My country is dying. A slow, painful death of financial strangulation at the hands of the greedy rich that own the major American corporations. Yes, I realize there’s a mortgage/lending crisis right now, but we were in trouble long before this hit. The greed mongers are out-sourcing our jobs, which leaves Americans out of work, and American money in the economies of the countries that are getting our jobs. Countries like China. “But Wraith, that’s just a free market economy. China can provide those services for cheaper, why wouldn’t an American corporation outsource to them?” Yes, China can indeed provide services cheaper. But why is that? It’s because they have a lower over-head due to the fact that they don’t concern themselves with the human rights of their works, or with the safety of their products. In the past couple of years, we’ve had pets dying from the pet food they made, the top Christmas toy was tainted with lead paint; again and again they show that their lower prices are due to highly unethical and unsafe cost-cutting measures. So we’re left with unsafe, inferior products, Americans out of work, and American money flowing into a communist country rife with human rights violations.

Why? Why do we do this? Who stands to gain from it? Certainly not the American workers who used to staff the manufacturing plants that made these products. Not the Average American citizen,  who has to deal with a bleeding economy due to the fact that we’re importing more than we’re exporting. Not the average workers of the companies that outsource. You think that the people in the mail room, the secretaries, the customer service reps (the few that aren’t outsourced to foreign call centers) get a raise when the company starts seeing greater profits because outsourcing cut their operating costs? Of course not. The only people who see any extra money are the people at the top, who can now afford five weeks in the Bahamas for vacation, instead of just a month. They take their 30 pieces of silver and then tell themselves “it’s just business” and “those people are poor because of their own poor choices.” The economy sinks further and further into decline, the middle class makes less and less, and the people at the top just get richer and richer.

It makes me sick. I have some serious issues with Barrack Obama that I’m not going to get into here; I don’t want this to turn into a post about the election. But I will say that I once heard him say he’d provide tax breaks to companies that did not (or at least would limit) outsource. I want to hear more of this.

 

Dear Lord, please save my country from itself. We know not what we do.

        I really wish that Microsoft and Norton could get the detection & removal rate of Windows Live One Care & Norton 360 (respectively) up to par with NOD32 and Kaspersky. I really like the feature sets and interfaces of their respective products, particularly the inclusion of backup tools, which seems like a particularly logical addition to a security suite (though Windows Live One Care could use with slightly better backup options for power users). Norton has greatly improved in the past couple years from the in-the-toilet status they earned between 2003 and 2006, after Symantec bought them. Their resource use, in particular, has been drastically reduced, which is GREAT.

                Sadly, as much as I like their new products, the biggest factor for me comes down to four questions:

1.       How well does it do at detecting malware?

2.       How well does it do at BLOCKING malware?

3.       How well does it do at REMOVING malware?

4.       How many false positives does it get?

And the answer to all 4 of these, particularly when compared to NOD32 or Kaspersky, is “not quite well enough”

Last night, me and SC went on our first impromptu “date.” We were talking about me moving to Canada, and I told her that one of the things I was looking forward to was Double Big Macs, which I’ve heard of, but we don’t have here in the U.S. Then we started talking about McDonalds in other countries, and about this monstrosity in Japan; and suddenly we both really wanted McDonalds. Well, it just so happens that we both live near late night McDonalds, so we split off and went on burger runs, came back, went on web cams, and midnight dinner together. It might seem like a little thing, but it was spontaneous and fun, and it was like we were in the same room having dinner together.

I love that woman.

Yikes! Look at me, Mr. neglecting all his blogs! I don't know why I haven't gotten around to updating. But I suppose the why's aren't really important. Let me catch you up.

       Well, where to begin? Spring was nice, though somewhat uneventful. Summer, on the other hand has been a war of enormous highs and crushing lows. Financially speaking, it's been a nightmare. My last paycheck was $207.05. I’ve got a side job coming up on Friday, and I’m hoping to pull off a few other things to make up for the lack of money. I am so sick of being poor! It's crazy. The first hour of my service calls, I charge $175.00. A hundred and seventy-five bucks! For one hour! That's how much my services are worth. So why is a piece of cheese and a soda from 7-11 causing me to have overdraft fees?! This week looks very promising, though. I'm hoping that the slump was just because everyone has been on vacation, and thing will pick up now that kids are going back to school and will need their computers for school and homework. The bright side, though, is that Geeks on Call has signed a partnership with Sam's Club to be their official service provider, so I'm hoping once they finish my background check (ugh, that again!), things will really pick up.

      The biggest news of all though, is that I'm in love! It's kind of a dorks-only romance, but for the past two months, every single day I have spent several hours talking over the internet (via MSN, webcam and phone) with a woman in Canada. I'm going to refer to her as SC. I met her on a message board community. She's a real smart-ass, and we argued a lot, but there ended up being a lot of flirtatious subtext, and there was something about her that just stuck in me. I guess it was sort of a Sam and Diane type thing. So one day she posts that she's working the entire day on her computer, and she'd love to chat with someone over IM; so I said what the hell, and started chatting. Two months later and not a day hasn't gone by that we haven't spent several hours chatting.

      I'm crazy about her. She's so different than anyone I've ever met. The big thing is that she understands me. I feel like everyone I've been with has just wanted one dimension of me. They either wanted "Wraith", who is the bad boy with the sarcastic attitude, the dark look, and the disturbed mind, or they wanted Matthew, who is the Christian son of a Pastor who is staying celibate until marriage and wants nothing as much as he wants to serve the lord. They always wanted one of those people, and were ultimately put off by the other one. Not SC. She seems to have the same duality of nature that I do. She has the most sexual mind I've ever encountered. She thinks about it almost as much as I do. But just like me, she's waiting for marriage. She's a total tough-chick smartass, but at the same time, she's got this incredibly romantic, soft side to her. I feel so free when I'm talking to her, like I can tell her anything and she's not going to judge me for it. I've come to realize how much of my nature I've been repressing. How much I've held back because I was afraid of how it'd make me look. I think that might have been the reason I've always seemed so angry. I've got a very dominant, very "male" personality, and I now realize that due to the times I grew up in, I suppressed a lot of that for fear of being the stereotypical “male chauvinist pig” that feminists so often rally against. I’m very in tune with my primal nature, the hunter/protector/provider role, and I think that denying that, and trying to suppress that side, has led to a lot of my feelings of aggression. It’s like I had all this testosterone and not enough to do with it. With SC it’s different. She is the strongest woman I’ve ever met, but she wants to be with a man who’s well…a man. And she’s been very supportive of my primal side, while appreciating my more sensitive side. I don’t have to act all tough around her she loves when I talk about picturing us and our future together, she loves my sentimentality, but at the same time, I feel like I can BE in touch with my primal side. I can play the role of the protector, the “man of the house”, and she doesn’t feel threatened or feel the need to wave the “I don’t need a man to take care of me, I am a strong, independent woman yadda yadda yadda” (mind you, she IS a strong, independent woman, but just like I’m very in touch with my primal, male side, she’s just as in touch with her feminine side; and she understand that just because I like playing the role of the protector/provider, does NOT mean that I believe she's not capable of doing those things herself). She gives me a sense of balance that I’ve never felt. What’s so crazy is that I always swore I’d never do another long distance relationship after the last time. I guess life still has a few surprises left for me.

     Right now, we're trying to co-ordinate to have her come down and visit me for a few weeks, and if we get along in real life as well as we do long distance, I'm going to move Canada to be with her. We're smart enough not to rush into it mainly because we haven't spent any RL time together, but we both feel like marriage is in our long-term future. I must admit, as determine as I am to do this, it’s pretty scary. Two months ago, I thought I would probably spend the rest of my life in Virginia, and I was SURE I’d never live anywhere outside of America. My friends are here, my family’s here, the only life I’ve ever known is here. But when I think about SC, it’s like none of those things, as precious as they are to me, are enough. I can’t imagine my future without her, and if everything else has to fall to the side for that, then so be it.

Conventional Wisdom: If it's not broke, don't fix it.

Wraith: there's a difference between fixing something and improving it. "If it's not broke, don't fix it" leaves us stagnating.

Hey, remember this?



Yea. I just wet myself.

God bless Booster Gold.

hehehe, I'm watching an old episode of Mad T.V. with TATTU as the guest.

I still can't stop laughing about the fact that they turned out to be straight.

"There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex, I have a big problem with that."

SO BORED! SO SICK OF MY APARTMENT! No girl, no money, friends always busy with family, or too far away, GAH!

I feel ashamed of myself, because I feel like I'm completely wasting what little is left of my youth, sitting around my apartment working on this damned project, instead of being outside in the nice weather, doing something - LIVING! But what living is there to do?! I've no money to do anything, I've got no one to do something WITH, I'm just going completely stir crazy. I've taken to taking walks in a circle around the apartment complex just for the fresh air!

Isn't this the part of the movie where something incredible happens, or a mysterious stranger shows up, and I get to go on an adventure beyond your wildest imagination?

Greetings! Welcome to my little corner of the internet. For those of you who regularly read my blog(s), the purpose of this post is a special one. I want to write an easily linkable, editable and commentable guide to netiquette (that is internet etiquette, or online manners). This way, I can have something to point or link to on forums.

     For those of you who have been linked here, welcome! Chances are, you have been directed here for one of two reasons:

1.       You don’t spend a lot of time on the internet, and are not aware of some of the generally accepted principles and manners that exist online. That’s alright. We all start somewhere.

2.       You were being really obnoxious and were told to read this. If this is the case, I strongly suggest you read it in its entirety, as chances are you are skating on thin ice right now, and will find that your future on line will be a lot more pleasant if you follow these guidelines.

So, without further ado, the big list of netiquette. None of these rules are mandatory, but I guarantee you, the closer you follow them, the better your reception will be. Certain communities place less importance on this, but I assure you, if you are looking for help on a tech support forum, for example, you’re a lot more likely to receive help if you follow these rules, as techies tend to be people who spend a lot of time online, have embraced the following rules, and are annoyed by people who disregard them.

Note: this FAQ is meant for forums. I’m going to write one for email soon, as well.

 

1.       DO NOT POST IN ALL CAPS. It is considered shouting, and long posts done in all caps tend to be harder to read. Chances are, a post written entirely in caps (especially a long one) will simply be ignored entirely. Undo your caps lock. Capitalize the first letter of sentences and proper names. The rest of the time, leave it off.

1.1.    Exception: The OCCASIONAL word in caps is acceptable for the purpose of emphasis, particularly if you are posting somewhere where there is not an option to underline, although this is becoming increasingly rare, and if you have the option, it is better to underline.

2.       Spell check. The occasional misspelling is o.k. Everyone makes a typo every once in a while. Especially if you’re typing fast. Fingers hit the wrong keys, or things go out of order. It happens. However, it is your responsibility to take at least reasonable steps to avoid spelling and grammar errors, and the easiest way to do that is with a spell-checker. Some forums have a spell check button built right in. Usually, it is a button with “abc” written on it, with a green checkmark though it. If the forum you like does not, install the Google Tool bar. Among its many features is a spell checker that works right in your browser. Type your post the forum’s submission box as you normally would, but then, instead of hitting the post button, just go up to the tool bar and hit the spell check button. The tool bar will point out your spelling errors, and suggest how to correct them. You can get the tool bar (for free) for internet explorer here: http://toolbar.google.com/T4/index_pack_xp.html and for Firefox here: http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/FT3/intl/en/index.html.

3.       Signature lines should be no taller than three lines of text. Some forums allow you to put pictures in your signatures. If you’re going to do this, try to stick to either banner-sized images (long, horizontal pictures, about the size of the advertising strips you often see at the top of web pages) or “sig strips” such at this: 

4.       Abbreviations and “lol speak”/ SMS speak. LOL ROFL, etc. Try to limit this. Despite what your kids may have told you, it is not “the thing to do on the internet.” It is simply annoying, especially when over-used. Its origins are set in times and places where you had limited space and/or time to get your message across, so you abbreviated. Online games are a good example of this. You can’t stop and type a long, eloquent message when you’re being shot at, and voice chat without severe lag issues has not been a standard thing for too many years. It’s become more common today due to text messaging, where you have to hit the 2 button three times every time you want to use a “C”. This makes it far more acceptable to use lol speak over Cell phone text messages than on-line forums, where you have a full sized keyboard, and much more room. Remember: when you are posting to a message board, you are not sending a text message! A good rule of thumb for what is normal use and what is over-use is simply not to abbreviate single words. LOL is Laughing Out Loud. That’s three words. An abbreviation is fine. The word “you” on the other hand, is three simple letters. Substituting the letter U for it is just annoying. People will take you far less seriously when you do this, and are much more likely to both question your intelligence and flat-out ignore you.

 

More rules will be added as I think of them/they are suggested (feel free to respond with your own suggestions).