Tuesday Night Test

(Actually written late Tuesday night)

I'm in bed and writing to myself on my new wireless aol mobile communicator. It is about the size of a pager and it does aol email and ims. Since I work online, I can carry this with me and still be relatively connected to work when I am on the road. So far the range has been pretty good, I wrote my friend Summer an email from my allergist's office this morning, and had no problems with it. I am slowly getting used to typing on the tiny thumb keyboard, and it really is not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

I don't really have much to say tonight, I'm winding down and relaxing before bed. Called a friend earlier earlier, but she was in the middle of a movie and wanted to call me back. West coast people forget that we doggies need our beauty sleep. Kind of feel like hanging out with Moopie, but she better be in bed by now or all of her adopted relatives would kill her. Katie and Summer have gone missing, Brandi's regal butt is in bed, and my best friend is away until tomorrow night, so I'm going it alone tonight.

So on that note, my little in bed blogging experience is ending and I wish you a goodnight.

k9

Friday Afternoon

Hey all,

Popping in for a quick note that I should get a chance to update links in the links area on SUNDAY afternoon. If you've sent me anything or if you want your link added, please send them to reallycoolsite@aol.com.

Thanks,

k9

Friday Morning

It's Friday morning and I'm watching CNN. I'm half awake and frankly, between the extreme heat this week and my allergies, I'm just wiped out. I feel like sleeping for a week and that seriously scares me.

CNN just had on the mom of one and the wife of another of the heroes from flight 93, the flight that went down in PA on September 11. I know, a lot of people have been jaded over the years to exactly what a "hero" is. I mean time after time public figures have been called "heroes" only to have them publically disgraced, discredited, or involved in scandel. It's a trend in our culture, a sad one, at that. For every act of heroism someone is honored for, there's 4 of 5 more (mainly false) acts put out there to discredit their roles or tarnish their reputations. That's just how our society works.

I call the folks on flight 93 heroes, because frankly, I don't know what else to call them. The cockpit voice recorder and the telephone records show that they knew that they were going to die. They knew the hijackers were on a suicide mission. They knew they were on a plane that was destined to kill more people and they gave their lives to make sure that no one else got hurt. They did what (I hope) any of us would have done -- they didn't die passively. They went down swinging. While I'm sure the ultimate plan was to get the hijackers out of that cockpick and somehow land the plane, that didn't happen, and they didn't think twice about that before storming the cockpit.

I'm glad that the morbid stories haven't come forward about the lives of these people. I'm glad the vultures haven't come out and tarnished the stories of these people by revealing that this guy or that girl had something embarassing in their past. Why? Because all that matters and all they should be judged for in the public is their last moments -- and in those last moments they worked to stop others from getting hurt or killed. That's all that matters.

On that note, be safe all.

k9

::A-Choo!::

Tuesday morning and my allergies have opened up. I'm sitting here in a daze and getting ready to sneeze again. This one is building up. I can feel it. It's like in the back of my nose right now and here it comes ... nope. I think I psyched myself out of ... dammit. There it went.

Yesterday I realized that I've been involved in the TechTV community for about a year now. I'm pretty sure it was last April that I started hanging out in TechTV chat in the mornings and for part of the afternoons. Yup, it was just a year ago that poor Robyn would be up at like 6 AM Pacific to entertain us all in chat while trying not to fall asleep on the air. I kind of miss those times. I mean back then chat was a lot of fun in the morning and a good way to get me motivated for the few hours of work during Anne's shift (sorry Anne, you were always the serious one), to come back in time for "Hello Mrs. Burstein, that's a lovely hat you're wearing" in the afternoons.

This site started when chat started to get a bit too serious for my tastes, and when the egos came out and when I started to get stalked by one chatter in particular. So I decided to switch over some of the comedy from chat to just little Java apps (sadly none of them are working now). The first was a plea for Paul Allen to adopt Robyn since she was searching for a Rich new father figure. I sent that to Laura to send to Robyn and when feedback was good, it somehow led to the first strip.

We didn't take off right away, I think we were a week or two worth of strips into things before anyone actually noticed us and passed it around the TechTV offices. By that time things go so busy that we were killing the hometown.aol.com server on a regular basis (I mean that just DOESN'T happen), and it led to the site that you see in front of you now.

Okay, so I've slowed down in the past six months or so. I admit it, my time is scarce these days and while there will be an occasional strip, I don't think I'll be going back to dailies any time soon. There's just not enough material left at TechTV to work with right now. :( That's a shame. I mean seriously, last year at this time they were an incredibly diverse network. A station that you could spend your entire day watching and it didn't get old or boring. While there were lulls here and there, the station had a bright future and a great line up. I don't know what happened. I have my theories and my reasoning for the current near-death state of the network, but nothing will ever be confirmed. I mean it's sad how they went from such a fun little station to one where they're trying to bribe viewers to watch during sweeps with lame contests. Oh, write this down: you know the station is going to die the day that they have all bikini day on the Screen Savers.

Oh god, I might start a trend to give the powers that be the idea that boobies = ratings, so I'll drop it.

I might as well wander back to work now before these allergies (or Moopie hitting me for the boobies line), kill me off once and for all.

Sneezingly yours,

k9

Monday Afternoon Thoughts

It's a little after noon on a Monday, I have No Doubt's "Simple Kind of Life" cranked on my musicmatch jukebox. It's a song that's kind of appropriate for things going on right now. I'll leave at that.

Just finished filing my tax returns and I'll be dropping off my local taxes today. Talking about waiting to the last moment, oh boy. This year I was determined not to fall into this trap. I mean, seriously, when the tax stuff came in January, I made a special spot for everything on top of my computer desk. I had all my deductions ready to go and I just needed to get the time to sit down and file them at anytime. Guess what? I never got time. It was always something and here, April 15, and I'm dodging a bullet and getting them in.

Got the Sims Vacation on Friday. It seems okay, it's another Hot Date type expansion -- sure there's a couple of good new house items (bay windows, a bath/shower combo), but the focus seems to be shifting away from enhancing the game's day to day, to focus on enhancing special events like dates or vacations.

Here's assorted improvements I'm still waiting for:
* Three story buildings, since there's no way to simulate an attic or a basement.
* Weather and Seasons
* Days off for the Sims
* Teenage Sims (How can I do a Moopie skin? She's not an adult and not a little kid.)
* Rounded Corners on buildings. They gave us round tables, so how about rounded walls?
* Washer/Dryers and laundry rooms.
* The ability to list the order of skins. Or if a skin crashes the game, it gives a debug code to tell you what skin it crashed on so you can easily nuke the file.
* The ability to visit other neighborhoods. So my regular Sims and techtv Sims can finally meet!

One note about Vacation -- it's a serious resource hog. Even more than Hot Date was. I mean I have 1 gig of SDRAM, and XP 1800+ chip and 64 megs of video ram and there are times that it slows down to a crawl. There's no reason for this. So be warned before you install it.

On that note, taking time to say how proud I am of Moopie for her achievement at school. WTG little one! :)

k9

Music for Friday Morning

On my way out the door for a major mystery shop, these songs are on my cd player, inspired by Moopie, Mrs. Burstein, Queen Brandi, my Best Friend and Summer.

"My Sacrifice" by Creed
"Hand Clean" by Alanis Morissette
"Wherever You Will Go" by the Calling
"Standing Still" by Jewel
"The Space Between" by Dave Matthews
"Simple Kind of LIfe" by No Doubt
"Wish You Were Here" by Incubus
"Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel"
"Superman" by Five For Fighting
"Keep Myself Awake" by Black Lab
"Walk On" by U2
"Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" by Elton John
"Hey Pretty" by Poe
"Malibu" by Hole
"Disappear" by Inxs
"American Girl" (Tom Petty cover) by Cindy Alexander
"Cowboy" by Kid Rock
"Pop Goes the World" by Men Without Hats
"When I was Younger" by Rod Stewart

Up to you to figure out what song goes to what girl. Other than one of the Moopie ones, the rest aren't that obvious. :)

Out the door to Kane, Pa and parts unknown. Hopefully picking up the Sims expansion if I can find it.

Be safe all.

k9

Got a case of the ...

Wednesday morning and Gumpy and I are hiding out as the plumber is here. Gumpy can't go outside because the day of night of my last blog, one of the bites from his most recent fights swelled up and popped in yet another scene reminiscent of the movie "alien." Yup, just like last year (scroll back in my blog), he's all stitched up and hopefully learning from this. I sure am.

The plumber is here putting in a new upstairs toilet and fixing the septic system. I'm not sure what's wrong with the septic system, but I'm glad about the new toilet in the upstairs bathroom. We currently have a non-standard ancient toilet that has a rectangular seat and bowl. Someone broke the seat connector last year and it's been impossible to find a replacement seat. My grandfather jury rigged the thing together last time he was here, but really, we needed a whole new unit in there.

Three trucks in our driveway now. Gumpy ran to the other computer room when I peaked my head out of this one and is hiding under the bed. I think there's a guy in the bathroom putting the toilet in. The sad thing is that I really have to go to the bathroom and didn't get a chance to do anything before they got here. LOL. At least I got a shower this morning so I'm not sitting here feeling funky while I do the "I gotta go to the potty" dance.

About to flip TechLive off. It's over in 8 minutes anyway, and as much as I like Erica Hill, the hour and a half of recycled news is getting old. The set is too empty and the news is so flat lately that it's hard to watch. While today was good, recently they've averaged exactly one new segment per broadcast. The rest of the segments featured recycled stories from weeks or months ago. I've asked it before, and I'll state it again, what's the point of airing it live? I mean seriously, have Erica Hill tape a half hour each morning then recycle it for the other two half hours of the broadcast. There's no need to be live because they're not exactly breaking news any more. The only real segments that take advantage of her being live are the interviews, and really, you can tape those at any time.

I've given up on Call for Help completely. I used to watch it from time to time, but now, with the user-unfriendly combo of the Gnome and Cat, I won't watch and I can't tell anyone to watch that show. IMODO, it simply isn't worth watching any more, other than for getting screen captures, and, if you're looking for help, you can find more help on the Screen Savers. Part of me sort of misses the format from last year with two people taking live calls. I mean it was dumb, but it wasn't insultingly lame like the current shows are.

On the subject of the Screen Savers, I think a lot of the magic of the show has been leeched out by tinkering. The Screen Savers used to be an intimate show where a bunch of geeks hung out, shared computer tips, had some fun, and weren't intimidating or full of themselves. It was homey cool. With the "upgrades" the show is now trying to be hipper and cooler than it should be. For example, I think it's an incredible stretch to put Martin over as Hollywood Savvy, and frankly, while I'm getting some cool screen captures to eventually use here, there's no point to the recent segments with Martin other than to show that Paul Block still has D-level Hollywood connections.

I realize that it's a scary time for TechTV. I realize that this is their first ratings period ever and it's a make or break time for the network, but stuff like this turns me off. While I can take Leo's swarmy book plugs and sleazy delivery (it used to be cute, but now it's just old), I can't take turning the show into some sort of quasi-bigger-than-life-entertainment based show. It's a computer show. It's about computer tips. It needs to go back to basics before it alienates the rest of the audience.

I've already given up on one show, I hope someone listens before I give up on another ...

k9