Stupid Comment Spam

Lately, I’ve been getting some comment spam. It’s been pissing me off, too. I know there are people out there who have blogs and have 80 times more spam than I do, but I still don’t like it. As such, I’ve added a blacklist to comments. If you post a comment with one of the blacklisted words in it, it will go up for comment moderation. It won’t be posted until I accept it.

Also, I have added another required field to the comment section. You have to put the number that is in “17th Degree.” The answer is simply 17. This is a fairly simple attempt that should thwart the simple spam attacks I’m getting.

If anyone has any serious problems making a comment, shoot me an email at admin (at) 17thdegree.com or leave a comment here ( assuming you can 😉 )

That is all.

Turkey Day Ramblings

First off, happy Turkey Day to all!

And what a nice little Turkey Day it was. I got over to my dad’s house ’round noon or so. My brother and my dad were playing Scrabble, as per usual. After the game, Rory and I went to Dillon’s to get some movies to watch during the day – this is an Asher custom (movies during the holidays, that is). We rented Super Size Me, Walking Tall, and The Punisher (also watched in that order).

Super Size Me was a good movie. One sentence synopsis: In order to find out if fast food is actually bad for you – as opposed to what people just assume – Morgan (documenter / director) eats McDonald’s for a month. This was a really good movie, I’d say. The 7.8 rating on IMDB also agrees. If you haven’t yet seen this documentary, I highly recommend it. I won’t say much more than that, just go watch it.

Walking Tall absolutely sucked. One sentence synopsis: The Rock gets back from his tour in the military and comes back home, only to find his town being controlled by a drug-peddling, casino-running, former schoolmate. AND THE ROCK GOES TO TOWN. Please. <rant>The problems I had with this PG-13 movie just piled up it seemed. In the first 20 minutes of the movie, there is a scene of a guy driving off in his car after a friendly football game with a beer in his hand. Later in the movie The Rock becomes the sheriff of the town. At no point does the guy ever do any police-type actions. Except when he pulls a guy over and then bashes in his tail light with a ceder 4×4. Later, he’s got a guy in lock-up and he’s sent his deputy to go guard his parents house because he thinks the bad guys are gonna go after them. So what happens? The ex-high school sweetheart comes to the station and they do it. Greeeeat. It was just a bad movie.</rant>

The Punisher was alright. One sentence synopsis: It’s the punisher, duh. The movie just didn’t capture the comic book genre enough for me. I mean the acting and everything was alright I guess. It had John Travolta, he’s aiight. Had Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, and she’s wicked hot – oh and a total slut in this movie (gives a thumbs up). The main character – Frank Castle – The Punisher – is not Hugh Jackman, but in fact is Thomas Jane. Just now found that out. 🙂 But it was just, eh.

SNOW!

It started snowing lastnight. I couldn’t be happier. I love snow. This is ironic considering that I tend to get in car wrecks during the winter. In my eyes, if it’s going to be cold, then it should be snowing. It’s the only way the cold is bearable. Case in point: we’re at the bars lastnight and we started attacking strangers with snowballs. 🙂

My Firefox Extensions

First off, if you use a browser that isn’t Firefox, then you need to change immediately. One of the benefits of using Firefox is the numerous amount of extensions that are out there. This is a list of all the extensions that I use. Quite literally, Firefox is my portal to my computer. I always have Firefox open, it just does too much for me. Anywho, on with the list…

Mozilla Calendar
I’m not sure how many of you folk use a calendar of sorts, but I’ve found it helps me out quite a bit. I tend to have a problem remembering exactly when long term events are coming up. I can usually remember the current week fairly well, but who knows, sometimes I even mess that up. 🙂 Regardless, I find it quite helpful. This extension, isn’t really an extension in the sense that the others are. It’s a separate install, I believe, but I can access the calendar via the Tools menu in Firefox.
All-in-one Gestures
This extension is pretty much explained in the title of the extension. Basically with the right-click of the mouse and then some variety of mouse gesture, the extension will tell Firefox what to do. Most useful for doing things like reloading a page, forward, back, new tab, etc. I tend to only use this extension for the simplest features, as they are the most simple, but if the extension floats your boat, then by all means use it more heavily, still recommended though.
FoxyTunes
Do you listen to music on your computer? Lord knows I do. Regardless of what platform or music player you use, this extension will probably be able to fit your needs. Check out the list of supported music players. Personally, I use Winamp 5 and it stays minimized in the Windows system tray – that means by the clock for those who don’t know 🙂 .
Firefox Bloglines Notifier
As far as I know, AFAIK in nerd-speak, few of my friends – Barrett being the exception, as well as myself – use Bloglines. Bloglines is a centrally managed collection of RSS feeds that you are subscribed to. I highly recommend this plugin for those who do use RSS feeds. I formerly used an at home RSS agregator, but was perturbed that I had to maintain two sets – home and work. A centrally managed set of RSS feeds is the answer. This extension simply tells me when I have updated feeds that I’m subscribed to.
SpellBound
I just recently installed this plugin but have already found it useful. (and will use it again when I’m done writing this entry) Basically it will do spell check for you. Simple. Effective.
Web Developer
Few people outside of the web development realm will care about this extension. However, if you consider yourself within this select group of people, or are considering entering it, this tool is priceless. That’s all I’ll say.
Foxylicious
First off, I’ve never been much for bookmarks. Be it on any browser or platform or whatever. They are locked to one computer and I find that to be useless for me, especially because bookmarks are used so infrequently – at least in my usage of them. Now, Del.icio.us, like Bloglines for RSS feeds, is a centrally managed set of bookmarks. I am slowly but surely finding this resource invaluable. If you know me at all, then you know my infatuation – and if there is a stronger word for infatuation, obsession perhaps?, I’d use it here – for sending random links to random, usually pointless, online websites, then you can probably understand my use of this tool. Foxylicious simply integrates your Del.icio.us bookmarks into the regular bookmarks you have in Firefox. If you change the Del.icio.us bookmarks from some other computer, then you can update them with the click of a button.

And that’s that. Go get Firefox and use some of these extensions why don’t you. I just finished my white russian, so have a good night, folks.

From Me To You

Dear James,

It makes me feel bad when you go over two weeks without paying any attention to me. I feel so alone. I have always been there for you, why can’t you do the same for me? You know that I have no one around to talk to. Do you hate me? I don’t hate you. Please come back to me, I miss you so very much. I know that our relationship was rocky in the beginning, but things are solid now. Or so I thought, at least. Do you see problems that I don’t? If not, I’m sure we can work on it and get things ironed out. Well, that’s about all I had to say, I just wanted to leave you this little note.

Sincerely,
17th Degree.com

P.S. I love you