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 September 21, 2003 04:42 PMPerhaps some General Tso's chicken! After all it is Friday.
Have a Good Weekend!
Charles