all those asshole dudes. hehe.

*Quote of the Moment*
“Welcome to Mexico!”
“I’m in Mexico?”
“Well, technically you’re in Southern California, but who the fuck can tell the difference anymore?”
– From “Rise: Blood Hunter” (2007)

*College*
As I mentioned in a previous post there was a class I had taken that I failed, partly because of doctor appointments (a.k.a. lack of time), partly because of my depression screwing with my concentration and motivation, and partly because this class is a continuation of a previous one and the ‘refresher’ wasn’t exactly coming back to me, so I know what I’m doing, but I was too damn frustrated trying to remember how to do it. Anyway, the point of that is I’m in that class again and I think this time around I’m starting to remember and for some odd reason just feeling overall ‘better’ about it this time around. The only issues I’m having now is that I’ve managed to move doctor appointments mostly to a single day per week, so that day is obviously useless as far as getting work done, but the tremors in my hands (and legs) keep me frustrated enough that I can’t draw the required illustrations for my projects, hell, I can’t even trace images well enough for people to not think it was a 2 year old that did it. Class starts in 10 minutes.

*Work*
I’ll be adding (at minimum) two new projects by weeks end that should go live by the end of the month. Beta testers needed and more details will be provided to those that qualify. ::Update:: One project scraped due to time issues, but still need testers for the other one.

*Medical*
A large pile of appointments throughout the month, but thankfully I managed to stockpile a majority on Mondays and Thursdays as opposed to having them on random days/times that can screw with everything else in what I’m forced to call “My Life”.

*Birthdays*
Russ on Jan. 29th
I couldn’t find anyone that I had birthday information on in my address book, so if I missed yours let me know for next time.

*Gadgets* ::Updated::
So, Verizon finally made it’s official announcement that it’s bring the iPhone 4 to its network and once it goes on Pre-Order Feb. 3rd I’ll be ordering one of those. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Android OS (especially on my Droid X) but since I already have an iPod Touch and iPad I figured why be forced to by apps for Android when I probably have something that already works for the iPhone. Another incentive is that Marc broke his original Droid and doesn’t have insurance, so instead of paying a butt load to fix his (busted screen, but still works) he’s going to buy my newer Droid X and I’ll use that money to offset most of the iPhone cost. Only crap part is that the new iPhone’s wont start shipping until Feb. 10th, but at least it’s not on that joke network… *cough, cough* AT&T *cough, cough*.

From images of the Verizon iPhone compared to the AT&T version it appears there were a few changes, most notably an antenna fix (for the ‘death grip’) and the fact that it now runs on a CDMA network, but I’ve been looking at some “Gelaskins” for the device (among others) and wanted some reader opinion. All three of the images below were taken from Gelaskins website and will be removed upon their request if required (yes, I did NOT ask for permission to use the images, but at least I’m not hotlinking and wasting their bandwidth).


Some of the other Gelaskins I’m looking at for other devices may make it onto the Projects/Gadgets page, but most likely not until I purchase them (or get a nice surprise gift)

*Travel* ::Updated::
I was supposed to have two conferences this month (one in NY and one in PA) but thankfully the one in PA was rescheduled and the NY one isn’t that far of a drive, I may just say screw it and turn it into a long ass day trip instead of staying overnight. To hell with over priced hotel rooms when it’s only a 2 or 3 hour drive away. ::Update:: I managed to lose the paperwork for the NY meeting so I guess I’m not going to that one either this month… oh well, they know my medical history and it’s not like I get in trouble if I’m a no-show, they just carry on like it doesn’t matter.

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

What a start to the new year…

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This will be another quickie… cause I have too much on my mind to organize it for a post.

Since my last post was kind of short and straight to the point of my half depressed, half pissed state I was in at the time I didn’t bother to mention about how bad I messed up my leg recently. A few days back (think it was the day after Christmas) I screwed my right knee up to the point it’s been days since I’ve been able to freely bend it at will without extreme pain and although it doesn’t look swollen per se, the top part of the knee looks like the actual knee cap shifted up by like a full inch (hell, even feels like bone there too although the bone is still where it should be as far as I can tell). Anyway, Marc stopped by today and brought me a nice ice pack (which is back in the freezer yet again) and a few other things and my knee is finally feeling SO much better… it’s still hard to support my own weight but as long as I’m not standing the pain is almost gone.

Last quick note: If you’ve never heard of Audible.com, you’re missing out on a great resource for getting a wide range of audiobooks that will play on almost any device, be it a Windows, Mac, or Linux based PC, a Smartphone, iPod, iPad, Android Device, etc. and you can get a free 14 day trial (for new members only) by going to audiblepodcast.com. Please note, I’m not an affiliate (as of yet) so this link does NOT benefit me in any way.

The whole point of bringing up Audible is that I signed up for the site a few months back and it’s been great to receive a new book each month and not be restricted to certain categories or whatever… in fact, I’ve been listening to “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Audiobook): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race” read by Jon Stewart and others from the Daily Show and featuring Sigourney Weaver. Some spots had me busting out laughing (which hurt my knee more), but was so worth it. Next up… more George Carlin audiobooks. 🙂

Category: Misc.

New Year’s Eve and stuff….

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Most people would kind of do a ‘highlight reel’ of the current year or give predictions for the coming one, but not me… to hell with that.

Irony/Ironic: meaning dissimulation or feigned ignorance and is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions. Ironic statements (verbal irony) often convey a meaning exactly opposite from their literal meaning.

“If I go crazy, will you still call me Superman?
If I’m alive and well, will you still be there holding my hand?”
Well, she never called me Superman… and since I’m alive, but technically not ‘well’, guess that’s why she pulled her hand away and told me to get out of her life…

Now, the reason I define irony before giving two lines of “Superman” is because when I was leaving her house and the first song on the radio in my car was that fucking song… my life sucks.

Anyway, although my life continues to go to shit at every turn… Happy New Year to everyone.

Category: Misc.

Christmas Eve

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There were a few things I was planning on writing for a week or two now, but decided I’d wait and get more stuff together. So, this might be a long post, yet again… If you don’t like that, deal with it or skip it.

*Holidays*
Earlier this month I celebrated Chanukah (by myself yet again) but it wasn’t all that bad. I went to a special service where a friend of mine and I both got in front of an audience and sang (her in English, I in Yiddish) and we got a very welcomed response, hell, I even got a girl’s phone number, but it didn’t pan out well in that aspect. Although Chanukah is over for me, it’s Christmas Eve which means I have the rest of my family to celebrate with (they celebrate, I just ‘hang around’).

*Work*
With all the holidays this time of year, work has been slow, but I have two new projects that came in and should get a nice ‘bump’ the beginning of January. We’re still looking for someone that is willing to do some graphic design for the one (most likely volunteer based, but we’ll try to pay if we get any money).

*Spammers*
I understand how some people can do shady things when they are trying to provide for their friends/family/loved ones, but damn, they should change the law and anyone caught Spamming should have their genitalia mutilated. I’m not talking about ‘normal’ castration for example, leave the penis on, just fuck it up so bad that it doesn’t work and hurts the rest of their life. Figure out the equivalent for females and do that too. It’s harsh, but I’m fucking sick of all their bullshit, I’ve deleted an average of 150 spam messages every 2 or 3 days and it’s mostly “Buy Cheap Cigarettes” or “I’ve heard people are searching for license keys for … {insert random computer program}” and providing links to online smoke shops, pharmacies, or pirate/crack sites that are all sure to infect your system to no end. Oh, and you gotta love the spammers that think they’ve ‘learned’ and write a bullshit ‘fake’ comment in hopes that it gets approved so that they have free reign to post whatever the fuck they want from then on. The sad part is that a lot of people fall for that bullshit but if you actually take a look at the meta information of the comment writer it becomes obvious. For example, one comment I had said something like “Wow, it’s great that people write about technology and I was wondering if I bought a 50″ TV what you’d recommend for…” blah, blah, blah… but the thing is, they put a fake link in for the TV and the email address that left the comment matches over 3 DOZEN of the “Cheap Marlboro” or “Free shipping on Viagra” etc. shit.

*Medical*
My hearing is mostly back but my back is killing me. I hate Winter… it makes everything hurt for no reason, I’m cold all the time and ice on the ground equals VERY BAD for someone with spinal damage…

*College*
I passed my last two classes so I don’t have much left to get my degree and I’ll be so glad when it’s over. No classes until January 3rd, which is also a plus.

*Gadgets/Software*
I decided that I was going to a write up for a few products, but can’t write them for a few more days. Once I finish them I’ll update this section instead of creating a new post for them.
If you haven’t tried it yet, the latest Firefox 4 beta is SO much faster than previous versions.

*Random*
I got to spend some time with Nava and the rest of JJ’s family recently and although it was weird at first, I think it’s good that we spend time together more often. After all, JJ’s son is my ‘God-Nephew’ and he doesn’t really have a father figure anymore. Yosef (Joseph) is a great kid and Nava (his aunt, JJ’s sister) has really stepped up and is raising him herself.

Category: Misc.

Interesting Month….

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A lot has happened and that’s part of the reason I haven’t updated this month, but oh well…

*Work*
Since this is the holiday season there’s some upcoming closings the customers should be aware of:
November 24-26 – Thanksgiving
December 1-9 – Hanukkah
December 22-28 – Christmas
Dec. 31 – Jan. 3 – New Years

*Gadgets*
I finally finished the full automation for the media servers, I may do a write up of what packages I used, how to set them up to work together and the custom tweaks I did to finish it off. If I do that, it will be on the Projects/Gadgets page.

*Medical*
Not sure what the hell is going on, I’ve been having this severe pain the last few weeks, in fact, it lasted almost two full weeks before I told anyone about it and it’s getting worse. I really hope it turns out to be an ear infection or something simple but the pain comes and goes and when it’s there I damn near lose 100% of my hearing on whichever side it’s happening on. A great example is last night while I was in my college classes I had no hearing on my right side and a high pitch hum/buzz in the left, makes it a bitch to listen to a Professor and be able to keep up with what’s going on since your mind has to fill in the blanks sometimes since the words aren’t fully heard. I’m going to see a specialist by the end of the week and should post an update on it by the weekend.

*College*
The classes I’m in now should be interesting, I’ve written up some preliminary DB’s that I’ll post tomorrow after the doctors, they aren’t due until Midnight Wed. anyway and it’ll give me a chance to re-read them and possible add/fix crap. Oh, the ‘bigger’ news is since I haven’t been able to keep up with the Student Wiki that I created awhile back (hell, I don’t think I’ve even viewed the page in months) I made a new offer to the students in my Webmastering II class about hosting and decided that since I planned on changing the prior way I did student hosting I would kind of create a special community around it which will give the other students a bigger role for those that want to contribute and hell, maybe even make some new friends… I’m still debating on what I want to add and how I’m going to ‘protect’ the community, I’m going to move the wiki into the student section, create a forum so the topics/help/etc. will be more long term. I have a few other ideas as well but not sure yet, if any students are reading this and are interested in giving suggestions or helping out on this new project give me an email via our school email.

*Birthdays*
Can’t think of any off the top of my head… Email or IM to bitch at me if I forgot yours.

*Quote of the Moment*
…………………. Yes?

*Random*
Sorry to anyone that says I’ve been ignoring them lately, I’ve been so damn busy and the most likely sleeping or not home when they messaged me and if Windows Update kicked in and rebooted the laptop I don’t have any records of anything.

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , ,

Long Overdue…

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*Work*
I had originally written this post on the 10th and decided that I would put a copy into Microsoft Word so I could tweak things around a bit while writing… with some of my new medications I’m on I decided it couldn’t hurt to take a nap and finish it later, sadly, Windows Update kicked in that night and restarted the computer and broke Word’s Autosave feature, so I lost the post. It wasn’t until I was talking to Todd (the one I went to Nevada with) about Blogs and setting his back up that I realized there was an old version of this post in the drafts (missing about 80% of what I wrote) but talking with him reminded me to check a few other things on the main servers and I still have to do a lot of file moving and reprogramming of my main sites, sub-domains, etc. which will take awhile, if/when I can find the time.

*Gadgets*
I was sent more production equipment to review, but can’t really talk about those until after I’ve completed the reviews, etc. on them… but a few items I may just send back prior to review since (in my opinion) they suck so bad I can’t write a single positive about them.
On the personal gadget side, I’ve moved up from the original Droid to the new Droid X (not to be confused with the Droid 2 or Droid Incredible) and although the phone is physically bigger and doesn’t have the slide out keyboard that the original had, I love this phone so much better, the tactile response is better than I hoped. Thankfully I can use the same car charger and house charger with the new phone, but yet again I got screwed by a customer service rep that either doesn’t know to ask when they aren’t sure or just lied to me and stated that the nice ‘prop-stand’ case I got would be able to stay on the phone and have it still fit into the different docks they offer… It’s not that big of a deal, but having to rip off a $25 case and possibly break it EVERY time you want to put the phone into the Car Dock or even the Multimedia Dock (that provides direct HDMI to a TV) is just annoying as hell.

*Medical*
I have a few months before my next round of spinal treatments start back up (fucking insurance only covers one set of twenty per calendar cycle) but in the meantime; I’ve been able to consolidate my other doctors down to one main location that’s closer to home, saving me hassle and a shitload of gas. Going from a roughly 100 mile round trip multiple times a week to a less than 20 mile trip, even as frequent is still so much easier on me and my wallet.

*College*
The new term for college started on the 11th, so I’m back to classes again after a week break (not counting the ‘break’ I kind of ended up taking when I screwed up badly). Thankfully I only have one class this session and with the drop off in frequency for doctor appointments it shouldn’t be so bad this time… I shouldn’t have any problems this time around.

*Birthdays*
Sept. 7th, Darrin (Sorry I missed it last month)
Oct. 1st, Dan
Oct. 7th, Spanky McGee (useless bastard)
Oct. 19th, Denise
Oct. 23rd, Panda 😉 … and Krissy
Oct. 26th, My Grandfather David
Oct. 28th, My 30th birthday… See below for possible plans.

*Quotes of the moment*
These are NOT from/about me or anyone I know, they were pulled at random from the iPad app, “Texts From Last Night“:
#1: I licked the inside of a toilet bowl for $14. I really don’t want to talk about last night.
#2: Soup is NOT an acceptable meal before that many Jager Bombs…(Note: Jägerbomb)
#3: I’d like to personally thank you for not letting anyone puke in any of the salad bowls this time.

*Birthday Plans*
Either the evening of the 29th or 30th… (based on everyone else’s plans) but the idea is to head to Turning Stone for about an hour of gambling before dinner at the Emerald… followed by more gambling for those that stay…
Sadly because the Golf Course at Turning Stone is open essentially until November 1st, that means the rooms in the tower are EXPENSIVE as hell, so there goes the ‘real’ party. 🙁

—–
I’ll write more on/around my birthday… 10 days left until I hit 30 🙁

Category: Misc.
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