I cleaned out my Gmail spam folder yesterday. As I type this I have 275 messages in there already. Damn. And I’ve received like…15 legitimate emails in that same amount of time (not counting mailing lists).

Yeah, I think we’re losing this battle. I’m thinking of checking out a service like MXLogic.

I called Dell the other day to try and make a payment on my new server. I didn’t have my account number so they moved to the alternate authentication protocol.

What is your full social security number?

What? Are you f$cking kidding me? I offered my last four because I felt nice. Nope, they wanted the whole thing. So the poor Indian girl got a… spirited lecture about how it’s not even legal to use the SSN as a method of identification.

She found another way to authenticate me.

Great, so IE7 finally launched and it doesn’t work with work’s Exchange 2003 OWA setup. I try to send email and it crashes. Let me just restate that:

If you try to use Microsoft’s flagship browser with the current version of their web-based email application, the program will crash.

I know two people who have tried this — me and another guy. Both of us saw the exact same issue. Is it just me or are these people on the ropes? I mean, damn…the new browser doesn’t work with OWA? How can you miss that? Is that considered minor by any stretch of the imagination?

So I’m left using Firefox (a free program) with OWA because if I use Microsoft’s own brand-new browser (with a vulnerability released on the same day it launched) it doesn’t work.

In. Sane. The best programmers in the world and billions of dollars, and I have to use a free product to get mail from OWA. The fall of Microsoft is upon us.

I rode the subway into Manhattan today. It was like BART, only dirtier and louder. Also, nobody smiles in New York. I’m sure there’s a city ordinance or something.

I ate at a place in the lower east side called Chipotle. This place is what Moe’s is trying to be, but isn’t. I had a burrito that I will remember for quite some time.

I also bought some clothes while in town. Actually, that’s what I went there for in the first place; it turns out that “business-casual” doesn’t exist in New York, so my single dress outfit was not cutting it. Dropping a quick $400 stopped the bleeding a bit.

So it was a good day. I changed my room to one with functioning wireless Internet (hence this post from bed), got to do the Manhattan thing, and took the Subway expedition off the list of things to do.

And tomorrow is another day…

For those of you who are regular visitors, how snappy does the site seem lately? Is it the same? Better? Worse? I’m trying to gague the improvements that resulted from my server and hosting upgrades.

Thanks…

Link: Why A Warcraft Guru Quit

This is a very nice summary of why I don’t play games. I never get this sucked into any game, but I am accutely aware of what I could have been doing with my time instead of grinding through some lame MMORPG.

For me, gaming is a refreshment tool; it makes me enjoy real life more. I game in like 2-3 week bursts every six months to a year. I can’t stomach any more than that. When I try to I get this overwhelmingly empty feeling with every single task I accomplish in game.

I get an item: I ask myself, “Now what?”. I make a level milestone: I say, “Great, who cares?” The bottom line is that I have so many real projects going on that I can’t get any satisfaction from virtual projects. If I want to do something “virtual”, I’ll install a new computer system in VMware and do something cool with it (like install Asterisk).

I was going to try real hard to get back into WCIII while up here in New York, but I just canceled my subscription. I have too much else to be working on.

…yeah, that’s really all I had.

So far in the year 2006 Firefox has utterly dominated Internet Explorer for browser most used to visit my site.

That’s a solid 64% of all people coming to my site in 2006 thus far. IE got only 21%.

Go Firefox.

So I guess Rich Franklin’s plan was to try and beat Anderson Silva at Muay Thai? Completely insane; he got dominated. It’s like he’s never even been in a clinch with that class of Muay Thai fighter before. He didn’t seem to even know what to do.

I’m glad to have Silva as a champion. He’s the type of fighter who brings excitement to the sport. Nothing’s better than a good pummeling via knees and high kicks.

This is just…wow. It’s like a few things click when you watch this video. It would explain quite a bit:

VIDEO: Does Bush Have Dementia?