Kidding.

Kel just pointed out to me that it's "that time of the year" for me. It's actually a little early, but essentially he's right. Around Feb-March and Sep-Oct I want to KILL THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD. It's just something I do. So if I tell you all to fuck off, it's nothing personal. I'll get over it. Now fuck off.

Infuriated by people who don't turn off their cellphones during concerts? Not this time. Via FMH.

Just in time! I was going mad, MAD, I tell you!

A billion tiny unkept promises have formed into a giant, thick-fingered hand, closing about my throat. There comes a point at which the stress of my own failure makes me lash out at others. I'm nearing that point. Something may indeed be wrong.

Okay, no less than three of my favorite humans are off somewhere and not updating. I'm left with a dearth of stuff to read. Here's your chance for shameless self-promotion! Want me to read ya? Send me a note. I'll not only read, I'll be a little opinionated link slut about it. Of course if I don't like you, that could backfire.

I can admit when I'm wrong.

Email from the budget analyst to the entire office:

"Please fill out the Warranty card that came with your body armor and provide it to me. Thank you."

So Anil found a cool little thingie called Waz Under that lets you see the comments on anyone's site. I installed the bookmarklet and went cruising around my regular reads. We are boring, boring, boring. The most interesting thing I found was Tom's "THIS IS THE CUNNING BACKWARDS NAV TABLE". Get with the program, people.

Cruel Art Project

I've decided to have a little fun at a friend's expense. I've always sent him the occasional email with weird, made-up stuff in it. Now he's getting one per day. I consider it an art project. He'll either catch on, not catch on, or block my address. Here's yesterday's (paraphrased, I neglected to keep a copy):

Heya, just checking in to see how you are.

Nothing much happening here. Well, except for the movie deal. And I'm marrying Russell Crowe. Yeah yeah, I know he's not pretty, and he makes funny noises during sex, but he has horses. I like horses.

C

Hi, it's me.

Just wanted to let you know I'm joining the Peace Corps. I'm headed to Chechnya to teach English. It isn't really a cover for the CIA, but I have been sent an entire wardrobe emblazoned with the Coca-Cola logo.

Cat

I've got a new thing going on the movie blog. I wasn't going to talk about it until Kelly started playing, but now I'm hoping to shame him into moving his ass. If you look under our pictures there's a section called "Recent". Here you'll find the last 20 movies Kel and I have seen, rated from one to five stars. Original, I know. Thing is, I'm not always full of verbiage, but I am always watching movies. So this is a quick way to keep up with what we're watching.

An Exquisite Corpse. A link just for my friend who doesn't understand why most of web design is making pretty boxes for words. Damned artists.

Via Davezilla.

If no one has said it yet, it's high time someone did: even in toilet paper, zefrank is hot, hot, hot. Sorry for the deep link, da man got frames. Here's the rest.

Celebrity Wife Meeting

Kevin. Wil. What, did Valentine's Day come unexpectedly? I'm gonna have that "awwwwww" feeling all day now.

New catch phrase: Mouse Potato.

No News is Crap News

I don't want to derail the Ping that raised the question, so I'll put my comments here. Question: why on earth does anyone with any web savvy at all watch television news? It is arguably the worst medium for transmitting news. Okay, it doesn't have to be, but currently it is. No depth; all bias and sensationalism. Television news is more about personality than it is about broadcasting facts. So here we are, the Geeks, and at our fingertips is arguably the best medium for transmitting news. You can go from sound bite to multi-faceted, in-depth reportage with a few clicks. You can get all sides of the story, thereby (it is hoped) eliminating significant bias. Very little reportage on the web is dependent upon the personality of the reporter.

So I just don't get it. What's the appeal, other than that delicious feeling of getting your life sucked out by a passive glass box?

!0000?

My boss got this email today:

Who among us doesn't know someone who has experienced the embarrassment of
unknowingly spreading a computer virus via their email address book? It's
time to STOP this from happening by TAKING CONTROL of your email program! For
those who are unaware, many computer viruses spread themselves by sending
themselves to everyone in your address book. Imagine how you would feel if
you were unknowingly infected with a computer virus, and worse yet, your
friends, family, and business contacts were being targeted by your computer!
Well, if you want to avoid this sort of thing, here's a great tip: This tip
won't prevent YOU from getting any viruses (you have to scan those
attachments yourself before opening them to do that), but it will stop those
viruses from latching onto your address book and sending itself out to
others.

To avoid spreading computer viruses, create a contact in your email address
book with the name : !0000 with no email address in the details.

This contact will then show up as your first contact. If a virus attempts to
do a "send all" on your contact list, your pc will put up an error message
saying that: "The Message could not be sent. One or more recipients do not
have an e-mail address. Please check your Address Book and make sure all the
recipients have a valid e-mail address."

You click on OK and the offending (virus) message would not have been sent to
anyone. Of course no changes have been made to your original contacts list.
The offending (virus) message may then be automatically stored in your
"Drafts" or "Outbox" folder. Go in there and delete the offending message.
Problem is solved and virus is not spread.

Try this and pass on to your email contacts. The more people that use this
technique, the less vulnerable we will be to viruses that spread in this
manner!

Thanks to Jerry I will soon be the envy of every geek at work. Both of them.

Geek Cred

The day before yesterday, Wil Wheaton's comedic ability was little-known. He was just the kid from Stand By Me and the guy who played Wesley Crusher. In the public eye, he was (sorry Wil) unremembered or unremarkably remembered. Then yesterday, his new site was discovered and linked at MeFi. Despite the initial disparaging remark, folks flocked to his blog and found out that not only was he a geek (a good thing 'round here), but he was a likable geek.

Today, Wil Wheaton is cool. His cool started in a small community yesterday, and is spreading like wildfire. Thus are the advantages of being an interesting person and letting people know it. But this is my real question: how will this affect his career? There has been a subtle underground change in how people perceive him, and that is bound to reach the mainstream. What happens then?

Wil, thanks for volunteering for what could be a very interesting social experiment. I'm going to go rent your movies now.

I just woke up from a dream about Ben Affleck. Yeah, Matt Damon was there too--hangin' out in the background. Yes, it was a good dream. These are the kinds of things I use to prove there is no God. I feel dirty...yet...I think I'll go back to sleep now.

Guess who's got a weblog? Oh, lots of people, but I thought this one was kinda cool.

I'm such a junkie. I tried 3 movies out. Not nearly adequate. Tried 4 movies out. Still had unbearable dry spells. So I figured hell with it, and upped my Netflix account to the max--8 movies out at a time. So far, I've been able to save 50% on rentals as compared to Blockbuster, but I'm just not getting the volume. And Kitty in movie withdrawals is not a pretty sight.

Frell. Felgacarp. Trelk. Drenn. Fragging.

Let's face it: sci-fi swear words are silly.

Strictly Accessible

I recently wrote a contact (hi Sue!) at the original distributor for Strictly Ballroom to see what was up with the DVD release. She didn't know and told me to drop a line to the producer. I thought: **sputter**

I've always maintained that folks is folks, and no one should be treated differently because of their profession. Nonetheless, I certainly never expect folks in the entertainment industry to be accessible. If you can't brush off a fan, who can you brush off? Well, silly me. Either I'm just wrong, wrong, wrong, or things are very different in Australia. Okay, probably the latter. In any case, he wrote right back to tell me that (drumroll, please) Strictly will be available on DVD this Christmas, alone and with a box set of Baz' other two films. YES!

The troops (such as they are--it's a very young group) will now mobilize the Strictly Midnight Campaign, organizing midnight showings everywhere we can. Wanna help? write me, dahling.

Finally, the permalinks work. BTW, I hate my flash menu. Mostly because it scrolls up. I imagine I'll beat it to a bloody pulp soon enough and replace it with something less daunting. Not to mention easier to flippin' update.

Once upon a time I decided that all humans were hypocrites in some small way, and I decided to live with it. I tried to forgive the small inconsistencies in others and myself. I still do, but...

...somewhere along the line things started changing. Just a little bit at a time. The things I thought would be too hard to do became easier. Simplicity. Celibacy. Vegetarianism. Atheism. One by one, I started giving up the things that didn't jibe with the beliefs in my heart.

I have a long, long way to go--but now I wonder if that isn't what growing up is all about. Becoming true to yourself.

Just a thought.

I suppose every web junkie in the world except for me knew about this. Thank you Jerry for pointing me toward my new favorite place.

Yet another pat answer for all those email forwards. The last one wasn't funny either.

Shockwave Pong, in 3-D. Completely addictive. Click at your own risk.

I forgot my voicemail number.

I do this on a regular basis, but I got tired of having a wrinkled slip of paper on my nightstand and decided to move that precious number somewhere more logical. Unfortunately Chaos Theory figures heavily in my sense of logic. I could come to a different "logical" conclusion depending upon the cleanliness of the house, the weather, or the amount of cat barf on the carpet.

Why do I need to write it down in the first place? Because I only need it once every few weeks. I thought about programming it into my phone, but then (I reasoned) I'd never remember the number. It all stems from an ongoing hate affair with the phone. I only have one because I need it to buzz people into the apartment. My friends, bless 'em, are aware of this quirk and communicate in other ways. Unless I'm in looooove and have to hear his voice for hours and hours, then a phone is a worthless hunk of plastic to me. I know, I know, my therapist and I are working on it.

In any case, after three wrong numbers trying from memory and 20 minutes going through piles of papers on various surfaces, I found the number. I retrieved a very important message from someone named Chris reminding me that he could save me interest on my credit cards.

I hate the phone.

Google has a new service. In the course of researching certain certain web projects I have come across many intractable questions. I just sent them one. We'll see how they do.

It's one of those mornings where everyone in the office is groggy. An example:

Guy officer: Where are you parked?


Gal officer: Oh, in a G-spot.

Chagall held hostage for peace. "It is not money the letter writer seeks, nor fame, but something far more elusive: The painting, the writer said, will not be returned until peace has been achieved between Israel and the Palestinians...."

Yeah, I wanna be like Seattle. The Association Portland Progress recommends we add one of Seattle's most highly-ridiculed ordinances to our books: no sitting on the sidewalk. They say:

"The APP assures street-sitters that it has no aversion to panhandling. Rather, its aim is to keep the streets clear for downtown patron traffic."

I hear my bullshit alarm going off.

I'm downtown all the time, and I've never been obstructed by people sitting on the sidewalk. They are there for VARIOUS reasons--selling trinkets, waiting for buses, or just hanging out. Yes, and panhandling. Whatever. The proposed ordinance is a ludicrous over-reaction from people whose shoes are far too expensive.

A blind woman who works near here and owns a crappy seeing-eye dog. He seems like the sweetest animal you could ever want, but he's never paying attention, and always dragging her way off to the left. I know there's supposed to be some push-pull involved, but she has to lean back and be dragged more than usual. This afternoon we were on opposite sides of the street waiting for the light to change. The dog was watching me intently, I assumed because he would guide her across the street when I started walking. The light changed, I stepped into the crosswalk. The dog just watched. I finally rolled my eyes and gave him a subtle "c'mere boy" gesture. He got the hint and led is charge into the crosswalk. I suppose I should be thankful that the dog is over-cautious and not just distracted and reckless. Still, the poor darling needs another job. Like family pet.

u ppl


You people.


ur 2 grt


You are too great!


i have smthg 4 u


I have something for you.

Hey! That really does save time! Luckily I'm willing to make that extra effort so I don't look like a complete fucking idiot.

Saudade. A beautiful story from Paula about missing things.

Jeani has a blog! And she's using one of my favorite designs. Welcome to the dangerous and exciting world of life online.

Didn't do a whole lot this weekend. Went shopping on Saturday and had a nice brunch with the Kelster. Did a few Paul updates, my fave being this interview about motorcycles. Decided that pic would make a good wallpaper. Of course, when I make a new wallpaper of Paul (paulpaper, heh), I have to test it out at home and at work. And generally I don't stop testing until I've annoyed someone with the hunky guy on my monitor.

Random thoughts after seeing Planet of the Apes:

• Shit. An orangutan really did say "Can't we all just get along?"
  
• Evidently after they paid Rick Baker they couldn't hire a writer.
  
• I've heard better dialogue in a Star Wars movie.
  
• At least I didn't doze off completely.
  
• Was I not supposed to laugh when you-know-who said you-know-what?
  
• What the fuck was Mark Wahlberg thinking??
  
• Lame, lame, lame, lame, lame.
  

Apparently we came through the audit with high marks (inside pun: the auditor's name was Mark). He was more or less astonished that we accomplish as much as we do. Have I mentioned lately that we're seriously understaffed? Sure I have. More on the astonishment menu--the Chief took me aside in the hall to let me know that in the user interviews there were many nice things said about me and the service I provide. Obviously, even after more than four years, these people have not caught on to the fact that I'm a cranky, arrogant bitchling with nothing but mischeif on my mind. I really must do something about that.

Speaking of fave vegetarians, Ryan's Veggie Blog has a new domain and a new look! Okay, so I'm a week late noticing. Typical of me. Even a week late, it's still a nice job!

My friend Sarah has her Veggie Page up! My favorite quote from her page:

"You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car." - Harvey Diamond

Had a great time out last night with a few of my clubbies. Now that the creepy guy in the club is gone, it's time to do functions more often. That was the whole point of founding the club--to make friends. Unfortunately, early on there was this one guy that would come to all the get-togethers--he was so nasty I just stopped having them. But like so many communities on the web, the site lasted longer than the member. The club will be three years old tomorrow. It was my first real attempt at community building, via the kind indulgence of Yahoo. It was founded on the first day clubs became available--mostly because Kitty saw a cool new feature and had to jump on it! Glad I did. Despite the one icky guy, I've made some of my best friends there.

This may make some people chuckle, but I've found that since I switched to vegetablearianism, I'm eating more, well, vegetables. It was never that I didn't like them. I just didn't like them as well as other things, so they often got skipped. I still don't eat a ton of them at home, but I eat out a lot. A heaping pile of veggies over rice, or squash in pasta, or a burrito with zuchinni slices are natural menu choices in a veggie-friendly town. So in this instance, my laziness (not to mention my general hatred of cooking) paid off, making my choices healthier by default. Who'da thunkit.

The problem with listening to music sung in Gaelic is that you get songs stuck in your head, but you can't sing them yourself. Unless of course you speak Gaelic.

Star Wars Episode III: Bride of the Bantha.

I just crossed the street with an older version of myself. She was about 55, big and strong-looking (think "sturdy Irishwoman"), she was shaped almost exactly as I am, and stood in the same manner. She wore clothes that even I would tolerate--just a shirt, slacks, and loafers--and had her hair short. Her face even had similar features. It was rather neat, seeing my doppleganger. She looked a little cross. I swear I am not cross today. Nope, nope, nope. Not yet, anyway.

All I want is a reliable place to get hash browns and eggs to go.

The place downstairs has nice plastic containers to keep everything neat on the way to my office, but ordering goes like this:

[me, smiling] Hash browns and two eggs over-easy to go, please!


[him] Sure thing! [a few minutes later...] What kind of toast did you want with that?


[me, smile gone] I didn't order toast


[him] Oh, okay. [a few minutes later...] What kind of meat did you want with that?


[me, increasingly cross] I didn't order meat.


[him] Oh yeah, that's right. [He then delivers my meal. On a plate.]


[me, scowling by this point] That was TO GO.


[him] Oh, sorry.

Is it too much to ask to be able to order once and be able to get my meal back to the office?

So now I'm grumpy and hungry and I hate all restaurants. Maybe I just need to get some hash browns at home and get my ass up earlier.

Mostly, I love my job and my co-workers. But my boss has a nasty habit. He moves shit. Found out he'd locked everyone out of our online libraries months ago by moving some directories without telling me. I only found out because I had to do an update. This kind of thing happens often enough to where the users probably just sighed and said nevermind instead of calling me. I really, really hate re-arranging for its own sake. Especially when it screws things up royally.

Boy, am I ever one grumpy kitty. I spent all weekend sweating, and now despite office air conditioning I still feel too hot. I think my body just got into the habit. Didn't sleep well, so that's taking its toll.

Ah, who am I kidding. Its just my usual Monday Mood.

So fry, why haven't you updated today? Because it's too flippin' hot to sit in front of the computer. I've been hiding in the cooler of my two rooms, reading American Gods. At first I'd intended to ignore it because I didn't think too highly of Neverwhere, but someone who shared that opinion of Gaiman's previous effort had read and enjoyed Gods. He was right--I'm about halfway through and loving it. Big, big improvement. Speaking of a big improvement, the above-mentioned Jerry has redesigned. Very readable. Sehr gut.

Reason #6023 why I love doing a site for Paul Mercurio. You'll have to scroll down one (for now, more later).

Went to see The Others last night. Couldn't resist popping in on opening night. I mean, a ghost story with Nicole--how irresistable is that? All the performances were delectable. I was especially happy to see Fionnula Flanagan, a character actress for whom I have a particular soft spot. Kidman was perfect. Her performances always surprise me in their depth and attention to detail. Here she plays a woman of deep religious conviction, breaking under the stress of raising challenging children. Oh, and then there are the ghosts. You'll try to figure out what's going on all through the movie--and once or twice you'll probably be right. Amenábar continues the brain-twisting style of Open Your Eyes, and will mislead you at every corner.

Slow in bits, but worth it for the plus-sized scares, I loved this classic haunted house story, and definitely recommend it.

Afghan women risk all to speak out. Ever wish you could do more than sign yet another chain email? Here's your chance.

I don't know where Tan Long is buying his email lists, but I too received a copy of Jerwin's flying shoe spam. Sure, they're only $7.70 a pair. They get you on shipping.

Hey, Anil is cool!

Yes, I know there's a problem with the Flash menu on a certain Mac OS. Yes, I do want to fix it, and I'm getting some help. Be patient.

Guess who's getting audited on Monday? No, not me by the IRS, us at work. We're having our yearly stress fest. Usually it's no big deal for the automation people, but this year the auditors are bringing an automation specialist. So we're cranking out plans and making sure all our licenses are findable. I get to meet Jerry after work today, but I'm heading right back to the office afterwards.
I wuv my job <

"...male family members gather to vote on the death of women. They also decide who will carry out the killing, usually someone under the age of 18 who will be treated more leniently under the law."

Hello lovelies!

I had a lot to say last night, but unfortunately my net connection was being uncooperative. I have all these notes I took during lunch for the last two days. I'll post them a little later.

In other news, some folks are still having trouble seeing this site properly. It's good for my learning curve to hear from you! I know my permalinks aren't working--I'll fix that soon. This site should look fine in IE 5, NS 6 (I hope), on Mac and PC, as long as you have Flash 5. If you have that, and it still sucks, let me know. Oh, and by "sucks" we're not talking taste, k? I know I'm obnoxious. I like me like that.

Yay! I've been dying to get into Farscape, but figured out it was chewy goodness too late in the game. Robert to the rescue! He has 'em all on tape. My sunburned neck and I are going to settle in for a few eps.

Do you ever get so hungry for a sound that you'll spend money you don't have to obtain it? I do. I couldn't afford it, but I just went out and grabbed everything I could find with Iarla O'Lionaird on it. It's been a week since I saw him sing with Afrocelt Sound System, and since then I haven't been able to get his flawless voice out of my head. I found one of his solo disks, I Could Read the Sky, which is actually a soundtrack. I also grabbed the other two Afrocelts disks. Sated for the moment, soon I'll have to grab Seven Steps to Freedom. Then what will I do?

Hey thanks! I'm gonna be there in about a week.

Spent today in an Access class. Not bad--I learned some stuff. Tomorrow is more advanced. I was a little peeved because for $200/day they could give us individual computers. Tomorrow, I grab the laptop. Today, I shared a computer with a Generic Blonde Chick and this guy. He and I geeked out, giggling as we entered all the Zappas in the database. Got bored and made an exceedingly silly home page the non-functional IE because we know that everyone tries to open it anyway. Blonde Chick silently resented us. It's the Geek Way.

Well my loves, here it is. And not a moment too soon. Not quite everything works yet--I'll get to it in good time. The essays are missing at the moment, but I will get them up ASAP. Yes, that's a flash menu. I wanted to switch to Greymatter, but found out I don't have perl with my hosting program. I was a little astonished--that's so basic! I may upgrade, but for right now I'm happy enough with my little SSI tricks.

Don't report broken links yet--as I said, it's still a work in progress. If it isn't fixed in about a week, thump me.