Vacation !!!!

Geeon will be in Costa Rica--Yes I finally got approval to go. I will be gone July 3 through July 12th. You may see me online, I bought a new Laptop to bring traveling. If not it means I am actually having supreme fun.

Like a Horseshoe to the Brain!

The past few weeks have been crazy! I've begun the much needed remodeling of my house. It's been a lot of hard work and is going to continue that way for some time. Kat and my sister-in-law had some fun in Florida before bring everything up from our storage unit. My dad for the very first time came up for the past week to help oversee the remodeling. Since I'm a relative noob to remodeling, I made some mistakes. My dad was able to rescue my projects and get them back on track. I couldn't have done it with out him.

An added bonus is having my nephew here with me. He's grown up so fast and the amount of help he has provided has been priceless. He has worked his ass off since getting here and I appreciate all the help he's given me. He'll be pretty suprised at the pay day I'm about to give him.

On a final note I've been jamming to the new Alice In Chains song "A Looking In View" all morning. This song rocks so hard like a horseshoe to the brain!!!

Sent from Android

Cheap & Legal Windows 7

Microsoft is offering pre-orders for Windows 7 at more than half off right now through authorized resellers. I just picked up a a copy of the new Home Premium edition for $49 at Newegg., limited to 1 per person though :(

The Pro version is selling for $99 with the same limit.

Anyone interested can visit this link.

Thoughts on the Jamie Thomas Retrial

For those of you that don't keep up with things like this the RIAA had sued a woman for sharing 24 songs on Kazaa. The original trial took place about a year ago with a guilty verdict and an award of $222,000. A couple of weeks later the judge decided that he had messed up in his jury instructions and threw out the whole trial and they started again.

The new trial just ended yesterday and unsurprisingly a guilty verdict was again rendered. However, the damages awarded this time around were $1.92 million. This is just ludicrous. I'm not going to argue over whether or not she was guilty as the evidence mostly seems to point that way, but isn't completely solid as in theory someone else could have used her computer, but it seems unlikely. What is ridiculous is the amount awarded to the RIAA. Based on the standard industry price of around $1.00 a song, the amount should be around $24 multiplied by the number of times the song was downloaded. Even if you figure it was downloaded 50 times, which seems to be a rather high estimate based on the number of other users probably sharing the same thing, the loss comes out to be $1200. Even 3-5 times that amount might be reasonable, but to award an organization with the resources of the RIAA $1.92 million from a single mom with two kids is simply retarded.

There are currently plans to appeal the case. Given any luck it will make it up to the Supreme Court and these kinds of damages will be ruled unconstitutional and we'll finally see the end of ludicrous damage awards in these kind of cases.

Update

Well since Grexis posted an update on his fitness program, I figured I'd post one for myself as well. I'm on the third week of the program and already seeing pretty good results from it. I started out at 305 and I'm now down to about 302. However, I'm already noticing significant differences especially in energy levels. My trainer has been very pleased with my progress in both cardiovascular and strength gains and he isn't really paying attention to the weight right now since he said it wouldn't change much in the first month anyway as fat is replaced with muscle.

Some of the changes are outwardly noticeable however. This morning while I was shaving I noticed that my face looked a lot thinner than I remember it being. Also, while I was home visiting family over the weekend whom I haven't seen since April one of them asked me if I had lost some weight. This was very encouraging to me as the people I'm around all the time can't really notice the changes and give me that kind of feedback. I'm hoping that by the time that Grexis, Kira, Xan, and I get back together for GenCon in mid-August the changes will be very noticeable to them as well, depending on their memories.

Unfortunately for me, I apparently threw my back out at work today. It wasn't too bad until I started trying to go through my workout routine tonight. Even though none of the workout really concentrated on the lower back at all, I found that by the end of the second exercise that I could barely get up off of the bench and the pain was excruciating. Because I was barely able to walk, I was unable to finish my workout which I'm really disappointed in. Hopefully when I go see my chiropractor tomorrow everything will get fixed and I can go back to finishing everything else planned for this week, but if past history is any indication, I'll probably have to take it easy at least through the weekend.

Beware the Nine Ball

A nice little gem this Nine Ball is. According to Websense there have been over 40k web sites hit by a mass-compromise attacked called, none other than, Nine Ball. This compromise hits web servers that will redirect it's victims to a site that will then attempt to download trojans, viri, keyloggers oh my. 

The kicker with this new threat is the server hosting the malware (www.nine2rack.in) will scan the victim for vulnerabilities in their web browser, Adobe or Quicktime software. It finds a whole it will download a trojan along with a keylogger that most anti-virus software won't find. These trojan's are especially nasty because they are hard to detect because they are created and compiled on the fly. 

Now on the server side, people who have been lax on security, and their secure coding practices will allow their server to be compromised. Nine Ball will use SQL-Injection attacks and brute force  intrusion with stolen user names and passwords of the administrators of the website. 

So while your out surfing the intertubes be careful what your surfing.

*MP* Woot! Got accepted into the DDO: Eberron Unlimited Closed Beta!

The Weigh-in

So today my trainer wanted to go ahead and do a weigh-in. I suddenly got nervous. I wasn't expecting it so soon, as a matter of fact I was thinking it would happen Thursday. I didn't have time to prepare myself mentally for any bad news that may crop up. We did the deed and as I said in a previous post, here is the update on my quest. 

First Weigh-in 05/22/09

Weight: 357lbs

Body Fat%: 44.1%

Lean Body Mass: 199.56 lbs

Last Weigh-in 

06/04/09

Weight: 354 lbs

Body Fat%: 42.4%

Lean Body Mass: 196.43 lbs

Todays Weigh-in

06/16/09

Weight: 350 lbs

Body Fat% 39%

Lean Body Mass: 213.5 lbs

I'm kicking ass! A loss of 7lbs altogether, even after gaining muscle! My trainer couldn't be happier with those numbers. Even while I'm still struggling with my diet and keeping my schedule, my daily calorie intake % is getting better. According to my trainer I need to get my carbs and protein up. Which I have been working on but so far only gradually. 

Due to my eating so little, which is normal for me, I have supplemented my caloric intake with Ensure. This has given me a better spread between carbs, protein and fat. This week I have started a core protein supplement to increase my protein to help boost my muscle repair after workouts and nights of sleep. I purchased two supplements at GNC. First is CytoSport Muscle Milk, which I drink when I wake up in the morning, and before I go to bed on cardio nights, and then an hour before my weight training. The second is GNC Amplified Wheybolic Extreme 60 that I drink post workout.

Yesterday was the first day I have started on the new supplements I purchased at GNC and it's already made a difference in my weight training workout I had today. I had a lot more stamina that I had the last few weeks. I felt stronger, which is probably due to the fact that I gained muscle anyway. So I'm pretty happy with the results I have seen so far. Now I just need to keep it up. That's going to be the real challenge for me.  

Going Strong

So far the big life style change is starting to sink in. I'm getting a grasp of my new daily routines and I have noticed some pretty significant changes in my moods and mental alertness

I have't been as moody or brooding, and it's taking a lot less motivation to get me moving. It used to be that when I woke up in the morning it took an act of god to bet my fat ass up to get ready for work. Without the sleep study yet I'm already feeling rested when I wake up in the morning.

I'm still having issues with my diet. Missing my snacks here or there and some times just not having any time to remember to log what I ate. I need to start focusing on that.

All in all the experience has been going much better. I feel better physically and mentally. I don't spend a lot of time on scales but rather listening to my body. Just this week I noticed my clothes feeling loose on me. The shorts I bought before the St Louis Ren Faire fit perfectly then. Yesterday they are starting to feel baggy. Pants that used to be tight around the legs when I crossed them feel loose. This is obviously working now if I can just fit my food documentation and snacks into my routine I should be doing even better.

In my last weigh in I noted that I had lost muscle mass from the weight lifting. This was very discouraging. Because I'm not getting enough protein in my diet. It caused me to lose muscle.  To combat this problem I've starting some high protein suppliments from GNC. I'm hoping this will help curb the muscle loss.

This Thursday is my weigh in. I'll be posting the results as soon as I get them.

Sent from Android

Advent Knights Is Now On Steam.

Since my Xbox was stolen and returned broken. I have been getting my gaming fix on Steam lately. Playing around with the community features I created our gaming group there if any one is interested in joining let me know. This weekend if we can get the time Goroxx and myself will be attempting a co-op run through thecampaign mode in Unreal Tournament 3.

On a side note, Dungeons and Dragons Online is going free to play. The game was pretty lacking when it first came out but since then the media (ie massively) have been reporting the game has been much improved since. Soon it will be a good time to try it out.

-Grexis out

Sent from Android

Semi-conclusions

The past couple of weeks have been a very bad roller-coaster ride to say the least. Our house bring broken into not once but twice, my wife scared and on edge, the loss of property, a new puppy. It’s all enough to drive a person insane.

 

Yesterday at around 3:00pm David Wagonblast was arrested. Let me tell you about this piece of shit. This is the father of my step-daughters two boys. Doesn’t pay child support, and certainly isn’t doing anything to be apart of his son’s lives. During a time when Kat and I were separated, he impregnated my step-daughter, and they moved into our house against my objections. I knew this guys of shit, but my wife being as kind as she is, took them in and tried to help them get on their feet. After a few months of seeing how much of a lazy piece of shit he was, she kicked him out, and if my memory serves me correctly, Brittany and David ended up moving in with her dad. Where he was given another chance and STILL wouldn’t do anything. Around this time he got himself addicted to drug, chance after chance to do the right thing, another son later and Brittany finally getting some brains and threw him out permanently.

 

On a side note, Brittany has since found herself a nice guy, and is now happily married. He has even taken to caring for those boys as if they were his own. I really applaud the guy for that and have great respect for him doing so.

 

Since being thrown out, he hasn’t paid any child support, and has made no effort what so ever to be in those kids lives. He has since continued down the road of drugs, losing all of his friends and family by stealing and ripping them off. Now he has violated those who had tried to help them the most, My wife and her ex-husband both. First it started last month when David shows up to Brittany’s fathers house, who is also named David. Brittany’s father will be named DB for the sake of this post. Asking for help and what not, DB goes into another room in the house, David snatch and grabs some things out of the living room and takes off. Strike one

 

Shortly after, based on what the police have told me, he has proceeded to rip and thieve off gas stations, stores. He even managed to get himself a girlfriend, and began ripping her family off! I’ll learn more about what he has been doing when I see his ass in court. Oh yes, I will be in court taunting him the whole way. For some reason the judge released him from jail on some promise to appear in court on a felony charge. Strike two.

 

Two weeks ago, he walks right into my house and steals my wife’s favorite camera, and my debit card. Proceeds to go to Wal-mart and with my money buys, a nice Visio HD TV. He also breaks into my house a second time a week later, this time stealing my TV, all of my video games, movies, tablet pc, etc. I’m not so much upset about the loss of property, though it sucks, it’s just stuff. It’s the fact that this piece of shit violated the safety my wife felt about our home. In my opinion it’s no different that rape. Strike Three.

 

Now that he has been arrested, and confessed to everything he has done to me and my wife. My wife feels a bit easier now. Though she doesn’t have the sense of safety she once had. For me the fun begins. Now I know exactly where he is, when he gets out, and what he’s doing. Just because he’s been arrested, doesn’t mean I have closure, just because he is going to be doing time in prison, doesn’t mean his punishment is over. For the violation he set upon my wife and my house he now gets to deal with a life time of misery and pain. I will see to it his son’s will grow up knowing exactly what kind of piece of shit this guy really is, and they will spit and despise this man for just being alive. If I ever get my hands physically on him, I will carve a pound of flesh from is body for what he has done. He will know every time he looks in the mirror that you don’t fuck with me, my wife or my friends. Real life or virtual.

 

 

Memory Upgrade?

No all you old farts, this won't help with your altheimers. BUT, if you need a memory upgrade for your pc, newegg's running a sale through 6/9/09 with 15% off all memory.

And just because I'm so nice, linkage provided :-P

http://promotions.newegg.com/Memory/060409/index.html?cm_sp=DailyDeals1-_-Memory060409-_-http%3a%2f%2fpromotions.newegg.com%2fMemory%2f060409%2f478x88.jpg

*MP* They got him!!

The piece of shit that broke into my house and robbed us has been arrested! More news to follow….

Raid Hiatus

Well, I am sure that title was not something some of you want to see, but at the present moment, I am left with very little alternative.

With the recent departure of 3 of our raid members, we are left in a very awkward position. Couple that with other summer obligations and vacations and we are looking at a constant summer of pugging positions and banging our heads on content we long ago destroyed. Tat will unfortunately not be able to take a spot as we had hoped due to a new job which hurts our potential dps replacements. Nykk's hiatus drops us down by one healer and with Dev's upcoming trip that takes out our second healer for at least 2 weeks. Others have planned vacations over the June-August block which would mean filling in spots every week. Many of those key positions. That leads to little progress.

With the constant flux of team members in and out for the summer it just is not viable to continue right now. I am sorry guys but I do not have it in me to train replacements and continually wipe to bosses we usually destroy. I have been in a similar situation before and it led to nothing but frustration on the part of everyone involved.

It is my hope that we may be able to resume raiding activities toward the end of August or early September when the summer vacation block starts to close and everyone has more time for raiding. I will continue to discuss these options with everyone over the summer so that we can hopefully decide on a course of action by the time-frame above.

I thank all of you for your hard work during our run and again I am sorry that it has come to this point. Please feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section.

-Kira

*MP* My house is broken into again!!

Can things get any fucking worse!?

Sent from Android

Last Week

To say last week was stressful, would be an understatement. I had hoped to have gotten everything ready for Dungeons and Dragons on Sunday but things didn't pan out the way I had hoped. Everything is pretty much ready with the help of Goroxx, you rock man!, I need to get my situation at home worked out.

With all the changes in my life, the fitness and nutrition changes, greatly reduced gaming time, I have changed A LOT in my life. Little did I know that my life would be changing even more drastically. Pretty much flipping my life completely upside down. Last week after my weekly D&D sessions, I went home, had a late snack, and passed out on the couch. Next thing I know, I'm being aroused from my deep sleep by Kat (My wife). She frantically tells me someone was in her room. I looked around, and everything was clear. Let me point out that I have a long history of light sleeping, and anyone who's ever been in our house knows our floors are noisy to walk on. Old hardwood floors do that. So that sort of thing has always woke me up in the past so Kat and I wrote it off as a freakish vivid dream on her part. Kat was thoroughly freaked by the whole thing, and rightly so. It was an overly realistic dream right?

Thursday morning, I noticed my bank check card, and my FitClub membership card missing. With my change in schedule, working out, etc I have been exhausted and thoughts of Kat's dream and my missing card was just coincidence. When I'm exhausted, I tend to lose things. Later that day I decided to just cancel the card, and get a new one. I couldn't shake the thought that someone may have actually came into our house and snagged those items.

Friday rolls around and Kat is still freaked about the "dream" and so am I to be honest. That afternoon I do my usually checks of my bank accounts, and find a fairly large charge on my account. Someone actually bought a $500+ item at Walmart WITH MY CARD. What Kat and I had written off as a very vivid dream could have been real. We still wasn't officially sure.

So on Saturday, we decide it's time to get another dog. Our last dog Allie, was a huge part of our family and always woke us up when someone was near the house. I guess we got used to that luxury and didn't let go of it when we should have. It hit us hard when we had to put her down last year. Our new boxer pup has already made his way into our lives and is now entrenched quite well. I also stopped off at the bank to discuss the rogue transaction on my account and come to find out the guy charged close to $800 in total. Then back at home while Kat and I are enjoying the company of our new family member, Kat goes to look for her camera. The one I bought her for her birthday and her most valued possession is now missing. Gone. No where to be found, and then the realization that someone was actually in the house officially sets in.

I haven't had much sleep due to Kat's worrying and her wigging out every time I get up to use the restroom or grabbing a drink in the middle of the night. Which is my usual routine as I don't sleep well anyway. I don't blame her a bit. I failed in my responsibility to protect her, and our home. I reassure Kat that if someone is in the house, and especially while I'm awake, god better save them, because I'll put the bastard in the morgue.

-- Grexis Out