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(gripe)
For those of you who don't personally know me, I am type 1 diabetic. I was diagnosed with diabetes in August 1990 at the age of 7.

I will now give a very brief and concise summary of my feelings about being diabetic: it SUCKS MONKEY BALLS. If I could, I would throw in a blink tag for good measure... but I can't (and you IE users couldn't see it blink anyways).

Anyways, I was on shots from 1990 till May 1997, when I decided to upgrade to the insulin pump. Going from 3 shots a day to having to wear one infusion set for 3 days was a good thing(tm). Not having the restrictions of shots limiting my life and lifestyle was a very good thing(tm). (For the record, I got my first pump, a Minimed 507C at the end of my Freshman year of high school)

Now, I am in grad school and on my third pump (Minimed 715). Its pretty sweet... too bad I am going to upgrade to the 722 soon.

Now here is the fun part... When I upgraded to the Minimed 712, I was given a BD Link blood glucose meter. It seemed to be a good meter. I soon found out that this damn thing is very sensitive to temperatures. I also found out the hard way that it couldn't be trusted.

I had an incident where my blood glucose readings were in the upper 500's no matter what I did. So, I did the right thing and took more insulin. The problem was that my meter was way the fuck off, and didn't give accurate readings. Therefore, when it said 586, I could have been any number under that. I nearly passed out and entered a diabetic coma because of that.

So, I did like any sane fanboy would, and I bitched to the company. I then found out that most of my test strips were being recalled, and that my meter was faulty. I ended up getting free replacements from the company.

Fast-forward to this month. I am using that replacement meter, and I have noticed that my readings have been running high. I tested my meter using their standard testing solution, and found out that my meter has the accuracy rating of a blind person trying to shoot a penny with a pea-shooter at a distance of 500 feet. Seeing test solution readings randomly ranging from 129 to 310 (test solution should give a reading between 100 and 140) on 5 consecutive tests using the same bottle of test solution is scary and is a sign of a shitty product.

Likewise, performing a series of blood glucose tests within 1 minute (using proper techniques, obviously) and getting readings which vary by 120 points is a sign that something is really fucked up.

Of course, I could call the company and let them know this product sucks ass... but I'm not, because they have just posted (in September 2006) on their website that they have discontinued their meter. Well, I really wish they would have notified *ME* about that before I refilled my script for a three month supply of test strips for a shitty ass meter which gives random readings.

Damn this sucks.

(/gripe)

Our Father, who 0wnz heaven, j00 r0ck!

May all 0ur base someday be belong to you!

May j00 0wn earth just like j00 0wn heaven.

Give us this day our warez, mp3z, and pr0n through a phat pipe.

And cut us some slack when we act like n00b lamerz, just as we teach n00bz when they act lame on us.

Please don't give us root access on some poor d00d'z box when we're too pissed off to think about what's right and wrong, and if you could keep the fbi off our backs, we'd appreciate it.

For j00 0wn r00t on all our b0x3s 4ever and ever, 4m3n.

Sometime in the not too distant past (Assume after 7/12, but before 7/19), in a land far, far away, Charlie Foobar must have been a bit on the cold in the ETL and decided to turn off one of the A/C units. Charlie's comfort was assured... it wasn't freezing in the lab anymore.

Much time passed, and Charlie eventually went home. Unfortunately, Mr. Foobar forgot to turn the A/C back on before vacating the ETL.

The sun came out and the heat and humidity were strong. The temperature in the ETL climbed. The lonely server cabinet, with the 16 machines inside chugging away on their benchmarks and other tasks, became an oven.

Time passed, until one day, one of the resident ETL hackers traveled to the ETL to work on his various projects. Upon entering the lab, he said "Wow, its a tad bit warm in here. I wonder if something is wrong." The hacker carefully checked the lab and found that Charlie Foobar left the A/C off. Immediately the resident hacker turned on the A/C unit.

The hacker then began the duty of inspecting the machines to see if Charlie Foobar's actions invoked the Snafu Fairy. "G64a, nominal. Workstations, nominal...." The hacker continued the check until he was left with the final set of machines: the lonely server cabinet.

The hacker carefully opened the cabinet door and saw that everything appeared ok, so he proceeded to touch top server in the cabinet. "OW! This cluster is exceptionally hot." he exclaimed. So the hacker opened the cabinet doors and left the ETL in order to get lunch and a venti coffee at Starbucks.

After lunch, the hacker returned to the ETL and once again touched the top server in the cabinet. "Much better. The machines are nice and cool. Hurray!"

The hacker started to work on his various projects, bringing happiness and open source software to the world.

And everybody lived happily ever after. The end.

My project is going well. I now have most every feature working (for the most part). I still need to write up some doccumentation.

I will be presenting OWTF v. 1.0 (release) in Dr. George's class soon.

Just in case you were wondering, March 22 is a big day for holidays. To the best of my knowledge, there are 3 big holidays to celebrate.

Listed in random order:
International Goof-Off Day
William Shatner's Birthday
**My Birthday**

Just thought you would like to know :-D