Don't forget the dot net!

Gmail's been acting up so my first entry isn't exactly what I wanted it to be.

Anyway, here's the link to my new blog:

http://www.jonesjohnson.net

As promised, there are considerably less keystrokes than http://jonesjohnson.blogspot.com, but don't forget the dot net!

k back

Hey guys, Lent is over. I guess that means I'm gonna start blogging again.

I'll post the link to my new blog tomorrow. It's not really anything amazing. It's just four less keystrokes for you to type in the URL box.

Um yeah, so check back here tomorrow for the link to my new blog.

Happy Easter!

brb

I've just been informed by my religious friends that Lent has begun. So in giving up a few things, I also made the difficult decision to include blogging. In addition to that, I'll be attempting to live my life without eating sandwiches (HIMYM reference), Newport 100s, AIM, Facebook, Myspace, text messaging, fast food, soda, picking my nose while driving, hanging out with people, going to parties, American Idol, letting my laundry pile up, and reading tech news. That last one is probably the hardest. Seriously.

So I guess I'll be back later? I guess? www.jonesjohnson.net will eventually happen. But probably not until maybe the summer or early fall.

Anyways ... according to Google Analytics, I have about 18-20 individual readers per day.

I want to know: who are you people?

I simply want to know who in his/her right mind reads this. I have friends that log onto this page just to see if they get mentioned. I have other friends hoping and wishing I write a funny post (that may happen every now and then). Sadly, I also have readers who read it because I remind them to.

But most importantly, I have people that lurk here; people who read my blog, but are ninjas about it. They don't ever leave comments. The rest of the hardcore readers are oblivious to these ninjas of my blogging universe. We want to know who you are. I want to know who you are. There are at least 18 of you who read this daily. I demand to know who you are!!1!

So please leave a comment below. As per usual, Grant Lee (mur) will be leaving all sorts of hateful comments. Or not. Perhaps just mentioning him will be enough to tame the comment beast. Nino might chime in with something witty. Gretel might make an appearance in the comments section. Local fangirl Julienne might also. Kevin and Calvin have done their fair share of responses. I have to mention that we are all patiently awaiting Allison to speak her mind. Anna Lai might want to defend her ski lift problems. Along with her, Les and Coy might also decide to finally comment. The great Peter Stizzle might decide to drop a dizzle, and so might his main squeeze Apes. Not sure if the last two really read, but that's 12 people. Who are the rest?!

Anyways ... brb

Dazzled and Confuzzled

I wanted to try something new with my hair last night instead of the usual natural side-part. So after work, and before a party last night, I opened up an old can of d:fi's Pliable Molding Creme and smothered it all over my hair.



That was a bad idea. My hair transformed from an elegant mass of waves into a helmet.

Dumb.

I was going to wash it off before the party, but the problem was I didn't have any conditioner. My hair wouldn't have been what I wanted it to be unless it was conditioned. I left it as is. It didn't look half bad.

When I arrived home from the party, I did not want to fall asleep with that much product in my hair. Product would get on the pillow, and if I turn during sleep, product would get all up in my grillface.

I somehow managed to stumble my way into the bathroom, and just wash the damn product off. It was a gamble considering I only used shampoo. I don't really remember if I tried to towel dry it, but I woke up looking like a fool.

I awoke to a head of hair with its own personality. It had its own waves. It parted on the wrong side. It did its own thang.


Maybe that's what hair does when you don't style it the way you want to. It goes off on its own tangent, and figures out what it wants to do with itself. From the picture above, you can see that the part is on the left side. However, I part it on the right. I really really like the waves that were created though. It's fantastic.

I think I need to nap.

It ain't easy being Gleezy

Today is Grant H. Lee's 25th birthday. Yay.

Below are pics I found of Grant from a few years back (2003 mainly). I decided to show them so that we can honor the Great Gleezy and properly celebrate his birthday. Enjoy =)

[click picture for the larger version]


This is what happens when Grant and Nino are in Central Park looking for Dave Matthews.



We used to go to Newark Airport for absolutely no reason.



Here's another Central Park Moment brought to you by Gleezy and Nino.



My favorite of Grant's many ugly sneakers.



Ted <3 Gleezy.



Here, he is lovingly choking a Mexican.



Nino did a lot of sucking that night.



My personal favorite Grant Lee photograph.


Happy birthday, Grant! Keep the hateful comments coming. We love it over here at Team Jones Johnson.

=)

Not so dreamy ...

After taking Paul Imperio's advice, I decided to register the domain www.jonesjohnson.net via the folks over at DreamHost last Tuesday. The domain www.jonesjohnson.com is already taken by two lawyers aptly named Jones and Johnson. I emailed them (using my Jones Johnson Yahoo account) asking whether their domain was available for sale or not. Now I'm sure it would cost a boatload, but those d-bags didn't even bother to respond. Lawyers. Ugh.

Below, I've provided a screenshot below of the lawyers' lovely site.


Anyways, after over a week of me sending ridiculous emails to DreamHost, they finally approved my domain yesterday. Apparently, the dude who takes care of the approvals had a baby or something. Baby schmaby. But you know what really stinks? I can't redirect jonesjohnson.net over to this blog which is what I wanted to do in the first place, at least for the time being. DreamHost requires me to have a hosting plan with them in order to redirect. Lame-o.

Our staff has decided that we'll eventually have DreamHost take care of our hosting duties, although we're still shopping around. Team Jones Johnson plans on launching jonesjohnson.net some time this spring. It'll be full of the same dumbness you can find here, but with more features. I can't divulge any details, but you'll know soon enough. Probably useless things like videos that we make, photos of stupid things, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etc.

Oh, you say you want to see a few of the crazy messages I sent them? Hmm... Okay! I paid Dreamhost through Google Checkout. Now, I should've emailed DreamHost directly, but instead I used Google Checkout's system of contacting DreamHost.

I'll just copy & paste:

Jan 29 - Order placed -Your order was placed with DreamHost Web Hosting. A confirmation email was sent to you by Google.

Jan 29 - Order received - DreamHost Web Hosting received your order.

Jan 29 - Seller contacted - Message: "I just paid $9.95 to register www.jonesjohnson.net and I just checked the availability and it's still available. Is it possible someone may register it before it finishes processing? I noticed my account is still pending. This is my first time doing something like this."

Feb 4 - Seller contacted - Message: "I paid $10 last week in an attempt to register a domain name. That was Tuesday. It is now Monday. I still have no word on whether it went through. My web panel still tells me I'm pending. I've been pending for over a week. What is happening? I'm getting a little frustrated that I have not been contacted."

Feb 4 - Seller contacted - Message: "I noticed that the $9.95 charge already went through. That's awesome because my account IS STILL PENDING!!! What is happening??!! Nobody will return my emails. Jesus Christ!"

Feb 4 - Seller contacted - Message: "I'd like an answer IMMEDIATELY. I PAID 10 BUCKS FOR WHAT?! C'MON!"

Feb 4 - Seller contacted - Message: "I'd really like a response. That's all. I'm new to this, and I figured with today's technological advancements, that I'd be able to purchase a domain name easily and quickly. At first it seemed easy, and now it's nowhere near quick. I demand an answer! WTF IS GOING ON HERE!!"

Well, everything was taken care of yesterday, and one of the representatives emailed me apologizing for the wait. Blah blah blah. It's all good now.

I really have no idea what we plan on doing with the site...

But from the messages I sent them, I now realize that I'm obviously crazy.

I challenge you to defeat me

Over the past few weeks, I've casually mentioned to my friends that I type pretty fast. It's not world record status or anything, but I'm probably the fastest among my friends.

How fast? Well not that fast. But here's a history of my typing:

1990 - I learned how to type at the age of 8 on one of those old school Apple computers when I attended St. Paul's Catholic School in Irvington, New Jersey.

1991 - I became the fastest typist in my class with a thunderous 13 words per minute (WPM).

1993 - My parents bought our first computer. I think it was a Packard Bell with a 25MHz Intel 486 processor. I typed faster than it could process the words on the screen.


1994 - I bought Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (CD-ROM edition) because I wanted to learn even more about typing. I went for the intermediate section immediately.

1995 - My family joined America Online (AOL), and I discovered email, instant messaging, and chat rooms! This is one of the main reasons I became a fast typist.

1998 - I took a typing class in 8th grade, my final year at Heritage Middle School in Livingston, New Jersey. I clocked in at a reasonable 55 WPM. I was the fastest in my class.

2000 - I took another typing class when I attended Livingston High School (LHS) in Livingston, New Jersey. For the first half of the class, I decided to be a sloth and only type 30 WPM for shizzles and giggles. At the end, I was typing 80 WPM. I got an A in the class. Might've been an A+ actually.


2001 - This was the year I decided to join the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) at LHS. I wanted to compete in the Word Processing 1 competition, so I tried out and made it, obviously. The competition involved typing about 7 or 8 different types of documents in under one hour, and the competitors were judged on how fast they finished, whether the documents were formatted properly, and the number of errors made. Although I felt confident, I finished a disappointing 2nd place in the Regional Championship, but it was good enough to move on to the State Championships. I practiced a bit more in between. And then I did it! I won the 2001 FBLA State Championship in Word Processing 1! I could have gone on to the National Championship in California, but I didn't want to pay for the trip and I figured west coast typists might be insanely fast. My speed at the time was a respectable 95 WPM.


2007 - I purchased an iPhone and immediately learned the techniques to typing as fast as possible (hint: two thumbs, and trust the auto-correction feature). I went to an iPhone-specific website that measured typing speed and I clocked in at a decent 45 WPM. That's on a phone, people. With no actual physical keyboard.

2008 - A few weeks ago, I told iCal I was a fast typist. He challenged me to a battle. We logged onto one of those typing websites, and I clobbered him. Granted, I had more errors than he did, but I was nervous and typing way beyond my limits in order to secure the win. I thought he was fast, but he was only in the low to mid 90s (I think he had 93 WPM). Meanwhile, I actually hit 120 WPM at one point. These were 1 minute burst speeds though.

I think in a longer competition, I'd be somewhere between 105-110 WPM.

Recently, Kevin Yen challenged me to a typing battle. He claims his GWAM (gross words a minute) is 170. We'll be duking it out in a few weeks. He and I decided that we would take turns using the same computer to find out who is the fastest typist in Millburn, New Jersey. From our IM conversations, I can tell he's quick. I'm a little hesitant about going up against him (he's defeated me in unofficial eating competitions), but I think it will be extremely close.

My prediction: I will win with 111 WPM against his 110.

Just for reference, here are some typing records:

1923 - Albert Tangora, on an Underwood Standard typewriter, achieved 147 WPM in a 1 hour test.

1941 - Margaret Hamma, on an electric typewriter, achieved 149 WPM in a 1 hour test.

1946 - Stella Pajunas, on an IBM machine, achieved 216 WPM, but only in a 1 minute test.

1959 - Carole Bechen, on a manual typewriter, achieved 176 WPM in a 5 minute test.

1991 - Gregory Arakelien, on a computer, achieved 158 WPM in a 3 minute test.

1998 - Natalie Lantos, on a computer, achieved 192 WPM (length is unknown).

2005 - Barbara Blackburn, on a Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, achieved 150 WPM in a 50 minute test, 170 WPM in shorter periods, and a peak speed of 212 WPM.

Sources: here and here.

That last one is amazing. The Dvorak keyboard has a totally different setup from the ubiquitous QWERTY keyboards we're all used to. I've never actually seen a Dvorak keyboard in person, but I'd sure love to test one out. Imagine trying to relearn how to type on a new layout? Oh, you've never seen the layout? Here you go.


See what I mean? It's such a weird layout. But according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the fastest typist was using a Dvorak keyboard.

Anyways, I challenge you to defeat me. In typing. Like real men do.

Oh wait, I'll accept female competitors as well. I guess. Scratch that. I'll watch two girls go at it in typing, though. Girl on girl typing action. Suh-weeeeet.

This post took me 2 minutes to type by the way. BAM!

Update:

Well that was fun. Moments ago, Kevin and I were chatting it up on AIM, and I told him about this post. He sent me to http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php? and we both took a brief test.

Let's just say I got owned. Pre-owned, really, considering this wasn't official.

So I'm pre-owned, or pre-pwned, or whatever the lingo is. I guess I ain't 1337 enough to handle the Kevmeister.

I can't reveal the results because they are too insane. But I will say that I'll be training for a few weeks, maybe months. I think there's something wrong with my keystrokes (like when golfers have to adjust their swings). It's causing problems with my speed. I keep making errors like this:

I htink I'll do that.

See that? I usually catch it in time, and I'm able to correct it, but that's a waste of time. I need to be perfect.

Unbelievable.

Fine, I'll reveal some results. But first I have to say that Kevin sent me a screenshot of his results, so it might be photoshopped. I actually just tried to look for it, but he took it down.

Me: 114 WPM, 2 errors
Kevin: 145 WPM, 1 error

Obviously, I need some practice.

Another Update:

Okay, so I figured out how one can fake his speed if one were so inclined (using the site Kevin gave me here). Below are the steps:

1. Manually type out the test you've been given in MS Word or any text input program.

2. Highlight everything you've just typed, and copy it.

3. Go back to the typing test, and click Start the clock.

4. Hit Ctrl+V to paste the text, and then click Stop the clock.

5. Press the PrtSc (print screen) button, and paste it in MS Paint or whatever program you wish to use.

6. Email the screen cap to people and show off your insane typing speed.

If you did it properly, you could have something like this:


Voila! 850 WPM? Yeah, I'm the fastest typist ever.