Stuff of the Day

Update: I was lazy last night.  I watched a lot of Neil Gaiman.  It was good.  Started watching Secretary later on in the evening, but was nodding off before I finished it, so I’ll have to pick it back up tonight or something.

Today started off sucktastically.  See my previous post about my lovely tire/wheel surprise.  That’s it for now, on to linkage:

Link of the Day: Portugal’s Drug Decriminalization: Seems to be Working.

Spam of the Day: “How the silly frog does talk”

Funny of the Day: Leg!

Pics of the Day: Patriotic Body Paint

Quote of the Day: ”I’ve been putting my nuts in the salad bowl . . .” - James Cross

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Venting. Because I Need More Air Loss Today.

So, after I bought my Saab, after getting screwed over by the inspection company (if you ever talk to Rob at ASR, tell him to burn in hell, give me my money back, and then report his ass to the FTC), when I had it checked out at the Saab dealership in Fort Wayne, IN for some problems that cropped up, one of the things I was told was that 2 of the wheels (both Passenger side) were “slightly bent.”  It wasn’t bad, I’d probably be ok for a year to a year and a half or so.  That was . . . concerning, but I’ve dealt with it.  One of many little background niggling worries that I’d, eventually, deal with.  Part of my recent plans have been to get the wheels checked out locally (probably by Midland Frame and Wheel, as I was very pleased with them on the rear brake job, and they come highly recommended by a mechanic I trust, and they seem competent), and see what options I’d have for repairing or replacing the wheels.  Hopefully, repair would be viable.  I kinda like the stock Saab wheels.  I’ve looked into some stuff online for them, though, and repair (remanufacture), or replacement would be . . . costly.  Probably at least around $125 a wheel, possibly more.  Eeesh.  Then a full new set of Good (not super, but Good - probably Falkens or maybe Pirellis) tires.  This would happen in, hopefully, 2-3 months down the road, or possibly sooner if I got a sizable bonus from the software deployment at work.  Well, plans changed there, having a bonus at all is questionable, and when I might ever get a raise here so I can afford all of this necessary stuff is mystery as well.

This morning, an auspicious, lovely start to my day, I head downstairs, and notice, hmm, that’s funny . . . that (front passenger) tire looks low.  No, actually, it looks bloody flat. I hobble the car to work (thankfully it’s a very short drive), go tell James I’ve got a flat and am going to the tire place (Discount Tire, also, thankfully, very close by).  I hobble it there, park it right in front, apparently smack in the way of practically everything.  They were really busy.  I spent probably 10+ minutes waiting just to get talked to.  Told it’ll be 45 minutes or so before they can look at it and give me an assessment.  I call James, get a ride back to work.  Get a call a bit later.  Verdict?  Wheel is badly bent, they’re doubtful a new tire on it will even stay inflated.  ~$190 for a new wheel and tire.  Oh, and also, the rear passenger wheel is pretty badly bent.  It should really be replaced too.  Except I can’t right now.  I simply don’t have the money.  MAYBE I can swing getting another wheel (hopefully I won’t need another tire with it too) next paycheck.  The timing on this sucks ass.

So, went and picked up my car - $190.64 total - during the process of writing this post.  I’m past being angry now, and am just sort of weary and demoralized.  All by 10:15 a.m. today!  AWESOME!

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Stuff of the Day

Update: So, really scraping by super-tight right now, monetarily.  The 10th just can’t come quick enough for me.  I’m having to delay getting medication prescriptions refilled, and eating until then while trying to stick to my diet will be extra-challenging.  I thought I was going to be ok, but I realized yesterday that I had failed to account for the check to the dermatologist last week - which cleared this morning.  Meh.  Talked to a friend to see if I could borrow a little bit of money until the 10th, but he’s not able to help right now (which wasn’t surprising to me, he’s going on a vacation next week - to Vegas, which I really wish I could manage to join them on).

Tried to be mostly lazy last night.  Semi-succeeded, Mummy Wrap Chick came over, we hung out, watched Vexille, fooled around.  Mixed feelings there.

Chatted online with a good friend until probably slightly too late - I’m tired and cranky this morning.  But it was worth it, very enjoyable chat.

Link of the Day: Fancy Fast Food - via @kpereira

Spam of the Day: “Kelly Clarkson brutally raped”

Funny of the Day: Well, it IS a valid point.

Pic of the Day: Just Plane Awesome.

Quote of the Day: “just fyi, Sneezing while on the phone with TXU’s bill pay system Will get you put into the spanish speaking menu.” - Kara

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Stuff of the Day

Update: Not lots of anything interesting to post about for yesterday.  Worked.  Ate food. Sockeye Salmon for lunch, which was actually a bit better than some of the other salmon I’ve had before.  Thankfully went home at a normal time, not having to work late.  Aside from laundry achievement, I was pretty well lazy.  Sat/laid in bed, watching tv and chatting with folks on my laptop.  I’m planning on something very similar tonight.

Link of the Day: The Pirate Bay sold, goes legit?

Spam of the Day: “And when he came to observe his feet”

Funny of the Day: I’ve been known to have this effect.

Pic of the Day: “Mouser?  That’s for AMATEURS.”

Quote of the Day: “lol, i actually had sauce running down my chin a sec ago, my bangcock roll exploded when i tried to take a bite” - Kara

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Stuff of the Day

Update: I had a very good weekend.  Fun times, enoyable time spent with people I like.  Couple of annoyances, like having a headlight on my car go out Friday night, and having to replace it Saturday ($17.51 for the bulb, which isn’t bad, just an unexpected expense with shitty timing), and how freaking HOT it was Friday and Saturday.  Stressing out over money - I’m on stupidly tight funds until July 10th.

Saw The Proposal on Friday night.  It was cute, funny, pretty good.  Despite the whole “chick flick” stigma, it was a solidly enjoyable movie.  I was previously misinformed, however, as to the amount and extent of Sandra Bullock’s nudity in the film - definitely could have used more of that, IMO.  ;)

Additionally, saw The Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen yesterday afternoon on/as part of Kara’s Birthday celebration.  It was OK.  Some of the Bayhem-isms on the film annoyed me.  The spinning camera around Shia and Megan in one scene was really, really irritating.  It downright made Kara queasy.  The massive, excessive overutilization of Shakycam also bugs the crap out of me.  It’s not limited to this film, or Michael Bay, it seems to be used in practically everything now for action.  Such a horrible blight on the film industry.  That needs to either die entirely, or be relegated to very limited, “special” usage when it’ll actually accentuate a scene and give it more impact due to its rarity.

T2 is worth seeing.  Especially on a matinee if you can.  Does it have flaws, problems?  Oh hell yes.  It also has giant robots fighting, and a few very funny moments (Sam’s mom at college was great).

Link of the Day: Interesting and unusual car paint jobs

Spam of the Day: “Best oil for pork motor” - Seriously, I don’t make any of this stuff up.

Funny of the Day: I’m tempted to try this one, but I am skeptical of the results I’d get.

Pic of the Day: Too soon?

Quote of the Day: ”(972): they say celebs die in threes. leave it to billy mays to throw in one extra COMPLETELY FREE!” - Someone from TFLN.

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No Stuff This Week

Been busy the last three days.  Today . . . meh.  News I’m not altogether happy about in the short term.

Nothing serious, don’t freak, just kind of a bummer.

So, not in the mood to write stuff.  Since it’s already Thursday, I decided, screw it.  I’ll just take the week off, other than the post on hacking Carrier for the Yahoo change.

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Quick/Dirty Yahoo Fix for Carrier 2.5.5

So, lots of people using third-party IM clients noticed last week that their Yahoo connectivity broke.  This is because Yahoo discontinued older versions of their client protocol, and this broke a lot of third-party apps that used those versions of the protocol, notably multi-IM apps.  Pidgin and Carrier (a branch of Pidgin) are notable examples of cross-platform open source multi-protocol IM apps that were broken with this.

I’ve personally gotten spoiled and lazy from Carrier (and Trillian before that), having one app that I can use for most of the IM services I use all together, not having to hassle with multiple seperate clients (though occasionally I’ve loaded up a distinct client for specific features that Carrier doesn’t support - but for just general, chatting with people, having 1 app to use is nice).  Having one of the core points of functionality broken on Carrier has been an irritant for me the last several days.

Pidgin already released a 2.5.7 upgrade, which fixes the Yahoo issues.  Carrier has a 2.5.7 release in work on the SVN, but for most people, trying to checkout/download files from the SVN, get all the stuff together to compile the code yourself, build the installer, etc., is just way too much work.  There’ll probably be a new installer for Windows out for Carrier 2.5.7 sometime this week.

Until then, if you happen to use Carrier and want to fix your Yahoo . . . there’s a pretty simple fix - you can snag the new libyahoo.dll from Pidgin 2.5.7 and overwrite the one in Carrier 2.5.5, and it seems to restore Yahoo functionality.  Here’s a download for just the libyahoo.dll, zipped up for easy management (since you can’t easily install Pidgin to get it out without messing up your Carrier install): libyahoo.zip

Unzip the libyahoo.dll and overwrite your current one (the new one Will be smaller than the one in Carrier 2.5.5), in your Carrier/plugins/ folder - make sure Carrier isn’t running when you do that.  Start up Carrier, and you should connect to Yahoo again.

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Stuff of the Day

Update: This will be a pretty brief one again.  Sorry for no post again yesterday.  That was just lazy.  It happens.

Had a friend over last night.  Watched a couple of episodes of house.  Had some other fun.  Mixed feelings there on a few points.  Seem like the doubled dosage on the Androgel (which I got a phone call instructing me to start doing that, that my testosterone levels were still a bit low, a few days ago) might be doing some good.  One incident isn’t proof positive, but still . . . good sign.

Ended up feeling kind of worse today.  Maybe . . . exertions last night when I’m still fighting off/getting over this bug wasn’t the wisest call.

Had a very nice and good Wednesday evening.  Hanging out with a good friend, playing on furniture at Ashley, not getting my mind made up there on any option yet, being harassed by a creepy saleslady.  Thai food, yogurt, not-right tarzan smoothie thing.  Lots of talk.  It was good.  I could use more of that in my life.

Link of the Day: Modern Vampires

Spam of the Day: “Suiciders online” (Oh boy, I’m just waiting to see what AdSense makes of that)

Funny of the Day: Seems like sound logic to me.

Pic of the DayChe Guevara’s granddaughter wearing only a Bandolier Of Carrots!

Quote of the Day: “though, “i am not a google samich” might bear repeating just because it is so random. i’m loling at it still.” - Kara

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Stuff of the Day

Update: Sorry for the fail to update Friday.  Or the last two days too.  Friday, I was simply too tired.  I was working on about an hour and a half of sleep.  I was up far, far too late the night before.  It was probably worthwhile.  There was a redhead female involved.

The last two days, I’ve been trying to fight off getting sick.  Monday I had a throat that started off tickly, and proceeded to scratchy and raw.  Yesterday, and today, throat is better, but I’ve got massive head congestion, and mucus production is in overdrive.  Meh.  Also, I worked late the last 2 days, and have been really very busy both of them, so I didn’t take the time to post stuff.  At least making token effort today.

Link of the Day: Fake Time Travel to Land Your Female Friend?

Spam of the Day: “Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo”

Funny of the Day: “Bartender, fetch us from frosty beers and fancy outfits!”

Pic of the Day: I honestly have no clue what to make of this.

Quote of the Day: “and cheap, srsly, i would never sit in a stranger’s noodles for only a buck” - Kara

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Help Send Me To BlizzCon - Maybe Win A Trip Yourself!

Mountain Dew Game Fuel Horde Banner

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