Internet Weirdness GO!

I'm not sure if it looks more like a 1995 Geocities page or a modern MySpace page...

Anger Mis-management

Out of frustration with a very lengthy series of things going wrong, I threw my phone rather violently against the truck's passenger side door. It's not visibly damaged, aside from a button that snapped off, but it won't turn on. I've already filed for a replacement (thank goodness for insurance) and it should be at my parents' house before I get home, but that does mean that I am without a cell phone for the immediate future. Anyone can still call and leave a message on my GrandCentral account (the number starting with 6), and I'll still try to check my e-mail and such at any operating center I come to, but don't expect to see me online at all or update this again for about a week. I really need to talk to a psychologist about that..

GM crash

GM is at a 53 year low; it hasn't been s cheap since 1955. It's just 1/9 the size of McDonald's at its current market capitalization. Nearly everyone has a strong sell rating on the stock. Is the US auto industry really that bad? Discuss.

Furry Audio Books?

Assuming a group of people took works of furry fiction - adult and otherwise - and recorded them into audio files, would you be willing to purchase them? If so, what would you be willing to pay? Please vote in the poll in the right column on the website.

Racing and Religion

I took the day off today to just relax on a weekend. Since I haven't gotten to follow the Formula One season at all, I woke up exceptionally early (6:45AM) just to try and catch the race only to find out that the Grand Prix had been preempted by some TV evangelist, to be followed by Fox "News" Sunday. Why the fuck are they doing this, particularly in such a large television market? I've half a mind to call the station and ask what they think they're trying to do, particularly as the same program is shown on two different cable channels at the same time and two other broadcast networks have religious programming.

See, folks, this is the kind of crap that gets me to hate religion. I have no problem with it until it interferes with my way of life. This is a fairly big interference. Also, as Fox (technically, Speed, which is owned by Fox) is the main broadcaster in the US, that means that nobody at all in the area gets to watch. So whether or not we have any interest in religion, we don't get to watch the race. *grumbles*

Edit (11:45AM): Apparently Fox is going to air the race... at noon, five hours late. I understand it's better for ratings, but why not air it live as they do in every other country that gets it?

Anyone in St. Louis?

For the second weekend in a row, I'm taking a day off in Edwardsville, IL. I don't have any plans tomorrow, so might anyone want to meet up? Going to be a bored dragon otherwise. :)

Internet trouble

For some reason, my phone refuses to allow me to stay connected to the Internet for more than about two minutes at a time and it's really, really getting on my nerves. Anyone have any experience in trying to get Windows Mobile 6 and Windows Vista to play nice together? Or would I just be better off getting an air card of some sort and installing Linux?

Microsoft spam

I made the mistake of using my primary e-mail address as my login for MSN messenger. I've recently started getting "valuable offers" from Microsoft's various partners even though I never opted in to these things. So I went to the website, logged in, and unchecked all the various "communication preferences" they list, only to find that it would not save the page in Firefox. So I e-mailed them to complain about the incompatibility. I wasn't expecting a useful response, but I instead got a form letter asking me reply with the exact same information I'd provided on their website's form.

I then get another response, saying this:

Thank you for writing back to Windows Live Technical Support. My name is Riza and based on your message, you are unable to unsubscribe from any communications with Microsoft. I value the importance of your concern and I am here to assist you. Shira, for us to further investigate your issue, please write back with the sample of the e-mail you have received from Microsoft with the full headers of the source's e-mail, which is usually in a form similar to abuse@[implicated domain].com.

Now, how hard is it to unsubscribe someone from a mailing list that they never signed up for? Getting out of spam normally isn't even this hard, since it's a simple matter of marking a couple messages as spam to ensure that I never have to see them again. Of course, the suggestion that I respond to abuse@microsoft.com is rather absurd on its own; I'm already using the forms they provide on their website to complain about this. So, instead of forwarding any messages, I replied with this:

Or you can just unsubscribe me from your mailings and leave it at that. I've already deleted all the unsolicited e-mail I've received; why would I save something I never wanted in the first place? You are making it unreasonably difficult to unsubscribe.

They responded immediately to that! With this fantastically unhelpful message:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

LV_ID.WNLV.WW.00.EN.SYK.MNL.TS.T01.SPT.00.EM@css.one.microsoft.com

Technical details of permanent failure:

PERM_FAILURE: Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the
recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further
information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned
was: 550 550 5.7.1 <Your e-mail was rejected by an anti-spam content filter on
gateway (205.248.106.32). Reasons for rejection may be: obscene language, graphics,
or spam-like characteristics. Removing these may let the e-mail through the filter.>
(state 18).

So not only do they refuse to allow you to unsubscribe without jumping through hoops (or, more likely, using Internet explorer), they don't even allow incoming mail when someone has a complaint. It's no wonder that a large number people simply hate Microsoft; I'm quickly becoming one of them. I was able to make the unsubscribe page work in Opera, so this shouldn't be a problem again; if I get any more "partner offers" from Microsoft, I'll be closing my MSN account and telling anyone who contacts me there to use something that doesn't suck.

Depression

I spent all day looking forward to making it to where I've stopped tonight, in the hopes that I'd get to stay in a nice, cool hotel room for the evening, have a couple hours to get a shower and watch TV before a friend came over, spend some time enjoying his company, sleep, wake up, then hang out a bit more before the hotel's check out time. Instead, the hotel we have here is full for the night. And instead of trying to figure something else out, I end up too depressed to even care if I get to do any of the above. I spent 11 hours driving, nearly non-stop, spent all day looking forward to it... then one thing goes wrong, which sets off a chain reaction that makes me wonder why I even bothered. I haven't made a hotel reservation, don't have a shower, and didn't even bother ordering dinner.

If he calls and the phone wakes me up, there are a couple of other places that aren't entirely out of the question, though they're of the crappy Motel 6 variety and cost at least $15 more. If he doesn't call or the phone doesn't wake me up... well, it'll just validate how I'm feeling right now. I'm not entirely sure if I care. I know I should care but I just can't be bothered to. I just know that, regardless of where and how long I get to sleep, I'm going to wake up feeling like shit.

I have one and only one thing to say

TraitorPants™

Entirely bored

Wanted to at least leave a post here before bed. I'm now going to snore for about seven hours before getting up too-damn-early and getting a shower before driving off to the north.


Which OS are You?

*sigh*

Ever want something and feel like everyone can have it except you?

Obama's fist bump

Headline News just ran a four minute story attempting to explain the significance of the above. How is this news at all? Why are they airing this crap?

XML Styles?

I have some XML files (MSN messenger log files, to be exact) that I want to play with, but I don't have a style sheet to go with them. How can I write a sheet that would allow me to display the messages roughly as they would from a standard HTML log? I am fairly familiar with CSS, though I haven't worked with XML files before.

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