when blogging becomes a platform for the clinically insane…
by Travis on Aug.12, 2008, under General, Humor
soooo yeah… http://www.ihatemykereinhold.com/ — i’m not gonna say anything more.
The latest from the spam world… grrrr.
by Travis on Aug.08, 2008, under Tech Stuff
So, I’m not sure if any of you have run into this (if I were a betting man I’d say yes) but the latest round of malware distribution is taking the net by storm in the form of fake CNN news items. You may notice some items in your inbox that have the following subject line:
“CNN.com Daily Top 10” & “CNN Alerts: My Custom Alert”
While opening the mail doesn’t actually do anything to your system, following the links can set you up for disaster. Once clicked the link will take you to a fake cnn.com page that will prompt you for an install of a viewer. Typically flashupdate.exe; get_flash_update.exe and watchmovie.mpg.exe. Once installed it leaves your systems open to a variety of issues.
Be on the lookout people. As usual, don’t install things you don’t know about, don’t install stuff you think you’ve already installed and if you’re in any way confused. Click cancel and email or call your IT support.
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Also something to be aware of. There has been a rash of similar type installations being prompted on social networking sites such as myspace.com and facebook.com. The same rules as above apply. Be smart, be safe!
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post mirrored on: techtalk.homerun-networks.com
rising costs …
by Travis on Aug.04, 2008, under General, Rants
You know what I find disgusting? When we use less and less of a resource in our house and yet it costs more and more each month. Pretty lame huh?
I’m just irritated that they keep bringing these rates up in exponential percentages and then electing to cut off electricity for people who are 30 days late on the nose. While I’ve been fortunate enough to not have to worry about such things, I can’t help but think about people who are really struggling. What a pain in the rear end. Luckily for some of those people we have programs here in Colorado which help out people who are unable to afford these hikes. The sad part is, it’s those who can afford it which are also helping programs like this out through donations and other things so in the grand scheme of things if you’re helping out and donating then you’re paying not only the hikes you’re incurring but helping others to pay theirs as well.
Just as an example of these hikes, we were paying $0.02506 per kWh at the beginning of this year. From April to June they bumped it up to $0.03849 and in July they slammed it up again to $0.04824. Now to put that into perspective for you since I know you’re seeing it as “only a penny” lets explain what’s going on here. For say, 1000 kWh’s of electricity used, which is a pretty low average for a hot summer and a small house, you have to not only pay your electricity usage fee of $0.040 per kWh but you have to pay the ECA (as wells as other fees) on top of that. Broken down, the following usage+ECA is what you get:
Electric Bill 1st Quarter 2008: $40.11 in usage + $25.06 ECA -> $65.17
Electric Bill 2st Quarter 2008: $40.11 in usage + $38.49 ECA -> $78.60
Electric Bill 3rd Quarter 2008: $40.11 in usage + $48.24 ECA -> $88.35
So what you’re seeing is in the span of 7 months the cost of the same amount of electricity has gone up $23.18 in fees. For some that’s not a real big issue. For others it’s a huge issue. I realize, again, that we’re talking about a matter of pennies here but for someone who are already struggling to pay a $65.00 electric bill along with outrageous amounts for gasoline in order to get to work in the first place to pay that bill, it’s creating some serious hurt.
Now, I realize that the ECA is used to offset some costs, but you’d figure for a company who has a net income of around $105 million in the second quarter this year alone could cut some people a little slack as this goes well beyond ‘ passing the cost along to the customer ‘.
*shrug* but what do I know? i’m just the customer so I have no way of comprehending the “actual reasons” behind such hikes.
Fitness Update
by Travis on Jul.28, 2008, under Fitness
Ok, so I forget what week I’m actually on. I think this technically qualifies as week 9 or 10… I’ll keep the count right from here out (since it’s important). So far most of the changes are remaining visual which is kind of interesting. Muscle definition improvement, endurance improvement, flexibility, etc… It’s just funny watching the scale dip 5 lbs then come right back up but still have your clothes fit loose, exception my shirts… the more it gets loose in the belly, the tighter it gets on my shoulders.
So here I am. The home stretch of this workout plan as it looks on paper. It’s nothing but toss up after toss up here keeping my body all confused and unable to plateau out. To add to the mix and confuse myself even more I’ve adopted a military style early morning pt routine to really get things moving. Nothing like waking up at 5am to blast yourself with everything from jumping jacks to pushups then head out for that 2 mile run.
It’s nice though, it actually seems to help me have more energy during the day altho I feel like I could eat an entire cow all day long. We should see how well this works out in a few weeks. I should be coming to the close of this last phase in the next 4-5 weeks upon which I will rest for a week and probably start this routine all over again. (what… i like it ok? :))
So, i’m hoping by the end of this I’ll have at least hit my goals of 3″+ off the waist and 20 lbs stable. Honestly, if I stopped building so much muscle up from this blasted thing I’d probably have hit my weight goal easily by now, lol. 3″+ is still the solid goal for waist line though and it doesn’t appear I will have to worry too much about that… I may actually end up exceeding it if this toss up in the final 5 weeks does what I think it will.
We shall see.
