redllama.net

E-mail Etiquette

About a year ago, a friend forwarded me one of those stupid chain e-mails that threatens me with death by a million Spider Monkey bites, or what have you. He might as well have forwarded to about 90 percent of northern Virginia, because my e-mail address has been obtained by the walking disaster that is Tracee. If you don’t know her, you can now breathe a sigh of releif.

Traycee is notorious for sending chain mail, advertisements for random parties, opinions on politics, and just about anything she finds that she thinks somebody (anybody?) might take an interest in, which would be fine and easy to ignore… if it were only her that sent them. I’ve attempted to talk her into using the “BCC” line when sending her mass communications, but my efforts have been to no avail.

Today, I log in to my Yahoo! account to find 50 messages from her and other people originally included in the “To:” line of her original e-mail. 50 messages!!

Naturally, I reply to all and ask that I please be removed from their responses because, frankly, I don’t even know who they are. Immediately following, I get a reply from another stranger in her address book saying “please remove me as well”. Idiots.

Today in Weird News:

Typically, I’d only pick one story to share, bu these were all too good:

[quote]

Woman charged with hitting police horse

AUSTIN, Texas (UPI) — A Texas woman has been charged with assaulting a police officer and his horse during a scuffle outside an Austin bar.

Corsha Beasley, 21, was being held in lieu of $30,000 bail, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

Police responding to a 911 call were trying to break up a crowd outside the Bayou Lounge early Sunday. Beasley allegedly refused to move and instead took off a shoe and used it to hit Dusty, the police horse, near his left eye.

When the officer tried to grab the shoe to keep Beasley from hitting the horse, she allegedly hit him in the face as well.

Beasley faces a second-degree felony charge, interfering with a police service animal, and a third-degree felony, assault on a police officer.[/quote]

[quote]

Air guitarists jam in Seattle
SEATTLE (UPI) — Costumed performers, including an undercover Microsoft employee, gathered sans instruments in Seattle to compete in the U.S. Air Guitar Championships tour.

The Jose Cuervo-sponsored event at Chop Suey involved air guitar devotees strumming along to music without actual guitars as part of the 24-stop tour aimed at creating a Team USA air guitar team to compete in Finland in August, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Tuesday.

“Some people have football season — I have air guitar season,” said Garth Donald, a youth-shelter worker and air guitar veteran. He said the skill requires “years and years, and beers and beers” to perfect.

However, some performers said they had less pride in their chosen performance art.

One performer, “Red Hot,” identified himself as a Microsoft employee. He said he did not want to give his real name because he feared what coworkers might think of his hobby.

“I’ve only been here two weeks — I want to have a career or something,” he said.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
[/quote]

So that’s why John and Crystal bought those plane tickets to Seattle!

[quote]‘WTF’ plate on N.C. DMV Web site
RALEIGH, N.C. (UPI) — The North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles says it did not realize a sample license plate on its Web site bore letters that stand for a vulgar phrase.

State officials offered free replacement license plates in 2007 to nearly 10,000 people whose plates bore the letter combination “WTF,” which is common text messaging shorthand for a phrase that includes a four-letter profanity beginning with the letter “F,” The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer reported Tuesday.

However, the DMV discovered this week that a plate bearing the letters appears on its Web site as an example of a personalized plate.

“I can’t believe it,” DMV Commissioner Bill Gore said. “Obviously, I didn’t know it was there.”

Officials said Monday the image should be replaced on the Web site within the next day.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International[/quote]

This Is For All My Ninjas

[quote]June 26, 2008

In a town near Atlantic City, schools went into lock down after the report
of a ninja in the woods… near an elementary school. The ninja had been
spotted running, carrying a sword like they were on some kind of mission,
like a ninja. Turned out to be a camp counselor… on the way to a
costume party. When police caught up with him, the ninja said he
was going through the woods as a short cut because he was late
for the party.[/quote]

Wait a second! The police actually caught a ninja?! What am I thinking, they arrest ninjas every day. Usually have an APB out on them too. “The suspect is between 5′2″ and 6′11″, nearly 150 to 275 lbs, most likely brandishing a weapon, and allllll black.

Conventional

A man boarded an airplane and took his seat. As he settled in, he glanced up and saw the most beautiful woman boarding the plane. He soon realized she was heading straight towards his seat. As fate would have it, she took the seat right beside his.

Eager to strike up a conversation he blurted out, “Business trip or pleasure?”
She turned, smiled and said, “Business. I’m going to the Annual Nymphomaniacs of

America Convention in Boston. ”

He swallowed hard. Here was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen sitting next to him, and she was going to a meeting of nymphomaniacs. Struggling to maintain his composure, he calmly asked, “What’s your business role at this convention?”

“Lecturer,” she responded. “I use information that I have learned from my
personal experiences to debunk some of the popular myths about sexuality.”

“Really?” he said. “And what kind of myths are there?”

“Well,” she explained, “One popular myth, is that African-American men are the most well-endowed of all men, when in fact it is the Native American Indian who is most likely to possess that trait. Another popular myth is that Frenchmen are the best lovers, when actually it is men of Jewish descent who are the best. I have also discovered that the lover with absolutely the best stamina is the Southern Redneck.” Suddenly the woman became a little uncomfortable and blushed. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I shouldn’t really be discussing all of this with you. I don’t even know your name.”

“Tonto,” the man said, “Tonto Goldstein , but my friends call me Bubba.”

Kobe, Tell Me How My Ass Tastes

I hate when people refer to rapping as freestyling. If Shaq was freestyling off the top of his head, how does the guy next to him know what Shaq is going to say and have the ability to sing along with him? Mildly entertaining none the less.

[url=http://www.break.com/index/shaqs-anti-kobe-rap.html]Shaq’s Anti Kobe Rap[/url]
[i]For a guy who put out some seriously bad rap CDs a couple years ago I gotta admit Shaq isn’t half bad as he freestyle disses Kobe.[/i]

Don Imus, Again? Geez.

First off this is just stupid. Talking about “Pacman” Jones, Imus asked, “What color is he?” “He’s African-American,” the host is informed by one of his on-air sidekicks, Warren Wolf. “Well, there you go,” Imus said. “Now we know.”

Are you kidding me? This is offensive? Maybe he’s just stupid but, that’s his own fault.

My first question is, “Why is he on the radio?” He sucks, he got fired, everyone was happy or didn’t care either way, and then they felt bad and rehired him. This old fuck just needs to retire already. “Who the hell listens to him?” It seems that if any one does listen to him, it’s just to wait until he screws up. Or hang him out to dry, pun intended. Radio shows have a dump button. Just in cause someone cusses or talks in detail about a subject matters that shouldn’t be over the air waves. Why don’t his “racial” comments get dumped?

Peak Fuel Efficiency

Here it goes one more time… mainly for the ladies.

1) [b]Fill Up Smart[/b]
[i]Fill up your vehicle during the coolest part of the day. With older pumps that don’t have a temperature-compensating flow meter, fuel is denser when it’s cool, so you actually get more for your money when you pump gas in the early AM instead of filling up at 5:30PM on your way home from work.[/i]

2) [b]Keep Your Car Clean[/b]
[i]It doesn’t just look good, it actually lowers the wind resistance of your vehicle. No, not by much, but every little bit helps, remember? More importantly, clean out the inside of your vehicle, particularly any unnecessary boxes of heavy junk you have in the hatch/trunk/backseat. By removing weight, you can improve fuel economy.[/i]

3) [b]Check Your Tire Pressure[/b]
[i]Underinflated tires take more energy to push down the road so check your tire pressure often. Invest a few dollars in a good dial-type tire pressure gauge and use it to check your tire pressure once a week. Even if the pressure is only a couple PSI low, you’re burning a lot more fuel than you need to.[/i]

4) [b]Change The Air Filter[/b]
[i]If your engine’s wheezing and has to work harder bringing in the air it needs to burn fuel efficiently, it doesn’t complain to you. It simply burns more fuel. By replacing your air filter annually, or biannually if you live in a dusty area, you’ll ensure the engine can breathe freely. Consult your owner’s manual for filter changing instructions — it’s usually a straightforward process. While it won’t save you dollars per fill-up, it could save you at least the price of an air filter each year depending on your mileage.[/i]

5) [b]Replace Your Spark Plugs[/b]
[i]Worn spark plugs can’t ignite the air/fuel mixture in your engine as effectively, resulting in more fuel used for a given amount of power produced. Depending upon the vehicle you drive, your spark plugs may need to be changed as often as yearly or as rarely as once a decade or so. Again, consult your owner’s manual for details. Note that we’re now getting into “real work.” If you drive an older vehicle with an inline engine, changing plugs can be done in as little as an hour. A transverse V6, like that commonly found on minivans and domestic sedans, can be an entirely different story involving bloody knuckles, part removal, flex sockets, and extensive cursing. If your car is due for plug replacement and you’re not up to the task, a competent shop should be able to do the work for a reasonable fee.[/i]

Google Reader & CraigsList

Here’s a quick and painless way to search CraigsList. Some of you guys already use RSS readers. I kinda like Google’s. It’s web based and I can check from anywhere, duh. It’s right there so, I also check it after I check my email.

Here’s a quick and dirty example of how I set up a search.

1) Go to [url=http://www.crazedlist.org]crazedlist.org[/url]. If you don’t know what crazedlist is, shame on you. For you morons, it lets you search multiple CraigsList regions at once.

2) Learn how to use keywords. For example, if you wanna find images of cute dogs just like yours on Google Images, don’t search for “doggie”. If you then think that because you dog is black, and that narrowing your search down to “black doggie” will help, it won’t.

I’m going to search for mopeds. So, my keywords will be “moped”. But I don’t want scooters. So now it’s “moped -scooter”. I also don’t want a moped that needs work or engine or paint. Now I’m at “moped -scooter -needs”. Nothing should be stuck, “moped -scooter -needs -stuck”. And I want it to be 49cc or 50cc not 100cc or 110cc. “moped -scooter -needs -stuck -100cc -110cc”. A listing might not mention the cc’s but if it does, I don’t want 100cc or 110cc, that’s why I excluded those.

Now we have our keywords…

3) Select you category and sub category if you so wish. Mine is “sale/wanted” and “motercycle/scooter”. Add your min and max also if you want. I didn’t. I also left “pics” and “titles only” unchecked.

4) Select the regions you wish to search. I figured a search of the surrounding states would be OK. To quick select those, in the “select…” dropdown I selected “north east”. Then unchecked CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI and VT. I find it easier to spot and remove the highlighted and selected items that it is to hunt and check all the unselected states. Clicking the states link itself checks/unchecks the whole state. I then added NC for the hell of it, since it’s close by, sorta.

5) Click the orange “Get RSS Feed” button.

6) You then should see a “To get the OPML file right-click on [u]this link[/u][color=blue][/color] to [b]Save Link As…[/b]“. Do that. I’m saving mine as “moped.opml”. Like the directions say, it might default to something like “index.cgi”. Change it to “whatever.opml”.

7) Now go over to [url=http://www.google.com/reader/]Google Reader[/url]. Log in if needed. Create an account if needed.

In the upper right hand corner click “Settings”. Then click the “Import/Export” tab.

9) Select your “.opml” file and upload.

10) Now that your subscriptions are all imported. Go to the “Subscriptions” tab.

11) In the top right hand corner there is a text box that helps you filter the subscriptions listed. Filter your list by entering the a keyword you just looked up. Mine being “moped”. I now have 52 subscriptions listed.

12) Along the right hand side on ever listing there’s a dropdown labled “Add to a folder…”. Click on that and choose “New Folder…”. Call it whatever. Mine is “Mopeds”.

13) Under the tabs there are a couple links. Click “All ?? subscriptions” to select all the listed subscriptions.

14) After all your subscriptions are checked, in the “More actions…” dropdown, select the folder name you just created under “Add tag…”. To the right, under each “Add to a folder…”, you should see the folder/tag name in grey.

Now if you go back to the reader home page, you’ll see your folder with all the different subscriptions listed. And your done.

Beware of "Light Show"

I received confirmation from a friend with ABC that there is to be a red and blue themed light show tonight in the west Springfield area between 12 and 3 am. I’m guessing they’ll hit up the usual spot in front of St. Bernadette’s.

If your planning a Friday night happy hour, better cab it home.

No Kicks on Route 66?

Anyone else notice how Google Maps never uses I-66 as road to travel on? It can’t be because of the HOV restrictions. That would be super mega happy retarded.