You know how I was just saying that I don’t know much about history? Well, apparently I don’t know much about physics either.

So I bought miniMax0r back when Leopard first came out and have enjoyed every second of my Mac experience. I’ve especially enjoyed the Mighty Mouse’s ability to scroll not just up and down without stops (like PC mice) but in 360 degrees. Although the Mighty Mouse takes some getting used to, it’s a nice mouse. The only problem with it is that the little scroll ball. Sometimes it gets dirty and it won’t scroll down because the little furry guy wants some lovin’ and wants to be cleaned from time to time.

Wait, that’s just the first problem. The other problem is that you can’t use the mouse with any kind of grease, dirt, sweat or other substance on you hands. The scroll ball doesn’t like that either and won’t scroll.

But it was the former problem that has become my problem.

You see, my Might Mouse had not wanted to scroll down a couple of weeks ago, so I cleaned it with a bit of alcohol. That worked only after the alcohol had evaporated. I helped the process along by supplying heat from a cigarette lighter. Happy mouse, happy Professor Tom. Except that catch that was now sometimes in the scroll ball.

Last night my mouse didn’t want to scroll down again. So I cleaned the mouse by turning it upside down and rolling it on my pants. But this did not work. So I rolled it on top of the desk, but this would not work. I rolled it on top of paper (no NOT like a joint) but that didn’t work either. So I went to grab the isopropyl alcohol. This cleaned the mouse, but it still didn’t want to scroll down.

I watched YouTube videos on how to take the mouse apart and clean it, but apparently this is a new model of the mouse as mine didn’t come apart that way. So I used more alcohol. To no avail. I then decided to evaporate the alcohol by holding the mouse a fair distance away from but directly over the flame.

Now the shell of the mouse is made of plastic and the scroll ball is rubber. Did you know that both of these materials melt given enough heat is present? I’m now out $62 to New Egg trying to get a new Mighty Mouse here this weekend. I’m currently using my old Logitech MX 300 which isn’t a bad mouse, but unfortunately the Mac experience just isn’t the same without the Mighty Mouse. OS X was made with 360 degree scrolling in mind.

My name is Tomas, I’m 23 years old and I’m a recovering dumbass.

It’s amazing that at almost 23 years of age I have no clue who I am.

I’ve been researching the Civil Rights movement for two scripts I’m working on. Though I haven’t had the time to put into the project like i would like, I have found that I’m enjoying the research and learning new things. Maybe it’s because it’s recent history, maybe it’s because I’ve been to Birmingham and so I know where the events took place, but I’m finding I’m enjoying the research.

Stephen came over the other night to pick up some a DVD I had for him. We got to talking and he told me about Martin Luther’s anti-Semitism. I had no idea that the Father of the Reformation would have such things to say about Jews.

Something else I’ve been doing a lot of research on is WW II, particularly the Nazis. I find it fascinating that not only did they so throughly plan how they were going to accomplish their objectives, but also the thoroughness with which they accomplished their executed those objectives.

I have a project that I’ve wanted to work on for years. It’s a big ensemble story about the first six months of WW II. There are a lot of things that I don’t know that I would have to research before I could even think about making that film. In fact, I don’t think I’ll get to make it until much later in life. Hopefully the world won’t be too far gone for that film when I do make it.

I’ve been thinking about going back to school lately. No, I’m not going back, at least not while I owe money. But I think about what I would major in and the only thing I can think of is math, film or history. Now to go to a real film school costs real money, but the past couple of days I’ve spent wondering if I could do a history degree. I know that I’m not too fond of Church history because the art work is too flat for my taste pre-reformation, but what I find fascinating is not what people do, but why the do it.

I don’t know that I’d be able to focus long enough for a history degree, but it’s something worth thinking about and taking a few classes in outside of the required general eds.

Maybe my calling isn’t to be any one particular thing but to absorb as much as I can. I’ve always flirted with being a professional student.

I need a swift kick in the pants pointing me in the direction that I’m going to live my life instead of waiting for it to unfold. Yes, I’ve always preached that the journey is more important then the destination, but I’ve got to do something and would really like to know what that something is. Putting in 60+ hours a week plus between two jobs isn’t the most fun I’ve ever had. I don’t mind the work; I enjoy the income. But I wished I could consolidate down to 40 a week leaving me time as a single person to work on some of my side projects and hobbies.

My friends, I want to apologize for my recent actions.

Yesterday, I received a phone call stating that my account had been hacked because frozen comments had been deleted. In past experience with frozen comments, once frozen they could only be deleted by the owner of the blog that froze them. Live Journal has apparently done an about face on this. I are still investigating the issue.

With regards to deleting comments, I find this a shitty thing to do. It throws off the threads. Those that read the comments regularly remember what is written within them, proving the old adage, Words once spoken cannot be taken back.

I would like to apologize to Miss Ellis for the inconvenience caused by this comedy of errors. Had the facts been better checked this would not have occurred. My most recent post was made in error and will therefore be turned into a protected post so that the comments may continue to exist but the site only accessible to a few.

I am still investigating the possibility of restitution and rectification. Please bear with me as I work through this issue.

I apologize for any inconvenience that this might have caused.

For some time now, I’ve wanted a real camera for quite some time now, but I’m highly interested in obtaining a Mac Book by the end of the year (preferably with Blu-ray. You hear that Apple? Blu-ray.) I was planning on using the money to get the speakers and the stereo in my car replaced (the speakers are cracked and my stereo does not have a line-in, so there is much hate for using an FM transmitter for my Shuffle.) I’ve thought about purchasing an external Blu-ray drive for miniMax0r, but as she can’t display 1080p I’m deciding against this.

What do you recommend putting the $600 tax rebate check towards?

Some of you may remember my my first few attempts at blogging. I had recently been introduced to bash.org and though I have never “hung out” on the site, it is amusing to go back and read the quotes from time to time.

1. Save every Free Credit Card Offer you get, Put it in pile A

2. Save every Free Coupon You get, put that in pile B

3. Now open the credit card mail from pile A and find the Business Reply Mail Envelope.

4. Take the coupons from pile B and stuff them in the envelope you hold in your hand.

5. Drop the stuffed to the brim envelopes in your mail and walk away whistling.

I have now received two phone calls from the credit card companies telling me that they received a stuffed envelope with coupons rather then my application. They informed me that it they are not pleased that they footed the bill for the crap I sent them. I reply with “It says Business Reply Mail” I’m suggesting coupons to you to ensure that your business is more successful. They promptly hang up on me.

Now, I did this for about a month before it got boring, so I got an added idea! I added exactly 33 cents worth of pennies to the envelope so they paid EXTRA due to the weight. I got a call informing me about the money, I said it was a mistake and I demanded my change back. After yelling at the clerk and then to the supervisor they agreed to my demands and cut me a check for the money. I hold in my hand at this very moment a check from GTE Visa for exactly 33 cents.

I’ve always laughed at the quote in question and thought it would be a nice prank to pull someday. I got that opportunity a bit ago.

I sit down and pay all the bills at once in two cycles: the end of the month bills and the first of the month bills. My New Egg account falls into the latter category. I had a slight charge I still owed on my Preferred account, but I thought I had paid it all off when I paid the end of the month bills, but the online account said no, nor had the money cleared the bank. I searched high and low for where I printed the receipt, but alas it was not to be found.

I called New Egg and told them how I had never missed a payment and always paid early, that I mistakingly thought I had paid this month’s bill and that I wanted to pay off the balance on the account. They agreed to waive the late fee, but she said that since I was past the cycle, she could only waive $5 of the $15 fee and that I would have to call back once my next statement was issued.

I called back once my statement cycled, explained the situation and New Egg agreed to credit me the late fee…except they credited me $3.27 too much. I thought that they would correct their error, but they did not. Remembering the above referenced quote, I decided not to purchase anything from New Egg until they cut me a check.

I don’t know what I’ll purchase with this check. I think I may get whester a copy of Word and Mavis Beacon so that he can learn to type and have a spell checker at his disposal.

meme stolen from swashbuckler332

1. My username is _____ because ____.
schpydurx because once-upon-a-time The Score Station used to be named schpydurx.com, but according to DJ Thresher it was too expensive to renew the domain name some such and the site disappeared inexplicably. I took the name in honor of the site. My only chagrin in the who ordeal is that I wish I would have either named my LJ ProfessorTom as I did with my Xanga or have named them both schpydurx. This has cause no small amount of consternation.

2. My name is _____ because ______.
Tomas because I’m Italian. Please note the absence of an “h”.

3. My journal is titled ____ because ____.
mulitplayer vi based off of this quote modified appropriately for the Unix freak in me.

4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.

cat FL | more

It’s a Unix joke.

5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.
The Joker poster from Dark Knight. I used to carry around the “You make kitty scared” avatar until ehowton pulled his joke. I chose this avatar because the Behold! avatar from The Fountain which was briefly my default user pic doesn’t go well with various blogs. Also, I like the fully-saturated yet dark colors in this avatar. Plus, not knowing that this is the Joker, one might mistake the avatar for a pimp!