mcgrew's Journal: Offline

As I mentioned in the last journal, I've been offline for a while. I posted the journal previous to that one when I was at the city library (the journal about Charlie losing her belly button. She's healing quite nicely), and didn't see any comments until the timeout period had passed.

Book (Score:1)
by robably (1044462) on Monday May 04, @06:36AM (#27814045) Journal
No good deed goes unpunished. Here's hoping for a summer of My-Name-Is-Earl-style goofiness to balance the lows you've had.

I know you've said before you'd publish if you had a publisher, well, set up a Paypal Pre-Order link - people who want the book pay in to it (with their shipping details), the pot builds up until you have enough to do a print run, print the books, post them out, profit. Please. Do it this year.

Unfortunately either the pre-list Earl or the pre-list Randy goes to the Y, as I mention below. An AC mentioned Lulu.com, I'll have to check it out. I have two volumes of The Paxil Diaries ready to publish; volume one is A Nerd's Search for Sex and volume two is A Nerd's Search for a Steady Girlfriend. I've been pretty busy lately, don't know when I'll get to lulu.

Ykant, Robably, Ytier, and and Eristone were worried about me - thanks, guys! Your comments meke me feel good. Don't worry, I'm not a depressed person and wouldn't kill myself if I were. The only time in my life I ever contemplated suicide was when they took me off Paxil, right as they were taking my house away. The thought of what it would do to my parents and children kept me alive. Paxil withdrawal is a bitch.

If I get killed it'll probably be by a drunk driver or a mugger as I'm staggering home from Felber's.

I noticed a few changes at slashdot -- some good, some bad. I particularly like the sidebar on the front page that has journals by friended slashdotters, and replies to comments, posted there.

I like the "disable advertising" checkbox, even though I didn't check it. I wonder how high your karma has to be to get the checkbox? Does anyone reading this have less than excellent karma, and if so, is the checkbox there?

There seem to be a few more idlized pages; this is not a good thing. If Im at the library I'm forced to use Internet Explorer; I have no idea what version as they have it set up without the menu bar. But it looks like fried excrement on IE, and I've seen other folks mentioning that it looks like dogshit or cowshit or sheephsit on their browser, depending on the browser. I wonder what browser the "programmer" used to script the site?

I had a bad weekend a few weeks ago. I've been trying to look less like a nerd so I can get laid by a better class of women, maybe even get a decent long term monogamous relationship, so I've been working out. I dread, though, meeting the perfect nerdlady and when she learns my name she'll frown. "You're not the mcgrew that posts at slashdot are you? Loser!!!"

Anyway, when I was in the shower, somebody lifted my wallet from my pants pocket. It's a pain in the ass, you can't get ID without ID. Fortunately I didn't need ID to get ID from the Y, as they have the photo from the ID on file. Why can't the damned DMV do this? Gees, I know my SS number, they could look up my record and see that the guy in the picture is me. This has gotten me to start chaning my opinion of biometrics. Wouldn't it be great to not need ID, like they had it a hundred years ago?

I went to the bar for a couple of beers, and absently mindedly left my phone on the bar. If I'd been sitting farther from the door I'd still have the phone, but Felber's is in the ghetto (staggering distance from my house) and there are a few unsavory characters come in to get package liquor; forty ounce bottles of beer and half pints of whiskey, gin, and vodka. If I walk up there I'm invariably propositioned by some crack whore, or some guy wanting to sell me dope. Boy, those drug and prostitution laws sure are effective, aren't they?

Mike'll let anyone buy takeout, but he doesn't like thieves. Neither do I. It's ironic that the women who first took me to Felber's, Debbie Corso, is barred from there from stealing. I think she's in prison, I haven't seen her in a long time. It's a shame that she's a thief, she's good looking and actually hit on me when I met her! I should have known that any woman that would hit on me has to be batshit insane.

Anyway, I'd been sitting by the Megatouch game machine (did you know that Megatouch machines use Linux as their OS?) and walked out without my phone.

The thief actually did me a favor, except for my losing all my phone numbers. It was a cheap twenty dollar Net Ten phone that I spent thirty to sixty bucks on every two weeks, depending on if I saw Amy or not. I try to not let her touch my phone; she eats phone minutes like termites eat wood. If I don't let anybody use it I can make thirty bucks last all month, but that's damned hard to do. It's not as bad as it was, as Charlie and Tami have both gotten phones of their own finally, but Tami always uses up all her minutes then want to use my phone.

So I needed a new phone, and was thinking of Cellular One; or maybe it was US Cellular, I don't remember. Kelly told me about that one (skinny Kelly, I know two Kellys, one skinny and one fat). Incoming calls are free, as are nights and weekends. Tami finally got one of those, but she still wastes all her minutes.

Then my daughter Patty told me about the phone her friend Chrissey got. It's a Boost Mobile, and Sprint owns it now. I had Sprint ten or so years ago and swore off ever doing business with them. It's been so long I forgot what they did to piss me off, but useage is unmetered. For fifty bucks a month you get unlimited incoming calls, unlimited outgoing calls, unlimited text messages, and "unlimited" internet.

As I keep my phone in my pocket I wanted a flip phone, so I got a Motorola i776, the second most expensive Boost phone.

The interface could use some work. The menus are inconsistant and often illogical. I haven't been able to figure out how to use it as an alarm clock; it has a calendar function, but it doesn't ring when you have something come up. The manual is worse than useless; it is about as information-free as a Rush Limbaugh radio show, and just about as accurate. So I've just been playing with the thing, figuring it out.

Speaking of Rush Limbaugh, I was greatly amused by a letter the Republican Party mailed me. You're automatically registered as a member of whatever party you cast your primary ballot as, and I usually pick the party with the worst candidate so I can vote against him or her.

Apparently, I was selected to give my opinion of Republican policies; I was the one selected to represent my entire voting district!

This should be fun.

Anyway, I seem to digress, sorry.

Getting the phone activated was maddening.

Despite its shortcomings, it's a good phone; I like it. I especially like the fact that it has a really loud ringer, and most of the built-in ring tones actually sound like telephones, although you can buy less sane, more idiotic ring tones if you want. It's loud enough that I can hear it ring when I'm in the car with the stereo blasting, although maybe that's not such a good thing. I find it hard to concentrate on driving when I answer the phone, so I usually just leave it in my pocket and call back when the car's stopped.

The "unlimited" internet is actually unmetered internet; it's extremely limited. I tried to get on slashdot with it and couldn't, as the phone doesn't have enough memory. The front page will load, but nothing else. I can't get to the prefs page to tell slashdot to download smaller pages, as it doesn't have enough memory to do this.

Google won't load, although m.google will.

Wikipedia loads, but on my phone it's broken. You can enter a search, but it won't search.

There is no back button, no history, no bookmarks. I'm going to google "openwave" when I finish here...

But the best thing about this phone is it's only fifty bucks a month, even if I let Amy use it. Unmetered flat rate, like an old fashioned landline, only with free long distance. Speaking of Amy, She's back in rehab I hear; she'll probably want me to take her drinking as soon as she gets out, as usual. I don't know why she bothers, she goes through DT and everything then starts back up drinking all over.

So I bought the phone and lost my pocketknife. I didn't know I had a hole in my pocket. That was a good knife, too.

Being an opinionated loudmouth, being offline was a bitch, so I wrote letters to the editor of the Illinois Times. IT is free, both the online and dead tree versions, with advertising paying the bills. It's a wonder the big dailies can't make it, but a little weekly can!

They printed the letters.

Digital backslide

A friend who uses an indoor antenna bought a digital TV, and now only has four stations, two in analog, one of which is a Catholic religion station, and two in digital.

I fear this will happen to cable subscribers too after the loss of Channel 8 [see "Channel 8 goes blank for some WSEC viewers," by Amanda Robert, IT, April 23]. I can see channels going digital one by one until there are no analog signals left.

I was using an indoor antenna (before the digital switch). If I remember correctly, I had channels 12, 17, 19, 20, 28, 48 and 55. Now it seems that in the digital age, digital TV users have only two stations.

Welcome back to 1955 St. Louis!

Lack of insurance kills

I'd like to see the same system here that they have in Europe and Canada. If I didn't have to buy health insurance I'd gladly pay 10 bucks a gallon for gas! I spend a whole lot more on health care than I do on transportation, and I'm healthy.

My best friend was two weeks shy of his 40th birthday in 1992 when he died from lack of health insurance. His heart disease was treatable but unaffordable, since his employer didn't offer insurance. Because of this I consider the insurance industry to be his murderers. If Jim had lived in Canada or Europe (or even Cuba) he'd be alive today.

Is PORA effective?

How effective is PORA? [See "Group helps prostitutes recover, struggles for recovery itself," by Amanda Robert, IT, May 28.] Has a single prostitute passsed through their doors and wound up collecting a paycheck 10 years later? Do 90 percent of their clients succeed? If most clients are successful, then it's a shame that this organization is failing. If, however, few of the women are collecting paychecks 10 years later then it's an abysmal failure that deserves no funding, especially in these times of social service cutbacks.

The article says four women are waiting for a spot in PORA's residential program, and each of them will be ready to transfer from separate treatment programs or the Illinois Department of Corrections in 30 to 45 days. You're obviously talking about women who are being forced into PORA after arrest and conviction, or there would be no talk of DOC. I doubt seriously that any of these four women will be helped.

It's a shame prostitution isn't legalized, and a bigger shame that they are demonized rather than having their contributions to society acknowledged. You'll never get rid of the world's oldest profession, and an illegal activity cannot be taxed or regulated.

Most of the problems associated with prostitution are caused by the illegality itself. If it were legal, you wouldn't have hookers walking down the street soliciting you. They would be in "cathouses" in areas zoned for such businesses. Rather than offering STD testing, it could be mandated as a requirement for their license. You would no longer have pimps beating them. And they would be paying income tax and their employers would be paying business taxes.

The laws are not just ineffective -- I see dozens of these girls walking the streets in my neighborhood -- they are counterproductive.

Looking for posts in their search box, I found where they'd interviewed my then sixteen year daughter in an article, End of a scene.

But as all scenes come to an end, people also grow up. After eight years, the Gunga Dins will play their final show this Sunday, August 3. The night will be bittersweet for many fiercely devoted fans, such as Patty McGrew, who sees the band's breakup as yet another major blow to Springfield's rapidly disappearing all-ages music scene. "It's going to be a shame--and a heartbreaker--to watch them go," she says, "especially after losing the Asylum, Rise, and the bands that fell when those venues did."

The "disable advertising" checkbox

[damn_registrars]

I don't have it, though I do have excellent karma. So there is something other than karma that determines who gets that option and who does not.

Though I run it in "classic" with the "low bandwidth" option selected, which kills off some of the most annoying adverts anyways. Using a browser that doesn't support flash takes care of most of the rest, without even setting up adblock.

Re:

[Slashdot Parent]

I have the checkbox--no idea what the criteria are to have it.

I checked the box and disabled Adblock Plus.

Re:

[mcgrew]

Someone else said his karma was excellent and he still didn't have it, so it seems to be a mystery.

Re:

[moose_hp]

I heard somewhere that people who get mod points and use them (i.e. don't let them expire) got the infamous disable ads checkbox.

Maybe it's having both excellent karma and mod regularely. Anyway, I have the checkbox.

Re:

[Abreu]

I have the checkbox and would like to report that:

1.- My Karma is Excellent, and has been that way for a looong time (except for the time when the Mac mini came out and I was downmodded to oblivion for saying it was too expensive)

2.- I use all of my modpoints every time I get them. When I get modpoints I usually go into a story where I am not going to post and use them all in a single modding spree

3.- I don't metamoderate

-

Oh, and welcome back McGrew, I didn't think you had committed suicide, but I did fear

Re:

[mcgrew]

I almost never moderate. I used to metamod frequently, but stopped when they idlized metamoderation. Maybe it's got something to do with UID? But then again, my mcgrew account was dormant until last year. When I got access to it again, it took only a week for my karma to go from "neutral" to "excellent".

Nobody stabbed me, but one of them did punch me. Hard. Three times. I took it like a man and didn't fight back, which wound up hurting her more than if I'd decked her. Turning the other cheeck does indeed wo

Misc. Reponses

[AnyoneEB]

I have never seen any of the CSS glitches people have been talking about. I use Firefox (well, Iceweasel [wikipedia.org] actually), always running the latest stable version. Anyway, it sounds like Slashdot's HTML/CSS devs need to do more testing in multiple browsers.

It should be pretty easy to tell which browser your library uses: if you can type in arbitrary URLs, about: [about] (which does not work in IE if I am reading the Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] correctly). Also, the IE 6, 7, and 8 give noticeably different results for the Acid 2 test [wikipedia.org],

Re:

[damn_registrars]

You hit the nail on the head:

Slashdot's HTML/CSS devs need to do more testing in multiple browsers

But anyone who has been around for a few of the most recent changes knows that isn't the way things are done around here.

Re:

[mcgrew]

Thanks; but I just tied it on my phone, whic maddenly doesn't have a slash, or I couldn't find it. I should get a slash by cycling the "1" key, but I don't. Shame om Motorola! Or maybe it's Sprint; I have a sneaking suspicion they make the web so useless on their phone that you won't bother using it.

I just tried palm.slashdot.org.... HEY!!! IT WORKS!!!! YIPPEE!!! Thanks, dude!

Oops... "insuffcient memory for this operation". And I only have two photos stored, and nothing else.

Re:

[Ender_Stonebender]

If you ever find the slash on your phone, try http://pixelcity.com/s/ [pixelcity.com]

Also, my wife's Motorola phone has the alarm clock under (I think) "Fun and Apps", which is the last place you'd think to look, as alarm clocks aren't "fun".

Re:

[jeffasselin]

The probably test very well in Safari too, as I never have problems with it. Opera 9 seems to be decent too but I don't browse the net much on my Windows PC, mostly on the Mac.

Another misc. response

[rytier]

Re checkbox - users with subscription have those, maybe someone gave you subscription as a gift?
Re worries and suicide - I was more worried about some crazy drunk picking wrong target (you) than anything.. the diary entries show that you've got pretty strong mind :-) Glad to hear from you again.

Re:

[mcgrew]

I had a subscription that an anonymnous slashotter bought, I don't know who gave it, but it elapsed a few months ago.

Re:

[Abreu]

No subscription here, and I have the checkbox

Re:

[damn_registrars]

Re checkbox - users with subscription have those

I have a subscription, and excellent karma, and I don't have the check box (at least the disable ads checkbox).

As a subscriber, I can disable in any combination of 3 categories, but that isn't the checkbox he is talking about. More recently some slashdot readers have been given a feature that allows them to disable all adverts at no cost.

I haven't figured out what it is that causes that feature to go out to some people and not others. I just run the page in "classic" mode, set to "low bandwidth" and

G'day

[Falconhell]

Hi Steve,

Great to see you back.

I have the checkbox and excellent karma. (Well for as long as I can resist stirring up the gun nuts and mac users)

I was getting a bit worried about you, disappearing and all. I posted to your second last journal but Slahdot ate my post-odd.

Legal Prostitution

[Klaus_1250]

Most of the problems associated with prostitution are caused by the illegality itself. If it were legal, you wouldn't have hookers walking down the street soliciting you. They would be in "cathouses" in areas zoned for such businesses. Rather than offering STD testing, it could be mandated as a requirement for their license. You would no longer have pimps beating them. And they would be paying income tax and their employers would be paying business taxes.

Where I live, the Netherlands (small country in Europe, you probably know Amsterdam), prostitution is legal. But legalizing prostitution alone hasn't been enough to solve all the problems and criminal connections. Prostitution remains easy money for criminals, especially when prostitutes are forced and get little pay. And the real-estate needed for window-prostitution and brothels is a good way to launder money. There remains a substantial part in illegality, though overall, the situation seems better in co