JeffreyLipsey.com

It’s been quite a while since I last updated and most of you know why: I just moved. I’ll attempt to go back from my last post and recollect what happened, as the move wasn’t uneventful.


There is still a ton of shit everywhere and we have no useful food in the refrigerator, but at least I have Cable and Internet. I need to start playing poker soon as I made a prop bet with Kavin: 50,000 hands in the month of August. I’m a little rusty so I need to start today.


I’ve been getting up ass early the past couple days, 7 am EST, and hopefully I can get things going. We will actually have a lot of shit to buy to fill out this place, such as another desk and living room furniture.


Alright, well, time to get going for the day; I haven’t even searched any forums because I don’t want to waste any playing time.

I swear last night I spent 5 hours straight just cleaning two things: my oven and my blinds. That oven cleaner is some nasty shit, and it doesn’t help that my oven was also real dirty.


The blinds, too, were pretty bad. I mean, who actually ever cleans the blinds? I soaked them in my shower for an hour or so and meanwhile I used a sponge to clean off 2 years of crusted dust. Such a bitch! They do look good clean though.


I’m picking up the truck at 10 am and Marlyn will be here at 6 pm, just in time so she has to do nothing lol. I still need to clean the refrigerator, bathroom, and the floors but otherwise that’s it. Well, that and whatever dusting that needs to be done.

I really haven’t been doing much the past few days, other than watch TV and maybe do some cleaning. I’ve got about one full day left here and other than that we will start our move to DC.


Marlyn should already be in Chi-town right now; I haven’t really done anything though in 2-3 days. I still need to pack up my kitchen wares as well as clean everything, so I should probably get to doing that shortly.


This morning I watched the movie Big for the first time and I watched the latest Dinner: Impossible; so I’ve been cleaning out my DVR. Granted, I still have hours of both Mad Money and Suze Orman to watch, everything else should be off of there.


I go pick up the moving truck tomorrow around 10 am and I still have to drop off the Cable box, which I will also do that tomorrow. Needless to say, everything is starting to come together.

I’ve finally gotten around to watch the first movie in the trilogy, and the fact that I watched them in reverse order might have helped. MIA3 had Braddock rescue his long lost son and wife and MIA2 had Braddock back in Vietnam as a POW.


In Missing in Action, Braddock (played by Chuck Norris obv) goes back to Vietnam after the war is over to rescue forgotten POWs. To do so, he must use the help of old colleagues that will turn up in the later movies.


Unfortunately, MIA doesn’t have nearly the over-the-top dialogue as the later two movies; it focused much more on plot than ridiculous action too. And, as any avid Norris fan would know: we don’t watch Chuck Norris movies for the plot.


Missing in Action must have been made during the time in Norris’ career where he didn’t consider himself a complete acting joke, where he actually tried to create good cinema. Little did he know that all he had to do to create all star movies was to not worry about the plot, but focus solely on dialogue and action.


In the movie itself, I wasn’t that interested in most of it; in fact it took nearly 2/3rds of the movie before Braddock even went to go rescue the hostages themselves. The first 90 minutes had him research the POWs’ whereabouts, barter for help and acquire the necessary equipment all while fending off some Vietcong hitmen. I guess that was interesting, but I really wanted to see gun slinging in the jungle! Not car chases and shitty bar fights (and, again, no dialogue).


Braddock’s rescuing of the hostages started out boringly slow with little to no build up of any ensuing danger. Maybe the fact that I know he lives through it all decreases my excitement? My lack of entertainment might have developed from the fact that I’ve seen it all so many times before in future Chuck Norris movies, and Missing in Action was just the start of them all.


Obviously though this was all written before the huge boat and machine gun scene that had the best visual effects and offensive attacking scenes in MIA by far. You can’t deny the fact that, after getting their motor boat blown up by an RPG, Braddock and Co. were able to swim underwater to a group of Vietcong and come up to kill them all. The best part: it was all in slow motion.


Unfortunately that one scene couldn’t make the rest of the movie interesting to watch and I found it all pretty boring. Good thing I saw the last two movies first, as otherwise I might not be as into the Missing in Action trilogy as I am today.

All I can say is: YES OMFG PSYCH IS BACK ON!!!!


Sigh, after a few month hiatus the new season of Psych premiered last week and it was pretty good. The episode itself featured an overall dark and mysterious feeling and had a clever plot twist in the end.


Not that I’m impressed with plot twist, I just wasn’t expecting it at all. I had a suspicion that Shawn had something to do with the haunted house, but the fact that he was behind the entire scheme from the start really surprised me.


The atmosphere between Shawn and his parents was an another good addition and it gave us the opportunity to get into his background.


In general, I enjoyed the premiere and hopefully the rest of the season is as good as this one was.


Links: Official Site | IMDB | Wikipedia | Episode Summary

The second episode of the second season, Turn and Burn was leaps and bounds ahead of the season premiere for Burn Notice. The episode featured wittier dialogue, beefed up action and a good pace of the plot.


I wont write too long of a review, but I thought the episode was excellent and a good turn around from the premiere.


Links: Official Site | IMDB | Wikipedia | Episode Summary

Given that I’m running out of food in my place the most economical yet tasteful dinner I could make was pizza; it turns out it wasn’t that unhealthy either.


I started out using the rest of my whole-wheat flour for my crust. I haven’t made an entire crust from whole-wheat flour since my first crust, which turned to be real chewy and dry; usually I make half whole-wheat and half all-purpose flour. The crust this time however didn’t turn out the same way as it did before, in fact it turned real awesome. I don’t know what it was but it was probably one of the best crusts I’ve ever made.


For toppings I avoided using a tomato sauce; in part because the tomato pizza sauce I have isn’t all that great and with the toppings I was planning on using they wouldn’t go with that kind of sauce. I really didn’t use a “sauce” per se, but just put a layer of olive oil down before putting on the topings, but after I pre-baked the crust for a few minutes. My toppings included: Black Olives, Artichokes, Garlic and Red Pepper Flakes with Mozzarella Cheese. Probably the least healthy ingredient was the cheese and that would be a way to save calories.


I was extremely happy with the way it came out and I’m going to continue to use 100 % whole wheat crust from now on. As Alton Brown says: the crust is what makes the pizza perfect.

I currently have 2 ipower.com hosting accounts, one for my coderedpoker.com site and the other for my lamererun.com site, both of which you might be aware are redirected here anyway. Both of these sites are up for renewal in a 3 week period.


Actually canceling the service is a pain in the ass, so far at least. I logged into the lamererun hosting service for the first time in a very long time, only to see that I just paid for new hosting service TODAY and that it was going to cost me $100. I do not want to pay that $100, as it is a waste of money; I asked to cancel immediately and for a full refund. How? There isn’t an easy way to actually cancel the service on there; you can change your billing information, but not remove it. If you try to delete all the information then all the old information gets refreshed on the page.


The only way to actually cancel this service is to send them a ’support ticket’ and to where that ticket goes I have no idea. I don’t get an email confirmation when they received said ticket so frankly I have no idea if that is even the way to cancel the service. I searched support for quite a long time and I couldn’t find a phone number to even call; ipower.com sounds like a real shady site.


I then had to do the same thing for coderedpoker and hopefully both cancellations will go through. If they won’t give me a refund I’m going to refute the charges to my credit cards. Updates to continue.

And I sure have a lot of them to change…


Here is a list:
X US Postal Service
X Car Insurance
X Health Insurance
- Family
- Friends
X Associated Bank
X 3 Credit Cards
0 Renter’s Insurance - Must Cancel
X Life Insurance
X Power
X Water
X Cable and Internet
X Car Payment
X Bankier Apartments
X Scottrade (2 accounts)
- IRS
- Illinois IRS
- DMV (in Virginia)
X Cell Phone
X Online Hosting Service
X Student Loan


Am I missing anything?

I have to pay both health insurance and car insurance for next month, but both of those rates were based upon my residence in Illinois whereas I’ll be moving to Virginia in less than a week.


My first call was to my Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS) of Illinois provider and, it didn’t take long for them to tell me that I wont have to change coverage and I can continue paying my health insurance to BCBS of Illinois. The main problem: My rate went up 50% per month just because of switching locations. I don’t really understand the big price increase, because my lifestyle hasn’t changed I’m just changing my residence. I don’t get how they figure out premiums but apparently my life is worth more in Virginia than it is in Illinois. I was paying $75/month but that has no increased to $120/month; I’m a little frustrated on that but I knew my cost of living was going to increase before my move regardless.


So I got the health insurance taken care of, so now its time to move on to car insurance. If you’ve kept up with this blog then you will remember that I had to shop for car insurance a month ago because of my expensive Farmer’s Insurance expiring. To recap: Farmer’s was charging me $1000 for 6 months drive my car and Progressive was just over $520. However, it seems there is a reversal in fortune. In Virginia, Progressive was going to charge me over $1000 to drive my car and Farmers $1200. Again, I don’t get it that much because my lifestyle isn’t changing; is it the fact that I have an increased chance of getting into an accident in Virginia than Illinois? I have no idea.


So now comes the annoying part: more car insurance shopping. I started with insurance.com like I did previously and I wasn’t impressed with the rates. The cheapest one was by Unitron for $780 for 6 months, almost 50 % more than I’m currently paying. I then decided to call Progressive to see what they’re quote was, as it wasn’t in the lowest tier that was returned to me from the website. I had to call a Progressive Agent in Virgina and I was given several numbers; I chose the first one and went from there.


First, let me start by saying the Agent in Alexandria was extremely nice and helpful; she seemed to really care that I got the lowest price for the best coverage. However, it was true that Progressive was going to be real expensive; but she was also an agent for Traveler’s Insurance and the entire process was an hour or more on the phone. As she plugs in the information I’m searching online for other quotes and that is where I got Farmer’s Sky High rate. Traveler’s Insurance was a little less expensive than Progressive but not as much as I’d have hoped. I then went to Geico.com.


I was real impressed with both the level of service and the cheapness in price. So much so that I really can’t believe how they can charge so little for such high coverage. At Progressive, I was getting 25/50/25 for everything (the minimum in Virginia) and it cost me $1000 for 6 months. At Geico I got 100/300/100 for everything (the standard/good rate) and it cost me $520 for 6 months!!! I don’t understand, I really don’t. I also don’t care because I’ll be paying the same amount as I am in Illinois for better coverage so I guess I’m pretty happy.


I next need to change the addresses on my rental and life insurances, as well as cancel my old Progressive policy, so that will be fun.