Government Wants To Know How Fat You Are

It looks like the Feds are now going to force health care providers to not only monitor, but report on your body-mass index so that they can "encourcage" you to loose weight. They even put a deadline on receiving ratings from all citizens by 2014. I'm not going to rant to you about how intrusive, and illegal, this is.

Well, okay, yes I will.

New Changes, New Resolve

The title to this post  is cheesy, but it's also catchy. Yes, I do have a new resolve to post, but I don't expect to earn any money this time around from ads. That idea was slightly conceided. But I am changing my paradigm as were when approaching new posts. This blog will mostly be a way for me to develop my ideas about politics, local issues to Utah, and just offbeat stuff. Maybe you'll read, maybe you won't.

Also, as you can see(those who have been here once or twice),I totally overhauled the layout of the website, and plan to post most days instead of just once a week or so. In order to show my appreciation for reading, I found some fun pics that show us how most blogging affects the world around us. Enjoy....

Sell-Out? Or not....?

Am I or am I not a sell-out? I believe that is for you, gentle reader, to decide. I have actually been trying to tastefully place ads all over RandomBrainwork.net in order to see if earning money were possible. I hope it is. I spend an inordinate amount of time do a lot of back end work to keep this place going.

My purpose, however, is to asses from you, my four loyal readers, to let me know what is tasteful and what is not. Please not that if things are deemed to flashy and in the way, that it will be left alone. Maybe you'll accidentally click on it.... Hehehe......

They Don't Build 'Em Like They Used To

A truer statement there never was. 

So now that I got my artful writing out of the way, I'd like to tell you of an amazing journey, that took all of five minutes of true travel time, but in virtual procrastinator style, took a month to prepare for and lot of BSing myself more time. There are those who took my 'putting it off' style with great patience, and they know who they are(That's you, Dad).

My preparations were all about 'thinking through' the conversation I might have with the person at the other end of the line. Things like, "I've got a 32" westinghouse lcd tv that doesn't show picture, it only plays sound. I don't know if it's faulty circuits...." and on and on that approach would go. Another, "My TV's broke. What's it gunna cost to fix it?" That was the other end of the spectrum of potential scripts that I would use for this task.

Today is the big day, I would tell myself. This I did many times over. Maybe it was a month I did that. But today it was actually true.

I looked up some repair shops (On a side note, don't rely too much on fancy repair directory websites, dexonline is the place to go). Back to the story.... I called the first one on the page. This is how it went: "I've got a 32" westinghouse lcd tv that doesn't show picture, it only plays sound. I don't know if it's faulty circuits...." at this point I was cut off. "Hol, hol, hold it right there. Just so yer clear, kid, I can't tell ya nothin' about what it's gunna cost fer yer repair. I need you to know that all we can tell ya over the phone is what it's gunna cost ya fera diagnostic." Me: "Sorry, I got it. How much for a diagnostic then?" The man replied that it was $50 dollars. Not too bad of a price. I then thought, 'how could I be that stupid, thinking they could tell me the problem like they were a genie or something.' That's not too bad an idea, training repair men in mind reading..... Back to the story, sorry....

My next call was a little awkward. Let's see if I can catch the mood of it in writing. After a few rings into the call, a lady answered. "For allin V epair......" and she stopped abruptly and tapered off at the same time. How do you do that? It's impossible. But, it was done magnificently well.I was amazed at this, but I said nothing for a whole second which felt like ten. Then I stammered out, " what does a re, ah, diagno, ah, what'll it cost for a tv diagnostic?" $75 dollars was the answer. All I said then was, "Okay... buy". Pathetic, Daniel, just pathetic.

So that was my adventure for the day. The moral of the story? Don't think too much about a task so simple a monkey could do it.

Cha Cha Cha Cha Changes!

Although I believe it willfully ignorant of me to think that there are people who actually read this, I will still mention the fact that I decided to make some changes to the layout of my blog. There were many things that I wanted to do with it, but alas, my plans are too far-flung to achieve at this point in time. I must stick to what I can do; and that is to write, to find interesting and note-worthy things to fill people in about, and to write well(repetition originally unintended, but now I think it has a ring to it, and those who think it doesn't, you're probably right).

Now, some real news. For a lot of you who know me in person, one of these great changes is that I have left my employment at UPS. It really was a good job, but not a good job for me. I don't have the same physical capabilities that I once had. I know that sounds funny coming from a 22 year old young man, but due to certain chronic conditions, my body could not handle the very physical work required of an employee at UPS. They truly have worker satisfaction at heart(my bosses at least), but I couldn't keep up.

The college semester is now over for me, and I am in waiting for the next one. Due to continuous fatigue that has hampered me for the last little while, I haven't done very well at school. That should change, hopefully..... I still have a lingering hatred for homework and sitting in class. One wonders how he graduated high school. At any rate, I now know my limits and can carry on in a more efficient manner.

So now all you people got the scoop on me. Consider this the worst Christmas Card you've ever received.

By the way, I'm glad they put spell checkers in web browsers now or else I would never remember the "i before e except after c" rule. You almost got some obvious misspelling right at the end of the last paragraph.

One Hilarious, The Other Awsomeness

Two stories for your rapt attention. The first, slightly, no..... mostly hilarious. This is what can go wrong if you put a live Twitter news feed on a billboard for the public's viewing pleasure.

Now for the awsomeness. I myself am an avid startrek fan, but if a war broke out between trekkies and fanboys, I would find myself most assuredly a fanboy. Starwars is just pure awsomeness. Here are some pics to demonstrate the point.

I hope you enjoyed that, because it'll be a while before I can stand some more of the hoky and coincidental.

Pay-As-You-Go Wireless Data Plans

Here is something to chat about around the water cooler. AT&T is now going to offer pay as you go data plans for those nifty 3G enabled laptops all the wireless dealers are pushing these days. As stated in the article, AT&T is trying to reach a larger customer base.

This seems to me like the logical thing to do from a Huge Company point of view.

My illustrious and vaunted point of view?

Tons of people have cell phones these days, and they don't come cheap, especially on a month to month basis. Owning a cellphone, however is considered a necessity while having a netbook with 3G wireless network is not. I mean, if I can get free wireless internet with my netbook at most McDonalds' or airports, it doesn't make sense to pay Sprint or AT&T exorbitant amounts of money just for internet. Am I expected to pull my computer out of my pocket and start video conferencing for school while trying to drive on the freeway?(I wish...)

But for those gullible enough to go with the pay as you go rubish, they are going to get less bandwith for near the same price. $60 for a regular two year plan, $50 for the month pay as you go plan. It's a no brainer to me.

You never know though. There is probably some guy out there fantasizing about being able to type up and send that report to Johnson while wrangling with traffic on the 405.

Ubuntu Linux: Way Better Than Windows

I know what you all are thinking. "Daniel's gone insane(I know you knew that already dad), Windows 7 just came out and he's just jealous that he can't have it, he doesn't really know what he's talking about" and on and on it could go. I admit, many arguments may have a foundation on truth, but that's not at issue here. (or is it)

To tell you the truth, I bought a netbook about 6 months ago because it would serve me as my college note-taking and paper writing platform. I has done very well so far, but there are a few things that would just bug me all the time. Foremost among my hate for some things windows is the insane time it took to boot the operating system. It was way to cumbersome(under my standards) to boot the stupid thing in class. Other reasons to hate the thing is that Windows(I was using XP) would have these crazy seziures all the time. I don't know what was going on there, but it just wouldn't handle a certain number of programs running all at once, have a coronary, and keel over. How did I remedy said problem? Reboot. Microsoft might even say the same thing. I heard a funny joke a few years back.... or was it a true story based on fiction... anyways, the most seen fix for most windows issues is of course, format and reinstall. It's true, if you got something unfixable, you can just try to back up all your files and blow away what you got going on, and start over, and repeat ever 1-2 years. There, your set for life.

But, hearkening back to my swingin' computer nerd days(I'm a geek now, but most don't realize that there is a fundamental difference between them)when my brothers and I would play around with lots of different Linux distros and UNIX or BSD, I looked into Ubuntu linux, found out my dad and another brother were running it, and looked into it. Turns out they have an OS optimized just for netbooks. I looked into some more, here and there, and finally decided to take the plunge. Turns out it was great. As you can see from the screenshot taken from my machine, the desktop layout for netbooks is way different from what you would normally see in most(even linux) OS's, the model for norm being taken from Windows and Mac. The desktop layout has been optimized for the screen size of a normal netbook. It makes it so everything is displayed cleanly, but also adds the practicality we've come to expect from normal GUI interfaces. Everything looks clean, is extremely customizable, and if you dual-boot with windows, will even automatically port all of your documents and desktop settings from windows.

As you remember, I was most concerned with the Windows boot time being tediously slow. Now don't just tell me that "you've got a netbook, Daniel, is just gunna do that to you." Well, I reject you reality, and substitute my own! My very first boot into ubuntu took just under a minute from pushing the on-button to checking my email. Now tell me netbooks are crap. I'm also pleased that I can go to class and start taking notes on this rig just as fast as if I were using a real pen and paper.

For all of you now intrigued, but not willing to give up on windows, you can partition your harddrive so that you can boot both windows and ubuntu. As a matter of fact thats what I did.

You can read a very good review on the latest update of Ubuntu, now at 9.10, here at technewsworld.com.

Something is Always In The Way of A Man's Job

Great blog post for you all. Especially if you like stories that are based on a true story. Some detail may have been changed.

So it was one fine warm middle-of-the-summer day, when all of a sudden the trees started to loose their leaves, just like they would do in fall. This wasn't the start of the freakyness, mind you. So, being the good young men that my brothers and me are, we go and clean the yard up.

So we're raking it all up outside at this point, and I was even using the mower, when we discovered insane amounts of dog poop. Now don't get disgusted by me making mention of that, our dog just has a high metabolism. It's going along fine too, when I decided stop for a small break and lean on the mower for a minute or two. I gazed out to the west at the Oquirr Mountains, but they weren't there. What I saw was a huge freak storm headed our way. Being the brave and slightly stupid, though strapping young men that we were, decided to push on with the job.

Needless to say, this was not the best idea any of us had ever had. We ended up fighting the storm for "yard supremacy", a feat still not attained by any man in the world to date. The battle continued. We had to fight the storm or else we wouldn't ever be able to get the leaves up. But as we persevered, we completed the task in the nick of time. Some of us had what we had dubbed, "Everest Finger Condition", where your fingers get so numb that you can't feel them. It can even get to the point where they might get frostbite. But that didn't happen. Mother Nature was no match for us. In the fashion of a braindead teanager who insults everybody, we too insulted that storm.

We don't know now, looking back on it, whether that storm is holding a grudge against us. It might just be. Mother Nature has been known to be vindictive that way. But I tell you now, so that you all can learn a lesson, don't mess with storms. I have nightmares and flashbacks like it were yesterday, even though all this happened today, and it isn't pleasant. So know this you young people, learn my our mistake, and just take it easy when a storm roles through....

Change is good

But not too much change.

Alas, A home to call my own!

I finally "bit the bullet" yesterday and bought a domain name. It took me days to figure out what I really wanted to call this place, and to some, it probably doesn't seem to show. But for me, and my limited brainstorm capabilities, it is a triumph of engineering, or science, or literature. One of those, you can choose.

So this blog shall forever after be known as RandomBrainwork.net, in homage to no particular subject that permeates this website. But no need to fear, I do plan on making plans for some future posts so that it's acutally worth it to read and even debate my controversial opinions on a number of subjects. Mostly politics. Maybe some other stuff like technology and StarWars. In any case, it will be entertaining. I am making a promise to all four of you who might have seen my blog before. Check back later today for some killer postage action.

The Begining

We are at the begining of what I hope will be a successful blog. And by successful I mean read by more than three different people a week.

I hope you enjoy satire, or are intrigued by the way things look through my metaphorical eyes, because that is the way I write, biased and sarcastic; well sometimes sarcastic. I hope you will be able to tell the difference between serious and "trying to write a joke". Maybe I should make those into categories.....