LaserBlog.com

This website, and my email addresses, may go offline for a few days while my hosting company switches me to new and better servers. They have a new hosting plan which is less money yet provides so many more features and megabytes of webspace, I couldn’t pass it up. But we’re going to have to do alot of work to get stuff transferred over. The last two times we upgraded it was totally seamless, but this time it will take a lot of work backing up files, re-uploading them, and reinstalling all the databases, cgi’s etc. This all starts Friday and should hopefully only last a few days.

Check out all these cute customized Linux Penguins:
http://www.gigaperls.org/linux/

http://www.cyberbilly.com/meathenge/images/nov/Sesame%20Thanksgiving.jpg

You know, I’m actually beginning to get SCARED. People, on the whole, are getting WORSE. The world is just SO BAD, and it’s getting worse by the DAY, it just CAN’T go on like this. It CAN’T. Either everyone is just going to KILL eachother, or we’ll all die of stupidity. I can’t BELIVE the sheer amount of blatant “fuck-you-ism” going on. People have NO regard at all for my saftey, my mortality, my sanity. Fuck you, fuck you. I’m actually overwhelmed by the sheer amount of ASSHOLES that are out there that’d just as soon cause you thousands of dollars in car repair damage, just as soon KILL you, or shorten your life from adrenaline rushes. Who are these people? WHY do you blatantly cut me off at 70 mph? WHY? WHY do you play MIND GAMES with me (or TRY to, you petty assholes) on message boards? WHY WHY WHY do you LIE to me? WHY? Why WHY WHY don’t you people have ANYTHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR TIME? The world can’t go on like this, and it’s SCARY. I’m actually beginning to feel frightened. Scared. What’s going to happen? Is THIS the darkness that drives some to suicide? The realization that LIFE IS SHIT and NOBODY FUCKING CARES ABOUT YOU AT ALL???? And the realization that that isn’t even the worst of it? It’s that people care SO LITTLE about you that they’d actually GO OUT OF THEIR WAY to hurt you physically, mentally!

Holy cow, the more I check out flickr.com, the more I’m impressed!

Check out the short videos of how their photo organizer works!

http://flickr.com/tools/organizr.gne

Also you can use it to send camera phone images right to your existing blog, whether it’s a blogger blog, wordpress, MT, or whatever. WOW.

(I talked about flickr before.)

You know… I am no dog expert or dog psychologist or dog trainer. But I’ve read enough books and seen enough dog psychologist tv shows and talked to enough dog trainers and psychologists myself to know a FEW things.

Some dork posts to a dog message board and says (paraphrased):

“My dog won’t eat out of his bowl. He’ll only eat out of his bowl if we put people food in it or ice cream. He’ll only eat his kibble if we hand feed it to him piece by piece or put his kibble in his treat ball piece by piece. Anyone else have this problem?”

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME????????????????????????

If your dog DOES that it’s because YOU ALLOW IT. Put the kibble in and WALK AWAY. He WON’T STARVE. He may play games with you for days, but he’ll learn.

I am so sick of the pansies on these boards. They cater to their “babies” and then wonder why they piss and shit in the house and refuse to eat kibble or eat from their bowls. Fucking idiots. And then if *I* go and post and say “he does this because you allow it and you’ve trained him to do it” then I get flamed.

ANY decent dog trainer or dog psychologist will agree that you do NOT have to live with a dog who does these things. Just watch a few episodes of “The Dog Whisperer” and you’ll see that what the owner ALLOWS is what makes dogs do these crazy things. To use Cesar’s words, ‘he rehabilitates dogs, he TRAINS PEOPLE’. Without fail every time some “problem dog” is on this show (or in any case study in a book) you find that it’s because the owner allows certain behavior that the dog seems to go “bad”.

I’ve had it. There’s this rumor that “pugs are untrainable”. IT’S NOT TRUE! They may be a more stubborn breed, but it is BULLSHIT to reply to me on a message board when I ask about an issue and tell me that “pugs are untrainable, didn’t anyone tell you?” Well you know what? YOU just go on believing that and smelling piss and shit in your home and live like a f*cking pig. It’s YOUR life. But in MY life, my dog will be housetrained and well behaved. And you know why? BECAUSE IT’S POSSIBLE and acceptable AND IT’S NORMAL!

I had some message board asshole tell me that to expect a pug to be housetrained and obedient is “inhumane” and that trying to get him to be so is “abusive“! These f*ckers that get on these message boards are pansies. Just pure freaking panty-waste pansies. Unbelievable.

/me steps down

Every once in a while I like to post about my favorite sites on the web, the ones that I find the most useful year after year after year (or new ones that are just awesome). I have a million favorite sites that I like to visit and read, but these are the ones that make my life better, that offer services I couldn’t live without now.

It’s a short list, cuz these are my best of the best of the best.

· Spamex.com – Create disposeable email addresses for when you have to give out “your email address” to a website or business. This way if/when spam arrives “TO” that address, a) you know who sold your email address, and b) you can turn that alias off thereby STOPPING the spam in it’s tracks. I NEVER give out my private addy, and use spamex for all emails except family, and I am 99.9% spam-free. You can sign up for free but I pay for premium service: I get more disposeable email addys, and I’ve even hosted a domain with them so that I can create as many addys as I want @ that dot-com.

· Anonymizer.com – Surf anonymously and alot more. It’s a proxy server, and they also now offer a ton of other services. But I like to have full-access to a proxy server for anonymity (sometimes) and also for technical reasons. Like if my site seems to be down, if I can view it via a proxy server, then I know the site is up, so it’s just my ISP who is screwing up. This way I know who to call. Free proxy servers like megaproxy.com allow you to try it for free but you can’t post or submit. When you pay for anonymizer you can fill out and submit forms (for email, blogging, logging in, etc.) all while anonymous.

· AVG Anti Virus – The best anti-virus I’ve found AND it’s FREE. I hate McAfee and I hate Norton’s. They’re HOGS. They completely slow down the system. This is lightweight but is just as good if not better than the rest.

· Spybot Search and Destroy – Keep your computer free of spyware, for free. Short ‘n sweet, but that’s what it does, and it does it well.

· StuffBak.com – Label your stuff w/ stickers or tags w/ unique id #’s, then if it gets lost, it has a better chance of coming home to you. Finders call an 800# to report it found, they get a reward, and stuffbak fedexes you your item back. News stations have done tests and it’s working really well. And who knows how many times someone decided NOT to “borrow” my item when they saw the stuffbak label on it. I love this service.

· Meetup.com – Find people in your town who have the same interest as you and get together. Search by town, zip code, or by subject. Meetups can be on any topic; religion, politics, (kerry meetup, bush meetup), tech stuff (there’s a slashdot meetup, and a linux meetup), animals (there’s a pug meetup!), blogging, photography, you name it.

· Fotki.com – Best photo sharing site I know of offhand. $30 a YEAR gives you UNLIMITED photo sharing. You can link directly to photos for posting on other sites.

· TextAmerica.com – Everyone w/ a camera phone NEEDS a moblog. Take pictures w/ your camera phone and email them directly to the web, to your own “moblog”, from your camera phone. Mine is http://laserone.textamerica.com, and my pug puppy Riley has his very own at http://apugslife.blogspot.com

· Blogger.com – I host this blog on my own web space w/ my own domain and use Movable Type as a tool. It’s powerful, but for those who want to just get a blog up and running in less than a minute, blogger rules. Now that Google has bought blogger, there are no ads, and there is free image hosting and commenting. It’s amazing what they give you for free now! Riley’s Blog is a blogger blog. Anyone can be up and running in a minute with a blog of their own. Create a blog as an online journal, or create a blog for a specific event; new baby, NEW PUPPY!, a travel blog, a political blog, you name it.

I hate to duplicate much from the pug puppy blog, but Riley’s moblog was an Editor’s Pick today at textamerica.com!

Riley’s blog: http://apugslife.blogspot.com
Riley’s moblog: http://apugslife.textamerica.com

(moblog: camera-phone images from the road that may or may not have been posted yet to his main blog.)

I just discovered flickr.com.

I noticed yesterday that Christine was using it, then today I was looking at this great pug photo and saw it was at flickr, too. I think you can moblog at flickr, just like you can at textamerica.com.

So I registered so that I could comment, and now I have a free account. I will have to look into it further.

FYI, my FAVORITE photo site is FOTKI.COM. $30 a YEAR and u get UNLIMITED photo storage. You can link directly to the images for display on other websites, it’s awesome.

I also like BuzzNet.com for photoblogging.

Speaking of favorite sites, I need to do a “favorite sites” post again.

UPDATE: Ok, I think flickr.com is blowing me away. Check out their ‘get the most out of flickr’ page: http://www.flickr.com/get_the_most.gne

It’s not fun to belch up stomach acid AND hot sauce into your esophagus and sinus cavity!

Man, what is it about animal people? What is it about people online? What is it about breed-specific fanatics? Oh, fuck it, what is about PEOPLE!?!?!?!

Long ago I joined a Turkish Angora message board. The people there were fucking insane. You’d post for advice and their only solution to training a cat was “well if you aren’t willing to hot-glue your belongings to the shelf then you don’t deserve to own a cat“… and they were SERIOUS. Fucking insane I tell you.

Well, I joined a few breed-specific dog boards and it’s the same old SHIT on every single one of them. If you ask a question, they jump all over your ass for not doing things right w/ your dog, OR, and here’s the thing that REALLY pisses me off, they get all over your ass for stuff you NEVER EVEN SAID!

I’ve really had it. I’ve unjoined the one worst list and just will probably not go back to the others. Fuck ‘em. It’s really ashame because online communities COULD be a very useful thing. But then you add humans to the mix and, oh well.

Wow, this is really cool. Saw this on LJC’s blog (she always finds the neatest sites):

http://www.tenbyten.org

From their site:

“10×10 (‘ten by ten’) is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10×10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10×10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life. 10×10 is ever-changing, ever-growing, quietly observing the ways in which we live.”

LOL what a riot! Take this quiz!

www.DogToyOrMaritalAid.com

This is funny cuz M and I were walking the dog toy isle of PetSmart recently and I pointed out to M that some of the items just looked… obscene.

Oh MY god this is a freaking piece of ART!
http://www.fuckthesouth.com/

Someone on a pug message board (“uggamama”?) pointed me to this amusing article:

“Go Ahead, Sleep With Your Dog – And, no, we don’t mean it that way.”http://slate.msn.com/id/2108762/?GT1=5742

M turned me on to this…

An explanation of the phrase
“Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!”

In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters
carried iron cannons. Those cannon fired round iron cannon balls. It was
necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. But how to prevent them
from rolling about the deck?
The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one
ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen.
Thus, a supply of thirty cannon balls could be stacked in a small area
right next to the cannon.
There was only one problem — how to prevent the bottom layer from
sliding/rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate
called a “Monkey” with sixteen round indentations. But, if this plate
was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution
to the rusting problem was to make “Brass Monkeys.”
Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much
faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped
too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon
balls would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally,
“Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!”
(And all this time, you thought that was a dirty expression, didn’t you?)”

from http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/b/brassmonkeys.htm

Recently downloaded off iTunes:

Daughters – John Mayer
I Don’t Wanna Be – Gavin DeGraw
Take Your Mama – Scissor Sisters
Reach For The Sun – Polyphonic Spree
Breathe – Michelle Branch
Somebody Told Me – The Killers

I feel sick. Now that the wakes and funeral are over, I feel like I’m nausious w/ sadness. What makes it worse is seeing so many family members, especially cousins my age whom I have not seen in many years but would have LIKED to. I hate that nobody tries to stay in touch. I feel so shut out from the rest of my family. Also sitting w/ cousins from Pittsburgh and talking about memories from living there, it even makes me miss living in Pitssburgh, and of course my Uncle (who died), who when we all lived in Pittsburgh together, was like my dad. I hate this.

Thanks to Christine for showing us this:

VirtualCanadian.org

From the site:
“This is a site for citizens of the United States who no longer wish to be identified with that nation state, or who feel that it has abandoned them, or that it even threatens them.”

Oh, this is funny.

I saw this at ljc fyi.

This website is so funny, it’s ThatWasMe.net.

From their website:
“Ever wondered who that was lurking in the background of your delightfully composed photograph of the Eiffel Tower? Who was that guy who put two fingers up behind your head when you were manfully posing with your girlfriend? Well, now you might be able to find out (or just have a laugh at some nicely ruined photos) for FREE with this glorious website! It all depends if that someone will admit that was me!…”

This is a great example (thanks ljc) of one where the lurker is identified:
http://www.thatwasme.net/showphoto.php?photoid=10
It reads:
“”Less of `That was me!`, and more of `That was my father!`; my Dad got so pissed off with being asked to get out of the way of people`s photos that he started standing behind groups of tourists with an inane smile on his face. I happened to be standing behind the photographer and caught him in the act. So, if you`re a member of that Argentinian school group and you`re wondering who the hell the strange guy is in the top- right-hand corner, now you know… I`m so dreadfully sorry”"

Too funny!

I guess everyone’s talking about the election.
I guess I should post about it before midnight.
I just don’t know really what to say.
I’m sickened by it. But I’m not really surprised. I feel the election is fixed (hello, electronic voting with no paper trail, “missing” absentee ballots).

I don’t know which is worse, the thought that the system is seriously flawed or worse, fixed, or the thought that there are actually alot of brainwashed *ssholes that actually voted for Bush.

This entry (as is my blog) is MY OPINION. If you don’t like it, don’t come here. This is my personal diary.

Cut me a BREAK! It’s only November 3rd!