Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Technology Rocks. Sometimes.



Thank you, Rurality! You were right about how to move the blogroller over to the side. I even figured out how to add and edit stuff on the Blogroll. It wasn't nearly as hard as I was anticipating.

Now I just need to learn enough html to fool with the font until I'm happy with it. (Isn't it sad that the only html I know is from neopets??)

I'm feeling technologically gifted today. Yay!

Friday, August 18, 2006

My Aura and Other Stolen Things

From Danger Mouse and Stu, five weird things about myself:

1) My hearing is so acute that I can hear lasers. I can walk into your house and tell you whether or not your TV is on, and the daily hum of the fluorescent lights nearly drives me insane. I carry earplugs with me everywhere I go.

2) Like Danger Mouse, I am totally compulsive about peeling things, any things I can get my fingernails into. From one little flip of wallpaper, I can denude the wall in a couple of hours, without really being conscious of what I'm doing.

3) I am a very picky eater, although I am not allergic to anything foodwise. I do not eat things that live in water, fungus, organs, baby animals or any other animal I've ever considered a friend. I am not, however, a vegetatarian. I consider cows to be dinner and a coat on the hoof.

4) I have a magnetic personality. No, really. I cannot keep credit cards anywhere near me or they are rendered useless. I replace watch batteries several times a year, and I nearly always set off airport security. The wand beeps at all of my joints and about half way up my shins. Electronic devices do not like me and I have more computer malfunctions that anyone else I know - I have my own file of odd computer errors in our IT department, and they use me to beta test everything new.

5) I have no sense of direction. None. I got lost here in the building where I've worked for three years just last week. I went down a different staircase, and nothing looked familiar and for an instant, I had no idea where to go. My family says that I subscribe to the daylight school of navigation - east in the morning, west in the evening and at noon I circle helplessly.

This is fun. I think I'll do more than five.

6) I have a hard time with right and left. Before telling people which way to turn, I make 'L's with my index fingers and thumbs. Occasionally, I can't remember which way the L is supposed to go. I used to wear a ring on my left hand to remind me which one was the left one.

7) I am like a cat with closed doors - I'm always on the wrong side of them. I always sit with my back to a wall in restaurants, and I always know where all the exits are. Any building that I spend any time in at all, I will explore in detail at some point during my time there, usually in the middle of the night when I don't have to try to explain myself. (This makes my getting lost in the building even more embarrassing.)

8) I do not like people walking behind me, and I prefer not to be touched casually. Touchy feely people creep me out. My friends torture me by chasing me around and trying to hug me. I rarely wear my hair down in public because everytime I do, someone attempts to pat my hair as though I were a poodle. It's all I can do not to bite them.

9) I tend to think in cartoons, and most of the people in my world remind me of either a cartoon or a muppet.

10) I don't like odd numbers. They just seem incomplete. Whenever possible, I prefer the number two.

~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~
My aura is apparently green. Bummer. I was hoping for blue - that's my favorite color. Thanks, Sharfa, for the idea. :-)

So what's yours?

Your Aura is Green

You're very driven, competitive, and even a bit jealous.
However, you seek out balance in your life - and you usually achieve it!

The purpose of your life: inspiring others to be better

Famous greens include: Tony Robbins, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart

Careers for you to try: Guru, CEO, Talk Show Host


I'm afraid that I don't really agree with this. Okay, well. I don't agree with the purpose. My purpose really is getting people to stay the hell outta my way more than them being better. I guess I am fairly driven (if that's the same as really, really stubborn). I'm competitive in that I prefer to win, but I will force myself to be a good sport about it either way. Hmm. I do have to battle back slight jealousies, or more appropriately, mild insecurities so I guess that one holds too. Sorta.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

We Need You...



I will restrain myself from a full-bore rant on the state of our union today, but I will say this: I firmly believe that organizations like this one may be our only hope to remain a democratic society. Please visit
DefCon
today and look around.

Okay, can't help it. Maybe a little rant...

Here's a news flash for you. The government can't protect you. Thomas Edison said, "Those who prefer security to liberty deserve neither." There is a cost to being free, and it is not rolling over when the government tells you to give up liberties to gain security. You haven't gained security, you've only lost liberty.

The cost, as far as I'm concerned, to liberty is liberty: living in a society where it is possible for another 9/11 to happen. Keeping track of the library books that you read, the places you go, the people you talk to and what you say, the things that you buy and what you do with them will not save us from this happening again. Be vigilant, be aware, don't be apathetic, take control of your life - not just in the day to day moments but also of the big pictures as well. We as a country are eroding. Last year, at the Press Awards Dinner, Bush joked about finding WMD. They showed him looking under podiums and such, saying "nope, not here," while the press laughed along with him - as our sons and daughters died. That didn't really even make the news, but some blonde slut saying she's not going to get laid for a year did. Is anyone else sensing a problem here? All I'm asking is please, for the love of the god you believe in, GET INVOLVED. Pay attention.

Maybe I'm wrong, and the majority of the country really is that small-minded and fundamentalist. Maybe Ben Franklin was right when he said that common sense wasn't. Maybe people getting involved will only mean that stem cell research stops, and women lose their reproductive rights, and we stop teaching science to our children and we build discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation into the Constitution. Maybe we as a nation aren't the people that I think we are. But I'd be easier with that than the current situation, where a few scary nutjobs are holding all the cards, so PLEASE just get involved.

Do it for the kittens, if nothing else.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Transitions.

Happy, or at least comical transition: the kitten has grown enough that if she tries REALLY hard, she can vault onto the hutch once in every 10 tries or so. This is pretty good, since the surface is about waist high. This is bad in that my poor Sophia has one fewer place to hide.

Sad, but expected transition: my parents had to put Lady down on Friday. It's actually past time. Ideally, we would have done it when I was home in April, but Dad just wasn't ready to let go. She's happier now. I hope that until we meet again, she has someone to throw sticks for her, and shovels full of snow. And, since I'm not the one washing her, I hope there's a lakeshore, with lots of dead rotting fish to roll in. That's her favorite smell in the world. And basketballs to pop, and UPS men to chase. I love you, puppy.