Eidred's Blog

Greetings, friends and foes of the Internet alike(this means you, enemies of Net Neutrality. Keep your big business noses out of the World Wide Web!). I apologize for the slight gap in blogs, but I just got Windows 7 yesterday and I am now transferring the equivalent of my life back over to a fresh install. Windows 7 is amazing. I love it. It is so fast!

For those wondering what the title means, it’s a song by The Beatles called “Revolution 9″. It is a pretty trippy song, I think John Lennon was high when he wrote it. Not surprising, considering the entire band was probably high all of the time, but that is of little consequence. The Beatles are awesome, and that’s all that matters. No arguments. Any forthcoming arguments can be forestalled with this statement:if you don’t like them, I don’t care, as musical taste is a matter of pure opinion. I don’t care. Get it?

I have to go now. Still a ton of downloading and installing programs to be done…ugh. Peace out world!

Good morning, Northern Hemisphere. I read an article this morning that made me laugh. It is about how, according to these people, exercising WON’T cause weight loss. Oh, really? Pray tell, how that might be? Well, in the article it completely contradicts itself. It says that people who work out end up hungry afterward and go and eat more. Well, that isn’t the exercise that is making them fat then, is it? No. It’s the fact that they burn off 800 calories by doing what they would call “rigorous” workouts(running for an hour, which honestly doesn’t do much, or lifting five pound weights for five minutes) and then going and devouring large quantities of food. The article can be found here.

Here is something people need to understand. It is commonly accepted in the medical world that approximately 3500 calories equals one pound of body fat. Now, if you go run for an hour, you’ve probably burned less than five hundred calories. Then, you get in the car, haul your fat carcass over to Mickey D’s, and buy four double cheeseburgers and a large shake. According to McDonalds nutrition facts,(an ironic statement), four double cheesburgers equal to approximately 1700 calories. The shake, the thirty-two fluid ounce cup, is around 1160 calories. Okay, so wait…you’ve just burned off less than five hundred calories, and then you went and added approximately 2800 additional calories to your body, and you expect to get skinny sometime in the next year? I don’t think so. Let’s be generous and say that the guy only got the twelve ounce shake. That is 440 calories in itself, so even still, you’ve added 2140 calories to your body. You’ve just added over half a pound to your body weight(one half of a pound of body weight is 1750 calories, give or take a few. 3500/2=1750) You also aren’t likely to work out for the rest of the day. You’re not losing any weight, at all.

In order to lose a single pound, you need to burn off that 3500 calories. You’re not going to get that by walking, or even running, no matter how much you do it. Walking three miles only burns about 270 calories. That isn’t even close to enough, and eating those McDonald’s cheeseburgers afterward is certainly not going to help. It’s called ’self-control’. Eating is a choice, not a compulsion created by some chemical imbalance in your brain that causes your legs, completely against your will, to take you to food, and forces you to feed yourself. This is a quote from the article:

“The basic problem is that while it’s true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight-loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words, isn’t necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.”

Right, so as stated above, self-control. Instead of going “oh god, I’m starving, must go eat!” heading off to McDonald’s to prove you’re a glutton, reduce yourself to eating something small. Eventually, you’re going to stop being so hungry after you exercise, and eventually you will learn how to control your eating habits, and balance them out with exercise. It’s going to take work, obese friends of America. It’s going to be tough. It will require strenuous exercise, rather than running for an hour and sitting down to watch Oprah with a bucket of chicken wings, to cry and feel bad and relate to the obese guy they might have on the show today. Enough. You’re fat because you made yourself that way, not because someone was shoving food down your throat. Now, get off your ass and go work out!

Disclaimer:for anyone who was offended by what I said above, I don’t care. Fat people are fat because they made themselves that way, and if you feel bad, then go help them stuff their faces while your tax dollars go to treating morbidly obese people in hospitals because they can’t walk or function on their own anymore. Thyroid problems are not really any different. Those with hypothyroidism just need to be careful about what they eat, rather than how much they eat, and those with hyperthyroidism need to learn to control their eating, even if they feel hungry an hour after eating due to their sped up metabolic processes. But people with thyroid problems aren’t very well off. I’m just pointing out that even with a thyroid problem, self-control can keep off those extra pounds.

Totally kidding on the title, my friends of the Internet world and beyond. If you haven’t learned by now not to take my titles seriously when they’re completely random, then there may be no help for you. Consult a doctor, physician, scientologist, fireman, or the local cafeteria lady if you wish to attempt to fix your problem. I’m sure at least one of those would be of some use in this case.

Today was likely one of the busiest days I’ve ever had at work. Not surprising, considering the fact that it is nearing the holiday season. The meat counter was practically devoid of products and the crew and I had to eventually start pulling directly from our backstock to serve customers, rather than refill the counter as we normally do. A lovely, blessed rainstorm put an end to insanity of the day. Something about rain drives the usual assortment of rich customers away. I had one guy come in and while serving him I asked if it was still raining. He told me, “Oh yeah. I was golfing when it hit too.” I found that funny. Rainstorms don’t just suddenly drop out of absolutely nowhere, and give you a nice drenching. Clouds take time to build up, at least giving one a fair warning before unleashing their torrential fury. I would like to think golfers would take note of an impending storm, considering they’re wielding long pieces of metal that certainly conduct electricity, mainly any potential lightning, in this case. I digress. It isn’t a big deal, I wasn’t the one that got my golf game rained on.

I have begun to learn the song “Orion” by Metallica on my guitar. I’m already about a quarter of the way into it. I am having great fun with it. It is definitely one of their easier songs to learn, and I consider it one of the best they’ve ever written too. The main riff after the bass bridge by Cliff is rather annoying, just because of the awkward timing on the triplet notes, but I’ve almost got it down. I can play at least 190 BPM songs, so Orion won’t be a problem, it isn’t even that fast.

Expect a vlog for the first time on this upcoming Tuesday! Frozen and I are going to make one that day. I will play a bit of my guitar on there as well, just for fun. I don’t profess to be the best, and I certainly don’t expect everyone to like it. Many of my friends and family tell me I’m great. I don’t know if I’m being humble or if I just don’t like my own playing, but I don’t think I find it to be that awesome. I’ll let the Internet decide. Just play nice if you’re going to criticize. I will accept constructive criticism, but when you just go “that sucks” or “you fail” then I’d like to see you do better. If you can, my lips are totally sealed and I’ll take that.

I have begun to write a sort of fantasy novel, so to speak, called “Endurilis”. I have been  a longtime fan of fantasy fiction and have always been told I’m an excellent writer. I thoroughly enjoy writing, and at one point of my life I wanted to be an author. I might as well give it a shot in my spare time. Who knows, maybe it will at least knock that crappy “Twilight” series off its pathetic high pedastal. Sparkly, pale, emo children that claim they are “vegetarian vampires” do not make for good plot devices. Sorry, Stephanie Meyer. Not to mention the actors in the movie were terrible. I only saw part of it, because my sisters were watching it while I was eating. It was like watching a Sundance film. Actually, Sundance is better.

I was asked at work if I was a fan of David Lee Roth, or Sammy Hagar, both of which sang in Van Halen. Hagar came later. Honestly, I don’t care. I like both of them. David Lee Roth kind of overdid the shrieks sometimes, usually after third word, but hey, that’s what made a lot of Van Halen songs great, aside from the awesome guitar work. I get told a lot that I need to learn some music theory. I agree, to a degree, until a certain friend of mine tries to tell me I won’t get anywhere without it. Well, look at Eddie Van Halen. He didn’t know a lick of music theory, and he is one of the gods of rock. Well, in my opinion. Music isn’t about theory. It’s about what sounds pleasing to the ears of a majority of people. If all songs sounded good just because they theoretically correct, then death metal would sound great to me. But it doesn’t. I will be learning music theory, but not right now. I’m having fun expanding my skills instead. The only theory I learn are scales and what notes are where on the fretboard.

This post is nearing nine hundred total words. Current count:848. Excluding anything after “words”. I wrote that after I wrote out the count. You know how that works. Logic. Speaking of which, I love this Douglas Adams quote. With the quote below, I conclude this one thousand and a few words extra long blog post

“The argument goes something like this: I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’
“But,” says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’
“Oh dear,’ says God, `I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
“Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

I use an excellent program to listen to ShoutCast stations. It’s small, compact, and has a plethora of good features. The word plethora is also redundant these days. Anyway, I’m posting this under my Tech Reviews because Tech Reviews encompasses more than just gadgetry. It’s for anything technology related that I review.

Download link:here

Screamer Radio takes up only around 3MB at most. My folder currently says 2.72MB. It’s tiny but incredibily useful. The program in itself is relatively small, only taking a tiny portion of your screen, unlike many applications used for ShoutCast Radio. Most people use iTunes or Winamp to tune in, and those programs take up more room and resources than Screamer does. I’ve been using the program for over a year  now.  The program has a list of hundreds of preset stations for tons of genres. Techno, trance, rock, classic rock, heavy metal, and a lot more. You can also enter in the URL of any of Internet radio station, and tune into it.

By far, the best feature is the ability to record what is currently playing on the station you’re tuned into. It will record it to an MP3 file. Each file is separate per song. One song is its own recording, another is its own MP3, and so on. If there are any commercials, those are recorded to separate MP3 files so you don’t need to worry about annoying commercials interrupting your music. It will record only the track playing, or you can set it to record until you stop it, if you want to leave it on overnight and gather up all that tasty trance music! I don’t recommend you leave FM Trance on overnight though…there are up to SIX HOUR trance sessions on there, and I left it on for at least two days. I came home from work one night to find my PC was dangerously low on memory due to the lengthy MP3 files. Bad idea.

Get Screamer! You’ll enjoy it, especially if you want to hear some trance music any time you want. I recommend the channel Blue Mars-Cryosleep, under the Presets>Downtempo and Lounge section. The presets are very nice, and almost all of them work. Sometimes the stations are offline, and the program will give up trying to connect to them. This concludes my small review of Screamer Radio. Give it a try!

Hello friends, family, Internet social rejects, and intergalactic remodeling teams! Today, as you may know, is Thursday, November 12th, 2012. The end of the world is approaching, my people Okay, all humor aside, it’s November 12th, 2009, and I am one bored individual, as my title points out to you. I have absolutely no idea what it means or why I made that up, but I believe the point is likely accentuated by the three hours of sleep I got due to being unable to fall asleep last night until four A.M. and tossing and turning, at which point I was rudely awakened by someone deciding that mowing the lawn was the best thing to do at eight in the morning. Run on sentence…(for information see Appendix G. Note, there is no Appendix G)

I am really in quite a random mood, likely inspired by one of the greatest authors and the greatest series of books in history, Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. I can’t get enough of those books. R.I.P. Douglas Adams. You will be remembered. Especially every May 25th of each year, which is Towel Day in honour of Douglas Adams.  I have much to blog about, but unfortunately lack of sleep isn’t allowing for my fingers and brain to cooperate in the endeavour of typing it all out here. Evidently though my brain and fingers are cooperating to form completely meaningless sentences composed of words I jam together off the top of my head(like intergalactic remodeling teams for instance). Interesting, isn’t it? I am glad to know my previous post about same sex marriage is well liked, by the way. I’m happy to see there are some that don’t wallow in the muck of everyday ignorance that seems to fill every nook and cranny of society to this day.

I  think I need to relax with some nice ambient music…or something. I know an excellent beatless ambient channel, here is the Cryosleep channel of Blue Mars, Shoutcast radio. Thanks, Blue Mars, you guys are awesome.  I like rock, trance, techno, blues, ambient, heavy metal, and sometimes a lot of Celtic instrumentals, like flute stuff. I’m surprised I’ve managed to type this much in my zoned out stage of being at the moment. This prompts scientific study. Which I’m too tired for. Help? Goodbye for now, my fellow space…oh fuck it. Wit and exhaustion don’t collide and create a useful result. Beware of tongueslapping wonderkins.

I have absolutely no idea what the title is even for. It’s currently 9:54am, so things make a little less sense this early. But my nonsensical titles are what make my blogs fun! Good morning Internet! It is Wednesday, November 87th, uh I mean 11th, 2009, and I’m finally posting. I have added a new friend to the sidebar under my affiliates links. An Awkward Silence is now on here! Thanks also, for adding me on your blog list ^^.

I was watching CNN while eating breakfast. Pop-tarts are amazing…anyway, I don’t normally watch any television because there’s never anything good on. But, I do watch the news because I’m not total shut-in that doesn’t have any idea what is going on in the world. I saw an issue mentioned that I constantly wonder WHY it is the concern of the United States government and state governments:same-sex marriage.

Why exactly do our leaders feel it is necessary to contemplate the legality of something that does not concern their day to day lives, or the lives of others? What is wrong with homosexual marriage? There is one word that can summarize it for many U.S. citizens:religion. It is a completely arbitrary reason in itself, considering not everyone in this country need follow the same religion, and therefore do not bear the same edicts and prinicples as another. When the country was founded, the belief in separation of church and state was strong.  Apparently, these days, religion and politics are brought together in a clash that doesn’t work. Aside from that, the legal definition of marriage does NOT mention anything relating to religion whatsoever. Link here.

See? There is absolutely no mention of the Bible, Christianity, or any other religious matter there. It is simply a union of man and woman. It would not be difficult to reword it to include those of the same sex. Also, ask yourself:how does it effect my life? I can answer that for you. It doesn’t. No one is going to sit you down at a gay marriage ceremony and force you to watch. No one is going to tell you at your local church congregation “Steve and Bob  are getting married next week!”.  It doesn’t take your car, your house, your kids, your wife, or anything you own, does it? No. It does not. So why the big fucking problem? Homosexuals are people too. It is not some fucking disease that can be “cured”. It is a choice they make.

I hear people going, “it pollutes the sanctity of my religion!”. Bullshit. You polute the sanctity of your religion by judging, by seeking to make those that do not believe in the same thing as you suffer. One should not be constrained to suffer for that which he or she does not believe in. It is said in the Christian Bible that all Christians are to love their neighbor, does it not? Yeah, you’re showing a ton of love by actively debating about someone’s right to being happy. Take your edicts and put them where the sun doesn’t shine, because quite frankly, I’m sick of it. Give me a reason, ASIDE from religion, as to how exactly gay marriage is wrong, and I’ll gladly shut up. Give me a good reason, that is not personally based and not religiously based. If it’s adequate, my lips are sealed.

I’ve had people tell me, “you gay or somethin’?” when I voice my opinion on this matter. No, I’m quite straight, I am sick of the ignorance that plagues our world. These so called “good Christian people” that sit there and try to control someone else’s rights are idiots. I’m not saying ALL Christians are like that, before anyone decides to jump down my throat. It is very clear I didn’t say that, so shut up. But those who call themselves Christian are trying to do God’s job. It is not their place to judge, so says the Bible. So, quit judging. Enough. All of us are human.

In other news, my entire bottom lip is incapable of complex movements because it is entirely numb from a dental visit. I can’t drink anything because I can’t form my lip around the can or bottle to catch liquid. Ugh…anyway. I recently got my hands on WindowBlinds for Windows. It is an awesome program that allows you to customize the look of Windows far beyond what is offered by default. My desktop looks awesome now. Oh, and also, the “Caution:Wet Floor” signs look more like they should say “Beware of break dancers”. See?

Hello world! I am back, after another brief hiatus. I am sorry for the gaps between posts, but hey, I have a life. Even if it just involves going to work, playing video games, and chilling with my friends, that’s still a life. For the ignorant that would say, “no, you need to get a life, you don’t have one” define to me exactly what “having a life” is. I believe having a life is generally the fact that your heart and brain are still functioning. That’s life. But for the general term, what exactly having a life means is completely self-defined. So, to me, I have a life. Now, those guys that spend hours on YouTube making horribly misspelled comments, in my opinion, don’t have a life. I am not here to write a definitive guide on “Life:Do You Have One And Is It Socially Acceptable?”. As interesting of a book as that would be to write, I think it would fall inadequately short. The only thing I would be able to write is:”Define life. It’s an opinion. Now fuck off.”

I remembered prior to making this post a laughable topic in the workplace. It was when a manager would tell an employee that Texas is a “right-to-work” state and that they could be fired for any reason. Right to work is ENTIRELY unrelated to the proper term, which is usually known as “employment at will”, or “an at will state.” Right to work is a term defined in two ways. One, it is a written into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, stating that all human beings have the right to work and may not be prevented from doing so.  Two, it is a U.S. law that exists in many states that, simply put, says that an employer may not A)Require an employee to join a labor union or pay labor union membership fees, B)An employer may not deny an applicant employment if he or she decides to or  not to join a labor union. Simply put, it prohibits making joining of a labor union before or after employment a condition of said employment.

So, Mr.Manager, I believe you’re wrong in saying “right to work”. That is not even close to the correct term. If you’re going to be a dick and threaten an employee, at least do it correctly. Not to mention, firing someone, even though the state is an “at will” state, for some dumb reason can get a company sued, and many times companies either lose or they pay off the person filing the lawsuit, so they’ll shut up and go away. It is not wise to fire someone for unreasonable things.

I’m extremely bored. I’ve got a fantasy fiction world to design, and it’s really getting annoying. I think I want to take a break and shoot some terrorists on Call of Duty 4. YEAH! Peace out, Interwebs and all that read them.

Hello again, my friends, acquaintances, borderline psychopaths, and complete shut-ins that never leave the computer screen! It has been several days since my last post. I have felt an extreme lethargy over the past few days and have not really had much to talk about. No matter.

I spent the day playing Call of Duty 4 online. It is one of the best multiplayer experiences I’ve had in years. Sure, Unreal was great, Quake was good, Halo was satisfactory, Gears of War was terrible, and Counter-Strike follows suit, but COD4 to me is actually entertaining. It seems multiplayer gaming, and gaming in general, has degenerated into a large market for graphic snobs rather than those that enjoy the gameplay itself.  Rather than seeing the latest in 3D rendering, pixel shaders, textures that are bigger than my monitor, fifty-eight thousand polygon character models with eight detail maps, and lighting techniques to make photorealistic scenery, I’d rather have a sprite with only four animation sequences done in classic eight-bit fashion, with an immersive story, well developed characters, and levels that are so challenging it actually takes more than four total hours to beat the game. All I see now days are a bunch of games that LOOK good, and suck completely.

After kicking about fifteen different kinds of ass on Call Of Duty 4, I decided to make a blog! Not really sure on the topic at hand. Oh, to be honest, I got my ass kicked a lot online. So what? It’s a game. Take it too seriously, and everyone will laugh at you. There’s a fine line between being competetive and being a dick that plays for twenty-seven hours before collapsing, being revived with a bag of Cheetos and a twelve pack of soda, and getting back up to return to your usual screaming until you slobber at your ‘noob teammates’(Who are actually better than you), and breaking your tenth headset. All the while weighing in at about three hundred pounds, five ounces.

I play games all the time, but I definitely don’t fit the description I put above. My favorite games are not even from this decade really. Pac-Man, Galaga, Joust, Tekken 3, The Legend of Zelda:A Link To The Past, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Age of Empires II, Doom I, Doom II:Hell On Earth, and a multitude of games kids these days that have probably never heard of and would probably refuse to play them because “those graphics suck!”. Pffffff. The same goes for music these days. Bands like Pink Floyd “suck and don’t have talent” but bands like Fallout Boy with repetetive guitar playing, whiny ass lyrics, and terrible vocals “are amazing”. But I digress. The quality of society is failing at a rapid rate that scares me. The latest decline in society I’ve heard of is that a fifteen year old was gang raped at a high school dance and all the people there WATCHED. They didn’t call the cops, the didn’t call for help, they didn’t go in there swinging their fists in effort to help her. They watched. What kind of fucking people do we have in this country we call America these days? Good god. Drugs on corners, fights, shootings over insignificant nothings, and a general “fuck the rules” attitude seem to be prominent in teenagers these days. School is boring to them, but going out and getting drunk on Friday at fourteen is their idea of a good life. Saddening.

Well, time to go blast more terrorists on Call of Duty 4. Hopefully I can get a new DVD drive soon, so I can play singeplayer campaign, because it needs the disk to play. Multiplayer doesn’t.

Happy Halloween everyone! After work, which was completely dead for three and a half hours straight, I enjoyed myself at home. Big party, which was the work of my parents. Playing ping pong, socializing, and swigging beer because I’m an underage lush(my parents called me a lush xD) makes for a great evening!

I would like to take a moment to thank a few people on my blog site. Railz Fails and Devil And The Sea, thanks for joining up and commenting on my posts ^^. I know Dev, but Railz, I’ve never met you xD. But I’ve added the two of you to my affiliates list : 3. Frozen, thanks for setting up my blog site for me! Honestly, I never thought blogging would be fun, I believed it would be a rather tedious, boring experience, but it turns out, I was wrong! I will freely admit that. Thanks dude!My friend Sarah also registered on here, and thanks ^^ Sarah. My other friends have read my blog, most of them, and I give a big thanks to you guys too, that enjoyed it!

I’m not really  going to be making a long post. I’m tired, as it’s about one o’ clock in the morning. I definitely had fun after work though. At work, I thought I would perish from boredom. Every time someone would walk by the counter, I’d be muttering “please come buy something! Save me from boredom!” under my breath. Oh well. I’m off work tomorrow(today rather), and heading to my friend Jeremy’s. No idea what shall transpire there, but it will be interesting, amusing, and insane, as usual. Goodnight, world.

Well readers, bloggers, and various browsers of the world of the Internet, today is Halloween! But I’m really not here to talk about Halloween, because I have to work tonight anyway. I didn’t plan on going out to get candy, I’m nineteen years old. I’m not missing anything important. I think I’ve said this enough times as it is, but I’ll reiterate once again:I doubt work will be eventful, no one wants a twenty dollar steak on Halloween.

Today, my topic of dicussion is the amusement I find when I see people using text messaging as a sole means of communication. When someone approaches the counter at work, I ask them what they would like. Now, this scenario has played out a dozen times, but the person will go, “Oh, I don’t know what my husband wants,” or “My wife is still deciding,” and they’ll be waiting for a text back. Five minutes will go by, and I usually end up saying, nicely, “can you call him(or her)?” The customer gives me this look as if they’ve been enlightened! “Holy shit, you can call people with this thing?” is a response I expect to hear out of people. They end up calling, and completing the business in twenty seconds, which could have saved them a five minute wait at the counter as well.

Some people write entire NOVELS back and forth to each other. J.K. Rowling didn’t write Harry Potter on paper, or the computer, she was obviously composing it on a cell phone! Hell, I took notes in class with my cell phone. Pfff. If you’ve got so much to say that it encompasses five texts, CALL THE PERSON! If you need a quick reply to something, DIAL THE NUMBER! This is ever so difficult! My own sister will be doing her homework, downstairs, while I’m up here in my room, and instead of yelling my name for help, she will send me a TEXT MESSAGE asking me if I can come help her with something! I’m no more than fifty feet up the stairs! Come on!

People went from sending letters to talking on the phone to sending letters again. The only advantage we have these days is that letters arrive in a matter of seconds on cell phones as opposed to days or weeks like the old days of sending letters to communicate. I only text if it is something simple. “Want to go to lunch?” or “Hey are you almost here?” or “I’m on my way over”. Simple shit. Nothing like, “Hey, me, Jenny, Alfred, Bill, and Tom are all going to the mall, and we’re probably going to out to eat. I think Tom is driving, do you want to go? Also…” and so on! I could never do that shit.

People who text while driving are also a problem. I witnessed a man blast through an active school zone at sixty miles per hour, about forty miles per hour over the speed limit for a school zone! Why? Because he was texting. My friend Jeremy and I witnessed a car accident in which another car spun another one out. Why? I saw that the man was indeed on his cell phone. Another woman rear ended someone? Why? Because her ass was huge. I mean, because she was on her cell phone. So on, so forth, and so on again. Honestly, get off the damn phone and drive, people! I think cell phone signal jammers should legally be required to have installed on cars so one cannot get a cell phone signal while in the car!

Topic concluded, ladies and gentlemen. GET OFF THE PHONE AND DRIVE!