Comments with OpenID

I just tweaked the settings on all three my blogs to disallow anonymous comments but to allow OpenID.

• What is OpenID good for? It means you can use your LiveJournal login (or that of any other site that supports OpenID). You won't need to use a Google account if you don't have one.
• Isn't it insecure to share passwords? Yes, but you're not sharing a password. Google simply gets told whether or not the other website validated your account.
• How does it work? Click a comment page on this journal as normal. Then choose OpenID, enter your journal's URL (example: http://example.livejournal.com), and you'll be taken to LiveJournal and asked whether or not you want to validate your identity. Click yes and your comment will appear, complete with a free link back to your blog. Again, the only thing LJ tells Google is whether you clicked yes or no; no private information gets shared.
  
• But what if I don't want to use this? Then don't. You can still comment with your Google account. I just figured I'd give everyone another way of signing posts.
  

Decisions, decisions...

Given that I'm only about an hour's drive from where I'm delivering (about 35mi), I basically have two choices for tomorrow. I can either drive there, drop the trailer off (and pick up an empty if needed), then just come back to the OC and get to sleep... or I can stay up all night, take care of business, then have about 10 hours left that I can drive. If I go to bed early and stay on my current pattern, I'll at least stay consistent and won't be completely zombified; on the other paw, I can easily get ten hours or more of sleep, regardless of which option I choose.

Anyone want to give me a reason to be awake at a certain time? ;)

Offline for a few days

Since my cell phone plan doesn't include Canada, I'll be turning the phone off when I get to the border and won't turn it back on until I return to the US unless there's an emergency. The Toronto operating center will probably have wi-fi I can use, but if I stay north for any length of time, I may be a little hard to get a hold of. So just send me an e-mail if you need to get a hold of me; I always check those messages first when I get online.

Canada GO!

Yes, Canada. Due to work, I'll actually be up in Toronto.. quite possibly tomorrow evening, though I might wait until Wednesday to make the crossing near Buffalo, NY. So, does anyone near Buffalo or Toronto want to meet up? I can adjust my work plans accordingly. :)

Sex, relationships, etc.

A quick thought before I go inside to get some productive things done, like eating and such. Perhaps the reason that being a sex slave for someone appeals to me so much is that it seems to fulfill pretty much every psychological desire I have. I'd be cared by someone (in a weird sort of way, perhaps), have someone to care about, and wouldn't be sexually frustrated. And as a submissive, it's just more appropriate for me to be the slave instead of a master; I just don't think I could get in to that mindset for very long.


Just some food for thought before I get food for my belly.

Computer hatred

You know, I've gotten so fed up with Vista that I'm thinking of just scrapping it entirely in favor of Ubuntu. Why? Because when I fix something under Linux, it generally stays fixed; under Vista, repairing anything generally works for only a few days (or even hours) at a time before the exact same problem comes up, usually requiring a different fix. Of course, as this problem is in my networking settings, I may not even be able to sustain an Internet connection long enough to download Ubuntu anyway.

Tax rebates and fraud

Ah, dear old dad. And by "dear old dad" I mean "bastard who needs to stop trying to screw with my life." Yes, I've moved out, finished school, and generally don't have to deal with him very often any more. But because I was in college last year, he decided to claim me as a dependent on his taxes, which cost me about $75 of my refund. He said he was going to pay me back for that, but never did. Now I find out that any person who was claimed on someone else's return is ineligible for a tax rebate check, which costs me another $600 that I'd been counting on getting later this summer. I was already making travel plans that relied on having that extra money in the bank.

So after I go home next time,  I'm getting everything I have out of their house, finding a permanent place to park my car, and flipping the jackass the bird. I'm so sick of dealing with him that I'd rather not deal with family at all since I always get the worst deal out of anyone. I'm half tempted to call up the IRS and report him myself, just to try and help karma along. But either way, this is one hell of a bad note to start the morning off on.

Obsolescence

It seems that my very presence in the world is quickly becoming obsolete. It seems there are very few people that ever try to contact me themselves; usually I just find myself nearly begging just to get any attention at all. And yet it seems like most of the other people I know are constantly surrounded by friends when I simply have people turn away and ignore me without even telling me what I've done wrong. I wish I understood friendship - or relationships of any kind - well enough to actually make healthy relationships on my own.

I'm sure there are a few people there who just would love to rip me a new one for being depressed again. Instead of that, why don't you try to explain to me what 22 years of experience haven't made clear? I don't understand people. At all. And it just seems like I constantly find myself further away from everyone. I just wish I had someone who felt the same way about me as I do about any of my closest friends. I don't want a mate - at least, I think I don't, not in the way most people seem to take that - but still want someone who cares a lot and whom I care a lot about. I don't want to just disappear, as I know that's even more psychologically unhealthy than what I'm already going through. I don't want to end up with someone who wants to smother me and close me off from everyone else. I fear saying "love" and "mate" as they imply far too much, and yet can find no other words to describe what I want, despite the way I allegedly have with words.

But, ultimately, no matter how I try to phrase it, what I want are people (not just one) who care about me and that I can care just as passionately about, without us restricting one another's lives. People I know who will be there for me and that I can be there for without fear of rejection, or of being backstabbed, or of simply becoming obsolete.

Foxyfluffs are everything

Work seems to be nice with regards to me hanging out with people lately. First I had two days to hang out with Startide, now I'm with Matthais up here in Pennsylvania. We gorged ourselves on Outback pasta and now are watching the Discovery channel. Yay for TV. We've no plan for the evening and I'm not sure when I'm going to leave just yet, but I will have to take off some time in the morning since I do have places to be. Now I just have to hope we can actually think of something to do since both of us are pretty much out of it. :)

Back on the road

Startide dropped me back at the truck stop last night and I took off for the road again this morning. I very much enjoyed the time I had down there, though I wish it could have been longer. And already I'm feeling rather lonely and depressed out here; I do have a lot of time alone and not much to occupy my mind with...

OM NOM NOM

I'm hungry. Quizno's, anyone?

Technical difficulties

Apparently the problem was that the USB cable I use with my phone is damaged to the point of being unusable. I don't know how, as the cable for my hard drive (which I'm using now) appears to be in worse shape. I'll have to replace it when I go to Wal-Mart; thankfully, it's just a standard mini-USB cable.

Update

I think I've figured it out: my laptop suddenly doesn't support or recognize USB devices. My hard drive and mouse are also acting up. Grrrr...

I HATE WINDOWS

I was still fighting with Google maps, trying to get a useful set of directions, when my Internet connection dropped. Seeing as this happens due to network issues from time to time, I just consider it a frustration that comes with the territory. But unlike the usual, my connection never came back. My phone's Internet sharing (ICS) refused to work. Vista blamed a phone hardware issue; my phone said the problem was with the USB connection. Either way, I couldn't get my laptop online despite rebooting my phone. Only MS could design an OS so badly written that it requires rebooting a phone regularly. I'm trying to reboot my laptop now (which takes several minutes) while I write this on my phone. If ICS is still not working when I shut down tonight, I'm calling Sprint and telling them to either replace my phone with a model that doesn't have substantial design flaws and doesn't run Windows Mobile or to waive my early termination fee so I can switch to a provider that actually give s me the service I'm paying for. No matter what Sprint does with my contract, I will never buy another Microsoft product again. No more Windows Mobile. When I buy a new computer, I'll refuse the license agreement and send for a refund of the OS; retailers are required to offer that option to customers. I'm going to figure out Linux one way or another. What pisses me off most is that I should have been able to get directions in ten minutes, tops. Now, an hour later, I actually have less information than I did an hour ago. I always thought that the goal of technology was to make life easier or more enjoyable; this morning, it's done the opposite.

Google issues

You know that it's going to be one of those days when you can't even get Google maps to work. Seriously, I've typed in the exact address of this truck stop, but it still is asking me which business I want to use (since the Arby's inside has the same address). The truly frustrating part? No matter how many times I click on either one, it refuses to actually select one. It just keeps looping back to the same god damn "did you mean:" question. @#$(*

Update: Oh, it gets even cuter. I did a search just for directions from the truck stop to the first place I have to go, since clicking for directions "from here" ensures that it won't ask me what the address is supposed to mean. At least, it shouldn't have that problem. And it didn't. Instead, it just gave me an error: "We could not understand the location..." Now, to review, Google gave me a location that even it couldn't understand. *headdesk*

LiveJournal blocked?

Apparently, some time in the last few hours, LiveJournal was added to
the company's Internet access filter. So while I no longer post to the
site, this means I can't read anyone's journal there. Once again, I'll
just recommend that people start using other services. If nothing else,
I'll probably add most my my existing "friends list" to Google Reader,
only going back to LJ to occasionally check the journals of people who
have an annoying habit of using locked posts regularly.

Upcoming visit to Startide

Due to a rather interesting quirk with work (namely, I load I have an
entire /week/ to deliver, if I want to take that long), I'll be taking
two days off to visit Startide. It'll be the closest thing I get to time
at home this month, since I'll be visiting RMFC next month and that'll
use up all the "home" time I've accrued. Hopefully I'll be able to enjoy
my visit to the orca. :)

The "Call Me" Button

In the right column of this blog, there's a big, friendly "call me" button, provided by GrandCentral. If you actually want to hear what this minidragon sounds like, just click it, type your name and phone number, click call, and your phone will ring to connect us. It's free for me; I get free incoming calls on my cell phone. Also, as I turn my phone off at night, there's no risk of waking me, so feel free to try. I'll probably be up for another four to six hours and am in the mood to talk, so please click and call. :)

Breakfast

You know that you seriously need to improve your diet when you consider
two of Subway's double chocolate chip cookies to be a reasonable breakfast.

Self-control, or the lack thereof?

So here it is, nearly 11PM eastern time, and I'm still awake. Why?
Absolutely no useful reason; I could have gotten everything done today,
gotten a shower, and been in bed about two hours ago if I just could
have made myself do the important things first. Instead, I only now
finished up a trip plan for the next couple days and I have to decide
between getting a shower or actually getting a full night's sleep. I
really need to find some way of curtailing the amount of time I spend
online as it's seriously starting to have a negative impact on my work
life. Granted, there are times I can be online with no negative impact
on work - times where I /have/ to be awake and ready to go - but when
I'm on a break where I have to leave at a certain time, I struggle with
forcing myself to get off the computer at an early enough hour to allow
me to get the eight to nine hours of sleep my body seems to require just
to function in a nearly-normal way.

So, anyone out there have any suggestions for this? I do still need the
computer and my Internet connection for work-related functions (such as
looking at things on Google Maps), so simply getting rid of them isn't a
practical solution. How can I balance everything out?

Visiting Kilroy

Due to some good fortune with work assignments (for once), I actually
had a chance to hang out with another furry truck driver. Okay,
technically scaly; Kilroy is a firelizard, after all. We went to a hotel
to hang out, play Smash, eat pizza, and all those things that generally
happen when people have a good time. :) I've a little bit of work to do
now, but it looks like I'll be driving less than fifty miles today and
ending up right back here at Charlotte, where Kilroy's going to be
staying for at least one more day. So we're likely going to do the very
same again this evening.

On the off chance any other fur in Charlotte reads this and wants to
join us, leave a comment or just click that big "call me" button off to
the side. I probably won't answer the phone if I'm driving, but I'll
return any messages (online or otherwise) when I stop back here in a
couple hours.

A New Journal

Though I've had a LiveJournal account for years, a series of recent policy changes on that site and a desire to start afresh have led me to start this journal. Quite a few things have happened in the last three weeks or so, but I don't feel like writing about any of them right now. After a long day of work today, I don't feel like doing anything but sleeping. Still, over the next couple of days, I'll finish configuring this blog and make an effort to update it on a somewhat regular basis.

Obligatory disclaimer: This blog is unrated and uncensored. Just remember, if a post I make pisses you off, you can always go read something else. I curse frequently. I talk about things that "aren't appropriate for children." And I won't hesitate to call a jackass out when I see one. Don't like it? Then why are you still here?