First of all…it is impossible to get in touch with Yahoo on the phone. They don’t like that it seems. So I filled out the forms and got an email from them with very specific instructions. They want some information from me from when I created that account. That was in 1998. Hell if I know what my “alternate” email address was!

So I made a bunch of guesses and none of ‘em turned out exactly right.

Now…Yahoo wants me to physically mail them…including a photocopy of a photo ID! Crazy huh?

I’m going to do it…get access to my Yahoo account…get everything up to date…and never use it again.

What a pain in the ass!

Sigh…

For whatever reason my password no longer works for Yahoo. I can’t get into Messenger nor can I get into email. Totally locked out.

Of course there seems to be no way to actually contact Yahoo directly. I end up at some page asking for my birthdate, location and alternate email address…and when I enter that information it tells me that it’s incorrect.

This really bites. Granted I’ve been trying to move away from using Yahoo but there are some emails I’d like to still have access to.

Bastards.

I’m going to try calling some numbers tomorrow.

I don’t know this for a fact (as I’ve heard people saying this but haven’t actually been “officially” informed) but…this has been the rainest year FUCKING EVER. Seriously. What the hell is up with this? Rain rain rain…every day. Yeah, we’ve had a couple days of sunshine but are rare and not often enough.

And these days I’m driving that Dakota. It’s a cool truck. It runs great, sounds bad ass (in a couple ways) and does just what I need it to do. In other words it’s just fast enough to get in some trouble. And with that light rear end…power on oversteer is extremely easy.

But there is a problem. You see, it’s a bit too easy. These days, with all this rain, I’m lighting that thing up all OVER the place.

So I’m driving to work today…and it’s fucking POURING. We’re talking wipers on high speed, defroster blasting, both hands on steering wheel, radio is off so I can give full concentration pouring rain. And I needed that extra level of concentration.

I was doing 45 on the freeway. 45 MPH. That’s weak. But damn…even then it was sketchy. I was all over the road…I tried changing lanes at one point and the rear end stepped out a good 2-3 feet. Ease off gas…gather up the slide…let it correct…back on gas once under control. Insane.

I need new tires.

Or…

I NEED SUNSHINE!

Oh yeah…Easter at work was nuts. We had 380ish people come in. I worked the line (did expo). Oh, you don’t know what that means? Sigh…looks like another post is in the works.

Actually…I have thousands. Yes…thousands.

One of the things I got myself (woot!) for my birthday was a USB external drive. It’s actually a combination of two things…an external USB case and a regular internal hard drive. Since I’ve got both the PC and the laptop…and the PC is getting pretty full of stuff, I felt a good large portable storage solution would be…well…useful. And it sure as hell is!

I got them both at Fry’s Electronics and it was a pretty good deal. The case (Airlink 101) was picked due to its price (~$40) and its specs (USB 2.0 connection, powered cooling fan, can take either a 3.5 or 5.25 in drive) and a Maxtor 300GB ATA133 drive (’cause it was huge and cheap). Installing it was fairly easy…I just made the mistake or setting the drive as “slave” instead of “master” initially. That didn’t work. So set it to “master” and it’s a snap to get working.

Anyway…total digression here.

I put ALL my pictures, ALL my movies, ALL my documents/files/whatever…even all the free programs I’ve downloaded and am using (hmmm…another post perhaps about that? Soon…damnit the list is getting LONG).

So I’ve got a huge amount of pictures that I’d like to put up on the internet for people to …well…look at I guess. Mess with. Admire. Scoff. Whatever.

Keep an eye out for these posts in the comming undetermined time frame (in other words…it could be years folks…so deal with it).

PS: The Star Destroyer should arrive tomorrow…and I’ve got the day off

PSS: The above statement makes me look EXTREMELY geeky…and that’s a bit sad.

First I am going to post two little movies…

A video from the farm using my Canon Powershot A400

It’s dull and boring but it shows how much freaking water is up there…that’s a gopher hole in the middle of the orchard

A video of Lego Pirates made with my Logitec Clicksmart 510

That I made with the help of Matt G quite some time ago

And finally…a freakishly giant picture (to see how my site handles it)

Ok…giant picture is TOO giant because it covers up other things…so no picture.

Enjoy the movies however.

It’s now 11:15 on Thursday, April 13th 2006 (which is probably indicated when I post this…but hey, I’m all about repeating things).

And I’m in my room, desk light on, laying in bed doing some research on how to rip a DVD onto a computer. I’ve got a couple movies that I got from students when I was at Les Roches so I’ve been thinking about putting some of my movies on…

Whatever.

What a terribly boring post for Birthday Eve. Seriously…shouldn’t I be talking about something far more fun? Like presents, parties, friends, family…expectations, resolutions, plans, reflections? Something far more grand and promising then “gee, I really would love to be able to watch Initial D on my computer without popping in the disk.”

The thing is I’m kinda distracted these days. Sure I’ve got lots going on…this whole work thing for example, my list of possible posts…and to add to that list…

-List of Things Neil Needs to do Before he Dies

-Massive posting of pictures from the farm

-The lunacy that is www.nasioc.com Off Topic

-Good sources for free porn

-List of cool websites that are fun to screw around with

blah blah blah…

But what I’m going to type next is something that has been on my mind for a while now. I’m 31 (32 in about 38 minutes) and I’m single. I’m really seriously single…and have been for a looong time now. Yeah I’ve dated a bit and had some fun…but it’s been a long time since I’ve been involved in anything truly serious. Now…that isn’t to say I haven’t been “involved” with anyone. Just not “truly seriously” involved. I’ve got this really fucking annoying habit of getting “involved” with women through this glorious medium we like to call “the internet”. Sometimes it’s something I pursue, sometimes it’s something that happens without any real effort. And this last time…man, what a jacked up situation that was. Hell…I’m still recovering from this. I’m not going to go into the deep details here but I was nuts about her, she was nuts about me and all of a sudden (it seems), it totally crapped out. Yes yes shame on me for falling for something this unreal but SHIT it sure as hell FELT real. Perhaps that’s a product of my season online-e-ness? That it’s just comfortable and easy for me to get all hot and heavy over someone from the net? Perhaps. Hell if I know.

I know I’m just not quite over it…I put in a lot of time and effort. And time and effort is the only thing that will help it pass.

And yes…oh yes…I’m sure it’ll pass…especially when I fucking stop dwelling on it. That is clear.

But when it’s 30 minutes away from your birthday, and you are alone at home…these sort of things just pop into your mind. And that is frustrating.

Things could be worse however. I’ve got a great job that is becoming better daily. I’ve got a family that cares tremendously about me. I’ve got money in the bank. I’ve got some cool shit coming up in my life. I’ve got a group of friends I know are there for me.

I just miss…you know. That other stuff.

Tomorrow will be another day. Maybe another gloriously sunshine filled day.

We shall see…won’t we?

Happy Birthday to me.

And Kristin…if you ever do read this…I want you to know, on this day, on this hour…I still wish you the best.

Back when I had my blogspot blog one of the things I loved seeing was the visits it got from various people…the statistics of hits, how people found it, etc. Unfortunately…being a website n00b…I didn’t check the “let google search this” box. This really cut back on the interesting searches. I’m sure…considering the vast amount of strangeness I wrote about…that I would get more random hits.

Well, thinking about it now all those pre-donkey pages are on my site…so those should be getting hits.

What I am getting hits for…rather, what I am getting searched for primarily deals with the stereo and diesel stories. All of them have something to do with those two things…several of them are people looking for a way to get the red out of diesel. According to the story the red dye in the diesel makes it road-illegal…so there are some law breakers out there. Let me rephrase that…there are some attemtped law breakers out there…they just haven’t figured out how to break said law and make red diesel un-red.
After talking with a friend of mine…who shall remain nameless…who has a site that I’ve linked to here…she gets a lot of creepy and somewhat frightening search hits. Is it wrong of me to want to get creepy and somewhat frightening search hits as well?

‘Cause I do. I really do. Call it the freak in me but I like the idea of someone searching for something totally wacko and coming across my site…which is totally wacko in a completely different way.

But all “my searches” refer to events that I’ve posted as “pages” instead of “posts”. Pages are those things on the left side that I priorly bitched about. Posts are what you are reading currently. So maybe I need to write a “page” about creepy and somewhat freakish things in order to get these said searches.

The question now…how to do this?

I could just make a list of vulgar and creepy phrases for people to search for…but that seems rather pathetic. It would just be a cry for attention at that point, and what fun is that?

So as I write and think about this I feel I should craft some sort of story…some sort of stream-of-conciousness story that brings in all these searchable words. Call it a mad lib of unpleasant searches.

Of course…this is yet another silly project that I am going to take on…when I’ve only made but a tiny dent in my prior list of things to write about. But hey…it’s my fucking page and my fucking time. So there.

So to satisfy the craving of you (and me) to read/write/comment/bother stuff…yes…words.

Um…

OK!

Right…you’ve got two new pages over to the side there to read, with a couple pictures thrown in. I still need to write up the story of the cats, figure out how to make video work for you people to see, talk about the gourmet dinner (with the tons of pictures involved) and other things.

But I’m annoyed at those pages. I don’t, AT ALL, like how they run into each other and are hard to tell which is different.

Moe…Friday we should figure out something clever.

Which reminds me…

Friday, April 14th, is my birthday. I’ve got the day off work. Saturday I go to the grandparents for dinner with the family (and will take pictures of the scary little side house for you to look at…more on that later). Sunday is Easter…which will be nuts at work.

So this should placate you people for a bit. Now I must eat something.

So here is the deal…I’ve actually got several thousand things to talk about. Almost every night while I’m laying in bed I think a bit about what I should post here…what it is I should share…and here are a couple ideas…

-The gourmet dinner at the farm complete with many pictures

-The re-building and modification of the pachenko ball machine (JDM tyte yo!)

- The plans for the Subaru GL-10 (rally school is June 10th!!)

- What is happening at work (good, bad and ugly)

- The remodeling of the house in Lafayette

- Thoughts on life (including some personal crapola)

- Invasion of the Homeless Cats (with video!)

- The Lego Star Destroyer (in the mail…22 lbs of Lego glory)

- How To Make An External HD Enclosure Work

- Tips and Tricks for Restaurant Patrons (aka How To Be A Good Customer)

- How Neil, with his thousands of silly projects…has absolutely no concrete and acceptable social life

So as you can all plainly see there is a lot to cover here…and really I should just open a couple beers, sit down, and write until I can write now more.

PS: My Dakota stereo install and my dad’s stories are showing up on Google now…and he’s actually gotten an email from someone who found his timer instructions and found them very helpful. That was pretty damn cool.

So there it is…enjoy.

…cause there isn’t much to talk about!