Posts from — February 2002

Apparently my Mobil Speedpass does more than operate the pumps at Mobil gas stations and open the secret doors to the S.I.T.S. system. When the speedpass comes into close contact with my Jeep Liberty key, it activates a security feature that disables the engine for 5 minutes.

I believe also that it this key causing the alarms to go off when I enter my CVS drugstore. I’m all for technology but when it starts stepping on one another, I get frustrated.

Other than that, I got nothing.

Every time I visit the corner CVS drugstore, the theft alarm goes off. It happens as I walk through the door causing everyone to look. Today I tried to be smart. I removed every piece of metal, except for the key to my Jeep before going in. The alarm still went off. Then I had to go through my usual routine. As I leave the store, I tell the cashier that the alarm went off as I came in and it will go off when I leave. I say this loud enough for everyone up front to hear. People still stare at me. It may not be the Jeep key. I was wearing my new ring and I had change in my pocket. Rather than trying to see what exactly is causing this, I have a simple solution to the problem: I’ll never go in there again. It’s not like there isn’t another stupid drugstore right down the road. They are building either a CVS, Walgreens or Rite-Aid at every other corner in the neighborhood. They are super-saturating us with the crappy places.

Fun thing to do: listen to Lycos Radio and when you hear a song you like, search for it using Limewire. I’m having extremely good luck finding most songs I submit. The transfer speeds could be better but I just start the download and come back to it later. This is a great way to build your music library. Be careful of Limewire when you install it. There are several options during the installation you have to read carefully and uncheck (or check) to avoid having spyware loaded on your computer.

But if you DO get infested with spyware, use Ad-aware to remove it. I regularly run Ad-aware and it usually finds something. Am I paranoid? Are people watching me? Is the fluoride in the water a communist plot? You bet.

Another way to grab music is to listen to Windows Media Player radio. The songs are cached to your hard drive for playing and you simply save the file. Then from WMP you can create a playlist and burn a CD or transfer it to your MP3 player - all in one application. It’s very handy and cool. Complain about Microsoft if you want but they DO come up with some good stuff.

I upgraded to the new RealOne player yesterday. It stores and organizes all your music, burns CD’s and play Real video. I like the look of the interface but those damn ads wanting you to upgrade are extremely annoying. The basic player is OK but you have to upgrade to the pay service to have it equal Windows Media Player. Of course it doesn’t support WMA format. I prefer this format because it compresses songs (with no loss of quality) even more than MP3. This is good when I want to cram as many songs as possible to my Rio 800 player. RealOne is number two.

I finally got around to installing my WinTV card into my new computer. Windows XP has a functionality that allows for a better picture from the card. Next I may get into Snapstream like my fiend Dave.