Authors
Ticked Tuesday: Dear Sick People
You’re not very nice. No, I’m not talking about you sick people with cancer, I’m talking about those people who get sick with the flu or a cold and go around giving it to other people. Not only giving it to them, but coughing all over the place, sitting closer than lovers and did I mention coughing all over the place?
I’m honestly quite upset right now at you, because now I’m sick. I never get sick. And tomorrow is Halloween at that and I have no voice. Were it not for my natural nice personality I would kill you and your entire family for this. Twice.
Next time you’re sick do us all a favor and go sit in a corner wearing a bio-hazard suit. Or better yet, just stay home. Asshole.
Boogers and snot,
Jeff
Ticked Tuesday: Dear American Phone Companies
You suck. Why the hell do you have better mobile plans at better prices than we (as Canadians) do? Right now I pay about $40/month for 150 anywhere-anytime (local/long distance). T-Mobile (which is unavailable here) had 600 minutes for the same price. I’m not one to say it often but HOLY SHIT! That’s a big difference. And that plan at t-mobile also includes unlimited nights and weekends, which mine doesn’t. I’m getting royally fucked here.
I know you’re thinking “Don’t be mad at me, be mad at the company who is ripping you off” but I’m totally not. You guys are setting really high standards. I mean giving people a good deal for their money, being nice on the phone, and actually giving a shit about your customers is just too high of a standard to set. Not everybody can be human you know!
That said: raise your prices, give them really bad customer service and start treating the customers like the pointless numbers they are! Don’t make me call your mother (collect and long distance)!
I got your number, gonna make you mine,
Jeff
Sunday Q & A on Monday
I’m going to follow RichMinx on this one, as she did a post with the same title yesterday. I know it’s a day late, but does it matter? Didn’t think so.
What do you do on Sunday morning?
Usually just lounge around, maybe catch up on movies or TV shows that I’ve ignored during the week. Lately also writing up blog posts (if able) to post on days I can’t think of anything the upcoming week.
What’s the last CD you bought?
Running with Scissors by Weird Al back in like…2002 maybe? No wait, I picked up that Britt Black CD about a year and a half ago. The last song I bought though was Your Mama by Kennedy.
What were you like at high school?
The quiet creepy kid. I had a huge ego and hated pretty much everything. I know, it’s a huge stretch from where I am today, but it’s true.
What are you ashamed of about yourself?
My social awkwardness. I’m horrible at general conversation, always think it through too much then say the wrong thing too late. That and having no idea what to do with my hands.
Most annoying celebrity?
I don’t know, whose on the top of the pop charts this week? Yeah, that one.
What offends you?
Tardiness, excuses and people being unprepared. If I’m going to do something, I’m there it 10 minutes early and ready for anything. If you’re not, you suck.
Who do you want to play you in the movie of your life?
Somebody who is uglier than myself, so I look better in comparison. Hey, it’s a movie about me, I can be shallow if I want to!
What’s the best thing about being single?
I saved a bundle on girl-insurance by switching to Single!
What’s the best thing about being in love?
I’ll let you know when I figure that one out.
What would your Mastermind topic be?
My what now? I’m usually pretty good at movie quotes and characters if that’s a good answer.
What was the last book you didn’t finish?
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. First 1/2 was read to me out loud and I couldn’t be assed to finish it once the end was spoiled.
What’s your favorite movie scene?
When Jim Carey is hanging on a satellite dish and says “Somebody has to kill the babysitter” in The Cable Guy, no idea why.
When was the last time you got drunk and what were you drinking?
Last time I was drinking enough to forget what I was doing was August…something after getting laid off. I woke up in my closet. Don’t drink alone, it’s not as much fun if you can only laugh at yourself.
Share with us one of the lamest moments of your life.
Getting an email 4 months after my high school graduation (and after I had ‘fled’ the province) from one of the girls I had a crush on (but never really spoken to) telling me that she had been thinking about me a lot lately and wanted to go get some coffee. Felt so lame after that one.
What song will they play at your funeral.
Something really annoying that gets stuck in your head so that all of the attendees will think “God that guy was fucking annoying, even after he’s dead.”
Can you share a sandwich filling?
Cheddar cheese, salami, pepperoni and ham. Cold cut fever!
With a million dollars, I’d…
Blow it all within a week and wonder what the hell I did with it.
HabitHack: Remember, Remember…
My memory is pretty bad when it comes to remembering anything of real values. Sure I might be able to recite pi to the 20th place (ok, that’s a lie) but remembering my family’s birthdays is out of the question. That’s why we have to give ourselves reminders. Today (even though I’m not sure what day it actually is) we’re going to talk about ways to create effective reminders.
The say ‘If you build it, they will come’. Well I think that ‘If you write it, it will get done’. You can think about something as much as you want, but if you can actually touch the task you’re less likely to forget it.
Post-it Notes: I love these little things, I have over 2000 over them in my apartment right now, I buy them in bulk. Whenever I have a task that I know I can’t do right now and have to leave the house to do, I write it on a post-it note. This method works great with prepants, because chances are high that you’re going to put your hand in your pocket at least once tomorrow.
Whiteboards: These are pretty great too. I have one right now with a calendar, corking board and just open whiteboard space on it that I picked up at Wal-Mart and it’s fantastic. Write down numbers I have to call, things I have to do when I get up, or just jot down random ideas for blog posts on it. This also helps if it’s close to the door so you can look on the way out to see if there is anything you had to bring but forgot. It’s just another way to stay organized (and is fun to draw on when you’re bored).
For those of us that are techs, we can use email reminders to send ourselves emails before the date. There a lot of services that do this, but it’s also done by Google Calendar, which I recommend. You just have to select the ’send email X time before event’ option when adding it to the calendar.
If you just want to make a ToDo list, I recommend Remember The Milk. It’s very simple, just sign up and add in what you have to do for each day, what type of list (home/work/school) it is and check it off as it gets done. This is a good site because it can be synced with your cellphone, which is pretty cool.
Messages in Time: This one is a little bit harder to do, but I’ve seen it done and it worked for her. She left a phrase ‘bad wolf’ throughout time in order to remind her of something that she had to do in the future. She did this by naming companies, having people tell the story of ‘the big bad wolf’ and even having it spray painted on the TARDIS, Though it absolutely worked and ended up saving the world, I’d recommend only using this if the post-it notes don’t work.
Those are my recommendations for remembering things, what do you do to remember to do stuff?
Habithack: Prepants
Do you ever find yourself rushing in the morning to get everything ready on the way out the door? Maybe this has become part of your daily routine? Well stop it! The phrase “always be ready in advance” is pretty worn out and often really hard to do, but a good pair of pants only gets better with wear. This is why you have to learn to ‘prepants’.
Prepants (even though I don’t think it’s a real word) is a real simple concept: Get your pants ready in advance. If you followed my advice of ditching the wallet, you should only have a few things to take with you, so pick out a pair of pants and put all the stuff in it for the next morning. If needed, even put the pants on and do a mock-morning. This is a great method and will shave time off your morning (which means you don’t have to get up as early!). Your mom used to pick out your clothes the night before and wasn’t life easier as a kid? Maybe she was on to something there. 
Tomorrow: Super-awesome-amazing ways to remember stuff!
Habithack: Lose your wallet
Just as the title says, you have to lose your wallet. This doesn’t mean throw it off a bridge (just yet) but you have to stop carrying it around. Do you realize how much useless items are in your wallet? I’m sure you don’t. Most people have a card for everything, pictures of everybody they’ve ever met, random ticket stubs and god knows what else. Do you really need to be carrying around a card telling people you’re FBI (Female Body Inspector)? I’ll let you know the answer is no.
Before you go out think about what you know you need, not what you ‘might need’. That will be the big time saver here. I find that the main needs are: Photo ID, Secondary ID/medicare, Debit card, Credit card, cash. For such a small list you surely don’t need to carry around a huge wallet that makes your ass look big.
If you find yourself unable to get rid of all your photos, just get rid of most of them. Wallets usually have that plastic booklet that people put pictures and cards in, start taking just that with you if you must. But in retrospect you don’t need to carry around a lot of pictures, the chances of you ending up on an island by yourself with only your memories is slim.
Once you have yourself cut down, now you can throw your wallet off a bridge. Remember to try and hit the guy in the sailboat for me! 
Tomorrow’s post: Prepants!
Ticked Tuesday: Dear Insulting Halloween Items
Get the F out of my holiday! (GTFOMH) No, I’m not talking about vulgarity, or blood, or pictures of people’s faces that squirt blood out of the eye sockets; I’m talking to you god-damn-mother-fucking ‘cute’ items. All of those ghosts holding candy baskets smiling, all of those purple and orange skeletons with the hats on and ESPECIALLY those little teddy bears with pumpkin heads. Teddy bears have no place in Halloween!
If you’re going to decorate for Halloween, make it scary or creepy or eerie. Halloween is supposed to scare you and put you on edge of your nerves. It’s not supposed to be bright, friendly and fun for the whole family. I mean I’m all for taking kids trick-or-treating, but if your kid is a little pussy it’s not going to be wise to take them up to the door of the house with tombstones on the front lawn. If you don’t want to get spooked, just stay inside like you do every other night.
Boo-bye,
Jeff
P.S. The “Cute Ban” (as it will now be called) does not apply to costumes, but solely decorations. If you want to dress your kids up as care bears, all the power to you.
Habithack: Email Filters
Everyday people gets tons and tons of emails (at least I do) and for the most part they were all going into my inbox, which would pile up pretty fast. With filters though, you can easily organize your email as it comes in and decide when you want to read what email when, if at all.
First, have a look at this easy to read chart I drew up and find out Do you need to use Email Filters?
Filters are fairly easy to set up if you’re using Mozilla Thunderbird (it’s not rocket science in other clients either, but we’re going to be focusing on Thunderbird today). The first thing you want to decide is how you want to separate your email. I have my personal email separated like this:
- Family (pretty self explanatory)
- NewLet (Newsletters)
- Confirm (Confirmation, private message notifications, ect)
- Junk (spam)
Though these are very simplistic, it keeps my inbox fairly clean and allows me to see if something new is in, or just old stuff coming up again.
Now, the How To:
- Firstly, create the folders you want to have them put into (File->New->Folder. Put in in ‘Inbox on email@address.com’).
- Once you have all your folders created, it’s time to create the filters. Go to Tools->Message Filters.
- Make sure the email address you want to use the filters is selected (if you have more than one email in the client) then click the ‘New’ button. At the top, enter a name for this filter, we’re going to use ‘Family’ for this example.
- The next step is to decide how it’s going to filter them there by selecting the variables from the drop down menus, we’re going to select ‘From’ and ‘is’ since we’re adding family. Now enter their email address in the text box on that line and click the ‘+’ button.
- On the bottom half of the screen select ‘Move message to’, then click the 2nd drop down box and find your folder named ‘Family’, select and click the ‘+’ button. Click OK. Now all email from that address you entered will go directly into the desired folder.
You’ve added one and it wasn’t too hard right? Well you can continue doing that. It may seem like a lot of work right now, but it will save you time and hassle down the road when your inbox has over 3000 emails in it when you come back from vacation. I find it useful too if you use the ‘body’ and ‘contains’ as well most of the time, more than email addresses. This is simply because I get a lot of ‘buy Viagra’ and ‘replica watches cheap!’, so adding the words and making them go to spam is easier than adding all of the dummy emails they use.
Not all Habithacks are tech-based (we’re not machines after all), tomorrow we’ll be covering Wallets and why you’re better off without them.
Habithack: Communication
I’m going to start with one of the biggest time savers first, communication. To be more precise tacking email. Not a week goes by that I don’t hear a conversation including the line “Which email did you send it to because I didn’t get it”. If you take the extra time to set it up, it won’t matter. The two biggest problems with email are having multiple addresses and having no filters (or bad filters) set up, so lets tackle the first of those two issues today.
The best thing to do for those who use more than one email address is to get a client. Some people like to use Microsoft outlook or Outlook Express, I recommend Mozilla Thunderbird because it’s clean, functional and easy to add extensions to if needed. For those of you that use a shared computer the client still requires the use of a password, so put your minds at ease, nobody is reading your email.
When setting up an email address in a client, the main components you need to know are user name, password, pop3 address and SMTP address. These aren’t hard to get, the user name and passwords ar the same you would be using for checking your email in a browser. For addresses they’re usually just something like “mail.website.com”, and can most often be found under one of the options tabs of mail settings. For some larger, free services however such as Hotmail and Gmail, they use longer addresses. I recommend checking out the webmail extension to simplify setting them up if they’re you’re service of choice.
Once you have your first email address set up, you’re more than half way done. When you have that working go to File->New->Account and put all the into in again. Now both email accounts will have all the emails coming into the same spot: You’ve just cut your loading, logging and waiting time in half. If you want to add another email account, you’ll cut it down even more. I recommend to add all of your emails to a client, it will save you lots of time.
The reason that I recommended Thunderbird is because it can add extensions and themes really easily, and these are what puts this client on the top of the list. You can see all the extensions and themes on the add-on site. Here are some useful ones that I’ve found useful:
MinimizeToTray: Allows you to minimize the Thunderbird window to the system tray and alerts you when a new email comes in.
FoxyTunes: Allows you to control your music player from within your mail client. Also available for Firefox.
Crossover X theme: Nice Macish theme. And blue
Another quick Thunderbird tip: You can use Thunderbird Portable to install your client on a flash drive. Works with all the same functions and no need to be strapped down to one computer. Great for home and work.
Tomorrow’s topic is Email filters: have the client organize all of your mail for you as it comes in!
Habithack: Intro
When people think of me, I’m sure “wow, he really has it together” isn’t the first thing they think. But contrary to first impressions, when I do something I think I do it pretty well.
Most of what I do in life is simple, when something gets too complicated I usually end up breaking it into pieces and attacking things in parts and it works. Starting Monday I’m going to share some simple tips of how I save time and get things done by stripping it down and putting it back together how it should have been built, so stay tuned.