I was sick earlier this week.  I'm feeling much better, but that was the most sick I've been in awhile.  I was nauseous and fatigued most of Monday through Wednesday and started feeling better on Thursday.  I had chest congestion both before and after I got sick, so I don't know if I had two illnesses or just one...

I can't remember the last time I got so sick that I was throwing up (and I hadn't been drinking...).  I don't think I've been that sick since I was a kid.  In fact, I don't think I've gotten the flu since I was a kid.
(Note: I didn't throw up and I didn't have the flu last week.  My mom was confused about the wording I used, so I figured someone else may have been confused...)

Anyway, I stayed home from work on Monday (I was sick, remember?).  I didn't have any books to read, I was up on my online comics, and I wasn't currently playing any computer games.  I was bored.  I then decided to start playing Zelda: Ocarina of Time again on my Gamecube.  I had stopped playing the game back when we were still living in the condo, and hadn't had the chance to get back into it since then.  That's pretty much what I ended up doing all day on Monday (and periodic free time I've had since then).

I read a scary article on CNN.COM yesterday, check it out.  I get "phishing" e-mails periodically and a couple of them have been pretty tricky.  One of them was a (fake) e-mail from Paypal support that said an account had been successfully added to my existing account and that if I did not authorize this change to click on the link below and login to correct the mistake.  Now, if I had clicked on that link it would have taken me to a phisher's fake web page designed to spoof the Paypal page and trick me into logging in and providing the scammer with my login and password at which point they would empty my bank account.  One way to avoid these is that if you get any suspicious e-mails, don't click on the link, but go to the real web page (in my case I opened my web browser and logged into Paypal on my own to verify that no changes had been made).  Also, most businesses are actively fighting these phishers and if you check their customer support pages they will usually provide an e-mail address you can send the spoof e-mail to in order to help stop or catch the scammers.  The scary part of that article is how sophisticated these crooks are getting and how they are using spyware and other tools to trick even wary people.  The key is to be sure to run regular spyware scans and maybe even use a less popular web browser like Firefox.  We really need to stay ahead of the crooks.  As long as they are making money off of unaware people, we are going to have to stay alert.

I hate it when I wait too long between making posts here because I feel like the longer I wait the more I have to talk about. Then, I start to feel pressured before I even begin typing and I decide that I'd rather browse a few webcomics or check the news...

Well, how about an attempt to change my ways this year (not a New Years resolution, I don't do those). I will strive to make at least one post a week. I'm not promising, and they may not be long, but I want to try and at least put up a quick update once a week. We'll see how that goes.

Christmas was fun. My family from Florida was out here and I haven't seen them since last January and I enjoyed their company immensely. I was glad when they left (I wanted my house back), but I wish that them leaving didn't involve going so far away. We went to the Grand Canyon, had a snowball fight in Williams, and I have pictures that will be up, sometime. I still need to post my pictures from Chicago...

Mom, Dad thanks for helping keeping my house clean while you were visiting. Heather and I miss you guys already and I hope one of us can visit again soon.

New Years was interesting. No one was throwing a party, so I invited everyone over to my house. That was going okay until one of my friends invited his friends over and my friend's friend's girlfriend threw up on my couch. I would have been more pissed off if she hadn't thrown up all over herself, too. Also, I made her boyfriend clean it up. Everyone was apologetic, and I was getting the couch replaced anyway, so everything worked out in the end. And I've decided I don't like hard alcohol drunk as much as beer drunk, it just feels different...

As of last weekend, Christmas is officially over. I took down the lights on the house, Heather took down all the decorations inside, and Joel and I got rid of the tree (he was visiting while Ginny was babysitting and for some reason he wanted to drive with me to the park...)

That's all I can think of for now, be sure to answer the new poll on the front page. Topic courtesy of Heather.