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My coming of age story.
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Why I'm Mad Today:
30 day trials mean 30 days.

Why I don't care:
If I really wanted to be an asshole I could re-install windows and use the same program for 30 more days.

It's fun to hate: The anti-virus software companies. Because I am sure that they make the viruses themselves, just to make sure that you keep paying for the upgrades..

In the Grand Scheme of Things:
Did you know that only 40% of automobile collisions involve a drunk driver? To elaborate on that, 60% the accidents do not involve a drunk driver. And the accidents that involve two sober drivers are not even factored into that.. Did you also know that you are more likely to be killed by a driver that is eating than to be killed by a driver who is drunk? Did you also know that the majority of collisions are just 'fender benders' and well over 70% of those are caused by people who are talking on their cell phones, reading the paper, putting on make-up or reading the mail.


Obligatory Linkage:
BlackChampagne.com-
Without his site, my site would never have existed.

NinjaBurger-
This is the site of the moment. If you are ever in need of a burger, but are a long ways from a McDonald's, this is the site for you. Delivery guaranteed within thirty minutes, and they really mean Guaranteed


If you click through the picture above it will take you to a page where you can see how to donate to my little cause.

It is Tuesady, march 02, 2004

Well, I didn't do an update yesterday. The most significant reason for that was that the pain that I thought was subsiding on Sunday came back in full-force on Monday. I am trying not to take the prescribed muscle realaxants, but I have had to take four or five over the last few days. I am not sure if it is actually an issue of building up a tolerence (as I often claim, fearing that if I need to use the pills when I am older and in desperate need they will not help me) or if it is simply a matter of pride. If it is, in fact, a matter of pride then I have to say that I have swallowed that pride, in a convenient pill form, happily a few times.

The pain has been subsiding a bit over the days though. I am now only in pain when I am standing, bending down or laying down. That means that as long as I am sitting I am not in pain, well in less pain anyway. The pain is still here as I again sit typing, but the pain is centralized to just the lower portion of my neck. When I stand the pain tends to spread and make my head and fingers start to throb, as is the same when I try to bend down. I have gotten pretty good at controlling my breathing to take deep breaths when my head begins to pound, and this makes that sensation go away pretty quickly, but feeling that pain for even one second is at least 3/4 of a second longer than I would like to feel it.

Laying down is a bit tricky also. The instructions given to me on the release form from the hospital say that I should lay on my back with a small pillow on each side of my head to keep my neck in line. The inherent problem with that is my neck is in the most pain when I lay flat on my back. That would be sort of like telling someone with a broken leg that instead of a cast, he should just hit the fracture with a big mallet every ten minutes or so. Just not going to happen. Anyway, if I lay on my right side one pillow is too much, where as if I lay on my left side I need two. Either way my neck still hurts, but while laying on my left side it seems to hurt a bit less. I have to move while I sleep though, as, if I lay in one position much longer than an hour my back begins to hurt. Yeah, cry me a river, I know. This will pass and I will look back on this and think that it didn't really hurt that bad, then I will probably scoff at other people who think that something like this hurts, but I hope not.

This is the first day since the injury that I have actually felt able to do most of the things that I normally do. I mean that I am able to get up and move around, pick things up off of the floor, beat the dogs when necessary. The only time I really feel the pain is, well, not really clear. I went to the bathroom earlier and as I turned to sit it just hit me and a few seconds later it was gone. I had been standing opening my mail when the phone rang, I reached for the phone and it hit me. I am beginning to think that there may really be a god and that he is punishing me for my atheist ways, that or the human body is a very complex system that can not be understood or explained.

But enough about my pain in the neck.


There is a weird news story today that I just absolutely love, on a lot of levels. It is quite a short little story, so I will simply quote it all here;

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - For a 73-year-old Canadian man, 20 months in a smoke-free jail looked just too long, so instead he took 24 months in a prison where he can smoke cigarettes.

Angelo Foti was sentenced to 20 months for shooting and wounding a man in his backyard who was trying to repossess a snowmobile sold to Foti's son, the Winnipeg Free Press reported Tuesday.

In court Monday, Angelo Foti was agitated when he realized the sentence would mean he would be in a provincial jail, where smoking is banned, the newspaper said.

Foti's lawyer pleaded for a 24-month sentence instead, which means the man will go to a federal prison, where smoking is allowed.

In accepting the longer term, Foti, a dedicated pack-a-day man, ignored the wishes of this family.

"Dad, they're just cigarettes -- give them up. Quit smoking: you'll be healthier," his son Angelo Jr. said in court. "Just take the 20 months."


I just love that story. The guy is 73 years old FFS, he is not likely to change his day to day behavior just since he is in jail. He has likely smoked since he was ten or twelve years old -since they only really started to care about the age restrictions on tobacco within the last decade or so. He just wants his smokes. The amazing part is that he is that old and still smoking. At his age, and being a smoker, either term 20 or 24 months could be a death sentence. He chooses to defy all logic by taking a longer sentence so that he can kill himself just a bit more.

Don't get me wrong, I am a smoker myself, and I would love nothing more than to be able to quit. Being locked in a cell in a local jail for twenty months would likely be the spur that I needed to achieve that end. Perhaps I am just not seeing his point of view.

Now, why the hell is he in jail anyway? The article clearly states that "Angelo Foti was sentenced to 20 months for shooting and wounding a man in his backyard." it does go on to explain that the man was trying to repossess a snowmobile, but it was not in Angelo's name. I think that if someone is in your yard, trying to take a snowmobile -whether it is yours, your son's, or even the neighbor's bastard son's step-sister's, he is taking it from your private property-, he is fair game.

That article doesn't mention whether the person announced that they were 'repossessing' the snowmobile, nor do I think it really matters. If that guy shows up in my back yard, he is gonna get shot again. And, knowing that I am going to go to jail for protecting my property I may just shoot to kill, as opposed to shooting to injure. -I do know that the story is out of Canada, but I thought that our judicial systems were pretty similar....Until now-





FTP Clients

When I began doing these updates I had no FTP client. I searched through download.com to find one. I was quite worried about having to put the username and password for the ftp server into a program that I was not sure about. There are literally thousands of these programs out there, and you don't know which one/ones may be malicious. At first I took the high road and picked one of the most popular ones, which had a free trial period and some pretty cool features. Also if you lie about whether or not you are a student you can get a bare bones version of it for free. That program is at this website WS_FTP PRO LE

I did not pay any attention to how long was left on my trial period of that, since I am on like day 1,226 of my thirty day trial on other programs, but that one just quit working on the 30th day. I was forced to go back and try to find a freeware ftp client.

Here is the information for any of you who really need a freeware ftp client. I downloaded and installed more than a dozen freeware ftp clients, more than 90% of them had some sort of tracking software bundled in the installation files. This one client is the only one I found that does not freeze a windows 98 system AND does not have any tracking software (to my knowledge, none that I have been able to find anyway). It also has a very small file size. You can find it Right here. It takes a few minutes to get used to the interface, but that is a lot better than actually having to pay for an ftp client.

I am currently using this ftp client, if I find a better one I will let you know.


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