I think we are all slowly getting sick around the house. Billy got it first and we aren’t 100% sure exactly where he got it from. It seems to just be an annoying cold so hopefully nothing too major. Each day it seems like another one of us gets the symptoms. I don’t think (knock on wood) that my version is nearly as severe as his. I started taking airborne as soon as he got sick so maybe that will help. My mom started feeling bad today, she said everyone has been sick where she works too so I guess it’s just going around.

Even being sickly though I still was able to beat GTA-IV today! I’ve only had the game for a year now. In all fairness it wasn’t until recently that I was all that into trying to beat it. I kinda want to buy an Xbox360 but I’m also afraid I’ll just spend all that money on it and it’ll collect dust like the ps3 and wii do. Maybe I should sit down and play some more of the Lego wii games we have. There are plenty of other things I’d probably get more use out of to spend that money on.

Oh, and I don’t know how many out there reading my blog are local; but as you might have heard we in Atlanta had a really severe flood earlier this week. Thankfully while our neighborhood sits in a hole our house sits pretty high up so we are safe. Our yard and pool on the other hand got everyone else’s runoff it seems. While it has dried out the ground is still saturated and we are in for more flood weather tonight and tomorrow (5″ of rain expected). I don’t mind the thunder and lightning, or even the rain; I just hope the power doesn’t go out for very long.

Well I better get back to watching deal or no deal with my mom, lol. Especially as the directv is expected to go out as soon as a rain drop fall.

– Kevin Salas
Posted from my iPhone

Let me preface this by saying that I absolutely love my MacBook Air.

But…

I’ve owned it for over a year now, and ever since its purchase it has had one big plaguing problem. It has a tendency to overheat when doing mildly intensive tasks (mainly video/flash playback, or other intensive tasks). Now I know this is an ultraportable machine designed for use on the go, and its not intended to be a main workhorse computer. I do use this as my main machine, mainly because I hate having to keep track of all my files across various machines. For me, I don’t generally do many graphics or processor intensive tasks. I do encode video (tv shows) for playback and storage in iTunes on my television, however I store those on the Mac Mini that is attached to the tv and it has a faster processor; so it gets to have that fun. With my photography I do edit photos, but I absolutely hate Photoshop (mainly due to its complex nature, and all the classes I’ve taken in photoshop have taught me nothing) so I use Pixelmator (which runs so much better on any machine). So as you can see the only problem I should be having is storage, since this machine was only available with a 60gb SSD or 80gb ATA (and I have the 80gb). I’d love to have an SSD but thats a story for another day.

Now this overheating issue use to be much worse, Apple has issued a firmware update that helped mildly. No longer did it simply shut down one of the cores to cut back on heat problems, now it just scales back processing so bad that watching youtube videos are impossible. Playback becomes so choppy that you can’t make it through an entire video. It would get so hot trying to play freaking farmville on facebook (flash content) that it got out of sync with the server because of how slow it was loading.

On to this magical fix; and no I didn’t buy a Rev. B or C MacBook Air to replace it. There is a utility called CoolBook that allows mac users to effectively under-clock the processor. This utility lets you specify the voltage the processor is getting when its running at different speeds. This doesn’t change the speeds, just the amount of power its consuming, therefore keeping it from getting nearly as hot. This also has a side benefit of using less battery power and giving you more time away from the plug. The utility is $10.00 and its attached to the computer you are using so it isn’t transferrable, its tied along with its serial to the machine. I installed it earlier today, and while it has gotten warm, it hasn’t gotten nearly as hot. I’ve been able to watch all the things on youtube I’ve missed out on! Hell i’m tempted to install iMovie and see how well it’ll create them.

While I am in the minority for people that own Airs, I still have to say its a wonderful everyday main machine for my uses, and I love it. Just now, I love it even more.

I simply just can’t understand why my father loves to drive me insane. There has to be some reason why he either purposely does things, or cannot seem to “remember” not to do them. Everyday, over and over the same thing happens.

Months ago my father finally decided to sell his car. He never drove it, and the convertible top had started to leak so it had been bound to a life in the garage; of which it never moved for almost a year. He finally told me that if I could sell it I could park my car in the garage in its place (seeing as how his truck is too big to fit in the garage anyway). Months went by and no offers on the stupid car, and then finally someone bought the damn thing. Now I can park in the garage! I should be happy and ecstatic; key word being ’should’.

Every day when my father comes home from work, he parks the behemoth of a truck right behind my car so there is no way I can leave to go anywhere. I bitch and complain constantly about it, yet every day over and over he either can’t “remember” not to, or for some reason he just has to be inconsiderate. Hearing the garage door in the afternoon, knowing its him coming home makes my blood pressure go through the roof, and I get an instant migraine from it.

I want to move, god help me I just want out. What is the point of being able to get in the garage if my car sits there for weeks because I can’t ever get it back out. I could rummage through my mom’s purse and find the other set of keys and move it (every time), or I could just park in the street (which would be stupid too). What really pisses me off is when it was the other way around; and he still drove his car. I NEVER blocked him in, I was ALWAYS courteous about it and made sure he could get out of the garage. Apparently when the shoe is on the over foot it would rather kick my ass for ’sport’.

I think the headache pills have finally started to kick in. Ugh, he is such a jackass.

I just had to vent today, and I know I sound like a teenager, but I’m not. I’m just one of those people that when the same button gets pushed over and over and over and over again whatever miniscule “thing” it actually is turns into a BIG deal to me.

– Kevin (BoyStar22) — Post From My iPhone

I’ve had this big revalation (right this minute actually) of which proves that the people that design and create products aren’t the people that actually use them. Let me feed your minds here. What moron keeps putting the cords on upright vacuum cleaners at the bottom? I know I am not the only one that has to hold the cord in my hand (the same hand that is holding the handle mind you) to keep it from sucking it up and getting in the way. If the cord came out of the top of the handle it would already be where we have to hold it and you wouldn’t have to bend over to unwrap it. The damn vacuum has been around for how many decades and we haven’t fixed this? I don’t have a damn dyson but I wouldn’t think this would need that much research to do people. Just proves that the men who design and build vacuums obviously aren’t the ones that have to use the bitches, am I right housewives? I thought so. I bet a woman came up with he roomba; probably Peggy Bundy (my hero). Where’s Oprah?

– Kevin (BoyStar22)
– Post From My iPhone (via BlogPress)

I use to have this wonderful plugin for wordpress; actually I still have it but it no longer works. It’s called “Facebook Comments” and its sole purpose is to poll facebook for comments on any of my “notes” and pull them along with the Author’s name and date and add them into the matching posts in wordpress. Since Facebook automatically pulls my blog via its own RSS-feed it use to be seamless; well it had a delay between everything catching up with each other, but within 24 hours everything lined up. I was happy with the small delay, it wasn’t a big deal. As long as everything got put in its correct place I was happy.

Unfortunately I believe the developer has given up on updating the plugin to work with Facebook’s ever-changing API, and Wordpress’ constant updates. For the longest time it just worked and I was thankful it did everything I wanted, but now its broken. =(

So I’m sending out a cry for help to the world, both of Wordpress and Facebook. Does anyone know of a similar plugin, or hell even a way to replicate what use to be great? I know it seems stupid, but people actually do read and comment on my blog via the “notes” that show up in facebook and the news feeds; but most people that actually travel to my blog may read it, but usually don’t leave comments. At the risk of looking like a complete loser I’d like to have my blog reflect that sharing my life isn’t an utter waste. While I do believe most things I ramble about only pertain to my interests its nice when others add their $.02 and I’d like to reflect it! So please, if you or someone else knows a way to do what I want please let me know!

–Kevin.