Technical bs

2 big components on the front page of my main website have bitten the dust:  Weatherpixie and Lycos' htmlgear.  So, my cute little redheaded weathergirl is gone daddy done, along with TEN YEARS worth of entries in my guestbook.  I'm more than slightly disappointed.  The weatherpixie (Tamsin) had some kind of catastrophic systems crash, so I am sympathetic to that.  But Lycos...ugh.  Why?  With almost no warning (2 months) and no email warnings whatsoever.  Thanks so much.

So, I have resorted to a cheesy Yahoo weather badge, and also a hoaky Yahoo guestbook.  (Yes, I like randomly showing the weather on my page.  Don't hate.)  I have spared everyone the temptation of adding other pointless widgets like interactive monkeys and virtual hedgehogs.  I toyed with the idea for about 9 seconds, only because I am not the picture of class and maturity that you might imagine.

Also, my site counter randomly decided to stop working at some point in the last 3 years.  So even though I can see that over 22,150 visitors have graced the index page of my website over the years, the little counter at the bottom shows a bunch of zeros.  Still waiting on an answer to that one from the Yahoo folks, who are happy as clams to deduct $13 from me every month for my hosting and domains.

I am trying to integrate some of the pages of my blog to my main website.  Is that bad?  Should I not muddy the waters?  I know that my website is so old (2001) that I should probably just take it down and renovate the whole thing, but at this point, it has grown to be such a monster that it would require too much time to do in a way that I'd like.  It's probably stale-looking, by today's standards (I don't care).  I don't even know what's current anymore, except that everyone has blogs and clouded photo journals now.

December 2, 2011

I love my fiesty child.

Ironic much?

I have nostalgic admiration for AC-DC. Theirs was the first rock concert I ever went to, in the 80's (For Those About to Rock!). My older brother used to play "Back in Black" over and over and over. It was floor thumpy, window rattley goodness. It kinda gave me the invincible teenager feeling, having my entire rib cage reverberating to arguably one of the coolest guitar riffs ever, about 46 times in a row most evenings, for weeks on end. Good times.

My 11-year-old daughter discovered AC-DC one day, when one of their songs was used in a movie. She said, "Mom, who is this? This is awesome music." I was psyched to pass the Tween Torch of Coolness to her, and I quickly went to iTunes to find some AC-DC for her.
Wahhhh wahhhhhh...NOPE. NONEXISTENT. Say whaaaat? Did I type it wrong in the search box? Should I have used a slash? A hyphen? A backslash? Did I get all 4 (really, 3) of the letters right? The answer, after a little research: None of the above. Turns out, AC-DC feels "very strongly" that their album Back in Black should be bought and listened to in its entirety, and not broken up into individual songs, because that would go against the listening experience that they intended. So, sorry AC-DC fans, due to their feelings of artistic purity, AC-DC refuses to have their songs sold via iTunes.

Okay, fine. They clearly have strong feelings that mimic........ oh, I don't know.......integrity(?) about how their music should be absorbed. I can dig that. Artists can be picky about how their messages are received. Whatever. I get it.
OF COURSE it's about the music, not the commercialism.

Alright, now here's my point: Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. But we consumerey Americans all know (sadly) that Thanksgiving has become a brief, food-comatosed, cranberry-infused segue into Christmas and the atrociousness known as Black Friday. That's another rant for another day.

BUT, as I watched tv last night and was visually assaulted by all kinds of holiday sale commercials for chain stores and malls, imagine my surprise when Walmart was using the song "Back in Black" as its theme song for its Black Friday craziness sale.
Walmart.
And by "surprise," I mean disgust.

The band won't let me buy their individual songs on iTunes for a few bucks because that's not how they "intended" for me to listen to their music, but they are more than happy to sell out to Walmart for 30 seconds of multi-gazillion dollar airtime.
Gross.

What's the dang deal, Angus?

Well, she is.

Krissi's Art Studio: The How-To on How-To's Part I (Photos)

Wow - someone quoted me. Awwwww, thanks, Krissi.

Quick list of things that you should not give to a pregnant woman

So far, there's only one thing on my list: Plants.
Once you have a demanding newborn in your arms, your priorities change. In other words, unless you can afford hired help, or you live with your parents, or you are prolific like the Duggers and already have a myriad of older children to raise your newer children, you won't be able to do ANYTHING AT ALL for a few months except hold, feed, placate, and change diapers. You won't be able to remember the last time you brushed your hair or took a shower. You won't have time to pee. Your sleep will be occasional and not very restful. You will lose track of time and go into a bizarre place on the time/space continuum where you don't know what day or week (or possibly season) it is.

That said, any young potted plants or herbs will not get watered, and instead will wither into a sad, premature death as they take a backseat to little deuce. I let 2 tomato plants and 1 basil plant sit in my front yard, untouched. The guilt still haunts me.

Yes, it's true. I've given birth to a mountain lion.

Hello from the land of Please Don't Put Me Down Ever Ever Ever Or Else I Will Scream Until The End Of Eternity.

This little dude growls like some kind of grunting cat. It goes on and on and on. Both my husband and I were told by our moms that we were "easy babies" that hardly cried or fussed at all, followed by being quiet and obedient sweet toddlers, so where did this growling little bobcat come from? Did I eat too many mangoes or something during my pregnancy? It's okay little Simba. I still love you.

From the land of the ridiculous and dumberer...the Baby Bullet

Okay, let me first say that I love gadgets and cool appliances. I sometimes get suckered into late night television infomercials and have been known to occasionally whisper to my husband, "Honey...are you awake? Hey. We need one of those...Look at this thing..." So don't hate.

But - I have issues with the Baby Bullet. What does it do that an immersion blender and some recyclable plastic storage containers cannot? Oh wait - I know. They can't SMILE AT YOU. Because the Baby Bullet and its components all have happy faces printed on them, much like the Kool Aid Man. Everyone knows that baby food is just of a higher quality when it was made in an appliance with a face on it, right?

The short commercial also has spokesmothers who are so easily impressed and dull, that they must apparently need the happy face painted onto the belly of the blender, because certainly it's not on there to invite an infant or a toddler to handle a sharply-bladed electrical appliance (at least I'm hoping, anyway, yikes).

Here's what vapid, upspeaking valleygirl spokesmodel #2 (who follows the over-enunciating brunette with the giant teeth) says during the commercial:
"And the best part of it is that you have the little dial...???
And you can...ummm...put the little date on it...???
So........you know when it's good until...."

Yes, she ended her sentence like that, with the word "until" (nice). And for her, the "best part" is not how incredible and efficient the appliance is at making food for her growing infant, but that the containers have the little dates on them. (Did I mention that she sounds like she is on animal tranquilizers?)

The commercial never actually says how much the Baby Bullet costs. It just offers a free 30-day trial. WHAT? As if there weren't enough red flags already hemorrhaging out of this commercial, if this isn't a red flag - well then, I don't know what is.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.