In 1993 a bunch of Chicago boys got together, called themselves 88 Finger Louie and started making some of the greatest punk music ever heard. Unfortunately, all good things must end. In less than a decade everything fell apart and the band called it quits right in the middle of a major US tour. Attempts to reform the band seemed promising, but ultimately failed. Joe Principe decided all hopes of getting back together were exhausted, so he formed a new band, Rise Against.

Now despite the fact that the band was defunct, it was not uncommon to to find an 88 Finger Louie song on compilation albums years after the break-up. I think many people refused to accept that it was over and believed it was inevitable that they would reform. I think those hopes are now lost since Rise Against has achieved an impressive fan following in the past 5 years and it’s unlikely Joe Principe would walk away from that.

Rise Against website

I have previously accepted as fact the publicized details of Rep. John Murtha’s military service, but now I have my doubts about his military experience and knowledge. Does Murtha honestly believe a ground war can be fought with aircraft stationed at airfields thousands of miles away? He must have no understanding of how effective airpower is employed. Maybe he never knew. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he knows, but ignores the facts to forward his agenda.

Of course his true military service was a lifetime ago and he’s served the better part of 40 years as a career politician since then, so he’s hardly the same person he was back in 1968. I say his true military service was a lifetime ago because when a military member in the Reserves is serving in Congress, they’re treated much differently than your average member of the military. Notice how his own official bio at his Congressional website makes no mention of any achievements in the Reserves between 1968 and 1990? Well, no mention except being awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal which was little more than a retirement gift.

But seriously, does this guy know anything about effectively using airpower?

My roommate is out of town, so I’m babysitting his cat Spartacus. I think she might be a vampire, so I’m a little concerned about my safety.

Despite my obvious devotion to punk, I do like other genres. However, it’s really cool when an artist tries to bridge the gap between genres. Especially when they pay homage to punk bands.

Enter Gym Class Heroes. Unlike most hip hop artists out there, they use live instruments. Forget sampling and assembled tracks. They hit the stage and the studio with guitars and drum sticks in hand. Right now they’re busy touring with on the Warped Tour. They were just in Milwaukee on Friday. I missed it since I had to work, but that would’ve been a great show.

If you haven’t noticed, nearly every line in the song Taxi Driver has a reference to the name of a punk band, such as Death Cab For Cutie, Dashboard Confessional, My Chemical Romance, Hey Mercedes, Jimmy Eat World, Thrice, Planes Mistaken For Stars, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, Jets To Brazil, Story of The Year and Hot Water Music. I named the obvious references. I’m sure I missed several more.

And here’s a bonus track fresh off the Fueled By Ramen & Decaydance Summer Audio Sample graciously released to the internet by the record labels. This is probably my favorite Gym Class Heroes song I’ve heard yet.

Gym Class Heroes website

One of the few drawbacks I discovered with using Firefox was a problem with my touchpad mouse on my laptop computer. When browsing websites, it’s fundamentally important that users are able to scroll up and down the screen. Sure you don’t need to use the mouse to scroll, but it’s often the most convenient method. However, Firefox absolutely refused to properly recognize the scroll action on the touchpad. My solution was to simply plug in an optical mouse, which I actually prefer, but when I’m out and about sometimes I don’t have the space or surface to use that mouse. That led to lot of animosity towards Firefox and I have no doubt many users have encountered this problem and as a result have chosen not to use Firefox.

There is a solution however. I searched many times and always came up empty handed, until now. First of all, this solution is designed for Synaptics Touchpads. If you have a different device, this exact solution won’t work, but similar steps may be effective.

I suggest writing down the instructions or bookmarking this page so you can finish fixing the problem after restarting your computer.
Step 1.
Visit the Synaptics website and download the latest device driver. Make sure you download the Generic Synaptics Device Driver specific for your operating system. Once you have it downloaded, unzip the file and execute the Setup file. The driver will install quickly and then you’ll need to restart your computer.

Step 2.
This may seem unusual, but once the computer is restarted, play around with your mouse for a little while. When drivers are updated, sometimes older functions are disabled which is really annoying if you rely on some of those functions. Keep in mind that you may need to re-enable some settings after installing the new driver. You’ll be able to change your mouse settings from the Control Panel. If you find you lost some functionality you don’t want to lose, you can revert back to the old driver. In the Control Panel select Mouse then click the Hardware tab. Select the Touchpad device and hit the Properties button. On the Driver tab you’ll see a button called Roll Back Driver. Click that and it should reinstall the old driver. Of course you’ll have to restart the computer again.

If you don’t have a problem with the latest driver, you can continue on to the fix. If you need to revert, you can still continue on with the fix, but it may not be effective. It’s worth a try though.

Step 3.
Go into the Control Panel and open the Mouse settings. Click the Hardware tab, select the Touchpad and click the Properties button. Next click the Advanced Settings tab and change the Wheel Detection setting to Look for wheel. OK the changes and yes, you’ll have to restart the computer. Luckily, that’s the last step. Firefox should now be able to detect the Touchpad scroll.

*UPDATE
If there are any other problems or questions you have, let me know. I can try to figure it out, or point you in the right direction. Don’t run out and pay for tech support from the Geek Squad or something like that. The internet has a wealth of knowledge available and plenty of people that will answer questions for free. Think of it as open source tech support.