I got a "Tracfone" for my birthday a few days ago. It's one of those disposable cell phones that cost $20 and you can buy cards that have minutes on them instead of having an annual contract. So this is my first cell phone. Not that I plan on using it. It's just for emergencies and I'm keeping it in my car (plugged into the cigarette lighter) stashed in the glove box. But I feel kinda odd now, having entered the digital age. I've always despised cell phones (and phones in general) but now I have one and I guess I'll keep it, cuz, it's for emergencies, right?

So I sat down with the phone and programmed all the numbers from my little address book into the phone. Going through the book I saw the names of people I hadn't talked to for awhile. So after I got done with the Tracfone I called a few of my old friends that I hadn't talked to for awhile (some for a few years). It was nice afternoon.

Rath's "vomited" line reminds me of the only time I ever vomited from physical exercise (running). It was 1984 and I was taking a physical training test (army) at Goodfellow AFB down in San Angelo. Some guy I didn't know (some random Air Force guy) was running even with me most of the first mile. The second mile we started racing against each other and it was great. It was the best time (12' 5") I ever had in the two-mile in my entire life! After I finished pukin' he came over and thanked me for helping him out with the run (and here I was thinking he helped me out with the run!). Good times!

It is now about 12 hours since my run and I still feel rubbish. My lungs are not happy with me or my decision to run. In fact they and my throat seem to be ganging up on me.

@fkus. Cellphones are useful, texting is a great way to find out where people are and stuff. Mind you I still only use about $50 worth of money on it a year.

I use a Net10 phone. I buy 300 minutes for $30 and that usually lasts me 2 months...sometimes more. A few months ago there was a deal for a phone and a card for $30 so I just picked that up instead. So I've been with Net10 for 3 years now....had two phones....and spent an average of $10 a month for the service. That's a better deal than a 2 year contract with a real cellphone company.

I don't think my tracfone will cost me more than $80/year. Not that I need it. It seems to me like people are slaves to their cellphones and devices. In NYC last fall half the people were just suits walking around with crackberry's and bluetooth headsets.


I'm not a Luddite. But I never had a walkman. I've never had a iPod/Zune or similar music thing to carry around. I held onto my 19" CRT monitor until a few days because I got a 24" LCD monitor as a present. The bigger monitor is good because I don't have to squint when I'm tired. I do love my PSP and DS and I have carried them around with me on occasion. But I play games them, not listen to music.


Today I open my mail program and I have 500+ messages! WTF! They are all "returned" or "undeliverable" or "rejected by barracuda spam filter", but I never sent out all this shit. So I get completely paranoid and start working the anti-virus stuff double-time and making sure my email account isn't hacked. Then I contacted my service provider and they explained that it was some kind of email address spoofing. FUCK SPAMMERS! I have to look through all this shit because I get 20 or so legitimate emails everyday. The junk filters are starting to kick in and I'm getting less of this stupid auto-server-response bullshit but goddammitt!!!! FUCK SPAMMERS!

Edit: Update three hours later; over 3000 emails but now 99% of them get directed to the trash folder.

Well, the deluge of emails has mostly subsided. Now only two or three "Rejected by Barracuda Spam Filter" messages are getting through. The others one that are getting through are the people that have auto-responders on to tell people that they're on vacation.

I'm wondering when people are going to figure out that the U.S. (and at least to some degree the rest of the world) is facing a decade long period of negative or very low economic growth. Most people do not remember the 1970's. I do. I was shielded from most of the economic consequences of it because my father was in the military. So we had guaranteed free health insurance, subsidies on housing, food and consumer goods. The worst thing I had to worry about was that we might get transferred to Biloxi, MS. I don't have much to worry about now either, but the financial devastation will lead to deteriorating social conditions.

I'm hoping that the recession/depression doesn't last that long. The only good thing about prolonged recessions is that music gets more interesting, the TV shows are funnier and show more drug use and films become more character/story driven. So in general art gets better. I wonder if the same will apply to video games?

Necrothread!

I have had an interesting day. It was my Grandads 90th Bday and so I flew over from university (getting up at 5AM sucks) for it just to make up the complete set of descendants. Sadly this meant I missed kegger which would have been fun (involves about ten people drinking an entire keg of icebreaker). The B-day was alright anyway, got to see funny photos of my Dad and uncles/aunt in the 60's/70's and eat a shitload of food and catch up with a bunch of relies I hadn't seen in ages.
Also this girl keeps on inviting me to go to church with her despite the fact that she knows I'm very atheist, weird.