October 2002 Archives

oh, now this is a scary costume.

so i'm keeping my kid home today so he'll feel well enough to go trick-or-treating (at the mall - indoors, warm, not too much exertion) tonight. doesn't that seem upside down? like energy should be expended on school, rather than saved up for fun? then i tell myself that it's not like he's a college student missing a crucial class so he can attend a kegger later on, he's in kindergarten, and this is halloween, and he has a pikachu costume he's really excited about and ... no, my priorities are just fine.

aren't they?

* * *
aww:

the mall was the place to see and be seen, but it was not the place for the candy. i would estimate the number of adorable youngsters in costume in the several hundreds, and the number of stores not sporting 'no candy' or 'out of candy' signs, in the tens. those that had, gave sparingly. i'm trying not to want to rant about this, but the mall really could have done better. they have the makings of being The Place To Be, having a real Event, and yet, they fail to motivate their leaseholders to participate to the fullest. how friggin' much is it out of a store's budget to invest a couple hundred bones in a good stock of goodies? expense it to marketing! make little goody bags with the store logo! these people have no vision, man.

my son's costume was an excellent choice -- numerous folks remarked 'look! pikachu!' and we saw no other pikachus. and look -- matching slippers:

on the other hand, we vastly underestimated our neighborhood. with hardly any kids, yet plenty of adults into the spirit of the day, decorated houses, happy gatherings of grownups feeling ever so generous -- what with the dearth of children, candy came in the handfulls, in the 'take as many as you want' kind of spirit. and everyone was so happy to see the little pikachu dude:

more pics in more ...

part one: i get out a little
picked up the daughter-person, we go to apply for her passport, me to sign an affadavit that i know she was really born here -- it asks me, how do you know? i answer, somewhat snarkily i fear, i am her mother, and i was there. she bribes me with coffee to take her to visit a friend at work, we get coffee, and visit. (update: picture from coffee place)

... i drop her off, and go to ...

part two: trader joes!
whoa. i had forgotten what a wonderland trader joe's really is. i went for milk thistle, i always keep a stock on hand, it's the one nice thing i do for my liver. end up roaming the aisles, happily wide-eyed at the array of wonderful things. i exercise extreme budgetary self control and only buy two extra things: creamy corn soup, and a bottle of very green juice. yummy healthy things. make mental note to go back when i'm not so broke, come home and ...

part three: whoopsie
arrive home to find kid looking quite ill -- you can see it in his eyes, they lack their customary sparkle. he seems a bit warm, so baby tylenol, and then ... oh no. he makes a big rush, inexplicably bypassing the bathroom (heading for the kitchen?) and pukes pink tylenol puke right at the edge of the laundry room, inches from linoleum. some sort of mysterious murphy's law of kid puke at work here.

(please let him be well by morning. not sick on halloween! no!)

the end.

seasons greetings, huey-style

you thought *trolls* were bad? wait till you get a pantload of newest form of evil, comment spam. yes, evil morons with basic scripting ability have been able to flood MT sites with comments, the same one, posted on every single entry. there is a marvelous discussion over at MT guru Phil Ringnalda's site, which i have been watching today, because i want to have solutions for any of my hostees affected by this.

if you catch this happening, ban the IP as quickly as you can. that would be in your blog configuration. there's an easy delete procedure for blogs using the MySQL form of MT, which surreally hostees should be able to convert to now, but i'll use myself as a guinea pig first. aside from that, there are patches in the works, and hopefully there won't be too much annoyance wrought by this.

* * *
in other news, never ever visit a site called FriendGreetings.com to pick up an e-card. it's not technically considered a virus, because you actually have to click and accept an agreement to let it use your email contact list to mail out special offers, but it's still very viral, and does other annoying things to your computer aside from just hijacking your contact list with your permission. i highly recommend reading this to understand more about this version of evil.

so. you know the handy formatting buttons in the MT interface? (well, in IE, i can't use 'em myself on my main puter, *sigh*) well. you will now find them above the comment box. they work just like they do in MT, that is, highlight the text in question and it will make it bold, italic, underlined, or a URL. i forget where i saw this today, but when i did i thought, hey! i bet that's easy! and, well, it was.

question: since i made them text links so they go with all the various skins, do you think there should be further instructions, so folks know what they are? then again, i like to make sure my comment boxes are like programming a VCR, according to some people, so this would be right in line with that ... :)

so, yesterday, i couldn't get into the dentist's parking lot the first time because, being in the correct side of the driveway with a car also going out, there was no way in hell to turn into the parking lot. why? because a verylarge pickup truck had parked in what used to be a space, but wasn't a space anymore (white lines painted over pavement color, obvious new white lines and little end-bumpers now marking the *real* parking spots). i drove around the block and re-entered with no other cars coming so i could swing the turn.

i was in less than a good mood, even before that.

i took the small notebook from my purse, and wrote in rather angry handwriting, this is NOT a parking space YOU IDIOT. i tore the page off, got out of the car, glancing around furitively to make sure no one was approaching who might be the owner (yes i'm a chickenshit), and placed the note under the wiper blade of the truck.

walked in the dentist's office feeling all tingly. yeah, it was a good first time.

ok. this is just cute.

this, however, is ... disturbing.

when i was a kid my mommy had this book, i'm convinced it was titled that exactly, in letters that looked like chalk on a blackboard. and it had places for report cards, and notes about school records and pictures ... i've since lost it (i think) (maybe?) (it could be in the garage with the spiders, but i have my doubts), but i remember it was a really cool thing to rediscover when i was about thirty or so.

yesterday kurt's first school pictures came (one will be scanned and posted on his blog later), and of course i've saved every single bit of schoolwork he's brought home so far and intend to save every other one, no doubt i'm going to need some kind of organization if i'm going to pack-rat this hard.

it would so rock if i could find a book just like the one my mom kept for me, for the most important bits of this collection. and, i figure, a nice set of those storage boxes you usually associate with accounting files.

because i'm gonna collect. yes, i already live in the chaos of my own packrattiness, let alone these intentions toward vicarious packrattiness, but the thing is, i'm convinced these things will be treasures to him some 20, 30 years from now. i've misplaced a great deal of my childhood, and most of the memories are tied to things still i have pictures of, or other memorabilia. i want him to be able to have more memories than i do. 'cause nostalgia sucks without the tools to revive the memory cells that store the stuff you're nostalgic for.

Forbidden thoughts about 9/11: The readers respond

and some of them are real doozies. "Hey, how do we get ahold of all the new 212 cell numbers that'll be available?"

link via zuchris

if you had secret thoughts about 9-11 that you never shared anywhere, you are welcome to post them anonymously here, and i promise not to reveal any identifying info.

1. spicy peanuts, vanilla coffee, and red licorice make a fine breakfast. ok well no, but it'll do in a pinch.

2. i am in no mood. none.

3. it's supposed to feel like getting to sleep in? it didn't.

4. why can this company hire some fancy sales dude and then there he is noodling around on his computer all day, rather than getting out and selling stuff? oh tell me he's doing something job related. ha. i'm doing something more job related than he is, and i'm freakin' blogging!

5. i need to go in business for myself. or i need a raise. or more coffee.

* * *
oh, one more thing? (imagine complete change of voice here) -- i've listed kurtwood's site in photoblogs.org. it's a voting system. so if you think the kid is cool, maybe go click him a plus? he was at #39 last time i checked (you have to find him on the list, positions change all the time).

and for the record, photoblogs.org is a way cool idea.

i've officially had my digicam for a year -- one of the first batches of pics i took, i lost in a terrible 'what does this button do' accident. those pictures, i took at the punkin patch -- so this year i went back, because i love punkin patches.

another unproductive weekend (well, except for reading the first actual book i hadn't read before in a long, long time). having afterglow from hearts in atlantis, that feeling when you're fresh off a marathon reading session and the characters and words and images are still with you.

i read so impatiently, so obsessively. i read 'the stand' in, i think, about eight hours (however i did not put it down -- not to eat, or pee, or anything) (i mean, i did eat and pee, just did it with a book in my face). maybe it's why i don't read as much as i used to, it just eats my life. kind of like the internet, only it can be done lying on a couch all cozy.

mmm, babbling. so, i'm sure there are things i should have done for folks. i haven't forgotten you, unless i have, and there's nothing wrong with emailing me to remind me of stuff -- i really am scattered as all heck. and the whole server move thingy was rather overwhelming, but still, that doesn't excuse not getting, say, all the passwords done, or that last site i have to convert to MT (sorry Bob). *sigh*

and as with all good books, i find myself wanting to go back and re-read my favorite parts again; the impatient pace i set for finishing leaves not enough time to savor. so now, with the last bit of my waking weekend, that is exactly what i am going to do.

first of all, mirror project #2. what fun it is finding shiny things!

secondly, due to not feeling real well yesterday, i found that laying on the couch reading a book was more my speed than the frenetic pace of reading some blogs and fixing others and, you know, living on internet time. so. what did we have in the house that i hadn't read yet? hearts in atlantis. interesting in that this was the book stephen king was writing at the time of his accident, and it's really two different books, divided into before/after the accident: the first part with the usual paranormal suspects and references to the gunslinger/dark tower series, the second, picking up a thin thread from the first book and going off into the sixties and the anti-war movement, in a normal world now free of creepy car-monsters and aliens in yellow coats. the whole thing chock-full of 60's references and me completely swept up in that period of history, which i experienced as a person too young to grasp it all, but all of it completely familiar.

i expect to be done within a few hours here, and things shall return to normal internet-wise, but right now i'm off to hang out in the sixties some more. fierce nostalgia. fierce.

through the miracle of modern cellular technology, i've just attended a wild-sounding party in berkeley, where *garbled list of bloggers* is gathered, as we speak. or i write. you know. i talked to Jilly, Portia, Mikey, and Hoopty, and then the noise really started to wear my ear down, but there were many more people there.

*sigh* vicarious is better than nothing, but i still feel like i'm totally missing out.

Total 99,976
Last Hour 22
i'm so getting there

we're having a conflict. we have to set the clocks back (right)? so that makes things earlier. which means that at what's supposed to be, say, 6:00 tomorrow, and getting dark, it will instead be 5:00. i know this, i swear. he says i'm wrong, and mumbles off to say he's going to watch the news.

now, the good thing is, he actually knew about the clock thing. i would have been oblivious, since i use my computer time and that would have adjusted -- i don't even know if i would have noticed the difference (say, if i'd switched the alarm to 'on' in the dark) until, like, monday morning, when i would have got up ... earlier. it is earlier isn't it?

daylight savings time really taxes my little brain.

i'm pretty sure i consulted with someone on the phone about that last post, it may have been my idea but it wasn't something i wanted to make a big deal over. except, well, yes, apparently i did. i mean, i was incredibly obsessed and conflicted about being obsessed. also, i'm convinced this conversation took place (i am not making this up) under my dining room table. um. yeah. acoustics? hm. note to self: stick with the beer. the beer does not sneak up on a person and ambush them like that wine. wine is like weak, red tequila. we don't do tequila here anymore, and we won't be red wining anymore either.

ok anyway, where was i? just realizing i'm drinking coffee out of a cup decorated with elephants in red and white striped jackets with blue vests, jumping up and down waving go - go - go - gop signs. my son came and sat on my lap and informed me that when he grows up, he will be able to say bad words like the f word, the a word, and the k word. the k word?

life's nice and surreal, isn't it? it's supposed to be raining dammit. it is in las vegas! how do i know this? *sigh* it would be one of the messages i left on the phone spree, returning the call. see? it wasn't all bad. um. what?

i need cheese.

so this update on the upcoming election comes in from moveon.org -- listing candidates who are leading contenders in key races to keep some balance in our government, come november.

and sadly, one of the few listed here, paul wellstone (D-MN) has died today, in a plane crash along with family members, staffers, and the pilots. my heart goes out to the surviving family, this is a horrible tragedy. it's also a political tragedy, because he was a man of integrity and principles. and he voted against the iraq resolution, in spite of being in a hotly contested race for re-election.

hey -- some of my best friends are republicans. really. but, and no offense meant, i really don't want control of the house, senate, and white house, all in the hands of one party. i worry.

* * *
and, with that we return to regularly scheduled kd: lite, now in progress.

if you've noticed blogger being down, the reason would be, it's been hacked. i got an email for someone googling for 'blogger security', who reports:

when I placed the request to have the password sent, I received a message telling me the password would be mailed to someone else:
"hax0redbyme!"

* * *
important update, from Lisa: They say the database was compromised so anyone using blogger needs to change their ftp password to their webserver - again.

that would be urgent -- until FTP passwords are changed, theoretically the hacker could be all up in your server, doing hacky things. bad news. (only applies if you use blogger and publish to your own webspace, not blogspot)

i really need to do something about this moppy head of mine. really really.

started out with traffic. oh, i was bored. bored, bored, bored. hmm. look! the radio is a shiny thing! this, cropped a bit, has now been submitted to the mirror project:

so further along, i discover the reason for the traffic was the general public's insatiable appetite for rubbernecking. there were a lot of cops:

the reason was (according to the radio) a full felony stop with guns drawn and everything. i missed the excitement, but as traffic speeded up, got the cuffing:

then, in oxnard, i pulled over to document this quite lovely house, whose occupants apparently take halloween very, very, very seriously:
   
and finally, after they rescheduled what i was there for and decided instead to just torture me with another cleaning, i discovered that my dentists do not have a very confidence-inspiring bathroom:

finally, later in the evening, i went to get some red wine (for my health, doncha know) and found the automobile of a very, very serious (and probably very unhappy, considering proximity to world series game, and the fact they weren't actually there), baseball fan:

the end.

moral of this story: having a digicam with you whenever, wherever, enhances the whole experience.

if you don't use the skin controller to set your own cookie, you will be seeing penguins right about now. they make me happy. i hope they do that for you too.

Faith is a brilliant designer, yes? yes.

* * *
update: alright you mac people, is this better? i hope you're all happy with yourselves. upsetting the delicate balance of my friday afternoon penguin-ness.

two pictures taken today, out and about with kurt -- a glass orb and some graffiti:

so i dreamt i was a ghost. giving seminars on how to be successful. had this shiny shelf thing embroidered on my puffy sleeve, it was supposed to represent prosperity. i was thin, attractive, and all about the empowerment. anyway.

i feel crazed. there was a note on the fridge in the lunchroom saying if you like the vanilla creamer please contribute and i'm all, i didn't even know it was for everyone? so i went to my car to get some change and i looked at the shiny quarters in the console cupholder and thought, tacos. what if i want jack in the box? i have enough for four tacos, if i were to decide this was a taco day. i considered this and said outloud, 'don't spend your tacos. keep your tacos'. and then turned nervously to see if anyone was anywhere near. if i hear someone saying that sitting in a parked car, i'd worry.

the server shit is driving me here, to the edge of madness. oh, i'm not mad. i'm even. and there's hope now, but for now surreally dot com copies of MT are all wadded up in my ass like bad panties.

huh? maybe i should try to get to bed before two am some night. yeah right.

oh one more thing -- information about linking mp3s with the trackback auto-discovery on, is in more ...

so jhames, in the spirit of the previously posted spongebob fun song, posted the lyrics to that great classic, the happy happy joy joy song.

me? i have the mp3. and i'm putting it in the more text and using the auto-pinger at the same time, just because that sort of thing amuses me greatly.

but not as greatly as listening to the happy happy joy joy song.

ahh, technology.

VeriChip is a miniaturized radio frequency identification device (RFID) that can be used in a variety of security, financial, emergency identification and healthcare applications. About the size of a grain of rice, each VeriChip product contains a unique verification number and will be available in several formats, some of which will be insertable under the skin. The verification number is captured by briefly passing a proprietary scanner over the VeriChip. A small amount of radio frequency energy passes from the scanner energizing the dormant VeriChip, which then emits a radio frequency signal transmitting the verification number.

look. i'm sure this thing has valid uses. but if it comes into any widespread use, the concept of privacy will cease to exist, entirely. history. gone. *poof* like that.

one of the scariest rice-grain sized things i've ever seen.

when the kid and i are out wandering, i can't help but snap a few myself:

a rusty t-bird, a gnome reclining, and the ventura sky:
   

f is for friends that do stuff together
u is for you and me
n is for anwhere at anytime at all, down here in the deep blue sea

because the world is stressful, we need a little spongebob.

kurtwood's photolog is the featured site on wander-lust.com today.

i'm absolutely tickled.

... as reported by Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC) operatives. Most of these come from the mouths of managers.

i have set zim as the default skin. (hopefully that's what you're seeing) because i am damn tired of the pink thing (still available thru the skin controller, if you like). it's very late and i've been up roaming around telnet windows fixing databases, and well, i feel a little whimsical.

i have to dig through my 3000 some old emails saved in the old email client, and find this image Faith sent me with luscious green colors i want to use. this may take a day or so, and i have other projects too.

but it's been too long on the pink and white thang. time to move along.

i might change the defaults here and there just to keep life interesting.

oh, and since i have these cookies, if you *don't* see zim, let me know. i'm pretty sure he's compatible with normal browsers, and completely blows up in NS4, about which i no longer care one whit. sorry. no. not really.

so chris comes and sits down on the couch and hands me a cookie. eat it! he says. it's an oreo-type cookie, not one of my favorite cookie types. eat it! he insists. so i do.

it came out of the mother's cookie assortment. it's the standard dark chocolate cookie with white filling, but there are colorful sparkles in the creme filling.

and they are pop rocks. whoa! very trippy on the tongue.

good thing i wasn't drinking a coke, i might have exploded!

wow. peace in our time. how could that statement be any more sweeping?

where does ideology begin? how does a person come to have beliefs? i think the best opinions are formed in a malleable mind, far after the forming events of childhood, when the individual is capable of critical thinking (which i think is mostly sadly absent these days). this pacifist person you read here used to be the worst kind of nationalist. i could repeat rhetoric like you wouldn't believe, in an effort to entirely disregard anything that upset my worldview. how dare you suggest that i don't live in the greatest country on earth dammit?

and it happened because i blog. and it happened because i read dissenting opinions from my own, from all over the world and all over the political spectrum, and was moved by them. i was moved away from some opinions, and toward others. the opinions that bothered me most, spoke in absolutes of good and evil, casting the US in the role of good, my country right or wrong.

and nothing, no thing, is absolute to me anymore. i read blogs in which the name of Noam Chomsky is invoked in the most scathing tone, as if he, and his ideas, were some great threat to life as we know it, and then i realize the man is brilliant, idealistic, and expresses our best hopes. yes he's on the extreme, but without extreme visionaries, there will be no change. and right now the warmongers have the upper hand. if the warmongers win this one, we're all fucking doomed. the only way this civilization will not collapse under the weight of its own power, is if the pacifists win. there's no future for us if war is how we preserve peace. and when i say no future, i mean this: this thought i had today. that i may not be here to see it, but parts of me, my descendents, will suffer the end. i don't want to send them into that, i want to protect them, and i feel i'm living in the times that could produce the cusp event that will save my great or great-great-grandbabies from the fall of the empire we're under right now.

tangentially speaking, my point is this: those who would sacrifice freedom for security, deserve neither. freedom is by nature a delicate balance, fraught with peril. so i can comfort myself with the knowledge that this process is not supposed to be comfortable. i should be just as nervous as i am, posting this, admitting what a radical advocate for peace i've become, in this past year, watching my own country declare war on everything in the world which doesn't agree with it. watching as my resident is handed unprecedented power, and millions of good citizens subscribe to the doctrine of rabid xenophobia.

i have to do this. i'm doing it for my kids. the struggle for peace will no doubt throw us into insecurity and fear, and this will not be easy. it is, however, at least in my mind, necessary.

now, go read Dru

all three surreallys are going -- as we speak. for further info on the issues, go to the support boards.

first i have to upgrade your DBs. there are lots. it will take awhile. then the DNS must resolve since MT uses absolute links within the CGIs.

the new servers are better though. they have cooler stuff and things.

what are you wearing?

i was going to get all this stuff done. and? nothing. only thing i did was post kid pictures over there in kurt's photolog. oh, and i got groceries. and did dishes. twice! but that's it. so why do i feel so wrung out?

so, you know, i really think he's better at this, but here these are anyway:

yeah. just pictures, wandering around the neighborhood. as we rounded the corner, people coming out of the restaurant made some sort of exclamation about the sunset -- and then i turned around and just gasped. it's more gorgeous than my non-zooming, inadequately pixelled camera could deal with (in this case, the kid's coolcam took a better pic than mine did).

but it's a nice evening activity, roaming around looking for ... things. and stuff. for pictures.

a large spaceship has crashed into harrods of london, and a large robot has emerged, and said, "take me to your lizard". ford prefect explains this to arthur dent:

"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see ..."
"You mean it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"

i know it was a long and interesting dream. when i woke up, i could still remember bits and scenes, i had the feelings, but not the details -- and then this reminded me of a really teenage poem i wrote ... you know, when i was a teenager. maybe i should see if i can recall it from memory, because every blog should have bad teenage poetry in it somewhere. and cat pictures. but i don't have any of those right now.

but the one dream image that's stuck with me throughout the day, and annoyingly enough, is with me still, is this: chris wandering around the house dressed only in bread. yes, bread. sliced bread. wheat, i think. stuck to various bits of him, no idea how it was sticking to him, and then there was the slice he had stuck between his ass cheeks.

why can't he understand that after he acts like that in my dream, i'm going to be a little fussy at him? i mean, if i dream something that annoying about a person, they must have done something to cause it.

so anyway the silly adolescent poem was about that just on the tip of your mind feeling, that can't quite get to it feeling. i may add it in the more text later.

The American Republic is Dead. Hail the American Empire.

please. it upset me greatly, kept me up way too late, and prevented me from focusing on ignoring the issues. and realize, it's long, and will take you a bit of time to read, and really absorb, and this may not be a comfortable process.

and this is a good thing.

lunch: the rest of last night's bean/rice/cheese burrito (enormous!) topped with leftover homemade salsa from the potluck. hot! mmm.

and speaking of beans, or, well, on a related note, if you catch my drift ... i've mentioned this in passing in people's comments, but today i got another one, and decided to share it with you. it's just such an earnest, gut-felt missive, and some of the passages are really quite moving.

breakfast: homemade pumpkin cheescake (leftovers from the big boss's day potluck) and coffee with dulce de leche coffemate. mmm.

office: deserted. the geek patrol is all off in LA at some M$ mind-control indoctrination, and me, i'm feeling a little sleepy and full.

more coffee. yeah :) ahhhhhh friday

***
oh, and in the mellow, laid back, california-feeling friday department, yesterday on the radio, a local station had this feature, smash hit or smash it, in which they play some local band and the listeners call in and review the music. well, they played a little number by slackstring, and the first five callers just loved it, as i did. one listener called it 'a cross between sublime and the grateful dead', which, is kinda bizarre sounding, but they do have that latter day hippie sound going on.

anyway, you can listen to the song (the top one on the list) (or listen to some others) and even buy their cd for ten bucks, if you find it gets your toes a-tappin, which it did mine. i think it was recorded in the singer's bedroom, like, he had to get his mom to turn off the vacuum sometimes. which i think is just ... cute. ok? it's adorable. i figured i'd support it in some small way, hence the recommendation.

it's all in the spirit of this friday, which is very fuzzy-feeling right now.

more coffee :)

love the bran as she loves you. all she asks of you is unfailing devotion. show your devotion, brothers and sisters!

amen, sistah! i revere you. and ping you!

third try's the charm, right? two whole thought-trains, derailed and starting with a blank box, now just passing one line. ahh, here we go again.

hard to focus these days. so many issues, so many debates, so much controversy. me? been absolutely diving nose-first into kurt's photolog, since it gives me the chance to view the world with at least a semblance of innocence. to separate from the stressors of modern life. the terror-fueled politicizing of the blog world makes me just want to flee into childlike whimsy, or should i say childish? *shrug* i know there's not much i can do to change the world. i mail my congresspersons semi-regularly, voice an occasional opinion and then instantly cringe, knowing my stance will instantly alienate some folks, and disliking the part of myself that cares too much for what people think of what i think.

i want to avoid the controversy and sadness and fear, and just live this life here, my life which has very little effect on the world at large, but possibly a significant effect on the things within my reach. i can offer a kind word to friends, or administer blog-aid when possible. i can do homework with my son and kiss his head frequently with pride. i can rejoice when he grabs a camera and takes pictures of things i'd never think to photograph. i can call my daughter or my parents, just to say hi, and remember to always end the call with i love you. i can love, rather than fear.

and i can stop worrying about what people think of my politics, which in the grand scheme of things, hardly matters at all. hopefully. maybe.

mornings. i don't know how you normal folk do it -- by normal, i mean, you have a job that starts at X:00, and you routinely get up and get there by then, or thereabouts. this morning, had to have my afternooner kindergartener to school by eight am. eight. in the morning. it's like, still dark or something. car all covered with dew, can't see out the windows as i try and pull into the heavy SUV traffic generated by all the good catholic parents dropping their charges off at the large parochial high school on our block (side note: man, with skirts like that on a morning like this? brrrr!).

the night before, knowing everything has to be just so, is incredibly nerve-wracking. hopping up off the couch circa one am, to check and see if the kid's jacket was indeed washed and dried. tossing, turning, deciding to rearrange my sidebar circa one thirty am. toss. turn. restless dreams. wake up two times, have milk and crackers. alarm goes off at seven, oy. oy oy oy. snooze alarm till seven twelve am. oy. get up struggle with regular, ordinary, normal morning tasks, knowing the urgency of getting him to school at eight. by eight. or else.

come back home, wanting nothing more than to go back to bed and recover from these adventures. contemplate the fact next year every single day is going to be like this. and on and on throughout the next 12 years. oy.

i'll leave you with some pumpkin cookies (yum!):

i wanted to encourage kurtwood in his photographic pursuits, so, i made him a photolog. he does love seeing his name and his pictures on the internet.

kurtwood's photolog can be reached thru kurtwood.com, but the actual URL is http://kurt.hooha.us.

ok, so, the new MT does come with search capabilities, but, i have two whole different copies of MT, that could not be searched at once (by MT, that is). i could have gone with atomz.com, but the free version only goes to 500 pages -- i'm way, way over that. what to do? site search is very handy for when you are thinking, ok, i remember this post about ... but where was it?

did you know you can put a google search box in your site? people can search either just your site, or the whole web -- and it's free, and it's really easy to install. and it's right here.

you can see it in action in my sidebar, scroll down.

in other geeky news, last night before i added blogrolling to the sidebar of kurtwood.com, i actually had every bit of that code on every page validating as XHTML. i was so excited i nearly had an accident. um. pretend i didn't say that, k?

and i've added a sidebar linky thingy that makes a link to kurtwood's latest post, out of whatever i put in the excerpt field (picture, bit of news, whatever i want). *sigh* i also made great progress on this cool PHP/MySQL dealie i'm working on for work.

somebody stop me before i geek again. or, well, no. i like this.

"A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about."
~~ Douglas Adams

yes, i'm on quite the Adams kick right now. in any case, work interfering with blogging here, but i did make a little time to go read my old homestead, surreally dot com, and am feeling quite warm and fuzzy towards the whole group over there. wonderful reading.

nothing to see here, move along now.

#1: the empire state building changes color, sometimes for reasons we can fathom, and sometimes, not fathom.

#2: that is a pingable entry. i have turned on my 'auto-detect' ping feature and am hoping that the entry will go and ping by itself. i'll let you know.

Jen, portia, and kurt:

couple seagulls (would have gotten a nice picture of a big pelican too, had i a proper camera, but as it is, here are the gulls):

looking down through an open spot in the pier:

the tide meter thingy:

*sigh* and that's about it, for pictures.

in other news, it's monday, and it feels very, very monday.

but that's not what i want to talk about today. maybe another day. today? i would like to engage in what some might refer to as beating a deceased equine, or to be specific, expressing some anti-war sentiment. i begin by referring you to this intelligent and well-thought out list of Jason's, and say 'what he said'.

also, i have a few words to add about why i think it's such a bad idea to attack (another) country and keep calling this the war on terrorism. first, consider this: Statement attributed to bin Laden praises recent attacks. now let's assume for the sake of argument, Bin Laden is alive and kicking and very much in a leadership role. let's factor in the global aspect of the latest acts of terrorism. with this in mind, consider the folly of targeting a piece of real estate (in this case, Iraq) when the actual enemy is everywhere, and far, far more of an imminent threat.

my conclusion, (an opinion of course), is that invading Iraq isn't going to make us any safer. it's going to cost tens of thousands of American lives (realize, we're not talking missiles from distance this time, we're talking about going in and fighting block by block, hand to hand). over and above those casualties, it's a given that we will experience an increase in international terrorism. Americans will be targeted everywhere we are, and by a far larger group of folks. i'm sure Bin Laden and his associates are thrilled beyond belief that the US is taking such a hostile and aggressive stance. what a recruitment tool this is.

and what a great drain on our resources, investing so much military might in this fight, using traditional tactics and weapons, when terrorism is a decentralized system, when there are folks out there, two or three or 19 of them at a time, planning and executing horrifying attacks with stealth and economy.

the answer to the inevitable, 'well, how do we deal with global terrorism, then?' is we don't know. we have a lot to learn, but instead we're following our leaders into carrying out something they had intended to do from the get-go, at a time when our resources would be much better directed toward figuring out more effective strategies to make the world a safer place to live.

we're going to meet another blogger (Jen) who is from ventura as well, though i've never met her -- i think we were going to go do something once, and then never got to it. anyway, we'll be down at the beach -- there will be pictures.

*guilt* i'm probably supposed to be doing a bunch of webstuff, huh. i'll be getting to it, promise :)

portia is asleep on my couch.

try as i did to convince her to stay awhile, she skittered off into the sunset right after the beach today. little whirlwind, she is. *sigh*

"It's a strange thing, that the farther and faster one travels across the Universe, the more one's position in it seems to be largely immaterial, and one is filled with a profound, or rather emptied of a ..."
~~ Douglas Adams, as Arthur Dent

i'll have more pictures either later or tomorrow, but i'm in recovery mode after a bevy of 19-21 year old girls descended on me, immediately post-portia, and plunged my house, especially my refrigerator and carpet, into a state of abject chaos.

i told them they should come by like that more often.

it's nice to have company.

portia's here! i mean, well, she's still a few miles out, but she's basically here! omg. i have to clear a path through the living room, at least.

omg. she's actually going to be here! i have spaghetti and salad and coffee and soy milk for her. she has booze. i have beer. whee!

i can never resist a good sunset or two

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

i love the demotivators. just love them. and i'm on the 'wailing list', so i'm currently in posession of some tip-top-secret knowledge. despair.com is closed to the general public today, but i have the password. i'm special. (me and a couple hundred thousand other people on that mailing list, you know?)

which means, if i wasn't broke, i could be buying things like this:
.

biscuits and gravy. preferably from a small, frumpy-looking truckstop on a frontage road with a waitress possibly named Betty Lou or maybe even Flo.

ok. this new MT is just brimming with pingy goodness. first of all, it pings blo.gs, automatically, just check a box. and, if you do wander-lust on your site, you can use the handy new ping-other-sites box to ping wander-lust's pinger!

The url to ping is
http://wander-lust.com/pinger.cgi?you@yourdomain.com (where the you @ yourdomain is the email addy you used to sign up with wanderlust).

so now i'm pinging four places with every entry (that would be, MT recently updated, blo.gs, weblogs.com, and wander-lust!). (also, this is kind of a test of the wander-lust thingy.) and on days like today, the mere thought of my little blog communing with the weblog community at large via something as simple as several pings, is something that makes me, if not happy, then at least ... less whiny. by quite a lot, actually. ping, ping, ping, ping.

if i was less lazy i'd make a category 'whining' and file this under it. now where was i? oh, scattered. got nothing done last night, well, almost nothing, lots of grumping around the house with the old man, who's rather ticked that i chose to subject us to financial ruin without discussing it with him first. or somehting, it's not like we're rational when these things happen. it was kind of a knee-jerk reaction signing the contract with the western dental, since i was in that 'ok ok anything to make it stop even [insert large number of dollars i didn't have at the time]'. i even unofficially asked my parents for money last night. yeah. and i'm nearly forty two years old. and this depresses me. i'm very upset with myself for being a flake.

i would have made myself feel better by being organized and efficient and getting all manner of productive webthings done last night but no. it was benadryl and bed early. only woke up twice during the night (well, three times counting the cat), was having the same dream all night long. long marathon-type dream of all the helplessness symbols -- no shoes, can't dial a cell phone, can't find keys, lost, wanted a puppy, wanted my mommy, and that bit about having to go into the parallel dimension which was actually back in time a few hundred years and pass these challenges if you went in one way, but if you took the swirly warp thingy you could go back, if you could find it again. um. thank you video games, i needed that kind of stress in my dreams.

this morning i was getting my son dressed and he was whining he wanted to stay home and watch spiderman. oh man. sounded like such a good idea, but no. i personally would rather lay on the couch and cry than go to work, but that's not really an option.

i might sound like a stressmonster at times, but deep inside i'm quite complacent -- it's how i procrastinate so effortlessly. i always have this feeling that things are going to work themselves out. and usually it has something to do with resignation. today, i was confronting the very real possibility that drive time (formerly ugly duckling) was going to want to come get my car, being the notoriously strict carloan sharks that they are. and i've been dodging them on the phone. and so tonight i said, well, you know, whatever. i'll call them and tell them i blew the car payment on my teeth, and say bring on your towtrucks.

collections lady: you owe a partial payment
me: i owe a what?
collections lady: you owe $32.44
me: i owe what?
collections lady: evidently, you paid ahead?
me: oh yeah! (back when i was afraid my checking account was going to get attached (long story) i was keeping everything in cash, and paying over by about $12 per payment. i guess that adds up after you do it a few months running, twice a month.) (i told you i was a flake) (but apparently i'm getting better)
collections lady: but you're two days late
me: well, i'll be in oxnard at the dentist's tomorrow. i'll be in after that. i'll be the puffy one that can't talk right
collections lady: haha. ok. (see? i've charmed her!)

oh man. i'm good.

so, i get to keep my car. no word yet on how i'm keeping the other things that i'm in over my head over. oh. wait. i was supposed to buy a scratcher, right?

in other bizarrely miraculous news, remember when i had to abandon a whole copy of MT because of bizarre errors? i fixed it. it was the google API thingy. just had to lose that. *sigh* i could now theoretically combine all my copies of MT into one set of archives. but .... i like it fragmented like this. i do. i'm leaving it the way it is. it's important to retain some complacency.

just checking. things are going kinda downhill with this copy of MT. probably something stupid i did.

happy birthday, movable type! i'm probably a little more excited than i ought to be, but then again, MT is the reason this blog here exists. i'd been eyeing it for a couple months, and finally decided to check it out, with the idea of converting surreally.

this was just a test.

so i'll use that as my excuse why i'm having to restrain myself from bouncing around the office about the new version. heh - so much for getting any work done today~~

ok. so i might be really wrecked and away from the computer for awhile. i know it's just dental work. but i'm a big ole wussie that way.

for hosting/surreally blog problems, i encourage hanging out at the support forum that Dan set up for us (isn't it gorgeous?) feel free to make it your own, have fun, play, help each other -- and there is even a 'home away from home' section, where if you are displaced by the server moves (i'm figuring all three surreallys will go at the worst possible moment. i mean, that makes sense, right?).

so, if i'm curled up in a little ball sniveling a lot longer than the acceptable, respectable time period for a person having major dentistry, i leave you all with the forum.

you might not want to click more if you think that people posting their dental xrays is in any way gross, weird, or deviant. i'm just trying to get in the mood here. woo!

1. the gas. get the gas. it's (almost) worth it just for the gas. esp. that first minute or two when they put the thingy over your nosey and let you party a little before they hurt you.

2. be adamant about the novocaine. tell them your teeth are telepathic pain receptors that feel it if any dental professional even thinks about doing anything, anything at all, even stuff that's not supposed to hurt.

3. if they are still unconvinced, mention your unfortunate habit of biting. you wish you didn't have to, but you do.

4. listen to the wise words of Tanya. bring your CD player. i would recomment Lit - A Place In The Sun. it's music to drill and file and scrape do other zizzy things and god knows what else by.

You make me come
You make me complete
You make me completely miserable
Stuck to a chair
Watchin' this story about me
Everything goes by so fast
Making my head spin

I touched the world
I felt the sun
I know the best is yet to come undone
I looked around
At everyone
I know the best is yet to come undone

or don't. i'm not only a bad influence, i'm also the reason the whipped cream never comes out of the can right. whippets man! we didn't need drugs, we had the supermarket.

so here's the situation: you're making boil-in-bag brown rice for lunch (oh so yummy with butter and parmesan cheese). you go in the kitchen to check and discover that a small moth, drawn by the heat, has fallen in the pot and is resting (well, dead) on top of the bag of rice. you know that the rice is now suffused, however minutely, with mothness. you scoop out said moth, and debate what to do. on the one hand, it's just a bag of rice. on the other, you're hungry, and it's ready.

assume for this exercise that you are manically bug-avoidant, especially moths with their flutteriness and that ... that powedery stuff on them. eww.

what do you do?

i've lived here for awhile now, longer than most, if not all, places i've lived in my adult life. not solidly, but on and off for about three years, (damn. is it that long? guess so.) there were a couple of roommate adventures, if you call hell adventurous, as i tried to live elsewhere, but always ended up back here. roommates. bah.

humbug. anyway. it's lovely here. we have an enormous catholic church in the backyard, with bells. they go off from 8am to 9pm daily, but if it's quiet, there's another set that goes off in the near distance, about a minute after ours. they stop at ten, just now heard them, above the crickets. we're two blocks from a trauma center, and the worst sound of living here is the helicopters. it never, ever ceases to give me the chills when one flies over -- at this point in the flight path they pass directly overhead at about 100 - 150 feet. haven't been any of those lately, thankfully.

and the cats. oy. the cats. our kitty still thinks he's a badass, even though he's declawed and deballed and lacks both the hormones and the weapons to be a big mean tom-kitty (shh! don't tell him!). they're out there now. *sigh* the neighbors, all elderly or nuns or both, must hate us for our kitty, or at least, find us annoying.

hey, he came with the house, and we're all rather stuck here, in the suburbs, where it's almost quiet.

this means, automatic thumbnailing on uploaded images. i [heart] the server upgrade so very very much. (click images for full size)

mmm. lunch:

where there is abandoned laundry, there is cat:

i got drunk and took a picture of a pretty book on my monitor:

the toys that lived on the end of the couch i sleep on, for a week (it's long, i'm short):

the backend of a buick just like mine. sort of:

a bus not making a turn (mirror project material?):

so i was sitting here, realizing something is wrong. something definitely ... not right. different. downright weird.

this would be the problem

woo! my first mirror project picture!

subtitle: an open letter of fondness to sprint pcs

Skarlet has pointed out that my hasty assessment of Ben "Cooter" Jones was, well, hasty. and based on a snarky mention of the fact in mark morford's column, truth be told.

interesting article, excerpt follows, but reading the whole thing might be interesting for you southern folk.

Southern -- and Proud of It (washingtonpost.com)

"Specifically, Wilder is upset because Jones, a former actor, occasionally campaigns in the car popularized on his old TV series, "The Dukes of Hazzard." The car -- a prop for fictional characters -- has a Confederate flag painted on top. Although Jones explains that his pride is in his Southern ancestors "who fought nobly on the wrong side of history," Wilder insists the flag sends a subliminal racist message.

The non-subliminal facts?

Jones is a lifetime member of the NAACP. While protesting for civil rights in the 1960s, he had ammonia thrown in his eyes, was shot at by a Klansman and was arrested by police. It is as likely that he displays the Confederate flag to convey racism as it is that Mother Teresa wore a cross because she hoped to ward off vampires."

first the sad: Lee's mom has died. sending comforting vibes her way.

and the happy: Portia's coming! she's in St. George, Utah, which is 448 miles away. i think i'd better take a shovel to this house. at least weed the bathroom floor.

apparently the fault isn't totally with my ISP. it's Netscape 7. mozilla can see things fine, while Konqueror can see the site fine but not find the database (can't login to MT). but good old mozilla, working just fine.

it doesn't help that i'm getting totally sick.

but don't worry, i'll be fixing databases as sites get moved, but that may be all i do this weekend. i feel sooooooo very icky.

ok, can we please let the silly rabbit have some trix? i mean really. trix are just as good for rabbits as they are for kids. and he's been trying all these years.

i just think it's cruel, is all.

* * *
ok, so i'm not the first to think of this. there is a petition. 1298 people have signed it. however, we should consider krix's comment. enabling a rabbit is a bad thing.

* * *
and apparently, the rabbit is suing.

joining the long list of sitcom hasbeens to run for public office, i present to you, "Cooter for Congress". and here's a quote from the candidate hisself: "We're not trying to refight the war. We're just proud of our Southern heritage. We're NASCAR Democrats, and our priorities are right where they always were -- take care of mama 'n them and make sure the kids get a good education."

oh. wow.

anyway, he's traveling the campaign trail in the good ole General Lee. "Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder said he is troubled by the signals Jones is sending to the district's overwhelmingly white, rural and suburban electorate by using the gully-jumping 1969 Dodge Charger, known as the General Lee. To black voters, he said, it is a slap in the face.".

i would see it more as a slap in the face to *all* voters, to run a campaign based on his 'glory days', consisting of a small, recurring role in the Dukes of Hazzard for cryin' out loud. but maybe that's just me.

it was touch and go for a minute there, and in fact there is still lingering DNS weirdness from where i sit, but Dan has been ever so helpful with the testing and reassurances that it's not all messed up everywhere.

just here. but i do get to see what my site looks like totally unstyled. not bad. not bad at all. woohoo for usability!

so i will be posting more news on the surreally updates site as soon as i finish fixing other hostees (Lynn, if you're worried, i can fix it! i can!). and i've used my linux 'konsole' to telnet into my servers and run shell scripts on databases and am feeling somewhat geeky.

DNS weirdness extends to email, so kdk at surreally dot com for now.

ok. so i wake up. i look at the clock. 2:45 PM? what? (what happened to the clock, man?). oh my. i determine that it is indeed only 8:45 AM, perfectly respectable hour. ok, well, it's better than almost three in the afternoon, ok? hmm. did i post anything? ahh, song lyrics, that's ok. hmm. what's that mess (contents of purse on floor)? oh. right. i went to the corner store for beer. god knows i needed it, huh? so, i check my email. nothing ... startling. i check my phone history. oh, man. what a lot of numbers *waves* to people i talked to in 559 area code! i hope i wasn't annoying!

but i probably was *sigh* i do remember talking to hoopty and having one hell of a hard time enunciating words. and that's very annoying, talking to people who can't talk. but, in order for it to have sufficient analgesic properties, booze must be drunk in great quantity. and drink it i did, and i was indeed drunk in great quantity. and i was out of pain, which i suppose is better than out of my mind with pain. right?

i don't even want to look in my sent items. no. no reason to. not now. maybe i should just delete them, for sanity's sake. back in the days i used to drink like this on a more regular basis, i would usually have the decency to delete my sent items before i went to bed. it's been a loooong time since i've been that drunk, so i seem to have forgotten some of my old coping skills. which is ok. they are better forgotten.

i think at some point my game plan was to give myself the day off and use up a vacation day and go do dentist things. i should do that then.

She eyes me like a pisces when I am weak
I've been locked inside your Heart Shaped box for a week
I was drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn back
Hey
Wait
I've got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Hate
Weight
I've got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Hey
Wait
I've got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Meat-eating orchids forgive no one just yet
Cut myself angel's hair and baby's breath
Broken hymen of your highness I'm left black
Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back

10. War is silly, whack your willy
9. War's no joke, stop and stroke!
8. Pull together for peace
7. Send your little troops into your hand, not a foreign land
6. Abuse your middle piece, not the Middle East
5. All we are saying, is give peace a wank
4. War is out, pound your trout
3. Touch your sack, not Iraq
2. My bush doesn't declare war
1. I cum in peace

Masturbate for Peace: Using Masturbation to End War

[via rubbernun]

firstly, let me preface these remarks with, i have found a dentist that will work with me. it's like, western dental, and yes they're butchers, but better butchers than what i would do otherwise. and they do extend credit, which leads me to believe their collections department consists of large, hirsute men named Knuckles and Killer, but i don't care.

and secondly, let me tell you that my choice of painkiller for the evening could have been acquired many places closer than my Favorite Liquor Store Ever, which is all the way downtown, but the drive did me a world of loveliness. temps in the high 50's, windows down, radio loud, good music (the 70's at seven and you know how i am about my stoned age rock.) anyway.

so 'twas a lovely drive and the reason i go there, is Zack. now, Zack is a young kid, but works long hours (he's always there) in the family business. and it's the small, familyness of the way they do business that keeps me driving across town. i am always greeted by name. pleasantries are always exchanged, in which i generally ask if he's had any time off lately, and he asks after my family. on this particular evening, i wander around a bit, then approach the counter, clutching a package of chocolate donuts (on kurt's request). i have a slightly pained expression on my face. i say, i need ... and he says, amaretto? (how does he know these things? i've bought amaretto there, i think, three times?) i say, yes, your smallest bottle, and cigarettes. he says, yours, or both? (he knows the brands). i say, mine.

further proof that this amaretto (48 proof, incidentally) was meant to be for me and the last bit of unhelped tooth stuff: amount i took out of the bank to finance this venture: $20. exact total, of chocolate donuts, amaretto, and vanilla cigarettes: $20.00.

disclaimer for anyone visiting here curiously tomorrow, wondering about weird comments i may be about to leave anywhere: i'm planning on drinking rather heavily, and i tend to comment accordingly. it's ok. more or less.

"As a shining beacon of freedom and democracy, America has inspired the world," said Bush in his 25-minute address. "With its military might, it has kept the peace and bravely defended the unalienable [sic] rights of millions around the globe. In this spirit, I call upon the world's nations to support my proposal to give America unrestricted carte blanche to remove whatever leaders, plunder whatever resources, and impose whatever policies it deems necessary or expedient."

imagine my dismay, checking my phone minutes, to find over 1700 minutes used up by the teenage daughter alone. (by comparison the middle child's father, used about 245 total, and i have used 35 daytime and about 800 night and weekend. i'm really good about the night and weekend, you know.)

and i realize something must be done. it's ridiculous to spend the last week of every month admonishing my other two phone-holders to turn your phone off between 7AM and 8PM dammit and stress because i can't really tell how many daytime minutes we're over, i just know it's bad. so i took action.

now the next plan up is 2000 anytime/13000 night and weekend. i can't help thinking this is counterproductive on sprint's part, since merely saying 'unlimited' would be much less of a challenge. you can't do much about unlimited. but you can damn sure take a shot at thirteen thousand. ok, i admit at least one of my co-workers thinks i need serious therapy for thinking that a project to have a 15000 minute phonebill is something amusing, but he thinks i need serious therapy anyway, so pttthbt.

it's 216.66 night/weekend hours, is all it is. it can be used up playing silly wireless internet trivia games, or making long rambling three-way calls between the phones on the plan to use up triple minutes, and i'm sure i can find some people who feel like babbling endlessly on the phone late nights. so starting on the fifth of this month, it's all about the Project To Use Up All Those Minutes. anyone wanting to participate can mail me their number whenever (between 8PM and 7AM weekdays and all weekend that is) and we'll chat and chat.

or maybe i'll just seek therapy.

i've gotten to the point where i have way, way too many people to communicate re: hosting issues, so i'm going to set up a central surreally news/updates blog, over on the dot org site. it'll be up on http://surreally.org in a short while.

i'll be asking all you hostees to sign up on the notify list so that i can let you know of things like this:

they are moving our servers to a new facility --

As you may know already, A+ Hosting is moving all its servers into a new facility in Las Vegas, NV. We have designed a network here with uptime and speed in mind, far more advanced and redundant than our current one.

anyway, i need to have a central point of communication for all hosting stuff and news. and it shall be done shortly. please spread the word to your neighboring hostees!

what do you mean mrow? oh.

* * *
i need a cat door.