Category Archives: Rants

I’ve been trying to plan some rather large birthday events, which I hope would be a smashing success. The reason I want to do this is simple: my birthdays in the past have so rarely worked out that I want to make sure this year is the one. To this end, I’ve planned three things. Originally, I wanted it to be four, but that’s just not working out.

Since my birthday falls on a Friday, I planned Friday evening bowling that would be family friendly, including my own. After, I want to go to a bar where I’ll get free drinks with a friend who has the same birthday. Saturday evening, I’ve planned to have a game and drinking night at my house with people who were interested. I figured with the variety of options, I’d be able to invite people who might have trouble making arrangements for their children, provide a weekend full of fun that people would be able to work into their schedules and find something that everyone would enjoy. I pretty thoughtfully sent out invitations to the events via Facebook and, then, texted people to let them know about the event in case they don’t tend to look at them or missed it.

I thought that, maybe, the RSVPs would start rolling in, but fewer than a third of people I’ve invited to any of the events have said they’re going. Some people have said they’ll go to X event but won’t do X, which is super annoying. I got a whole lot of “Maybes” and even someone who RSVPed after telling me she probably couldn’t show up. Logistically, it’s a nightmare because I have no idea how much food or refreshments I’m going to need.

But emotionally? It’s a bummer. Some of my very close friends won’t be there because they’ve made plans. some of those plans happened before I sent the invite, but I consider these people close enough that I’m a little shocked and completely disappointed that they made plans on my birthday or after I sent the invite. It makes me feel unimportant to them, even though I know there may be other logical reasons and that these people might care in their own way but just can’t give me this one weekend out of the year.

Still, it’s hard to be positive because the people who have said they’ll show up are a group of people with whom I worry I’ll be uncomfortable around en masse.  One of the people who won’t be able to make it is exactly the sort of person who can diffuse that sort of situation.

Nevertheless, I know I’m being dramatic. I think it’s that hormonal time of month that’s adding to it, and I have nothing to convince me that I won’t have a good time or that people won’t surprise me. Furthermore, plenty of people have RSVPed to everything, which should make me feel loved. A single day — or weekend — doesn’t negate all my existing friendships. In fact, my birthday might come and pass and it’ll be a blast and I’ll forget all about my anxieties, which often happens.

I just need something to distract me until then.

I have purchased a PlayStation 3.. and I love it. It’s absolutely going to change my life. It already has, in fact. However, the process has been the catelyst to several weird, frustrating and otherwise stupid tech problems in my life.

First, I got the PS3 set up but the actual console was sitting a little too far forward in my TV stand, so closing the door turned it on.. and somehow the game started playing, so when I turned it off.. it wasn’t happy. After powering it back on, I received a notice that it wasn’t powered off correctly and it had to check for corruption on the disk. Everything worked okay, though. However, it did reset some settings, so I had to fix those.

Then, I was trying to set up a media server through WMP. Although I don’t use it, this seemed like the easiest method to use. In fact, it is; but it’s only that easy when you have the PS3 and your laptop hosting the media server on the same network. Oops.

However, network problems quickly arose when I started my computer this morning and it wouldn’t connect to the same network that it’s been on since I moved in here. I could sign on at a guest, but there was some generic error whenever I tried to sign in to the secure network. Oddly enough, both my phone and Ps3 were connected just fine. Later, I started up the computer and it wanted a password, so now I’m signed in just fine.

Nevertheless, my issues don’t stop there. Crazy, I know. When I first connected the PS3 to my TV, it worked right away. I was using the same HDMI cable that I always use with my laptop, but I couldn’t get it to connect for the life of me this weekend when some friends were over. It kept telling me that there was no video signal, even though my laptop clearly connected one. This occasionally happened but I was able to fix it by restarted the computer or switching HDMI ports in the past. Nothing worked at all, so I was surprised when the PS3 started right up with no problems.

That is, until.. I turned it on and the TV wouldn’t register a signal for the life of it (me?) . I figured it must just be the HDMI cable, which is easily replaceable. I grabbed the AV cable that shipped with the PS3, figuring I could just use it in -gasp- SD for the time being. But you know what the fuck happened? No, you don’t! That’s why I’m going to tell you.

The TV wouldn’t detect any signal through the AV cables, either! In either port. So, I don’t know what the hell the problem is. Maybe something’s loose in the television itself, but sometimes all the ports seem to just.. stop working. It’s super annoying but it’s also random. I gave up and plugged the HDMI cable back in.. and the damned thing started working randomly. It cut out when the cat walked by but everything’s been fine since a friend nudged it just a bit. Obviously, the whole thing is stupid, but as long as I’m able to stream movies from my laptop (see above), then I don’t need to touch the system itself or cable.

So, let’s cross fingers that my problems are solved.

Virgin Mobile likes to send me a million updates to let me know when my bill is due. Every month is goes like this.

• I receive two texts — from different numbers — that my bill is due ten days prior.
• I receive an email stating the same.
• I receive an email three days before my bill is due to remind me again.
• I receive two texts three days before — from different senders.
• I receive a text on the night before my bill resets, letting me know it does so at midnight.
• I get a text when I pay my bill.
• I receive an email the day after telling me that if I haven’t paid my bill, it is late.

I mean, this is excessively ridiculous. What the fuck.

I don’t think that this is a healthy relationship.

I woke up to some very sad news. Of course, I had to go read about it. As with anything related to guns and shootings, and especially those involving children because they pull at folks’ heartstrings, I signed on to Facebook and saw a few messages about gun control.

Wisconsin somewhat recently signed into action a concealed carry law. We’re really one of  the last states to do so. There was a lot of drama surrounding it, and I had no idea we were the minority before the change. I thought everyone else was with us about concealed carrying, and I was pretty against it. But this isn’t about concealed carry. Yes, we can assume that Connecticut has a similar law just because of the numbers but, let’s be honest, making concealed carry illegal wouldn’t have changed anything.

And this post is interesting coming from me. A year ago, I wouldn’t have posted anything of this nature. I would’ve firmly been in the other camp.

Here goes.

Dude took his mother’s guns. They were legally purchased, mind you. He was probably already breaking some laws by having so many on him, but I don’t know for sure. It wouldn’t surprise me. He then killed his mother at home. That’s definitely illegal. Then, he drove to a school zone with these guns. Also illegal. No question about it. Entering that school and slaughtering those children and employees. That is also illegal but no more illegal than the string of illegal thing he’s already done.

Without a concealed carry law, he would’ve been breaking just one more law, and it wouldn’t even be the more significant law on the list. One more or less law would not have prevented this from happening — if those laws are aimed at citizens. Why? Because this sort of thing is a symptom and not the case. It is a symptom.

The cause, according to many people, is a lack of proper mental healthcare in the United States. I don’t disagree with this. I don’t know that it would have prevented this from happening 100%, but it may have gone a long way to deter the Sandy Hook school shooting and other incidents from happening. But I don’t think that’s the bigger issue.

The bigger issue is that this all started with perfectly legal activity, and that activity is the purchase of gun’s. Its easy. It’s too easy because we don’t dig into mental health histories enough, and perhaps if we had more stringent mental healthcare, there’d be more detailed histories to dig into to begin with. But guns are easy to buy. It’s easy to buy multiple guns. It’s easy to get your hands on a gun because, even if you didn’t buy one, maybe your mom did.

People use school shootings as ammunition — pardon the pun — to stoke the fire. They argue that this is exactly why you need to buy a gun. To protect your own. I disagree. Who, in their right mind, would think arming a bunch of people in a school would have made this any better?

Many people who own guns don’t own them in the right ways. They don’t keep them locked up. They don’t make sure that they’re the only people who can get to them. As long as that happens, more people buying guns won’t help. So, I guess I’d argue that licensing should be more difficult. But it’s not.

And it’s not for a reason. That reason? Firearms as an industry is fucking profitable. Not for me or you, of course, but for some guy who owns the companies or a politician who made a deal with them. Probably a middle-aged white dude. A Republican. The kind of CEO whose interest is paying less taxes than you and me. I guess I’m getting political but, perhaps, in a different way. To me, it’s easy to see that the issue isn’t gun control on a personal level but on a corporate level. Make it harder to get guns into peoples’ hands by reducing the number of firearms in circulation. Make it less profitable for the companies, and that will happen in an instant.

I’m not saying that gun trade won’t move to the black market, but it’s already there, and people like Adam Lanza don’t even have to go that far to get guns, but if he had to? Maybe that would’ve been the inconvenience that stopped him altogether or put his plan on hold long enough for someone to discover it. Maybe not. But a lack of a law that lets people carry concealed weapons wouldn’t have accomplished anything in this situation.

I know my mother wasn’t the only parent who held a child extra close last night. I know I wasn’t the only one shocked. I know that concern is pouring out from every corner of the globe. My thoughts, like yours, are with the community of Newton, Connecticut and the families who lost loved ones at Sandy Hook. Whatever arguments occur or changes happen as a result of this aside, that is true.

There’s been a little buzz about the odd decision of Twitter to rein in use of its API. Services don’t usually go from open to closed; it’s often the other way. The day came and went with no major issues. I use Twitter’s official app on my mobile devices, and Echofon works just fine in Firefox. It wasn’t until I was looking at one of my websites that I realized Twitter wasn’t showing up. I checked another. Nada. I checked the last one with Twitter? Guess what? Nothing.

Granted, the Twitter for WordPress widget hadn’t been updated in some time, so WordPress and the author can take some blame for not paying attention and continuing to list it. It’s my fault for not checking my websites as frequently, but it was a good solution. I liked that widget. Simple. Clean. Easy to use?

Have you seen the official Twitter widget? It’s hideous! Want proof? Look to your left?

Done gouging out your eyes? Sorry about that.

But the closed API and Twitter’s refusal to provide RSS feeds for our accounts means I don’t have a lot of options until someone makes something else.

The widget looks so much better on Her Realm than it does Reviews by Cole. I’m really lucky that it looks as good as it does.. and I hate saying that.

So, there’s not much point to this. Thanks for not letting me know my site was broke, readers. Thanks for being out of the loop widget author. Thanks for making it hard to show updates on my site, Twitter.

You.all.suck!