July 2009 Archives

So yesterday at the fair Honey and I were sitting down taking a break in the nice ice cold breeze where the sun still shined warm enough to keep me from freezing to death and chatted. I guess there were some ladies that walked somewhere behind me or out of my visual area and glared at him or something. I’m not entirely sure but this evoked a question that, instead of laughing off, I tried to answer honestly.

He asked me why women wear tank tops, have their breasts hanging out, decorated in sparkles (I think the tank tops were decorated in sparkles and lots of boob was showing) if they didn’t want you to look at them. Such as, he looked to see what was written in the sparkles on their tank top and got glared at, even though he wasn’t staring, and they covered themselves up. What’s the point of wearing such a top if you don’t want people looking at you?

So I chuckled and said that’s the whole point. You’re looking at someone that has to incite drama so they have a way of going all over-the-top emotional on you or at a later time to one of their friends. Women wear these tops, showing off skin, and then get offended when you look, even if you aren’t gawking and whistling and innocently trying to figure out what the hell their top reads, in order to get angry, glare at you and then make a whole stink out of it right then and there (if they are truly drama whores) or later on to a group of friends so they can be fawned over.

Personally I could care less about the drama. If I want to wear a top that is sexy I don’t wear it so that men will gawk at me, I wear it because it makes me feel good. I like to feel good about myself and wearing something sexy, whether it be a nice set of bra and panties, or a sexy top when I go out that might show a little skin, is for me. It’s because I am feeling absolutely amazing that day and I just want everyone to know how good I feel and what a wonderful mood I’m in. If they happen to gawk, well perhaps their moms didn’t teach them any better.

My funny “Holy shit” moment was when I saw two girls who were dressed trashy in a semi-goth (I shop at Hot Topic) wannabe outfit and .. I don’t know how to describe this. I am really sure they had beer bellies. That’s what it makes me think of. They had their shirts tied up in the back because they got henna tattoos of a pentagram (that’s why the pic above) and they had them (not surprisingly) on their lower back. So I am going to call this the “Wannabe Goth Tramp Stamp”. The tattoos I didn’t give a crap about at all. I wanted to walk over there and cover up their stomachs. Other than their bellies, their figures looked just fine. Their bellies looked like they drank a 6 pack a day. These were not pregnant I’m going to be a mommy bellies, these were saggy and hanging over the belt bellies. It was just in very bad taste for them to be walking around like that. I’m sure it was just so the henna would dry but still… bad taste.

What I truly enjoyed was almost getting run over, repeatedly, by large mexican families at the fair. There were at least three times I ended up separated from Honey and Little Lady, not because I wasn’t walking fast enough, but because god forbid they stop and wait a moment or veer a little to their right in order to walk past me. I’m not talking mom and dad and two or three little kids either. I’m talking mom, dad, teens and friends, little kids and cousins, sisters and/or brothers of the parents. Extended families cutting me off. So I had to STOP and WAIT for anywhere around 7 to 15 people to walk SLOWLY in front of me before I could catch up with them. And it’s kind of hard to yell “Hey, wait up” when they are all talking loudly to each other, yelling at kids, or on their phones.

Anyway. Other than the funny people watching and being cut off we all had a wonderful time at the fair. There are just those who have to be rude in order to think they are superior to others and that’s just fine with me, just don’t get in my face about it, I might just start laughing so hard I cry, which would probably make you think I need to be living in a round rubber room.

While at the Sonoma County Fair we got to visit, pet and learn about all kinds of animals from birds to horses and cows to reptiles. Well, most of the reptiles were in cages or weren’t to be petted, but we did get to see them and just how cool they are. The birds we mainly saw were happy and content in a barn waiting to be seen and shown and go home. But the birds I’m going to show you today are those that have been rescued and will either be released back into the wild or dependent on human care for the rest of their life.

First I’d like to introduce Poppy. She’s a red-tailed hawk and they were kind enough to turn her around to show off her fancy red tail. I didn’t get a photo of that though but here she is in all her glory. Poppy won’t ever be released back into the wild because she’d be a danger to herself and humans because she doesn’t have the ability to hunt. I don’t recall them telling us why she was unable to hunt but she is and will be fed by people and kept safe for the rest of her life.

Here we have a great horned owl who is unnamed. The lady showing him explained that they are told not to give the birds names because that would make them more inclined to be nice to humans. This owl bites and claws and will be released back into the wild when he’s ready. I don’t recall why he was at the rescue center but obviously he’s there because he needed some form of care. Did you know that with our facial bone structure owl eyes would be enormous on our faces? Their eyes are huge compared to ours.

This is Odie and isn’t she pretty? She only has one eye though and will not be released back into the wild. I’ve never seen an owl with one eye. This one was so adorable I just couldn’t stop looking at her. She was even kind enough to turn her head so I could get a really great photo of her looking at me funny, sort of like “Did you get it yet?”.

This Bird Rescue Center is located in Santa Rosa, CA and they do except charitable donations which are tax deductble and they have volunteer options as well. I know my Honey’s family has had them rescue some birds in the past and they seem to take really great care of them to get them back out into the wild.

If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know that I was having issues with my Movable Type installation regarding logging in and staying that way not too long ago. Well in the process of fixing the issue, which turned out to be real simple and easy to fix, I decided to go ahead and update my version from 4.2 to 4.261. Doing so added some more things like captcha to the comments and more recognized (like AIM and so forth) user names. So when you leave a comment if the email address you use is associated with say WordPress, it’s going to show the little WordPress logo. I know, cool.

So upgrading not only helped prevent pain in the arse spam comments it also helps recognize where people are coming from. Which is nice because I like to know where people have their blogs. Sometimes I’m particular about that. It still keeps your email address hidden away so you don’t have to worry about someone mining your info from here.

Another program I’ve grown to love over the years is Core FTP LE because it is the only FTP program that I have found that will upload the complete installation of Movable Type without once kicking me off the server. I used to think it was the host server saying ‘what the fuck are you doing!?’ and booting me. But from the last two times I wasn’t kicked off. I’m not even uploading the entire installation at once. I’m a little anal and I do one folder at a time and make sure the file sizes match. Getting booted during the upload of a file that’s over 100K is not only annoying but frustrating as well. The file may end up corrupted and you have to reupload it. The file may get skipped and you won’t realize it until something doesn’t work. I haven’t had any problems since using CoreFTP.

So I am officially using Movable Type 4.3 and you can get it here. If you’re interested in testing out CoreFTP you can get it here. No need to tell them I sent you I simply love their programs and have no issue promoting them. Laters.

Velvet was looking all adorable and sweet before I took this photo. I think if the first two had worked (Little Lady likes to change the settings and there was no flash) she wouldn’t look affronted. At least I think that’s a good word to describe the look on her face. She was affronted that she had to sit there as I took another photo. Sometimes I think Velvet feels as if she has to put up with us even though we give her food, water, shelter and love when she demands it. Oh yes, and a clean litterbox of course. We can’t forget about that. We also save her from Dusty when he chases her around, jealous that she still gets to eat dry food and he doesn’t (he’s the only cat I’ve ever known to hate wet food).

You’ll also notice how messy the room is and Little Lady seems to get upset when Velvet knocks things down. Why does it matter if her room is already a disaster? I had her clean it yesterday in order to go over to her friend’s house. It’s still a bit of a mess but she did most of it. I can make her finish it when she gets home. The Little Lady’s room is Velvet’s sanctuary from Dusty for the most part. She can go in there and we can close the door and she feels safe and happy. Dusty does get locked up when he chases or stalks her and she gets to roam free when that happens but she’s more happy being in the window napping.

Oh to be a kitty…

I have been wanting another cactus for years. Somehow or another I killed my last one. Don’t ask me how, I really haven’t a clue. It died, I felt ashamed, we both moved on. Any plants that I am around for more than 20 minutes tend to need to be babied for at least two weeks. So basically I stick to watering what needs watered and picking tomatoes (or whatever else is edible that I plant) and leaving it alone otherwise. Lately I have taken a bigger interest in my tomato plant and went to town on it to cut that sucker back. Anyway, look at my cute cactus! It had been in its carrier for ages and I finally moved it to a pot. I don’t consider that an actual pot… it’s flat and round and I think it’s actually more of a base but it will hold water and it’s wide.

According to the label it gets flowers in March or April, which is odd, because it grew flowers immediately after being brought home. Then for some reason recently they have all gone away. The used to open in the sun and close in the shade and otherwise were happy, but now they are gone. I figure this has to do with not being moved out of its little carrier container for so long that it was unhappy. So we’ll see what happens. I’m also hoping that it will grow little friends. If it doesn’t grow friends I can always buy it some.

If anyone out there knows of an accurate source of information regarding my little thumb cactus friend I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know. Either comments or email or tweeting will work. Thanks.

I was having some major issues with my Movable Type installation today. There was some form of update through Windows Update that I think caused the initial problem, though.For whatever reason I was repeatedly being logged out of MT when I clicked on something. Click on ‘Write Entry’ and it took me back to the login screen. Click on a menu item and back to the login screen. Obviously such an issue is not conducive to blogging and needs to be fixed.

So I put a notice out using Twitter to see if someone at SixApart might be willing to lend a hand and a detailed forum post at the MT Forums. I didn’t have to wait long for a response either. Shortly after sending out my tweet SixApart direct messaged me that they’d have someone in their tech department check out my post and see if they could assist me.

After initially being confused (where do I access CookieDomain to fix it?) I was told to check out my paths in the mt-config.cgi file. Apparently since I use subdomains for the blogs I host it is not a good idea to have the ‘www’ in the path because then the cookie registers ‘www’ when there isn’t one. The cookies don’t match and it causes the site to kick you out because ‘you were never logged in’. That’s how I see it anyway and it certainly makes a lot of sense. I’m feeling smarter by the minute!

Before seeing the reply regarding the ‘www’ issue, I decided it would be a great idea to upgrade my MovableType installation anyway. I haven’t looked through anything to see what’s changed but I will when I’m done here. Excitingly, and for the second time in a row, Movable Type has upgraded successfully and easily! I am so thrilled. I can’t figure out why people use other programs and then complain when it comes to upgrading. Yes, I used to when it came to upgrading with MT but because I was always confused, now I’ve gotten really good at doing the installs and I make less and less mistakes when I create layouts.

Anyway, I want to officially thank Matt Jacobs (aka CapnDesign) for taking the time out of his busy day to help me out. Thanks, Matt. You not only made my day but you have made a loyal MT user happy in her loyalty. Laters.

Honey took me out to go spend some more on my gift card that I got for christmas and I bought this lovely new top! I don’t think this image shows the entirety of the top. I could wear tights under it and call it a dress, it’s long enough! But I do love the colors and the design. I didn’t take a photo of the back but it shows off the butterfly there much better than the one on the front. Honey even picked it out and I loved it. There were others with other designs but none of them struck me like this one did. I love the feel of the fabric, even though it’s synthetic and all, it feels as if I’m not wearing anything at all.

I wanted to get a new pair of sunglasses but the only kind they have where I went are those kind that are either for Paris Hilton wannabes or (as I like to call them) beaten-wife sunglasses that literally cover half your face. So either the blinged out ones that I can’t stand as others would need sunglasses in order to prevent them from becoming blind or look like I’m hiding a blackeye. No thank you.

I also bought a new pair of headphones. The ones I have hurt my ears after wearing them for only a short time and there’s no reason for me to be in pain when I’m trying to be nice. Being nice causes me enough pain, sort of like when I wear pink (it burns!). They are called iLuv and they are a pretty teal blue color. So far I like them. I haven’t worn them long enough to find out if they are going to cause me any pain yet. I really want a new headset (earphones+michrophone) but the ones I had previously were like 30 bucks, I think they were by Sony, and I loved them literally to death. I didn’t kill them but I wanted to kill when they were no longer usable. The new (cheap!) ones i bought to replace them hurt my ears. Oddly enough they work for Honey and he uses them when playing WoW. (Yeah, WoW, I know.)

Anyway, enjoy the new pic, you know you love me. Laters.

So I fell in love with yet another anime, following three main characters, Shiki, Mikiya and Tōko. Shiki has a paranormal ability called ‘Mystic Eyes of Death Perception’ which allows her to see the point of origin on any form (living or non-living). Being able to see the lines and point of origin it allows her to kill it with any form of object, she normally uses a dagger in combat, and irregardless of how powerful, once she destroys the point of origin within the target, it dies. Not to say all her battles are easy because they aren’t. There is so much I could tell you about Shiki but it’s so much better if you watch it yourself.

Mikiya is a friend of Shiki’s and works regularly for Tōko as a secretary. He also does a lot of information gathering and has been told that he’d make an excellent detective. Tōko took him on as an employee because of the fact that he was able to find her shop, which is hidden to everyone except those who wish to find it. He fell in love with her skill of puppet making. Mikiya is kindhearted and patient, especially with Shiki.

Tōko is a sorceress and puppet maker. She has distanced herself from the magical community she was once apart of but still helps out with paranormal disturbances from time to time. Shiki takes care of combat and Tōko rarely has to step in. When she does, it’s exciting and shocking.

There’s a lot of violence in these movies and they are supposedly rated NC-17. I’d have rated them R but I do understand the higher rating as you get further on into the series. The last one I watched, number 5, Paradox Spiral is (admittingly) slightly confusing until you get to the end. It keeps you entranced and on your toes. The ending is absolutely thrilling and worth waiting for. I enjoyed all of the movies so far and I can’t wait for number 6 and the others to come out. You have to pay attention to the timeline as well, they show month and year and sometimes the day, too. If you like anime, you’ll love these movies, but only if you can handle the violence. Otherwise, don’t bother. Laters.

So the Little Lady and I went with Honey’s mom to check out the home, barracks, mission and so forth in Sonoma of General Vallejo. Of course I was stupid and for whatever reason, I who always carries her camera to new places, did not take it. Hopefully there will be a reason to go back and I can do so then.

Anyway, if you want to teach your kids some history about hard work and strife, this is the place to go check out. They have guided tours, but we didn’t go on one of those, and you might enjoy it more if you do so. It’s basic California history that we were learning and the reason we started doing this was for the Little Lady (not so much for me, but I learn new things, too) since she wasn’t here to have California history in 4th grade.

That was something new I learned as well. Every school in the state has a specific type of history you learn each year. 4th grade is California history, like I mentioned and when the Little Lady started school here in 7th grade they did Middle Eastern history. In 6th grade it would have been Egyptian. They don’t do anything like that in the schools in Ohio. You move from one district to another and you are most likely ahead or behind, depending on how well the students learn. Also in Ohio they do Ohio history, but it’s not all that indepth and certainly not for a whole year. You move from local history to national history to world history and then they go into governmental studies and that’s about it.

So we had a great time learning about General Vallejo and his family, looking at the barracks he and his men stayed in, looking at their Victorian styled home, and the mission was great. We also learned about the Bear Flag Revolt, which didn’t even last a full month before the good ole’ USA took their flag down and replaced it with the Stars and Stripes. That’s right, less than a month. They only have a copy of the flag in the barraks because the original was destroyed in the fires following the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco.

Overall it was great to learn about the history of the state and how it became part of the US. There are some amazing paintings in the mission of other missions by Chris Jorgensen, yes he was Norwegian, in watercolors. He had an amazing eye and incredible talent the years he painted the other missions. So if you’re ever in Sonoma and want to get a touch of history, these would be the places to go. Hopefully next time I’ll have photos! Laters.

Or in other words, Goodbye & Good Evening (I’m trying to be proper here since I’m writing in the evening time, ok?). I’ve changed Bleach characters from one favorite (Yoruichi) to another favorite (Renji). Renji Abarai is the Vice-Captain of Squad 6 under Bakuya Kuchiki and tends to make me laugh at the strangest times. Unfortunately, although he’s getting more ‘airtime’ lately, he doesn’t get as much as I think he should. Hopefully he’ll get written in more often. He’s a pretty good character and I think they’ve done very well with his personality. He knows when it’s time to be serious and he can be very sensitive at times. Anyway, enough about my favorite characters. What show do you like (whether it be animated or not) and who’s your favorite character(s) and why?

I hope you enjoy the new layout and who knows, maybe since he’s made it to Disillusioned I’ll change the layout I have on Myspace. It’s been him forever there. But then it’s hard for me to find stuff I like. Enjoy and Later.

And this would be the latest greenhouse visitor. I believe this is the same snake that we found shedding in the greenhouse a few months ago. Not too long ago I walked into the greenhouse to find him hanging out on the basil plant that had recently been watered. Not sure if he was warm and trying to cool himself or just hanging out. He seems pretty harmless and is more scared of us than we are of him. He also seems to realize we aren’t going to hurt him, just look at him in shock for a few moments when we realize he’s there and then go about our business.

I was impressed with how long he hung around and let us take photos of him. It was pretty neat in my opinion. He did move and blurred a photo, I didn’t upload it, but it was so cute. I wish it had come out clear because he was tasting the air and looking at us. Makes me wonder what he was thinking at the time with the way he looked at us and decided we were just being nosy humans. Afterwards Honey and I went to the store and he was gone before we got back, so no new photos until I see him again, depending. If the little aligator lizards weren’t so skiddish and fast I’d put photos of them up here. I think they live in the jungle part of our greenhouse. Jungle to them anyway. It’s a bunch of aloe and these hawaiian plants (I’ll have to put up a photo since I don’t know the name of them). Laters.

Nothing much has been going on lately. The kitchen is fairly clean, I’ve been reading like crazy, playing Sims like crazy, but that was all stated in the last post. Another thing I’ve been doing is searching for a new desktop wallpaper. I found this site awhile back called Desktop Nexus that has some really great wallpapers. Tons and tons of stuff to look through and which I found my latest wallpaper, the Bleach fanatic that I am, a Hell Butterfly image.

I also found the wallpaper that I used to create the new splash page for S-E.O as well. I did make some changes to it, a little darker, a little change in shade. Other than that, nothing much.

The mishap I’ve been having is with my dinosaur of a webcam I pulled out of storage a week or so ago. It’s so old and outdated that they stopped supporting it completely, other than having the latest driver on their site, in 2006. The latest driver is also from 2006. I’d get a new one, but it’s not an important thing. It works just fine, it’s the bandwidth from what I’ve read that is killing the quality of the video it’s showing. Whatever. It isn’t something I’d use all that often. I don’t have anyone overseas to talk to or anything like that so it’ll sit here and maybe I’ll use it to show off Dusty’s latest silliness (I swear there is something in that wet food). Perhaps someone out there has a clue? It’s a Creative WebCam NX. Literally OLD and outdated beyond all things possible and of course, no Vista support. Oddly enough, it works. For the most part.

Alright, I’m off. Laters.

I know that I haven’t been around all that much for quite awhile. I am here, lurking around, sometimes reading blogs, sometimes not being online at all. I like to take breaks more often from the internet to do other things, like getting lost in a favorite series of books or play a game for hours on end in between doing dishes and laundry.

So basically I have reread the entire series regarding Rachel Morgan and The Hollows again (that’s 7 books); I’ve read 7 of 15 books regarding the FBI Romance/Thrillers by Catherine Coulter again. She’s my favorite author in those regards and she’s also got me so hooked on Savich and Sherlock it’s not funny. I wish I could picture him better, he sounds extremely yummy.

I’ve been playing Sims 2 like a loon. I know, Sims 3 is out, but we have to pay off Dusty’s vet bills (will explain) and get everything else settled before we can upgrade the laptop to handle Sims 3 and I want to wait for the whole freaking collection dammit.

We had to take Dusty to the vet because he ended up having a urinary tract blockage. We knew something was wrong with him because he was moaning (at least that’s how it sounded to me) and he wasn’t doing much of anything at all. He was fine with being petted until you got near his side - which he hates being petted past his shoulders, so that was a clue, too. Plus he tried using his litterbox four times in an hour and that really blew us away.

So after going to the vet to get emergency surgery and just about ripping apart the wonderful people who cared for him there and at the recovery hospital we had our fractious kitty back home after a few days. He was so grateful to be home that he was loving and allowed us to love him up (which he never does, not even cracked out on catnip and half asleep) in return. Now he’s our Dusty again. The King of the Fractious Kitties (I do love that word). That is how he was described to the recovery hospital that took over his 24 hour care. They also said that he would attack if anyone came close. They had to gas him in order to give him his medication. Giving him his pain meds after he came home was a hoot.

Anyway. Please make sure to keep an eye on your kitties and their cat food. They aren’t supposed to get dry food. Although there are some REALLY GOOD dry foods out there. Due to the dry food we feed them Dusty ended up being blocked and having to go through hell to get better. Luckily he’s still technically a male. They didn’t have to slice him open and turn him female so he could pee without a catheter. So he’ll be on wet prescription food for life, unless we can find an alternative wet food for him that will be good and keep him from blocking up again. Also, since most people give cats dry food so they don’t have to brush their teeth, you can give them treats that will clean their teeth and they’ll love you more. I don’t know about Dusty. We are going to ask his regular vet when he’s back in the office if he’s allowed treats to 1) keep his teeth clean and 2) because sometimes he’s such a good kitty he needs a treat. (My fault, I got him hooked on treats.)

Oh let’s see. What else. Oh, I started using this site called Architectual Designs to build houses for my Sims. It’s a great site, they have some amazing designs and sometimes I just feel amazed at how well they come out. Others I have to alter sometimes because I only have the base game and don’t need a garage for a car my Sims don’t have.

So I apologize for not being around for so long. It’s easier to take a break every now and again instead of burning myself out on the internet all the time every day. I should be around again, just not as long or often. Laters.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I also took an hour to make a new splash page for Sweetly-Evil.Org. You should go see it.