P2 Case Madness

Some of you have been wondering what I have been doing in the great north. There is just so much to do here! We have school, Walmart, 5 girls, beer, and snowboarding. Needless to say this leaves us with a lot of time on our hands. What do I do to fill the void?? I work on computers and networks, learning as I go along. This project started a couple weeks ago when my mobo in my main PC was acting funny and I had some HDD problems. I had a spare P2 and P3 tower laying in my room and I ripped them apart. Kevin and I got a pretty sweet P2 put together by the end of the day in a really ugly and old dell case. It had that sweet kinda white but not really look going on. I had to do something about this! That P2 deserved better! I used this baby for as long as I can remember. It is like a brother to me. Now the question was what should I do to the case? How will I make it bad ass? I have been playing a lot of DoD and CoD lately and it inspired me. I bought some black, brown, and green paint and got to work. The case was all camo and sweeter then anyone at Dell could have even fathomed. I was trying to figure a way to incorporate DoD and CoD into the case and nothing was working. Then I had a thought, I would tape the case off like a car and paint the letters in bright orange. You may wonder Why I chose orange and it is because it adds huge contrast and it is my favorite color. I slapped DoD on one side, CoD on the other side, and Sarge on the top. A nice touch was the 'O' in CoD was made into an American/British sniper scope. Then the 'O' in DoD was made into a German K98 Scope. The case did not turn out perfect but I would say I did a great job for my first case painting. Another difficulty would be the painting it outside in 20 degree weather inbetween periods of snow. In the end it looks bad ass and I am pretty proud of myself. I hope you guys liked the paint job. She is a beauty indeed.

Spike...

Well today I have to report on something that was utterly disappointing. I am a big fan of Spike TV. They have MXC, CSI, UFC, and Bond...James Bond. This is a lot of kick ass for one station. They have a newish show out called "King of Vegas" and I finally got to see it last night for the first time. I really like the whole poker and gambling thing so I thought the show would be sweet. Instead of just playing one type of gambling, like the world series of poker, participants have to play in many disciplines. I thought that it was an awesome concept. That was until I watched 5 minutes of the show. It sucked and I mean it SUCKED! There was 11 combatants left in this episode and one was going to be kicked off at the end. they play different games to get safe and 4 people with the lowest performance have to play hold'em. Then there is a one on one final hold'em game for the lowest two out of that. In the hour long show I saw no gambling at all. The whole time it was the contestants running their mouths and sounding like fucking morons. Not to metion the gave them about the worse nicknames you have ever heard in your life. The dealers on the show suck too. When they delt cards you had to hold your breath that they wern't going to flip over. All together I wasted a whole hour of my life and I will not make that mistake again. "King of Vegas" is the worst thing I have seen on Spike, perhaps worse TV production I have ever seen.

Fedex owns UPS

True to my beliefs Fedex once again cleans house on UPS. This latest case just gets my going though. We all know that the iPod is sweet but has one extremely huge flaw. If you have used it for two days it looks as if you owned it for a year. The metal backing is cool and all but scratches all to hell (mine came with a nice scratch on it already). Since black is obviously cooler then white they thought they sould make the black scratch easier and better then the white. So I ordered a case for it last friday from the invisible shield people. Order was processed around three p.m. Unfortunately the only choice I had was UPS. Well here are the shipping details. First we see that they picked it up around 6 hours after confirming a delivery was going to be made. So it is in Salt Lake City and is coming my way...or so we think. From their reports to me it never actually left SLC. Then it never was recieved in Maumee but it left there. Who knows. The next question is why did it take 19 hours to leave Illinois? Seriously it was there for 19 hours! So the package gets to me today. It takes them 8 days. On Monday of this week I bought a USB 2.0 and Firewire PCI card from Newegg. I choose to ship with Fedex even though it cost me 4 more dollars. Here is the Fedex summary. As we can see all arivals and departures are accounted for, one even twice! Here is the next thing. It got here in TWO days! It got here in 6 less days from a city further away (L.A.). So while I have been waiting and waiting for the iPod case I got a new PCI card which is nice. I can see why UPS is cheaper but I can see why I hate to ship with them unless I have to. Fedex delivers on time and quickly. Now to hit you with the kicker. My iPod was order about an hour before my case and was also shipped last friday. But hmmm when do you think it got here from L.A.?? Monday! that is right it took three days AND they dilvered on MLK Day. Lastly Fedex has better logos and trucks. All around victory for Fedex on this one.

Stop using facebook.

First I would like to start this by saying that I have used the facebook for a year and a couple months. It was brought to my attention by a good friend to really read the privacy statement (Which always should be read but seldom is). It has some very interesting things to say about your privacy that I would like to share with you. So you have been putting all that nice info like IM, phone, address, and also you have been putting up pictures and setting up parties. We should have a look at what the facebook has to say about this.

Facebook also collects information about you from other sources, such as newspapers and instant messaging services. This information is gathered regardless of your use of the Web Site.

So from this first quote we can assume that not only are they taking all this info but using it in ways that I am sure you do not want them to.

We use the information about you that we have collected from other sources to supplement your profile unless you specify in your privacy settings that you do not want this to be done.

This is another nice quote telling us that they actually do get info about us from other sources.

We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship. For example:
• We may provide information to service providers to help us bring you the services we offer. Specifically, we may use third parties to facilitate our business, such as to send emailsolicitations. In connection with these offerings and business operations, our service providers may have access to your personal information for use in connection with these business activities.
• We may be required to disclose customer information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law or to protect our interests or property. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies.
• If the ownership of all or substantially all of the Facebook business were to change, your user information would likely be transferred to the new owner.

So now we know that they are giving away all your info organizations affiliated with them (such as walmart) and they more then likely will be sending and have been sending you emails (thank you spam filter). Perhaps the biggest shock is that they are giving away all your info to the police. So those pictures you have up of you bonging beer at the age of 19 are pretty incriminating. So the next time you put a kegger up on the facebook make sure you are not going to be underage when you are there. On more then one account dorm room drinking has been caught using facebook. Do you seriously want to have to worry about this? So what can you do? Well the first thing I would do is remove all your personal information, although it is more then likely saved somewhere else. After that straight to deleting your account. That is what I did but wait how did that go?? I will show you with a few pictures. In this picture we see that after I have deleted my account that it is still active and needs to be registered.





So then I get two very nice emails from facebook.





Not only did they send me one email but two! Seriously! I DEACTIVATED my account. Why would I want to reactivate it? Why would you send an email with those intentions?

Overall I was dissapointed with this whole situation. I expected much better from the facebook people. I hope people follow my lead and don't end up getting busted by the facebook. Peace everybody.

Edit: Also facebook says your info is secure on firewalled servers. That is just saying it is secure from random people. Not the list of xx-companies or the police and school administration.

iPod

So I go to buy the nano finally. It was a bit cheaper from MacMall so I got it there. Oh but wait no I didn't. They have what I am deeming the WORSE policy on the face of the earth. So I get this email from MacMall saying I need to call and confirm something about my order. So I dial up the number, hold for about 15 min and then get to talk to a lady I can hardly understand (hurray outsoucing). They have a policy that they will not ship you the products if your billing address is different then your shipping address. I was like "you are kidding me!" She told me I had to call my credit card company and add the address as an allowable shipping address. I very annoyingly told her to cancel my order and hung up the phone. That pretty much pissed me off. I was like "Tom check this out." He thought it was ridiculous. Then he came through in the clutch. He said he heard about a program from apple that gives you a student discount if your school is affiliated. Well lo and behold Mich Tech is since we are Pimp. So I got a 2 GB nano for 179 bucks which I thought was pretty awesome. So in the end I save 40 bucks and MacMall doesn't get my money. So anyone in college that wants and ipod go to the student store and see if you can get that nice discount.

Night at the Jones's

I return from hiatus! It has been a long time and I have had a long break. But in all my enjoyment I have forgotten about the people! You all need me! To make you laugh, cry, and feel things you have only felt in your dreams. OH what a break it has been. The times have been full of rhymes (like cute, cute, and cute!). A week at Nubs Nob and I only broke a finger! I will consider that as coming out of the trip unscathed. The nights have been full of epic battles. Casey and Eric have been slaying the Kerric and I have been alerting the forces of the enemies whereabouts. It has been an extreme group effort to hold down the fort and protect the valuables inside. The new year was rung in at the barn. Which was full of delicious eggs in the morning prepared by a grateful dad. School approaches in a weeks morn. It is sad yet I am full of anticipation. I do not know what really got into me in this post. I think it has a lot of those hidden "you had to be there" references. I will be here, at the Jones's until I return to Houghton. Where I hope to hang out with the homies before I school returns and the books appear open at all times.

I have pictures, I will get them off my camera soon. See you all way to soon.