Hey Inter-Tubes!! Can you believe old Trint is still alive?! (Yeah, me neither.)

It’s that time of year again and I haven’t done this in a while, so let’s dive right in and see just how old we all really feel.

This week a brand new crop of high school seniors are planning proms and applying for next year’s financial aide. Let’s see what else is true about them.

This year’s high school seniors were born in 1999, the same year that these movies were released:

Fight Club
American Pie
The Matrix (Yes, the first one!)
Star Wars: Phantom Menace (Yes, the one that most of us choose to pretend doesn’t exist.)

The following TV shows were cancelled before these kids were born:

Beverly Hills 90210 (1999)
The Animaniacs (1998)
Bill Nye the Science Guy (1998)
Seinfeld (1998)

These kids have never…

Used a VCR to record TV. (The TiVo DVR was released in 1999.)
Had to use a floppy disk, even the non-floppy 3.5″. (USB Drives became available in 2000.)
Had to carry around CDs to listen to music. (The iPod debuted in 2001.)
Needed to plug in to something to get internet. (WiFi became a thing when they were 4 years old, in 2003.)

For their entire lives…

Texting from a cell phone has been possible. (1995)
Movies have been available on DVD. (1995)
Michael Jordan has been a “former” NBA player. (1999… the second time.)
John Elway has been a Super Bowl MVP (1999)
Viagra has been making uncomfortable commercials. (1998)

If you don’t feel old after reading all that… get off my lawn and turn that racket down!! Ya dern kids.

If you use XFinity for home internet, read this carefully!

I got a letter today announcing ComCast’s latest “great” idea. Unrestricted access to MY home wifi. WHAT??!!

I checked and sure enough, without notice or permission, ComCast created a new, unsecured wifi channel in my house (called xfinitywifi).

The pitch is that guests in my house don’t have to ask for a password to use my internet. The reality is ANY yahoo, driving down my street can hijack MY bandwidth for whatever purpose they want. That means that my IP address would be the source address of whatever nefarious activity someone may do while stealing my wifi.

Disable this feature AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!

You can disable the feature. The setting is hidden pretty deep in your account settings. The FAQ link at the bottom of this page will get you there, but you have to look pretty hard to find the links described.

So… This just happened.

I can’t tell you how awesome this video is because it overloaded my awesome meter. The meter just says, “Sorry. Too awesome.”

The mohawk. The leather kilt. The flames. There are no words.

This is the “Bad Piper” and he has his own YouTube channel.

Bronco Bomber reminds me a lot of Tony Romo. Romo, the Dallas Cowboys’ quarter back is either loved or hated by fans. There is no middle ground. Bad throws. Poor decisions. Many many games lost in “clutch” situations. But… BUT once in a blue moon, Romo will pull out a truly miraculous play. The commentators will ooh and aww for the days. Apologists will say, “Yeah, but did you see him on that impossible 3rd and long against the Giants?” That one play. That’s all it takes to distract the small minded from the years and years of epic sucktitude.

Yeah, Bronco Bomber is exactly like that. And just this week, the Bomber has pulled out one of his best and most spectacular plays. And it’s worked like a charm… at least on the small minded, doe-eyed, sound-bite driven, 140-characters-or-less, 15-seconds-of-fame, Lamestream suckers.

Do 5 minutes of real truth hunting (like I did) and you see what a colossal disaster this is!

First, for the first time in American history, we have negotiated with terrorist. There is a myriad of reasons why we have never done this, too many to discuss right now.

Second, it was a very very bad bargain. We traded a five-man terrorist dream team for one America-hating, looney-bin Army deserter.

“WHAT? Noooo. That can’t be right.”

Read it for yourself:

“I am ashamed to be an American. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools,” he concluded. “I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting.“

These are the words of the “Hero POW” Bronco just “liberated.”

And, as if that wasn’t enough, this is his equally nutty father’s reply to that very quote:

Bob Bergdahl responded in an email: “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!”

Attaboy, Dad. You raised your boy up right, didn’t ya. “Do whatever you want to, kid. Never mind that you committed to the Army. Never mind that millions were spent to train you, to keep you safe, to equip you with nothing but the best. Never mind that dozens or even hundreds of real patriots will put their lives on the line to rescue your sorry butt from the Taliban. Never mind all that. You just put down your weapon and walk away from your post into the starry Afghan night. I’m sure it will all work out.”

One night, after finishing a guard-duty shift, Bowe Bergdahl asked his team leader whether there would be a problem if he left camp with his rifle and night-vision goggles — to which the team leader replied “yes.” [editor: Understatement of the century!]

Bergdahl then returned to his bunker, picked up a knife, water, his diary and a camera, and left camp.

And guess what? It DID all work out thanks to our dear and glorious Bronco Bomber. Yaaaaay.

Read the full article and decide for yourself.

I grew up on the outskirts of Amarillo, Texas, less than five miles away from the Big Texan. If you’ve ever been on I-40 anywhere along it’s nation-wide stretch, you’ve probably seen a billboard touting their “FREE” 72 ounce steak. Yes, it’s for real. Yes, I’ve seen it. Yes, it’s free… IF you can eat it, a baked potato, a salad, a shrimp cocktail, and a dinner roll (about 4500 calories total) in under 60 minutes without a bathroom break (or even standing up to “pack it down”). If you don’t make it, you pay about $80.

Generally speaking, Big Texan is a tourist trap. The kind of place you should visit once, just to say you’ve been there, but the locals just kind of chuckle about. The food is good, but expensive. The atmosphere is comically cliché. And the seat-cushion sized steak is only attempted by “fariners.” (You know, ignorant yankees and such.).

So imagine my surprise when I saw the Big Texan on Good Morning America this morning! (Quintessential ignorant yankees!) One such “fariner” made a visit to Amarillo this weekend and records were broken, nay, shattered.

A 125 pound Nebraska woman, competitive eater Molly Schuyler, cut the previous record in HALF finishing the massive meal in under five minutes! UNDER FIVE MINUTES!! And, as if that wasn’t nauseating enough, she ordered a SECOND MEAL which she finished in under ten minutes. Oh… Em… Gee.

Let that sink in for just a minute. a 125 pound woman ate nine pounds of meat (and another few pounds of sides) in 15 minutes. Nine… Pounds…

As they say in my home town, “That thar’s gonna be a three flusher!”

(Read the full story.)

So, this 14-year-old girl in Florida met a cute guy on Facebook. They lived in the same neighborhood. Without telling anyone, she met up with him at a local gas station.

The “guy” was a 44-year-old sex trafficker. In the short time she was with him, he raped her, then brought her to a hotel to “sell” her body for $200.

Thank God, her first “customer” was an undercover cop. She was freed and the man arrested BEFORE her parents even knew she was missing!

Please please please, chi’ren. Don’t be stupid. It can kill you. (Or worse.)

Read the full news article here: Florida police save 14-year-old girl from sex trafficking

FAIL! (via PleatedJeans)

I tried to post this on Facebook, but for some ridiculous reason, Facebook can’t display animated gifs. C’mon, man. GeoCities had that figured out in 1994… 20 years ago!

Great news, everybody! You’re Black Friday, free shipping, Amazon.com purchases are on their way! (Wait for the gif to load to track your packages!)

It’s been years since I posted about secure passwords. If you’re a “new viewer,” please go read it! In fact, even if you’ve read it before, go read it again! YES! NOW!! (Don’t worry. I’ll wait.)

The one thing I would add to that article today is this:

7 – Make your passwords as long as allowed.

Password guessing tools are getting smarter and faster all the time. Too many websites don’t defend against “brute force” attacks (where a hacker can guess thousands of passwords a minute and only has to be right once).

Now, keep in mind, that first post was from 2010. One of the articles referenced was from 2008. The other one doesn’t even exist any more. So, surely by now, things have improved, right? People have finally learned how to secure their web identity, right?!

Well, as it turns out, no. Not at all.

Just this week, it came out that some two million passwords were recently stolen, including some from Facebook, Twitter, and Google (GMail and G+). So, change your passwords today! Seriously!! (I just did.)

What’s worse is what we learned from the stolen data. Passwords are just as stupid and weak now as they were five years ago! Of the two million passwords stolen, over 15,000 of them were “123456”… ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! The article goes on to compare password strength from the new data to password data from 2006 and it shows that passwords are getting worse, not better.

Back in 2006 the top ten most common passwords comprised only 0.9% of the total count. Today, in 2013, they add up to 2.4%.

I know this blog is usually funny and far from serious and that is my goal. But in all seriousness, please be smart about your passwords. The internet is a truly awesome tool. But if not used correctly, intelligently, and carefully, it can ruin your finances, your relationships, and, even your health and well-being.

[Wow. That got way to serious for a minute there.]

And remember to incorporate either “fart” or “poop” in your passwords at all times.

[There. That’s better.]