Mister P-Mosh

I disagree with Steve on this. I don't believe that demons exist. You're not possessed, you are obsessed. Big difference.

Well, I'm an atheist, and my wife is Catholic. We seem to have gotten along well despite the differences. Your question is one that nobody can answer for you. If you want to marry a Christian, marry a Christian. If that's not the highest priority in looking for a partner, then consider the guy you are dating. It's important to have an open mind with life, but at the same time you can't be forced into something that you don't want. The hardest thing to consider would be a question of what would happen to the kids. If he didn't want his kids to be raised going to your church, then you may have problems. If he doesn't mind and you will present them with equal parts of your beliefs and his beliefs, then if you're ok with that it should be fine. Don't compromise your beliefs, and don't expect him to either. If you're ok with that, then you'll be fine.

In addition, it could be bad in what I believe is an unprecidented way. If you were to write a book and post it online, the potential publishers you go to would offer you less money because you would be effectively offering them a second run of your book, which you "published" on the internet already. I don't know if screenplays would work the same way, but I would think it would be the same or worse.

I saw this a few weeks ago and came up with some "interesting" commands. This reminds me of a text version of those old "Zork" games, where on the computer you would have something like: Then you type in your answer, which would normally be, "walk past the leaves" or something like that, but you could also type in nonsense and get sarcastic answers. For the leaves, I remember typing "jump in leaves" and it would reply with, "Aren't you a little old for that?"

Not completely, but I wouldn't say that it was "that" far off the mark. Still, I don't think that the article was written in the most professional manner. Reviews are supposed to be opinion, but the author of that article seems to have been having a really bad day.

Nope. If I did, I'd play like Happy Gilmore (the best golf movie of all time) except I would never make the ball go anywhere worthwhile.

The problem with google is that it fails on matters of opinion. I think amazon.com might be ok since they let you preview some books.

I've been looking for one also. I've read up on it some, but I'd be more interested in a full book on it rather than just a chapter in a general history book. Unfortunately, the B&N near me has two Alamo-related books, neither of which look good.

Zixar, That's true, but I'd get at least a 100GB HD if it were me, a mere 40GB wouldn't cut it (although 80GB isn't too bad), that way people can store all the ISOs of Windows XP and other software that you download off of KaZaA. :D--> (Just to be clear though, XP came with my computers so I have real licenses.)

It's good to change your passwords regularly anyway, but even I get pretty lazy with that. In fact, at work places when I'm required to do it once a month, I usually use something like pass04 for April, pass05 for May, etc. :D--> It's not hard. Anyone can send email from anyone else on the internet. It's extremely easy to spoof emails. There are ways to tell to a degree whether they're real or not, for example if you send an email from a yahoo.com address, but the mail server is not mail.yahoo.com. At work I have programs that email a summary of what they've done when they complete. Since these programs don't have real email addresses, I have them sending their names out as their email addresses. Just to show you how easy this is to do, here's all you need for a perl program to send an email from whoever you want. The only thing is that you need an email server that allows you to send emails through it (easy to find, and you can easily install the software on your own PC if you want.) That's all that's required. Granted, there's more to my program than that (including error checking for whether or not the email worked) but someone could easily put that in a loop and send spams out, or incorporate that with a database and send the email out. Writing spam software is extremely easy, and it's also very easy to fake who the email is from. You can trace it enough to determine that it's fake if you wanted to, but you can't figure out exactly who it was that sent it. There are a few ways they can track you. One is to include a return reciept request (or something like that), which Outlook automatically replies to. I use this at work so I can have proof that some slackers read my emails. Another is the dangerous idea of HTML email. I prevent Thunderbird from accepting html email. Usually, they can track if you've read it (and other things) by including a graphic, even if it's a small invisible one, in the email. They can know when you read it, what your IP address is, what browser you use, etc. You're welcome. Also, as I forget if it was mentioned here or not, the commercial version of Adaware has something that runs constantly, a lot like how virus scanners work. If you have a bunch of people in your house installing software and visiting questionable websites, you may want to invest in that. I don't know how true that is. I do remember it happening for MSN or something a long time ago, but I don't think it does anymore. As far as other programs like Outlook go, the problem is that since Microsoft makes the OS and all of the software such as Office, Outlook, IE, etc. they try to set it up to have more functionality so that it works better for the users. This can be a problem though, when people figure out how to abuse it. All of the problems with Outlook and MS Office for viruses is due to the fact that Microsoft includes a full programming language in these programs. There is plenty of potential for abuse with that, even though they've closed some of the holes. I will try to avoid going into details, but there are ways of having programs talk to each other. I wrote something in Outlook so that when I get an email, I can click a button on it and it will enter the email into another program for me so I don't have to type it. (For those that want the details, this can easily be accomplished via using COM objects with VBA, then customizing Outlook to call the VBA script via a button you added.) When you allow programs to talk to each other, that means that a spreadsheet you open can mess with your email, or that your Word document can connect to the web, and that either can connect to your hard drive to do whatever it wants. Microsoft has put exceptions in to prevent these things, but they were added as an afterthought, rather than how Java specifically set out to prevent malicious programs from wreaking havoc on your computer. Sometimes you need to reinstall everything from scratch in order to get it working ok again. Your computer may be old, but it's not that old that it shouldn't be useful. About the only things I would look into would be a bigger hard drive and an upgrade to Windows XP. I don't know your friend, but I often cringe at "computer guy" friends of people. I mean, even I have done dumb things when I thought I knew what I was doing (such as installing an English service pack for Windows on my mother in laws Spanish language computer) but I would bring this stuff up with him and see what he says. He may not completely agree with what advice I've given, but that's fine. Some of it is probably a little overboard, but things like installing ZoneAlarm are very simple and should eliminate a lot of problems of the potential of someone breaking into your PC. The packet sniffer idea is probably too much in your case. It's like how you know to give cough syrup for a cold, but the packet sniffer would be like examining the phlegm under a microscope and seperating the DNA of the virus to determine what it is exactly. SpamAssasain is good, and there is a version that runs on the desktop, but I have heard a few complaints about it. The person that hosts my website (and thus my email) runs it on the server, which is great, and it filters a lot for me. Switching from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox is extremely easy. You can get more information on the Mozilla Firefox website. They have screen shots and installers. I believe the version right now is 0.8 and they have an easy windows installer. It's open source, so if you have problems with it, there are a bunch of guys sitting around with nothing better to do than to fix it's bugs for free. :)--> You can put your own email account on Thunderbird to have it completely seperate. One thing though, is that Thunderbird is fairly different from Outlook. It's pretty easy to use if you used Netscape Email a few years back when they were around, but if you're used to Outlook it may not be that easy. You can check it out at the Mozilla Thunderbird site. I have to admit that I've considered going back to Outlook for my email regularly, because there are certain things that Thunderbird doesn't do well, and changes that should be made to the layout of the menus and other things. It may not be an issue for you if you just want to use it for email. I used Outlook for the calendar and address book functions, as well as the integration with my Palm Pilot, and it was a pain to deal with Thunderbird for some of that. However, for email only, it's a great program.

If you're ok with counting things like fat/fiber/etc. the weight watchers diet seems to be pretty good. My wife has been on it and consistantly lost weight while we have been eating food we like. Even if you're not wanting to do the actual diet, they have some good pretty healthy recipes that you can get from them.

Heh, that was very interesting, but unfortunate for me as my job right now consists of mostly waiting.

Q: When GWB and Laura Bush are intimate, why does Laura always get on top? A: Because Bush is only able to f***** up!

It's just a joke.

I don't know if they're a scam or not, but since I worked under a 1099 for a portion of last year, I was able to write off quite a few things and am getting a significant amount of money from the Irritating Retard Suckers.

You're probably right, but that seems to happen with historical plots and public domain literature. How many Romeo and Juliet movies have there been? How many movies have been made about World War II or the Civil War that rehash the same story over and over? I'm afraid that The Alamo is probably going to be one of the best films about the place that will ever be made. It can only get worse, because Hollywood is going to have to start adding robots from the future and Jim Bowie played by Jackie Chan in order to "keep it fresh."

I also wanted to mention that bad things can happen to anyone on the internet. A few weeks ago, a bug was found in Winamp that would allow someone to get access to your computer via going to a website in Winamp's built in browser. Since I don't like how long the newer version takes to boot up, I've kept an older version that is victim to that flaw. I also sometimes listen to internet radio stations, which have the ability to pop open the browser. So, about a week ago, I was using my computer when all of a sudden I had problems moving the mouse, and saw that it was moving on it's own. I also noticed that when I would try to open certain things like the Task Manager (what you get when you press Crtl Alt Del) it would be minimized, and my hard drive was going crazy with activity. All this after I was listening to a few new music stations that popped up the Winamp browser. Of course, I left this computer on the DMZ of my network, and I had temporarily disabled my software firewall and forgot about it, so this computer was completely out in the open and someone had gained control of it from the internet. The person controlling it was preventing me from reenabling my software firewall, so in desperation I had to pull the network card out of my laptop and then fix it. A few hour lapse of security on my part ended up with my computer being "0wn3d" temporarily. I was able to go back and fix it, but it still isn't good. Another thing is that my software firewall shows when I get a port scan from the internet. I get about 100 within the few hours that I leave my PC online at home (when it's in the DMZ rather than behind the hardware firewall.) Port scans are the equivalent of a burglar jiggling the doorknob of your house to see if you locked it. I get a ton every day, and while they can safely be ignored for the most part, most people are not aware of it occuring and have "their doors unlocked." Port scanning is not illegal, and it isn't always used for bad purposes, but it can definitely be a sign that someone is trying to get in. It's not necessarily that they specifically target you though, because often people will run port scans against entire areas of the internet. The moral of the story I guess is to do your best to secure your PC, but it's not foolproof.

If you run your own server, or know the person that runs it, you can have a program called SpamAssasain installed that keeps this stuff from causing problems for you. I use that in addition to some other things (Mozilla Thunderbird and it's built in spam protection, plus custom filters that I wrote) to prevent spam. I'm also very careful about where and how I post my email address. I have a catchall for my email, so if I need to register somewhere using my email address, I make up one specifically for that site. That way, when I start to get spam, I can block all email sent to that email address, but also to see what companies are giving out my email address. It's pretty suprising sometimes. Anyway, I could write a book on how I deal with spam, how I thwart spammers, and what I do to keep my PC secure. It's probably too much work to do all of it, but you can do much. I do have a few tips for you though: 1) Make sure that your virus scanner is working properly and is updated. 2) Download and use a program like AdAware to make sure you don't have any adware/spyware/etc. on your computer. 3) Download and install a firewall program. I reccomend ZoneAlarm because it's the easiest to use, but it makes your computer boot time a little slower. 4) Switch from using Internet Explorer and Outlook (if you are doing so) to something safer like Mozilla. It's free and works mostly the same way. You can get either the full Mozilla suite, or update the browser (Firefox) or email client (Thunderbird) by themselves. 5) Change all of your passwords. If you suspect that someone is reading your email, change the password for it. Those should be a good start, and they're not all that difficult. There are other things that can be done too, but you'd really need to have an expert help you out. One thing I do occasionally on my home network is to run a packet sniffer to see what is going on. This isn't something a novice can pick up too easily, but if you have a good understanding of networking you can tell what programs are trying to do and what information is being sent. For example, POP email (what people generally use for Outlook, Eudora, etc.) sends the passwords in a format that anyone on your network with a packet sniffer can read. Webmail is often more secure if you see in the URL bar that it starts with https:// rather than http://. Instant messenger conversations are easily readable with a packet sniffer. My wife didn't understand how easy it was, so the other way I showed her how to do it, and we were able to recreate a conversation she had with her mother over MSN Messenger. The rest are just as easily read. What you read on the web can be traced and read as well. Before you get scared though, I want you to realize that for that to happen, someone has to be on the same network. So if the WayGB wanted to break into your email account, for example, they'd have to be either on the same network as your computer (meaning if you are using just one computer in your home and have no wireless network, you should be ok) or have installed a trojan (a program that can be used to spy on you and control your computer.) There are other ways to get that information, but most of the people who know how to perform those types of things are too responsible to do it. Anyway, watch out for scams like the emails you have gotten, and if you do what I reccomended above, you should be safer than at least 90% of the people on the internet.

I saw The Alamo and didn't think it was quite that bad. For one thing, Bowie had a wife that was Mexican, there was a Mexican guy (I forgot his name) that was a leader of Tejano troops that took the message to Houston, and then wasn't allowed to return to his men who died at the Alamo until after the war was over. I do think that they could have portrayed it a lot better, since technically the Americans were the "bad guys" but they did a lot better than the John Wayne version. I liked Billy Bob Thorton's Davy Crockett. I may have read too much into it, but I think he should win an Oscar for his performance. It wasn't so much that he did a great job with his lines, but it was the expressions of brave cowardice he had that impressed me.

Thanks for all the information. I'm feeling ok today, and my wife was as of this morning, but we're going to try changing some stuff and we're going to clean things. However, in response to what has been brought up here I'm going to answer questions/make new questions: Is this different than what the Britta water filters do? The thing is that we eat healthier than pretty much everyone we know that is non-vegan. We rarely eat beef, we do eat a lot of vegetables, and the breads we eat (usually very little bread also) is wheat. However, sometimes we eat ice cream or go out for a steak. I've considered having it tested. The apartments were built a little less than a year ago, so I doubt it's rust, but there may have been chemicals that were not cleaned out from the pipes at first. We've lived there since the first of the year so you would think it would be ok by now, but we want to check into everything. As far as mold goes, it seems like it's too early in the year, but we'll look. I'm planning to talk to various other people in my building to see if they are having similar problems. The dog acts really weird, and doesn't lick anyone or really want to be too close to humans. Also, our dog has had appetite problems lately and the vets have done a variety of tests, including blood and stool tests, and have not found anything unusual other than a slightly higher than normal potassium level. With it being a new building, I don't think it's mold, but it is definitely worth checking out. I'm sort of hoping ex10 replies in case she's aware of any weird things that happen like this in the area. I heard on the news yesterday that there's also a type of mold here that grows in your nose and presses against your skull and looks like cancer, but isn't. That's something we definitely don't do. Also, since we mainly use plastic silverware and paper plates, we don't wash that much, just pots and pans. It's possible. We go eat at Sweet Tomatoes once every other week or so, and in addition to that we do wash our own fruit and vegetables that we eat. I'm not really sure that it came from the water if it was something like Giardiasis, because according to what I've read, our Britta filters should prevent it from getting through. There's another fairly common waterborne illness I read about that I don't think is it, but most of the sites I've found for it online deal with how it's fatal to people with AIDS or cancer, which we know that neither of us have as well. Right now our plans are to clean everything thouroughly, replace things like our toothbrushes, kitchen sponges, etc. I'm going to see if there's any way to wash vegetables better than we do now as well, because it doesn't seem entirely good to just wash them in the sink.

I normally don't post these sorts of things, but I'm suffering from information overload from stuff on the internet, and I'm not finding something that sounds exactly like what I'm looking for. Here's the problem. My wife was feeling really bad and having a lot of stomach cramps and such a few months ago, so she left the country and stayed with her parents for a few weeks to get better, where doctors discovered that she had an intestinal infection of some sort (she doesn't know specifically what it was) and over time she recovered and came back. Now she is feeling bad again, and I've been thinking about my own problems and we have appeared to have the same problems at the same time with our insides. In addition to this, we've been watching our dog, who has apparently had intestinal problems as well. We don't eat dogfood, and our dog doesn't eat our food. We also clean everything pretty well, and we dispose of sponges and things like that regularly. I can't really think of anything in particular that would cause us problems. It's looking like it may be the water here because that is the only thing in common between our dog and ourselves that would carry something bad. We have always had a Brita filter on the tap, and also use a Brita pitcher for storing water that we drink (after putting it through the tap filter as well for good measure.) Still, I can't think of anything else that would cause us problems like this. So, I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas on what I can do to check and see if the water is polluted or with some disease, and if so, what we can do about it. Houston has either the most polluted air of any city in the U.S., or it is within the top few, so I imagine that the water is pretty bad too. Any ideas?

It's a box of assorted candy that comes in a box with a drawing of a rose on it. Like this:

Reese's Peanut Butter eggs are one of my favorites. Another are the Whopper eggs, and then there is another one that I forgot what it is but I'd know it if I saw it. I don't eat a lot of candy now though, and haven't bought any for easter. I've been buying Cadbury Roses to prepare for my grandmother's visit (every time she goes to Ireland she brings back Cadbury Roses because they're hard to find in the U.S.) Personally, I think chocolate is best without having milk mixed in with it. If I could find something like a regular chocolate on a Reese's cup, that would be all I'd ever need.

My wife and I saw it the other day, and despite the moronic parents who deserve to have their heads bashed in with a tire iron for taking their baby to see a movie at 10:00 and then refusing to leave the theatre when the baby screamed for fifteen minutes straight, I enjoyed it. Basically, it's a typical action movie. I enjoyed it, because it was all about kicking asses. The Rock was actually did less character building than in his last movie (the one with Stifler.) However, it was nice to see a person mad at the corrupt casino, police, court, etc. that were running the town able to fix things with violence.

I hope I'm not the only one who noticed that the majority of these are "business speak." I'm suprised they missed words like synergy, touch-point, knowledge transfer, and all that other crap I hear about on a daily basis. (By the way, another guy has to "transfer his knowledge to me", supposedly because they want to be prepared in case he "calls in sick" some day. I warned him of the truth.)