BunkBlog

FAA Considering Passenger Ban

WASHINGTON, DC–Seeking to address “the number-one threat to airline security,” the Federal Aviation Administration announced Monday that it will consider banning passengers on all domestic and international commercial flights.
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Just for Lysa.

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” – Sir Richard Steele
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Updated the templates page on my site. I added a couple new types of images that are quick and easy to make, as well as adding a description of what is customizable in each type.

C’mon, you know you need a new icon!
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Citibank has got to have the most annoying automated systems on the planet. I know they are a large company, and therefore need to use automation to make their workload manageable, but come on!

In February, we moved into the house and we somehow misplaced the Citibank bill and so missed a payment. They automatically kicked in the “penalty rate” which meant our 9% card went to 24.99%. In the old days (like 1995), you could call a company, they’d say, “Well, you have a perfect payment history and a six thousand dollar balance, so we’re making all kinds of money from you. We won’t fuck you after all.” When talking to these chuckleheads, though, they said there was nothing they could do. FMITGA.

Now, after much financial legerdemain, I ended up with a balance due which is larger than the credit limit. This is, of course, partially due their arbitrarily lowering my limit by 600 dollars, but that’s not important. The statement is dated 14 October, and it is two days later. It says the due date is 7 November. I got a call today from their automated collections machine telling me to call them. I call them and ask, “Is it past due?” No. “Then I’ll pay it when it is due.” This resulted in much back-and-forth in which the idiot on the other end claimed my statement (which is all-electronic now so I can’t refer to it when I’m on the phone with moron-girl) was dated 4 October, and that my two payments in this cycle actually paid on separate bills, so I need to give them money now. I ask again, “Is it past due?” The answer is still no, so I tell her that I have nothing more to say, and she says the automated calls will continue until I pay the bill. Well, I’ll pay it when my budget says I pay it, and that is in November, when the damned thing is DUE.

I’ve since looked at my online statement, it shows two payments on this statement, both applied to this billing cycle, and the statement date is 14 fucking October.

I have only one prejudice – I hate stupid people. I hate them with a passion not infinitesimal.
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Amazing what blocking just a few domains does to my spam load.
More »

It’s at least a few weeks old now, but the Mozilla-based Phoenix is new to most people, I’m sure. It’s on version 0.3, so it may not work for some things, but it’s fast, simple, and has a couple cool features.

Selective pop-up blocking – by default, all unrequested popup windows are blocked, but you can add specific sites to your “whitelist” of sites that you will allow popups from.

Selective image blocking – rather than the usual all-or-nothing approach to image loading, you can specify certain servers that you don’t want images from. Saves a lot of time when you block the advertising.com server, among others.

Of course, it also has tabs, like every browser but IE, and it allows you to set a minimum font size, also like everyone but Microsoft. I want my mouse gestures, though, so I’ll probably stick with Opera for now. It’s nice to see browser development is not stagnant, though.
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Dan Quayle
“[It’s] time for the human race to enter the solar system.”
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How is it possible for there to be so many Canucks on LJ, yet my site (which gets most of its hits from LJ) only has 2% users coming from .ca domains? Do Canadians usually use .com domains? Don’t you have ISPs that use .ca besides Sympatico?

It’s all very weird, and I don’t want to work so I’m going to pursue useless crap like this. 🙂
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I think this is cool, but I’m sort of weird.

Nutrition Action Health Letter has a section called “Right Stuff/Food Porn” that is amusing as hell. That’s where I discovered that the Pecanbon from Cinnabon, although a taste treat, has 890 calories. Yes, one roll has half your daily calorie intake. And you really don’t want to look at the fat content of that bad boy.
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You know that Don Henley song, Boys of Summer? There’s a line in there about a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac. I recently saw the 21st century version – a No Fear sticker on a Jaguar. Of course, the Jag was being driven by someone who appeared to be 15, so I’m assuming it was a lieutenant that had used his commissioning loan to buy an overpriced car.

Another weird car I saw this weekend – a Dodge Stratus with a double-decker wing bolted to the trunk. Ranks up there with tricking out a Geo Metro for “WTF” factor.
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Sorry to the two people I told would get userpics Friday afternoon. Make that Monday.
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Yeah, I took one of those silly quizzes to wake up this morning.

Which Personality Disorder Do You Have?
brought to you by Quizilla
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Just ate most of an ultimate bacon cheeseburger and all the fries from a Gag-in-a-Bag meal. Oh, me so torpid!
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Watching “Just Shoot Me” tonight, it occured to me that Rena Sofer should really never try to fake a New Jersey accent. It comes and goes.

Also, if there were ever a doubt who is the star of that show, one merely needs to look at Laura San Giacomo in a tight sweater. Wooh!
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Yet another new store with a simple design.
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From a review of Red Hat 8, the mildly off-topic quote which follows really amused me.

I do not like the idea that my government has enacted a law that turns me into a criminal for watching on my own computer a movie I paid for unless I do so using an operating system that same government acknowledges as an illegal monopoly (note that I’m not bashing Microsoft, just pointing out the absurdity of criminalizing me if I choose for moral reasons not to support a criminal corporation).

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Grabbed the trailer, having fun. Expect a couple more tomorrow.

Pretty cool, eh? If you want it, use it.
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I find it amusing that half the feature articles written in Windows-oriented computer magazines can be summed up with the line, “How to make Windows stop doing stupid shit and behave like a normal person would expect it to.”

Wonder why the vaunted Microsoft usability studies never pick up on these things.
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Ever get something in your head that you must exorcise?

In a silly conversation in which Kristy smacked me around, I remembered the quote, “Fresno? Nobody goes to Fresno anymore!” But now I can’t find the source for the quote. It was a movie or song from the mid-80s, and I’ve found two references to people quoting it via Google, but no source document.

ARGH! Does anyone remember where that came from? Was it “Valley Girl” or what?

Update – it was from Airplane.
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pointed out this wonderfully inane petition. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from one of the petitioners:

i pray every day that mr jackson will see the light and pull the plug on this project. Mr Tolkien if that is his indead his real name does not seem to be a very christian person to be so cynically cashing in on this tragedy.

Yeah, Tolkien is so cynical and taking advantage of a tragedy, 29 years after he died. He was a freakin’ psychic, apparently, who knew that his 1954 book would be made into a movie a year after two towers were destroyed in a terrorist bombing using technology that didn’t even exist when he wrote the book.

The majority of the folks who signed that petition in support have no grasp of English, much less of literature. Astounding how clueless folks can be.
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