I got bored… LOL I went to the google search engine and typed “turn picture into simpsons character” and I found this website from Burger King called Simpsonize Me. I thought it was a very good likeness of me lol and I got bored so I wood burned it and that wasn’t enough for me, I had to paint it too lol. So here you go, I hope you like it.
Today I was sitting at the computer looking at YouTube videos and my email program told me I had email. So I went to look and here is this one email from a business called RapidShare AG showing me my account information. Then a 2nd email which came at the exact same time from PayPal showing that I had been charged €29.99 EUR.
At first I thought it was just another email phishing scam asking me to click a link and give up my password so I just opened a new browser and manually typed http://www.paypal.com. I entered my password and sure enough there was that euro dollar charge and they did the exchange rate thing so the total that will come out of my checking account in 3 business days is $37.34.
So without hesitation I searched for the PayPal phone number and called them and told them “I DID NOT AUTHORIZE THIS!!!!” I told the guy on the phone that I don’t even know what RapidShare is and he said it’s a file sharing website. How did he know that? Perhaps PayPal knows about this yet they are still allowing people to be charged for this? I don’t know. He walked me through the process of disputing the claim but said it could take 10 days.
10 Days? It only takes 3 days for them to take the money directly out of my checking account. I only have $18 available until my next check. So I called Bank of America and told them what happened and I told them that I talked to PayPal about it and I wanted to make sure that they don’t get their money from me through my checking account which should be in 3 days. Well, that costs $20 and like I said, I have $18 available so now I gotta put $2 in the bank to cover my ass because if they take $20 and I have $18 they’re going to charge me $20 insufficient fund fee lol. That’s $40.
Why should I end up having to pay $40 when I’m the one being scammed?
OK so I went to the Google search engine and found out that this is indeed a scam. Someone didn’t just sign me up for this website or service, this company somehow got my PayPal password and they charged me for an account that I never asked for.
I was going to call them because PayPal has all the details but they are in Switzerland. I can’t call Switzerland! First of all they would probably put me on hold for 20 minutes and my phone bill would skyrocket. I could use my PSP with Skype but then I’d have to pay Skype more money to make an international call. The details also provide the company email address so I emailed them telling them that I disputed the claim with PayPal so they might as well just reverse their charge because they are not getting any money from me.
So now with all that out in the open, I have to go to the ATM machine to deposit $2.
UPDATE: This transaction did go through to the bank on that Monday which means the stop payment thing through Bank of America didn’t take. In fact when I called them they said that it wouldn’t have worked anyway because that is supposed to be for a monthly stop payment, not for a 1 time stop payment. I don’t know why they were going to use that then if that wasn’t for what I needed. Gawd!
Our dog Flower had a medical emergency so Darrin had to call his brother to ask him to NOT cash my rent check which means that since it did go through to my banking account I didn’t go in the negative so I don’t have to worry about insufficient funds fee… for now.
The refund did go through with PayPal and the money is back in my PayPal account. However, they didn’t put it back in my checking account. I wish they just put it back where they got it from. But, I think I’m going to just leave it in there just in case something happens like this again. Also it’s good to save money right?
So everything worked out in the end.
Ok I got this email today from my web host that they are going to start charging me $3 more per month but the good news is that I’m also getting 3GB more too. So I guess that’s not bad. If I paid for a year up front I could get a discount so I’d really only have to pay $1 more each month but I really don’t have the money to put towards a whole year up front. That’s ok, it’s still worth it to pay for my own domain rather than just use a blog site like Xanga, MySpace, Blogger, Yahoo 360° or whatever other blogging sites are out there.
At least with my own website I can give people a website address that they can go to that is short like xanapus.com. Most of the people who I played EQ with would know exactly where to go because they know that name. It would be easier to find me on the internet just by looking up my character name. If you do a google search for the name Xanapus there are 2,860,000 results. I get around lol.
When I stopped using my laptop I installed all the IM programs to the desktop such as AIM, Yahoo IM, MSN Messenger and MySpace IM. Well, all of a sudden I’ve noticed how slow my computer got from running all those IM programs.
So I went on Google and did a search for IM programs and found Pidgin. This is a universal chat program that lets you see your buddy list from 16 different IM programs.
AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo! and Zephyr
There is one other that I wish it had which is Facebook. eBuddy has Facebook, I use that IM program when I’m on my PSP.
Well this definitely helps and all the IM’s are tabbed so if you are in more than 1 conversation it’s tabbed for you in 1 window. It also has chatrooms, the only thing it doesn’t have is webcam. You can either have 1 universal icon for all to see or you can choose an icon for each IM service that you use. And it uses the smileys that you would normally see only in like AOL or Yahoo or MSN, so you can’t use special smileys that you wouldn’t see in AOL that you would see in MSN. I think it’s pretty cool. I like it. My computer isn’t slow any more.
Recently I asked a Rhapsody question and got a response within 24 hours on my own blog straight from the horse’s mouth. So… now I want to ask a question for Google.
This year I found out that Google had come out with 1-800-GOOG-411 to make free 411 calls. Their service is so amazing, you call and it asks you business name, city and state. You say like pizza hut Bakersfield california and it automatically came up with a pizza hut on Stockdale hwy and said that it would connect me now or if I needed more listings to say so. Awesome! 411 calls are outrageously expensive being that you get 3 free 411 calls per month but after that it’s $1 per 411 call. Thanks google.
But how about this? I’m thinking about canceling my home phone service and buying one of the new Nokia Skype phones from Skype.com because it’s only $3 a month for unlimited local and long distance calls. I already got my goog 411 so now what about 911? Skype doesn’t offer 911 like Vonage does so how bout it google? Are you going to ever offer that?
Google is a great company, I’m sure they can come up with an automated 911 service that asks you what your emergency is and you just tell the computer and then it asks you if you need a cop, fireman or ambulance and then it dispatches those services without needing to talk to an operator. Or they could give you the option to be connected to the actual 911 in your city.
The phone company isn’t going to last much longer thanks to internet calling like Skype and Vonage so if landlines are gone forever (sorry ma bell) then we need a 911 replacement.
I just got an email about this. It’s new Google 411. Wow, is google going to start making cell phones next? Oh wait, they do! What about microwaves or television sets or dishwashers?
Well, this new thing is actually a very good thing. Before I had blogged about 411 calls now costing $1 per call and that you can call 1-800-free-411 but you have to endure listening to a 15-30 second advertisement. But, this is even better because there are NO advert’s and they automatically collect you to who you want to call. I’ve added 1-800-goog-411 to all our handsets in the house and to my cell phone and you should too.
If you have a cell phone with internet or with maps or whatever they will send you a map for your GPS so you can get there and/or they will text message you the information you asked for but you have to tell them that. Oh it’s also a recording so you won’t talk to a person but their voice recognition software is pretty good so you probably won’t have to. Hey, don’t bitch about it, it’s free.
Call 1-800-goog-411 or visit their website at www.google.com/goog411
Update: As of November 12th 2010 Google has shut down their free 411 service. It’s a shame because it was pretty frickin’ awesome.
Wow I thought 9 miles yesterday was awesome but today I surpassed that by going 11 miles. I was riding for 62 minutes total. That’s awesome.
My legs aren’t getting as tired as fast as they usually are. I mean there were some points where I had to stop because I was going slower and so I knew if I stopped, got off the bike and drank some water and gave my legs a rest for a minute or 2 that I would recharge and it worked. I’d get back on the bike and go 12-14 mph again.
I don’t know where I was this time. I will have to look it up on google map. I saw a bunch of mobile homes. There was a stop light ahead. I just looked at the google map website and it was Manor st. where I stopped and started going back.
Anyway, here are the stats from the computer. 11.231 miles, 29.7 max speed, 10.9 average speed, time 1:01:54, 536.2 calories and 53.5 fat calories.
Tomorrow is my official weigh in day and I will update the image on the Spark page but I weighed myself and I was 236lbs. I was 244lbs. But it isn’t official until I weigh in tomorrow after my bike ride.
I decided that since I got a new cyclo-computer that I would go out today even though I went out yesterday. I like to give my legs a day’s rest normally but I was too excited not to go out. I wanted to see the exact amount of time I would ride along with the exact miles per hour and the exact amount of miles that I rode. Before I would have to go to google to map out my ride so I can get an exact number of miles that it takes to go from the house to there and then back but this tells me all that information. Also google maps doesn’t let me map out the ride on the bike trail so when I start riding on the bike trail I won’t know how many miles I went.
Well, today when I got to Beach Park the ride was only 16 minutes. Normally with my other stop watch the ride is like 22 minutes but that’s because whenever I pull over to get a drink of water or to rest my legs for a minute I don’t stop the timer. This new computer turns the timer off when you stop riding so I’m getting an exact reading of how long it takes me to get there.
I’ve been putting in the SparkPeople website that I’ve been doing 14-15mph and I was riding 12-15 mph today but it showed my average speed at 10mph so where it shows my calories that is reflective of me going 10mph. So, when I added todays bike ride to SparkPeople I had to tell them I went 10mph. I want to be as accurate as possible.
Instead of riding every other day I’m going to try everyday. I figured maybe I could do 2 days on, 1 day off but I think that my legs are getting used to it enough that I can start going everyday. This is my 4th week of riding the bike. My first week I only rode to California ave and back which was 4 days in that week. My 2nd week I only rode to Oak and Truxton and back and that was 3 days. My 3rd week I made it to Beach Park and rested then came back and that was only 2 days. Now my 4th week I’m getting to Beach Park and without resting going straight onto the bike trail but I only went a little distance before deciding to go back to the park and resting for 10 min before going home.
Now that I’m getting better I would like to spend 20 or more minutes on the bike trail (maybe 10 min out then 10 min back) then resting before heading home. I’m actually really excited that my legs are getting better and getting more used to riding because as I’ve said before, I’d eventually love to ride for 2 hours a day. The weight will definitely melt off when I’m riding for 2 hours a day. Also I’d like to get to the point where that is 2 hours straight.
I’m actually excited about losing weight for the first time in a long time because I know that if I ride the bike on a daily basis I will definitely lose the weight a lot faster. Now I just need to start eating better to make this weight loss go faster. I’m trying my best.
Edit: Yes, I realize I was rambling lol. I edited out some of the redundancy lol.
Well, I finally made it to Beach Park today. I feel so good about myself that I actually did it. I also noticed that I’m riding a little faster because the time it took me to get there and back was a lot shorter than it took me to go less distance.
Ok so according to SparkPeople that is 5.4 miles total (to there and back, I mapped the directions out on google) and 720 calories. The minimum amount of calories that I should burn in 1 day is 260, I mean for my diet plan, so I’ve exceeded that. Which is totally awesome.
As I was riding the bike over the very high and very long bridge on Oak St. I was expecting that I wouldn’t make it because the one other time I tried going over I didn’t make it, I ended up having to stop and walk most of the way up. But it wasn’t so difficult this time. Also when I was coming home I was riding on H st. on the street under the bridge and what I did was I just peddled so fast as I was going down so that when I had to start coming up I didn’t have to pedal at all because I was already going so fast.
Anyway, my legs are swollen and painful so I’m gonna go lay down.
I went bike riding this morning just as the sun was coming up. I don’t recall the time, it was before 7am though. Instead of stopping at California Ave and turning right and going back home, this time I decided to keep going to Truxton and turn left to go to Oak St. which is the way to get to Beach Park where the bike path is at.
I went to Oak but had to turn around and come back home because I’m so heavy that as I was riding my bike I could tell that my seat was going down because my legs were no longer straight when my pedal was all the way down. They were bending still and when I left the house they were straight. So I’m so heavy that I’m pushing my seat down which is not good. Next time I go on a ride I have to raise the seat again. I have a feeling that until I lose this website I’m gonna have to keep raising the seat every time.
That’s ok I guess. I’m just happy that I rode a longer distance than before. 38 minutes is a lot longer than 14 minutes. I also rode for 4.2 miles total. I checked it out on Google Maps. Go me!
By the way, I was so close to Beach Park, like 5 blocks from it. I was so close I could have tasted it. I had no idea that I was that close either. If I knew I was that close I would’ve tried harder to get there. At least they had water so I could have refilled my bottle lol. I ran out just as I was getting closer to the house. That only tells me I need to bring the bigger bottle next time lol.
Edit: I went to Spark People to add my cardio for today and 38 min at 10 mph (I don’t know what my speed is as I don’t have a bike odometer and 10 mph is the lowest they have so it’s my only option) and that is 342 calories burned. The total for the whole week is 87 of 90 min that they require you to do and 783 of 780 calories burned. They only want you to do exercise cause they are there to tell you what you need to do to get thin. You aren’t “required” to do anything you don’t want to in which case you don’t have to sign up on their website. But anyway, my point is that I exceeded the amount of calories for the whole week but I was still 3 minutes shy of the amount of time. That’s fine though because next week will be double because I was so close to Beach Park that next time I will actually make it there and maybe even get to ride on the bike path for a little while. I might end up doing the entire 90 min for the entire week in just 2 sessions.
Xanapus` Lair 