Day In The Life of Baz

How This Mess Started

Now I’ve always been an avid reader of LifeHacker. Last night I was doing my regular browsing on the hacker and came across an article: How to clean your keyboard. I scanned through the article and started reading the comments. A lot of people mentioned that they don’t even bother cleaning their keyboard, they simply buy a new one. This seems like a huge waste to me. Some people even posted comments with instructions on how they went about cleaning their keyboards.

Now all of this brought back some memories. I know that I had done this before. I do remember popping keys off off a keyboard sometime in my distant past. After a bit of diving into the past I realized that this was two computers ago, which equates to about 5 years. I’ve had this keyboard for a lil’ over three (3) years and I haven’t given it a thorough cleaning. I mean I’ve done the compressed air, but how much does that really get out, huh? So with inspiration from LifeHacker, I set out to clean my keyboard like never before.

I started by popping off the keys one by one with a butter knife. Most instructions say that you should take a picture of the keyboard so that you know where to put the key back. Bah, what do they know? So I started placing all the keys in a grocery bag. I was going great and feeling good. Before too long this keyboard would be clean enough to eat off (some of this is what got me into this mess in the first place).

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Brought to you complements LifeHacker:

• Haggle Like a Pro: 5 Lines That Work - I could have used this when Lava an I went down to get the car. Although we didn’t have a resource like this I still think we did alright. I just missed the part on silence.
• How to Plan a Homework Schedule - Even though I’ve had this, I still wouldn’t have used it. What I’ve learned from life and many years of school is that I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to prioritizing work. I mean stuff gets done eventually, but usually under a lot stress and most of it the night before. After starting work, I think I need to stop this.
• How do I freeze? - Wow, a guide to freezing stuff. This is for you guys with the deep freezers and for guys like me who just stick everything in a container or ZipLock bag and just smell it when I get it.
• TaskList.org - A beautiful long list of programs that show up in your Task Manager. This site gives descriptions and lets you know whether or not you really need the software. But most importantly it tells you whether you’re dealing with SpyWare or not.

Students are Marshall University are getting a rude awakening from the RIAA says The Herald-Dispatch

Unfortunately for the students who have been targeted (a group that apparently includes both downloaders and sharers), minimum damages that the RIAA can request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is $750 per infringement. For students who have hundreds of songs on their computer, that could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

Wow, $750 for a song. Some say that these are merely scare tactics. If I was one of these students from Marshall, I sure as hell would be scared.

There is one up side, if you want to call it that. From what I’ve read these guys can settle for $3,000. Now that’s all well and good, but these guys are college students and if their college is anything like what I remember my experience being, it was hard enough to come up with tuition money each semester. So I don’t know where they’re going to get three grand in 20 days. But I guess it beats the alternative.

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All I can say is wow. Back on tuesday I bought gas at a higher price than I was comfortable with. But now, I’m sure that I made the right decision. Comining home from work yesterday, I noticed the prices an all three (3) of the cheap gas stations at $2.29!!

Is this ever going to end?

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For damn near forever, all I’ve been thinking about is getting myself a new computer. The main purpose of which would be gaming purposes. Since I’ve been in school for the longest while, I haven’t had a chance to even consider it, outside of the minor upgrades here and there. Now that I’m working and financially stable it would seem like the perfect time to get myself a new computer. No, I’m not looking for a laptop; the specifications are too skimpy and they cost too much and I’m not really the mobile type. I’m looking for more of an entertainment center, so it’s going to be a desktop system, most likely built from scratch by yours truly.

One of my problems is figuring out what to do with the old (I hate calling my baby old) PC. Since I’m part of a rather large student organization, it would make sense to try to peddle it off to one of the other struggling students. Although, from what I’ve been hearing, they don’t really seem to be struggling that much. So I’m guessing they can afford a lot more than what they’re willing to pay. Now being the frugal minded person that I am, I’m looking to get all that I can get. The the other problem is that I don’t want to push it too much and have it sit on my hands; on the other hand I don’t want to give it away.