Well it seems that I suck at taking tests. Today I went back for my 3rd retake of the Microsoft 70-290 exam. I was previously showing progress, but this time I was tired going into take the exam and it showed. I couldn’t think straight if my life depended on it. That’s what happens when you get 5 hours of sleep before taking the exam. I’m not making excuses, I’m just saying this is getting discouraging because you need to be menatally prepared going into this test. It’s not the hardest test in the world, but if you mind isn’t ready to deal with it you’ll end up wasting money. I guess that gives me 2 more weeks to broaden my study material knowledge. I have every question and answer memorized out of the Microsoft 70-290 book and the Test King questions and answers. I have also read that book from cover to cover, but I just can’t seem to pass this damn test. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
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Do Presidential Candidate Rallies Really Help? Use the Money More Productively.
Since this is an election year there are going to be a few stories about the upcoming election. To go along with that there is one thing that really boggles my mind. First to kind of hit on the topic, I would like to ask if you have ever been sitting at home contemplating which presidential nominee you are going to vote for, then you hear of a rally coming to town. So you decide to go and check it out. Then what happens at that rally really makes you change your vote? I didn’t think so. These presidential nominee rallies that I see on t.v. really make me wonder how much of a waste of time and money they really are. It seems to me that when you decide what rally you want to attend is a predetermination of how you want to vote. I’ve never heard of anybody say, “Well, I was going to vote for Bush, but that Kerry is really a hell of a speaker so I think I will vote for him now.” Usually the people who go and show their support for these things already know they are going to vote for the candidate they are there supporting. With that being said and since people who show up to support a candidate typically vote for that candidate, does it really makes sense for the candidates to waste all the time and money to hop from state to state hosting these rallies? By cutting them out it seems it would completely cut down the budget by millions that were needed for the campaign. What would this extra money be used for you may ask? It could be used to cut taxes, fund the war on terrorism, lower the national debt, fund national security, lower gas prices, and the list goes on and on. The point being there should be few televised national speeches and debates throughout the year. Lets say maybe one a quarter, that way the candidates won’t leave the voters minds. That would be a heck of a lot better than seeing all this crap about who’s campaign is bashing who’s on t.v. all year long and all that other crap you see on CNN, Fox News, MSN, NBC and all the other news channels. Anyway this is just an idea to clean the airways of crappy news stories and pose a solution for funding instead of continuously raising taxes for national interests.
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4th of July, 2004
This 4th of July I was planning on taking it easy. I was planning on washing the car, giving the dog a bath, and just relaxing. Well it seems things did not work out like that, but in a good way. This year, at about noon a phone call was received asking to come out and join some friends at the beach. They said they were having a barbeque and haning out. It sounded like a good time. So I loaded the car and took off. It was pretty cool hanging out with friends and talking some story, sharing experiences, and future hopes and dreams. It seems a day at the beach with friends is definitely not a bad alternative to staying home and taking care of choirs. Hope everybody had a great 4th of July as I know I did.
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Do You Ever Get the Idea People Just Like to Screw With You?
Today I had to complete my vehicle registration because I received notice of it in the mail. I could have mailed it in, however I had to update some information so submitting it by mail would not have been suffient. Upon arriving at the city hall there was a line like 3 miles long. I guess that’s because it was the end of the month and other people had to get their vehicle registration in too. After waiting in line for about 45 minutes, I finally get up there and the lady says I need to provide additional documentation. I reviewed this vehicle registration notice and it didn’t say anything about additional documentation. So I had to go home and get the additional documentation. Then I had to drive back to the city hall. Then wait in line for what seemed like forever again. About this time when I made it to the front the price was not the same and what was on the vehicle registration notice. So then I had to go to the bank to get more money. Then I had to go and wait in line again, this time it was shorter, then finally when I got to the front. The lady took like 40 seconds to give me what I needed in the first place. It may not be true, but it just seems like people love to screw with me just to make their day more fulfilling.
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CompUSA Never Ceases to Amaze
Today I was scheduled to take the Microsoft 70-290 exam. I went over to the CompUSA testing center and went in to take the test. When I got there I found out the test proctor’s husband had a stroke and she was unable to give the test. You would think CompUSA would have planned for situations like this by employing a second test proctor, but that would be too logical. So I got to speak with the store manager and he informed me that I would have to reschedule. I informed him that if he was a good manager and he could not fulfill his obligations that he should get on the phone and make sure I can take my test elsewhere. Well, that didn’t seem to work. They told me to call back tomorrow when she will be back in the office. Since I was unable to complete my test today I decided I would go look around at the Mac software and perhaps talk to somebody about my my iMac will not connect to my linksys router wirelessly. When I got to the Mac area of CompUSA a gentleman asked me if I needed assistance.. I threw the idea at him that my iMac is not connecting to my wireless router. I informed him I had already talked with Apple’s tech support center and they concluded the airport extreme card is functioning correctly. He asked me if I had any firewalls running. I informed him I had the built in firewall turned off on the Mac. He asked me if I was using WEP. I informed him I was. He then proceeded to tell me that WEP is a firewall. I informed him that WEP is not a firewall, but instead it encrypts data packets between the computer and the router with the encryption key I configure the router and the computer with. He then started getting an attitude saying he was wrong. I did not disagree because he is wrong. He then told me that the linksys router has NAT built into it and that is a firewall. Once again I informed him that NAT is not a firewall, but instead allows multiple computers to share a single IP address. Then he told me he could not help me unless I wanted to bring the iMac into the store and try to get it to connect to their network. That would isolate my problem to either my router or a misconfiguration. It seems that everytime I go to CompUSA, I end up walking away pissed off. I get sick of these pimple faced punks trying to tell me wrong information. I don’t understand how these people get employed by this company when the obviously have no idea what the hell they are talking about. It seems that even if their manager cannot fulfill his obligations then who is he to get rid of their idiot sales people.
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Shaping the Future for the Next Generation of Terrorists?
By what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Isreal, and other countries, is this shaping the future for the next generation of terrorists? Look at this simple scenario. Lets say a kid has his father killed while fighting for what he believes is right. Now this kid grows up with a lot of rage and fury towards who killed his beloved father. This drives the kid to work extra hard in school, now put this kid in contact with the right individuals coupled with a little money and he is a well motivated and dangerous weapon.
With all the people being killed and the unrest in the different parts of the world a simple scenario like this is very probable. It’s just a little food for thought.
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Spandex – A Privledge Not a Right!
I was in K-Mart the other day and I saw this fat lady in the store wearing some short shirt that did not cover her fat belly and spandex shorts. First off I would like to say anytime a woman’s belly is bigger than her breasts, that is not a good thing. Second of all people like that just need to realize they are not entitled to wear such clothes. Flat out because nobody else wants to see her nasty condition her body is in and her stretch marks. It is already apparent that she doesn’t not have any concern for herself by the way she takes care of her bodily condition, but when she inflicts the pain onto others by wearing inappropriate clothing. That’s just wrong.
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Does a Certain Song Bring Back That Certain Memory?
The other day I heard the song by Cher – Believe. Normally I wouldn’t really pay attention to a bad knockoff of techno like this, except it made me start thinking of the first place I heard it. The first time I heard this song was in Florida. I remember it vividly because I was down in Florida attending an IT class down there and this song was big on the radio. Where I clearly remember this song was down by Pennsacola. It was early in the morning and I was in my rental car driving across a drawbridge. There was a fishing boat going out to the Gulf of Mexico with a flock of seagulls flying around it. The sun was just breaking the horizon when this song came on. The water was blue and the nearby beaches had white sand. I guess I took a mental snapshot of this early morning drive and co-related it to this song.
It’s experiences like this that are always nice to remember from time to time. Hearing this song took me back to this experience I had. I’m thankful for all of my experiences and I hope to have many more. Do you have that certain memory to go with a certain song?
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Atkins Diet is No Answer for Lack of Self Discipline
Everybody from McDonalds to Subway seems to be jumping on the bandwagon for this Atkins diet. Atkins may be a good diet, but for most fatasses out there it will not be the answer to getting slim as opposed to getting off your fat ass and doing a little exercise. A sucessful mathmatical equation to getting slim is: “daily caloric intake < amount of calories burnt off by daily activity = no more fat ass!” To test my theory I decided to try my own diet (not recommended for others to try). My problem is I love Mt Dew. Each can of Mt Dew contains 170 calories. I typically drink about 6 cans a day, this is about 1020 calories. Next I eat 2 meals a day roughly 1000 calories each. This means I’m taking in 3020 calories a day. Since I work a job that allows me to sit on my ass everyday. This means I have to exercise, a lot! Instead of exercising a lot I decided to cut down on my daily caloric intake. I went out and bought a bunch of Banquet tv dinners. Each one roughtly contains 470 calories. I would eat 3 a day and drink 1 can of Mt Dew. Now do the math with me, 470 x 3 = 1410 + 170 = 1580. Since this is less than a 2000 calorie a day diet. If I exercise 3 times a week for 30 minutes each time I will slowly, but surely be burning off more calories than I’m taking in. This means no more fatass! This does not mean I have to run out and buy Atkins diet crap for big $$, but instead I bought 3 tv dinners for 2 weeks at $1.00 a piece. This is about $42.00 + tax. Granted during my diet I did not get much nutritional value out of these tv dinners, so to suppliment this I took multi-vitimins. So we can add on $7.00 for the vitimins. Roughly $50.00 for a 2 week diet that I burned 5lbs a week on.
Once again, I’m not saying the Atkins diet does not work. I’m just saying that if you watch what you eat and get off your fat ass, you don”t need to spend retarded amounts of money for a special diet. All you have to do is have enough self discipline to go through with it. Perhaps the problem why Americans tend to be fat asses isn’t because of McDonalds super smart marketing, but instead because people just don’t have enough self discipline. Once again this is just food for thought, I tried it and it worked for me because I have the self discipline to go through with it. Who is to say something like this wouldn’t work for you?
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Business Trip
I recently have arrived home from a business trip. This trip was to Seattle. The area around Seattle was nice. The forests were gorgeous, but the weather was a little too cold for me. Also it was cloudy all the time there. Other than that the business trip was a success. Other business associates and I went out to eat and drink. Everybody was older and I was the youngest one. This crowd was cool, but it seemed as though we didn’t have the same interests. So I did what I thought was best when a situation like this comes up. I drank to get drunk. They ended up taking me back to my hotel. I fell asleep for a few hours and my drunken state wore off. I decided to pack my bag so I would be ready to catch my flight. When I looked at my itinerary I thought it said my plane was leaving at 11 AM. So I sat up watching stupid tv shows all night. About 6 AM rolled around I decided to check my ticket again to see what flight I was supposed to be on. When I looked again in my sober state I noticed that my plane was supposed to leave at 8:40 AM. Being that you are supposed to be to the airport 2 hours before the flight I had to motor to get to the airport. I quickly grabbed all my belongings and went to check out of the hotel. After checking out I hopped into my Pontiac Sunfire rental car and started driving to the airport. The thing I noticed about traffic in Seattle is everybody drives so slow. I ended up making it to the airport by 7 AM and I checked in. My next step was to make it through the security check. This took about 50 minutes to get through the damn line. Finally I was through and made it to my plane in time. That was a close one. Next time I will not wait until I am drunk to check my tickets to wait to see when I leave. All in all this was a very successful business trip.
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Grey Area With Copyright Infringement
I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I don’t want to run into trouble. Lets say I create an image for a kid that looks like Nemo from Walt Disney’s movie “Finding Nemo” and somebody else sees this image and says I stole it from Disney. Is that considered copyright infringement? Especially since no profit is being made nor is it being labeled as Nemo, would that still be considered infringement? If that is considered copyright infringement than who’s to say I didn’t draw a picture of Nemo straight from memory on a piece of paper with a marker or crayon. Would that be considered copyright infringement then? Even then is that still infringement because there is no gain by having an e-card with a character on it?
The other issue that comes to mind is lets say I create my own character for my website and somebody else likes that character so much, they put some kind of copyright on the character. Does that mean they can turn around and sue me for copyright infringement because they beat me to the copyright? If that is the case can they do the same thing with domain names? If they can do that with domain names, who’s to say that isn’t a whole business by finding out what domain names are not copyrighted then sue each person who uses your copyrighted name.
Anyway, this is just food for thought and is something that needs to be investigated more.
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Recently Purchased iMac
Well, I finally broke down and bought an iMac. I decided to purchase it after my previous computer finally kicked the bucket. I was fed up with troubleshooting my computer at home so I decided to splurge and go ahead and buy the iMac. So far I like everything about it. The graphics are fantastic, the user friendliness is great. I think the only thing I’m having problems with right now is connecting it to my current wireless network. I know this is a configuration problem and I should have it sorted out shortly. Other than that, this Mac should last me a while and is so easy to use I don’t know why I didn”t buy one before. It was probably the price that kept me from buying one before. I’m looking forward to making new graphics for this website with the new iMac. Keep an eye out for new things being posted on the site. The sky is the limit of the possibilities.
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Sifting Through Bookstore Bullshit
I went to the bookstore today and I was looking through the computer books. The thing I noticed when I was trying to find the right book was that there are a million books and half of them are about the same things, but just written by different people who are asking way too much for their books. These money hungry whores don’t seem like they are concerned about actually writing good material because by the time you sift through a 500 page book only about 50 pages contain information that is actually useful. That means you have to buy their whole series of books just to get the relevant information that you were looking for in just one book. Not to mention they mark the prices of the books up to about fifty bucks per book. I am no math genius, but when they say knowledge is power and they are charging 50 bucks per book, but only 10% of that book is relevant information that means you’re paying 90% of the total cost of the books for just bullshit.
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Drinking Etiquette
Occasionally when I’m out drinking with friends there is a stranger who will walk up and want to tell you his life story. I’m always more than 100% willing to listen to what they have to say, but it always comes at a cost. I consider it good etiquette that if you are going to tell me your life story and I’m going to have to listen to it, then you are going to be buying me drinks. I’m always willing to listen to what you have to say, but in return you’re going to refill my glass. The same goes for if I’m the one telling stories, then I’m the one buying drinks.
The logic behind this is that one is not as willing to talk as long if their pocket book is getting smaller. That way everybody is more apt to have a turn at telling their tales. This is just food for thought the next time you are out and a stranger comes up and wants to tell you their life story.
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High School Reunion
I recently received an e-mail from a girl I knew in high school. She was trying to get updated contact information and trying to find out if I’ll come to my high school reunion. It was neat to see some of the names listed on the contact list. She also sent out this e-mail saying, “Getting to know you.” I figured this was an ice breaker so everybody could start contacting each other. So I filled it out and sent it back to everybody on the contact list. Then the following day she sent another one. I hate these e-mails like this because thier whole intention is to clog an e-mail server. So I replied back saying that if you haven’t stayed in contact with people from high school, there was probably a good reason for it and these “Getting to know you” e-mails aren”t going to make up for lost time. Naturally she replied back saying that if I don’t want the e-mail then just delete it and that I shouldn’t reprimand when I reply back to everybody. I say, “the hell with that”. I don’t have to be politically correct anymore because I don’t have to be around you. Nice time is over! You should have gotten pleanty of nice time in high school. Now that high school is over, so is nice time. I don’t give a shit about who is doing what and who is making more money and stupid irrelevant stuff like that. I’m not out to please anybody, but myself. Call me selfish, but I don’t care. I’ll get you a nice warm glass of “Shut the hell up!” The thing is, the people I stayed in contact with from high school are the only people I really care to stay in contact with. These stupid e-mails aren’t going to make me like you any better now, especially if I didn’t like you in high school. That is just unwanted spam. So I added her to my black list and I don’t have to worry about her e-mailing me anymore.
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Dell Finally Gave In and Gave My Money Back
The Dell saga has ended. Finally today Dell gave my money back after initially placing the order on March 3rd, 2004. The product was shipped back last month and this month I was finally refunded my money. It seems they are much quicker at taking your money than they are at giving it back. It only took 8 phone calls and numerous e-mails. If you call that good customer service I would hate to live in your world. At least it has ended and I can go buy a Mac.
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Punishment For US soldiers in Iraq for Abuse
It is going to be interesting to see what kind of punishment the soldiers in Iraq will get. The interesting thing won’t be the example the military is going to make out of them, but instead because they are enlisted soldiers, will they get imprisonment? This is interesting because we know the only thing US Navy did to Commander of the USS Greenville, Scott Waddle was forced him into early retirement and he killed 9 Japanese fishermen. The soldiers in Iraq only abused Iraqi prisoners and their punishment will probably be much greater. You can’t tell me that the enlisted soldiers who are going to be punished for abusing prisoners were the highest ranking in this scandal, but they will probably be punished much greater than anybody else.
What does that say about the US military and their rank structure? Does that mean they think enlisted are expendable? Does that mean their careers are valued much less than that of an officer? Don’t get me wrong, what they did was humiliating to the entire US as well as the Iraqi prisoners, but should they be punished worse than that of Scott Waddle who actually killed 9 people as well as sinking a ship and damaging a US submarine, while trying to impress some guests on his ship? His crime was much worse than theirs, but they will probably be punished much worse. This is just one of those things that should open your eyes and make you scratch your head
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Wireless Insecurities
You would be surprised how many people out there have wireless networks running at home or at a place of business. You would be even more surprised how many people do not change the factory default settings. I recently set myself up on a wireless network before I even set my router up I was detecting other networks. The hostnames were the router version and the passwords were the factory default passwords and of course their wireless networks had no security. I was amazed to see this, so naturally I had to do something about it. Just what though, ‘I’ll keep it my little secret.’, ‘For all people considering putting themselves on a wireless network, be sure to change the factory defaults. Unless of course, you would like somebody else to take control of your network. It’s not hard to do and takes very little time. If somebody else can control your network, they can see what computers are on that network. Then to get files off those computers it’s even easier. Just a word of warning.
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Wireless Morons
You would be surprised how many people out there have wireless networks running at home or at a place of business. You would be even more surprised how many people do not change the factory default settings. I recently set myself up on a wireless network before I even set my router up I was detecting other networks. The hostnames were the router version and the passwords were the factory default passwords and of course their wireless networks had no security. I was amazed to see this, so naturally I had to do something about it. Just what though, I’ll keep it my little secret.’, ‘For all people considering putting themselves on a wireless network, be sure to change the factory defaults. Unless of course, you would like somebody else to take control of your network. It’s not hard to do and takes very little time. If somebody else can control your network, they can see what computers are on that network. Then to get files off those computers it’s even easier. Just a word of warning.
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Dell Saga Continues
I contacted Dell again because I placed an order on March 3rd, 2004 and I cancelled that order the same day. Everything in that order was cancelled except the monitor that had already been shipped. Once I received notification of the product being delivered I noted “Return to Sender” on the package. With my handy Fedex tracking number I tracked the package to make sure it had arrived back at Dell. They have had this package for over a month now and still I have not been refunded my money. Once I called the Dell phone number I obtained from their website I had to go through a series of automated phone features, then I finally got some Indian sounding woman on the phone. After telling her my situation she put me on hold for about 5 minutes. When she came back on the phone she said it should take 7 – 10 business days to be refunded my money. For crying out loud it has already been 2 months, how much longer does it take to put my money into my account? Anyway it is companies like this that turn me off from recommending others to do business with them. I’ll keep you posted on what happens next.