September 21, 2003

Regular Semesters are Slow.....

After taking interim and summer classes I had completely forgotten how long and slow a regular semester is. They're really quite unnecessary. I'm confident a 4 year degree could be compressed into one 12 month school year for many degrees depending on the classes the person had in highschool. 21 hours this semester is keeping me busy though when you add in work. It would be much better if it were at least midterm already.

So a few weeks ago I bought a package of "Garden Burgers" when I was getting groceries. I figured at the least they'd have to be better than a crappy frozen hamburger if I didn't feel like making the real thing. I was hesitant because the last time I bought "fake meat" it was one of the most disgusting substances ever, from taste to smell. Animals would have tried to bury it. I tried my first Garden Burger today though and they really weren't too bad. Certainly not a true hamburger replacement but a reasonably healthy substitute. I wouldn't be buying them frequently, but now and then I could eat one I think.

I've had some things that have really irritated me lately but I haven't had time to write about them here. One item currently in the news is VeriSign's SiteFinder service. Verisign just needs to go out of business, the Internet would be so much better for it. Their company Network Solutions kept themselves as the only way to register a domain name for years and made a killing off of what should have been much cheaper. Verisign's been known for sending out notices of domain expiry to people registered with other NICs to trick them into renewing with them. Verisign doesn't play very fairly when releasing domain names that have been allowed to expire either. This time though they decided that if you try to visit a non-existant domain in the .com or .net TLD's that you should be redirected to a page of theirs.

Conveniently that webpage has a link for searching that returns sponsored links. They're simply using their position to try to make some extra money. This has also broken or lessened the effectiveness of many people's spam filters that rely on checking for non-existant domain names. I will be updating all of my BIND DNS server installations as soon as I get the time to keep VeriSign from unjustly using the DNS system in this fashion and would urge anyone else running a DNS server to do the same on theirs.

I'm sitting here listening to Shark Attack by The Bouncing Souls and it reminds I need to pick up their new cd, Anchors Aweigh. Which bring me to another point, I always hear people saying how they refuse to buy cds now. Remember to support your favorite artists who are not part of RIAA labels. Many labels will even put out full high quality mp3s from their artists for you to sample. Check out Epitaph Records, Side One Dummy Records, and Thick Records for some of the labels my favorite artists are on.

Hmmmm I hungry....some Chinese would be great now.....

Posted by johnm at 04:42 PM | Comments (1)

September 02, 2003

Mornings...ugh

Its been a while since I've posted here. I would suspect its not unusual for many blogs to have more comments than entries but in my case its just because I don't post much.

Lanae came up from Memphis on the 21st of last month to visit for a bit. It was really nice to visit for a while and everything. Next time we'll have to hit a local bar so there's better beer available than what I keep in the fridge! We headed out for some dinner and the Chinese place that is always pretty good sucked a bit this time. They don't serve beer either apparently. I really enjoyed seeing her though (it had only been a few years I guess), it was fun, forgot to take any pictures though.

The fall semester has started. This is the third week now. I haven't been skipping too much, although I certainly don't have a stellar record at the moment. I'm debating skipping one of my classes today. One in particular has a really boring lecture but I skipped last time so there might be a test or quiz. I wish there was a schedule for those or something. Class overall is fine, I just have alot of them which gets irritating when you don't really want them.

Its dark and rainy out today and was for most of yesterday too. I wish there was some thunder and lightning but I'll take what I can get. It makes me just want to go back to sleep though. I have to remember to get an umbrella next time I'm out too, it'll make those long walks to class in the rain more tolerable. I wish it rained more often though, its so relaxing.

Well I guess I'll get ready to go to class now. I have the urge to skip, but its also boring sitting here in my apartment.

Posted by johnm at 09:17 AM | Comments (0)