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It’s Halloween and I’m sitting here watching strangely dressed children come to my window, and handing them Reese’s and Hershey’s. Some of the costumes these days amuse and bewilder me. One guy just walked by with a pretty cool and realistic looking lightsaber. All I saw was the lightsaber, but it was purple, so I assume he was Mace Windu. Gotta love Star Wars!

Combat Films got within a few hundred visitors of 10,000 this month. It’s not too late, but there’s only a few hours left and it’s Halloween. We need about 300 more, and our average daily is 250 (we’ve already got around 200 today @ best guess). It’d certainly be cool. We’ll hit it next month. You should definitely check out the free videos available at www.cfr-tv.com if you are into military stuff at all.

I like Halloween. It’s fun to be nice to the little kids who want candy. I remember how much I used to enjoy trick-or-treating myself; it went far beyond just the candy. Christmas is still that way for me. It’s such a great, totally excellent feeling. Hopefully there’s lots of snow outside (I love snow), and the house is clean for one week out of the year! The tree is all lit up. It’s awesome.

In other news, LuminousNerd: The Epic Tale of a Nerd-Hippie-Designer was crawled by Google today! This is largely as a result of the generous link from Chaaban, who now has a link in the links section on the left. Thank you!

Apple has done it again. I was amazed when I saw such a tiny, itty-bitty piece of plastic packed with a whole gig of music. But two gigs? Two whole gigabytes in a tiny little piece as big as..no, smaller than…a belt buckle? It’s amazing. I’m super-excited about this thing. They’re cheap too, really well-priced. I’d certainly get one of these right about now if I hadn’t been hooked up with a nice 30GB iPod with Video.

The new Shuffle isn’t actually in stores or on the website yet, but I’m sure it will be in a matter of days.

Update: I misunderstood something somewhere along the line.  There isn’t a 2GB Shuffle (yet), just 1GB.  Sorry!

One of my frogs is looking kind of sick. He’s got really dark green skin and he doesn’t move a lot. Also, he’s rather fat. I’m worried about him, but there’s not really anything I can do.

I’ve still got snivels. I hate this, I just want it to go away. Why can’t I breathe out of my nose?

My father’s business partner found a great deal on some mini-refridgerators at Lowe’s. I think I’ll get one. It would be so cool to have a mini-fridge in my room!

I haven’t been using my PC a lot ever since I got my Mac Laptop. I was momentarily considering selling it and this one and getting a nicer Mac Laptop…it’s still in my mind. But I put so much effort into the PC…and…I don’t know. It’s just..quite a change. I’m not sure what to do about that. I’ve got a good number of games that only work on PC. But I rarely play them anyway. I could just rent a PC when I go to Black Box for my monthly (or more) LAN party.

I wonder how much my PC would sell for. I could eBay with a ridiculous reserve price on it. Heck, I wonder if it would sell for more than I paid. I built it myself, so that’s actually likely. Heck, maybe I should start a mini-biz making a PC and selling it on eBay, upgrading my own Mac Laptop each time. Then I’d have the joy of building PCs and the simplicity/ease/power/stability/beauty of an awesome Mac Laptop. And I could start saving for college. Hmmm.
I need to get some candy for Halloween.

I’ve got that an essay I wrote on why Cannabis should be legalized written. I’m having my teacher read it over, then I’ll probably post it here.

Well, that was a lot of topics really quick. Writing this down, though, got me thinking about that idea with building and selling PCs. I wonder if I could make a little dough like that… I’d certainly hone my skills with hardware. And software, because if I actually made some money with it I’d want to start selling some with certain software on them. In fact, I could save some money by selling them with Linux pre-installed! And offer Windblows as an option for an extra $100 or so. Hmmm…there’s an idea. I would learn a lot more about Linux, fast. I already enough to get by on Linux, but that would be pretty cool.

Now I’m seriously thinking about doing this thing, and I’m mad at myself for it. How could I put so much of myself into that PC and then think about selling it? And yet, more and more, I am being sucked into the world of Macs. It gets harder and harder every time I get on a PC to deal with Windows…

Now I’m torn. If I had any real readers, I’d ask for your comments. But as far as I know, no one really reads this right now. *sigh*.

It’s not meadow. It’s middle, or so I found out. Meadow would be cool too, but middle definitely makes more sense. In case you’re lost, I’m talking about the Snickers song.

That was a short blog, but I must retire to my bed.

Update: You know, I’ve listened to it many times, but I really think it’s in the MEADOW, not MIDDLE. Ah, well.

Another update: Yea, it’s definitely Meadow.

It just occurred to me that, although I have mentioned my exciting little Mac Laptop, I have said little about my very blue PC. Since there’s a story to go with it, I suppose I’ll blog on it this (very early) morning.

My first build was a silver case with blue lights all over it, and a window into the mess of cords that made the inside. For those interested, I used an Aspire X-Plorer Silver with several Cold Cathodes as well as some LEDs, and even some handles with LEDs in them. The ‘feet’ of the computer flashed blue in multiple patterns. I also had a multipurpose front panel which glowed blue.

Alas, that one was stolen. I left it in my teacher’s class room during school (I was going to a LAN party after). I thought it was locked, but I really didn’t even think about it. I never expected someone to steal something from a teacher’s closet! They took the computer, the monitor, and the box of games, keyboard, and mouse! They just left my pillow sitting there. Needless to say, the cops could do nothing (have they ever done anything?) even though I knew precisely who did it.

So a while later (after suffering with a Dell Craptop) I got a surplus of money due to my birthday, and used it to build my new beast. This one I still have. The cords are not nearly as messy! I had the wiring professionally done. I’ve still got blue all over the place, but now I’ve got an Aspire (now Apevia) X-Plorer Silver which has two built-in lights running down either side of the front. It even has a blue-lighted temperature monitor ont he front, just above the USB ports and an unfortunately non-functional firewire port. It’s also got a beautiful glass-looking door (though it’s plastic). It pulls together so nicely with my glass desk and bookshelf. I also got a 20″ widescreen monitor this time.

Another new feature is the fan/light control on the front. Now I can turn most of my lights off! However, there are a few that stay on. The front two lights do, because for some reason they won’t work at all when hooked up to the switch. The temperature monitor stays on, glowing brightly, because otherwise it won’t read my temps at all. I might hook that one up, though, to one of my night switches. The side fan does not go off because every time I got into the computer I would have to open both sides, and that’s just not practical. I might replace that fan with a non-LED one. And finally, the heatsink fan does not go off because if for even a few seconds my heatsink fan went off, my CPU would be likely to fry and render my machine completely useless.

Now, the innards are the really exciting part. I used to have a gig of RAM. Now I’ve got two gigs. Used to have a 160GB HDD, now the hard drive is a whole 200 precious gigabytes! My graphics card is the same, the motherboard is actually a little worse, but I now have a DVD Burner (silver to match case) as well as a floppy drive. However, the floppy drive does not work, as there is a loose cord stuck between the floppy and the front insertion point, which I have been too lazy to fix since I NEVER use floppies.

Best of all are the final three parts. I now have a far better power supply. The one I had before actually went off periodically; This one can handle all my crazy blue light action!!! Also, my processor is a sweetly awesome Socket AM2 4600+ X2 (Dual Core) Athlon 64!!! Before I had a regular 3000+ (non-Dual Core). This computer actually originally had a 3500+, but I bought the new proc when the price came down from like $900 (yes, for the little itty bitty chip and a crappy heatsink which I didn’t use anyway) to only $250. Then I sold the old one on eBay. I also got a Zalman Tempest CPU Cooler!!! It’s wicked sweet looking, and it cools my system really well.

When I was installing the new heatsink, I actually bent a few pins on the expensive proc and had to bend them carefully back into place. That would have sucked badly, my friend!

Anywho, just about time I be getting to sleep. My eyelids are shutting on me. Perhaps more on the computer later (almost surely). I’d like to post some pics when I’m not so tired as well. Sorry for the lack of graphics here :-/

Today I fed my frogs crickets for the first time.  I’ve been giving them guppies before, but I figured some variety would do them well.  I slid the crickets into the cage, turned around to do the same with the guppies, and when I turned back around a half a cricket was sticking out of each frog’s mouth.  I found that quite amusing I haven’t been able to find the other two (there were supposed to be five, but one was dead) so I assume they ate those too.

The guppies have me worried.  I bought 10, but there might have been less than that in the actual container.  At any rate, I know there were at least 8.  So I put them all in the little water dish inside the container, and the next thing I know one’s flopping around on the rocks and another is swimming freely in the frogs’ pool (rather than their food dish, where he began).  I didn’t know these guys could jump!  So I go after the guy flopping around on land first.  I pick him up, but he wriggles out of my hands, hits the rocks, and bounces back into the water!  It was very amusing indeed.  It took a bit to coax the other dude into my little cup so I could put him where I belonged.

Anyway, at last check, there were 7 swimming around.  Who knows, maybe 3 got eaten? Or maybe I’ve got 3 dead fish somewhere in there :-/

Very sick today. I’m home from school and work. Drinking 7-up and using this strange snortable drug called equaline vapor inhaler, though against my better judgement. How can a drug help me? They’re out there for my money, not my health. I should listen to Kevin Trudeau. Natural cures are superior. I know this and still I use this drug.

At least I’m using some natural stuff too. Green tea and some lozenges by Airborne. I drank some water with Airborne stuff in it. It tastes really good and clears a sore throat, but obviously I’ve still got my cold. My Dad has Kevin Trudeau’s book with him at work. I was just watching an infomercial for it…I know the second book has a cure for the cold listed in it. But I hope the cold’s gone by tomorrow anyway.

I do believe I’ve blown out more than my weight in snot by now. By now my skin is no longer the raw meat it was last night, but a dry crusted layer like a lizard. I can’t believe I’m saying this, I’m sure you don’t care. But I haven’t the energy to hold the delete key down. That would require me to move my hands more than two inches. Well, actually it’s almost exactly two inches. But each letter is only about a half-inch away. So it requires less energy to keep typing that way.

That was a dumb paragraph. I’ll try to do better on this one. So, the government wants our money. Drug companies are out there for money, not our health. The fact of the matter is, they have one legal obligation and that is to increase the value of their stock shares. That pisses me off. Because if they actually cure people, they lose their jobs. You think the FDA is there to ‘protect the people’??? They’re not. They are there to ensure that no one finds out this secret: anything can be cured. From cancer to asthma to the cold to everything. It can all be cured.

I believe all of this because it’s all logical, it all makes sense. It comes from Kevin Trudeau, but before that it came from doctors and natural cures experts. The law dictates that it is completely illegal for manufacturers of non-drugs to promote their product as a cure for any health problem. In other words, if it isn’t a drug, you can’t claim it cures anything (in America, “the land of the free”). This is fact: people have gone to prison for curing without the use of drugs or surgery.

And pain killers are ridiculous. They allow you to exchange temporary discomfort for a lifetime of health problems. Do you ever notice that most people are either very healthy people, and get sick only once in a while, or they are in terrible condition, getting a new issue every day it seems? That is because the people who fall under the government’s spell and abuse legal drugs get the side effects of these. Drugs aren’t good for you, period. They are terrible, in fact.

Big Tobacco knew for a half-century that smoking causes cancer, yet there they were telling everyone that it was not only not bad for you, it could actually help you with health issues! We all know now that cigarettes are terrible for you! You think this same thing isn’t happening now? Drugs are just as bad as cigarettes, and some just as addictive. They are NOT good for you, they will NOT solve your problems!

God gave us natural things for all of this! And the government has made it illegal! For example, a natural pain killer (get ready for something VERY controversial) is MARIJUANA! And it works oh so much better than any perscription crap! They made it illegal because it WORKS! And they don’t want it to work, they want you to come back for more, more, MORE of their addictive pills and junk so they get more, more, MORE money from you! I know what everyone has heard about Marijuana, I know what the government tells us, and I know this one paragraph won’t change your mind if you believe that cannabis is a terrible thing. But it goes along with any natural cures stuff. I’ll blog soon on this topic specifically, and hopefully will have more room to provide the necesarry info so that you can make an educated decision on the matter. For now, check this out: Why is Marijuana Illegal?

Okay, my raving is done. For now.

Check out http://www.naturalcures.com/ for more info on Kevin Trudeau.

I hate colds. Common colds..flus…I hate them. My throat is sore, my mouth is dry, my nose and the area surrounding it are raw meat…

I hate this. I walk around with my mouth open because I can’t breathe through my nose. I get weird looks, I feel like everyone’s watching me. I hate colds.

And to top it off I’ve got some lizard lips going on…all the skin came off a few weeks ago and now they’re really sore. My rib hurts from propping it up against the pillow the wrong way so that I can blog on my awesome little laptop.

I may not see my car for a while. It was taken to be worked on, but I can use my mother’s car, which is awesome. But I am now realizing how much I love a stickshift.

Ow. I have to sleep now. Peace out.

I LOVE the new Snickers ad campaign. Every time I see it or hear it, it makes me laugh, even though I know exactly what’s coming. It’s truly humorous!! In case you don’t know, the commercial consists of a dude sitting down with a Snickers bar. Another guy comes up from behind him with a guitar and the awesomeness ensues.

“Can I help you enjoy that Snickers?” *breaks into song*

“Happy peanuts soar over chocolate covered mountain tops, and waterfalls of caramel! Prancing nougat in the meadow sings a song of satisfaction to the world!”

“The world!”

“That’s right.”

Yes, sadly, I did this from memory. Perhaps this is an odd thing to blog about, but I am an odd person and that’s what was on my mind! Peace out!

Well, as many of you may know, today was ‘CAPS-Lock Day’. And now it’s drawing to a close, so I figured I’d mention it in a blog…not because I’m a big fan of CAPS-Lock day (as you can see, I’m NOT typing in all-CAPS), but because I actually am a ‘CAPSoff’ follower. Pieter Hintjens began this movement, and it makes sense.

Gone are the days of ALL-CAPS programming, and no longer is the CAPS-Lock key needed. I admit that it has come in handy in one or two situations for me, and I also admit to having abused the key on more than one occasion. However, if there is to be a CAPS-Lock key, I believe it should be located somewhere far less accessible and far less easy to hit on accident. As it stands, there is minimal need for the key at all, and it takes up a large amount of precious space on the keyboard. In its place belongs another return(enter) key or perhaps shift the tab key down and replace that with another delete key (or backspace).

That’s enough for me on that issue. If I spend much more time blogging on this, it will no longer be CAPS-Lock Day and I’ll have to restructure the whole thing.