My Friends: ringlet, xbang_bang, velouria, femmeemo, rain_drop, makeithurt, fourskulls, raiser, frost, long_gone
My Blogs Previous Page Next Page


frost Caught by Harlan Coben a Mystery Thriller Book Review - Subscribe
Harlan Coben is perhaps one of my favorite authors. I love Harlan's Myron Bolitar series as such I read any book he puts out. One of Harlan's more recent book, Caught, reached my eyes and I decided to give it a read. Immediately I became immense in the book, I love a good mystery and I knew that Harlan would produce. I also enjoy how Harlan uses familiar characters from his other previous books and as such it makes you smile just seeing the name when they read.

Dislaimer, This review may contain a few hints and spoilers, if you know Harlan Coben and prefer not to know anything about the book, I suggest you stop here and just buy the book and read it.

Caught by Harlan Coben Book Cover

A Viral Marketing Thriller
A mystery book about how Viral Marketing tear people's life apart hardly sounded interesting to me, but Harlan Coben was able to take the Internet Viral Marketing and make it into a great mystery. Wendy Tynes, who is a news reporter, has Caught yet another sick pedophile on her TV Show. However, Dan Mercer is not your average pedophile, and something about Dan has struck Wendy Tynes as being "off". While the trial for Dan Mercer is going on, a 17 year old girl comes up missing, Haley McWaid, who is a quiet girl, but also a perfectionist. Wendy decides to do some digging on Dan Mercer and some old school buddies, and what she finds will take you for one awesome ride.

Is everything as it seems? It appears not, and Wendy Tynes is bound and determined to unravel the truth, no matter what road it takes her down. With a bit of help from Win (Windsor Home Lockwood the Third appeared in the Myron Bolitar series) Wendy digs as deep as she can, but will she dig too far?

My Take
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. The characters were laid out, in my opinion, great. If you have read the Myron Bolitar series, you will love the few appearances by Win in this book and it put a smile on my face. You will also find some brief appearances by Hester Crimstein, who is a TV Show Judge now. The book, Caught, is far from being predictable, which I love about a mystery novel. Caught also has many twists and turns and takes you for a thrill ride all the way through. In the end, I do not want to go into great detail, as I hate spoiling books, so I would highly recommend if you are a Mystery / Thriller book junkie, or just love Harlan Coben, check out Caught and give it a read, I bet you will find it hard to put the book down (I know I did).

External Resources
If you would like to see what Harlan Coben thinks about Caught, here is a YouTube video of his review:
0 Comments
Mood: glorious
KeyWords: thriller, mystery, book, review, myron, bolitar, win, windsor lockwood, wendy, caught, series, characters, familiar, fun, enjoyable, great, read, smile, immense, book, reading, author, favorite, harlan, coben, viral, marketing, trial, wendy, show, tv

frost Omaha Steaks Review Jun 14th, 2011 13:28 - Subscribe
When looking for easier way to obtain meals, I often look at fresh solutions, so to speak. When I came across this Omaha Steaks Mailer, I decided to take a look into Omaha Steaks and give them a try. My results are kind of mixed pleasures, but overall I was pleased with the product. What does get annoying is the constant mailers and phone calls. Luckily I can disable the phone calls, however, I cannot control the snail mail mailers. This is a minor annoyance, and some people may not even consider it an annoyance at all.



The Quality
Overall the quality is decent. I mean you could do just as good with a frozen steak on your own. My wife seems to think it is great quality for a frozen steak / meat and it has a great flavor. I think it is kind of so-so, the quality seems to be by preference. The burgers were very nice and easy to grill. They ship out the times to cook them, however, since we live in Colorado at a higher altitude those times needed to be adjusted. As part of a package we received some twice baked potatoes. They are almost always my favorite part of a steak dinner, and Omaha Steaks did not disappoint me with their twice baked. For coming out of a freezer, they tasted delicious, at least as good as the ones you can buy from your store's Deli section. I am not a huge hot dog / franks, fan, and unfortunately their Gourmet Franks did nothing to change my mind. They looked great, but in the end, they still tasted like a hot dog. I may try marinating them next time and see if I cannot produce a bit better Frank. My wife enjoyed them also, however, my little girl did not, which should not be surprising as she is almost 2 and can be a very picky eater. In my little test run, the quality of the food seemed decent, especially for being frozen and shipped.

The Ordering Experience
From start to finish the Omaha Steak experience could not be called "enjoyable", as when is spending money, and seemingly a lot money upfront, enjoyable? However, the easy of ordering online (I hate talking to sales people on the phone) was pretty simple, like most online ordering. With the optional account setup, I chose to setup an account. The process was basically, select what you want (in my case I just entered a promo code from the mailing). Overall, the ordering experience was simple and what was to be expected by today's standard of online ordering.

Breaking it Down
I think Omaha tends to over price their products, to intentionally "knock" down the price to make you feel like you are getting a good deal. I saw through this and broke it down to what it cost per each serving. Overall it is a decent deal, however, a membership to Costco with a vacuum pack sealer, could easily compete with the cost, and you would probably come out much better going that route. But for a small family, in my case 3, with only 2 adults this seems to be a decent deal. Why for the small family, well everything comes in it's own individually wrapped package. This is awesome as I can easily just make myself a burger and my wife a steak, if we both feel like something different, or if I am home alone watching the kid while my wife is going out. This aspect of Omaha Steaks was very appealing to me. I would imagine this being great for a single person, a small family, or perhaps an older couple whose kids have all left / gone off to college. If you have a bigger family, I would probably go the Costco / Sam's Club route, and I think that you would get more bang for your buck.

In the End
In the end I am buying another item from Omaha Steaks right now to give them another go, and it is a Father's Day special. Hopefully, it is a similar if not better experience. I do really think that this solution is not very frugal for large families and I do not like how Omaha Steaks "knocks" their prices down all the time. I mean really, it does make you feel like you are getting a deal, but it also feels like a scam. I know it is not a scam now, but I think it would present their appearance better having "real" prices and do "real" specials, instead of these constant specials and in my opinion, if you buy anything from them for their "real" price, you are a moron and you deserve to be wasting your money. Hope this review helps you decide if you want to give Omaha Steaks a try or not! Good Eatings!
0 Comments
Mood: smiley
KeyWords: omaha, steaks, review, decent, okay, mixed, pleasure, good, product, steaks, burgers, franks, hot dogs, online, ordering, experience, preference, test, trial, surprising, picky, food, frozen, delivered

frost Brueggers Bagel Sandwiches Review Jun 7th, 2011 15:18 - Subscribe
I love a fresh hot bagel for breakfast. The only thing to trump that is by throwing an Egg on it with some bacon and vegetables, thankfully, Brueggers in Lakewood, CO does just that! I have been a fan of Brueggers for a few years now and will generally have a breakfast bagel from them a few times a month. I am not one for crazy variety, if I find something I like I tend to stick with it. Brueggers offers me everything I need from my Bagel Breakfast sandwich, which I love so much!

A picture of bagels

Customer Service
Overall I would say the atmosphere at Brueggers is cozy. Whenever there is a line, I find the process to go quickly enough, as I have never waited for longer then 5-10 minutes from the time I ordered my Bagel till the time I sat down to eat it. I would call that being on the ball with service. The staff is wonderful and it is apparent they know what the are doing. I also truly enjoy their Punch Card system, buy 10 get 1 free. I usually get a "free" bagel every 2-3 Months, which in my mind is not a bad deal if I am going to be eating the Bagel anyways.

My Usual Order
As I stated, I tend to stick to something if it is good enough to stick to. At Brueggers, my favorite breakfast bagel is The Westerner on Jalapeno Cheddar. This is just an awesome bagel, I do get sort of sad when I go in hoping for my Westerner on Jalapeno Cheddar to find out they are out. The next best thing would be to have the Pesto Cheese Bagel, which is basically the Jalapeno Cheddar, just without the Jalapeno.

Overall
Overall I really enjoy Brueggers! From the speed of service, niceness of service to the quality of food, they really have their Bagel Shop down to a science. The next time you are out and about in the morning and looking for a great Bagel Breakfast, I would highly recommend stopping at Brueggers. They offer an awesome Jalapeno Bagel and of course my favorite sandwich inners, the Westerner if that is not your cup of tea, I am sure you can find something savory for yourself.
0 Comments
Mood: jinxed
KeyWords: bagels, brueggers, delicious, yum, lakewood, colorado, denver, breakfast, jalapeño, cheddar, fun, excellent, service, customer service, comfy, warm, hospitable, recommend

frost Amazon Does not Accept Colorado Associates Jun 3rd, 2011 23:20 - Subscribe
Recently, I wanted to try and sign up to be an Amazon Associate to promote a few books I have read etc. Deciding that this would be pretty trivial to setup, I ventured out to do become an Amazon Associate. Well the process was not trivial at all. When I was trying to signup, Amazon kept telling me that I had a bad state. No other error message. After using 3 different browsers and many different variations of for Colorado, thinking it wanted the state in a specific format, I opted to contact Amazon. Well here is Amazon's response:
Amazon Not Longer Allows Coloradans to be Associates
quote:

Thank you for contacting us about the Colorado legislation. The Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to "voluntarily" collect Colorado sales tax -- a course we won't take.

We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states.

There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally permissible system applied evenhandedly. The U.S. Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates.

You may express your views of Colorado's new law to members of the General Assembly (http://www.leg.state.co.us/Clics/CLICS2010A/csl.nsf/directory?openframeset) and to Governor Bill Ritter (http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/GovRitter/GOVR/1177024890452), who signed the bill.

We appreciate your understanding.

Best regards,

Heather T
Amazon.com Associates Program


Well that sucks for me and Amazon I guess. I just wish instead of blindly blocking Colorado they would have at least put an error message about it. I wasted a couple hours doing this and was not very happy. I of course understand their position, they just need to be more verbose about the situation and not try and hide it and make people even more confused. If you live in Colorado, I would ask you to take a stand, and if you feel the above is wrong, contact the Colorado General Assembly and urge them to change it.

(sarcasm)But hey! At least Amazon still wants to sell to Coloradans. (end sarcasm) They just do not want Coloradans to become Associates to earn a little money on the side. In my opinion, if Amazon wants to do this right they need to man up and not even sell anything to Coloradans and explain why they are not doing it. I highly doubt that blocking people from being associates is going to make the Law Makers change their minds.
0 Comments
Mood: vain
KeyWords: associates, amazon, colorado, not, allowed, sell, laws, coloradans, money, earn, exception, accept, allow, disallowed, not allowed

frost Tupac Shakur Still Alive? PBS.org Hacked! May 30th, 2011 01:06 - Subscribe
Late Sunday night, PBS.org was hacked and a news story was posted saying that Tupac Shakur and Biggie were still alive and living in a small town in New Zealand. Tupac apparently sent his Diary to a family member and the New Zealand city, to be unnamed, was closed down for security reasons. A friend of mine on IRC captured the image of the original site before it was taken down, see the image below.

PBS.org Hacked, Tupac Shakur and Biggie alive in New Zealand, picture of article

Not long after the posting PBS.org removed the article.

For more information see Hacked PBS Reports Tupac Biggie Alive

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!
0 Comments
Mood: bootylicious
KeyWords: tupac, original, shakur, new, article, alive, pbs, hacked, new zealand, biggie, rappers, famous, alive, well living, closed, down, image, security

frost Sony Vaio F11 Laptop Review - Ubuntu Linux May 26th, 2011 23:13 - Subscribe
Last month I was in need of a new laptop. After doing my looking at deals I came to a decision to purchase a Sony Vaio F11. It was on sale at NewEgg and had everything I was looking for in a laptop. Well the laptop was bought, thanks to David, and I have been using it solidly for about a month now. Over the month I have tried various Operating Systems on the Sony Vaio laptop, from Windows 7 to Ubuntu to Arch Linux. I have to say, my initial impressions were not great and my frustration level was very high. To avoid any real negative feedback, I still love my Vaio now that I finally have it working with Arch Linux, but it was rough getting to that point and here is how it panned out.

Sony Vaio F11 Series Not Ubuntu Friendly

Let's Use Ubuntu...or Not
I have always had success with using Ubuntu, and Ubuntu is generally a 15 minute install without any hassle, especially on a brand new computer where nothing needs to be backed up. Well the Sony Vaio F11 is not an easy system to get up and running with Ubuntu. Right after the Live Ubuntu CD has been inserted you immediately encounter a problem...the touchpad does not work! Well, having used Ubuntu before and preferring not to use a touchpad, this was easy to work around to get Ubuntu installed, just tab to "Install Ubuntu" and use the keyboard shortcuts to do the rest. Ok, the installation was going through. After the installation and Ubuntu loaded up guess what? The touchpad was still not working. Having a USB Mouse to plug into the computer, I connected my eth0 to get online and do some googling using Firefox. What I found was that for whatever reason Ubuntu does not recognize the Sony Touchpad (I found this eerily weird given Ubuntu's Easy setup reputation) and there is a hack to get it working thanks to the Ubuntu Forums.

Edit /etc/default/grub to include GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="i8042.nopnp"

sudo update-grub


Great, I now have a touchpad to use finally. Thinking it is wise to do an upgrade, I went ahead and ran: 

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade


The process goes through smoothly and I decide to reboot because Ubuntu tells me I need to Restart. I go ahead and reboot...wait a second, I was suppose to see Ubuntu show up...it appears the updates broke my system and now all I see is a black screen, which you can tell the system is on (given the green LED on the power button). Well this is the pits. After some more googling (from my wife's computer) it appears that the NVIDIA drivers that are in the Ubuntu repository do not go well with the Sony Vaio. The fix was again, easy, but annoying. I loaded up the Ubuntu Live CD, had my USB Mouse plugged in, went to "Try Ubuntu". Once there I loaded up a terminal (Alt + Ctrl + T) and blacklisted the NVIDIA driver. To do this I had to mount my drive and create a file, during the fdisk -l /dev/sda part, we need to find the sda number that is set for the root drive. This will generally be sda3 / sda4 / sda5, depending on how you set it up. If you did the automatic with a separate home partition it should be sda3. No matter, after you mount it, if it is not the right drive, use `umount /media/sdaX` and then try the next number. To know its the right drive, doing an `ls /media/sda` should come back with folders like `/etc` `/bin`... 

sudo su -

cd /media

mkdir sda

fdisk -l /dev/sda

mount -a /dev/sda3 /media/sda

cd /media/sda/etc/modprobe.d/

nano blacklist-nvidia.conf

#Paste this text in the blacklist file

# we black list the nouveau so we can install the proper nvidia drivers later

blacklist nvidia

blacklist nouveau

#Save with Ctrl+X


That should blacklist the driver. Before we reboot the computer, we will want to go and download the latest driver for the video card at NVIDIA, mine was a 450m Cuda, yours may be different depending on the model. We will want to save them to `/media/sda/opt`, if that is not a directory, go ahead and make it and then using Firefox, download the drivers and move them to that folder.

Once that has been done, go ahead and reboot. Once the Ubuntu Login screen comes up, we want to run a TTY, so hold Ctrl+Alt+F2, this should take you to a terminal go ahead and login, your normal account should suffice (we will just sudo later). Once in the terminal, let's go ahead and install the proper NVIDIA drivers.

sudo su -

cd /opt

chmod +x NVIDIA*

./NVIDIA*


Go ahead and follow the prompts, at the end it should say it was installed, at this point we need to enable the NVIDIA driver.

cd /etc/modprobe.d/

nano blacklist-nvidia.conf


Leave the nouvea driver blacklisted, but delete the nvidia line. Once this has been done and saved, type `reboot` and the computer should restart and you should have a working version of Ubuntu with the Sony Vaio F Series. Caveats, never upgrade NVIDIA from the Ubuntu Repository, it will ask you to, do not or else you have to go through this mess again. You cannot change the brightness etc without doing some modifications to the xorg.conf, if you would like this feature check out Vaio-F11 on Linux. Finally, under Linux, in order to get proper power management for a Vaio Laptop, you will need to compile a custom kernel (see the Vaio-F11 Linux site above for how to do that). Compiling a Kernel is not easy, but after you do it a few times it get's easier, given I need to re-compile mine I may write a blog about how to do it. But all in all, you now have a working Vaio F11 Series laptop on Ubuntu Linux! Congratulations (now aren't you glad you found this blog!).

Conclusion for Ubuntu on Sony Vaio F11 Series
I would not really recommend running Ubuntu on the Sony Vaio F11 series, until Ubuntu or Sony can address the major issues. If you do run it, at least you know the hacks / work around's to fix it. It is very unfortunate that the drivers are not compatible, and I do not blame Ubuntu in the slightest. Sony is notorious for having it's own set of drivers that use proprietary software which is not available on Linux except through hacks. It is workable, but just beware that it takes a lot of effort to get Ubuntu working on the Sony Vaio F11 Series. For me it took a good 5+ hours to find all this information and get everything "working". I formatted a few days later to see how the Sony Vaio F11 Series laptop ran on Windows 7..

Continuation
I will write a new blog in a few days about my experiences with the Sony Vaio F11 series laptop under Windows 7 and another on Arch Linux, given the extent of the information I have. So please check back, or better yet, subscribe to my RSS feed! I will update this blog with links once I post those items.
0 Comments
Mood: inadequate
KeyWords: linux, vaio, f11, f series, f11 series, series, ubuntu, arch, windows, review, good, bad, hacks, work arounds, tutorial, instructions, code, vaio laptop, laptop, vaio linux, nvidia, nvidia drivers, nvidia vaio, 425m, touchpad

frost Sketchers Shoe and Store Review May 25th, 2011 19:14 - Subscribe
Recently I acquired a pair of Sketchers Shoes from the Sketchers store at Colorado Mills in Golden, CO. I am a huge fan of Sketchers for a few reasons, my first is I really like their designs they just suit me. The second reason and perhaps the main reason; they have "WIDE" shoes available. The WIDE shoes that Sketchers offer I find much more comfortable for my feet, in other words, they actually have room to breathe. Let's dive a bit further into the shoes themselves.

Sketchers CityWalk Midnight

Comfort Levels of Sketchers
The new pair of Sketchers I bought are mildly comfortable. They are not nearly as comfortable as my older pair, probably because I bought them to look a bit nicer for work. After the first week of wearing them and breaking in my new shoes, they became quite a bit more comfortable to wear. It just took that initial time of wearing them to get them just right. Now I love those shoes, and it is too bad I want to keep them nice looking for work, because I only wear them to work and nothing else (unless a fancy dinner comes up). All in all the new Sketchers I bought were not very comfortable at first, but after breaking them in they have become much more comfortable to wear daily.

Price vs Value
The Price of the Sketchers that I paid was reasonable. They had a deal going on Buy One get the Second Half Off. Of course my wife was with me when I bought my shoes and I gave in and let her pick out a pair for her. So for around $70 we walked out with 2 new pair of Sketcher shoes. Hers are more relaxed wear, but she loves how comfortable hers are. So given that I paid roughly $35 for my shoes, I would say that we came off with a pretty good deal. I am not one to spend a ton of money on shoes, and I was pretty happy with that price. For the price, I would say I got a great value on my new pair of shoes.

Sketchers WIDE Fit
I am not seen many brands that make a "WIDE" shoe for fat feet. But before I started buying Sketchers, it seemed no matter what shoe I bought my big toes would end up being sore, even after they were broken in. This was annoying to say the least, as having sore toes are not fun. Then one day, I was looking at shoes and saw the Sketchers with the "WIDE" tag. I tried them on and just fell in love. Since then I have kept my eye out for "WIDE" shoes in different brands, like Nike's. And I have yet to really find a "WIDE" shoe that fits me as well as Sketchers and maintains a great Price to Value ratio.

Sketchers at the Colorado Mills Mall
The Sketchers store at the Colorado Mills, seemed a bit high priced to me. The higher prices could have been because the store was in the Mall. Luckily they had the Buy one Get one Half Off deal going on, or I probably would not have bought my shoes. The last Sketchers I bought, before these ones, I found at DSW Shoe Warehouse on Clearance for $30 or so. I probably just got lucky to find them there at the time, but that seemed very reasonable to me for a pair of shoes, so I bought them. I was sad to say that I did check out DSW Shoe Warehouse and other places before going to the Sketchers Store at the Colorado Mills Mall, and was unable to find a pair of Sketchers that I liked for a reasonable price. For comparison, the Sketchers Store at the Colorado Mills Mall was about the same price as the Sketchers at DSW Shoe Warehouse, not on clearance. My take, if you cannot find a good deal at another place, you might as well just go to the Sketchers Store and buy from them directly. However, if you are lucky enough to stumble upon a Pair of Sketchers on Clearance that suit you, you are probably better off buying them from that store.

Overall Satisfaction
Overall I am satisfied with my Sketchers purchase, not as satisfied as I was with my last pair, but still satisfied. Their comfort level is decent and the WIDE Sketchers are just awesome, given I do not get sore toes anymore. The Colorado Mills Mall Sketchers Store is not the cheapest place you can find Sketchers, but they do have deals that go on throughout the year, which may make your next pair a decent deal. Their stock may not be the best, but they had what I needed. So if you are in the Golden area and find yourself needing a new pair of shoes, go ahead and stop by the Sketchers Store at the Mills, who knows, you may find your next good pair of shoes there!
0 Comments
Mood: done
KeyWords: sketchers, s, its the, its the s, review, city, walk, comfortable, value, price, buck, co, mills store, mall store, wide, wide width, offer, breathe, comfy, good, buy, excellent, like

femmeemo Ravagely Angry May 25th, 2011 17:35 - Subscribe

FUCKSHITCUNTASSHOLE.


I have a truck. Its not my fault.
They are too cheap to pay for my parking so they force me to park in the smallest fucking place.

AND THEN THEY YELL BECAUSE I AM PARKED LIKE A DOUCHE.

I HAVE NO CHOICE.

I SHAKE WITH RAGE- SHAKING WITH RAGE.
GAH.

-Jeannie is in labour and I am the one panicking-
PANIC
YELLYELLSCREAMPOUTYELL

I am hungry and impatient and I WANT IT TO BE MY BIRTHDAY.
...
Which.
Is tomorrow.

As I age, I get crankier.
-
0 Comments
Mood: Cut a Bitch.
KeyWords: Steam rising.

femmeemo I sat outside and watched the stars. May 11th, 2011 18:11 - Subscribe

Or the satelites.

I'm not picky.

I'm excited for my new job. It will be a change of pace if nothing else. I am bored at work again. No youth in what, weeks?

I've gotten in to a routine of being paid to watch an episode fo Doctor Who and spend copius amounts of time devoted to my writing.

It is growing. I am growing. I look forward to one day being able to say that everything has worked out well.

The boy is taking measures to be a good boy.
He even washed dishes last night, and made me dessert whilst I watched SVU.
I enjoy him, I wouldn't trade him in.

Mostly.
Mostly I want kettle corn, cold tea, and to learn how to do a convincing British accent.
Me with the unending wants.
-
0 Comments
Mood: Serene
KeyWords: Sprout & the Bean Joanna Newsom

frost Marriott Hotel Get the Composite HDMI VGA Jack Pack to Work Apr 25th, 2011 23:55 - Subscribe
I stay at the Ft. Collins Colorado Marriott Hotel when I travel. Throughout my travels I have had a hit or miss with the TV and Marriott's "Jack Pack" which has Composite / VGA / HDMI inputs to go to the TV. This is to make hooking up your own electronics (such as a DVD Player) easier to do. Unfortunately, it seems the system is still buggy and likes to lock you out. This can be very annoying and disheartening if you were looking forward to watching your own media. Fortunately, I have found some great information on how to get past this annoyance of a hit or miss depending on your room. Well look no further, here is the much needed information to get your Computer / Laptop / Media Player / DVD Player / Wii / PS3 / XBox / XBox 360 to work in your Marriott Hotel room using their Jack Pack panel.

Jack Pack Panel Picture

The concept is rather simple, turn the TV on. Get out of the On Command menu (click Channel Up). You should be on Channel 2 or something similar. From here, Enter a Channel between 90-96. These are the channels set aside for the Jack Pack, you should be able to find the general input Channels (AV1 AV2 HDMI Composite DVI) etc. And it should pull up the right connection when you go to it! If that fails, check the side of the TV for the AV2 inputs etc and you should be able to directly connect to those (pending if the Marriott Hotel has them locked down, the Ft. Collins Marriott does not). And viola, you should be able to watch your own media!

Hope this helps you out, it sure helped me out and took me a long time to find this information. If you have questions or extra tips, please add a comment!
3 Comments
Mood: splendid
KeyWords: solved, help. resolve, media, dvd, ps3, xbox, playstation, hookup, solution, marriott, jack, jack pack, pack, rca, vga, composite, component, vga, svga, laptop, connect, dvi, hdmi, audio, channels, hack, tv, lg, series, hotel, break, not working, working,

femmeemo To say goodbye. Apr 19th, 2011 17:04 - Subscribe

To lose someone in your life is exhausting.

Death isn't an easy aquaintance, it seems as soon as you get to know its' cold icy hands, it's always knocking on your door.

I am exhausted. I am depleted. i am hopeful.

I have a disgusting need to ink my body- and not the funds to do so. Perhaps in the fall.

My life is a flailing thing.
I am incredibly... indifferent.

The man in my life and I talked last night. I love him. I won't tell him just yet- but I do. We are trying this fun new thing called financial accountability.

Budgets.
Sounds like fun, huh kids?

I see the future. It is a bright, and overwhelming place.

Are you there God,
It's me Andrea.
-
0 Comments
Mood: Psychotic
KeyWords: Said the Whale

long_gone No privacy or any sense of a real life. Apr 6th, 2011 11:37 - Subscribe
I don't really feel like writing at this moment I really feel like ranting to the heavens, to the neighbors, to anyone and everyone who will listen. I wanna just tear out my hair and scream and be a crazy person. I mean really!!! I have no internet yet I try to get on as often as I can. Writing soothes and calms me, it helps me keep my head on straight which is great with the everything else that's going on. However I can't even do that. I have... I mean had... a journal at my house to write in and after the 4th person to pretty much destroy/read it I quit! Fuck it i'll write in it when I can and damn any poor souls who are around between now and then. Should I put a dead bolt on my bedroom door in my own house just so I can keep something...anything...private. Ridiculous. Should I just start tryin to be a raging psycho so maybe there scared of me and leave my shit alone? I am supposed to get marries in a year and I'm not sure if i even want to. Who wants one or all 3 of there brother -in-laws living on there couch sucking them dry like a leech. I love Kenny truly with all my heart but it has been almost 5 years now and nothing has changed in that department we just keep trading them out. I am so almost over this. Yes I know I seem to always be bitching on here but I have no one to talk to and obviously no journal left so FFUCK IT!!! Worl be prepared. Hopefully next time I get on I can write and entry full of sunshine and light but realistically.... probably not.
0 Comments
Mood: hopeless

frost Ft. Collins Colorado Marriott Hotel Review Apr 2nd, 2011 18:17 - Subscribe
Recently I have been having to travel for work to Fort Collins, Colorado for one week a month. Work puts me up in a hotel and I have chosen to stay at the Ft. Collins Marriott on Horsetooth for a few reasons. Perhaps the main reason being the proximity to the job I am working. Since I am staying there so much I decided to write a review about them and whether I would recommend others to stay there. If you are looking for a Hotel in Fort Collins, Colorado, give this a read and you can see if the Ft. Collins Marriott on Horsetooth is the right hotel for you!

Ft. Collins Colorado Marriott Hotel Review

First impression of the Ft. Collins Marriott is that it has a “homey” and “upscale” feel for it. I have always had good customer service from the Check-In people and have never had to wait for more then 5 minutes while attempting to check into my room. I do of course book the reservations online, through Marriott’s easy booking system, and I am a member of the Marriott’s Reward program, since I have been staying there so much lately. But after checking it, it is quite a walk to the elevator, which is fine I mean who does not need a little more exercise these days? But for some people, it could be an inconvenience, but they do have baggage carts if needed, since I am only 26 I never felt the need for one. The hotel is generally clean and is a very good sized hotel.

Once you get in the elevator, depending on which floor your stay, it can be quite a walk to your room if you are on one side or the other, again not necessarily a down point, just something to be aware of if you have a lot of baggage. Inside the rooms, they are generally nice. I do not think this hotel has ever allowed smoking, so the rooms do not have that smoking smell to them at all (unlike the Ft. Collins, Residence Inn on Harmony that it always seems their rooms were full of smoke). The rooms are pretty cozy, especially for me since I am the only one staying in there. I usually opt for the King size bed, but I will stay in the Twin Beds as well. Both beds are nice, although they do have a ton of pillows on them, I usually just stack the pillows to one side or put them on the other bed. I always ask for the Foam Pillows, as they are much more comfy as apposed to the Downed pillow, in my opinion. The beds are very comfortable, although they have nothing on my own bed, they still do pretty well for the week.

I have had issues with their TV, in the sense that the regular cable channels always are low quality, IE you can see like scan lines through them, which is a shame because the TV’s are extremely nice LG TV’s, it is a shame that they cannot afford to push better TV Quality through them. Which is alright, as I have my DVD collection on a Harddrive and I always take my ASUS O!Play with me, which pushes out 1080p video quality to the TV and it looks beautiful! I cannot speak to the Pay per view, as I never had the need to purchase it, as I prefer my DVD Collection and generally bring it with me.

The Internet they provide there is kind of weird and mis-leading to connect to. The great thing is, they include the Internet for free for my stays generally. But when you connect you have to opt for the “$12.95” Internet, which over course they remove from your bill, so it does end up being free, just kind of unnerving, it took me a few nights to brave it and try it out (which I am sure I could have just called the front desk and asked about it). But sure enough it did not show up on my bill. That is nice, but luckily I have a Sprint 4G EVO and was able to tether with 4G. I was delightfully surprised that Sprint’s 4G service is in Fort Collins and available at the Marriott on Horsetooth! I prefer to use my Sprint 4G anyhow, as I know I can secure that connection with my VPN very easily. I did try the Marriott’s Internet and it seemed pretty decent for being free. I like wired Internet more then wireless, given the better performance, some people might consider this a downside the Marriott does not offer free WiFi Internet, I do not.

The bathrooms come with Soap, Shampoo, Conditioner and Lotion, not that I would use them, but it is there and generally has plenty of Towels, although I try to only use one towel the entire time. The “Coffee Pot” is just a small 1 cup pot, but makes a cup of hot water (or coffee if you like that) pretty fast. I generally just drink Tea, which they have, or Hot Cider / Chocolate from home. The lounging chair they have for you to sit in is really uncomfortable, so I generally sit in the computer chair, which is decent. The view, depending on where your room is, can be quite nice, and I generally have the curtains open when I stay at the hotel.

Finally, the room temperature is actually quite nice. They thermostat is easy to use, and control and the furnace / AC work really well, depending on the time of year you are staying there. All in all the rooms are quite nice. In the end I would definitely stay here again, my main reason is the TV as I like to be able to watch my DVD Collections easily without having to need an RF Modulator, like you would if you stayed at the Residence Inn in Ft. Collins. Even though there is no free breakfast, I always found the Continental Breakfasts to not be worth very much anyways, the Fort Collins, Marriott on Horsetooth is an excellent place to stay if you are visiting Ft. Collins, Colorado.

Related Links
Marriott Jack Pack and How To get it to Work
3 Comments
Mood: Delightful
KeyWords: hotel, marriott, review, ft. collins, colorado, fort, collins, great, nice, comfy, cozy, relaxed, customer, service, stay, again, repeat, friendly, tv, beds, view, heat, ac, air conditioning, proximity, close, closeness, motel

frost DD-WRT and Linux Wireless Issues: A Possible Fix Mar 18th, 2011 01:38 - Subscribe
After installing many different Linux Distributions, I was getting fed up with my wireless not working properly. At first I thought it was just the Broadcom chip, but after switching to an Intel Chip, I was having the same issues as with the Broadcom. Doing massive googling, I was unable to actually narrow down the problem to anything in particular. That is until last week when I found an interesting forum post on Linux Drivers using DD-WRT. This is not widely known, hence the blog post with all the right key words. If you are using DD-WRT and are having Linux Wireless issues, read on!

All credit is due to pigiron given he found all this information out and posted it! I am stoked he did because it led to me figuring out how to fix my problems and finally being able to stick to a Linux Distro! I cannot explain the problem as well as he did, but you can read the details about it here.

The symptoms, namely, after I would put the computer to sleep and then wake it back up, my wireless network would never reconnect it would keep asking for the network key, I would input the right network key and it would just continue to loop never connecting. I had NetworkManager installed by default, so I decided to try Wicd. Wicd was actually worse in that it just showed a weird network name of “\x0b...\x00\x00\x00” etc. This was a weird situation that I could not explain. What it ends up being is that DD-WRT does not obey a Specification and send an extra signal or beacon, which the Linux Wireless Drivers pick up and think is the “Access Point”, which it is not. Windows / Mac so nicely ignoring the extra data sent. But why send it out if it is not apart of the specification? Reading the post above, the basic gist is, “you are screwed, deal with it” from what I gathered, given no one truly responded.

So in light of that I looked for alternatives. What first peaked my mind was Tomato, unfortunately it only works with Broadcom Chipsets. I settled on OpenWRT. The install on my Buffalo router WZR-HP-G300NH was easy using the Wiki / SSH to my router. Did the install and within 15 minutes was back up and running. OpenWRT’s interface may not be as nice as DD-WRT, but after I installed the Wireless Drivers for it and setup QOS / Wireless, it was working. To top it all off...it was working better. The QOS actually works, with DD-WRT, it never seemed to work at all. So all in all, it was totally worth the trade to actually have my Linux Wireless Card Drivers supported and a whole host of extras that are easily installed. Too bad the interface does fall a bit short, but hey, at least it works!

Hopefully this helps you, whether you were having wireless issues on Ubuntu, Debian, ArchLinux, #!CrunchBang, Fedora Core, CentOS, Slackware, etc.

Installing OpenWRT completely solved my issue and I will never go back to a Windows box now as the issue was DD-WRT all this time! So if your wireless seems like it is in an endless loop / keeps asking you for a network key, but never connects, or shows a weird wireless network name like \x0B\x00\x00\x00\x00 and you have DD-WRT, think about trying out OpenWRT if there is a build for your router model!
2 Comments
Mood: neurotic
KeyWords: linux, wireless, issues, looping, no connection, loop, unable to connect, ubuntu, debian, arch, intel, broadcom, buffalo, router, openwrt, tomato, fix, working, wicd, \x00, weird network name

frost Pidgin Issues with GMail and GMail Hosted Mar 18th, 2011 00:05 - Subscribe
Recently I have been plagued by a “Not Authorized” error message using Pidgin IM (OS is CrunchBang Statler / Debian Based). This has been bugging me as it came and went without any real reason. Well after some digging it appears that the error is caused by logging into a Google Service, while at the same time connected to Pidgin over Google Talk. The Service I was connecting to was Google Voice. The weirdness was, I have multiple Google Hosted accounts (own a lot of domains). I have the emails forwarding, and I wanted to port my old Mobile Number to Google Voice, but not have that number associated with my current Google Voice Number / Account (IE I just wanted it for voice mails). As such, I assigned it to one of these “forwarding” accounts, which just so happened to be my Pidgin account.

Well to fix the Not Authorized issue with Pidgin and Google Talk, I just had to login to my Google Hosted GMail site and type in the “Verification” code and then surprise, my Pidgin GTalk account worked like a champ. Before finding this out, I did try a number of "SSL Ports" and unchecking / checking options. In the end it was none of that. Just as extra information, my Pidgin Settings for Google Hosted are as follows:



Basic Tab
Username:
Domain:
Resource: Home
Password:
Local Alias: frost

Advanced Tab:
Require SSL/TLS - Unchecked
Force Old (port 5223) SSL - Checked
Allow Plaintext... - Unchecked
Connect Port: 443
Conect server: talk.google.com
File transfer proxies: proxy.eu.jabber.org
BOSH URL:
Show Custom Smileys - Unchecked



After all that it works now, except when I decide to manage my Google Voice account. I may dig into this deeper later to figure out if Google has a setting to prevent the “Not Authorized” Error from occuring.
0 Comments
Mood: happy
KeyWords: pidgin, gmail, hosted, google, google talk, not authorized, error, connecting, disconnect, unable to connect, voice, accounts, multiple

frost Porting Mobile Number to Google Voice Mar 2nd, 2011 12:04 - Subscribe
Well today I ported my T-Mobile Pay-as-You Go phone number to Google Voice which is a free "voice" service offered by Google. I was not hesitant on this phone number since it is one that all I really care to get is Voicemails on. As, most people know, Google Voice has a major limitation...no MMS text messages. The process to port my number was not too bad, but Google makes you go through about 10 check boxes alerting you of cancellation fees and how long you could be without service etc. As this was a pay as you go phone number, I was not worried about cancellation fees as there should not be any.

After all those check boxes and agreeing to Googles Terms it finally took me to the account information, where I had to add in all of my account details for the T-Mobile Pay-as-you Go phone number. Once you get that information correct, it took you to the payment. I paid the $20 by credit card. And now it is just the waiting game.

Porting my Pay-as-you Go number to Google Voice was not a hard process, but did take about 5-10 minutes for me to complete, given the information needed (and that Google Voice had to connect to the phone number in question). However, to be able to get my voicemails without having to buy minutes anymore will be an excellent deal, which is what I was after. If you are in need of a new number, perhaps Google Voice is what you are looking for and you should take a swing by there to check it ou!
0 Comments
Mood: obscene
KeyWords: google voice, port, mobile, number, ease, pay, pay-as-you Go, voicemail, deal, number, number port, process, gv, googlevoice

femmeemo We lookin' for you. Feb 28th, 2011 18:17 - Subscribe

I am so frustrated. Car accident in which I was not at fault and now that stupid bitch is claiming I didn't stop. Lady. You have full coverage. It was icy. ICY. Why are you not taking responsibilty.

Its only me that gets fucked. Face down, ass up.

Turns out thats' the way the fucking world loves to see me.

I have no car- overwhelming debt. I am losing it. LOSING IT. Losing my motherfucking mind. This is the most expensive month of the year and everything is crashing down hard. FUCK. Please give me a chance to catch up. I really wouldn't be opposed to vasnishing.

POOF

Gone. I just need it to balance.
-
2 Comments
Mood: Depressed as Fuck.
KeyWords: Intruder Song.

femmeemo My feet are cold. Feb 13th, 2011 18:15 - Subscribe

Both figuratively and literally.

I am a creature of habit- I like schedules, and routines. I like being places where I feel comfortable- and I like have a cemented support system. My awkward tendancies leave me feeling stressed; this move is going to kill me.

I feel alienated at work.

I feel insecure in myself.

I feel.

I feel less apathetic than ever- which is terrifying in and of itself. Feeling leads to feeling depressed. Right? Or is this how life is supposed to be? Why is this so much stress. Why can't I be one of those people that can just go with the flow- who just adapt with changes and embrace it.

Someone once told me that change is neither good, nor bad. Change simply is.

Somehow it made me feel better- but now the ambiguity...

...its too much.
-
0 Comments
Mood: Unmotivated.
KeyWords: Postal Service.

femmeemo Waiting on hold. Jan 29th, 2011 16:13 - Subscribe

I am beyond irritated.
So fucking irritated.
I am tired of payments bouncing, and bills not getting paid. I am slowly breaking into a million peices because I owe so much damn money.

Telus, Bell, TD Insurance, Rent, VISA, VISA, Rogers, Shaw, EPCOR.

Paycheck comes, and its gone before it touches my bank account. I can't afford to eat. Let alone pay down my debt. Gas in my car? A luxury I cannot afford.

I am drowning. I am drowning.
And it seems like every step forward I take, another brick fucking wall gets thrown in my face.

Fuck me.
Fuck me.
Fuck me.
-
0 Comments
Mood: Depleted.
KeyWords: Tears.

femmeemo Drama in fantasy. Jan 23rd, 2011 18:47 - Subscribe

I am caught up in a world in which completely consumes me.

It is fictional.

It is filled with drama and heartbreak.
Fear, and death.
Hurt, hope and hard-feelings.

My head is split seven ways. And it hurts.
It hurts so badly.

My butt is wet. My car is free. My head is FUCKED.
-
0 Comments
Mood: tired.
KeyWords: whining.