Anti-Junkmail/Telemarketer/Spam Advice

I may have already mentioned OptOutPrescreen.com. If you haven't gone there and filled it out, you oughta. It'll get rid of a lot of stupid junkmail.

My smokin' hot fiancee just sent me a link to GreenDimes.com - another fantastic anti-junkmail service! I highly recommend that you sign up for at least the free service, if not the bundle for $36 that comes with a cool T-shirt, shopping bag, and CFL bulbs.

Even if you aren't into all this hippie shit, you probably don't like junkmail, right? So, if you do nothing else with yourself, at least click here and fill out this petition to create a National Do Not Mail Registry similar to the National Do Not Call Registry.

And if you're having just plain old e-mail spam issues on top of your excessive junkmail and telemarketer calls, you oughta sign up for a Gmail account - they have some pretty decent spam filtering built in and you can check it from anywhere. Ditch your crappy "austin.rr.com" e-mail accounts and get a real webmail account that won't disappear when you inevitably cancel your Road Runner account.

Additional Gift Registry Item

Consider me officially registered from some of of these, hehehe. Don't worry about someone else buying one - the more the merrier! I think? Doomier?

ABCs Quiz

I haven't done one of these things in a while. I suppose they're good for stimulating your creativity. My friend "tagged" me. I found the missing Q, R, and S questions with a quick Google search, by the way.

Here's the "ABCs Quiz"...

A - Attached or single: Singularly attached.

B - Best Friend: I can't choose - I love all my friends.

C - Cake or Pie: Pie... apple pie... with bacon strips criss-crossed on the top instead of crust.

D - Day of Choice: Caturday.

E - Essential Item(s): Items aren't essential. I'd go naked and live in the woods if I thought I could get away with it...

F - Favorite Color: BLAAAAAAAAACK!!!! IT IS ALL COLORS COMBINED!!!!! (BRUTUAL!)

G - Gummy Bears or Worms: Worms, especially in a Worm Dirt Cake.

H - Hometown: Bryan, TX.

I - Indulgence(s): None. Indulgences imply guilty pleasure. I dunno bout you, but if I feel guilty it really kinda ruins the pleasure.

J - January or July: January. I like the cold.

K - Kids: I like baby goats.

L - Life is incomplete without: Anuses. Some me something without an anus, and I'll show you something that isn't alive.

M - Marriage Date: O 8 O 8 O 8

N - Number of Siblings: 1. Technically we could go as high as 5, but I'm gonna stick with 1.

O - Oranges or Apples: Oranges FTW!

P - Phobias or Fears: I'm not fond of internal bleeding or internal damage in general.

Q - Quote(s): Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

R - Reason To Smile: Because you have electrodes attached to your cheeks.

S - Season: "Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each." - Thoreau (There's a real quote since I copped out on the last one.)

T - Tag Six: It ends here.

U - Unknown Fact About Me: I don't know. (If I know it, it's a known fact, right?)

V - Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animal: Neither. Just an omnivore.

W - Worst Habit: Staying up late and *still* getting nothing useful done.

X - X-Rays or Ultrasounds: Xevious. Xebec. Xenops. Xylology (uh huh huh.) "X-Rays" is the best they could come up with for "x"? Weak.

Y - Your Favorite Food: Cheesy garlic butter bread (just made some.)

Z - Zodiac: II

Paintball Sentry

While I admit that this thing has a certain "cool" factor, I am simultaneously fearful of the day when I may find myself having to outsmart one that's armed with a real gun.

My Job in a Nutshell

ZOMGROFLMAO...

Linux Solutions: Installing the Rhapsody plugin for Firefox 3.0

Software:

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition (ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso)
Rhapsody Player Engine for Linux (RhapsodyPlayerEngine_Inst_Linux.xpi)

Problem:

My damn Rhapsody music subscription won't work in Linux because I can't get the damn plug-in to install. I go to rhapsody.com, I click Sign In, it opens a pop-up saying that I need to install something, I try to install, it downloads a small file and then... does nothing. After doing extensive research online, I discovered that Firefox 3 no longer works with this type of installer. Boo for progress!

Solution:

Basically, you need to download the Rhapsody Player Engine manually (see file name above) - I found it here. Now what the hell do you do with it? Good question, that's what took hours to figure out. You unzip the damn thing and stick the files in your /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins directory, of course! Done. It works, however the player still fails with some "Technical Error" every once in awhile. I'm still looking into that.

Linux Solutions: Installing Ubuntu on a Sony VGN-A290

Hardware: Sony VGN-A290 Notebook

Software: Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition (ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso)

Problem and Troubleshooting process:

I kept getting SQUASHFS errors during the file copying process while installing Ubuntu on my Sony VGN-A290 notebook. I checked the integrity of the CD twice - it was fine. I've used this CD to install Ubuntu on several other computers. I repeated this process several times booting into the Live CD and installing as well as just installing directly from the CD's boot menu. It would fail at slightly different places every time. I ran a memory check on the system from the CD boot menu as well - it passed.

Solution:

After trying numerous things, I discovered that the install worked in safe graphics mode. To get into safe graphics mode, boot the CD, select your language, press F4 for modes, and choose safe graphics mode.

Hooray for persistence.