Enjablog

Hey enjanerd,

I got you some oatmeal raison cookies from Kansas. They look really good. I haven’t tried them yet, but your mother has. Please take it home if you want them, otherwise i’ll eat them.

I read this article in the Washington Post about intelligent design. Thought you might like it:

Who’s Afraid of Intelligent Design?

Len

P.S. I noticed you have a lot of drafts. Why are you so angry?

Apparently, you can’t buy alcohol (closed container) after midnight in Virginia. I did not know this. I am less than thrilled.

Tonight I was asked to post on here for the first time. This is exciting for me, because I’ve never really posted on a blog before, but I have a feeling this blog thing could really take off, and I want to get in on it early.

The timing of this is unfortunate, however, because I spent much of my evening watching the State of the Union address. I could probably rant about this for hours, in person, but at the same time, I’m at an almost total loss for things to say. I will not explain the apparent contradiction.

So instead, here’s a list of things I miss about computers.

Turbo buttons. The first IBM compatible computer I ever owned — and here I of course mean, “was related to a person who owned” — had a turbo button. What’s great about this is that the button served not to speed the computer up, but to slow it down. That is to say, when the “turbo” was on, the processor ran at its intended speed. When the turbo was off, the computer was deliberately slowed down. This was intended to allow you to run software, including games, which needed to be run more slowly.

I have periodically explained this to people of a younger generation who play computer games. The looks I get are priceless.

Degauss buttons. CRT monitors, as a natural byproduct of proper functioning, build up gauss on the inside of the glass. I’m not totally clear on what gauss is, really, but I know it attracts dust and hair and can cause your skin to tingle if it gets too close. Anyway, CRT monitors frequently have a degauss button, which, when depressed, causes the screen to get very colorful, and any displayed images to be temporarily twisted and warped on the screen. This eliminates the gauss (think of it like a self-cleaning oven, which cleans itself with heat, but, you know, lots of it).

LCD, or flat panel, monitors claim not to build up gauss, and thus don’t need to be degaussed. This is a shame. I think my early involvement with computers was primarily to give me an excuse to sit in front of them for long periods of time and degauss it periodically without looking like a dork.

For the record, this did not work.

Floppy disks. I’m not talking about the big 5 1/4″ ones, but the little 3 1/2″ ones. I could care less about the big ones. They sucked. The little ones sucked too, but I liked them better. They didn’t really hold much of anything at all. They were pretty slow. They were generally unreliable, even though they put up a show with that little sliding metal cover. The cover sucked. More often than not I would discover that one of my disks didn’t work because the cover just slid out of the way like a geriatric guard dog and allowed some piece of detritus from the lower stratum of my bag to lodge itself inside the disk, and then promptly snapped back into place, giving no sign that the integrity of the disk had been violated.

Oh! And when you gave up on trying to recover your lost data you at least got to take the disk apart and play with it. Which, now that I think about it, sucked too. The promise of the sliding door turned out to be nothing but a weak spring and some easily bent metal junk, and the innards of the disk turned out to be nothing but a crappy circular piece of plastic with none of the mysterious magnetic properties you would expect. I always felt so excited and rebellious when I took disks apart, and I have no idea why. Sucked. I still miss ‘em, though.

I’m done.

World AIDS Day

Dear Friends,
DECEMBER 1, 2004 is WORLD AIDS DAY.

HIV and AIDS is a growing epidemic around the world. Learn more about this devestating illness and what steps you can take to safeguard against the transmission of the Humman Immunodeficiency Virus. Briefly, HIV is the virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Practice safe sex via the use of condoms, do not share intravenous drug needles (don’t do drugs, period!), be cautious because HIV can be transferred via many bodily fluids including blood, vaginal fluids, and semen. Additionally, HIV/AIDS has devestating consequences because of maternal transmission across the placenta to a developing baby. So in summary: primary forms of transmission are unprotected sex (homosexual or heterosexual), intravenous drug abuse, and mother-to-child infection.

This disease is causing devestating consequences in much of Africa and Asia, as well as other parts of the world. There are so many places where AIDS treatment medications cannot be obtained because of cultural factors, and people are forced to resort to buying prescriptions on the blackmarket. Everyday the world has more motherless and fatherless children, everyday someone loses a friend, a son, a daughter, a mother, a father, an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent, a cousin, a spouse, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a human being.

From my own personal story, I’ve treated several patients with HIV/AIDS, and I’ve watched a few patients die, watched their families struggle, watched the social stigma of the illness take effect on their lives, watch the dementia of end-stage AIDS set in, watch other illnesses creep up that people are susceptible to. I’ve seen the human face of AIDS, and it’s not pretty. It’s real. It’s out there. And it’s TOTALLY PREVENTABLE.

Join in the fight against AIDS (as well as other medical illnesses. I cannot begin to stress the importance of supporting other critical medical issues facing the world and even though AIDS seems to be at the forefront of research these days, do realize there are others out there with different conditions who need your help and support as well). Let’s put an end to all this suffering from medical ailments, people. Together, we can do it.

Btw, the theme for World AIDS Day this year is: WOMEN and AIDS.

For more information, please visit these sites or try this handy Google link:

Google: World AIDS Day
General Info on HIV/AIDS from Avert.org
Avert.org World AIDS Day Homepage
UN World AIDS Day: UNAIDS
World AIDS Day UK
Centers for Disease Control (CDC): Divisions of AIDS/HIV Prevention
Family Practice Notebook and AIDS information

Be caring, be smart, be informed, but most importantly, BE SAFE. Thanks for listening.

*one world, our world* - Fashiongrrl, M3

TTFN.

Taken from Yahoo:

How much does fantasy football cost businesses each day in terms of lost productivity?

a) $5.1M
b) $19.4M
c) $36.7M
d) $103.8M

For the answer please click here.

Happy Birthday to the biggest nerd ever. Just kidding!

Happy Birthday to my bestest friend in the entire world. Thanks for everything. :)

*this is your birthday song/it isn’t very long* - Fashiongrrl

TTFN.

Just wanted to wish my sister a happier birthday… 

With much love…

Happy Independence Day! (Guest blogger in different color)

I saw the Last Sumarai yesterday for the first time. It was interesting and I was pleasantly surprised by the story. They brought the sins of early America and incorporated them with their dealings with Japan… Tom Cruise’s character was cliche at best. But during the movie I felt patriotism, shame, and pride… but this was mostly from the battles… and not through TC’s acting.

Who was the true patriot? Who was truly serving the best interest of the country? The samurai believed they were, those who wanted to modernize and become a strong nation believe they were.

In an interview with the president recently, he said something to the effect that ‘history’ will tell how he did as a president. He is not influenced by ‘popularity’ polls, etc.

What will history say about our patriotism? Are we truly serving the best interest of our nation by supporting or protesting the president? Are our actions based solely on personal gain or for the benefit of America or for the benefit of the world?

Will history be able to distinguish the difference? What are our true colors?

I am obsessed with the lottery…I believe that it is possible to win, not a big one, but a chance…I figured I should be prepared for that possible occasion…For many years now, I’ve had a chart of how I would rate the people in my life…I think I give most people a higher rating than they really deserve, but if I won 200 million dollars, what’s a few more friends, right? So, every couple of months I look at the chart and think of all the fun times I’ve had with certain people on the list and how I haven’t talked to some of them in years…on Friday, the drawing will be 280 million dollars…where on the chart are you?

Wow. Wowie wow-wow. I am both honored and intimidated to be offered a subordinate junior co-host part-time position. So many different thoughts and questions-
1. If I post here, is it like cheating on my other blog? Do I have to be blognanimous?
2. I hope I don’t bring down the collective literary IQ of enjablog. I mean, I have been known to laugh at a fart joke or two in my time.
3. I hope fashiongrrl doesn’t get jealous - Grrl, I’d be happy to co-host with you any time ;)
My goal is to round out the high-brow humor and random nerd posts that E-ninja brings to the table - for really, what is brains without….you know, the opposite of brains?

So, to get this party started, I’d like to piggyback on the cookie cry-for-help post yesterday. What kind of world do we live in where an 11 year old says cookies are ‘too starchy’? And isn’t a mocha smoothie a coffee-ish drink? So, cookies are bad, but growth-stunting coffee habits are good for our nation’s pre-teens?
-I pray for the world in which girl scouts have to start selling crack to make up for declining thin mint cookie sales.
-What kind of cookie company dumps the COOKIE MONSTER as your spokesman? I don’t see MacDonalds dumping the Hamburglar, or that strange purple gumdrop Grimace.
-I would like to respond to this quote: “Kraft stretched the Oreo into an oblong, covered it in chocolate and called it Oreo Barz, as if it were a portable snack like an energy bar.” by saying: No shit Kraft, the reason people didn’t buy this monstrosity is because they were afraid when the label had a warning from the Surgeon General about the possibility that by eating this cookie you would instantly kill your entire family.
-Any child that chooses to eat healthy wheat pretzels and smoothies over some cookies and a glass of milk is a souless monster who will probably become the next Hitler. Any mother that fakes out her kid by calling other food ‘cookies’ probably beats her children.

You always remember your first time (posting),
Critical

so, there aren’t many shows that I watch on TV anymore because they’re either reality TV that annoy me or scripted TV that annoy me…oh, don’t get me wrong, I watch TV because it’s there, but I don’t take time out of my schedule to keep up with a show…that was until one day I turned on the WB and came across a quirky little show about a girl and her mom…and her little asian friend and her mom…the first time I saw the little asian girl, it was like somebody was sitting in my house and wrote down the words of my parents…anyway, I watch Gilmore Girls…admit it, you do too…it’ll make you feel better…

then tonight happened…I say it everytime a TV show makes me mad or disappoints me, I’m never watching it again…this is another time i will say it, I hope they turn this mistake into a dream or … a dream…maybe it’s me, but I was very disappointed by the outcome of this season’s shows…ok, done hijacking this blog to pretend to be Tom Shales, but he has the coolest job in the world…if I become rich and famous, that’s what I want to do…well, I suppose I need to learn to write in complete sentences first…

so, I have given up my blogging boycott to get a new e-mail addy…I know…I’m a sell-out…unprincipled money grabbing geek…nothing new in my world, but maybe one day something REALLY REALLY REALLY exciting could happen to me and I will have a voice…oh, I do have my website which I’ve been redesigning that can be my voice, but I have nothing to say…and I would have to leave the house or my office to have something REALLY REALLY REALLY exciting happen, right? alright…I’ll check in once in a while to make sure you all are playing nice…

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.

Enjaborg loves Google. This is not a secret fact. So the other day in class, my teacher brought up a Google search for medical school stuff. He was like “if you don’t know the answer to something and are studying late at night and there’s no professor around to ask questions, this magic thing called the internet has some answers!” I was so excited, being the uber-nerd that I am, that Google was brought up. I’m sure everyone else in class was like “what? go back to the lecture crazy prof.” I then had a discussion with some classmates, and God forbid one of them thought Yahoo was more powerful than Google. Another classmate and I were quick to correct and convert him, by forceful suggestion, that Google was far more superior.

That’s my Google story. Enjaborg said that I could guest-blog, since she’s on another Enja-hiatus. And you know what, one final thought. While the prof was giving a powerpoint presentation, he actually had to exit the ppt slideshow to go to the Google window. And I sadly thought to myself “okay, has he never heard of Alt-Tab?” Yeah uber-nerdiness. But I figured you all would enjoy the story. If not, well then PRETEND like you do. Humor me.

Are you humoring me yet? Good.

*preaching the wonders of the Book of Goog* -FashionGoogler

TTFN. :)

My company is looking to hire a software developer in the next month or two. Here is our description of the job.

If you’re interested or know someone who is please put them in touch with me.

SPJ