FolkRockFan

Wow. I'm glad that everyone is okay.There are lots of excuses for not wearing a seat belt. None of them, though, are convincing enough for me to go without my belt. I'd rather have a cracked rib, or some other such injury, from the belt than be ejected from the car.

I like Locks of Love, though I haven't ever donated my hair. (It hasn't been long enough for that in YEARS.) I do, though, encourage people who can donate to do so, as it's a great idea. My grandma had breast cancer when I was very young (six or seven). I remember her having all sorts of wigs in the house - and how it really helped her be able to go out in public without feeling as uncomfortable or embarrassed.I sometimes volunteer at a local spay/neuter clinic. They're open one day a week (Tuesdays) and spay/neuter peoples' cats and dogs all day long. This is a really great deal for the community because we are the second-poorest county in the entire state. Not too many families are above poverty level. So being able to have the pets sterilized at a fraction of the local vets' charges (they start at 60 to 80 bucks just to neuter a tomcat) really helps a lot of people.

Are you concerned about losing WEIGHT or INCHES?Because if you exercise more, you'll develop your muscles. They weigh more than fat. So you'll step onto your scale and be discouraged because it will seem like you're not doing anything productive.When I first joined the Army, I weighed about 120 pounds. I was at an ideal weight for my height and all that. But six months later, I weighed 150 pounds. Was I fat? No. I had muscle that I'd never even seen before in my entire life *grins* And I was in the best shape of my life. It was actually easier for me to run with the extra 30-odd pounds on my body than it had been for me to run as a civilian with fewer pounds (because my civilian self was in far worse shape).But if you exercise to burn the fat, you'll lose inches around your waist (which is usually where people focus when trying to get into better shape).Remember that it will take some time before you start seeing results. Your body has to adjust to the new exercise routine as well as to the new diet. If you pick healthy foods and exercise on a regular basis, your body will get used to the changes and start burning fat.

My e-mail account doesn't really need a bunch of storage space. I don't save many files or e-mails - just a couple of pictures here and there and important e-mails. All told, I would probably be just fine with, oh, 20MB of storage space or so.But that's part of the reason why Yahoo! Mail can give unlimited space at this point. They can count on users like me to take up just a tiny bit of space. There will of course be people who will use tons and tons of storage space, but Yahoo! is prepared for them...or at least they'd better be if they're offering unlimited space :lol:And yeah - this is a good move to attract more users. Will GMail follow suit? Of course. When? I don't know. For all I know, Google started planning for unlimited storage space before Yahoo! did.

Having blood drawn isn't too bad. Just close your eyes, take a deep breath and think of something pleasant. :lol:But really...as far as my experiences with it have gone...it doesn't hurt any worse than a mosquito bite. Heck, getting a tattoo hurts more than having blood drawn (and tattooing doesn't really hurt that much).

Yeah - attacking people who don't agree with your personal choices is probably a bad idea. It certainly doesn't encourage others to respect your beliefs. :lol:But, hey, go Linux all you want. I'm all for capitalism and free enterprise. Oh...and back to the topic at hand: one can also purchase legal copies of MS Word through Web sites like pacificgeek.com - right now 2000 is 21 bucks, plus shipping. I'm pretty sure that the software is still sealed, but don't quote me on that. If it is, then that's a pretty good deal as far as I'm concerned.

I picked up a lot of HTML knowledge from htmlgoodies.com. The guy who runs the site gives pretty clear advice, writes great tutorials and often adds new stuff to the site. He covers HTML, JavaScript, et cetera, so even if you already know the basics, you can still visit the site again and learn something new. Not that I often follow that advice or anything *grins*

I doubt that he'll be given access to computers in prison. And I would not be surprised if a condition of his release is that he cannot own or use computers for x amount of time (if not the rest of his life - just depends, I suppose). But at the same time: I also would not be surprised if, once this guy is released, he goes right back to doing what he was doing. All that money he was making just for working on a computer has got to be a very powerful lure to a guy like him.

I can't say that I'm a big fan of this idea.While I understand and appreciate the practical applications - such as helping to solve crimes by reading lips from security-camera footage - I also think about the possibilities that this technology has for the rest of us (as in: non criminals).I don't care that I'm recorded on security cameras when I'm in the mall, grocery store, et cetera. But if I'm having a conversation with somebody in the store, I'd rather not have a lip-read transcript of that on anybody's record. I don't discuss anything illegal or whatever, but still. I'd like to maintain a tiny bit of privacy. (One can argue that, if I talk in public, people around me can overhear. Yeah, of course they can. But they probably aren't transcribing and recording my conversation.)

I'm American, but I take the European approach - eating small meals several times a day. I figure that, if my body is hungry, I should feed it something. They aren't regular-sized portions, though. When I go to a restaurant, even when I haven't eaten in HOURS and am ready to chow down on the entire menu, I can eat maybe half of the regular-sized portion. Good thing takeout containers are easy to get

I'm always amazed when we manage to increase Internet speed by any significant number. I don't know why it still impresses me - I mean, we've had high-speed Internet for years now and there have been many improvements during that time. But it's still neat to hear about what we're figuring out.

Also: check your colors. I hate seeing Web sites with, say, lime-green backgrounds and yellow text. Yes, it's cool to do some background other than white, but make sure that it's not hard on the eyes.

One source reported that this spammer was brought up on charges of identity theft - which is part of the reason why the case is being taken so seriously.Because he used zombie computers - systems that were taken over - to spam the snot out of the entire Internet, the identity theft charges are valid. He impersonated a bunch of other people - stole their identities - to send out garbage e-mails.He deserves to sit in prison for a while because he intentionally and willfully broke a whole bunch of laws. That's the penalty for being a criminal. If one does not want to go to prison, then one should find an honest profession. I suggest becoming a pawnbroker or starting a payday-advance place. Either one is a legal form of extortion: one that can make somebody wealthy. (Not that I like either business - just saying.)

I'll refrain from telling any bunny stories because our rabbits were not raised as pets.But it's interesting that your school lets you have rabbits in the dorms - that's pretty cool, actually. When I lived in the dorms at my school, we could have fish and...fish. That was it. I declined to adopt any because I don't particularly care to invest time, energy and money in a "pet" that does nothing but dirty up its house, eat the food and occasionally stare at me.

I would have a visit with a nutritionist/dietician. S/he can help you figure out your ideal weight, discuss the best foods for your body's needs, et cetera.Skipping meals only makes things worse. You walk around being hungry and faint, dizzy and nauseated, because your body is trying to tell you that it needs fuel to burn. If you eat food that's good for you, exercise on a regular basis, et cetera, your weight is not likely to be an issue. (Some people have health problems that negate this statement, though.)And remember that your body *does* need some of the "crud foods" out there. We have to have some salt, sugar, et cetera. We don't need a ton of it, so it's not a good idea to live on fast food and soft drinks. :lol:As for exercise: it stinks. I do not exercise just for the sake of exercising. I have to find something that I like doing. So I walk, which is actually fun because I live in the country and have lots of interesting things to see (trees, wild animals, the creek, et cetera). Or I ride my skates/bike. Or I play baseball. All of these things are good for my body without sucking the fun out of my day

Well...now I've had the glasses for a few weeks and am used to them. I'm feeling a LOT better. The eyestrain is pretty much gone, as are the headaches and the other problems that I was having. Even though I'll have to spend money on my eyes for the rest of my life (or invest in laser surgery, maybe), it's well worth it to me because I'm much more comfortable.Another interesting thing I wanted to mention was a conversation that I had with the eye doctor. We somehow got on the subject of kids and their eyesight. He said that many of his youngest patients had been diagnosed with a learning disability of some sort - ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, et cetera. But some of them, he said, did not show any signs of their disabilities once they got used to their glasses.Some people really do have learning disabilities, of course. But in some cases, it's an incorrect diagnosis. But either way, an eye doctor needs to get a good look at a kid's eyes.

I like the occasional adrenaline rush, but I don't often go out of my way for one :lol:One thing that I want to mention, though, is the future. I have a bad knee courtesy of various sports, military service, et cetera. I walk fine, most of the time anyway, but I'm getting a bit older now and have to really think before I do too many things. If I tweak it the wrong way, well, I get to go in for another surgery.My point is just that, if you're an active person - which is good because our bodies need exercise and adrenaline is not a bad thing in itself - that you all try to take care of yourselves as best you can. Wear protective gear, warm up and cool down...you know...the boring stuff that isn't fun at all. It sounds lame, I know, but you'll appreciate it ten years from now.

I like tight-knit communities and neighborhoods. I don't want to live RIGHT next to somebody else's house (I live in the country, with a few hundred feet between households - perfect if you ask me), but I like knowing my neighbors. Only two other households exist off my private road. The people are nice and we're fairly good friends with one of the families.What I'm getting at is that sometimes it's nice to have people who are trying to help look out for each other. I'm not saying that we should be all over each other's business - but showing that we actually care about what's going on with the people around us is not in itself a bad thing.I can't really say, to the OP, whether I think the neighbor woman is nosy or just concerned. I wasn't there and don't know how she acts the rest of the time. There's a difference between caring and being overly involved in another person's business. I tend to appreciate the former and be annoyed by the latter.

I used to play Tetris all the time - back when the NES version was still THE Tetris game to play :lol:However: I have not come anywhere close to beating any version. I'm not that good :DBut I know one woman who did beat the NES version. She took a picture of the TV screen and everything. Back then, I was a kid and was friends with her son, who was my age. So it was a little weird because somebody's Mom was better at video games than we were. (She could beat just about any NES or SNES game out there - couldn't play newer systems because they gave her headaches for some weird reason.)

Um...because I actually LIKE Microsoft, maybe? Gripe about Gates's corporate ethics all ya want, but the fact remains that his word processor isn't a bad piece of software. And XP was stable by the time I got around to upgrading, so I haven't had enough problems to make complaining worth my time.

Actually, you can legally get MS Word at a fraction of the retail price - or even for free - if:You are a student and;Your school/college/university is a participant in Microsoft's student-licensing program.You can purchase (or get for free) a "student copy" of Word through your school's computer store. That's how I (legally) acquired MS Word 2000 for 20 bucks and XP Pro for five dollars.But that's the only legitimate way that I know about. I like Open Office too, though. That's free to everybody and is very much like MS Word. Except for being free and loading a bit faster on many computer systems.

Most of the veterans in my family were U.S. Army. My grandfather was wounded in Italy during WWII. My father served as an X-Ray technician in Vietnam. I was Military Intelligence (in training - was supposed to go to Korea, but destroyed my left knee and came home instead). But I have a cousin in the Navy (also Military Intelligence - we even had the same MOS) and another cousin's ex-husband was in the Air Force.It's not *expected* that we join the military when we're of age - plenty of family members have not joined, and that's fine with us - but it's certainly respected. We're just that kind of family, I guess.

I once had a pastor proclaim that ALL music save for old-school gospel was of the devil. That's patently untrue, of course, but I agreed to the extent that there ARE some bands and musicians who are not exactly, um, wholesome. But that's not a genre problem: every type of music includes bands/musicians like that. And they all contain wholesome, non-devil-worshiping people too.Generalizations - especially broad ones (like calling an entire genre Satanic) aren't often correct, or even close to it.Besides: there are more than a few Christian metal bands out there who are pretty good. I like Christian rock too, among other things (including a lot of types of secular music). One must also look closely at each band or musician before passing judgment. Marilyn Manson, for example, is an honorary member of the Church of Satan. Now, hearing that can make some people freak out. Brian Warner worships the devil! Um...no. The Church of Satan (Anton LaVey's creation) does not even believe that God and Satan really exist. So no...they don't worship the devil. But when one does not do a little bit of thinking and investigating, one can be led to believe just about any false thing.

If you want to be part of the team, you should live up to the obligations that come with that privilege.Should you make the team, you'll probably have LOTS of practices before school - and some after, I'm sure. Plus weekend games, travel time, et cetera.Getting up early is tough - I'm not a morning person at all, myself - but when we want something enough, we find a way to make it happen. :)Besides: the more you practice and work, the better you'll be when it comes time to try out. And the coaches and other adults will be more familiar with your skills, your attitude, et cetera, which can really help when it comes time to pick out players

Today's an important day to me. None of my family were killed while serving, but several of us are veterans. So we take a few minutes away from the fun, three-day weekend full of barbecues and other fun things to pay tribute to the men and women all over the world (not just the U.S. military) who have given everything that they could.