It’s Just Justin

Postmortem Playmate

Anna Nicole Smith died today, aged 39.

I have a six degree (or is it three degrees, you decide) story to Anna Nicole Smith.

Many know I’m from Houston, some know I worked for a small chemical company out there.  My supervisor’s brother dated and was engaged to Anna Nicole Smith (Vicky Lynn Hogan) and broke it off when she wouldn’t stop stripping and doing drugs (something like that).  Afterwards, she would show up at my work (before I worked there) trying to find out from my supervisor where he was, she wanted to be back with him…

A few months later she was married to Marshall.  When E! did their True Hollywood Story on her, they tried to interview the ppl at my work about her but we would not give any comments regarding her and her antics.

So there we go, my connection to ANS.  My old boss’s brother’s ex-fiancee.  I never saw her in person.  She sure was beautiful, but boy could she look the mess…

Very Social Security, Number.

First, to Kayla.  I am still loving the cd you bought me over a year ago.  The Spill Canvas is fantastic, enjoyiing “All Hail the Heartbreaker” right now.  Wonderful lyrics, great beats and just the right amount of electric guitar.

Ok, now for the point of this post.

We are always told, especially when we are younger (high school aged) the importance of keeping our social security number secret, private and safe.   What they don’t tell you is that on every application for loans, university, credit cards… leases… they all ask for your social security number.

How are you supposed to keep this number secret when it seems every organization that gets a chance to sink their teeth into your finances will require your social security number before they allow you to give them all the money you’ve got?

Here’s an idea; why not give out someone else’s social security number to these companies, leasing agencies, credit card institutions, etc?  Then if you don’t make a payment, no swear off your back.  In fact, you can just disappear and they will never be able to track it back to you.  Sounds like a great idea to me!

Except when they use my social security number.  Turns out there have been a few people using my social security number to open up credit card accounts.  At Bank of America, there are at least two guys using my number, or one guy with two “names”.  One of these aliases lives in Baltimore Maryland and the other in Seattle Washington.  Two place I have never been, always wanted to visit Seattle though…

I asked the bank what I should do and the extremely nice bank representative told me that she really didn’t know what to do but to check the Social Security Office’s website.  According to them I have quite a few numbers to call.

1.  Local Police, file a report and make copies.
2.  Federal Trade Commission, report the SS# stolen
3.  The three major credit companies (Equifax, etc)
4.  My credit card companies (Target, BoA, Express…)

Then I might have to get all of my bank info and credit cards and school and work and tax information switched over to a new SS#.  Considering that this isn’t the first time that my accounts have been compromised, and that this number is already  being used by at least two aliases, a change in number would be highly adviseable (as per my talk with the bank).  However, here are the problems with that as per the Social Security Office.

Only as a last resort should you consider changing your Social Security number. Changing your number may adversely impact your ability to interact with federal and state agencies, employers and others. This is because your financial, medical, employment and other records will be under your former Social Security number. If you have done all you can and someone still is using your number, we may assign you a new number. We cannot guarantee that a new number will solve your problem.

As Jim would, and has put it many times before, I “really have the luck”.

I’m Funny, Naughty?

Not my best work, but I have been alone for the past seven… eight hours.

What’s Wrong Here?

iTunes… come now, this is such a simple little mistake :)

Do you see it?  This is not the Mika I’m in love with right now.  This is another artist with the same name, and nearly same genreand both relatively unknowns and both releasing CD’s in the first of the year and…

The Mika I’m loving is Mika with the debute cd, Life in Cartoon Motion.  Get it!

Mizzou Forte Sings National Anthem

What a boring title huh?

We sang the National Anthem at the Mizzou v. Nebraska game. Though Mizzou lost, Mizzou Forte rocked it out.

When You Pay a Premium…

We all should know by now that I am kinda an audio freak. I have 100’s of gigabytes of media in my iTunes library, twenty-nine gigabytes were purchased in the last three months alone!

We also likely all know about my speakers, headphones, amps and players. I have $450 headphones, a pair of $300 headphones, a dying set of $20o headphones, three pair that cost about $50 and a slew of cheapies from all the iPods (six?) that I have purchased.

Well, my favorite headphones, my Ultimate Ears ifi 5pros (the $300 headphones) have died, again. The headphone speakers themselves are just fine, it is the cable that provides them the power that keeps fucking up. UE’s has replaced the cable two… three times? I had the newest version which was much improved over the old versions.

However, this morning, on powering up my iPod, I noticed the left channel was completely dead. Fiddling with the cable brought it back. I followed the cable to the short, exactly where I found it the first time I had this problem.

I emailed Ultimate Ears and hopefully we can get something worked out, new cables, better cables, their professional line perhaps.

Meanwhile, I ask the question. When you pay a premium price for high quality products, shouldn’t the quality last beyond the initial use? I bought some $60 Sennheiser PX100 headphones just a few minutes ago. They remind me of my Koss PortaPro’s, amazing cans those are. I could use a little more lower end and volume with these headphones that the PortaPros provided, and the UE ifi 5pros displayed.

In time, I plan to upgrade from my UE ifi 5pros to the new UE ifi 10Ultra. The sound quality of these headphones is good enough that even though I have had such trouble with the cheapest part of the product, I would go back and buy something even more expensive. Does that make me ridiculous?

Well, time to walk to class. Finished my paper last night at 1:45 after about one hour of actual writing. If I could just figure out how to get started on these projects, I feel that I could have HOURS more time to enjoy life haha.

Maybe the true moral of the story is this.  My Koss PortaPro’s cost me $35 (retail around $50) and never failed me until I sat on them and broke the headpeices.  Sound quality wise though, still there.  Cost maybe doesn’t even matter in this equation.  Oh well.  Actually thinking about liquidating all my extra things like these headphones and keeping only the things I really need.  Wow! haha, what a concept.

My closet needs cleaning out too.  I would guess that 60% of the clothes (or greater) I don’t even wear.  Too old, too big… too… last season?