My life

Comment Spam: More Than A Minor Annoyance

Although I do have the absolutely wonderful and I-can’t live-without-it Askimet plugin installed here, I still look through the messages it catches every few days. What’s worse than having to waste time even looking at them is trying to ignore what’s in them. Various prescription drugs (I’m keeping things G-rated over here), and links to what I will leave as explicit videos litter the Askimet Spam page litter my screen every time I look at it.

Eventually, someone is going to (or I will) say enough is enough, and just get rid of comments once and for all. We all hate weeding through spam emails (which affect a much greater majority of people than comment spam does), so why should we feel the smame about comments?

Extreme Road Rage

My van driver has this thing for racing through intersections at yellow lights. Pedal to the metal bro. Tonight he was approaching an intersection, and the light turned yellow when he was maybe 150 or 170 feet from the corner. At that point he floored his GMC Safari, and sort of made the light. If that happened at Francis Louis Boulevard going south, he would’ve been caught on camera and got a nice ticket in the mail.  Strange thing is that he decelerates as he exits the intersection, which is pretty much pointless in most situations. Personally, I think running red lights is the worst sort of non-accident offence; also up there is speeding, and cutting off other drivers should be some kind of crime. New York City has so many wonderful drivers out there, yet also a large handful of not-so-good ones. Why is it so easy to get a license these days?

Finally Have All Presents

Today marks the absolute completion of the present stream of the 2006 holiday season. Yesterday I received yet another fifty dollars; this will not be spent on anything immediately. I decided that I should end my spending spree, which took place upon today’s arrival of the Smith Helmet Helper that I had several troubles ordering (one store didn’t like my Amex Gift Card at all, and the one that did take it at first gave me a slight problem, but my order was fully processed the next night) and a keyboard extension cable (which the need for surfaced after the re-do of my room).

The helmet helper was pretty much what the stores say it is. It is a flap of rubber with plastic clips on the ends, and it replaces the buckle on Smith ski goggles while lengthening the strap to allow the goggles to better fit over a helmet. Installing it was a snap, and the pressure against my glasses (oh thank goodness for the OTG goggles I have) that I experienced without the helmet helper was non-existent. I am happy with the product itself, but I feel that the shipping charge ($7.02 for a $4.95 item) was a bit excessive, especially because it took over a week for Brown aka UPS to make it to my house.

The keyboard extension cable is just that - a cable with a PS/2 male and female connector on opposite ends. Not much to say; I just shut down my computer, connected the cable between the original keyboard cable and my computer, and viola, done. Now i don’t have totake my keyboard out of the drawer before closing it – a royal pain.

Who said the holidays ended in December? Not me. Especially when delivery companies take their lazy time.

Shortness of Sleep

When you wake up in the morning, you feel like you just went to sleep a few minutes ago. “Why so soon?” That’s how I feel at about 7:00 every day. Perhaps the only way we can alleviate that feeling is to go to sleep at eight every night.

Cell Phone Fun

Voicemail is useful for two things: 1) allowing people to contact you even when your phone is off or out of the service area and 2) giving annoying classmates a relatively easy way to annoy you while you are out of the country. The latter of the two is what happened to the classmate who is currently in Israel. During recess, my classmates who are still hanging out in the good ol’ USA dial him up and start talking into his voicemail, saying crazy things ranging from Borat (I need to see that movie) to imitations of one of our teachers. Fortunately for one of us, he and the overseas friend both have Verizon and free mobile-to-mobile, making this one cheap trick. I feel bad for him, having to sort through all of those spam voicemails. Imagine how he would feel if we filled up his voicemail box and didn’t leave any room for real messages to get in!

Redid My (Small) Room Again

Living in a small space isn’t easy. Making it feel bigger is even harder. I keep on coming up with new ways to lay out my room, all in an attempt to give me more usable floor space. This is probably the fifth time I rearranged the furniture in my (tiny) room, and hopefully one of the last times. If you can’t possibly think about how cramped it is in here, the room is about nine feet square (really 8 feet by 9½ feet according to my slightly inaccurate measurements). Then add a bad, dresser, and a desk. Also factor in the layout of the doors and the heater, which all contribute to how I can position the furniture.

New Year’s Vent

Perhaps one of the most boring days of my life was New Year’s Day 2007. The short version of the story is that as a result of skipping school (oh that dreaded place), I was not allowed to use the computer all day. Basically, it was a waste of a day, but the attitude of my dad was, in my opinion, extremely negative.

Things went downhill at about 7:20 in the morning, when my van showed up. Almost everyone in the house was awake at the time, except the old man (not that old, but “middle age” is one of his most hated phrases). I guess the commotion stirred up by my brothers and mother woke him up. Anyways, when he saw me still lying bed like the lazy teenager that I am, he started telling me in a rather harsh voice that there would be no computer for the day, and probably another threat that I don’t remember.

Later in the morning, my principal called to remind us that there was school that day. Nice guy that he is, I think he would realize that if I’m not there, I am sick of school. I would also like to thank my school for all the annoyances that I suffered on Monday, the main reason being that there was an extended day of school (last year we began at 8:00, while this year, we began at 7:40, and believe me, and extra 20 minutes or so of extra sleep makes a difference, especially considering that I stayed up to watch the ball drop).

I ended up watching TV most of the day. I forgot what I watched in the morning, but I remember watching a Biggest Loser marathon on Bravo for most of the afternoon and until about 10:30 at night. More fun at this point! I didn’t want to go to bed at this point, but my dad called me up, and I was very hesitant. I went up to my room, and basically started crying (proves that teenagers have emotions too, unlike some adults). For the rest of the week, I didn’t want to talk to him at all, and on Friday, I expressed that in words, saying it to his face.

Let the family wars begin.

Present Collection Almost Complete

The delivery of my iriver accessory kit today (Saturday; which surprises me, since I haven’t seen UPS deliver on Saturday before) marks yet another item on my present list for this holiday season. So far I have received or bought the following items with money I received:

• iriver Clix / U10 Accessory kit (includes a pretty decent silicon case, belt clip, neck strap that is really difficult to get on the case, arm band which I will never use and screen protectors with a good microfiber cloth)
• Carrera ski helmet (pretty comfortable, not shaped for my head but the insertable pads provides some compensation)
• Black Diamond gloves (not too light and not too heavy, and have good dexterity)
• Lowe Alpine goggle case (kind of tight for big goggles like my Smith Cariboo OTG)
• Smartwool Snow Rider socks (intended for snowboarders but should suffice for skiing too; one really thick pair of socks)
• About $135 in cash

For now I’m pretty happy with what I got. However, there are two more things on my wish list:

• Smith Universal Helmet Helper – lengthens a goggle’s strap by a few inches to fit comfortably over a helmet without stretching the strap or squeezing your eyes out :-P
• A simple USB wall charger that no store in NYC other than some schlock place on Fifth Avenue seems to carry

I’ll post again when my cache has been filled. Somehow it seems like it’s so difficult to get my hands on those little things.