Buffalo, NY (WBEN) -- As of Saturday, December 11, "robo"-calls are subject to stronger regulations in New York State.
Under a new law which takes affect this weekend, New Yorkers who've signed up for the state's "Do Not Call" list should no longer receive automated-message telemarketing calls.
I am still torn on if this means I should get on that list or not. At first my mom said yes but then I heard it was some sort of scam to collect more phone numbers.
libertad - 12/12/10 19:59 This is good news but it doesn't include political calls unfortunately. I am on the do not call list and it seems to work well once you get on it. Now I know that if my phone rings, it probably is somebody I know.
tinypliny - 12/11/10 21:38 Really?! They farm phone numbers out the donotcall website?! How ironic.
tinypliny - 12/11/10 21:37 Random people send messages to my cellphone with fake warnings about how my credit card has problems. So irritating - especially since I am charged for all those rubbish spam messages.
12/11/2010 17:00 #53238
Basra the builder Category: pets
I gave Basra some peices of wood to push around. It keeps him busy.
paul - 12/12/10 02:01 The penis kind of gives it away.
tinypliny - 12/11/10 21:36 How do you know basra is male? Could be an aggressive female!
paul - 12/11/10 20:13 For one thing he is way more aggressive than other captive tortoises that don't get to roam around as much. I think between us playing around with him and all the animals in the backyard, he had gotten kind of badass and very sure of himself. That or its just more male hormones as he gets older. I will be interesting when he is 150lbs.
We picked the name because the army attacked the city of basra in Iraq the day we got him.
tinypliny - 12/11/10 19:50 Did you know that baserah means home or dwelling in hindi (and in a way, Urdu)?
tinypliny - 12/11/10 19:49 I wonder how Basra is different from his ancestor. Does he think more modern? After all, he did have that one run-away-from-home episode. What is he building? What does he think he is building...
12/11/2010 15:36 #53236
Starting to wonder... Category: body
If I am going to die from this plague. I can't wait till my dermatology appt on Wednesday. It seems so ridiculous that I have money and health insurance and its taken two weeks so far before I can see a dermatologist.
Everyday I think its going to start going away and it gets worse. In a way it does seems like the original ones are fading but new ones are coming in places I did not have them before.
paul - 10/05/11 01:22 Oops I was wrong, it was not before the tongue thing. The red tongue thing started around 05/2010, 7 months before this. Its the painful tongue followed by the orange tongue that started after this.
paul - 10/05/11 01:18 Until I put this timeline together tonight, I never realized that this 3 week body rash from hell happend directly before the tongue issue started.
tinypliny - 12/23/10 23:30 Its SO unfair that you didn't post a follow-up yet!
tinypliny - 12/23/10 23:30 WELLL??? What did he say??? Come on! You have one faithful reader here who REALLY wants to know what the dermatologist's opinion was??? What was the diagnosis?? How are you now?? Has it gone down? Has it worsened?? Forget about the indirect inquiring minds... I WANT TO KNOW!!!
metalpeter - 12/12/10 10:48 Hopefully it is nothing serious, but what (e:libertad) said is true..... Sometimes it might not be a skin issue it is an infection issue that shows up on the skin... With out being a doctor I'm guessing that you being allergic to cats and other animals means you are having some kind of reaction to something you don't know about ...
tinypliny - 12/12/10 00:22 It's a kind of paint that is lightly applied and dries on your skin in a pinkish thin shell that you can just flick away later. But yeah, all that hair might be a problem. There seems to be many lesions where there is no hair, though.
Did you recently buy and wear some new sweater or maybe an animal origin coat of some sort... maybe cashmere or wool?
Also CMV/EBV may sometimes have very uncharacteristic presentations... I can't be sure. Do these bumps lose their reddish color/blanch when you press them? Are they tender when you press them?
paul - 12/11/10 23:03 (e:tinypliny) - I feel like taking two benedryl is way easier that trying to work any sort of liquid into chest hair. (e:libertad) - I figure at this point I might as well wait for a specialist.
libertad - 12/11/10 22:09 You could go to an after hours clinic. You don't have to see a dermatologist for skin problems.
tinypliny - 12/11/10 19:47 If you can get lactocalamine topical solution to apply, you could wean youself off benedryl. It is anti-pruritic (anti-itch).
paul - 12/11/10 17:21 No I don't scratch them. None of them have any broken surface. In fact they don't itch too much anymore and when they do I take benedryl which I am slowly becoming addicted to.
tinypliny - 12/11/10 16:42 btw, the mortality in dermatology wards is close to zero... unless it carcinogenic, which I think, its not.
tinypliny - 12/11/10 16:35 Are you scratching that area? I hope not. Maybe you should try an application of lactocalamine solution if they are itchy.
12/10/2010 22:41 #53231
Grooveshark.com - is it legal? Category: web
I always am so behind on internet crap because I barely surf the web for entertainment purposes.
Tonight, I decided to spend a little more time visiting the chrome app store
I am not really sure what the advantage of the chrome app store is other than a place to easily find the apps. Unlike the app stores on mobile devices there is no app to install per se. So it seems kind of like a store that sells/helps you locate urls? Isn't that just a search engine?
Anyhow, grooveshark.com seems totally amazing. I am able to search for and listen to just about any music I want, kind of like rhapsody.com but it appears to be free and I can rewind and replay whatever songs I want. Maybe I just haven't gotten to the catch yet but it seems easier than have to maintain my own library minus the it only plays when online part.
i was curious how they could do this legally so I went ahead and searched for is grooveshark.com legal and how there is a whole lot of drama there. Check out this yahoo answers for example or this arstechnica forum
Its interesting because it seems like the company tends to respond to the questions.
I still don't really understand how it is I can listen to whatever music I want and not pay anything. They don't even have audio advertisements like pandora and clearly, when you listen to the site you aren't looking at it much so the ads to the side are kind of useful.
They must have deals with the record labels, but what kind of deals. I mean this seems "free" like as in free from back in the napster days. The fact that they let anyone upload songs is great for independent artists but I find it hard to believe that Michael Stipe decided to upload all the R.E.M albums I am currently listening to.
In a way I am jealous as I would like to work on something like that web app much more than dealing with all the rules and regulations of dealing with employee and patient data in the hospital setting that makes up my life now. It must be so fun to make stuff simply for entertainment purposes. Maybe it would feel meaningless. Or maybe it would just be so much less stressful.
You can even download the music with this simple little hack that I am sure makes it all totally illegal. I am not suggesting it.
tinypliny - 12/11/10 21:43 hahah - I love your last sentence.
12/10/2010 20:47 #53229
Feeder Fish Category: pets
I used yo have a turtle that ate these. Glad I just have a vegetarian tortoise now although he is being such a pain right now. Today and I had to bathe him and oil his shell. He is getting so fat that I need to put him on a diet but eating is like his only entertainment.
He is getting so big now.
tinypliny - 12/11/10 21:46 Eating is apparently the only entertainment of 68% of the world's population nowadays. Pathetic.
It's time to start an eat-to-live movement and put down the live-to-eat fetish that we seem to have.
tinypliny - 12/11/10 21:44 Hold on. How did he get to these fish?! Is the tank on the floor? Can he climb the wall of the aquarium?!
This is good news but it doesn't include political calls unfortunately. I am on the do not call list and it seems to work well once you get on it. Now I know that if my phone rings, it probably is somebody I know.
Really?! They farm phone numbers out the donotcall website?! How ironic.
Random people send messages to my cellphone with fake warnings about how my credit card has problems. So irritating - especially since I am charged for all those rubbish spam messages.