So my roommate and I have a full slate on our livingroom DVR. We are total Bravoholics, from Real Housewives to Flipping Out to Make Me A Supermodel – we watch them all. We also seem to have a very strange penchant for crime shows like CSI (NY, Miami and Las Vegas), Numb3rs (not really so much), and Criminal Minds. I think our favorite of the crime shows is Criminal Minds. We start watching on Friday night on A&E and don’t finish watching until sometime Sunday night. Totally hooked. Like we were totally devastated when Garcia got shot. Like she’s part of our family, too.

The other night we were watching an episode and found ourselves wondering if some of the crimes depicted actually happen. Then we thought, “Oh hell, even if they don’t actually happen, who the hell in their right minds thinks this crap up??” We sit for the hour yelling at the characters to not go in that room because the bad guy is in there or don’t turn around because the bad guy is right behind you. I should find a tape recorder for when we watch tv. We’re even worse when watching The Vampire Diaries. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a smoker like me, on more than one occasion you’ve seriously considered quitting smoking. And, on just as many occasions you’ve actually tried to quit. Almost all of us understand the health risks of smoking, and actually care about what smoking does to our bodies and those around us. In terms of finances, we get how much we spend on our habit and if we were to look at  a pie chart showing how much we spend on tobacco products compared to food or clothing, we would hang our heads in shame.

Because my work is done in front of a computer all day, and I’m in my own home, I go through just about a pack of cigarettes a day. Maybe about 5 of them actually get smoked. It’s a physical and psychological habit that I don’t know if I can break. I have no trouble going to a movie and sitting for a few hours without a smoke. I can sit in an office and survive without a smoke until a break or lunch. But at home, at my computer, I have no control over myself.

With that said: I was in my bedroom this afternoon, a room in which I don’t smoke, and turned on the tv. There was a commercial for Chantix on and they were singing their own praises that 44% of their users quit smoking within 9 to 12 weeks. Sounds pretty good. Makes it sound like it’s not all cold-turkey and total dt’s, right? So the commercial then goes into the risks and side effects of using Chantix. Um, I think I’d rather keep smoking…     Read the rest of this entry »

More and more everyday we, as a society, are always looking for the quickest and easiest way to spread information. Right now, as you’re reading, I’m spreading information about a woman who is being harassed because she tweeted about her son’s death.

There are many things about this story that I don’t like. There are two issues here. Whether or not an accident could have been prevented and whether or not it was appropriate that a mother should choose to share her tragedy on Twitter. That she left the checking on a two-year-old to an 11-year-old instead of checking herself, not ensuring that a pool enclosure wasn’t secured herself…but when it comes to pools I’ve found that no matter what a parent does, accidents will happen. I cannot judge the pool incident because I wasn’t there, and accidents will happen no matter how much care and security and intuitiveness a parent has.

I can however offer an opinion on the mother tweeting about her son falling in the pool and, sadly, passing away.     Read the rest of this entry »

Carmen Huertas got smashed at a birthday party, filled the car up with kids, and had a deadly accident on NY’s Henry Hudson Parkway. And now the city is worried that she might commit suicide. Really?

In October, Carmen Huertas attended a birthday party with her family, including an 18-month old. After the party, Huertas was going to bring a group of girls, including her own daughter, back to her home for a slumber party. Interestingly enough, when it was time to leave, Huertas collected the children, including the toddler, but her “worried” husband decided to keep the baby with him.  Eight children piled into a station wagon with a woman whose blood alcohol content was off the charts. And the other party-goers knew it! Read the rest of this entry »

The NY Daily News online is reporting that a pregnant lawyer in Valley Stream, on Long Island, left her toddler in her car seat and went shopping at Walmart for more than an hour. Really? Are you serious?

In an age when children aren’t safe walking to their school bus stops or even playing on their own front lawns, who in their right mind would leave their child in the backseat of a car while they went shopping??? Well, apparently, this chick thought it was just fine and dandy. Say what you will about New Yorkers, but thank goodness someone saw this child in the car and called police.     Read the rest of this entry »

It’s almost funny. I grew up in NY…Queens to be exact. I had a terrible Brooklyn accent and loved riding on the subway. That’s a great thing about being a kid – not having the same fears that grown-ups have. Go out or stay out late at night. Hang out on street corners or in schoolyards or parks. I’m not going to fall on the old cop-out that “things were different in my day.” Things are always different for every generation. Every age is a different age. I cannot begin to compare myself to kids running around today. Things are, in fact, different.     Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve owned a PC since 1993 and today is the second time ever in those 16 years that I’ve found myself at the mercy of a virus. The last virus I had was the worm that went around with a IE6 update. It wasn’t too long after that that I abandoned Internet Explorer as my primary browser and development tool.

Considering that I make my living with a computer, any downtime is bad time. While I wouldn’t say it’s rare for me to download and install programs from the internet, I would say that on those occasions I take every precaution possible to make sure that it’s a safe file. Namely, I know the site that I’m downloading from, or the site is highly recommended by other knowledgeable web professionals. If I’m not sure, I don’t download.

Before I continue with this post…If you happened to stumble upon this post after doing a search for help in removing Antivirus System Pro, just hop on over to BleepingComputer.com for detailed instructions on manually removing this nastly little virus. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in October I’d made a post that Craigslist has become a waste for me to look for a regular job. However, it does still provide a reasonable venue for advertising services. Well, sort of.

Craigslist has finally started cracking down on spammers and over-posters, meaning that one used to be able to post an ad on Monday at 8am, make another post at noon, and then maybe another post at 5pm, and continue the same process every day of the week. Posters do that to keep their ads on top of the list.

If you’re like me, you don’t like to scroll and then heaven forbid you should have to click a “Next” button! I can’t stand it! Unfortunately, the ad that I posted on Thursday is now on a second page. Not likely it’s going to be found down there. Craigslist’s crackdown now makes it virtually impossible to make multiple posts to the same category, or more than 3 posts on your account at all. Furthermore, when registering your account, you now have to verify that you’re a real person and that you’re not creating multiple accounts by verifying either via telephone or text on your cell. Once that phone number is in the system, you cannot activate more than one account with that phone number.     Read the rest of this entry »

I have to laugh at myself sometimes. I used to think my mom was silly for complaining about how many commercials were shown during a typical tv show. She used to make us watch PBS all the time because there were no commercials. During their peak “giving” seasons, she would take the time that PBS celebs would take to beg for donations to keep the programming alive to clean up the house, go to the bathroom, make something to eat – whatever. That was 30 years ago. Since I have some Alfred Hitchcock in my Hulu queue, I can honestly say that a 30-minute program in 1957 had an average of 5 minutes worth of commercials. Today, there are closer to 9 minutes worth of commercials. Imagine what she could have done with all that time! An average 60-minute long show has about 17 minutes worth of commercials. Read the rest of this entry »

Before I go into my rant, I just want to say that I’m sure Craigslist still serves a purpose for many other visitors.

Now that that’s out of the way, I can now say that Craigslist is of no real use to me. I’ve gotten so much run-around from the job postings that it’s no longer worth it for me to check the site even once a week anymore. Posters post for the sake of posting and never follow up on what they were originally posting for. I’m not even going to go into the recent headlines where people have been killed when responding to a Craigslist post, like in the case of the “Craigslist Killer.”     Read the rest of this entry »