Today defines whether we are at war or not.

North Korea said that if the US continues pressure over the supposed tests this past Monday, they will consider it a declaration of war.

The US has put a proposal before the UN in regards to sanctions for North Korea. The UN council is to vote on this proposal today.

Microsoft has been rather popular for the last 20 years, right? Well, as of their next release of Windows, I personally feel it will be the beginning of the end.

Anaylists said the same about Windows ME, Windows XP, and so on, but you have to look at the bigger picture: Competition. Microsoft has been the market leader because they're the most well known. Since the launch of user-friendly gadgets such as the iPod, Apple's share of the market has begun a steady increase. The "Apple VS PC" ads that have been aired on television are a prime indicator that Apple is ready for the increased demand.

But even still, there is more competition out in the wild. Linux is becoming more and more popular with home users, simply because of distributions like Ubuntu. Having used several different distros of Linux myself, I currently have Ubuntu installed on four of my computers, where Slackware, Fedora Core, and Mandrake were installed previously. Why? The same reason Apple is gaining market share: User-friendliness. Not only that, but Ubuntu is usable in areas other distros are not.

So why would I refuse to install Vista on a computer of my own? First and foremost, privacy. From what I have read about Vista's anti-piracy measures, the OS regularly checks itself against Microsoft's databases to see if it is a legitimate copy, regardless of passing installation-time legitimacy checks.

Second, image. Microsoft is popular because they have stolen ideas, lied, and cheated their way to the top. Bill Gates is nobody special, he's just mastered the art of illicit business. I use Windows now because an alternative hasn't exactly been available before, but now that one is, I have the option to say "no" to upgrading. I see absolutely no reason to donate my money to supporting the richest man in the world. He's only rich because he's lied his way to the top.

And third, money. The only reason I really even have Windows XP right now is because it came installed on my computers. If it were up to me to decide where my money would be spent, I can promise you that it wouldn't be on Microsoft products. Rather, I would donate that money to the various open source projects that I use, because honest, hard working people have produced said products.

To conclude, I'll be installing Ubuntu or Slackware, where Vista would be the next logical move.

Since they basically raped me out of $50, does that mean they're not virgins anymore?

Anyhow. My balance wasn't supposed to expire until like January, but since they changed policy, I lost my balance this last week. I tried to renew a couple of times, but their site just kept saying, "Slow down there, cowboy."

So anyhow, Denny's phone number is no longer active and there is no intention of ever renewing it.

For those of you wondering what that number was, it was (219)613-4946.

I don't know if anyone is familiar with the site, but Bash.org is basically a place where you can submit entertaining chat log snippets.

I've submitted probably 30 absolutely hilarious pastes in the last year, and every one of them has been rejected. I just took a look at the "latest" entries, only to find that nearly everything has a mention of sex, and is rated rather high. One such entry is even blasphemous to Christianity, and is rated 500+!

The website itself is a great idea, but the band of moderators they have employed are a bunch of retards. Not everyone finds "I fu**ed your mom" funny, but that's all that seems to get approved on that site.

What am I going to do about it? I shall (eventually) start quotes.skudd.com, where I will basically do the same thing as bash.org, but with more relaxed moderation and less rejected entries.

Update: quotes.skudd.com should be online within the next 48 hours. I've put together a simple site for it, and you can submit quotes right away, but I'm waiting on the DNS propigation.

"The Hosting Buffet"

Think about it. A web hosting company that let's you create your own web hosting package, using an interface that resembles an "All you can eat" buffet.

Please don't lick the sneeze-guard, though. Childern under 12 years old are to be accompanied by an adult.

Yeah yeah, it's not such an exciting thing... However, I can make good use of this for offsite feeds.

Okay, now that it's working as intended, I'll explain the purpose:

The offsite channels I've created are a wonderful thing. I am able to integrate news feeds into other sites, such as Skudd.com's base, and make it appear as though the content is originating directly from those sites. I could even go so far as to feed forums with content, or submit articles from a blog post, or cook toast, all with this feature. A limitation exists though.

When you browse articles on a website, you'll probably notice that a majority of those sites use a snippet of text to describe the article, giving you a general overview of what to expect when reading it. Until now, this wasn't really cleanly possible with the blog. I could have used the "blog text" field to concatenate (join) a descriptor with the text itself. That would have been really messy, though, and produced more overhead than necessary. This way, the optional "subtitle" field allows me (or any other author, for that matter) to give a brief overview, and leave it at that.

So now I may be able to get that articles section back on track for Skudd.com. Yay!

Let's just hope I'm totally wrong.

I don't know if anyone remembers my last semester in college or not. Right around finals time, I had so much stress on my shoulders, as I put my most difficult classes off until then. As a result, I happened to acquire a case of shingles.

I knew right away what I had, because other people in my family had it previously, and I'd known other people who had it. It started with a rather deep itching feeling, then progressed to blistering, then on to excruciating, throbbing pain. The blisters only showed up on the right side of my body, and went from the middle of my lower back, around the right side, at a downward angle to my inner right thigh. The rash was in a narrow strip, and never crossed over to the left side of my body.

I went to the doctor, explained the symptoms to him, and he right away proclaimed, "You have Scabies." He wrote me a perscription for some medicine that was $40 per pill. The only place I was able to get the perscription filled was a pharmacy right in the downtown part of the city that I was attending college in. I ended up getting 2 pills, spending a little less than $80 on it, and was really angry with my doctor.

Before I took the medicine, I researched both Scabies and Shingles, and compared the two to what I had. Again, I saw that I had Shingles, and believed my doctor to be a crackpot. Since I spent the money, though, I went ahead and took the first dose of the medicine. It didn't do what it was perscribed to, and the shingles lasted for about a week. The blisters didn't heal up for a long while though, and I probably still have a couple weak areas on my skin from it.

Anyhow, back to how this relates to work...

A couple of the guys are on the good behavior work release program with the county corrections sytem. Basically, they got in trouble and are serving time for it, but they're allowed to leave to go to work, so they can pay their bills and have a bit of a life, whereas the rest of the inmates can't.

Well, 4 of the guys in the same building, who don't work at the shop, were reported as having Scabies. Because of the way it spreads, the place is on quarantine until they can get a doctor in to administer some ointment for it, plus another 14 hours. So basically, nobody is allowed to leave until the end of the quarantine, regardless of having scheduled employment or not.

This puts us in a bit of a pickle at the shop. One of the other guys was supposed to work with those two guys tomorrow, while I enjoyed my scheduled day off. Since there needs to be at least 2 people at the shop at all times, I have to go in to work in place of the other two guys. When I found out what the deal was, I knew right away that I needed to go to work tomorrow, so that's not really an issue. However, the fact that I'm having to deal with this stupid parasite again just flat out pisses me off.

At any rate, I need to get myself to bed now. So much for having plans for my day off. So much for getting laundry done and getting my bedroom cleaned up.

Yeah, that one, about World War 3... Well guess what: It's getting even closer to happening.

Last night, North Korea proclaimed to the world that it had achieved a successful nuclear detonation, something that world governments, including the US, had warned it not to do. The response that this drew was that it was "not to be tolerated" and "a brazen act".

So what's to happen? Bush has announced that North Korea will be held responsible for any trade of nuclear weapons technology with anyone, whether they are an ally of North Korea or not, and that it would basically be the only excuse needed to start a war.

Now consider the problem here: Our troops are over in the mid-east, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the like, fighting a war over oil. Oil, or the lack thereof, will not pose an immediate threat of well-being to anyone in the world. The presence of oil, or even the lack of oil, is not a health concern to anyone.

If a war were to break out in North Korea, over something far more dangerous, what is going to happen? The deployed troops can't just drop what they're doing and run off to fight another war. Some of our reserves have been deployed to Iraq already, so the remaining numbers are pretty low. If you talk with anyone who has been in Iraq, they'll tell you that the numbers there are too low as it is, and that no loss of manpower can be afforded for another battle in another part of the globe. The solution? First off, I imagine there would be a surge of new enrollment in the armed forces. Second, since the numbers would yet be too low, the purpose of the Selective Service program will be put into effect: A draft.

Are you not familiar with Selective Service? Here's a quick background:

All males between the ages of 18 and 25 are to be registered with the Selective Service System (SSS). The purpose is so that in the event that additional military power would be needed, the government would be able to draw upon the service of young males.

So the short of it is, if you're a male between the ages of 18 and 25, you're legally supposed to be registered to be drafted by the SSS.

Personally, I feel that such a move would be imminent should North Korea become a greater threat. Oil is one thing, but nuclear war is another.

Another Western Digital hard drive of mine is on the way out.

A consensus among OPEC members began to form over the weekend about cuts in oil production to help stem the recent decline in price, but the group’s members have not yet agreed on how to share the reduced output. Original Article by The NY Times

Why does this not surprise me? OPEC can suck on my big hairy toes, for all I care.

I'm by no means racist, nor do I have anything against any particular sect of people. But this is really starting to bother me:

The local convenience store that I've patronized since we moved here has changed hands a few times since I started doing so. The first owner was a middle-aged white female from the next town to the north. She ended up selling it to an older white gentleman from the Indianapolis area. That guy ended up selling it to a middle-aged middle-easterner.

Since the current owner has had it, he has brought in other middle-easterners to run it for him, pushing the local residents out of their employed positions there. Now, the current "top" manager has brought in 2 other middle-easterners: One in his early 20's and one in his late 20's. The younger of the two has been operating the cash register for the last 4 months or so, and this other guy is completely new to me since I got back from vacation.

The manager himself has a disturbing appearance: He drives a fairly nice Acura, wears business casual clothes all the time, and wears a baby-blue New York Yankees baseball hat. He is actively involved in the operation of the store, and he is always busy doing something when he's there. He won't talk to the customers, and from what I've seen he's very condescending to his employees.

The younger guy is very clean-cut, always wears nice clothes, and addresses everyone as "sir" or "ma'am".

The other guy, the 3 nights I've seen him at the station, has been wearing the same black shirt with red stripes, black dress pants, and he does nothing but walk around the parking lot and talk on the cell phone. I've not seen him inside the station once, and even when I drive by there and see no customers outside, he's still on the phone.

I suppose my personal opinion of their race has been marred by the media and government's portrayed image of Islam, and I am probably being rash about it. However, it's really unnerving to see that guy in the parking lot, wearing the same clothes, doing the same exact thing, for 3 nights in a row. Sure, he may have just cause, such as keeping in touch with his wife back home, as he may have just arrived to the area, but it's really odd to me.

Call me prejudice, I guess. I'm going to continue shopping there because they have the best prices on what I buy, but I'm going to do so looking out of the corner of my eye the entire time.

From m4tt.net, South Park meets WoW.

I just got home about 20 minutes ago from a totally random trip. When I got up this morning (at 11am), Mom and Dad had lunch ready. I ate, then took a shower, then decided that I was going for a drive. Where I was going was a mystery to even me, but I knew I was going somewhere.

About an hour later, I arrived at Washington Park, right on the coast of Lake Michigan. I figured the place would be packed with people, but I was pleasently surprised to find out that it wasn't.

At any rate, I had a nice, relaxing time, visiting Indiana's equivalent of the Atlantic Ocean, and I got some pictures (which I'll be uploading to the gallery shortly).

Edit: Pictures have been posted here. Enjoy.

Yesterday was chocked full of people who couldn't comprehend the concept of spending $30 every 3 months to maintain their car. Those people would argue with us at the shop about the prices being too high for an oil change, and they had to make sure that other customers present had to share in the experience.

One such customer pulled in and complained right away about the light check procedure. When one of the guys was gathering her contact information, she asked, "How much is an oil change, anyhow?" The guy helping her said, "$29.99 plus tax, which..." The lady immediately butted in and said, "OH MY GOD! You have GOT to be kidding me. You guys are charging $30 bucks for an oil change?! Nobody in this town is that expensive. You officially have the highest prices in this entire town and you need to do something about it.

She ended up giving in with little hassle, and we changed her oil for $31.36 after taxes.

(Okay, this isn't going to be quick after all...)

People just can't understand what it actually costs for us to change their oil. Something else they don't understand is that motor oil prices don't fluctuate like gasoline prices do. Yes, the price on oil went up about the same time gas did, but it didn't come back down. Oil prices never come back down. In fact, as of the first of October, the oil prices went up a whoppin' $0.60 per gallon! Sure, the customer only sees a $0.60 increase in price, but tell them that. People are bound to be complaining after the next price increase, which will probably be the first of the year, and will probably bring the price up to at least $32. Do the employees see that money? No. Do the owners see that money? No. Do the suppliers see that money? Heck yes they do.

If we were to raise our prices every time the suppliers did, we would have a very unhappy customer base, more so than we do now.

My speech for customers who are unhappy with the prices is this:

"Our suppliers have raised their prices 6 times in the last year, but we have only raised our prices this once. The cost of oil is constantly going up, but we try our hardest to keep you, the customer, from experiencing a price increase. Thus, we try to only make a price increase once a year to reflect the suppliers' increases."

So far, it's shut people up in a hurry.

What I find funny, though, is that those same people that complain about the prices are actually frequent customers who have been in several times since the actual price increase.