Steve Cullen

I’ve been using Gmail for my personal email needs for probably 5 years now, which coincidentally has been in BETA for just as long, and have come to rely pretty heavily on it.  The way it threads messages, and just in terms of general features, simply blows the other free web-based email solutions right out of the water.

However, with all of its greatness and handy features it is still a BETA product and prone to the occasional “glitch”. The latest issue that is simply driving me crazy is their claim to automatically delete messages in the Trash and Spam folders after 30 days. It’s just not anymore. This has broken on me in the past, but after a few weeks of patience has come back to life. This time, not so much. This has been broken for a couple of months now.

I’ve reached out on their only support offering for this type of issue: their Help Forum. So far, no official word from Google on the subject. Only pleads from other users for help on the issue.

Some say: “Why not just simply delete the folders manually? It’s a simple click of the mouse.” Well, it’s easy really… Because I don’t want to. I want the advertised feature to work. I use the unread spam number to serve as a benchmark for me. It tells me how much spam I’ve received in the past month, which by the way is on the rise. And most importantly, it’s advertised as being there. My suggestion to Google was simple: Let us know you’re working on it, fix it, or remove it as an advertised feature so I don’t expect it to work.

So far no response from them. Meanwhile my Spam folder is at 1131 and counting.

Well, on October 8th I went under the knife again. This time it was for a Direct Inguinal Hernia. I think I can pretty safely say that the recovery involved with this surgery was pretty painful when compared with the Pilonidal removal. I’d say it was a full 4 or 5 days before I could get out of bed or stand up from the couch or a chair without a significant amount of pain. After that, the healing process went quite rapidly and smoothly. Walking without a limp came about 2 weeks after the procedure.

My story begins with me working out like a mad man over the past several months. I’ve been lifting lots of weight, albeit less weight than I had lifted in the past, and feeling some discomfort in my groin. I figured hell, I’m just doing it wrong. So I’d adjust whenever I felt discomfort, and it seemed to be working. Obviously it wasn’t, but for now we’ll go along thinking it was.

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Horrible, waste of a perfectly good DVD. The film is shot almost entirely on a green screen. Why? Good question, because I have no freaking idea. There is not one creepy or scary moment in the entire movie. There is a scene with a cat that had us laughing for a good couple of minutes. Still not worth the rental though.

Cliff notes: OMG WTF LOL!

Been staying really busy with work, health & fitness, etc. Also had another surgical need, and will post about that soon as my previous Pilonidal posting seems to generate the majority of the traffic on my blog.

Sorry for the lack of updates, and I will make up for it soon.

Ed Hochuli is under heavy fire from San Diego fans, the NFL, and armchair quarterbacks across the nation. Mr Hochuli, or Tricep Man as my friends and I like to call him, did something every referee and official has done in the history of sports… He made a mistake! He also did something else that puts him above a lot of the others in my book… He apologized for it. Does that change anything besides a little perspective? Nope, not really. The Chargers still lost on a bad call. But guess what, it’s going to happen again and again and again.

Why? Because referees and officials are human. They’re under extraordinary pressure on a gigantic grass field with 22 – 200lb+ crazed athletes with nothing on their minds but crushing their opponents. Amongst the chaos, they have to actually see minute details like whether a quarterback’s arm was moving in a certain direction when the ball popped out of his hand. If the player who hit the quarterback hit him in the right way or if it was roughing. Where the ball landed. Who has posession at the bottom of a 1000lb mess. All this while thousands of people watch gathered in a circle around them and millions watch from the dozen or so trained cameras on the ground and in the air.

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Not sure how many regular visitors I get since there are very few comments from people I don’t know. But Google says I get at least a few everyday, so I figured I’d throw a quick update out there.

My spare time has been all but disappeared since March. I had what I consider to be a serious health scare at that time (completely unrelated to my Pilonidal procedure) and decided a lifestyle change was needed immediately. My weight had reached a point that was beyond being simply overweight and it was beginning to impact my health, so action was required and not simply desired. Desire was (and has always been) there, but desire alone had never been enough to get me moving. Unfortunately, the extra nudge (more like kick in the face) arrived and prompted me to take swift action.

I asked my fiancee, Jamie – a personal trainer coincidentally, to take the lead and design a plan for me to follow. This plan was to be all-inclusive: diet, workout type/frequency/intensity. She grabbed the horse by the reigns and got me on track right away. Since then I have spent 6-days a week in the gym, only missing time when sick. Not even vacation gets in the way. I eat 6 small meals a day giving my body the metabolic kick in the pants it needs. The rest of my time is spent with my family and resting.

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Once again it seems, I am eating my words.  I swore up and down that I’d never own or use an iPhone.  “They’re over priced and unneccessary.” “I’m perfectly happy with my iPod and Treo.” Those and a multitude of similar sentences poured from my mouth.  They were all true, and I stand by them.  However, I’m now carrying the new iPhone 3G and I have to say I’m quite impressed and enamored with it.

I’m carrying an iPhone for two reasons: First and foremost, because my boss was generous and paid for one for me.  Second, to support two executives in my company that wanted to carry the phone.  Admittedly, I might have been able to fix any problem they experienced just by holding their phone like I am my own.  But, the rare instance could occur when they’re out of the office and requiring assistance.  For that reason alone, I felt it necessary to carry one and in no way looked forward to the aspect of having to do so.  And again I’m telling you, I’m eating my words.  I absolutely love this thing.

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Tags: Apple iPhone 3G

This is going to be a long one. Where to start? Oh, how about this… HOLY CRAP THIS ****ING MOVIE SUCKS!! Please, save your two hours of your life that you’re contemplating giving up for this movie and do something useful with it; like maybe peeling your finger and toe nails off one by one!

If you’re looking for a less painful way to spend your time, perhaps consider throwing feces at your wall and watching it roll down. It’d probably be a great deal more rewarding of an experience.
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Today I picked up Hitman (Unrated) on Blu-Ray Disc. Like I Am Legend I made the decision to purchase this movie after seeing it in theaters. I’ll review the quality of the Blu-Ray Disc after I watch it. For now however, I’d like to address the inclusion of an iTunes Digital Copy with the movie.

So, my feelings go something like this… THANK YOU! FINALLY we’re taking steps towards getting movies we own on our iPod as we rightfully SHOULD BE ABLE TO. I think this is the first important step in the right direction. So, I am thankful for that. That said, I think we have a long way to go.
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This was a no-brainer addition to my movie collection, and in no uncertain terms was going to be in high definition when it hit shelves. I picked it up a few days after Easter, rather than release day, because I was on a spending hold due to the approaching gift exchange. I’m pretty sure we watched it the night or next night after I bought it. But that’s a moot point. What does matter is the quality of the movie and high definition delivery.

WOW! This is hands down, unequivocally, the best picture quality of any film I’ve seen. Graininess is non-existent. The colors are rich and vibrant. Both Jamie, my fiancé, and I were blown away from the beginning when the Shelby rolls through the city, to the final frame of the alternate ending.
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