The phone company guy came out yesterday and installed our DSL line. He said everything was hooked up and working, all there was left to do was tell the phone company to turn the service on, and come give us the modem. So hopefully DSL will be actually up and running sometime early next week. This makes me happy like a fox!!! No more of this coming up to school to use internet anymore. Yayness!!!

Ok, that's all I wanted to say, I'm done now.

Thanks to Adam hooking me up with a gmail invite, I now have a new email address that I'm probably going to start trying to use more often, since my se7enet address is hopelessly flooded with spam. Now, of course, it'd be pretty stupid of me to just write my new gmail address on the page, wouldn't it? Then any old page harvester could come along, read it, and my new address would be just as flooded as the old one. So I've taken the way of other sites before me - I've made an image that is theoretically unreadable by a computer, but perfectly readable by humans (unless you're cixelsyd or blind or something like that). My new email address is shown in the image, so if you'd like to contact me, please use the new address from now on.



Hopefully this will solve the problem of me trying to sort through the deluge of spam, and accidentally deleting the real emails along with the crap ones. If you use this address, it shouldn't be getting any spam, and gmail also has a pretty good spam filter in place anyway, so that's all gravy.

I don't have any yet, but in theory I'll probably get some gmail invites in a couple weeks. Since Adam was kind enough to share one with me, I'll be kind enough to offer some to y'all, if anyone wants one. Just reply and let me know.

By the way, the DSL situation is fucked up. Apparently the phone guy came out last week and said my house was too far away from router A, but supposedly they can rewire some things and hook us into router B... they were supposed to come by yesterday, but we haven't heard from them. I called today and supposedly they already did something or other and now have to call me and set up an appointment for something. It's beginning to piss me off.

We finally got DSL hooked up on Monday. This makes me happy, as I'm sure you can understand. I can now finally let Thunderbird sort through my spam, rather than doing it manually. I can get all the patches for all my various programs and games. I can get new wallpapers and skins for Winamp and Windowblinds. I can... I dunno... get new pr0n to look at. That's always nice.

Unfortunately, there's still a problem... we're apparently about six blocks too far away from the DSL hub. As such, our internet only performs at about half the speed of standard DSL. For normal surfing, one wouldn't think it would be all that much of a problem... strictly looking at the numbers, it should be about on par with the typical performance of ACU's network, so it's not like I'm not used to it already. And downloading usually does still run at about 60kb/s, which is fast enough (though not quite as nice as standard DSL's 120+ kb/s). The problem lies in response time. For some reason, certain sites (not all, just several of the ones I like best) take FOR-FUCKING-EVER to respond. So it sits there and says "Waiting for whatever.com..." for like twenty or thirty seconds before actually doing anything. Once the page does begin loading, it goes through smoothly and I don't have any more complaints. It's just the response time that really pisses me off. Annoying, to say the least.

Maybe once all three of us have jobs and have the financial situation all under control, we will switch over to cable. Sluggish internet is better than no internet at all, admittedly, but still... I'm a net geek. I needs mah l33t sp33dz0r!!!

Fortunately for you all, who I know just hang on every word I say, the fact that I actually do have internet at home will probably result in my blog posts being marginally less sporadic. Though between school, the internship, and the new tutoring job, they'll still be a little more sporadic than they were in the proverbial "glory days."

You go away now.

Ok, here's the deal, people. Normally I'm not one to get suckered into mass-marketing schemes. But this particular one has been featured in Wired Magazine and CNN, and they say it's legit. So I'm going to try it, I suppose, just because the deal is so sweet.

STEP ONE: You create an account at freeipods (with that link, please, so I get credit). Then make sure to check your email, and click the confirmation link before you do the next step!

STEP TWO: You sign up for any one of the free trial offers that freeipods lists, and wait till it says you've gotten your credit (in the "Check Status" page). Let's pick the "Bargain.com Homes" one, for example.

STEP THREE: You cancel your free trial account with Bargain.com Homes once you've gotten your credit at freeipods.

STEP FOUR: You get five other people to do the same thing.

STEP FIVE: Wait for your free iPod to arrive in the mail.

As long as you cancel your free trial offer before the trial period ends, you will never be charged for anything at all. And as long as you know five friends who also want a free ipod (or who are willing to help you anyway), you'll get your free ipod. And because you clicked this link to sign up, you're helping me get my free ipod as well!

So if anyone wants a free ipod, or even if you don't but you still would like to be a really cool person and help me get one, I would really appreciate it if you'd sign up. Thanks much, people.

There once was a pirate who was unfortunate enough to bear the name Cinnamon Sticks. His parents were a couple old hippies who thought it would be a cute name – though of course, they had no idea how devastating it would be once he had chosen piracy as his trade.

Many times throughout his life, Cinnamon Sticks tried to have his name legally changed to something more befitting of a pirate: you know, something like William the Red, or Longboots – once he even tried Blackbeard, hoping that no one would notice how he’d just used the name of the infamous 18th century pirate. He even tried some “normal” names as well, like Paul and John and Lord Henry Weatherford the Second, Esquire. Unfortunately, according to the judges in charge of his various cases, a simple dislike of one’s given name was not reason enough to merit changing it. They told him they were thinking of his own best interests, because changing his name would obviously require him to go through a whole lot of paperwork with the post office, and the banks, and the credit card companies.

One day, while Cinnamon Sticks was out marauding and plundering and singing songs in which the majority of the verses ended in “Yo Ho,” his fellow pirates decided they really didn’t like him, and marooned him on a deserted island out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. They did give him the courtesy of the standard single-shot pistol, of course, and they also gave him his favorite monkey, Eduardo, to keep him company on the island.

So while Cinnamon Sticks was being a generally lonely pirate out on the deserted island, he would make up new songs to sing, and search for new words that he could rhyme with “Yo Ho.” He would also spend a lot of time talking to Eduardo, though he had decided that Eduardo made a very bad conversationalist. Cinnamon Sticks would go off on philosophical tangents about the creation of the universe, and how Canada would eventually cause the downfall of human society, and why rum that came from glass bottles always tasted better than rum that came from plastic bottles. But Eduardo would only respond with “eek eek!” or “ack ack!” or “give me bananas!”

One balmy afternoon, after Eduardo’s hideous lack of social skills had embarrassed Cinnamon Sticks yet again, he decided that it was time to either find a way off the island, or use his single-shot pistol. He was unable to convince any of the sea turtles to give him a ride, and he never had been good at building things, so his only option was to use the pistol.

So he shot Eduardo, and then used the gun to threaten the sea turtles into giving him a ride (because we all know how stupid sea turtles are, and they didn’t realize that the one shot had already been used). He sailed on the backs of the turtles until he reached Key West, at which point he started a beach bar for tourists (using only rum from glass bottles, of course) and lived out the remainder of his days wishing with all his little pirate heart that some judge would be kind enough to let him change his name to Lord Henry Weatherford the Second, Esquire.

So I was reading this article on the Register tonight. It's actually a very interesting article, for those of you who are against the whole iTunes/Napster "99 cents per song" model of downloading music. But one particular paragraph got me kind of thinking... A 40gb iPod can hold 10,000 songs. This means that, at $0.99/song, it takes basically $10,000 to fill it up. Or nothing, of course, if you download everything off Gnutella. But I digress... The exact quote was, "Some of us might have spent something like that over the years on music, you're thinking." So I kind of wondered, exactly how much money have I spent on music?

Looking at my d:music folder, I have made an estimate of the CDs which I have purchased (as opposed to the ones I've downloaded and/or borrowed from friends), and which have been ripped to my hard drive. This number is 70. Now we all remember (or should remember, anyway) the famous cd stealing and hard drive crashing incidents of years past. Since I know for a fact that there were several CDs I forgot about when I was making that background, I'm going to say that I had 50 CDs prior to them all being stolen and subsequently being lost from my stupid hard drive (never buy an IBM hard drive, for future reference).

70 + 50 = 120. Let's assume an average of $15 per CD. 120 * 15 = $1800. That's enough for me to build my own (damn close to) dream computer. That's enough to buy 300 six-packs of beer. That's almost enough to buy this (admittedly gaudy excuse for an) engagement ring.

Now, I'm guessing the actual figure is lower. A good number of my CDs are of the punk genre, obviously, and have been bought directly from the record label for a substantially smaller price than you could get at Best Buy or Circuit Shitty. Likewise, a lot of the punk compilation CDs are like $5, even if you do buy them from the aforementioned retailer giants. Balance in the "limited edition" CDs with lots of extra goodies (NIN - And All That Could Have Been, Linkin Park - Meteora, etc.) that cost $25 per, and we'll say that the actual figure is close to maybe $1500. Which is still a big fucking lot of money.

Ok, I guess I'm done ranting for now. I was going to post a list of every single CD that I have purchased, but this post has actually gone on longer than I assumed it would, so I guess I'll save that list for a later date. I'm sure you all are just dying to know what CDs I own, right? Well, it's coming soon... don't worry my pretties... you shall know soon enough.

Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!

As promised, here's my list of CDs. Some are very good (yay for buying them). Some are very bad (what a waste of $15). Most are somewhere in between. Some that I think are good, you may not, and vice-versa. But still... this is what happens when I can't think of anything better to post in this space.

A Perfect Circle - The Thirteenth Step
AFI - Sing the Sorrow
Alkaline Trio - From Here to Infirmary
Alkaline Trio - Good Mourning
Allister - Last Stop Suburbia
American Hi-Fi - Self-titled
American Hi-Fi - The Art of Losing
Atticus - Dragging the Lake
Atticus - Dragging the Lake II
Avril Lavigne - Let Go
Bowling for Soup - Drunk Enough to Dance
Brand New - Your Favorite Weapon
Brand New - Deja Entendu
Chevelle - Wonder What's Next
Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
DJ Sammy - Heaven
Evanescence - Fallen
From Autumn to Ashes - Too Bad You're Beautiful
Hoobastank - Self-titled
Hopeless Records - Cinema Beer Buddy
Hopeless Records - Hopelessly Devoted to You Vol. 4
Joey Cape & Tony Sly - Acoustic
Kingdom Hearts - Soundtrack
Limp Bizkit - Significant Other
Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory
Linkin Park - Meteora
Linkin Park - Live in Texas
Live - The Distance to Here
Lostprophets - Start Something
Marilyn Manson - The Golden Age of Grotesque
Matchbox 20 - Yourself or Someone Like You
Matchbox 20 - Mad Season
Matchbox 20 - More Than You Think You Are
Mest - Destination Unknown
Mest - Self-titled
New Found Glory - Self-titled
New Found Glory - Sticks and Stones
New Found Glory - Catalyst
Nine Inch Nails - And All That Could Have Been
No Use For a Name - Making Friends
No Use For a Name - More Betterness!
No Use For a Name - Live in a Dive
No Use For a Name - Hard Rock Bottom
Off By One - Self-titled
Pedro The Lion - It's Hard to Find a Friend
Pirates of the Carribean - Soundtrack
Rooney - Self-titled
Saves the Day - Stay What You Are
Senses Fail - From The Depths of Dreams
Simple Plan - No Pads, No Helmets, Just Balls
Something Corporate - Leaving Through the Window
Something Corporate - North
Sugarcult - Start Static
t.A.t.U. - All The Things She Said (single)
Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends
Taking Back Sunady - Where You Want to Be
The All-American Rejects - Self-titled
The Animatrix - Soundtrack
The Ataris - So Long, Astoria
The Juliana Theory - Love
The Starting Line - Say It Like You Mean It
TRUSTcompany - The Lonely Position of Neutral
Vans Warped Tour 2002
Vans Warped Tour 2003
Vans Warped Tour 2004
Resident Evil - Soundtrack
Romeo & Juliet - Soundtrack
Fat Wreck Chords - Survival of the Fattest
Van Wilder - Soundtrack
The Vines - Highly Evolved
Yellowcard - Ocean Avenue