BLATHER REVIEW

WHOOPS

I thought Juno was gonna bill me on the 6th, so I never got around to updating my billing information. My payment couldn't go through and Juno disconnected me and wouldn't let me add a new checking account number, only a credit card number. Um... I ain't got no credit cards no more.

Turns out last months payment also never went through. So I emailed Juno and said "yo, wussup?!". They turned my account back on today and allowed me to add a bank account number. Yay!

So, I'm back. Maybe I'll even post something. After I eat something.

Ooookay, where was I...?

So anyway, Bossman gave me the old Mac that he wasn't going to use anymore, but he wanted to be sure that all of the business and customer related files were expunged before it left the shop. Neither one of us was certain that we got 'em all so he was a bit nervous about me going on line with it.

The Mac is about eleven years old and so full of crud that there wasn't enough space available to do a simple defrag. Many programs would have to go and -- since Bossman threw away the original install disk -- a reformat would be a time-consuming endeavor. But, hey, it's a computer.

Then, last Friday, ol' pal Tex came by and offered his old shop computer -- an HP Pavilion 513c. It's only 3-1/2 years old, has lots of available space on the 30+ gig hard drive and has a monitor that looks gorgeous. (My old monitor was on it's last legs and wouldn't display colors correctly. The blue ribbon on my side bar was black, f'rinstance.)

Tex warned me that there was probably alot of adware and spyware on the machine, so one of the first things I'd do when I got online would be to go to syware guide and remove whatever might be there. There were odd windows that pop up when the machine is booted up, and some humungus rogue AOL processes running in the background that slowed everything down and would eventually bring it to a halt until I went into the task manager and ended the tasks. (@#$% AOL!) Once I got online I was going to google for info on how to get rid of these quirks.

I shut down my old computer and hooked up the HP. Unfortunately, I couldn't get online! I installed the Juno software and could get and send email, but couldn't connect to Juno central computers. The modem would dial and get to the internet, but couldn't get into where the browser is. My old computer refused to boot up. I was, once again, broken down on the shoulder of the information superhighway.

Michele came to the rescue and we went through some steps to narrow down the problem. She concluded that my install disk was probably too old and that I'd need one that was designed to work with Windows XP, so she made a copy and overnightted it to me. Yay!

Unfortunately, the same problem occured -- couldn't connect to Juno's central computers to access the web. Not only that but installing the program brought up a window that said "you or a program is requesting a file from cnn.com, would you like to get it now?". I clicked Cancel, but it kept coming back, like, every 15 seconds. It would not go away! So I went for the nuclear option and did a complete System Recovery. Within an hour I was back on line!

I expected the System Recovery to act like a reformat and I'd lose the cool pictures Tex had in My Documents, and probably some programs that I wanted to keep. But, instead, it just kinda cleaned everything up, I guess. Once the recovery was complete the Documents were still there, and so was Juno. I simply went through the normal steps and got online. The wacky pop up windows and the AOL crap is gone gone gone.

So I went online and almost immediately started getting pop up warnings about how my system and registry has lots of errors and is very vulnerable. I guess the Recovery didn't fix everything. So I went to X-cleaner Spyware Guide and it found 14 (!) evil programs that needed to be removed. I was still getting the registry cleaner pop ups, like, one every two minutes. So I finally installed a few of the programs and they identified registry errors. One of 'em found 41 errors, another found over 300. But, in order to actually fix the errors I'd have to pay between $9.95 and $39.95. Nuts to that. But, the thing is, once I downloaded the progams the pop up warnings stopped. Yay!

So, and in conclusion, I think everything is somewhat okay now. I'm using Firefox as my browser thanks to a helpful link in Michele's sidebar, the monitor is beeeeyootiful, I've got more harddrive space than I'll ever need, 256 megs of RAM (my old 'puter only had 32), and, well, I'M BACK!!!

Now let's see if I can remember how to blog...

It's the Blather Review 2006 Year In Review (So Far)!

Um. Okay, so there's nothing here yet. Spent Sunday recovering from Saturday night and Monday recovering from...well... just recovering from recovering. I'm gettin' too old t'be having that much fun.

Well, no real bloggery yet this year, but at least I haven't gone two weeks without a post unlike someone I could name but wont. **ahem** :P

Hey! Jennifer's giving away prizes!

To find out what and why, click here.

You heard me. Cli-i-i-ck i-i-i-it...**shakes fist**

Hey, psssst! Wanna Buy My Blog?

Oh, this is hysterical:

"Inspired by Tristan Louis's research into the value of each link to Weblogs Inc, I've created this little applet using Technorati's API which computes and displays your blog's worth using the same link to dollar ratio as the AOL-Weblogs Inc deal."

Tip o'the tam to Pixy Misa.

In Search of... Inspiration

After a week of not posting I was determined -- de-frickin'-termined, I tells ya -- to find inspiration for a post.

I searched the web for news stories; went to a bunch of instalinks; read the big bloggers and some little ones, too; looked up columns to fisk by people like Jonathan Alter and Helen Thomas. Nothin'.

So, I decided to pop in an old CD I made a few years ago. If I can't be inspired by anything on the entire worldwide web, maybe I'll just relax and reaquaint myself with some old music. The CD I popped in is one of hit singles from '76-'77.

Aaah, that's better. First song was Welcome Back by John Sebastian, followed by Boston's Peace Of Mind. I've heard Telephone Line by ELO, Kenny Rogers' Lucille, We Just Disagree by Dave Mason and just finished listening to Bette Midler's You're Moving Out Today. Now playing is Rose Royce's I Wanna Get Next To You. Good tunes for a lazy, cool, slightly breezy Sunday afternoon.

Oh, my, now it's Paul McCartney's live version of Maybe I'm Amazed!

Shoot. Half a jar of salsa left and I'm out of chips. bbl.

UPDATE: Jay Ferguson's Thunder Island! "She was the color of the Indian summer..." I'm just lovin' this CD. :)

UPDATE2: Uh-oh. Ronnie McDowell's The King Is Gone -- how'd THAT sneak in? Aaah, Bloat On by Cheech & Chong, that's better!

UPDATE3: It's A Heartache! Can Bonnie Tyler sing or what?! "Ya love him 'til yer arms break and then he lets ya down..."

OMG, Nick Gilder?! Let's fast forward, shall we? Warren Zevon Werewolves of London! Sweeeeet. That's the final track on this CD. Next one in is hits from '79-'82. More memories to come...

UPDATE4: Logical Song, I Don't Like Mondays, Love On The Rocks, The Tide Is High, Bette Davis Eyes, Bad To The Bone... Oh, I'm singin' at the top of my lungs now...

Broken Down on the shoulder of the information superhighway

I have no idea how it happened, but, as of earlier this week, most of my daily reads come up "Page Cannot Be Displayed". I've tried everything I know to fix the problem to no avail which means, yep, reformatting time! **sigh** So much for my collection of My Documents.

But, today I've got a party to go to. My landlady wants me to bring my guitar over and play some songs. I haven't picked up that guitar since the last time I was on her porch: July 4th, 2004. Hope I'm not too rusty. Hope my strings aren't too rusty.

I should be back to some semblence of normalcy tomorrow afternoon. Gawd, I hate reinstalling all my nifty programs. Boo hoo. Ah, well. Who am I to complain? It's not like my house isn't under water or anything.

Is it me or is half the blogosphere down?

I can't reach Misha, Michelle Malkin, Hold the Mayo, Rocket Jones or Practical Penumbra. A host of other sites have also come up "page cannot be displayed". Hmmm...

In Search of... Source Material

So, anyway, I read a column by Andy Rooney in the Connecticut Post on either Tuesday or Wednesday. I sorely wanted to give it a fisking, or maybe just discuss it a bit.

I threw away my copy of the Post when I was done with it expecting that I could find the Rooney piece online. I searched for it a few times, giving up when it looked like it might take a while.

But, today, I went full bore and googled my 'puter's ass off. Nothing. As far as I can tell, Andy Rooney's columns are not available anywhere online. Dang. And I really had a piece of my mind to give him.

So, can anybody, anybody, come up with a way for me to get a transcript, in whole or in part, of Rooney's column from this past week?

C'mo-o-o-o-o-n! I'll be your best friend... :D

uuuuuh....

....Do comment spammer not recognized that they are reviled?

Apparantly. I've been slam-spammed -- splammed, I tells ya -- in bursts of 19, 11, 2, 23, 7, 4, 3, 4, 2, 7, 3 and 3.

I presume that Obi Wan Pixy is using the force to combat the assaults. But, I wonder more, What in the farkin' world makes a spammer actually believe that spamming a blogger will make that blogger wanna visit his/her crappy site rather than kill him?

Message to spammers: WE HATE YOU. WE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN READING YOUR KRAP. OKAY?

No, it's not okay. I got 6 more just now. That makes 90 in the past 3 hours. (Yep, I'm keepin' track)

Shiite. Don't make me figure out a way to destroy you.

-------

Oh goody! One more!

t has been posted on your blog BLATHER REVIEW, on entry #2181 (Spork's Gravity, part 2 (foundation)). http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/splorp.cgi?entry_id=2181 IP Address: 59.167.113.8 Name: Amateur Porn Email Address: meh@feh.com URL: http://young-amateur-pictures.com/amateur_porn_videos/

Comments:

Great article. Not as good as amateur porn. as Not good Great article. porn. as amateur.

And four more in the past two minutes! Who is this piece of shit who has to spam blogs for his business? A soulless excrement who, no doubt, never read our disciplinarian response. [I wonder what I meant by that?--TS] Who will learn nothing.

And now two more. 92 in just about three hours.

I thought I was exempt! Everybody else had spamlanches, but not me!

Now I know how Helen feels.

RRRAARRR!!! I shrink from no battle! (Or at least I keep telling my conciliatory [sp?] self that) These fiends must be destroyed!

Any ideas? Can we send their IP a signal that'll melt their hard drive?

Just checking some things out is all. Nothing to see here.

A piece of Bazooka Gum® costs 5¢, not £5, and is made by Topps, Inc. Some trading card sets they made were:

• Wacky Packages
  
• baseball cards
  
• Gargage Pail Kids
  

Maybe I'll look for some mañana, if it gets above 30°F, then I'll listen to some old Hüsker Dü.

¶ This post is ¾ finished, ±.

Or more.

© 2005 §-Sofa Productions&trade

UPDATE: Hmm, the "trademark" doesn't work. Guess I'll just hafta use Superduperscript^TM.

UPDATE #2™: Dave, you rule! Thanks! I guess the site I got these codes from had just a semicollection™.

Note to self: Compose posts while off-line

I had a great essay going. A classic about the defintion of Peace. Spent three hours on it.

Computer froze. On-line page problem. Had to reboot. Lost my essay.

I hate this computer and I almost hate blogging. You want Goth Girl Blog Day? You got it.

Good-bye.

P.S.: I think I'll try again with that post tomorrow night. It's worth the wait, I hope. At least for me.

Did I mention that my computer sucks?

I'm using an old version of IE (4.0) because it's more impervious to viruses (virii?). Problem is that it keeps not wanting to do what the internet wants it to do.

Mozilla and Firefox, here I come (again)!!!

Sorry. Just had to vent a little. Did I mention that my computer sucks?!

Okay, here's a bit of what I had:

You do not send a dove like Jimmy Carter to negotiate anything with a tyrant. Carter believes in the goodness of man. He is a fool.

Deal from strength and self-interest. Not from idealism and (naive) notions of what we want Peace to be.

Yes, I've decided to try again tomorrow. I was gone but now I'm back! Woo hoo! If I'm not an optimist I'm nothing.

Goth Girl Blog Day

Today is Goth Girl Blog Day. To find out what that means, read the comments to this post.

So, here's my Goth Girl post:

.
.
.
.

I got up, took a shower and got ready to head off to work. Missed the bus and had to wait an hour for the next one. Missed that bus.

Went home and called in sick.

I needed cigarettes so I walked to the nearest Stop & Shop. It's a 30-minute walk. When I got there I found out that it had been torn down.

I stared at the rubble and cranes for a few minutes before turning and heading back home. What a waste of an hour.

I'm bored. I really want a cigarette.

The is a Job for the Alliance of Free Blogs if There Ever Was One

Read all about it at Committee to Protect Bloggers.

Iranian bloggers Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad have been jailed for expressing their opinions on the internet. Mojtaba has been released, but still faces charges. Arash is still imprisoned.

Tip o' the tam to Michelle Malkin.

UPDATE:

(New York, February 24, 2005 - Reuters)--The Iranian government sentenced the prominent blogger Arash Cigarchi to 14 years in prison for expressing his opinions on the Internet and in the international press, marking a new low for freedom of expression in Iran, Human Rights Watch said today. "The Iranian government is sending a message to its critics: keep silent or face years in prison," said Widney Brown, deputy program director of Human Rights Watch.

In the northern province of Gilan, the revolutionary court issued the sentence on February 2. However, the court made its ruling public only on February 22. Charges brought against Cigarchi include espionage, "aiding and abating hostile governments and opposition groups," endangering national security and insulting Iran's leaders. The court based its decision on a report by the intelligence ministry agents who arrested Cigarchi on January 17.

14 years in prison for blogging. Arash's sentence is meant to be an example to all other uppity Iranians who want to criticize their exaulted leaders-from-on-high. Surmising the self-preservation instinct that must exist in people who are raised in an oppressive environment, I'd guess that revolution from within is less likely today than it wsas yesterday. More and more it looks like a rscue from without may be the only way to secure liberty to the Iranian people.

Another decade of tyranny is well-underway. What should we do and how should we do it?

Peggy Noonan on Bloggers

She begins:

"Salivating morons." "Scalp hunters." "Moon howlers." "Trophy hunters." "Sons of Sen. McCarthy." "Rabid." "Blogswarm." "These pseudo-journalist lynch mob people."

This is excellent invective. It must come from bloggers. But wait, it was the mainstream media and their maidservants in the elite journalism reviews, and they were talking about bloggers!

Those MSMers have gone wild, I tell you! The tendentious language, the low insults. It's the Wild Wild West out there. We may have to consider legislation.

When you hear name-calling like what we've been hearing from the elite media this week, you know someone must be doing something right. The hysterical edge makes you wonder if writers for newspapers and magazines and professors in J-schools don't have a serious case of freedom envy.

The bloggers have that freedom. They have the still pent-up energy of a liberated citizenry, too. The MSM doesn't. It has lost its old monopoly on information. It is angry.

But MSM criticism of the blogosphere misses the point, or rather points.

And it gets better from there. You go read Peggy-y-y-y-y... NOW!

Blog News

I'm gonna do something I haven't done in a while: Actually link to stuff that I find elsewhere!

The Duchess has her new blog up and running and she's piiiiiissed. WARNING: The heretofore "asshatted" may just henceforth be shown to be utterly assmasked, if you catch my drift but hopefully not theirs. You have been warned.

Also, I won an award. YAY! Yep, the results of the 1st annual JenLars Windy Awards are in and I won Top Commenter. If yer a JenniFan, click the link. There just might be something there for you, too. ;)

FrankJ has stubbled upon a goldmine of comic brilliance: inviting readers to find reall headlines and supplying the gaglines a la Weekend Update.
Some of 'em are brilliant so check 'em out!

The Holy month of Hiatus

I think I'm gonna take a month off from the Blogosphere. See ya bright and early on December 1st!

Fair warning: I might post something tomorrow (but don't count on it).
This isn't Beal, it's worse. It's frickin' indifference.

Three days before Election Day and I have no desire whatsoever in watching the news, following politics, voting, blathering or being here. Go figure.
Just let me take a long bike ride on a warm October afternoon and I'm set for the day! Today, anyway...
And a beeeautiful day for a bike ride it was!

Ran into my friend Norm at the nearest Stop & Shop. Cool.
He was filling a prescription that'll help him deal with his flu synptoms. I was meandering through the aisles looking for anything that I might want to stuff into my bike pack. Mmmm, yams.

I just feel like I haven't written more funny or interesting than I can coumt on one hand in nearly a year. So, here goes: the first official Blather Review hiatus.

Don't know if this announcement will hold, of course. I may post tomorrow just because I want to. But right now I just don't see being inspired to post anything worth reading in the very near future.
I haven't watched the news in weeks now. I haven't been interested in thinking about anything but lucid dreaming and the Sex Pistols' Anarchy In The UK in days. I'm gonna get out of the house and away from the internet for a while and hopefully come back refreshed.

Unless I change my mind... ;)

Ooops, I did it again.

Yep, went looking for a photo again, caught a virus within minutes, had to reformat.

Why is it so frickin' hard to find a simple picture of a beautiful Japanese woman fully clothed in a pretty floral pattern dress and with a mysterious farawy look in her eye?! Why oh why?!

Then, I really thought I had the answer: Search in google, but only click on the Cashed page. If I'm not sure if it's a porn site then I can safely surf it! And if I find what I want - and it's not a porn site - I can just Back into google and hit the active link. That'd protect my harddrive from the insidious talons of spambots, eh?

No-o-o-o-o! Turns out that Google's "archived" cashed pages still bring in those page's automated crapola. Cra-a-a-a-p!!

Anywho, I've finally given up on finding an appropriate photo to accompany my crappy poem. You'll just have to picture her in yer head like I do.
Sorry. I'd just love love love to put up a pretty picture but, y'know, I'm kinda sick and tired of reformatting my whole frickin' harddrive in such an obviously abject search.

But lemme give it one more try...

[time elapsed: 12 minutes]

...ooooo-kay, went looking for a fully-clothed Asian angel to show ya and all I came with was this:

I hereby surrender to the gods of Propriety and Caution. I will go no further in my quest for just one stinkin' jpeg of a classy Japanese woman in a flowing floral robe.

Crikey. Ted, help me out here! I don't want girls in bikinis, I want women in splendorous dresses! My kingdom for a back-lit beauty in a red patterned evening gown that's as light as the breeze and as graceful as a clock.

Don't send me URLs, guys and gals. If ya can, send me a jpeg!!!!!!

(BTW, my REAL post for tonight -- on the American Dream and exactly it is -- was erased by a two-hour blackout caused by lord knows what. Maybe I'll try re-writing it tomorrow...]

More Crap Again Already?!

Crap. Everything was going so smoothly since I reformatted my hard drive a few months ago. Now this.

I log on and open my IE -- and the top and bottom features are missing! When I move my mouse to the bottom of the screen, the Start/page taskbar appears. But, when I try to access the toppermost options, I can only get the Back/Forward/Stop/Refresh/etc line. I can't type in a URL.

So I spent the past hour and a half installing and exploring in Mozilla. It seems to work fine but for one thing: the graphics suck. The photos display in a rediculously low resolution and so they look all pasty.

Crap!

I've done an Adaware scan and a Spywareguide scan. Adaware found 33 items, and Spywareguide found nothing. I have Norton running continuously. WTF?!

The only thing I can think of that may have brought this on is that I went to a porn site to gather photos of Asian women in the hopes of posting a tribute to Asian beauty. (I haven't dared visited a porn site in years 'cause they tended to, y'know, turn my computer into crap.)

The sad thing is that I found -- in all my searching -- only one (1) .jpeg worth saving.
(Why in the world does nearly everything on porn sites have t'be so frickin' vulgar?! Yecch! I can be such a prude sometimes...)

Now I'm blogging through Juno's default browser (which is just an uncorrupted version of IE).

Crap!!! I don't want to have to reformat again!

*sigh*

Just in case anyone's interested, the only .jpeg I downloaded is in the extended entry. For this photo I have destroyed my browser.

NOT! WORK! SAFE!

It wasn't worth it, but aren't Asian women beautiful anyway?

:)

I'd really prefer not to post a full-nude, but rather something a little more enchanting. But this was the best photo I could find in my wanton search for a classy pic.
Where, oh, where are the classy pics?!

Anywho, this is what I traded my pristine brower for:

Shame on me...?
I mean, she barely even looks Asian, eh? Cute bod, but from the neck up she kinda looks like a Jewish Michael Jackson....

Sorry guys. But, as someone once said; I've suffered for my music and now it's your turn.

:p

Me Be Bad blogger!

Sorry for the lack of posting. I've been busy writing entry-length Comments at others' blogs and have neglected my own these past few days.

I do have a nice post brewing, though, about lucid dreaming. I used to think I knew what lucid dreaming was... until last week.

But, right now, I think I'll just eat my chicken and then hit the hay.

And, dang, but Rather and Mapes think they're foolin' us, eh?!

;)

Pajamasphere™ logo

Fiddling around this evening I created this:

Does it look familiar? Yeah...? Yep, you guessed it. 22 years ago TIME Magazine pronounced that the future would be written in binary code. It didn't happen quite as soon as they thought it would, but it did happen in the end.

Perhaps TIME's 2004 "XXX of the Year" could use this Photoshop image...?

Now I just have to figure out how to add text to it. Feel free to play with this and make it better! :)

Notes From the Pajamasphere™

Okay, I don't have a real post here. I just wanted to say that you read the word Pajamasphere™ here first!

I want to create (or, better yet, inspire someone else to create) a logo for the Pajamasphere™.

I'm also looking for a good subscripted acronym. The best I have so far are: League of Pajama-Bloggers Outing Media Bias (LOPBOMB); Web-wide Enlightenment Bridgade of Bloggers Outing Media Bias and Effusing Reliable Sources (WEB BOMBERS); Pajama-clad Bloggers Outing Media Bias (PC BOMB); and Pajamas Readily Exposing Fraud and Bias (PRE-FAB).

I have even worse ones.

Anybody wanna give a logo a shot?!

Sort of a "Where's George" for bloggers

Found at Susie's:

Testing Meme Propagation In Blogspace: Add Your Blog

This posting is a community experiment that tests how a meme, represented by this blog posting, spreads across blogspace, physical space and time. It will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected. It may also help to show which blogs (and aggregation sites) are most influential in the propagation of memes. The dataset from this experiment will be public, and can be located via Google (or Technorati) by doing a search for the GUID for this meme (below).

Please join the test by adding your blog (see instructions, below) and inviting your friends to participate—the more the better. The data from this test will be public and open; others may use it to visualize and study the connectedness of blogspace and the propagation of memes across blogs.

The GUID for this experiment is:

as098398298250swg9e98929872525389t9987898tq98wteqtgaq62010920352598gawst

The above GUID enables anyone to easily search Google or other search engines for all blogs that participate in this experiment, once they have indexed the sites that participate, which may take several days or weeks. To locate the full data set, just search for any sites that contain this GUID.

Anyone is free to analyze the data of this experiment. Please publicize your analysis of the data, and/or any comments by adding comments onto the original post (see URL above). (Note: it would be interesting to see a geographic map or a temporal animation, as well as a social network map of the propagation of this meme.)

INSTRUCTIONS

To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and then answer the questions below, substituting your own information, below, where appropriate. Other than answering the questions below, please do not alter the information, layout or format of this post in order to preserve the integrity of the data in this experiment (this will make it easier for searchers and automated bots to find and analyze the results later).

REQUIRED FIELDS (Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers)

(1) I found this experiment at URL:
http:practicalpenumbra.mu.nu/

(2) I found it via “Newsreader Software” or “Browsing the Web” or “Searching the Web” or “An E-Mail Message”: Browsing the Web

(3) I posted this experiment at URL: http://blatherreview.mu.nu/

(4) I posted this on date (day/month/year): 08/08/04

(5) I posted this at time (24 hour time): 18:14 EDT

(6) My posting location is (city, state, country): Bridgeport, CT, USA

OPTIONAL SURVEY FIELDS:

(7) My blog is hosted by: mu.nu

(8) My age is: two decades past the legal drinking age

(9) My gender is: Male

(10) My occupation is: Offset printing press operator

(11) I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: What's "RSS/Atom reader software"?

(12) I use the following software to post to my blog: MovableType

(13) I have been blogging since (day, month, year): 3 Feb 03

(14) My web browser is: IE6

(15) My operating systems are: Windows 98

Huh?

I left a comment in the thread of the "Kerry Poppins" post over at TexasBestGrok, and got a message that it was undeliverable even though it went through fine and is sitting there all warm and cozy at this very moment.

But, just in case nobody reads the thread anymore, and 'cause I'm so burned out from doing more of my mid-summer spring cleaning --
(It's not that I'm getting so-o-o-o much done, it's that it's been so stiflingly muggy this week that just carrying a box up two flights of stairs can send me into comfort-sapping bouts of perspiratiotude) --
h'yar 'tis, in all it's silly glory:

D'oh! a State, a nanny State,
ray, a laser from my gun,
me, a guy who can aim straight
fah, the distance to the sun.
so, I think I'll vote for Bush,
La-La Land is on the coast,
tea? I'd rather have a Busch,
but that'd bring me back to D'oh!

One year ago today

[I got the idea from Jennifer to post past posts passed over the first time 'round when you've nothing new prepared -- but with a twist. The Anniversary Post! Without ado 'bout nothin' here's my post from one year ago today. It's nothing to write home about, but what the hay...:]

Uh-oh! America Caused 9-11 Again...

What is it with Colleges and Ignorance these days?
See this article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

"Waukesha - Convinced that American racism played a role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Waukesha County activists are planning a major new effort to promote racial and ethnic harmony."

American racism played a role in the Sept 11 attacks?! American racism?!

" We need to understand the world; we need to accept the world."
- Mary Baer, co-chairwoman of the Waukesha County Diversity Task Force

..or maybe parts of the world need to accept and understand that suckling at our proverbial teat while simultaneously kneeing us in the proverbial groin kinda makes us wonder if they deserve to be "understood."

"The kickoff date: the second anniversary of the day of horror."

Yep. And their three-year mission: to explore strange new ways of blaming America first; to seek out new lies and new civil distractions; to boldly go deeper than any ass-helmet has gone before!

"Organizers say the connection to terrorism is simple: If Americans were more tolerant of racial and ethnic minorities, we would not evoke hostility abroad and would not have been attacked Sept. 11, 2001, by Islamic extremists from the Middle East."

Newsflash for the dim bulbs: Any social, systemic, personal or narrow-minded racism that may exist among Americans has nada to do with the Middle East. Racism has Everything to do with the Middle East.
Can a muslim in America walk down the street with a copy of the Koran?
Yes.
Can a Christian or Jew walk down the street in Saudi Arabia reading the Torah or the Bible?
No.
America stands for Individualism, Numb-lobe. It is not any intolerence on the part of America that caused Sept 11; it was the intolerence FOR American freedoms by the homocidal Islamist terrorists.

"Some of the reasons it happened are our arrogance and our ignorance," said Mary Baer, co-chairwoman of the Waukesha County Diversity Task Force. "We need to understand the world; we need to accept the world."

As a society we do, Mary. We shovel billions of dollars a year into the collective oil-hole of that all-too-common political dinosaur known as Tyrannus Rectus.

The Islamist terrorists who rule and pollute the Middle East don't fear Racism, they practice it. They hate Freedom. It interferes with their utopian goal that all-men-are-muslim-or-they-shall-die. They fear free elections, freedom of expression, freedom of religeon, free exchange of ideas. They are isolationists and tyrants who fear that any influence of Western culture threatens their own influence on their countrymen.

They ban Western music, movies, television, news...
They want nothing more than to keep those Evil influences away from their huddled masses lest an idea as strong as Liberty actually begin to ring true to them, thus loosening the hold the screeching ululators have on Power.

I remember that there was some issue about President Bush calling the 9-11 terrorists "cowards." "Oh, no! They're so brave and selfless to give their lives for Allah! They're not cowards!"

But, they are. Because they pathetically shake themselves to sleep in a cold sweat in fear that free people -- making their own Independent decisions about life and God -- might come to differant conlusions than they have. A True Believer who secretly doubts his own certainty, when certainty is required, would fear and reject anyone and any culture that does not share or promote his beliefs with his own zeal. Funny thing is; these skidmarks on the shorts of humanity want to take it to murderous extremes. Call me "crazy", but I don't think any group hugs are in the offing.

9-11 was caused by some Islamists' hatred and paranoia of "foreign" (i.e. 18th century) influence, not by any racism that may exist in the hearts of some of the diverse and free people of America.

Munuversary!

I am so-o-o-o-o glad to be back on-line in time for today.

One year ago today I left blogspot and became something akin to a charter member of Munuvia. YAY!

As I recall it all began just because I was trying to add Comments to my Blogspot blog. For some reason Susie noticed my struggle -- I believe it was through our postings at FrankJ's -- and offered some guidence.

When I ran into some problems with the provided solution she finally directed me to Pixy Misa.

I contacted our fearless leader and explained my predicament and he offered, on Susie's recommendation, to put me on his own server -- some weird thang called "mu.nu".
Recognizing the ".nu" part from denbeste.nu I was immediately intrigued.

Being stuck on Blogspot with no Comments left me feeling very unfullfilled and eventually I'd lost interest in blogging. The only visitors I was sure of were the friends and family that mentioned that they'd read this or that post.

I hadn't run out of things to say, mind ya, I just felt like I was blogging in a vacuum that sucked and there was about a two-month period when I wrote nothing nada zero zilch.

So, not only could Pixy get me comments, but he could help me to blog a.nu in so many ways! I jumped at the chance! Soon there was Tim and Jennifer and Victor and Ted and Mookie and then LeAnn and Helen and Mr Green and Stevie and Roxette and Daniel and hln. (I'll stop there 'cause that was when I stopped updating the anthem... And, sorry, I'll get to the links later!)

O, how Munuvia has grown in the past year! Early Munuvuians Collins and Cherry have left us, but so many nu cow puppies have joined us. What a great band of bloggers -- and long may we reign!!!

As a tribute I present this testimonial of my thanks to Susie for emailing me one fine day in July of '03 and making me an unwitting pioneer on this wonderful frontier.
She was one of the first non-family/friends to notice that I existed.
(Sorry, Pixy. I would have photoshopped you if I'd only had a photo of ya!
No, really...!)

"Susie on my shoulder makes me happy..."

:D

HALELUJAH!

After myriad roadblocks and twists and turns I think that I'm finally BACK!!!

I don't even want to remember all of the disk failures and dumb-ass oversights that Lawruh and I have made over the past month+. But I'd like to thank Lawruh for her support; and to Jim for his alternate solution which - thankfully - was never needed!

Regular posting shall resume tomorrow! (Tonight -- after all this mess -- I'm just too harried to begin agin just yet...)

WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some Days You Just Can't Get Rid Of A Bomb

I finally got my hands on a legitimate Windows 98 set-up disk and it worked! Woo hoo!! But, it didn't fix the problems. D'oh!

So I'm trying to reformat the C:\ drive last night, right? I've got my ten-pack of floppies and instructions on how to do it.
The first thing I tried to do was to create a boot disk. Easy as pie, eh?
I slipped the disk into drive A:\ and clicked on the "create start-up disk" button in the Add/remove programs program.

"A:\ is inaccessible. Device is not ready."

I tried it again and again for an hour or so while playing a few games of Freecell. No change.
Then I restarted the computer with the disk in the drive and it finally recognized the disk! So I did the whole "create start-up disk" thing and it sure looked like it was creating a start-up disk. I watched the little line grow from 5% to 28% to 76% to 100%. Yay!
Then I got a message:

"Cannot write to drive A:\. Files may be lost."

Huh? Nothing copied I assume. But I wouldn't know because I couldn't get the device to be "ready" again. *sigh*

So, now I'm gonna grab the 3.5 floppy drive out of my old computer and see if it works better than the new(er) one. If it doesn't work then the problem isn't with the device but with something somewhere that I have no idea what to do about.
I'll either be back on line soon (over the weekend at the latest), or I wont be back for a long long time.

Wish me luck! And chime in with some advice if you know anything about this stuff! Or better yet just send me a new computer!

Okay, okay. Since all of my posts this past month have been about computer problems I'll entertain you with a joke.

The doctor walks into the room and tells the patient "I have two bits of bad news for you, Mr Smith."
"Just give it to me straight, Doc" he says.

"The first news is that you have cancer," says the Doctor.
"Ooh, cancer..." Mr Smith says woriedly. "That's awful. What's the other bad news?"

"The other bad news is that you have Altzheimer's"

"Oh, man. Altzheimer's," he says shaking his head is dismay. "That's really really awful. Oh well," he shrugged, "at least I don't have cancer."

:)

I Used To Have a Blog

Blog? What's a blog?
Three weeks ago tonight I got knocked off-line and haven't been able to get on since. I finally got hold of a Windows 98 set-up disk (yay!) complete with updates (yay!) and popped it into my CD-ROM (yay!) and got the message:
D:\ is inaccessible... drive is not ready.

D'OH!!!

About a year ago I took out the CD-ROM that was in the computer and replaced it with an older on because the newer one couldn't read my audio CDs. Perhaps my old CD-ROM can't read a new-fangled CD...?

I'll try fiddling around in safe mode tonight and see if I don't explode the thing. If that doesn't solve the problem then I'll have to either reinstall the old (newer) CD-ROM. And if THAT doesn't work then I'll just have to re-format the entire harddrive (assuming that the newer CD-ROM can read the Windows disk).

Man oh man oh man oh man oh MAN!!!

If anybody has any clue they can give me feel free to chime in right here. If I can't get back on-line in the next few days I'll try to come back and read any comments that might be here. I'm at work and my access to the internet is whenever I can sneak on for a few minutes.

I miss y'all. Hope to be back real soonly. (Yeah, I know, I've said that before...)
:)

Just an update...

Whelp, I've been exploring the inermost guts of my computer in an effort to fix/restore whatever's been made f'koktah, and everything I've tried so far has progressively made matters even worse.

I even installed AOL -- which comes with IE 6.0 already on the CD -- and it STILL can't fix it.

Looks like I'm gonna hafta reinstall Windows 98 all over again... as soon as Lawruh can figure out which version of 98 she installed in the first place. Looks like I may finally be back online by about Thursday or Friday evening. YAY!!!

(And I've so-o-o-o many stories to tell about the past three weeks!)

My Bloggin' Blackout Continues

Whelp, I still can't get online from home. I'm not sure if it's a Juno problem or a Windows/IE problem.

The browser error message tells me to go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Settings, etc, but when I click on Internet Options I get the message: "This action cancelled due to restrictions on your computer. Contact your system administrator..."

I tried to make adjustments using my original boot disk, but all I get is "A:\ is inaccessible. Device is not ready." WTF?!!!

I'll keep working on it. Hopefully I'll be back online sometime this week. I can't even get my email and I hate to think of all those nifty Nigerian offers of riches and uranium going undeleted.
I miss all you guys and gals and blogs!!

This sux.

CD is brilliant, BTW!!! Has anyone else noticed?! :D

Between shirking homework and chasing co-eds (we hope!) one of our favorite college boys, CD, has reinvented the MADLIBS game to address certain *cough*Nigerian*cough* spam emails as SPAMLIBS. This is fun!
Just make a list of words that fit the categories of words in the list below and then read the email with your list nice n' handy!

1. TITLE
2. VERB
3. NOUN
4. PLURAL NOUN
5. EMOTION
6. NOUN
7. VERB
8. PLURAL NOUN
9. ADVERB
10. NOUN
11. PLURAL NOUN
12. NOUN
13. COUNTRY
14. ADJECTIVE
15. PLURAL NOUN
16. PLURAL NOUN
17. ADJECTIVE
18. VERB
19. ADVERB
20. PLURAL NOUN
21. VERB
22. VERB
23. NOUN
24. E-MAIL ADDRESS
25. NOUN
26. NOUN
27. PLURAL NOUN
28. TITLE
29. FIRST NAME
30. LAST NAME

Dear (title),

TRANSFER OF US$20MILLION INTO A PERSONAL/COMPANY'S OFFSHORE ACCOUNT.

May I respectfully (verb) your kind attention to the above subject matter and to state that based on (noun) gathered from the relevant Federal Ministry of Trade, Commerce and (plural noun), we, intend to solicit your assistance in the execution of a business transaction. It is our sincere (emotion) that you will handle this (noun) with absolute confidentiality, maturity and utmost sense
of purpose.

I wish to further (verb) you that we have twenty Million (plural noun) which accrued overtime from (adverb) inflated contract awarded in my Ministry (Federal Ministry of (noun) Resources) and executed by a consortium of (plural noun) in the (noun) Industry. The projects executed include the following:

1. The expansion of pipeline network within (country) for Crude Oil and (adjective) products distribution and subsequent evacuation.

2. Contract for the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the three (plural noun) In the country.

3. The construction of (plural noun) for Petroleum Products (Depots).

Consequently, we humbly request your (adjective) assistance and permission towards the remittance of the above stated amount into a personal/company/offshore account nominated by you. We (verb) (adverb) that you will receive 30% of the total sum, and the remaining 70% is for my (plural noun) and me.

However, this is negotiable in the event of your willingness to (verb).

Could you please notify me of your acceptance to (verb) this (noun) urgently by email email addresses: (e-mail address) only, on the receipt of this message. I shall in turn inform you of the modalities for a formal application to secure the
necessary approvals for the release of this (noun) into your (noun).

This transaction from the day of commencement will not take more than ten(10) working (plural noun).

Thanks for your co-operation.

Yours sincerely

(title) (first and last name)

-----------------------------

Mine came out like this:

Dear JAWS,

TRANSFER OF US$20MILLION INTO A PERSONAL/COMPANY'S OFFSHORE ACCOUNT.

May I respectfully spank your kind attention to the above subject matter and to state that based on salt gathered from the relevant Federal Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Barley, we, intend to solicit your assistance in the execution of a business transaction. It is our sincere reticence that you will handle this tape recorder with absolute confidentiality, maturity and utmost sense
of purpose.

I wish to further eat you that we have twenty Million scizzors which accrued overtime from unknowingly inflated contract awarded in my Ministry (Federal Ministry of Question Resources) and executed by a consortium of Matchbox cars in the Slinky Industry. The projects executed include the following:

1. The expansion of pipeline network within Ireland for Crude Oil and fashionably late products distribution and subsequent evacuation.

2. Contract for the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the three pork rinds in the country.

3. The construction of guitars for Petroleum Products (Depots).

Consequently, we humbly request your cracklin' assistance and permission towards the remittance of the above stated amount into a personal/company/offshore account nominated by you. We lose life's lottery implausibly that you will receive 30% of the total sum, and the remaining 70% is for my family jewels and me.

However, this is negotiable in the event of your willingness to gasp.

Could you please notify me of your acceptance to pulverize this Farmer's Almanac urgently by email email addresses: www.bfd.org only, on the receipt of this message. I shall in turn inform you of the modalities for a formal application to secure the
necessary approvals for the release of this sculpture into your one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater.

This transaction from the day of commencement will not take more than ten(10) working Beatles' songs.

Thanks for your co-operation.

Yours sincerely

American Idol Osama Moore

------

Okay, some of it worked and some of it didn't. Try it out and, if it's worth yer while, post it!

Or just keep it to yerself. We'll understand...

All I did was tell it like it is...!!!

Welly welly, what have we here?! A blue ribbon! Blogosphere Hero?!!!
I wont ask how it got onto my sidebar. But, thank you to whomever is responsible!

I'm in awe that this has happened so fast! One moment I'm asked about who Rachel Lucas is -- the next she's ba-a-a-a-ck! What the huh...?! How did it happen?!

I was at work on Tuesday trying to run my printing press and listen to Lawruh tell me her man problems simultaneously. I said very little as she was arguing with herself quite capably.
I thought of the old show Inside Herman's Head and how I felt like I was watching a rerun of it.
(Why didn't it survive? It was a great premise and had Yeardly Smith (Lisa Simpson) as a cast member to boot!)

Anyhoo, I decided that I didn't want to air Lawruh's dilemma 'cause it's still developing (though very very interesting), but, I loved the idea of a Herman's Head type debate.
So, what could I debate myself about? All of the possibilities I'd thought up at first were so lamo.
But, then, hmmm, what about something blog related? Coding? Writing style? Content discrimination?
Blogrolls? A HA!!!!!
When to add a blog to yer blogroll!! No wait! Even better: When to de-link a blog! That's the ticket!

Immediately I thought of Rachel Lucas. Love her though we do, she hadn't blogged in six months and why -- when we're knee-deep in the templates -- do we refrain from taking the plunge and backspacing her URL out of the blogroll. It would be so easy... yet: we have not found the portal to the cruel marrow that would allow us to do it.
No doubt about it, mon; I was gonna write a Herman's Head styled debate about de-blogrolling Rachel Lucas! And so I did.

Then Stephen asked a question.

For some reason I'd just assumed that everyone knew and loved Rachel ... that was why the post would work! But, I was about to find out that, like so many recently welcomed bloggers, StMack did not.
"Who the hell is Rachel Lucas?"?!! "And what is it about her that has [you] debating her continued existence on your blogroll?"?!!!

I was about to type a brief response into the Comments. But the more I thought about what to say the more I knew that I was about to ramble on. I'd better make a post of it!

Then the wheels started to turn. I was about to write an homage to rachellucas.com and I immediately knew that there were hundreds and hundreds of others who want to do the same thing; they just haven't had a reason yet.... they hadn't been asked to.
So, even before I typed the first letter of the first word of the post I knew that I'd want to invite others to join in and give their tribute just as eagerly as I wanted to give mine. This had t'be good!

The thing practically wrote itself.. but I knowingly and deliberately searched for phrases like "baby head banner", "asshat" and "Imagine No Liberals coffee mug" because I sensed that these words could make the Rachel Experience an immediate memory rather than a foggy one. I tried to describe her sidebar photo as vividly as I could. I wanted to stir, in other bloggers, the same sense of presence that I was experiencing. Why why why?

In the nooks and crannies of my toasted mind I had only one goal while writing the post: coax Rachel back to the blogoshere by telling her what she means to us. Granted; it wasn't likely to happen, of course, but sometimes y'gotta dare yerself to dream...

But this wouldn't do it. My daily hit stats are anemic; my readership consists of loyal friends and fellow Munuvians. If Rachel is to understand how much she's missed then a proper tribute needs a larger audience.

I wrote my tribute and posted it. Not expecting any great horde of bloggers to drop by just because I posted something cool, but wanting this to echo further, I decided to send an email.

I addressed it to: Emperor Misha, FrankJ, Don Watkins, Bill Whittle and Mrs DuToit merely asking for additional testimonials as to Rachel's glory. If I could only get one Trackback out of this then the plan -- that I hesitently dared to admit to myself -- might actually work!

Misha, Jim and Bill Whittle responded immediately!
But when I saw that the Emperor had not only sent a Trackback, but had posted a tribute of his own, well!!! This just may be so like my dreams it's scary!
Misha gets more hits before lunchtime then I'd get in a month of lazy Sundays.
We were about to witness an homagefest of the bestest and funnest kind!! Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-ES-S-S-S-S!!!

If Rachel still bothered to check out a blog or two then she would surely stroll through the Empire.
The comments kept pouring in. So many memories and so little Rachel.

I got home yesterday at about 6:30pm and settled down to write an UPDATE to the post (trackbacking Misha's post, yakkin' about how the link to a Rachel archive that CD provided didn't include the comments threads that showed us - even more than her posts proper - that she was our friend just as much as we were hers)...

I logged on and found 15 messages were waiting for me. WOW!!

I dragged the mouse as to expose a few emails and noticed that I'd gathered quite a few Trackbacks. Hmmm.
But then I saw it. Near the top and suddenly glowing like a tomacco field:
rachel@rachellucus.com "New Comment to....BLATHER REVIEW...blahbidy blah.... "

This is not happening. I had hoped for this...yep, dreamed that this might be the result of our love letters. I'd planned to be ready for it and yet I wasn't at all.
Then I read her comment and ran over to rachellucas.com. Holy poop on a pike! She not only got the mainpage and archives back up but she posted! WOO HOO!!!!!!

Thank you thank you thank you!! But all I did was realize that we wanted Rachel back and that there're plenty of bloggers who were just itching and ready to say so.

But we gotta thank Misha for the huge role that he played as well. Without his Trackback my post wouldn't have gotten such notice, and without his readership we wouldn't have gotten all those comments. And it was HIS post that Rachel came across first. (In fact, to my knowledge she hasn't visited Blather Review since it was still on Blogspot.)
The Emperor taking the torch and running with it was key to getting rachellucas.com back up within 48 hrs of StMack asking about her!

Everything clicked!
Gawd, I love this crap!!!

Who Is Rachel Lucas?

In a response to my previous post Stephen Macklin of Hold The Mayo has a couple of questions:

Having only been blogging for about 7 months I have to ask - who the hell is Rachel Lucas? And what about her is so important that the characters of Star Trek would decimate the fabric of space and time to debate her continued existence on your blogroll?

My brief answer is this:

Rachel Lucas was (will yet be?) a blogger from the summer of '02 through the summer/fall of '03.
(Actually, her bloggery hit the skids at some point in the spring of '03 due to schoolwork, mainly...)

But, for a brief shining moment in blog history (blisstory?) we had a daily read of sass, impudence and ordnance of the bestest kind!

Her blog is blank now -- which I hate because even her archives are now inaccessable.
Her mainpage photo showed a 29/30-yr-old Texas gal with a bright smile and a sunny optomistic gleam in the eye. Her head tilted just so to let you know that she was as playful as she was ornery.
Her posts could attract Comments (when they were openned) on the scale of the Emporer.

Bill Whittle got his start on rachellucas.com! Bill's first "essay" was an editting job by Rachel of his Comments made in a certain thread to one of her posts! She not only encouraged him to start a blog his own, but offered all of the guidence to get it up and running!
For that alone she deserves to be remembered in HUSHED TONES!!!!! s-sh-h-h-h.......

I was introduced to her blog by my friend "Freedom's Slave" (who comments here every now and then). Slave would email me her latest post every so often.
After enough emails already consistently linking Rachel I checked out her blog
and soon I was hooked just like hundreds and hundreds of others before me.

At some point in the early part of '03 she turned off her Comments after some particularly cruel trolls had infested them. Then her post-grad work got intense. She started blogging less and less. She'd announce hiatus after hiatus.
Her work nowadays is so computer-intensive that she can't seperate computer work from computer play and, about six months ago, called it quits fer good on the blogosphere.

She wrote about everything under the sun; from buying her new house (with John) to the 2nd amendment and the Holocaust. Michael Moore and assorted asshats (a word she coined) were among her favorite targets.
But, she wasn't just interesting and bright - nosiree; she was so much FUN to read! (Imagine the sunny and playful voice and vernacular of Susie coming out of the mouth of, oh, say... Michelle Malkin. That was Rachel Lucas!

That Rachel has left the blogosphere to pursue her course has left us emptier... yet we're still grateful for the memories.
We who were fortunate enough to have had the Rachel Experience as it happened will always cherish the memory of her blog (be it for merely the baby-head banner and/or the Imagine No Liberals coffee mug), and always hope for the best for her and John as they forge their way through their... er... way!

But, to Rachel: fercrissakes! Bring back the main page! AT LEAST LET US BASK IN YOUR ARCHIVES WHEN WE NEED A FIX... !

Inside Tuning Spork's Head

Well, after months and months of angst I've decided to face the BIG QUESTION that's been on my mind.
Yep, I'm thinking of finally de-blogrolling Rachel Lucas.

Remember that show Inside Herman's Head? I've decided to think out loud as I mull over the pros and cons of de-linking Rachel.
And, I've just decided to use Star Trek characters to voice my inner conflict. (So, it's sort of a cross between Herman's Head and the Projection Therapy that Riker dreamed undergoing in the ST:TNG episode Frame of Mind.)

He-e-e-e-e-re we go-o-o-o-o-o...!:

SPOCK: The question at hand is whether or not to de-blogroll Rachel Lucas?

CAPT PIKE: beep

COUNCELLOR TROI: I'm sensing a great trepidation.

LT. WARF: Now is not the time for "soul searching". We must confront the matter head on!

SPOCK: Shall we examine the pros and cons of de-blogrolling Rachel? That would appear to be a logical approach.

QUARK: Yes. Which would be more profitable; keeping the link, or removing it?

WARF: (fidgitting) We are wasting time, we must act now! She has not posted in months and her main page is blank. De-link her!

TROI: I'm sensing anger.

SPOCK: It does seem that Ms Lucas has given every indication that she will blog no more.

PIKE: beep

SPOCK: It appears that we are leaning toward de-blogging her.

TROI: I'm frightened...

QUARK: Aah, but as the 122nd Rule of Aquisition states: "The emptiest purse can hold the largest brick of latinum."

TROI: I'm confused...

WARF: Grow a spine, Mrs. Riker-r-r-r...!

SPOCK: Quark, you were saying...

QUARK: rachellucas.com may be empty now; but if she ever decides to blog again, and we have de-linked her, then we would be tragically on the outside looking in! What profit can there be in abandoning a potential goldmine of sass and impudence?

WARF: Hmmm. We would be dishonoring ourselves horribly... FOR SEVEN GENERATIONS!!! We must fight to keep her blogrolled.

QUARK: I mean, does her link take up that much space?

PIKE: beep beep

SPOCK: And a difference that makes no difference IS no difference.
So, we have decided that the logical course of action is, then, inaction?

TROI: Joy... *sniff* I'm sensing great joy. *sob*

(Warf turns away from Troi in disgust; Quark grins and rubs his hands together in anticipation of the payoff;
Spock just shrugs, raises an eyebrow and sighs as he wheels Captain Pike back to the transporter room...)

Deja Vu All Over Again

Welp, I've managed to destroy my brand new "spillproof" keyboard. There must be something about grapefruit juice that causes a complete breakdown because none of the keys work -- not just the ones that took the hit.

Also, I seem to maybe have a virus or something. My 'puter is making a clicking noise and I can't open certain games. FreeCell and Chips Challenge work, but Jeezball and Tetris don't. Guess I'll have to dust off the Nintendo and see if I can still win at JACKAL.

I can't log on the internet -- not even just to browse -- because I can't type in my password to Juno (I'm typing this from work). So, I'll be broken down on the shoulder of the information superhighway 'til I can a) get a new keyboard and b) figure out if it's a virus or not that keeps my from being able to run certain programs.

Oh, well. It's not like I've been bursting with creativity on this blog lately, anyway. I've finally given up on trying to complete a song parody. It was about John Kerry to the tune of Candle In The Wind, called "Finger In The Wind." These things used to write themselves, but I've been so uncreative lately that I can't get one stinkin' verse to work right. grrrr

Anyway, off I go to get some lunch. See you again real soonly, I hope!!

UPDATE: Seems the oddness in the computer yesterday was caused by the f'd up keyboard. I plugged in a new one and everything's back to normal. Yay! And just so this doesn't happen again, I've got my new keyboard wrapped in Saran Wrap. :D

I'm ba-a-a-a-ack!

A B C D E F G,
H I J K LMNO P,
Q R S, T U V,
W X, Y and Z,
I can type my ABCs,
"Disco Duck" was by Rick Dees.

Okay, EVERYBODY!!!
A B C D E F G,
Just the women!
H I J K LMNO P
Now the men!
Q R S, T U V,
In Russian!
B c X, I-O c 3,
Big finish!
Spork can type his ABCs,
let's all eat a plate of cheese.

Actually, I've had the keyboard since last week, but it's been a horror trying to locate a PS2 -> AT adapter for it. CompUSA didn't have one, neither did PCW Computer. RadioShack was a bust, likewise for Circuit City. Computer Renaissance didn't even have one! So, where did I finally find one? Staples!!!
I immediately thought of their slogan, "Yeah, we got that," and I think I'll send off a nice complimentary email to the good folks at Staples. :)

Now, if only I can remember how to blog...

*$igh*

I_got_&_#euu_Cey6o&r9_&_pheuu_9ey$_&go_
6ut_I_c&#'t_phi#9_&_phricCi#g_&9&pter_---

I_got_&_P$2_Cey6o&r9_ _&#_&T_touuer,,,
I'9_h&ve_&#_e&$ier_time_phi#9i#g_
&_p&cC_ov_5-1\4"_phIoppie$,,,,
:P

Lunch With Stephen

So, anyway, I walked into GUSTO: the Fine Art of Italian Living at about 11:50am for my scheduled noon luncheon with Stephen Macklin of Hold The Mayo. Having suddenly realized that Stephen and I hadn't prepared a way to recognize each otherI said to the hat check girl (is the term "hat check girl" still allowed these days? I mean, since they don't actually check yer hat anymore but simply walk you to a table?):
"I'm meeting someone I've never met before and his name is Stephen Macklin. So, if some guy comes in alone ask him if he's 'looking for Tuning Spork' and if he says 'Yes' then lead him to wherever I'm sitting."

"Uh," she smiled nervously, "Okay..."

My worst nightmare was that he'd be some high-strung, high maintenance personality that would have me on edge just trying to keep pace with his barrage of ideological incessentness. But, as it turned out, he was exactly what I expected -- a very intelligent, down to earth and welcoming fella. Almost immediately we were just two easygoing guys having lunch and asking each other a slew of challenging questions.

OH! That reminds me: the trivia questions!

Ted asked 7 questions; Stephen correctly answered 5 of 'em.
He knew that Nathaniel Herreschoff had designed 5 winning boats;
that the USA, Australia, New Zealand had successfully defended the America's Cup -- though England and Switzerland had yet to. (What's the deal with land-locked Switzerland and yachting? Isn't that on an odd par with the Jamiacan Bobsled Team?);
that the Orcs originated from the Elves;
that white was the color of the handprint on the faces of the Uruk-hai;
that saffron is the most expensive spice.

He did NOT know that vanilla is the 2nd most expensive spice, or that Saruman and Gollum had never met.

LeeAnn stumped Stephen on all 4 of her questions. 0 for 4! (LeeAnn, you're a tough room!)
He did NOT know that fortune cookies were invented in San Francisco in 1916;
that it takes 10 days to make a jellybean;
that the first America's Cup challenge was held in 1851, or;
that Gary Cooper played the male lead in the motion picture adaption of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.

Annika asked 10 questions of Stephen (but only 5 of me... she apparantly missed the rule about submitting an equal number of questions to each of us, but, that's okay: she'll always be cool 'cause we love 'er!).
Stephen scored 5 of 10.
He knew that pressing ctrl + eject will present a SHUT DOWN button;
that UNIX was a system that Mac OS X was based on;
that Gandalf said "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give that to them?";
that "Dominique Francon" was the name of Roark's love interest in The Fountainhead", and;
that Ellsworth Toohey was the architectural critic for The Banner.

He did NOT recall that Jim Rome's nickname for Dennis Connor is Leatherface;
that the asymetric spinnaker used in light breexes while sailing downwind (and first used in the America's Cup in 1983 on the Australia II) is called a "gennaker";
that "Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world. Small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere" was spoken by Elrond;
that two synonyms (in English parlance-Ed.)> for "chick peas" are Garbanzo beans and Ceci beans, or;
that Fugu (or: Blowfish) is the fish that they eat in Japan that contains a deadly poison and may only be prepared by a cook with a special license.

Jennifer sent 5 questions and Stephen got 2 1/2 of 'em. Huh? Yeah....! (We can do that.)
He knew that the hatch under the bow is called the Sewer;
that Auld Mug is the nickname of the America's Cup;
and that cows are half of the answer to "What animals have been used in the production of mozzerella?"
He did NOT know that Water Buffalo milk was originally used for mozzerella;
that the pizzaria came to the U.S. via Frank Pepe in 1925 (and, 'round h'yar, we still call it "apizza" [pronounced: ah-'beets), or;
that Speed & Smarts is the name of David Dellenbaugh's racing newsletter even though Stephen was a subscriber several years back. Yikes! I call for leniency on the grounds of shock-induced brain-lock.. If y'can't remember what y'paid for then yer prob'ly thinkin' too hard!

Susie asked 1 question: How many dwarves left Bag-End with Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins on the journey to fight Smaug?"
Stephen guesstimated 7. But, according to Susie, it was 13.

Victor and Christopher asked questions that, mainly, did not have any supplied answers. I'm going to address them in a seperate post at some point over the weekend (yeah, right!). Hey, it's late and I'm tired!

Mucho Gratuities to all of yous who took the time to supply Stephen and I with a starting point to a meeting between two strangers who didn't know if they had anything in common other than being fellow Munuvians. If you're all as open and welcoming as Stephen then we seriously need to get together for the First Annual Munuvian Luau From Hell!!!

HEY! These Questions Aren't Gonna Ask Themselves!!!

Hear ye! Hear ye! You have 24 hours to submit trivia questions to Stephen Macklin and Tuning Spork in their 5 chosen fields of "expertise"!

We have a grand total of 6 (six) questions so far; 5 from Ted and 1 from Susie.
Let's get with it, People! We've got to have some super-salient Munuvian input hyar! !

Oh...Ted's promising the non-innocent version of JenLars' boobage!! (Ask him about it, not me. I got the innocent version when I was merely her frickin' fiance...)

The first annual Fairfield County Munuvian Blogger Trivia Invitational.

Yes, it's the First Annual Fairfield County Munuvian Blogger Trivia Invitational to be held in... er.. New Haven County, Connecticut... and everyone's invited!

Stephen Macklin and Tuning Spork will be meeting for lunch on Friday, March 5th -- the first time either of them will come face to face with a fellow Munuvian. But we can't let mutual respect and commeraderie come between them now can we? They must compete! This is where you come in!

They've decided to invite you, their beloved readers, to pose to them trivia questions in their 5 chosen categories of "expertise". (That doesn't mean that they are, in fact, experts in those categories, but merely that those are the categories in which they'd like to be asked challenging questions!)

Stephen's chosen categories are:
1) Sailboat racing
2) Mac OS
3) Lord of the Rings
4) Food
5) Objectivism

Spork's chosen categories are:
1) The Beatles
2) Watergate
3) Offset printing presses
4) General Relativity and/or Classical Mechanics (non-Quantum Physics)
5) The Simpsons

Your task -- should you decide to accept it -- is to provide to each of them trivia questions (including the answers!!!) in their chosen categories which shall be posed to them, respectively, during their feeding frenzy at Gusto's next Friday. Make them easier; make them harder; make them funner; make them retarded. Whatever!

One thing (not that we're askin' for anything unreasonable): As they'd like to have an equal number of questions posed to each: If you send two questions for Stephen to Spork, send two for Spork to Stephen.

Now, if there is a question that you have for either of them that you don't know the answer to, and are asking only because you'd like to know the answer, that'll be fine, too. We're flexible. Just write:
Q: [insert question]
A: You tell me, Smartypants.

Questions for Stephen Macklin should be emailed to Tuning Spork at robertwarrenjones@juno.com
and questions for Spork should be emailed to Stephen at blogmail@optonline.net .
The deadline is, I suppose, in one week on Thursday, March 4th 11:00pm EST.

Keep in mind that they will be posing your trivia questions to each other while they're busy chawing on pizza, pasta, meatball grinders and bread dipped in flavored olive oil, so make 'em pithy and direct!

A splendid time is guaranteed for all!!!

The Bloggers of Munuvia

Okay, now I'm losing it. I've decided to try my hand at another Bud Light-esque ad, but on a new subject. :)

"Olde Drunk Ale", btw, was the name some friends and I gave to our homebrew about ten years ago, so I'm gonna use that instead of Duff Lite.
Maybe I'll write some more of these and fire up the ol' 8-track recorder and post 'em! Nah...

Olde Drunk Ale presents: The Bloggers of Munuvia

*The bloggers of Munuvia...*

Today we salute you: LeeAnn of The Cheese Stands Alone

*...LeeAnn of the Cheese Stands Alone...!*

For letting us taste a slice of life among your whacky neighbors like the screaming newlyweds and Superman-san,

*...where's the pepper spray...*

and while most of us, once in while, come across a stray sock or empty soda bottle laying on our front sidewalk, you, LeeAnn, found a Thanksgiving turkey.

*...ooo, please pass the gravy... *

And, thanks to your penchant for revealing yourself through quizilla, we can wake up and smell the provolone knowing full well what kind of lunatic, which character from American Graffiti, and, of course, what kind of cheese you really are.

the girls: *...a log of leerdammer...*

So, for the sake of every Bobo's choice and with every bird that commits suicide against your window glass we, your faithful readers, will return with a regularity more certain than even the Friday Five.

*...thank god for fiber...*

So put down that pillow and crack open an ice cold Olde Drunk Ale, because when the Munuvians get together for their annual Christmas party, we know what you'll bring to the fiesta: cheddar, stilton, brie and maybe a little bleu -- all neatly diced and cubed ...

the girls: *...chop, chew, chat...*

and when anyone asks "who cut the cheese?" you can proudly stand alone and say "I did, I cut the cheese."

*...ooo, LeeAnn of the Cheese Stands Alo-o-o-o-ne.......*

Olde Drunk Ale, Northwestern Munuvia.

500th Comment

I just got my 500th comment. Woo Hoo!!!
It was from that 62.213.67.122 spammer. D'oh!!!
So I banned the sucker. Woo Hoo!!!

Xmas Hiatus

BTW, don't waste yer time lookin' here for a couple o' days. I'll be pretty busy and I'm not likely to be posting 'til Friday. Unless, of course, I change my mind. ;)

Judges Challenge

Week Two of the King of the Blogs competiton is underway!
The three remaining challengers have answered the Judges Challenge, provided by Harvey of Bad Money:

Your significant female other asks you, "Does this dress make me look fat?"

How do you respond? Details a Must.

Y'mean, if I had it to do all over again? I'd pretend I'd gone deaf. Here's what happened the last time I answered that question:

"Honey," she coo'd from the bedroom doorway, "Does this dress make me
look fat?"

"Oh, yeah!" I exclaimed. "I love it! It makes you look so phat
that all the other guys are gonna wish they were me tonight!"

"WHAT?!" she shouted as she searched for something heavy to throw but
finding only magazines and cats.

"Babykins! I've never seen you look so phat!" I consoled. "The
way that dress hugs your form; those colors... You must be the phattest
chick this side o' the Mississippi."

"How can you say that to me?!" she whimpered causing me to look
away, "I don't wanna be fat!"
As the tears began to flow I knew that I had to give her a hug.

"There, there." I said as I stroked her hair. "Why don't you want to
look phat? Are we getting so old that we actually reject the current
"look"? Should we just resign ourselves to a safe non-descript
appearance? I want you to look phat, Honeybunch. Tonight and for the
foreseeable future I want you to look phat." .

"*sniffle* You do?" she said as she looked up at me.

"Oh, yes. Yes, Indeed, I do."

Now she weighs 280 pounds and spends her evenings sitting on the couch in
her underwear while scraping the bottom of a peanut butter jar with a
plastic knife. All to please me.
Word to the wise: Never underestimate the importance of making sure that
you and your gal are speaking the same language and, more importantly,
never speak in lingo that's too young for you.

Oh, the question! "Does the dress make her look fat?" Depending on the
dress, of course, the correct answer is either a "No"; or b
"Well, it does seem a little repressive..."

I'm probably toast in this round since Clarity amid Chaos and Vigilance Matters wrote excellent answers. Oh, well.

your mission:

Get on over to King Of The Blogs and vote for me.

NOW!!!

King of the Blogs

For some unknown reason I've decided to enter myself in the King Of The Blogs competition.
I don't think I have any chance of advancing for several reasons:

1) My number of posts in any given day is usually one (1).
2) I don't always post on every given day.
3) I don't care if I win or lose, I just want to have fun. Yay for fun!
4) My blog sucks.

But I've accepted the Host's Challenge anywho, and hyar 'tis:

You are marooned on an island with the rest of the contestants in the King of the Blogs tournament. How would you survive amongst the other contestants, and what strategies would you use to do this? Please explain in detail.

Romulus and I will build our huts. Pylorns and Anonymous (Vigilance Matters) will scout the island and collect food (muscular mammals prefered). Brian will pray for our deliverance.

If food is, or becomes, scarce then we will eat the vegetarians.
If there are no vegetarians among us then we will eat Brian. He's a Christian family man and probably has taken good care of himself. As there would be four of us and only one of him, slaughtering him should be easy.

After Brian we'll eat Romulus. He seems pretty competitive; so I think I could convince Pylorns and Anonymous that he's too dangerous to allow lasting until the situation becomes desperate. As there would be three of us and only one of him, slaughtering him shouldn't be too difficult.

If the rest of us are still stranded and hungry then we'll just have to target Pylorns next. He's kinda competitive, too, and has a pretty blog. I hate that. Seeing as there'd be two of us and only one of him, slaughtering him might kill one of us but not both of us. As I have no intention of dying, it would be Anonymous, and Pylorns and I could eat him/her. Only, shhh, I wouldn't eat.

I'd wait until Pylorns is well fed and sated on Anonymous and dozes off. That's when I get to begin preparing a nice Pylorns/Anonymous brine stew.

At this point I'd begin praying to be rescued. I just hope it doesn't happen during dinner.
Mmmm....stew......

Consent of the Governed

We hold these Truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the Governed.

The posts can be about recent events such as the Massachussetts Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, or historical Court rulings, acts of Legislatures or Executive branch initiatives and protocols.
The essays wouldn't be so much about policy per se, but about the process of governing under the rule of Law.

For examples of somewhat what I have in mind you can take a gander at THIS, THIS and/or THIS post from my archives.
Frequent citings from the Federalist Papers is encouraged!! (There'll be a link on the blog to a complete indexed collection of the F.P.s)

The posts don't have to be exclusive to the group blog. You can post your entry on your own blog, then copy/paste it over to Consent, using the group blog essentially as a repository for our "rule of Law" posts.
I'd like to get a bunch of us in on this so that none of us feels like we have to post more than a couple of times a week.

So who wants in?! Daniel? Noel? Tiger? Anybody out there?

WTF?!!!!

I went to google.com and searched "Paris Hilton Hotel Video" just to see if blatherreview.mu.nu would show up on the list. I didn't even click on any of the links and yet, when I got back to my front page I saw that the word "Nude" my most post below was highlighted with a link to some porn site!

So I logged into the mu.nu home base, and there was no html link there. So I had to delete the word "Nude."

But now I've got links on my IE browser to three (3) different Paris Hilton movie sites! I brought up my Desktop and there were several icons linking to Paris Hilton sites!! WTF?!!!!!!

So I deleted those,a nd emptied the recycle bin. Went into My Computer and deleted all my Temporary Internet Files, the Temp file (which had two files that were created today but I had no idea what they were), and two unknown Downloaded Programs.

Also, my Juno homepage has been replaced with something called spidersearch.com. I went to Control Panel and replaced it with juno.com again, but everytime I open the IE browser spidersearch.com is back! WTF?!!!!!!

I finally got the browser to open with newsmax.com as the homepage, but after a few seconds I get the "This program has committed an illegal operation yadda yadda and will be shut down" window!! I can't use my Internet Explorer!!
WTF?!!!!

I already did a Start-Shut Down-Restart, so I'm guessing that if I just hit the reset button everything will still be there. Does anybody know how I can return the browser/'puter to the way it was an hour ago?

Man. *sigh* WTF?!!!!!

UPDATE: I went further into the guts fo My Computer and deleted all my cookies and some other suspicious crap. Still have those Paris Hilton links on my brower, and still can't go anywhere because of the "illegal Operation" crud.
Maybe I just need to uninstall IE and then go to microsoft.com and download it anew.

UPDATE 2 Su-sie! Su-sie! Su-sie!
I went to the link she left in the comments and removed a couple of "dangerous programs"! One was called "Gator", and there were two others I don't remember. The Paris Hilton links are gone from Internet Explorer, and I can use it without getting the "illegal operation" shutdown!
All hail Susie; the First Lady of Munuvia! Yay!!!

Google This

Here's my attempt to get myself out of Ecosystem free-fall (not that I care about such triviality....)

Anna Kournikova tight shorts ! Paris Hilton grainy video ! XXX ! Naked babe celebrities on tape ! JFK is still dead ! Madonna still can't sing ! Michael Jackson is still 12 years old ! The Reagans on Showtime ! Laci Peterson ! J-Lo and Ben are boring ! Prince Charles gay tampon Diana murdered in Paris Hilton video hotel tape ! YYY ?! Intrique ! Death and grief and sorrow and murder ! Pimpjuice ! Linkin' Park Kids On The Block ! Wesley Clark is insane ! Democrats draft Walter Mondale to run for President ! Zzz...

Let's see if this gets any google traffic. ;)

Where The Hell Am I?

I'm right here; trying to retype a post that I spent the past hour composing and then lost for no apparent reason. (No, I did not push the Back button this time.)

"What have I been doing?" I hear no one asking...
I've been sitting here, doing crossword puzzles, mulling over the big picture. It's not that I'm on some back to basics kick or anything, but I haven't visited a blog nor turned on the TV in days. It actually feels quite liberating to know that I have no idea of what's going on with Laci Peterson., Jessica Lynch or Amy Fischer.
Now I think I know how Rachel Lucas felt about 6 months ago; when blogging starts to feel like a chore then it's probably in the wrong slot.

My favorite tech support guy/repair man, John Keach, came by this morning to assist me with an electrical problem I'd been having with one of my printing presses. The man's pushing 90 and recently had quintuple bypass heart surgery. He was tired when he showed up and I began to feel ashamed for having asked him to come by. But seeming to sense that he mentioned "If you can't leave the house then you might as well just leave."

When we were teenagers we dreamed of retirement. Man, we were stupid.

I'm Still Here!

I'm not on hiatus or anything; I just haven't had anything to post.
Well, actually I did, yesterday...but the server was down. Oh well.

I think it's mainly that the Karbon Kopy Killer thang kinda drained my creative juices for a few days and only my blog sibs Susie and Ted cared enough to comment along with it. Now I know how the Bartender feels! (I know, I know, Taylor: you chimed in, too, with help*cough*ful advice... [and,sorry, I couldn't find a way to link to a particular post to yer blog...])

It's not that I'm easily drained or anything, but I think I'll just go ahead and make it an even week of slackery and post on Wednesday. Yeah, that's the ticket...

How Much Do You Really Wanna Know?

Kevin says he'd like to see a Women of the Blogosphere Playboy pictorial. Good idea? (Jennifer has refused to appear before anyone bothered to ask, though LeeAnn says she'll do it in a bared heartbeat!) :)

Kevin also supplies a link to a collection of Blog Chicks Pix. But, I dunno...

The more I think about it the more I like the mystery of not knowing what the sexiest babes in the blogosphere actually look like.

I mean, in my imagination they all look like this:

So why would I ever want to ruin it by seeing them like this?:

Am I alone on this, guys?

(My eternal thanks to the fiercely erotic, and always historically accurate, JenLars for putting the pics to the post!)

LANGUAGE ALERT!! (Hide the kids and pets)

Pardon my fucking French but may I vent? Of course I may.

I just spent 45 fucking minutes composing a requiem for rachellucas.com. It was a beautiful and heart-felt expression of my appreciation for what the blog-goddess has meant to so many of us.

I was introduced to the blogosphere by my friend; Freedom's Slave. And for the first six months of my blog-awareness Rachel was toppermost of the bloggermost. Sassy and smart, thoughtful and fun, and now she's essentially calling it quits.

What a post I wrote!!

And then when I went to post it I discovered that I'd been knocked off-line already.
I read "Access of the fucking website you thought you were logged onto is not available" or some such thing.

Here's the fucking killer: You can't "Back" into a site that you're not connected to. The entire post was gone vanished kaput erased from existence in that blink of an eye. FFFFFuuuuuuuccckkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!

When will I finally fucking learn to post in Word and then copy/paste it to the blog? When?! ANSWER ME!!!

Okay, bottom line: Rachel Lucas is moving on and I'm hating my computer and my fingers and my blog sucks ass. Other than that, there ain't much happenin'.

UPDATE: Wow! I was really p.o.'d last night, eh? Heh heh, I was so young and stupid then...

Uuuuuuuh.....

It's 11:08pm EDT, I was working on a cool post, and was three paragraphs into it, when it disappeared.

Just. F^#%@&*ng. Disappeared.

Wha'happen'?

I'm Still Here

Yay! A post!

I know, my blog has been sucking rocks for a few weeks now. I haven't even bothered with blogging in 4 days and I don't know what's wrong with me. Oh, wait! Yes I do.
In no particular order:

A friend of mine got sick and checked himself into a crappy hospital. The so-called doctors at this crappy hospital convinced him that he was dying. He started to sell-off the entire inventory of his used record and collectibles store.
After a few weeks he got suspicious and checked himself into a real hospital. He's fine now, perfectly healthy, but his business is shot. Now he's gonna salvage what he can and contunue to sell on-line.

Incidentally, what made him suspicious and check-out was the day a guy got hit by a car just outside the hospital and they couldn't treat him.
Sounds like a job for Jacoby and Meyers.

I hate the Marlins for the way they dismantled their team after winning the World Series in '97, but I can't root for the Yankees either (what with them being an American League team and me being a Mets fan). I have no one to root for here. Dang! A Cubs-Red Sox series was so close I could smell it.

Joe Buck seems like a nice enough and well-informed guy, but jeeze, how 'bout some energy?! Bring back Al Michaels. At least McCarver doesn't seem to be talking ad nauseum lately about things like how the top spin of the grounder made it scoot toward the palm side of the infielder's glove, or why the 2-1 count was the perfect time for the pitcher to look sideways at the sprinkler system.

I'm smoking again, but it's different now. Spookily different.
Whereas I was smoking two packs a day, now I can open a pack on Wednesday afternoon and not finish it 'til Friday morning. I think my subconscious finally got the message.
The pack I had when I got up this morning had 5 cigarettes in it, and I'm -- let's see -- 4 cigarettes into the next one. 9 coughin' nails in 15 hours! Good; not great.

I don't smoke at work anymore, and even yesterday (Saturday) I went without until about 5pm. As long as I'm active I'm fine, but I just can't relax, say, at the computer, and not crave a ciggie. Small steps, Sporky, small steps....

My monitor hasn't seen fit to fix itself yet so alot of websites and blogs are unreadable to me. Tiny dark text on a bright white background is a no-no!
I haven't been able to read IMAO or the Emporer in weeks, and even many mu.nu blogs are too hard on the eyes to get through.

Caught In The X Fire is fine since it -- like this -- has a dark background and light text. And I can get through Susie, Jennifer and Rocket with some relative ease. The more dark colors there are on the screen the better. Too many brights bleach out the text, and enlarging the font actually makes it harder to read. The broken/bleached letters just look biggerly broken and bleached-outier.

Oh well. The Yankees won and have evened up the series, so it ain't any closer to being overwith.
Wow, I seem to be in a bad and/or lethargic mood lately. If the news doesn't pick up I'll just have to start posting my friends' darkest secrets or something. mweheheheh.

UPDATE: Sorry, couldn't provide any links. My 'puter seems to want to freeze everytime I try to clickity in a URL.
Now where's that sledgehammer....

Trolls suck, I know...but jeeze..

Remember Abner Lewima? That guy that got a plunger shoved up his sphincter by Justin Volpe, et al? You do? Good!

For the longest time I called Bullshit on Lewima's story. I couldn't believe an NYPD officer would do such a thing. When Abner's story - as reported in the media - started to show signs of tweaking I thought "aha! it's all crap!". I knew it!

Then Volpe confessed! Con-f@#$%-fessed! WTF?!!!

That's when I gave up on my quest to understand people.
Mine and your understanding of life isn't the only understanding there is out there. People in strange situations think thoughts we never even knew could be thunk. Hell, even people in normal situations think thoughts we never knew could be thunk.

Which brings me to the strange case of S-Train. As Susie said: What's wrong with people?!
S-Train has quit blogging because some have questioned the validity of his story. In fact, some (Andrew H, I'm looking in your direction) have gone out of their way to haphazzardly "fact-check" his story. I just gotta say
Get over it, S-Train.

I think it's probably easier for you to understand Andrew's skeptism than it is for Andrew to understand your immediate reality/predicament.
But never mind that. The thing is: WTF? You didn't want critical feedback? No challenging retort? No persistant demons? Gimme a break!
Bogging is a commitment...even if you have two readers (yer mom and yer best friend)...and you gotta be willing to take some Comments if you presume to post yer own.

So, what's it gonna be?
Blog to yer silly friends, or blog to the world? What's it gonna be, Train?
What's it gonna be?

Now that Collins has been found...

...maybe we should send out a search party for two others:

Tim the Michigander
missing since Sept 28th, 2003

The Lemon
missing since Sept 21st, 2003

Oh, and my monitor's still screwy. Pages with dark backgrounds and light text (like this one, or Andrew Sullivan) are easy to read. But pages with light backgrounds wash out the text, and bright white backgrounds are blinding! Argh!
I try to read all the mu.nu blogs every day, but some are just too straining on the eyes right now; and I haven't been able to read IMAO or the Emperor in days. *sigh*

Tomacco Field on my Desk

First my keyboard, now my monitor.
The post below, O Happy Monday, is a draft that I haven't fleshed out yet (i.e. added the laffs!), but I posted it because I can barely see what I'm typing on my monitor.

I went to Munuvia to see if I could find a way to have smilies and frownies in the post, and clicked on Pixy Misa's big batch of smilies. Granted, he wrote "Warning: this may set your screen on fire" or something, but I went ahead and clicked anyway.

After a few minutes of waiting for it to load I noticed at the bottom: "2384 items remaining." Aaaah! Get me outta here!! I couldn't click "stop" or "back", and suddenly the screen lit up with this greenish goldish nuclear glow. Oddly beautiful, but I think it's a radiation hazzard.

I shut down and re-booted twice, and it's still f'd up. I don't know if the smilies link is the cause or if it's just coincidence, but, dang it, I'm typing semi-blinded here!!

At least this -- unlike the keyboard problem -- wont affect things on your end! :)

Aaaah, the Beauty of a Banner

Yeeeeehaw!!

Thanks the Baroness of Banners I've finally got a decent header! It went from idea to reality in under an hour. Whaddaya think?

Thanks Jen!!

(Now if I can just think of something other than breakfast to blog about.)

To The Emperor

Emperor Misha has made a terrible mistake and acidentally deleted all comments..I, I said Awwwl comments, y'hear?

The one you left this morning, the one you left last night; last month; last year. They're all gone.

My message to Emperor Misha the 1st & Only:

Wow.
And I mean: wow.
I can't even muster the energy to capitalize or type an exclamation point.

This is a tragic loss. So much wisdom and salty snark that'll just have to be re-lived the old fashioned way.

Oh well, folks, looks like we'll just hafta sssssssssssay it again!!!!
YeeeeeeeeeHAW!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll miss every MUMIA post, and the posts of Lord Spatula. But, honestly, I think I'll miss our recent LC Natasha's posts the most.

And I'll miss all of the considered arguments presented by George Turner, Da Goddess and Lady Two Dragons.
All of the wonderful scribblings of Serenity and Ripper, and Kim and the Mrs.
The beautiful prose of Michelle, and especially the non-idiotarian Mats.

We'll survive. Here's the trick:

Imagine that g-d Himself came to you two years ago and said:
"Mike, I'm gonna let you have a blog -- a really successful blog -- that attracts several hundred visitors a frickin' day:"
(okay, g-d wouldn't say "frickin'" but you get the pitcher.....)

He adds; "You'll be able to read the most amazing, enlightening and fullfilling feedback...comments beyond your wildest dreams; from dissenters and kindred spirits alike. A splendid (and sometimes savagely stimulating) time is guaranteed for all!!
But there's a condition:
On September 29th, 2003, I'm gonna take those comments away, never to be read again.
Whadda ya say?"

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.............

"Give 'em to me, Lord." I think I hear. "That's a win-win offer if I've ever heard one! Until September 29th I want. that. blog. And then, uh, I'll take it from there...and promise never again to fuck it up!!"

So many moons and so many memories. It was not for naught: you've made a difference that can't be erased by a slip of the thumb.
Be proud, Emperor; the past is still carried within us. Nothing is lost so long as it's remembered, and so much is memorable!

Yet, for our fallen scribblings, let us bow our heads in a moment of silence.

Excelsior!

Aw crap, let's just party!!!!!!!!!

Link Love

Jennifer has an idea about getting more links. Let's see if it works. ;)

Front Page For the Blogless

Well, I got nothin' today. All my ideas would require hours of typing and I'm kinda..oh, I dunno...feeling kinda listless. (Hmm, maybe I could make a list of some kind...)

But I found an excellent comment over at the Emporer's palace by a regular LC who calls himself "Ripper".
And, since he doesn't have his own blog, I thought I might presume to get him out of the Comments boxes and onto the front page... right here.

Responding to the notion that we ought to get over 9/11 and just move on awready, Ripper wrote:

"I was thinking about this very subject this morning, for some reason.
Would any of those who urge we "move on" from 9/11 dare to tell professional widow Coretta Scott King to "get over" her husband's death?
And shouldn't blacks just get over slavery - it's been 138 years since the Civil War, after all!
And my gosh, when will those whiny Yids get over the Holocaust?
Besides, what about my Holocaust? What about the murder of the (Armenians / Native Americans / Irish / insert your grievance group here)? Why is it that where the fault can be laid to America's door, we are encouraged - nay, even commanded - to pick at the festering wound again and again, never to forget and never to "move on". . .but somehow the destruction of the Twin Towers and the wanton murder of thousands of people in the heart of New York is something we should simply have had enough of in two short years."

Those who would have us "get over" 9/11 show the level to which they were (un)angered by the murder of 3,000+ innocent bystanders in the jihadist war against individual Liberty.
I suppose, also, that we should have called it quits in December 1943 since it had been two years since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor?
The motivation of the self-loathing move-oners is simple: If it's in Americans' interests it's wrong.
Ripper concluded:

"Screw them. Continue "offending daily," Glorious One - that's why I come here."
Posted by Ripper at September 18, 2003 01:31 PM