Reskin

Well, I reskinned - to match for once! :P

I definatley need to change out Marvin to some other cartoon idol - or just up the image quality or something...I can't decide. In any case, here it is - complain about bugs or glitches now :)

So Many Colors Of Strange

Things are...weird.

My father is moving and it's doing nothing but causing upset and oddness....

Oh well, I suppose.

Everything will be fine - right?

The Donald

Whoever wrote the script for this ABC Unauthorized Biography read a copy of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead before they did it cuz wow she's just come back to life here.

"Every building is a testament to someones immortality."

Hi...yeah...where are they hiding Howard?

I Can Watch The OC Again!

From the final episode:


At Trey’s place, Ryan starts pushing him around when Trey suddenly grabs a gun and aims it at him. Ryan knocks the gun out of Trey’s hand and starts beating the crap out of him. Trey fights back. Marissa arrives and sees Trey’s hands around Ryan’s neck. She tries to break it up but Trey continues squeezing the life out of Ryan. Just as Trey’s about to hit Ryan over the head with a telephone, Marissa picks up the gun and shoots Trey in the back He stands stunned, blood quickly running from his body, and falls to the ground. Seth and Summer arrive in time to witness the tragic scene.

Ah, vengence is sweet.

Gram's Pie Crust

Gram made the greatest pie crust ever but, as she has passed now, I can tell the world that, on a total fluke, I improved upon her recipie.

I'm posting it here to immortalize it in a data file that my mother cannot somehow corrupt. She pis a plauge on pie crust recipies.

3 C Flour
2 t Salt

Mix

1 C Crisco

Cut into flour & salt mixture

2 Eggs
2 t Vinegar

Mix together
Cut into flour & Crisco mixture

Cut in 8-10 T water.

Divide into three sections, roll and bake at 350 until golden brown.

Pie crust is easiest rolled cold.

I'm A Bad Mommy

I put Princess (a.k.a. Ducky) into her pink ball to let her run around the house a bit. She really enjoys the change in scenery and, the excercise is good for her.

I'm always really careful to make sure that everything is closed up. I have a coverless vent in my bedroom which i put a box infront of and I amke sure the other doors are closed. She can get into the ktichen and the living room and that's about it.

Well, today, someone opened the backdoor and she managed to roll down the stairs and get stuck underneath a basement washbasin in a puddle. She couldn't have been in it for more than two minutes but she was, nevertheless soaked, scared, cold, and exhausted.

Frantic, i rushed her upstairs, wrapped her in a blanket and called a the vet with the biggest phone number in the Yellow Pages. They advised that i keep her warm and calm but not to bring her in because the car ride would be traumatic.

Well, a few microwaved towels and an ingenious "Hey, what about a heat lamp" later, shes dry, warm, and active. It was amazing how quickly the lamp turned her around. At the moment, shes cuddled up in her favorite sleeping box with her favorite thing in the world - six sheets of toilet paper - and a heat lamp on the cage to keep her warm all night long until she really gets thorougly dry.

She's eating, drinking (i thought she'd never go near water again!), and busily combing the tangles out of her fur.

From here on out - we're calling her Ducky after the character in A Land Before Time (You are a flyer, not a swimmer, Petry!") --- my brother really liked that movie as a kid.

Cage

I'm the worst!

The Power Of Body Language - And How It Has No Impact On My Mother

For those of you who know my mom, you know that she's a great pumper of the power of body language. Well, I spent the entire damn weekend with this woman. Friday morning my father and brother left on a fishing trip. Now, i've been sick all week but I managed to get out of the house on Friday night. I came home, ended up talking to her until almost two o'clock in the morning because she doesn't shut up. See, my mother doesn't handle time spent alone well, at all and with my father gone she had no one to talk to all day. Saturday morning, she came in my room at 7 am and shook me awake. This isn't such a gregious fault except that i'm sick!! I wanted to sleep so that I could get better but no, i had to get up because my mother was bored. Then she proceeded to drag me around all day Saturday until after Mike saved me, post family dinner. Then Sunday, she came in my room at woke me up at 8. Then she talked and talked and talked. Then she came in my room and attacked me with a fucking blow dryer. Then she dragged me to the mall like i'm some fucking barbie doll because she wanted to take me shopping so that i'd spend time with her.

Well, she was supposed to be gone today. She had to go to the office early this morning and she was supposed to be gone until around 7 tnoight. My father and brother are coming home sometime this evening but we're not quite sure when. I was looking forward to some good sleep and a day without my mother.

Well, her lunch meeting and her evening meeting got canceled (after she called me four times and e-mailed me twice) so she's home now, sitting in my room talking to me.

Now, back to the power of body language. When she came in, I was in the queue. Slouched over on my chair, switching between word and firefox to check wc's on songfics, chin resting in my hand, and not speaking. None of this has changed since she walked in her. I've not uttered a single word - i've grunted twice and yet, here she is 30 minutes later, still FUCKING TALKING. I've not looked at her, spoken to her, or given her any indication that i'm still cognisent and alive but she jsut can't seem to quit.

This is going to be a very long two years if my Father really makes this move and stays gone. Seriously, i'll go mad. I cannot spend tihs kind of time with her - she makes me want to strangle her.

Oh, and hey...that's just wonderful. Kiss my peace and quiet goodbye - fish boy 1 and 2 just arrived home and they both STINK like dirty water and the woods. Yuck.

Internet Ettiquite

At one time or another each one of us has irratated someone on the internet. It's impossible to aovid it.

Site owners are cranky people and it's hard not to cross them, even by asking a simple question, but there are just a few tiny little things people could do to avoid ticking us off completely.

1. Google.

Okay, I know that Google seems to terrify everyone under the age of 16 but it's really not that complicated. If you have a question like "What's an IP Address?" You can either enter the keywords or enter the whole damn question and look at the great information that comes up.

In the first link I hit I got this " An identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol route messages based on the IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be zero to 255. For example, 1.160.10.240 could be an IP address."

Which links to a page that reads "Understanding IP Addresses" and has this to say:

Every computer that communicates over the Internet is assigned an IP address that uniquely identifies the device and distinguishes it from other computers on the Internet. An IP address consists of 32 bits, often shown as 4 octets of numbers from 0-255 represented in decimal form instead of binary form. For example, the IP address

168.212.226.204

in binary form is

10101000.11010100.11100010.11001100.

Now, pardon me for saying so but was that so hard? Honestly. A few keystrokes and like four clicks and I can tell you everything you never wanted to know about IP addresses.

2. FAQ's

I have written a fair amount of FAQ's, having composed almost all of HPFF's FAQ's and my own site's knowledge base. That said, it really pisses me off when people don't read before they start e-mailing you.

Now, I know, FAQ's don't just smack you in the face when you log on to a site - usually you have to, ya know, look an inch or so to the left and you'll find a link to them but seriously people. Every site has them and they have them for a reason - because they're Frequently Asked Questions and, guess what, they're asked frequently. Are you that convinced of your omnipotence that you really believe that you have an original question?

Don't believe me?
MSNBC
Pepsi
Toys 'R' Us/Amazon
Nascar

Four sites. Four clicks to their help pages and they all have knowledge bases.

Seriously, just a quick page scan for the words "Customer Service", "Help" and "FAQ's" go a long way toward keeping people like me from killing you.

Hey look, i'm publishing this with blogger and you practically have to trip over the Help button to get anywhere.

Then, I suppose it doesn't matter how many FAQ's you post - how easy you make them to understand - if people in this universe don't learn how to READ i suppose things will never get better.

New Rule: You must be This --- intelligent to use the web.

I Must Be Getting Better

My health must be improving because, here I sit, at almost three am, not at all tired.

I took my Ephedrine packed allergy pills at midnight and i'm still all hyper....Thats impressive, considering these pills have been trying their best for the last three days and I still have to sleep for 10-14 hours just to keep my eyes open the rest of the day.

Wow

Okay, so this should techincially just get dropped into my Odd Google Searches page of my collections area but I couldn't seem to make myself do that to it - it seemed that more publicity was only fair. Today was googling to find out if someone had already taken a vidcap of Stewie doing the Robot from the latest episode of family guy (no point in converting an entire episode of a tv show, then grabbing the vidcap, then sizing, sharpening, etc... only to find out that someone has already done it, right?) Anyways, I came across this picture under the search "Family Guy Robot" and the blog it was on caught my attention.

Today's shoutout goes to Grow A Brain (http://growabrain.typepad.com/growabrain/)

On the upside, it seems that no one who is indexed by google images has gotten around to it yet so the Stewie avatar will be available at my site later tonight. (http://www.bitterepiphany.com/graphic_type.html#Avatars)

The First Semi-Productive Thing To Come Out of an Infomercial

So last night i was watching, or rather happened to leave on a Time Life presentation of the Legends of the 60's and 70's. Better known as "Modern Day Commercial Jingles"

One of the beauties of the internet is the ability to download the Billboard Top 100 packs from 1960-1980 in a few hours and then proceed to slice out only the songs you like into a massive custommade compliation CD.

This folder is going to be really big...:)

Owwie...

Oh my head...it is full of stuff...mean stuff...stuff that should come out immediately so that i can resume normal non-cloudy existence.

I hate spring.
I hate spring.
I hate srping.
I hate spring.
I hate spring.
I hate spring.
I hate spring.
I hate spring.

I can take my allegra at 1:30 and I may consider, round about 4, having a very large cup of coffee to keep me awake because there's nothing like a boat load of allergins to make you want to lay down and go straight to sleep.

Marquette Warriors

"Hi. My name is Achilles and I am offended by your use of the term Warrior in your nickname as I feel like you are singling out all greeco-roman warriors."

Shut the fuck up you whiney ass Native Americans. Don't you have bigger problems to solve like the death of your native language?

My Hamster Really Is A Princess

On saturday, when I cleaned her cage, I moved her from two cages to one (one she hadn't used on it's own before) becuase it was, out and out, the better of the two cages. There's more living space, it's easier to clean and to dry, the wheel is quieter and better for her feet, and the food bowl and water bottle are larger.

No problem, methinks.

On monday, i noticed that she hadn't touched her water. Well, yesterday I swapped her back into the old cage in hopes that she would take some liquids - i gave her some apple and a bit of cheese. This morning, she's downed half of the bowl of water that I gave her as well as about 1/4 of the smaller bottle in that cage.

She is a little princess. She was pissed off because I switched her cage and she wouldn't drink her water. Brat.

Good Show

I can say, conclusively, that I enjoyed that show as I now feel like I was hit by several large Semi's. Always a good sign. Of course, that could have more to do wtih the inordinate of walking/rollerblading I did yesterday coupled with the way my joints react to dehydration.

On to other things. Last night was Jameson's first ever concert. He is a happy boy :)

I'm really glad. Raise your hand if you remember the first show you were ever at? Yeah, exactly. I'm really glad that the show he managed to see was probably his favorite band - and a good one at that - as well as that they haven't strayed from classic green day concerts as I was afraid they might. I mean, I saw MCR and assumed they'd gone to shit :P He shall be spoiled forever because he's bound to be disappointed when he realizes that not every concert he'll ever go to has a drunk bunny who dances, costumes, men in heels, total production value, a third and entierly unplanned band (the guitarist and the drummer might consider getting together but they should probably look around for a new bassist) and a bunch of girls who were slightly older than him and wearing very few clothes.

Two Very Important Things That Could Be Said Better By A Less Tired Person

1. I've locked the lead singer of MCR (My Chemical Romance) in his tour bus with an eight ball and seventeen bottles of everclear. All we can do from here is hope.

(Oh, and green day is as good as ever)

2. We're all "ist"'s of some kind. We all mask them differently. Some people are racist's, some are anti-semitic, others are feminists. Me, i'm an 'elitist.'

Someone I know is writing a paper on racism (specifically the internet's effect on it, I think) and he asked me if I took his survey. I informed him that I hadn't because I was going through a phase in which I am particularly sensative to whining and, let's face it, minorities of all kinds (race, sect, color, creed, sexual preference, and teenagers) are some of the whiniest people on the planet earth.

"Ehhh!! My great-great-great-great grandfather was beaten by some dead white guy and now you are keeping me down by arresting me for robbing this liqour store!" -- "Ehh!!! I'm a Native American and the founders of the Jamestown settlement kicked our asses what with their guns. You owe me a Casino."

The only people with any right to complain are Holocaust survivors. They actually - themselves - were directly and completely persecuted and they are more than welcome to complain ot the civilians and political leaders that didn't act sooner to prevent their genocide. Oh, and ruwanda, sudan, ethiopia and the other dozen or so genocides we've ignored in the last 10 minutes.

I don't want to hear about something a possible great great great grandfather of mine did to your great great grandfather. Yes, it sucks. No, i don't condone it. And, ya know what, I'm a pretty ballsy person, I probably would have tried to help your grandfather escape if i'd been ALIVE when he was being treated unjustly.

Leave me the fuck alone.



Okay, back to the facts. I don't hate people based on their color, their sexual preferences, or anything of that nature. I hate people based on their stupidity.

When a fully functioning adult moves to another country and refuses to learn to speak the language of that country (this says FULLY FUNCTIONING for a reason. I'm not getting on the case of your polish grandmother who's turning 95 next week.) they are douche bags and I am going to consider myself free to loathe them from afar. If i moved to mexico - hell, when i went on vacation to mexico - i bought a damn dictionary and at least tried to speak the langauge, even when I knew perfectly well that the waitress would have understood me in English becuase it's fucking rude not to try. Plus, people ordeirng food in languages they don't speak is generally hilarious and I couldn't help but provide her the comic relief in exchange for living in a country where you can't drink the tap water.

When the president of the formerly free world says things like Nuculer i think i'm entitled to want to hit him with the Complete Oxford English. When my news media is covering a botched election and the only enduring message they manage to impart on us is the term "pregnant chad" we have a problem. When someone allows a venemous snake to bite them and their children and expect God (i capitalize it becuase i assume they would) to save them, I reserve my rights to mock and thank Darwin that they will eventually remove themselves from the planet provided I don't intervene on behalf of common sense and science.

Yes, that's right, I have an ist and it's based on your ability to fucking communicate with others and continue to exist as a fucntioning human being. If you're stupid, just stay out of my way because you'll get nothing but glares and substandard treatment from me. Turn off South Park and go read a fucking book.