I don't have Vista (yet) but I found this article interesting. I'm by no means a Microsoft lover, but since they have a monopoly on the industry....
Anyway, if you're interested: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Forget-about-the-WGA-20-Windows-Vista-Features-and-Services-Harvest-User-Data-for-Microsoft-58752.shtml
Okay, here's a lil geography lesson. My house is in Utah Valley which is just south of Salt Lake Valley which is where Salt Lake City is. Utah valley is mostly developed on the east side of the lake. No - not the Great Salt Lake but Utah Lake which is huge and in my opinion, beautiful. Now my house is up on the side of the mountain on what's called a "bench". In other words, it's a flat spot against the side of the mountain that overlooks the valley. Apparently at one time the valleys were full of water and hence, the benches were the shores.
SO, last night my husband and I went for our nightly walk at 2am (yes, we're night owls) and when we get to the end of the street I notice this big orangish red blob in the sky. If you've ever lived somewhere like Utah, you'll know that when it gets dark at night and there is no moon (or very little moon) that the mountains blend into the sky and are fairly hard to see. Last night it was overcast and hence the mountains weren't that easy to see. But the big orangish red blob thingie was easy to see. It took me a minute to figure out what it was when it dawned on me, the mountain is on fire. I've never seen anything like this before though. The mountain was glowing red and I could actually see the flames (can you imagine how big they must be close up?!). The mountain next to it was also red and glowing - although there were no visible flames from my distance. I've never seen anything like it before. It reminded me of Lord of the Rings or Silent Hill.
Today, the fire is so big the sky is all smokey and yucky. I don't know if I can get any good pictures of the fire tonight due to all the smoke, but I'll try. Hopefully the whole mountain doesn't burn down. :(
Alright, here's my beef. I typed up this huge long blog which now I'm gonna have to type again and when I went to grab my mouse that F-ING key on the side made it go back one page and I lost EVERYTHING. WTF?!
ANYWAY - so it's Friday morning and like normal, I'm in bed fast asleep at noon. Yes, I keep weird hours. So I hear this loud noise outside and it being Friday I assume that it's just the garbage man until I notice the sound is coming from above and not from outside. So I jolt awake and look over to see my husband looking outside. He says, "What the hell is this guy doing?"
So my first thought is, some moron is doing something in the open lot across from our house. So I get out of bed to check things out. Only when I get out of bed and peak between the blinds, there's a ladder. A ladder?! Now we've had numerous internet providers (we can only get wireless here) and satellite providers out here and it seems everytime they come they never bring a tall enough ladder. I've seen most of them use the back of their truck pulled up in the drive way with the ladder propped in it and on the house just so they can get to the roof. Yes our house is tall.
So my husband thinks quick and runs to put something on that's modest enough for outside. Meanwhile I'm still dumbfounded.... there's someone on our roof?!
He gets out there and yells up, "What the hell are you doing on my roof?" The guy responds that he's there for our antenna. Uh... what?! So the guy comes down - almost falls to his death (too bad, this story would be much more interesting then) - and when he finally gets down walks around the corner to his van and pulls out a slip of paper. He says are you Alan or Lori Fullmer? My husband of course is in no mood for a moronic kid and says, "I'm obviousy not Lori". So the guy was sent to get our antenna by an ISP we haven't had for more than 6 months.
Now let's go back to 6 months ago. We had WavePoint Internet which was amazingly good for wireless. We were totally happy with it... until Digis. Well, you've probably heard of the Midas Touch - everything turns to gold? Well Digis has the exact opposite. Everything they touch turns to crap. They should really consider a career in manure. ANYWAY - so we called and cancelled when they bought Wavepoint and immediately our internet started sucking it up. As per their guidelines, we left the antenna on the patio for them to come pick up. A week passed and no one came. My husband called and complained. A month passes, still no one. So finally he gives up and puts it in the garage. But he still calls them every month when they send us a bill for zero dollars and reminds them to come get their crappy equipment.
So today, their moron company decides it's time to come get the antenna. So they come out here to get it and what, it's not on the patio?!?! It must be the one hooked up on the roof. So without calling, without ringing the doorbell, he just shimmies on up to the roof to get the one that is hooked up. Never mind that it doesn't look anything like their other antennas. That's when we come into the picture.
And what does Digis - the craptastic internet - have to say about all of this? Well no one was scheduled to come out here today so it must have been some error - but hey, did we give the guy the antenna? WHAT THE F#@!?!?! He wasn't scheduled yet he had our names and our address right there on a piece of paper? He wasn't scheduled yet he had a Digis van that he was driving? And why the hell does he care more about his antenna that they haven't come to get for more than 6 months than the fact that he sent a total retard to our house and up on our roof to take an antenna that wasn't even theirs?! What if we had not been here and he'd taken someone elses antenna?! MORONS I TELL YOU!!!!!
So the past couple of days this particular topic keeps coming up in vent. I dunno why... but everyone is talking about the supernatural. Maybe I started it by discussing the show A Haunting on Discovery Channel. My DVR records the program for me and when I have nothing else to watch, I watch it (even after Oprah.... so it's way down the list). Discovery does a pretty decent job of making the show actually kinda creepy - like an 80s horror flick. About 80% of them in my mind are fake even though they have the real people who experienced the haunting there talking about it. I think a lot of it is in their mind.
For example, this one show the family moves into the house and suddenly they start hearing things. They've never seen anything - just heard footsteps and they suddenly flee from the house! Well, old houses do make noises. And if you have pets or kids, they do make footstep sounds sometimes.
Anyway, my personal take on all of this is that as humans we use a very small percentage of our brains. We don't fully understand a lot of things like time. Hell, just a few hundred years ago, we thought the world was flat! So who's to say we fully understand the after life either? I personally believe that places that are dear to us - where we have special memories - have our imprint on them. Some times people feel they are being haunted because they feel, see, or experience that imprint. Kinda like a fingerprint of your memory. So most of what people think are hauntings, I fully believe are not. BUT - I do believe there are spirits and ghosts and that there are some places that truely are haunted.
So what do you think?
I live the ideal gamer life. I don't work. I don't have any major responsibilities (other than paying bills and keeping the house clean). And I get to spend a vast majority of my free time playing games. So how is it that I'm bored out of my mind at the age of 29 on a Saturday evening??? I've already played Mario Party 8 (both games the computer cheated) and Natural Selection (to which the server crashed no less than 10 times). I could go watch TV but it's the off season of pretty much everything so all that's on is reruns.
Sure I have laundry that could be folded and a guest bed that needs to have the clean sheets put back on it (my parents just visted last week) - but who wants to do work on a Saturday?! I'd go outside but there are little devils (aka children) running around screaming and acting all joyful like. :\ So what to do???
