I have been trying for at least a year to delete these stupid 0-byte files in the NPROTECT folder from when norton antivirus installed the stupid “protected recycle bin” garbage without my consent. I finally stumbled across the method in a posting somewhere.

This will force windows to delete the files. It uses some tricky UNC path instead of the drive-based path. Here it is. You type the following line into a dos prompt:

del \\?\C:\RECYCLER\NPROTECT\*.* /P

Note: There is a bug in senews. there should be TWO slashes before the ?. Sorry, I will try to fix it eventually.

Substitute the C: with the drive letter of your choice. It was amazing. It actually deleted all the files. Finally my drive is free of these anomalous things. Enjoy!

Here in the chicagoland area you can get yourself some fine burritos from many of the authentic mexican restaurants around. My absolute favorite place to get them is Ino’s. They make huge, delicious burrito’s for relatively cheap.

Now I’ve made my fair share of burritos, but none of them even com close to comparing with Ino’s. Until recently I hadn’t thought much of it, but in my present state of poverty it became a worthy goal.

Skipping to the end of the story, I have created a burrito that is not the same as Ino’s, but it’s good enough to be proud of. I’m going to share my preliminary, unmeasured recipe with you.

You will need:

+Frozen or fresh chicken. No canned stuff. Preferrably boneless, skinless.

+Refried beans. You would do best to not use Old El Paso, for the flavor is too natural-gas-esque.

+Some big, non-refrigerated burrito shells

+Salt shaker

+Taco seasoning

+Water

+A sauce pan

+A frying pan

+A stove

+Some mozzerella style cheese (mexican melting or quesadilla cheese is much better)

Ok. Burritos are made best with shredded, or stranded chicken. How the heck do you do that? Uncooked chicken doesn’t shred, but cooked chicken chunks too much. The secret is to poach the chicken. The creates a tender, flavorful chicken.

If the chicken is frozen, you need to thaw it. Don’t use a microwave or wait overnight, put the chicken in a bowl of cold tap water and chance the water occasionally (the water will get colder). I have even used warm water to speed things along. So long as you use the chicken RIGHT AWAY, you should be safe.

Now, place your chicken into a saucepan – the smallest saucepan into which the chicken will fit while touching the bottom. Then cover the chicken with water. Then add the taco seasoning. And mix it in real good. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat to just under boiling. That is, there should be little movement in the water at all – you are simmering the chicken partially covered for about 20 minutes. It is Ok if the chicken is not completely done, you will be cooking it again later.

after 20 minutes, let the chicken cool in the pan, with the juice for about 15 minutes. Then you may want to cool the chicken some more.

Get out a plate and use two forks and your fingers to shred up the chicken. Woohoo! You have just done the hardest part.

Now get a frying pan and heat it up. Get it to a temperature where water troplets fizzle pretty violently (between 325 and 375. Any higher and you risk damaging the pan and smoking the oil) Now add some oil to the pan, enough to create a layer over the whole pan (1 tablespoon perhaps?). Drop that shredded chicken on the oil and enjoy the sizzle! Add salt now. A good number of shakes. The salt here is to make the meat juicy and flavorful, so don’t be shy. Taste it to be sure. You can also add some of the poaching juice to moisten it up. Stir it around and flip it around occasionally. I cannot tell you how long to cook it right now – It should be starting to brown a bit, with some smaller pieces yellowing a bit. At least five minutes. Now, while this is going, get those refried beans out. Scoop out at least half the can into a small saucepan, and heat them over medium heat, stirring frequently until steaming, then reduce heat to low and cover. Get out a burrito shell and moisten it a bit (I have a sprayer of filtered water). Spread a spoonfull or two of beans on the shell, staying closer to one edge, and do not go all the way out to the sides. It should be a little under 1/4″ thick. Then put the chicken on top of the beans. Finally, cover it with mozzerella cheese (although mexican melting / quesadilla cheese will taste much better. Chihuaua (sp?) cheese is very good also.)

Not to fold the beast. Fold the edge closer to the fillings up of ther fillings and kind of roll it tight. Then flip one side in. Then roll it over once, flip the other side in, the roll it over again. Now set it in the frying pan with the flap side down, cover it and heat it on low for a few minutes to help melt the cheese.

Viola! You now have an amazing burrito! Eat it gosh darn it!

After upgrading to Service pack 2 you may have noticed a lot of things screwing up and slowing down. A number of MS’s security measures are foul treat the symptoms sort of fixes. Case in point: The recent influx of viruses that connect to thousands of computers seeking unprotected copies of wondows to exploit all open lots and lots of TCP connections at once. The solution as Microsoft sees it? Limit the number of connections the computer can make to 10.

Ouch! That really messes things up if a person has, say, a server, or any p2p program running. Lucky for us, somebody figured out how to fix this tragedy. Check out this page:

http://www.lvllord.de/?url=tools#4226patch

This guy has created a tool to patch the TCPIP.SYS file to enable more connections – up to 50. Perhaps somebody can find a way to increase it more.

I had another thought – maybe if one were to replace the tcpip.sys with that from a server version of windows.

Anyhoo, hope this helps. If the site goes down, pop me an email and I’ll mirror the tools.

I have no problem with AOL putting advertisements into their instant messaging client to keep it free. They have a right to try to recover some of the lost funds involved in developing the client. However, they have engaged in a number of practices, the most recent of which has pushed me over the edge. When I sent a friend an IM, a pop-up window showed up. At first I figured I had some spyware, then I noticed that the pop-up was an ad for the same thing that was in the little ad-window. AIM is now pusing pop-ups? That is disgusting. That is intolerable. The video ads were bothersome enough, but they have gone too far.

So I looked into ways of removing the ads. Would you believe there is a program that will actually remove them althogether. It does not hide them, or use some gimmick – it patches the executable to remove the ads. It is the AIM Ad Hack, and it works with the most current version of aim.

You can see the program’s website here: http://aftermath.dyndns.org:8888/~aimadhack/

I have mirrored version 3.67, for use with AIM 5.9.3690 at my site.

You can download it here:AIM Ad Hack 3.67.exe

If AOL repents and removes the ability for advertisers to bully us around, then I will gladly cease supporting this program, but until then I encourage everybody to use this program.

After I spent over a month suffering from extreme anxiety caused by my student teaching experience, I decided some action was needed. I was too nervous too often, and the symptoms were killing me. My hands were weak and shaky; my voice wavery, my legs wobbly, my mouth extremely dry and my presence uninspiring. I had (have) social anxiety disorder. So my doctor put me on Paxil. Let me tell you, it worked. I was so much less nervous – that is I was nervous but it didn’t make me worthless. I felt more sure of myself than ever before. Unfortunately it was too little too late. I never got my act together, and my cooperating teacher never told my what I was doing wrong. I dropped out of the college of education and switched to Computer science/math. Now at this point I no longer needed paxil. So I tried to quit. YIKES!

I had read about the withdrawl symtoms before and new about what to expect – the “ZAPS”, the feverishness, the nausea etc, etc. I slowly tapered down to 10mg over the course of a week, the down to 0 over the next two weeks. I got the zaps. For those who don’t know what these are, let me try to explain.

Perhaps you have had this experience. You are sitting at your computer late at night while you are tired – quite sleepy. Everything is silent and you have become accustomed to the silence. Then you computer makes a noise – a page change noise, the IM noise – any noise and it startles you. However, the “start” fro the sound can be felt all over your body, as sort of a jolt. If you have experienced this, that is the feeling of the zaps.

Another feeling similar to the zaps is when you are sitting in class trying to stay awake, and you consciousness slips away from you. You may feel a jolt as you fall into and out of sleep right away. The zaps are similar to this.

If neither of those sound familiar, how about this description. They start in your head as a buzzing or tingling feeling that feels like it is between your ears or eyes, closer to the back of your head. This buzzing does not affect your vision, but it usually causes my hearing to drop out for a second. The zapping then descends down your spine and through your body, just feeling very wierd. It is actually very similar to getting goosebumbs – the good kind when the hair on the back of your neck is played with. It spreads similar to that, only I’d scarcely say it feels good. I can’t really say it feels bad either – just annoying, wierd, strange, etc.

A final description – it is like being electrocuted. If you have ever accidentally touched 120-volts from an outlet, you know the buzzing that runs up your arm. It doesn’t hurt really, just makes your arm contract and feel, well, wierd. This sensation between your ears would be similar.

(In reading message boards, I had trouble finding a good description of the zaps, so now I have put mine up.)

After I had quit, I had a bit of a crisis. I was at my wife’s house (well, she wasn’t my wife then) and freaked out about some music that was playing. I was afraid to say anything, but I couldn’t not, so I just sat there and stared at the ceiling for an hour. I had to go back on.

I stayed on 10mg for a few months – my doctor gave me beta blockers to deal with anxiety (and let me tell you, they work great for anxiety symptoms). I ran out of paxil a few weeks after getting married, and without insurance we could not afford to get more. on top of that, Paxil exagerates my gag reflex and I was having trouble with gaging simply from the sensation of my tongue in my mouth. So I stopped, from 10mg to nothing.

I experienced zaps – very mild; very very mild zaps. My self-esteem dropped, but that I will just have to deal with. I got some nausea, some fever, and some droopiness.

The good news: I found some remedies that help with the symptoms – a lot. If anybody tried to quit Paxil, I believe this will help.

Nausea, dizziness, zaps – These are all perceptive anomalies. There are drugs to deal with nausea, and few people realize that they exist over the counter. Drugs called anti-emetics treat nausea as well as vertigo, dizziness, and gag-reflex problems. The OTC versions of these drugs are motion-sickness drugs. Surprise! They are not just for motion sickness. They treat all forms of nausea. A drug called Meclizine is commonly given to cancer patients as a first line of treatment for nausea. Meclizine HCL is the active ingretient in the motion sickenss drug Bonine. You can get it at Jewel-Osco. I decided to try it when I was feeling nauseas and it fixed it. It also reduces the disorientation from the zaps.

I do not know if any other OTC antiemetic will work better or worse, but Bonine has worked wonders for me and my wife in dealing with paxil withdrawal symptoms.

Anyway, I’ve been Paxil free for about a month and the only real remaining symptom is an occasional, mild zap when I’m tired. That and the return of bad moods.

Good luck to anybody who tried to get off this stuff.

I realize I haven’t updated in a while. I got married in august and have been rather busy since. One of the activities filling my days recently has been following the presidential race.

Now I am no fan of Bush. Neither am I a fan of Kerry. I want a change, but I do not feel Kerry is the man to do it, or *shudder* Edwards. Case in point: Kerry is making bold statements about embryonic stem cells that are plain untrue. He is making it seem as though Bush has banned stem cell research and is inhibiting progress. He is also saying that stem cells are on the verge of curing every degenerative disease known to man. These are terrible lies, and I don’t trust Bush to set him straight. Bush has a terrific opportunity to blast Kerry out of the water, but he’s either going to ignore it, or hurl some off-topic convoluted insult at him.

The truth is that embryonic stem cell research has gone nowhere. We simply cannot control these cells that are governed by processes we barely understand. There have been no clinical trials, no great headlines, no major hurdles overcome – nadda. Just a lot of speculation.

Now adult stem cells, on the other hand, have shown more than promise – they have shown results. Failing hearts repaired, paralyzed mice restored, diabetic mice cured (Edwards claimed embryonic stem cells were headed to accomplish the same thing. Absolute garbage), teeth regrown, jaws regrown. All of this using adult stem cells.

(This is my impression)

Why is it that adult stem cells work and embryonic stem cells do not? Why it’s simply a matter of genetics. A heart transplanted from a different person requires constant monitoring and anti-rejection drugs indefinitely. Without these drugs, the body will attack the heart and destroy it. Nomatter how close the heart matches, the body will try to reject it – the DNA doesn’t match. A heart grown from embryonic stem cells will have the DNA of the baby it came from, and thus would only be truly compatible with one person – the potential child that was murdered and justified in the name of science.

Adult stem cells come from the person they are used on. They contain the same genetic code, they are the same age, and they produce genetically identical cells to the ones they recreate. They work like magic almost – when place in poximity to a certain type of cell, they become that type of cell.

So what it comes down to is that the stem cell issue is giving Kerry an unfair advantage – people believe what they hear, and many, many people will support embryonic research simply to give a rationalization to the death they support. Bush can’t seem to get any domestic facts straight so it is a loss for him.

Here is an article to help you with those pesky unbelieveing tendencies of yours.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40887

Good night all!

-Jason

Elapsed,

a frail aria’s timid tone damned rage.

So ran I,

to order a note we both sang.

I laid low,

on miserable bald locations.

Sent I was,

all it is, I was.

I wondered,

Is no cost set as I deliver debts I made?

Will a foe rise?

Dare I pass or can I leer?

In eve’s yawn,

it left some gain.

On,

On I age,

most felt in ways even I reel in

Across a pier,

a desire of all I wed,

a mist bed.

Reviled,

is a test so considered.

Now I saw.

Is it ill as a witness?

No,

it a cold label bares.

I’m now old,

I align ash to be wet on a red root.

In a rose garden made not dim,

its air, a liar,

fades pale.

There’s something special about this poem (which I didn’t write, btw). Can you find it?

There is no longer a need to install ICQ if you have stubborn friends who refuse to convert. AOL Instant Messenger now allows you to add ICQ numbers to your contact list, and allows you to chat with them as if they were running AIM. Apparently you can even send them files and open a direct connection.

Give it a shot!

I still haven’t been able to sign into AIM using my ICQ number, but it gives me a strange error when I try. If anybody can figure out how to do it, please let me know.

I would just like to make mention of a fact I recently discovered. After squashing a spider with a block of styrofoam, I noticed a little pit in the foam where the spider was. Spider guts dissolve styrofoam!! Isn’t that wierd? Try it yourself with a styrofoam cup and a pesky little spider. Squish it with a flat area on the cup so that the spider’s guts get on the cup. You should see some pitting on the surface of the cup.

(note: this will work best with a spider that has a large backside)

Why does it do this? Well it has to do with the spider’s web making material. The spider’s web is made from some polymers we understand little about, except that it is a liquid inside the spider and it solidifies when pulled from the spinnerettes. That means it contains some sort of solvent keeping the web dissolved. Well, this solvent just so happens to also dissolve polystyrene – styrofoam!

Some other solvent with the same effect are gasoline, acetone, turpentine, and paint thinners.

If you or somebody you know is having trouble with windows restarting for seemingly no reason when you are connected to a network (or the internet), there is a solution.

Likely you are seeing a message box that says something about the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service terminating unexpectedly.

This is being caused by an internet worm that is taking advantage of a flaw in the MS RPC implementation. If you are crashing you have the worm.

There is a solution.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=823980

This article explains the flaw and contains links to the microsoft patch files for each OS.

My suggestion:

1. IMMEDIATELY enable the Internet Connection Firewall, before reconnecting to the internet. This will protect your computer from further attacks.

2. Download the patch files as soon as possible after the computer boots.

3. Immediately disconnect from the internet.

4. Now you can safely install the patch without having to worry about windows shutting down on you.

After the patch is installed you will need to remove the worm.

6. Download the Stinger cleaner utility from NAI here: http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

You should be clear!

Here are direct links to those patches.

Patch for Windows XP

Patch for Windows 2000

Patch for Windows Server 2003

Keep in mind that this will only prevent infection, and stop the resets, but it will not cure an infection. Various sites have tools for cleaning it off, but the best protection will come from having a virus scanner installed and running all the time. There are quite a few choices, including a free scanner that ranks very close to it’s commercial counterparts in effectiveness.

Good luck!