Ok, so I admit it. I have had an opportunity or two to write in the blog, and let everybody know how things are going… but I have choosen not2.

Mostly it hasn’t been that interesting. I mean I could say I am driving all over AZ working 6 days a week, but I think that is fairly known by now.

Hmm, I suppose I could mention that yesterday I met the “double” for my DeForest hair stylist. This woman had even lived in Wisconsin, but did not know of Pam. I do think they were sisters seperated at birth, I mean even had the same fun attitude.

I suppose I could also blog about the night that my new hippie friend wanted Rob/I to go to a drum circle. I found that strangely humorous, and we went to “The Library” instead. Of course just to say we made an appearance we walked through the circle on the way back to the car, but the guy who said to come wasn’t even there…

Notice lack of search boxes/buttons? Yes the search engines still work. Learn to deal with it, or don’t use them. It’s simple. click, type, hit enter. Call that a transition since I plan for new design to have a bottom bar that may not show the text at all until you click on it. Not sure yet. seems like a good idea though. Invisible functionality…. I mean it’s at least smartass enough to rationalize it.

Hmm… I seemed to have missed a lot of days, but I am not going back this time. I am however starting to be more awake when I get home from work. It always takes a little transition period before you are adjusted, mine has me going to bed earlier and getting up and driving all over, eating at totally random times etc.. So my body has been kind of pissed off at the lack of consistency, but it will adapt.

Good times.
Good times.

Man, I have some time now that I could work on site, but I’m not going to because I am sooo tired. I was fine all day and it just hit me like 20 mins ago and I haven’t moved since.

I mean I was up till 5:30 memorizing guidelines, and then I had to get up at 8:30 or so, since I wasn’t sure if my meeting today was at 10 or 1.

Turns out it was at 1, but with all the tests and discussions, I didn’t leave there until nearly 7. I passed everything so tomorrow I am out fixing computers.

I kind of don’t want to go to bed right now because I will just be waking up only to go to work, but the rest of the world does it so now I shall too. Oh well, I really am beat. I will fall asleep on pillow contact. So, good times.

Yes, it’s true. I now have a new job. I moved to Arizona for one job, but that one has been giving me the run around and has on several occasions, postponed my start date. So I looked around and found something that I would enjoy more anyways. It’s mobile pc repair and website design! Yes, that’s right. The same thing I have always done for myself, I am now going to be getting paid well for.

Of course with a new job comes new hurdles. Currently (and by that, I mean 15 mins ago, and in another 15 mins), I will be doing homework for the new job. There is a TON of procedures to learn. Tomorrow I am going to be tested on how well I got them. It would probably be easier to learn if they just wrote everything in a couple words or short descriptions, but it is all written in legal-speak to make sure there is no contractual confusion. Ironically creating more confusion.

I am not sure what the test will consist of, but I do hope I don’t have to recite the procedures since there are like 8 thousand forms that need to be filled out, and all in a certain way. To me, I am a hands on learner. I sit in front of a computer and I just understand it, can figure it out, or can figure out how to figure it out ;), but memorizing legal-speak procedures without having actually done them, will be kind of a pain.

Oh well, figuring it out is worth my time.

In related news, I changed my phone number as an Arizona phone number was a requirement. New number is: 602-820-3828 so write it down, or type it into your cells. I was going to keep my old number AND get the new one, but apparantly with Cingular (and any other sim card based cell phone company), having more than one number on the same phone requires swapping out the sim card every single time you want the other number which is insanely annoying. Then I was going to get a second phone, they had a really nice new samsung, but I just don’t think I want to have 2 cell phones. If I did have to, I think I would want them to at least be different cell carriers, but I was in a hurry today so I decided that it was just easier to change it and bump up my plan.

Well it’s back to do more studying… ugh. Of course, after I am done studying for this and get through this, then besides being swamped with new work and trying to get the new design for this site up, I will also have to be studying for the A+ exam that I am required to pass within 90 days. Though I think that will be easier than trying to memorize procedures I have never done.

Yeah, I know the new design was so nice and simple, it loaded like lightning and with enough attention, will be the shit.

However my time is going to be very limited this week. In fact, I am only writing this now because I needed a break from my “homework”. I decided that instead of leaving the nintendo/sega broken and getting a bunch of when will it work again emails, I figured it was best to restore the old design until I get the rest of the new design a little better debugged. If you are feeling brave or just curious, you can still see the new design while work is in progress since I simply renamed it index2.php.

Why today was a super day, by James Lyngaas:

• Today was a good day because I was officially offered the 2nd best job I can ever imagine myself ACTUALLY getting paid to do (the first best being getting paid well to make this website more interesting, but that is most likely many years off…).
• AND Then… straight from microsoft, I got a nice new copy of Windows Vista beta 2 in the mail.
• AND Then… After that just as my excitement was dying down again, There was a nock on the door and it was my processor showing up.
• AND Then… I assembled it, and installed Vista and it worked. My ram didn’t get eaten, the world didn’t explode, nothing,….
• AND Then… I got 2 monitors working off the same videocard (since before I was doing it with a special motherboard)
• AND Then… (after switching to 32bit vista since 64bit didn’t support as much) I got Aero Glass to work (makes borders and other things have sweet semi-transparent hardware rendered blur to them, that strangely only works with new videocards)
• AND Then… I went to sleep

I am stealing this from Maximum PC – July 2k6 since It was such a good little article. I linked some of the things they were talking about etc..

We’ve griped ad nauseam about the invasive digital millenium copyright act (DMCA). This law makes it illegal to circumvent copyright protection on movies and music, even if your actions can be described as “fair use”, such as transferring a song or movie to a portable media player. Digital-rights enthusiasts have long hoped the law would be repealed or watered down, but it appears that some members of Congress are preparing to do the exact opposite.

Named The Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006, the draft version of the new law, which hasn’t been officially presented yet, will expand the provisions of the DMCA, and impose stiff new penalties on software and media pirates while expanding the definition of piracy.

Attorney Genearal Alberto Gonzales revealed the impetus for the Bush administration’s proposed legislation in a speech last November. He said that new technology brought “large scale criminal enterprises” into the copyright infringement party, and went on to make the laughable claims that infringement practices were used “to fund terrorism activities” (Are you freakin serious???)

The new bill contains an assortment of proposals to combat piracy, including a clause that would make “attempting” to commit copyright infringement illegal. Attempting to commit copyright infringement could include anything from posting songs on file sharing services (definitely illegal) to searching Google for your favorite band and finding an illegal MP3 as a result.

Naturally, the music industry is pushing hard for this bill to become law. Contact your government representative if you think otherwise.

—————————————————-

Related Links
• Bill Summary
• Bitch to your Congressman
• Bitch to your Senator

So admittedly we are all frustrated with our opperating system these days. Most of us are using Windows XP and when it first came out. It was brilliant. It never crashed, you could close programs quickly, it listed all the programs running and there was no such thing as spyware.

Well that’s all changed and I am kind of sick of it. So I have decided to ditch XP for some new stuff. Namely linux. Now you are saying. Well that fits you, you are a computer geek. Well, yes, but I have never been one of those elitist pricks who tries to shove open source down your throat and badmouths the big MS, and I’m still not.

I choose ubuntu. Why? Because it comes preinstalled with firefox, open office and all sorts of other things. Because when I want to update my software, it updates ALL my software and not just the OS. Because they give you free LTS (long term support) if you ever have any issues. Because I am just kind of sick of XP and I still don’t want to use some hardcore linux distro just to be cool.

Here’s what I recommend you do. Either download or order Ubuntu (linux for human beings). It’s 100% free for global distribution. I mean if you want the cd shipped to you, they will do it at their own expense! Anywho, when you get it there is a “live cd” that lets you run the OS without actually installing it. Everything is usable just by booting off of a cd. If you like it, I would install it to a partition to free up your cd drive, but your call.

Ok, so you want to stick with Microsoft but you are still sick of XP. Microsoft has just released beta 2 of Vista (it’s new flagship os being released early next year), you can get Vista Beta 2 shipped to you for only $10.54 with shipping / tax. It’s a dvd that will work for 1 year. Plus if you order the beta, they will ship you RC1 (release canidate 1… almost fully debugged ready for retail beta) for no additional charge. It’s a good deal considering I used Windows 2000 RC1 for six months or so with no real problems. This way you get a legit copy before they are charging several hundered dollars for it. You can also download it from them free, but WAY too many people are doing that and so there is a long wait since they decided against using bittorrent for distribution like linux and everybody else uses.

Sticking with MS:
• Get Vista (beta 2 / RC1) for $10 on a shiney new dvd
• Get Download Office 2007 beta2(TOTALLY rewritten, much cooler interface… ) for free. I did this online and it just spit a serial # at me and said have a nice day
• Download Open Office via bittorrent (does almost everything office 2003 does, for free)

Gimme Something New:
• Download Ubuntu 6.06 DVD (Torrent from linuxtracker.org)
• Download Ubuntu DVD (ISO from ubuntu.com)
• Order Shiney New Ubuntu Pressed cd’s (100% free)

So now you are thinking.. Well fine James, but I am content with XP, but am still annoyed with crappy spyware and software.

Easy fix. Virtually every piece of software I use can be downloaded from filehippo.com. I mean seriously, I download and use 9/10 of all the software they have listed on that site. They only have good quality shit. Some of it I use to fix computers, some of it I use for other things, but all of it has descriptions and it’s all good.

I am not an Andy Rooney fan. Typically I they just let him talk because he owns the show, but I appreciated this perticular rant he had going so I figured I would pass it on. It sounded more like something out of the movie PCU than something you see on 60 mins.

Andy Rooney said on “60 Minutes” a few weeks back:

I don’t think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America. Try to have things like the UnitedCaucasianCollege Fund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertainment Television, or Miss White America; and see what happens…Jesse Jackson will be knocking down your door.

Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game.

I believe they are called the Boy Scouts for a reason, that is why there are no girls allowed. Girls belong in the Girl Scouts! ARE YOU LISTENING MARTHA BURKE?

I think that if you feel homosexuality is wrong, it is not a phobia, it is an opinion.

I have the right “NOT” to be tolerant of others because they are different, weird, or tick me off.

When 70% of the people who get arrested are black, in cities where 70% of the population is black, that is not racial profiling, it is the Law of Probability.

I believe that if you are selling me a milkshake, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper or a hotel room, you must do it in English! As a matter of fact, if you want to be an American citizen, you should have to speak English!

My father and grandfather didn’t die in vain so you can leave the countries you were born in to come over and disrespect ours.

I think the police should have every right to shoot your sorry ass if you threaten them after they tell you to stop. If you can’t understand the word “freeze” or “stop” in English, see the above lines.

I don’t think just because you were not born in this country, you are qualified for any special loan programs, government sponsored bank loans or tax breaks, etc., so you can open a hotel, coffee shop, trinket store, or any other business.

We did not go to the aid of certain foreign countries and risk our lives in wars to defend their freedoms, so that decades later they could come over here and tell us our constitution is a living document; and open to their interpretations.

I don’t hate the rich I don’t pity the poor.

I know pro wrestling is fake, but so are movies and television. That doesn’t stop you from watching them.

I think Bill Gates has every right to keep every penny he made and continue to make more. If it ticks you off, go and invent the next operating system that’s better, and put your name on the building.

It doesn’t take a whole village to raise a child right, but it does take a parent to stand up to the kid; and smack their little behinds when necessary, and say “NO!”

I think tattoos and piercing are fine if you want them, but please don’t pretend they are a political statement. And, please, stay home until that new lip ring heals. I don’t want to look at your ugly infected mouth as you serve me French fries!

I am sick of “Political Correctness.” I know a lot of black people, and not a single one of them was born in Africa; so how can they be “African-Americans”? Besides, Africa is a continent. I don’t go around saying I am a European-American because my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was from Europe. I am proud to be from America and nowhere else

And if you don’t like my point of view, tough…

Ok, Mark was nice enough to send me the pictures he got of me from his party. I myself can’t believe the contrast between the two pics. I don’t look at all the same, and it’s only 1 month time difference!!!!

Honestly I look really good with the red fohawk and think that seems to be a good look for me.

Sadly he only had 2 pictures that didn’t totally suck. I have the fullsized pics if anybody wants them, but still…. Wow… Look for yourself:

So, I am not political. Quite frankely I tend to figure “it will all work out”. However right now there is a bill going through Congress that would change Net Neutrality and basically take away the internet’s 1st ammendment rights and allow your internet providor to police what you see, as well as prioritize your traffic.

Which for a site like mine could mean disaster. I mean my site would still be here, but perhaps your internet providor would take offense to me calling them a bunch of cock gobblers and they would ban my site so that nobody else would be offended by that.

Well that is BS, and I should know.

So. Go to www.savetheinternet.com and join the petition, or call 202-224-3121, and oh so politely tell them to shove their bill up their ass.