Thursday, May 06, 2004
Oh.My.God.
(Thanks to Ith for the news!)
She’s BACK
No more war news for me, either.
Because if I see someone call for Rumsfeld to be fired/resign/commit suicide over the prisoner abuse issue one more time my head’s going to explode.
I Love My New Client
I e-mailed them a bill on the 4th and received a check on the 6th, today. Wow!
If only it were bigger, I’d be all set.
5 more things. (I’m trying to quit, honest I am.)
~~I slept far too well last night, and therefore today I have the approximate mental power of a drunk hummingbird.
~~After many years of completely forgetting Phil Collins’s existence, 2 days ago I cracked some sort of sad pun based around the word “Sussudio.” Yesterday, Jim blogged about ”Sussudio." Shit like that scares me.
~~You may have noticed that I’ve backed way off of political blogging. Two reasons: first, we’re at another one of those campaign stages where it all just sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher to me. Second, I have a blood pressure problem already, so I’m trying to avoid getting angry over things I can do nothing about right now. It’s sort of working. Sort of.
~~I know I’m breaking the rule I just set above, but I’ve got no words for this, so it’s only a partial violation. Ortiz is a well-known moron, and the architect of the soda ban in Cali schools. Hmmm. Maybe not drinking enough soda causes brain damage?
~~I apologize if these posts full of bits and pieces are getting tiring, but see the first item in this particular one and you’ll understand, especially if you intuited that I thought I was being pretty clever with that analogy.
Planned Obsolescence?
Remember a while back when there was a fuss about the discovery of limited lifespan of burned CD media; CD-Rs and CD-RWs? Well, now it’s the traditional kind and DVDs too. Dean pointed out a fascinating article on the problem of ”CD rot“.
So… the media and sofware companies that don’t want us to be able to make copies, who don’t want us to use digital forms of music, who are slow - at best - to release back catalogs in new formats, are selling us product on media that self-destructs. Oh, excuse me… licensing us product. Sheesh.
Now That’s What I Call Streaming Media
Jeff wants your opinion: Is he just pissing into the wind?
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
The bestest.
Yes, I am in the mood to make up words today. What of it, gammarmonkeygodboy?
Anyway, what I really got on here to tell you is that I have the most amazing fantastic wonderful incredible husband ever. He just came home with Taco Bell. That’s pretty cool.
He also came home with Krispy Kremes.
That’s amazing fantastic wonderful incredible.
I’m so in love.
8 more things
~~I feel like doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. I have to go pick up a prescription, and I should go to the store to get milk. The prescription I’ll manage. I wonder if they have milk at the drugstore?
~~I have the cutest maternity capris in the world, but I can’t seem to make myself wear them, despite the fact that I’m starting to look silly in my old ragged sweats.
~~It hurts me just a little that it’s May and I’m still wearing sweats. Fresno’s low was higher than our high yesterday. I’m still having trouble getting used to this.
~~I feel completely incapable of straightening out this scheduling snafu with the ultrasound thingy. I know I can’t let the damned substitute receptionist person run over me, but I don’t know how to fix it without pissing her off royally, either. Luckily, Jay said he’d take a crack at it. I love my husband.
~~I should remember to also get something chocolate at the drugstore. We’re almost out of chocolate. That can’t be allowed to happen.
~~Slacker Dude is now the first winner of the Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Award. I’m working on thinking up an appropriate prize.
~~I hate it when you spot a bug just before he crawls into a place where you can’t reach to smoosh him.
~~I’m going to go to the drugstore now, so I can hurry home and have a nap. For some reason, I really, really want a nap today. I feel sort of guilty about napping, but I also know that this is the last time I’ll ever have this sort of luxury, so I really shouldn’t spoil it with guilt. I’ll feel guilty anyway, because I’m really, really good at guilt. It comes naturally, along with the social malfunctions.
Movin’ right along
If you aren’t reading Michael King, you’re missing out. Luckily, doing that just got even easier, as he’s become a resident of Munuviana. Yay!
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Carnival of the Canines
I recently suggested to Mickey that she ought to start a “Carnival of the Canines” as an only partially tongue in cheek antidote to Carnival of the Cats, and by way of poking fun at the sheer number of Carnival of the [fill in the blank] metablogging meme-like things sprouting like virtual weeds in the fertility of the blogosphere.
And so it gives me great pleasure to announce that entries are now being taken for Carnival of the Dogs. Yes, equal time for canines… woohoo!
Spread the word.
I think it’s time to go back to bed.
The toilet is refusing to flush again and the temporary replacement scheduling chick at the midwives’ office set up my ultrasound for two weeks later than it was supposed to have been--and *after* my next appointment, which I was supposed to *move up* because she doesn’t want me to go 4 weeks between *and* she wanted to go over the ultrasound stuff ASAP. Grrr.
That Was Fast
No sooner did the Sasser virus come out than someone started sending people by e-mail a supposed patch for Sasser that is actually a file transmitting the Netsky virus. How special.
8 things
~~I have problems with people being nice to me. When it happens, I don’t know how to react, which generally means embarrassing myself because I wind up being rude in return, instead of nice. I’m not trying to be, it’s just that it comes naturally.
I’m especially awful about e-mail. For example, a very sweet gal e-mailed me a good week ago now with words of encouragement about this whole crazy blood pressure thing, and I have yet to reply. Every time I get in my mail intending to do so, I just sort of choke up and blush and my mind goes blank.
I suck like that.
~~I need to call my midwife’s office today and find out why I haven’t heard anything about this fancy-pants ultrasound I’m supposed to be signed up for. I hate making those kinds of calls. I always have. Luckily, I can put it off another hour since it’s lunchtime.
~~I’m still in more of a mood to clean than to post, which will no doubt thrill my husband. Yesterday’s bout of feeling vaguely anti-social resulted in a sparking clean bathroom. Who knows what today’s might bring…
~~I swear to God I can hear a cricket chirping in here again.
~~I might not go completely nuts on the folks upstairs anyway if Slacker Dude takes the fucking trash out this week.
~~I love the anticipation of a good scream like that.
~~That love is probably why my blood pressure is so high.
~~This is close to degenerating into a “100 things” post, so I’m going to go now.
This Should Be Fun
Don’t look for much from me today.
First, I have to visit the new client and make sure they are not infected, or cleaned up from, the Sasser worm. Plus whatever else inevitably comes up while I am there. Then I have whatever comes up at my big client, which I hope is safe from being infected, along with all the accumulated work that was interrupted by the need to go home last night. Then I have either a partner coming down to the office for me to entertain work on a project with, or else said partner for me to run some stuff to so he can work out of his house. Then I have whoever calls today wanting preferably free help with Sasser cleanup. Ugh.
To the extent that busy means money, this is good, but I have to have time to bill for the work I do. Yesterday I got all but the two largest bills, that actually help me any, done. By being so busy today I have to delay getting to them. I’m stone cold “cash flow broke” right now and that makes me actually want to get billing done.
Monday, May 03, 2004
Rainy day woman
I’ve been in this weird, vaguely anti-social mood today, and as a result have had no real desire to blog. I did write about the joys of being a quitter over at the baby’s page, though, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
Nicotine is better than sex…or at least that’s what I tell myself.
I keep hearing that many women have sex dreams while they’re pregnant. Not me. Oh, no. I have cigarette dreams.
Ladies, don’t let anybody tell you that it’s easy to quit smoking once you’re pregnant. The extra motivation helps, yes, but it isn’t easy. Those chicks who tell you that the moment they found out they were pregnant they threw their cigarettes away, never to feel a hint of desire for such a poisonous, terrible, evil thing again are either lying or they weren’t really smokers in the first place. (I also happen to think they’re lousy people for making a hard thing even harder by helping you pile on the guilt. Guilt isn’t something you really need help with.)
Look, when I found out I was pregnant, I went outside and smoked a cigarette. It was 0130, and I couldn’t sleep because I was wondering if I really was pregnant, so I peed on a stick (which is harder to do than you’d think, unless you’ve been there), waited three minutes, and stared in shock at the second line that had appeared. Then I cracked a huge ol’ smile and went outside and smoked a cigarette.
It was important to get at least one more in while I was still in shock, you see. I knew I didn’t have long until the guilt hit.
And hit it did, but quitting still took time. It took me something like 5 or 6 weeks of struggling, slowly cutting down and learning to ignore the cravings, before I managed to quit entirely. It’s been a couple of months now since I’ve had a cigarette. I still fight cravings every day, and frankly, I’m pretty damned tired of fighting them.
But at least I still have the dreams…
My favorite one so far is the one where I experience an absolutely remarkable, completely pain-free and bloodless futuristic birth in a hospital where everything is done in neat shades of grey and where they simply lifted the baby out of me and left the room, taking the baby with them, and I got up, got dressed, and went down to the garden for a smoke before going back to collect the baby and head home.
I think that was the best cigarette I’ve ever had.
Sigh.
Your Need Don’t Pay My Rent
Last year I did a friend the favor of helping a former colleague of hers. This is someone who became my friend’s special buddy and relied on her for computer help. This time it was beyond her or she didn’t have time, so I got drawn in.
Well, it was some funky problem with an obsolete laptop that was barely alive. I wouldn’t have minded so much, but it was not only a free favor, which happens to me often enough with people I know or am related to, but also it was for the type I refer to as a “psychic leech.” Her very need dragged me down. It wasn’t just “here’s what’s wrong, you should probably buy a new laptop.” “Okay, thanks.” And she goes on her way happy for the help. Instead, it becomes my problem, expressed in her wounded puppydog look, that her computer is fubar and she has no money to buy a replacement.
Well I am sorry. I did what I could. Be happy for that, move along, and stop sucking the life out of the room around me. I hate people who make me feel drained by their very presence, and I am way too sensitive to the type.
So today I am working along, trying to do some billing so I can collect some of what is coming to me and be less broke, feeling a bit panicked about how I am going to find time for everything I need to get done. The phone rings and I pick it up, thinking the name and number I don’t recognize might be a new client. Busy as I am, I need more paying work.
Good Lord if it wasn’t the psychic leech. I considered myself lucky I never heard from her again and it was a one-time favor for my friend who sent her to me. Guess I wasn’t done with her yet.
Perhaps I should change the name of the company to Free Tech Support. Oh right, I’d be out of business in a few weeks that way. The people who figure you can just do them a favor never see beyond themselves to that ultimate death-like state they would collectively impart.
Anyway, she did finally get a new HP laptop. Why an HP when there are better choices, I will never understand, but I digress. HP printers good. HP computers, not so good. Not tough concept.
It started barfing with an error regarding lsashell and mentioning lasss.exe, and being unable to get online properly via Earthlink. She called Earthlink, and they have an automated message not only saying there are long wait times in the support queue, but also there is a worm going around that MS has the fix for, and direct you there.
All of which led the woman to call me at Free Tech Support. Without having done a manual virus scan yet. I left her doing so, in case Norton would in fact have a chance of catching it. But… this is my problem how? If she comes back to me and I have her bring it in for me to fix it, that’s going to be on the order of $80 of time if she were a paying client. And having that psychic drain going on in my vicinity… augh.
Meanwhile, my new client who pays real money thinks they have this virus and needs me to go check on things. Looks like there is this one, this one, this one, and the original variant of something called Sasser, all listed off the Symantec Security Response page. Which I now know about if the hapless psychic leech free support lady calls back. As well as for benefit of the client who will go a long way toward making supporting a baby possible, thankyouverymuch.
Anyway, I bring these things on myself in part, not doing enough to discourage the free support expectations. I just needed to gripe, and this particular one I expected and hoped never to hear from again was one of the worst.
Carnival of the Cats
Precautionary E-Mail Marketing Tale
Okay, here is how not to use e-mail for your marketing or to otherwise look good.
A while back, when it was time to renew the domain for my business, my partner decided we really ought to transfer to AIT Domains, which he had used and liked very much. Highly recommend, and his is an opinion I trust. So we tried it, charging the $8 or so to my partner’s credit card and signing me up as the contact.
As it turned out, because Network Solutions is evil and we were under two months from the domain expiring, the domain never transferred. We had to pay for it to renew at Network Solutions, too, for it to transfer. As far as I can tell, it is still there.
All of which is neither here nor there. Ditto for the fact that I signed up as an AIT customer, but any logical username I might have used will not work, even with the replacement passwords that AIT happily sends. The whole cheap domain hosting thing ought to be painless, the way it seems to be at Go Daddy.
On March 28, I received a “Monthly Newsletter” from AIT Domains. Okay fine, people will use the e-mail address you give them to send that kind of thing. Even if you are not, in act, successfully a customer and only appear to have become one.
I received the same monthly newsletter on the 29, the 30th, and on May 1st. At that point, I looked for the fine print to unsubscribe. To their credit, it is there and easy. I got the obligatory success at unsubscribing notice. Yay.
Then on the 2nd I got the AIT Domains monthly newsletter again. Then on the 3rd, it is still coming! I tried unsubscribing again, but I am no longer subscribed, so I can’t.
I figure it’s only a matter of time before they figure out their mailings have gone haywire and are spewing out daily rather than monthly. In the meantime, they look bad. It’s the kind of thing that can happen to anyone, but damn, if you are in business where you need to look technically competent, having trouble running a mailing list is not pretty. Having a mailing list continue to send to a removed address is a nice additional touch.
There you have it, a cautionary tale of using e-mail to enhance your business. The newsletter itself isn’t a bad idea, although it’s one big ad, rather than being a newsletter that contains promotion of the sender’s services. You just have to be careful with the execution.
5/3 Carnival of the Capitalists Is Up
First things first, the May 3 edition of Carnival of the Capitalists is up at the Brain Brew Blog.
Next week’s will be hosted by Clay Whittaker, graciously filling in for the original host who was unavailble. He will be happy to receive your biz and econ post submissions any time through Sunday afternoon, at the customary capitalists -at-elhide.com address.
Other great upcoming hosts are listed at the Carnival of the Capitalists page, along with info about this whole thing. If you’d like to catch up on past CotC editions you’ve missed, there is a page listing past locations.
Note that you can always try http://elhide.com/solo/cc.htm as a redirector link to the most recent CotC, without having to look around to see the location announced like this.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Ten Bucks? I Don’t Think So…
Take the What Type of Friend are You? quiz, and visit mutedfaith.com.
Me? Never!
Take the What High School Stereotype Are You? quiz.
Via the stereotypical outsider at It’s a Warlock’s Life
What Happens On An Easter Deferred
This is Easter egg hunt day for my family.
Every year, we hide a huge number of plastic eggs around my grandmother’s yard, and the kids run around finding most of them. Others turn up over the course of the entire next year, apparently too well hidden to be found on the day itself. The eggs contain candy, coins, or whatever.
Between the weather being less than ideal on the actual date of Easter, not everyone with kids being able to go that day because there are two sides to every family, and how overwhelming it would be for my grandmother to serve up dinner for so many at this age, the event takes place later than Easter, with pizza all around.
It’s fun, but it also has an obligatory feeling to it. We’ll be there today, getting the family obligation out of the way. This makes it easier to keep to ourselves for lesser occasions. With so many people there, it provides less intensity of exposure for Deb to any one person. Lest I make it sound terrible, I love seeing the nieces and nephews and grandnieces exploding out for the hunt, and seeing them in general. It was a favorite activity of mine when I was a little squirt.
On that note, it’s time for me to get moving so we actually make it there before the pizza is gone and the eggs are found.
Saturday, May 01, 2004
Impurity
A while back, the Libertarian Purity Test was going around. I never did get around to taking it and posting my score. Either that or I am going senile and don’t remember posting it. At any rate, my score was 97. Which makes me almost purely libertarian, but without being more of an anarchist as the “correct” answers to everything would result in. The maker of the test apparently confuses anarchism with libertarianism, but it is still interesting, and not a bad thing to have the entire range of possible results.
Lest We Forget
May Day made me think of communism, which made me think of its unerring evil, and the road the moonbats would foolishly, if not all mindlessly, push us down. It didn’t bring to mind poles, baskets, fertility rites, or anything like that. Raw evil made the day its own, and it is right we remember and maintain our vigilance forever.
It is with pleasure that I point out, late in the day though it may be, that Catallarchy.net goes all out with A Day of Remembrance. The post I linked points in turn to an entire series of associated posts on the death-fest horror we so often seem to overlook.
It’s definitely worth checking it out and remembering just how evil the paths are that some would gladly pipe us down, even as the tunes sound like fairness, equality, democracy, helping the less fortunate, keeping farmers in business, preventing job loss, improving public safety, improving our children’s self-esteem, keeping us healthy, peace, a pristine environment, and other compelling tunes composed to drown out rational thought and principles.
They Got Me
Once upon a time, I happily upgraded from the Trac II to the Sensor razor system.
Then came the Mach 3, more recently. I resisted. Why should three blades matter? Why pay an even more outrageous sum for blades?
Recently I shopped for blades in anticipation of running out soon. Lo and behold, they had overpriced 3-blade cartridges retrofitted to the Sensor handle. Aha! What a clever marketing ploy, we said in the shaving aisle of Super Wallyworld. Then we decided what could it hoyt to try a small package, and see if the rumored nirvana of Threebladeland was based in real topography or hallucinogens.
Yesterday I opened the package of cartridges with slightly more excitement than the usual matter of factness attached to such a hygienic event, and I placed one on the handle. After a brief ooh and ah at how it looked perched there, ready for business, I dragged it down my face. Rinse. Repeat.
My excitement grew as a I saw the effortless appearance of smooth skin that was more obviously just-shaven than would ordinarily be the case. Easily containing my glee, I trod on into the computer room to present my face to the lovely wife for inspection. She agreed that it was the smoothest she had ever seen it, and that three blades are a Good Thing.
She followed up by observing last night how recently-shaven I still appeared. Indeed, there was no comparison.
So the scheme got me. Hook, line and razor. At the very least, I will stick with faux-Mach 3 blades for me planned obsolete by manufacturer Sensor handle. More likely, I will buy the new system and shave happily ever after. Darn marketers.