Why is it that every time I turn around, I'm getting smacked upside the head with news that I am getting old?!

And I'm only 26, people!!!

I talked to my brother today. I was calling for my dad, but my brother wanted to chat. He's not doing so well in school (surprise surprise), and I asked which classes he was doing poorly in. Math and physics, he replied. I told him I took physics when I was at his high school and it was easy. It was... a fourth-grader could have passed that class.

I mentioned how my physics teacher (who's no longer there) used to put a quote up on a mini-whiteboard above the blackboard, and Mark says, "What blackboard?? All we have is whiteboard in the classrooms now!!"

No more blackboards.

God, I AM old.

I used to be so amused by my computer science professor in college who insisted on rolling the chalk between his fingers till the anti-dust coating was worn off, and his hands would be covered in chalk dust. He'd then proceed to touch his pants for whatever reason, thereby coating his invariably dark corduroy pants (that he wore with black socks and Birkenstocks -- remember, this is a computer science professor!) with yellow chalk dust.

This was also the professor that always, ALWAYS, used the phrase "with malice aforethought" at least once in his lectures.

Ahhhh, the good ol' days!!!

Why didn't anyone TELL me that Edwin McCain is a white boy?? With a voice as smooth as his, I assumed he was black. No one tells me anything. Garrr Peter! ;o)

In other news, I despise Mr Bill Gates. Well, not him, but his products. I am about at the end of my rope!

I went to pay my mortgage payment today, which is a very good thing to do when you own a house. It's not good NOT to pay it. I knew from the long conversation with my Comcast guy a few weeks ago that my Internet Explorer was corrupt, but I hadn't done anything about it yet. I just use the Mozilla Firefox browswer.

But Firefox can't communicate securely with my mortgage company. So I couldn't get anywhere using Firefox. I opened up IE, and I again ran into the problem that caused me to call Comcast in the first place: the "page cannot be displayed" error. It doesn't matter what I set my security to; I cannot get to some secure websites. This is really bad because I pay the majority of my bills online, and if I can't get to a payment site and my bill is due in two days, I'm going to have a late bill if I try to send in a check.

I did attempt to call my mortgage company to make a payment over the phone, but they want to charge me $12 if I do it through the automated system and $20 if I talk to a customer representative!!

How do you people SLEEP at night?!

On a bed of cash....

Anyhow. In desperation I called my father, who went to the website and made the payment for me. It's all set up; he just had to push a few buttons to have the money deducted out of my account.

I attempted to delete IE, which was unsuccessful, although I think I may have accidentally deleted it later. It doesn't matter; I am now a confirmed Netscape and Firefox user.

SCREW YOU ANYHOW MR BILL GATES! I seriously need to start a picket line out front of his house.

According to this study as reported by CNN.com, the worst drivers are in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

I can believe that. Daddy always said that Maryland drivers get their licenses out of Post Toasties boxes.

However, this study also found that the best drivers are in Washington and Oregon. With the exception of Janine here in Washington, people seem to be fairly good, courteous drivers.

Oregon drivers, on the other hand, are anything but courteous.

So apparently they KNOW the rules of the road. They just choose to completely ignore them.

It has gotten to the point where if I see an Oregon license plate, I just stay out of their way.

I think it's because they're not allowing to pump their own gas, so they have to vent their frustration somehow!