LaserBlog.com

I’m becoming a scrabble junkie. I bought a nice new set for home and going to friends, and found a kewl downloadable version at yahoo for playing the computer or other players online (not sure about the online part). I have to figure out if MSN IM or YIM have player vs. player scrabble. I’m a NERD! Wanna play? Email me.

UPDATE: Link to online game, Yahoo’s “Literati” is the same as scrabble pretty much.

I had no idea that ipod batteries were short-lived and not meant to be replaced. Yikes! This article offers a solution.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/computers/article/0,12543,588084,00.html

Thanks to a friend for giving me this article.

This person has a neat photoblog. I especially like this closeup shot of a bird: click here.

I added an entry today to the laserblog.com/photoblog (which is different from my “My Backyard” photoblog, which, by the way, I did add to last night). This one is my entry into this week’s Photo Friday challenge. The theme this week is “black and white” and I entered my very favorite black and white photo that I’ve done, check it out.

Last night Crystal tried to attack Sasha, and I got in between them (I’ll be damned if I’ll let my Sasha get hurt, she’s old and fragile) and I’m all scratched up and bruised. The bruises showed up today. Blood. I am not happy about this. That photo shows only SOME of the damage.

Why is it that it’s ONLY when you are in a dire hurry that the internet connection screeches to a halt!?

Duct tape purses!
http://www.ducttapecreations.com/products/totesandhandbags.html

I keep forgetting to go out and take my Daily Shot for my My Backyard photoblog. I’m anxious to get going in the morning, and when I get back I’m either distracted or tired or both.

I’m tired and cranky. My shoulder hurts for no reason, except M’s shoulder hurts real bad from the gym, so maybe it’s sympathy pains.

Every day I wonder if I have a cold. I’m plagued by awful allergies and when I first get up, I sneeze and run for hours so bad that I have no idea whether I’m sick or if it’s just allergies. I’m so sick of it. I’ve been like this for over 10 years. I’m expecting my nose to just fall off one day from blowing it too much.

The thing about the whole Fridays issue is that while their lawyers are so freaking afraid fo being sued because somebody wanted medium-rare steak, but meanwhile their tile floors are TOTALLY SLIMY AND WET! Wet is not bad, but wet on top of slimy??? The entire restaurant is a skating rink. I was sliding around like Bambi on the frozen lake. I almost went down. So meanwhile I can’t even have steak the way I like it (I HATE steak that is cooked more then med-rare) because of their lawyers, but they could give a shit about me breaking my neck.

I’m boycotting them. This whole thing is nuts.

No, not the day, the restaurant. I go there, order my fav steak sticks, and am told I CAN’T have them med-rare or rare. They can’t be liable for illness. LIABLE?!?!? Then make me sign a damn release but GIVE me my medium-rare steak?

Laywers are going to RUIN this country!

(are “going to“???)

I wrote this whole post earlier, walked away to have dinner, didn’t save it, watched Six Feet Under, and while watching that, the laptop, all by itself, just shut off and restarted. Lost the post. So here I go, again.

I had almost completely forgotten about our first digital camera, a Polaroid PDC-700. [No, I don't have software or drivers for it so don't even contact me about that or I'll just ignore you.] It ate batteries like nothing I’ve ever seen. We bought it at a Wal Mart that was about 2 miles away and by the time we got home the batteries were DEAD. But it was fun cuz it was our first digital camera. I’d almost forgotten about it cuz the folder of “polaroid” pix was in a different place on my computer. I only found recently cuz I was searching for a particular photo and it turned up in that folder in the search results.

I also found this picture which is just great. It’s of our porch back when we were in our apartment and cat was on the porch and her eyes reflected like CRAZY when the flash went off:

Why is it that people can hear your words and take it 180-degrees wrong from what you SAID?

I mean, you say something, and your words at face value, I guess, are meaningless, because you can intend one thing and have the listener ‘hear’ a completely different thing than you indended. I just don’t get it and it drives me nuts. And inevitably it seems to be that it’s usually people whom you would not be friends with by choice, but they are in your life whether you like it or not.

[[ nevermind]]

It’s like being in a bad dream. Or on the Twilight Zone. Or on a bad reality show. It’s the feeling you’d get if you said to somebody “good morning” and they turned around and said “well it’s not MY fault it’s raining”. I mean, you’re like HUH?????

I should just stop freaking being nice to people.

Whoa. I had no idea birds could open their mouths open that wide.
http://www.dphotoonline.com/gallery4/g4_35.htm

I hate thinking up subject lines.
Went for sushi.
Went to camera store.
Went to local mall to take pix and meet Mom.
Checked out the new Fresh Market.
Weather is getting HOT. Not happy about that.
Added pix to website (as u can see in the last 2 posts).
Also added another daily shot to my “My Backyard” photoblog.
Now I think I’ll go download some video from my new video cam (oh yeah, btw I got a nice new video cam.) Seems all I do in my spare time is work on the computer.

Ok, another folder of pix from this week has been added to the gallery. These are from today, taken at a local mall w/ my D60. I got one circular polarizing filter today. I need one more. And a macro lens.
.:PHOTOS:.

A new folder of photos has been added to the gallery. These were taken w/ my D60. They are just pix from around town as I went about my errands yesterday.
.:PHOTOS:.

According to the main page of my Movable Type interface, I have “999 entries”, which means that this will be my 1000′th entry! Whoo! Well, that’s a rough number since I do have a bunch of entries from before I started using Movable Type and also some entries have probably been deleted over time. So it’s a rough number. But still, entry number 1000! Let’s go get a drink!

Anyway…

I have added a shot to my “My Backyard” photoblog.

Mother of god. My nerves are shot. I just got home. I got pulled over by a cop just after entering my subdivision. I was pulled over cuz he thought I was driving too close to a dump truck. It had nothing to do w/ speeding or anything else. He did not give me a ticket. He did not give me a written warning. Nothing. He let me go. We talked and he let me go. My driving record continues to be perfectly clean. I should feel lucky.

Here’s the thing: Many cars (i.e. neighbors) slowed down REAL slow to take a good look at me, to see who got pulled over (it’s a small neighborhood within a larger planned community). It was so obvious that even the cop said to me “do you know those people? What is THEIR problem?” and he pulls people over every day. Not only that, but when I went to pull away, I realized that a mini-van had pulled over behind the cop to watch the whole thing. Stupid nosy *ssholes!

Now, one of the reasons this really has me upset is because we already have people in this neighborhood who are complaining about speeders in our neighborhood because their kids play in the streets, etc. First of all, they think that people who are going the speed limit are speeding. Also, they don’t teach their kids to mind cars, they refuse to get out of the street when a car goes by. One time a kid, get this, LAID DOWN in the street right in front of M’s car while driving down the street! They run in front of cars, or if they’re on their bikes they’ll stop right in the middle of the road and stare at you. The parents aren’t TEACHING them HOW to play in the street. We played in the streets all the time growing up, but we MOVED for cars when they came and constantly watched for them.

I’m afraid that neighbors will start saying “See? The speeding is so bad they’re getting pulled over now” or god forbid: “Even a board member got pulled over!” (I am on the board of directors for our neighborhood.)

This whole thing has me upset. And the cop kept saying stuff like “If that school bus had had it’s red lights on when you turned, that’d be ANOTHER ticket which would bring you up to X number of points which is one point away from losing your license, and you have a totally clean record.” It was SO hard NOT to say: “Well, the school bus was a quarter mile away and his red lights WERE NOT ON so it’s F*CKING IRRELEVANT, NOW, ISN’T IT!?!?!?!?” I mean, was it REALLY necessary to dangle that over my head when it was something that I DIDN’T even do???

I wish I had a punching bag. I need to hit something.

Good gawd it takes FOREVER to do a “rebuild all files” in MT now. I realized yesterday that some of my templates were missing the “enter this code to comment” thingy. I tried to copy/paste it in but a rebuild of indexes didn’t show it. So I’m doing a rebuild-all and it’s taking forever!!! I bet when it’s done it’ll be all messed up. I gotsta go to bed. I’m tired and cranky. G’nite. W/ all the recent crap re. MT and MT being a pain in the *ss, I may have to start looking into blogging alternatives.

Just to piss THIS guy off, I’m going to blog ALL about how my cat barfed on my piano lesson book.

I’ve had kitty for 17 years and she barfs all the time. I don’t mind picking it up cuz it’s just cat food. It’s not really vomit. But she barfs ON things. Shoes, bags, books, carpet, unwashable things.

Well, this time she vomited on one of our piano lesson books. Vomit is different from regurgitated cat food that was just consumed. But this time it was vomit, and I’ll leave it at that.

I tried to rescue the book w/ 409, Lysol, and some clear packing tape. But the damage was too extensive.

If people like that guy are mad cuz they aren’t finding what they searched on google for here, then learn to read search engine results. Look at the page titles, look at the urls. “That guy” has no right to tell me how to blog, where to blog, or what tool to use to blog. “That guy” sounds like he really needs to get laid.

Who gives a sh*t about me. Who gives a _ _ _ _ about this blog. Do I care?

I don’t know what’s wrong w/ me. I feel weird tonight. Maybe I’m depressed.

I feel useless. Like I’m not doing enough w/ my life. I took a hiatus from work (perfect timing w/ my brother getting sick and then his subsequent death) but now I just feel like my life has no direction.

I LOVE who I am. I just feel weird right now, tonight. Sad. Frustrated.

I have all the time in the world but can’t seem to make time to do the things I want to.

I’m having a hell of a time trying to stick to a diet. That leads to self-loathing in itself.

Something is going on in the neighborhood tonight…. (click below to read more)
(more…)

Here I am again, up late, tired.
Biked today, got some exercise.
Keep getting too much sun (skin red, not quite sun burn) in spite of 50spf sunscreen.
I hate this state.
McDonalds Adult “Go Active” Happy Meals are kinda cool: free pedometer and the grilled chicken Bacon Ranch salad is really good.
Not been surfing much the last few days, so no links for you!
Was just thinking about how much of my photography is sitting in folders on my hard drive unsorted. If I sat and went thru them I could share more of them online.
Friend may come by tomorrow night, means I have to clean house. Shit.
Hershey’s Caramel-filled Kisses are crack.
Rainy season is starting: hot, humid, hot, humid, and rains ever single day in the afternoon. Every day.

I was laughing SO HARD at some of the videos over at StupidVideos.com that I thought I’d have a fucking heart attack!

My fav so far is the bulldog on a skateboard one.

and… Driving In Europe

Nine Second Belch

Dumbest Kid Alive

I understand the creators of MT wanting to make more money off their incredibly popular, well-written software. But to go from free to such HIGH PRICES!? Are they nuts? For the number of MT blogs that I use, I’d need to pay $99.95 to $149.95 regular price. That’s insane! That’s too far of a jump.

Not all bloggers who have multiple blogs are commercial! (and being commercial doesn’t always mean that there is alot of money laying around, duh.) I have this blog, plus two mt photoblogs, plus another small mt blog for family members, and one on the site that I maintain for my deceased brother. If I ever wanted to add even one more mt-based photoblog I’d be in the over-$150 range!

They’re shooting themselves in the foot. Regular blog blokes can’t and wont’ shell out that much. So people will either stay at the current version of MT, or move to different blogging tool, and there are some GREAT new alternatives to MT nowadays. Mt makes blogging easy, but it’s not the greatest thing since sliced bread I can tell ya! It’s a bitch to set up and a bitch to get any plug-ins installed. I’m quite a computer geek but I can’t do it without the help of my computer-GENIUS better half. Yes, posting is easy and nice, but that’s TOO MUCH money.

I’d pay $50 for a “license” that allows ten blogs. No way am I paying $150 (or the $119 intro price).

* New Pricing Scheme
* Announcement
* Slashdot article

From TechLive:

“A federal judge in Connecticut ordered William Martinez, an accused file swapper in a record-industry copyright lawsuit, to pay $4,000 for downloading five songs from the Internet.”

“Silas Brandner and others in Aberdeen, Wash., want to start a nationwide boycott against U.S. oil companies to strike back against high gasoline prices. He’s asking everyone he knows to not buy gas on Mondays.”

Late.

Why don’t I go to bed.

Cat hair everywhere.

Miss my brother. :..(

Sad.

Mad at self for not sticking to diet.

Biked an hour today. Thai for dinner. Piano lessons.

Every time I sleep, whether a nap, a quick doze, or a night’s sleep, I dream SO vividly. I have weird dreams, all very vivid. I swear sometimes I wake up worn out from dreaming.

I want to paint a room this weekend. We have such a nice house, we ought to clean the damn clutter and make the rooms nice. Lazy.

Saw this on the gas pump today:

UglyBug.org