Rant

When Yeni and I were dating, her apartment used Comcast for Internet. Like armies of other customers, I experienced numerous problems and after hours on the phone expressed my outrage on Twitter. I didn’t expect assistance. I simply wasn’t happy and wanted to express my anger, to… well, to the entire world. Surprisingly, my small tweet was noticed by Comcast, who replied to me, contacted the appropriate people, and actually resolved my problem. Shocked? So was I. ...

Tomorrow is July 4th, or Independence Day here in the United States — where we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776. At the time, what is now the United States existed as 13 colonies of Great Britain. For many reasons, none of which I’ll discuss here, the colonists decided to declare themselves a new nation, independent from British (or any other) rule, with certain unalienable Rights — including Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ...

Recently, Yeni sent me to the grocery store to grab some milk for the bakery. So, like most people in the Sunshine State, I headed to Publix and went to the dairy case. A minute or so later, after fighting my tiredness and the tempation to buy a Twix, I slid my card through the reader and got ready to leave. When the cashier handed me the receipt, her words instantly awakened me. “There you go,” she said, with my receipt in her extended arm. “There I go,” I replied as I walked away. When exactly did “There You Go” replace “Thank You?” ...

Today, I attempted to use my American Express card as a replacement for an old card that had expired. I entered the card info, hit “renew,” and was told it was declined. Within a minute, I received an automated phone call from a toll-free number. The automated message stated (paraphrasing here) that this was the American Express Fraud Department and that I needed to call the 800 number to confirm card activity....

Back in 2012 or so, I posted a video hidden within a rant I had made. I rant from time to time. Scratch that. I rant a lot. I blog my rants from time to time. Anyway, I think about this video often. Malte Spitz asked his telephone company what type of data they had been collecting on him. An innocent question… what type of information are you collecting? The results astounded him and he effectively communicated why we should all be concerned....

I don’t think I’ll ever come up with a better quote than this: The Internet is like a big city. Sure, there’s great museums and entertainment, but there’s also bad, bad places filled with bad, bad people. Fred Posner I first used it on Palner.com explaining SIP Brute-force attacks to non-techs. =)

Listen… I’m grateful for our relationship. I do not regret these past 7+ years. After all, you and I have shared some significant events. When we first got together I was single, had an amazing dog, and was finishing up my degree. You were great in helping me connect with other students in my classes and even helped me keep track of assignments, projects, and more. You helped me through some rough times....

Let me tell you something you already know… The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. ...

So, yesterday I got my electricity bill and it was a little over 180 bucks. It’s Gainesville and hot, so I expected a decently high electricity bill. Add air conditioning with more cooking (and a bunch of hot showers) and $180 is expected. Of course, my real electricity bill is $150. There was $30 in taxes. ...

Words contain power– power that becomes diluted with overuse. The word hero gets thrown around so often it has completely lost its power. It’s become an expected title bestowed on anyone doing a good deed. Which brings me to my question… what is a hero? ...