March 2009 Archives

Everyone (or most everyone) should remember the legend of Camelot and King Arthur with his sword Excalibur, and if not, this is the most detailed reading of the legend that I’ve seen and was interested in actually reading. Let me tell you now that I have not watched the made-for-tv movie. I want to, though, if I can find it streaming somewhere (which I haven’t).

I had planned on taking my time reading this book, it’s thick, around 900 pages, and because of the size, it starts to hurt your wrists from holding it too long. I ended up with a pillow on my lap so that I could continually read for hours, because I just had to find out what was going to happen next.

Mists of Avalon is from the women’s perspective of what “really happened” regarding the time before and during King Arthur’s reign. It’s a tale fit for any woman who is intrigued by romance, seduction, magic and the change of history from Pagan to Christian religion.

The story follows at first Morgaine’s mother Igraine, from the island of Avalon, come to marry a Roman for the good of peace. She bears a daughter, Morgaine (aka: Morgaine of the Fairies, or better known as Morgan le Fay) and lives her life as honestly to her husband in the Roman way as she can. Things go straight to ruination though when she meets a young blond-haired man named Uther and instantly falls in love with him. Then she’s told that she is to be the mother of the High King and that Uther will be his father. While she’s still married and has turned herself into a good Christian wife this is an unexceptable predictament to her.

I don’t wish to give away too much of the story to those who haven’t read it. I truly enjoyed not only the way it was written, but the different perspectives of the women involved. You get to see how Gwenhwyfar turns Arthur into a good Christian King (or tries to), how Morgaine is not only her friend but also her enemy. How many people truly love Lancelet and what they’ll do in order to attract his attentions. With all the plotting and planning, the lies and truths, the tears and smiles, this book will truly take you away to a time long ago and a place far away.

The ending is beautiful, though. It was not what I had expected and that made me enjoy the book even more so. I hope you’ll take the time to find this book either at your local library or buy a copy online.

“With breathtaking detail and masterful storytelling, The Mists of Avalon is that rare, spellbinding novel in which myth comes to life and magic flows out to all of us.”

Dear Morning Drivers (that I have to put up with before coffee):

First off, it’s bad enough that I leave the house before having coffee but being as I’m sure you’ve had one cup or are drinking it as you drive along, the least you could do is pay attention to your driving.

I watch people get right up on each others bumpers every morning. I don’t care what they do in front of me since I don’t ride on their ass but the least they could do is the speed limit. I’m sure the driver in the front of your line is slowing down because you are all crowding up on each other and they are afraid that they won’t leave you enough time to break, so they drive slower, in order to avoid getting rearended by four other cars.

What I really love though is the people who can’t seem to stay in between the lines when they drive. This morning, with hardly any sleep and no coffee, I drove the Little Lady to school and not only did I stay in the lines I also stayed way back from the train of cars in front of me. I swear, they have some form of invisible cable that pulls them along with each other, or perhaps swings them along, since they can’t stay in the lines. We have bike lanes here and they can’t stay out of that lane! We didn’t have bike lanes where I lived in Ohio. We had to avoid the cyclists by passing them as you would a car or tractor and if there was another car coming you had to slow down and wait for it to be clear.

Are these people so distracted on the road or in such a need to drive in a straight line where the slight curves are that they can’t stay in the lines and they have to ride the person in front of them so hard it’s a miracle there haven’t been any accidents? I’d love to see some of these people drive in the weather my friend in Wichita is experiencing currently (blizzard conditions with ice) and see how well they do then.

Please be careful when driving and stay off my ass because I’ll do what the person in front of the train of cars does and slow down.

Truly Yours,
Chelle

My daughter likes to play around with her photos too and made this using Paint Shop Pro 9. She really wants to learn how to use Photoshop but it’s way too confusing for her own good - these are her words. I have two books containing tutorials on how to use Adobe Photoshop and yet she hasn’t bothered to look at them. Plus there are all kinds of tutorials available online and she hasn’t looked at them either.

She’s thinking of the possibility of becoming a magazine photo editor. She wants to edit the covers and photo shoots. Either that or she wants to do their hair and makeup. Obviously she’d make more money doing the photo editing. We’ll see what happens. Later.

Yeah I know I said I wasn’t interested in finishing Death Note but I needed something to keep myself occupied between episodes of Bleach and Naruto Shippuden. I finished all 37 episodes over at Hulu over a couple of weeks. I did like the detailed backgrounds on the characters and the storyline ended up being a little more interesting than I thought it would be.

Honestly though I wanted to hurt Light. Not hurt him as in shooting or torturing him, but smacking him upside the head and telling him the many forms of idiot he had become. Genius? Bookwise, perhaps, but he had no common sense whatsover.

Continue reading this post if you wish, but I’m going to go into more detail that contains information from the series.

The leftover dark chocolate frosting I had planned to mix with cool whip and use on my birthday cake went bad, like moldy bad. Problem was that we all wanted cake. Even those who whine that all I ever really eat is chocolate cake when it comes down to it. I love chocolate and I love cake, why would I tear them apart if I don’t have to?

So Honey lovingly mixed up my birthday cake and baked it into two layers. Then lovingly told me to start making the frosting, which we did from chocolate chips and the cool whip.

Now I’m not talking about adding a cup of chocolate chips to the cool whip and spreading it on the cake. I’m talking about melting the chocolate chips over a pot of steaming hot water and adding in spoonfuls of cool whip until it’s a slighty runny consistency. After the mixture cooled off we added more cool whip to it so that it would thicken back up (and to take some of the richness out of it).

The other problem was that I didn’t get any last night. By the time all this was done (after 11pm) I gave up and went to bed with a headache. I just couldn’t wait any longer. I took two asprin, drank half a cup of water and most of the night smelled the cake.

Even though I am not feeling all that well today, I am eating a slice. I was going to take a photo of the slice (since there’s already half a cake gone (we shared with Honey’s parents) but the batteries in the camera are dead.

I figured I better get a piece now, before it’s all gone. It’s really good and even though it did take forever to melt the chocolate chips and mix in the cool whip, it turned out really good. I should be able to take a photo of another slice when the batteries are charged for the camera.

Speaking of cameras, if you want to win one, check out the Sponsored Contest at the top of the right column. Later.

But I have to go get the Little Lady from school and tell her she has to re-wash all the dishes that she washed yesterday. They are still dirty and we are tired of having to re-wash everything we take out of the cupbard. Nasty, I know! 14 and needs to REDO dishes!

I know how much you want to know what’s going on all the time in my life and I just don’t update with every little detail.. well, now there’s one new thing you’ll be able to find out! I know, drooling over the details…

There’s a new widget in the left right sidebar labeled “Currently Reading” and there I’ll let you know what I’m reading. Perhaps I’ll even write a review when I’m done with it but wouldn’t it be better if you just read along with me? Later.

*Widget got moved due to vanishing of footer. Until I figure out where the issue (most likely a /div tag somewhere) it’ll be over there.

So today I’ve decided that I am not sidetracked, I am derailed. Why? Well because the Little Lady is going to be doing all the chores around here for the next month. Why? Because when she got her glasses last March she got two pairs. One pair has gone completely missing in its case. She has searched her room top to bottom and side to side. I even had her check between the matress and box spring. GONE.

The pair that she wears every day, broken. The frames are broken on one side where the screw goes into the arm but not in a way where you can just screw them back in. Where they are soldered together is where it’s broken. They can’t fix them at the Vision Center and have to order new frames. 107.00 bucks down the drain that I don’t have. They love me though and they ordered them anyway and I told them I’d be in next week to pay them since it is going to take 7 to 10 days for them to be delivered.

This is where my anger comes in to play. She had two sets, one she put away somewhere that we have no idea about, but we are sure it’s somewhere in her room. Why am I so angry you ask? Because I told her to give them to me to put away and she refused. Why did she refuse? Because she’s a kid who thinks she’s responsible. Why am I angry at myself? Because I should have just taken the damn things from her and put them with all the other important stuff. I didn’t. Bad Mommy!

So Honey and I decided that she is going to do chores (since she hasn’t been doing any at all) in order to pay for replacing the glasses. The way we worked it is that if she is getting paid 5 dollars an hour it would take 24 hours of work to pay off the glasses. There are stipulations involved as well. 1) Since she has not been helping without being forced into it in some way the first two hours of each week will be free. IE: they don’t add into her working off the glasses fund. 2) If it takes her more than one month to complete the 24 hours of work to pay off the glasses, we charge interest. IE: add more hours onto her working schedule.

Harsh? Probably. I’m fed up. I get tired of repeatedly telling her to do something and she doesn’t do it at all or she finds some way of wiggling her way out of it. She’s currently got 3 or 4 projects due at school right now and has several months to complete 2 of them. Those 2 are due in April and May and she has started on one but not even made a dent in the other. Why? Because her partners are unavailable and because she has partners to do the project with she can’t just go on her own and make the plans for her community service or complete the rollercoaster project.

Fine, dandy. Just wonderful. I tried to get her and her friend who spent two nights here a couple of weekends ago to CALL regarding the community service thing. They didn’t. They couldn’t due to the hours, then they had forgotten and when they called the person they needed to speak with wasn’t there, etc, etc, excuses excuses.

So I’m angry and I’m fed up. And I’m completely derailed. I think I’m even going to include doing our laundry in her list of chores of bathroom, kitchen, living room duties. Sometimes it sucks being mom, but I’m trying.

I laid down because my stomach was bothering me (no clue as to why) and took a short nap (short = 2 hours). I wake up to someone knocking on the door and it’s Honey’s mom! I love his mom, she rocks my world. I answer the door and she gives me the cutest strawberry shortcake I’ve ever seen! She says Honey’s dad forgot to wish me a happy birthday today (no biggie, I’ve had much bigger issues than that in the past regarding birthdays) and so he asked her to tell me. This is what the cake looked like before the Little Lady and I took two slices out of it. I cut it like a peace sign so the slices would be as even as possible. Honey’s piece is sitting on the counter (still thawing).

Yep, still thawing. I made the Little Lady watch part of the video from the original You Spin Me Right Round, Tainted Love and then Take On Me (which that one she liked and we watched the whole thing). I know, the torture! The strawberries on top were still frozen though (which is what we were waiting for to thaw oh so patiently).

One of Little Lady’s friends from school found a bunch of four-leaf clovers and laminated them. He gave one to her. How sweet is that? The photo is really blurry. Hey, it’s really freaking tiny and I have the camera set to high quality, so it’s blurry. Deal.

I hope everyone had a great St. Patty’s Day. Later!

So I was bored. I played around with some of the new brushes that I downloaded and followed a tutorial over at PlanetPhotoshop.com to make a photo of myself to look comicbook-ish. Then I played around even more with layer styles, filters, fonts and so forth. This is what I got. Not too bad looking, though, is it? I love playing around in Photoshop but sometimes I can’t figure out how the hell these designers do everything they do. I suppose that’s why they are the professional designers getting paid and trained and so forth because ‘messing around’ doesn’t always work. Let me know what you do when you’re bored. The internet has simply failed at entertaining me today. At least until Bleach is available anyway. Later.

So today I am 32. Ok, if you want to get all technical and official, I won’t be 32 until 8:05pm Eastern. Which my daughter will so lovingly tell me Happy Birthday then. Which to that I replied “Good, that means I can wake you up at 12:37 AM when you turn 15.” Can you believe this child had told the teacher she assists the wrong time she was born even though I make a point to tell her all the time that she pretty much refused to be born on a Tuesday and just had to make absolutely sure it was a Wednesday? Enough about her though, I’ve got photos for you!

Aren’t I so 32 looking? And yes, I truly am that freaking pale. I do have makeup on, but it doesn’t matter when the flash is blindingly bright. It sees through it. My hair? I’ve been reformed. 1) My hair refuses to cooperate in being curled. It’ll stay curled but when I run my fingers through it all I get is a tangled mess. 2) I will probably continue being a brunette. I know, what happened to the redhead? I don’t know. I really love this color.

Just because I love you, here’s another one. I hope you are all having such a great St. Patty’s day. Dance a jig and drink some (colored) green beer for me.

One thing I do love about having my birthday today is that I don’t wear green. That’s right! I haven’t worn green for several (like 20) years because I told people I get a freaking pass, it’s my birthday, bitch. So.. Enjoy getting pinched, those of you who forgot to wear green. I always thought that was a stupid tradition anyway.

And I don’t mean Mickey Mouse’s faithful companion.

I grew up being taught that Pluto is a planet. So it’s a planet. There, I said it. Leave poor Pluto alone and let it be a planet again. It just wants to hang out on the edge of nowhere, that’s all. It orbits the sun, just like we do.

As Science Evolves, So Does Pluto

I found a new tutorial site and I’ve been playing around with some of the tutorials. One issue I have with the site: They have a pay to use section and tend to include some of those materials in their free tutorial section. Ok, nice way to get those who can afford it (ie: working and have extra cash) to sign up, but I can’t. Also, some of the tutorials do not specify all things that are going on in each step. It’s annoying. I still prefer Planet Photoshop, but I will try some more out at this other site.

Here’s what I made so far.

In this I took a photo of Little Lady and set it on fire. Sort of… Lots of layers. There was an image of fire involved in the making and the way they did it in the tutorial with the photo they used looked really great. I should have found something closer to it, but here you go.

You’ve seen me use her name in other designs (no longer here, but you can find it on my Coroflot page). There are a ton of layers in the tutorial and with this font it didn’t work properly so after completely most of it I went off on my own. Little Lady likes the city of Los Angeles for some reason so I included it in the background.

The site I’m finding the tutorials at is: PSD.Tuts+ which translates to Photoshop Tutorials Plus. Enjoy.

Fox has been putting out some pretty good shows lately. I enjoy Bones, House, Dollhouse and now Lie to Me.

The Little Lady and I have been watching the show online at Hulu (Fox’s FOD player dislikes us for some reason or another and tends to freeze at crucial points in the show) and we’ve been enjoying it immensely. First, if you want to get into this show, watch it from the first episode. Seriously. I love the way he recruits Ria Torres (character name) and I’d love her signing on bonus.

The main character, Cal Lightman, sort of makes you think of House. He’s outspoken and abrupt, usually it gets him the answers to whether or not someone is lying and if they are why, so it works. For the first time ever, Eli - who’s usual way of speaking is called radical honesty (he literally speaks everything with complete honesty and this includes what he’s thinking) has lied, possibly to protect his own feelings, to Ria Torres. The latest episode was pretty intense with the drama due to an author writing about the constant struggles in her native country and, while the struggles that were going on were true, the story she wrote as if it had truly happened to her, was a lie.

There are also some personal aspects to the characters. You get to know Cal’s daughter and Gillian’s husband (who’s doing some nasty stuff behind her back) along with some of the private matters going on in their lives. So run over to Fox.com or Hulu.com if Fox’s player gives you freezing issues and check out their full episodes. If you like House, you’ll like Lie to Me. Later.

So apparently I’m a senior citizen and I didn’t know it. Check out this junk email I got (links have been de-coded):

Hi,

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If new and innovative software tickle your interest, do check out Their Website to see how senior-friendly technology has been created for convenience of use. We’d love to hear your expert feedback & also a mention in your esteemed blog would be great.

Thanks,
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This email is intended to share valuable information with you. If you have encountered any inconvenience, we sincerely apologize.

To be removed from the mailing list, hit reply button with subject “Unsubscribe”. Please allow 3 business days to be removed from this list.

So not only am I considered a senior citizen before I hit the ripe age of 32, I’m also supposed to ‘unsubscribe’ from something I never asked to be listed on in the first place. Whatever, James. And I thought we could start a wonderful friendship. Usually, and repeatedly, I am accused of being much younger than my years (to the point that people think my daughter and I are sisters until I explain very calmly to them that I am her mom).

No, I don’t find it insulting to be thought of as young, but instead of calling me Little Lady’s sister, call me by my name. I’ll answer to that much faster than “Little Lady’s sister” any day.

So tonight Honey, the Little Lady and I went out with his parents for my birthday dinner. Everyone seemed to have busy schedules when my birthday is and this evening seemed best for everyone involved. We aren’t having the family with cake and ice cream party until sometime next month most likely though because everyone else is swamped for quite awhile. So I get to celebrate twice and that just simply rocks.

I got to pick what I wanted for dinner so I chose Chinese food and since Honey’s mom loves Chinese food I knew she’d pick a great place. We all went to a great local restaurant that Honey took me to last year for my birthday. Their food is so good and we have leftovers.

I didn’t like the wonton soup, which I’ve never had, but I did like everything else. We went with the family special because then everyone would get something they liked. There was an assortment of beef and broccoli, fried rice and veggies, lemon chicken, almond chicken, sweet and sour pork, and then there were also fried wontons (to go with the soup, of course), then my favorite right at the beginning, spring rolls with sweet and sour sauce.

Loved the food. Almost can’t wait to eat the leftovers for lunch tomorrow, some of them anyway.

I also got a great present! I love going to the parks and walking around. If we go back when everything is blooming I’ll take photos later in the spring. Honey’s mom got me one of those cooler bags (they look like a small laptop bag) and a one year parking pass for all Sonoma County Parks. I already picked out one that I want to go to: Bodega Bay, baby! There was a lady in the park when we went last time that we spoke with and she was talking about how they get a parking pass and go to all the different parks, then she was telling us about the one at Bodega Bay and how lovely it is.

Now I’m sitting here being entertained while Honey plays Gears of War 2. I know it’s wrong, but I find what some of the characters say quite amusing. I’m off. Later.

Dear Parents who don’t know their left from right:

It was bad enough when leaving the Little Lady’s school watching someone make a left from the right turning lane exiting the school right in front of me (this is a two lane road with center turning lane, extremely busy road most of the day) but today was even worse.

I require that all parents dropping their kids off at school make sure that they know their left from right. Hold up both hands and shape your fingers like the letter “L”. See the one that makes the “L” correctly? That’s your left hand! Very good, gold star.

Today instead of getting into the wrong lane there were four freaking parents, two in SUVs, one in a truck and another in a car, all in the CENTER of the lanes. Yep, that thick white line and the white arrows pointing in opposite directions meant absolutely nothing! This caused problems as they were all turning different directions as well.

So there I sat, just turned around the corner to get into the right turning lane, when I see this mess. There wasn’t anything going on (no accident, no animal in the driveway, no hot gardener guy trimming bushes) to cause these people to line up like this. So I can only think that someone forgot which way they were going or didn’t care. Or, this is the same person that took up the left and half of the right lane because they couldn’t drive their SUV the last time this happened.

Get this. My sister is a truck driver. Yes, truck driver. She’s hauled steel, plastic, all kinds of other things. But she absolutely hated ever having to drive the Expedition they had bought. She felt that it was too light, she felt that for a personal vehicle, it was too big. So she only drove it when she had to. But she was responsible when driving it. She was able to make sure she was in the lines when it came to parking and turning lanes.

Seriously, though, I think they should require a driving test before you can buy an SUV. Just my opinion, people. If you can’t drive it, you can’t buy it.

Usually if I get an email from someone I don’t know that somehow made it into my inbox (I use Gmail for my main email) usually it ends up being something spammish. I use the Gmail Notify application so I don’t have to keep it open all day long and click ‘refresh’ on the page. Reducing my need to check email gives me time to do other things, like read the people I’m following over at Twitter.

Anyway. I remember mentioning somewhere that I was upset with CafeMom because they don’t have anything regarding teens. I have a 14 year old daughter and sometimes she can be a little crazy (like her mom, her grandma and even her great-grandma - it runs in the family, all the women are a little crazy) and I don’t really have anyone or anywhere to turn to. Yes, I can whine and cry about how she’s acting just like I did at that age, that I know it’s her tone of voice and that she’s not being rude, that’s just the way her voice is (my mom always thought I was being rude or snotty when I wasn’t, it’s the damn tone of voice we have, I swear).

Some days she wants constant love, hugs, kisses, to hang all over me like she did when she was 3 (or was that the computer?) and other days she just wants to not talk, be left alone, read or write and just plain vanish from existing in the same reality bubble as we do. Again, just like me. You’d think I’d know how to handle things like this but it’s a lot harder to gauge someone else’s emotional rollercoaster, even if it is a lot like yours.

So I thought there was salvation when I decided to finally open this email from “Daughters.com” and read what it was about. Then I got to the site. They are a little late, but perhaps I can contribute in some way to the site as their age range is from 8 to 15. Perhaps I can help other moms out there when their daughter decides to abandon them for friends or the internet.

Does this mean that the site can’t help me? I don’t know, perhaps. I’d have to actually check it out more in detail to see what it is they are offering. I feel very lucky with my daughter all the time. She does her homework, she gets pretty good grades (damn that algebra) and she stays out of trouble for the most part.

So for those of you with daughters between the ages of 8 to 12 you might want to check out NewMoon.com - there is a membership fee on this site but it’s for your daughter, so perhaps an extra 30 bucks for a birthday gift won’t hurt if you can set it aside. Also, there’s a 30-day free trial membership if you want to check it out ahead of time. Then for moms raising daughters there is Daughters.com - the age range again is 8 to 15 and they look like they have some nice content up. It’s a fairly new site brought to you by New Moon Girls. So check it out, see if there is information that you can find. It’s nothing like CafeMom, so don’t think you’ll be running chat rooms and member boards, but there is still valuable information here. They also have a site for Dads: TheDadMan.com to help fathers raise the kids, too.

Do you use any of these websites? Comments regarding what you find that you like or dislike regarding them would be helpful to others. Thanks!

I enjoy taking photos. Although I really need to put aside some money to buy new rechargeable batteries. The ones I have are around 3 to 4 years old now and they are dying so fast in my camera that it’s insane. Yes, I saved a ton of money because I bought 12 (that’s 3 sets of 4) rechargeable batteries. TONS of money.

Anyway, the above photo is from a couple of days ago, as are the ones below. The sky was beautiful in a firey pink and orange that the camera did not bring to justice. I went to check the settings after transferring the files and the batteries were already dead (freshly charged).

As you can see, the clouds are puffy and pink and orange like cotton candy. I really enjoy looking at the sky when it’s like this.

Just beautiful, don’t you think?

Then I saw this lonely dead sunflower among the wild mustard. I need to take a photo of this during the day so that you can actually see it better. The lighting was off since the sun was already past the horizon to the point that it didn’t help with taking this photo. Perhaps if I had stood on the other side it would have looked better.

The images open in a new window at 1024x768 resolution, feel free to use as a desktop wallpaper or if you’d like them in another size, leave a comment with the size and I’ll be happy to accomodate you. All photos are copyright me.

Update: I have successfully upgraded to Movable Type 4.24! I am so thrilled that this not only worked, I didn’t even have to change the permissions on the cgi files, nor did I have to fix the templates! So easy! Thanks SixApart for making this update simple, I hope the future ones are as well.

Hey MT users, there’s an upgrade out there regarding the password recovery. I only found out about it because I logged in as Admin (oops) and I’m going to be working on that today. Some things might look funky or downright not work at all. Everything has been backed up though and hopefully this will go a hell of a lot more easier (and quicker) than a full-blown install.

Although, I had no issues with the installation of this version so let’s just go with the upgrade working, period.

Sniffle While You Work (Why Drs go to work sick) - First off, everyone goes to work sick once in awhile. I’ve done it, too. I went to work because I knew that if I missed someone else would be taken off of their job in order to do mine. We were shorthanded all the time as it was and I didn’t want someone else to suffer because I decided to stay home. I never went to work with the flu or anything truly serious. I didn’t want to get others sick. I had no problem going to work with a head cold and was on medication to dry me out so I wasn’t sniffling all over everything. In just over 7 years of working, I took 2 or 3 sick days. One of those included me and my daughter being sick. 2 of those days I had the flu and was in serious abdominal pain because of it.

I wouldn’t want my doctor going to work sick, though. They are supposed to take care of me when I’m sick if I need them, not get me even sicker. With the way things work though, no one can afford to stay home. It’s nice that they mention hiring more people and letting doctors and residents get more rest, but it won’t happen. Hospitals don’t make enough money for it as it is. Perhaps all the money we are bleeding from the wealthy will go to some of the hospitals with a higher rate of sick doctors?

War on the Rich? (The bogus GOP claim that Obama is trying to bleed wealthy Americans.) - If I were making this kind of money… wow. I wouldn’t have to worry about much at all. I’ve never even made 20K a year let alone 250K or more. Give some of these rich people 20K (total for the year) in weekly payments to live off of and see how they fare. I would watch that for a reality show.

Dear Prudence (Stream of Unconsciousness’) - About a bedwetting boyfriend and other topics.

Is sharing a bed with your baby a good idea? - Personal Opinion: Absolutely Not. And I’m not talking about the possibility of suffocating your child either. I’m talking about the “because I’m a mom, I’m always a mom syndrome”. Yes, I’m a mom, but my daughter slept in a crib in the same room my bed was in. Yes, I’m always a mom, but I refuse to share a bed with my child. I think the only time I have ever shared a bed with my daughter is when she had a fever and I needed to keep an eye on it so that if she needed to go to the emergency room I was able to find out quickly. Also if she was taking some form of antibiotic and needed to be woken up in the middle of the night for a dose.

There are other reasons out there why your child shouldn’t be sleeping in bed with you. What if you want to have sex with your husband or partner? What if the child gets so used to sleeping in bed with you that you are still struggling to get them to sleep in their own bed when they are kindergarten age? (Yes, I know people who are having this issue.) There are so many other studies that could come from this. My daughter grew up just fine not sleeping in my bed. She’s independent and doesn’t need to be clinging to me every minute she’s around me.

Space Telescope Launches Friday to Find New Earths - While I am all for this, why don’t we also concentrate on seriously taking care of the Earth we do have?

Terms of Enslavement: Web Sites’ Outrageous Service Agreements

Wow. Take a look. The only place I didn’t see included was MySpace, but there’s AOL, AIM, Live Messenger, Yahoo, Yahoo Video, Monster.com and many more. I usually skim the TOS but some of these are absolutely insane with taking your stuff. This is why I rarely use the blogs that come with most of these accounts and try to keep photos on my own personal site instead of theirs. I may go through and read the MySpace TOS to see if there are any changes.

Oh yeah, and there shouldn’t be ANY reason why any company shouldn’t notify its users of a change in the TOS. MySpace puts up absurd updates via Tom (which I hate because I can’t close them in any way) whenever there is something currently down, changing, updated, new or otherwise being worked on in some form. Any of these companies can simply put out a message in increments to the users of their services or provide a link or some other form of notice on each user’s page. They just choose not to.

Cook County sheriff sues Craigslist over sex ads. - Ok… this topic is just like the marijuana topic. I don’t care of you do it or use it or whatever as long as you aren’t shoving it in my face or walking into my home without showering extensively first. (Ha, that goes for both counts!)

Alright, I suppose I’m not really funny there, am I? There are so many controversies on both of these topics that it’s getting insane. There is the possibility of Obama turning marijuana laws over to each individual state, which I can tell you right now, it would most likely be legalized in California. People out there need sex and if they are socially inept, they turn to prostitutes. So, why don’t we just go ahead and regulate and legalize it, too? Seriously, I know guys who tell me if they were female they’d have a mattress strapped to their back and they’d be living the high life.

Regulating prostitution is probably a hell of a lot safer than letting it be on the streets, like drugs, you have to worry about disease and death. Regulated it’d just become another way to amuse oneself. I know, I’m horrible, right? But think of the amount of money people would be spending on such amusements and how much tax revenue that would bring in. Sorry, can’t help it, I’m thinking of the economy here. Ok, laugh. Do you really think they’d ever legalize prostitution? No way.

Seriously though, I couldn’t help myself. Enjoy reading the articles, as always links open in a new window.

I know I’m a bit behind the premiere on this new show being aired on Fox but I prefer seeing a few episodes before making a decision on whether or not I’ll continue watching it.

Eliza Dushku is one of my favorite people to watch because of the varied shows and movies that she’s played in over the years from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Wrong Turn to Bring it On. She’s usually the tough chick who kicks ass, which is what I like about her.

In Dollhouse she’s what they call an ‘Active’ and has had her mind completely wiped. So far they haven’t revealed what she’s done to deserve such a fate, but it seems like they are piecing it together through each episode. Dollhouse is an agency that specializes in things that (supposedly) the government couldn’t handle (such as a high profile kidnapping) and they even have an FBI agent out there searching to prove they exist.

So far the story is interesting because Echo (Eliza’s call name) has been a hostage negotiator, a backup singer/bodyguard and she was also a weekend girlfriend to a lunatic who tried to hunt her down like game and kill her (completely against the rules). Each ‘Active’ also have handlers like spies in the CIA and the reason they trust their handler is because of certain phrases that are imprinted in their subconscious in order to put them at a state of ease. How this works with their mind being wiped every time they come back from an engagement is beyond me.

So, how does Echo become a hostage negotiator? They implant a personality with the experience of a real one along with piecing together bits and parts of other personalities to make a complete person. This doesn’t always work properly as there may have been some form of trauma during the lifespan of the person who has been implanted (such as being kidnapped themselves and then coming face to face with the guy who did bad things to them) and then things go awry. Is it the fault of the ‘Active’ that this happens? No, but you can’t really go and view the past of the person who is going to be imprinted and wouldn’t know that they were traumatized as a child for 3 months before being rescued. Sounds like a good reason to do some major background checks before choosing someone as a personality to imprint.

When an ‘Active’ isn’t working they are called ‘Blanks’ and have no memories, no emotions and seem to live in a spa-like environment (swimming pool, massages, etc) where they are constantly guarded. So far there has been one person, called Alpha, who has gone insane and started killing off ‘Blanks’ and Handlers. Supposedly Alpha has been caught and had two bullets put into his brain but people are being killed again and Echo’s handler is sure that somehow Alpha wasn’t killed, that they were mistaken. Also, Echo is having flashbacks from portions of her brain that were wiped, such as being in a shower surrounded by dead bodies (Blanks killed by Alpha) and visions of herself saying things throughout different times of her previous life.

So far the Little Lady and I are going to continue to watch the series. We want to find out what she did to end up having to join such a shadowy organization and we want to find out if Echo also turns out to be Alpha or if she’s going to go insane like Alpha and start to kill others. You can watch the first three episodes at Fox on Demand in high definition. Choose Full Episodes, then Dollhouse from the menu. You’ll have to click on the first episode in order for it to play (one thing I dislike) because it immediately starts playing a commercial and then the most current episode.

Enjoy.

I am so tired of the Twilight series fanatics. They are everywhere. My daughter read the entire series, enjoyed it and then due to all this insane fanaticism regarding it, decided it wasn’t worth her attention any longer. I am thrilled that she realized that there are people who are seriously going overboard with their love for Edward and Bella.

She may not even watch the other movies. I was happy to hear that. She did tell me I should go over to YouTube and watch the spoofs of the first movie, though. I just might.

I will admit that I did make an attempt at this series. I do like vampire stories so I thought this would be another to add to my collection. I guess I prefer the more traditional types of vampires, though. I enjoy Laurell K. Hamilton’s vampires in the Anita Blake saga quite a lot. I enjoyed Poppy Z. Brite’s Lost Souls as well. I enjoyed watching Stewart Townsend as Lestat in Queen of the Damned and I also read the first four books by Anne Rice for the Interview with the Vampire set. That was back in high school.

The fanatics have seriously taken over MySpace in the form of layouts, bumper stickers, quizzes and who knows what else should be on that list. So I decided to be unique and make a sticker for my Anita Blake loving soul.

I’d talk my daughter into reading the Anita Blake books but she’s a little young in my opinion and they do contain a lot of sex. I plan to let her read them when she’s a bit older. Like 17 or 18.

Here’s the bumper sticker I made for MySpace:

Do you think I’m being childish? I guess I just got sick of all the things stating that they wanted a sparkly vampire to come bite them or that their name was Edward Cullen’s girlfriend, etc. My daughter got turned away even more so from even remotely liking Robert Pattinson because there was some rumor about him using his fame to party with teen girls. Oddly though I can’t find anything on the internet about it anymore. What’s up with that? I know I’ve seen it.

So all of you diehard Twilight fans that want Edward to take a bite out of you look over there in the right-hand column where it says “Affiliates” and in the Amazon box click that first purple covered book. That’s Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton. It’s only 7.99. They also have them with other covers if you’d like, or you can even read it in comic book form. Let’s just say I prefer that vampires didn’t sparkle and would most likely burst into flames if sunshine were to touch their flesh. Oh yeah, these vampires, don’t play baseball.

Got an opinion? Comment below. Go ahead, I promise that this time I won’t bite you.

I’ve been all over the net today. Where’ve I been you ask? All of these places:

First things I open in the morning include Twitter, MySpace, Disillusioned (to go through my dailies), and my iGoogle page.

Here’s what I found through either my IGoogle or the feeds on my Gmail today:

Why the kiddie foodie movement has got to go. - I was confused by the headline so I read it. I didn’t know there were kid food critics, cooking shows and articles. Now I do and I still don’t care.

The Joy of Green Sex - I didn’t know I was polluting the world by being on birth control, now I do. I might ask about the copper IUD at my appointment on the 24th. No, really.

Sex shops in Colonial America - I just had to read it. You know you want to.

Dear Prudence: I don’t think my wife should be an egg donor - Hey, if I could find someone to pay me for my eggs, so I could pay my bills, I’d probably do it too.

Google and Facebook battle for your friends - They do? Huh. I use MySpace. There are only two people on my facebook who aren’t on my myspace and I rarely talk to them anyway.

Hijacking the octuplets backlash to restrict IVF - Everyone should read this one.

Human Nature: Selling Rubbers - The last story led me to this one and also the next one.

Human Nature: Suckling while Driving - Mom breastfeeds while driving. With other kids in the back. Can I slap her? She’s making Ohioans look stupid and since I’m originally from there I simply can’t stand that.

Here are some other blogs I’ve been checking out from time to time: Mr. McKnob, Rage Angel, Time Slides By and A Clever Sheep.

I also got the dishes done today, except those I used to make my scrambled eggs and bacon. Plus, I have to soak and wash the crockpot, too. The chicken breasts I made in there with the Italian Herb (it’s in one of those packets you find by the gravy) turned out absolutely beautiful and delicious.

Got something I want to read? Comment and let me know.

So if you’ve been paying attention you’ll know that my Honey won tickets from the local radio station we love to listen to all the time. Literally, the station is on in the car, on the stereo and we listen online.

Anyway, we won a free take and bake pizza from Papa Murphy’s, a day pass for two to Tattoo’s and Blues, and a two person ticket for I Love You, Man. This movie is coming out on March 20th, so check your local theatre and mark the calendar to find a babysitter. This movie is worth going out for.

If you haven’t seen the trailer for this movie, check it out at I Love You, Man.com. The movie is hilarous all the way through. It has a great story line and they keep you interested with all the little things going on as well as the main plot.

It’s so hard to find great comedies out there anymore but they really did a great job with this one. If you liked Knocked Up, you will absolutely love this movie. Also, if you’re in the area (Sonoma County, CA) listen to the Fox for your chance to win tickets to go see the preview screening. The only warning regarding this movie is if you have an issue with bad language. No, really bad language. They tend to use the fuck word quite a bit. So for those of you who have no issue with cursing, I hope you get to see this movie when it comes out with your partner, it’s definitely worth it.

Why do people choose the blogging platforms that they do? I’d love it if people really responded in the comments with their answers to this question.

I have used a few different blogging platforms ranging from Grey Matter, WordPress, an attempt at using B2, and I looked into Expression Engine. The first person who so graciously hosted Disillusioned so very long ago used Grey Matter. GM was.. confusing to say the least until a friend showed me where to go and what to do. Then I was all happy with making layouts and swapping out designs, changing up the CSS, etc.

Then every hosting company under the sun banned Grey Matter due to its’ huge security holes. Understandable.

I believe that is when I was introduced to Movable Type and had to unlearn everything I had learned with Grey Matter. It was no easy task (and still to this day I have issues with MTCode) trying to figure out where I wanted what and how to put that over there, etc. regarding layout creation.

Then they went and changed things up again. Left, Right and Center regarding the columns became Alpha, Beta and Gamma. Once again I had to figure out what the heck was going on and what to change for layouts. It took some time, and again the same friend, to remind me I didn’t have to go to such lengths to figure every detail out, just remember what I learned before and put everything where I wanted it.

For some reason the latest version of MT supports PHP extensions (which I couldn’t get to work) and you’re able to use the php include coding to create the index page now. Basically, you create seperate templates for Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta (never seen Delta used) and then when you want to change something you simply choose the specific template to change.

Great, loved the idea, too bad I couldn’t get it to work for me. But that’s ok! I don’t mind because I have to swap stuff out on every template anyway when I make a new layout. Every template has the coding for the image above, the footer and in order to make the CSS work I have to tell it which type of layout I’m using as well.

I completely disregard the Banner and Footer templates altogether. They actually made it more difficult for me to have a layout like this. And the actual background image, the one containing the columns? That’s included in the CSS and if I wanted to make it really easy I could give it a simple name like “background-line.jpg” and simply upload over it every time I changed a layout. I don’t do that because I’m picky though and I like having each layout be named after itself (this is yoruichi-layout) and each piece has that in front of what it is (line, bg, footer).

The blue lines with the headers in the sidebars, those came with the other layout I had, so I kept them because they contrasted nicely with this layout. They stood out, caught attention. I’m still a bit unsure about the blue separation lines in between the posts. They are dark enough that they don’t mess up anyone from reading but they don’t really go with the layout I made. I’d thought of changing them to the dark red used in the layout image.

I also love the fact that MT supports multiple blogs. I have Otherside, Disillusioned and another blog all set up in the same system. I also like the fact that I can set up access restrictions between the blogs and that authors don’t have access to each others blogs. I can give them access but if I don’t want them combing through my stuff, why would I?

The backup and export tools are great, too! I use both when I backup Disillusioned so that I have the zip of everything - all the templates and files - and then I also use the export tool so that I have the entries and comments in a text format file.

The only issues I’ve had with MT are the fact that I can’t ever seem to figure out the MTCode to use it properly and the fact that I’ve always had to change the Styles so that they reflect where the actual layout images and css files are kept. Other than that, no issues. Oh wait, the fact that I have to login again after writing an entry is an issue, but I’m sure it’s a cookie issue and not an MT issue. I probably need to change some setting in order to keep it from killing the cookie. Anyone know how to do that?

Let me know why you love the blogging platform you use and give me a link to your blog so I can check it out! Later.

Flashback: Gave In - Remember the post where I gave up IE as my primary browser because Flash Player wasn’t updating properly and I couldn’t see 90% of anything created in Flash? Hey, I didn’t miss the ads, though!

Well, there’s an update out. You should go get it. I updated Firefox first because it’s the browser I was in and then I decided I should update IE and see if it works. Well, it did! I am so very happy now. I can once again make IE my primary browser! I know, everyone loves Firefox. It’s not a bad browser, I just have issues with it.

I always forget that the Home and Refresh are on the left. I have to make sure that if I’m viewing anything that uses some form of iframe that I click outside of it in order to open a new tab using Ctrl+T, or I forget and get frustrated and use the menu. This site doesn’t look as well in Firefox as it does in IE. It’s off by a few pixels, but it’s enough to annoy the likes of me. Firefox also, for whatever reason, screws up the image link in my “Powered by MT 4.23” widget. It cuts off the top and bottom of the image, then strikes it out as well. I didn’t know you could use strikethrough on an image. Or perhaps you can’t, and it’s just weird like that.

Thank you, Adobe, for updating Flash Player. I truly appreciate it.

I really did enjoy this series of anime. I have been having some major issues finding anime that I really like (I love Bleach, Naruto Shippuden and other anime like them). I like the fighting for something you believe in storyline. I like the friends protecting friends and family members.

I even enjoyed Dragonball Z and GT (sort of) when I got over the fact that it was anime. Yes, that’s correct, I used to abhor anime until I found something that seemed to suit my lust of violence and justice. I’ve also watched and loved Ayashi No Ceres, which was such an amazing love story and overcoming family history horrors that I used it as a layout over at a new site.

The only issue I had with Vampire Knight (Guilty) was the fact that there was incest involved. Ok, it was between the vampires and they didn’t truly shove it in your face that it was something everyone should be doing; which is a good thing because I’d have been upset.

There are all kinds of anime out there and not all of it is suitable for everyone, but if you find something you enjoy, it’s hard to quit looking for more. With the internet at my fingertips I’ve finished off Full Metal Alchemist and the movie, Ayashi No Ceres, Ghost In the Shell (plus SAC and SAC 2nd Gig and all three movies), and more. I’m sure there’s more. I’ve even rewatched Bleach from the beginning because when they finally went back to the Aizen Arc I needed a refresher.

Let’s just say that I’ve also started reading the manga online for Bleach because I enjoy it that much and I’m ahead of the anime because of it. I still love the anime though because it brings a new way of looking at everything.

I’ve started watching .hack/sign again and I’m finding it just as interesting as I did when it was on TV. I used to watch it when it was on TV and I even played 2 of the 3 (I think it’s 3) games. I gave up on the games because they bored me after awhile and when you can play Final Fantasy games and get bored with a RPG-like game, there’s a problem.

So, if anyone knows of any anime out there that I might enjoy watching, please let me know. I’ve already tried Ruroni Kenshin, Elfen Lied and Death Note among others that just don’t seem to do it for me.

Oh yes, I have to mention Demon Eyes Kyo since I did a layout with him a long time ago. I absolutely loved Samurai Deeper Kyo. If you like violence, that’s definitely the way to go. Laters!