I've been meaning to post this since Monday I think...

Obviously not real, but damn funny anyway.

I really should learn that I'm no good at budgeting and estimating time for a project that's in a completely new arena for me. Silly me, I knew today would be the pick weather day of the week, high near 60F and no precip, some sun, etc. So I'd picked up a couple little crates from Michael's, along with a spray on primer, base color of paint, and some sponge stencils, glaze paint in a few colors, and some matte sealant. I also got a couple brushes to apply the glaze paint to the sponges. I did this last week, and the plan is to sand 'em, prime 'em, paint 'em, decorate 'em, and seal 'em. Then, I can use them upside down as short stands to put my big potted plants on while they're inside for the winter, instead of chairs and tables. During mid-spring I also plan on starting my impatiens inside, so they have time to get more robust before they go outside in the ground where the blasted squirrels can dig 'em up and chew on the roots. By then the big pots can probably go outside, so I can use these to set all the little impatiens pots on. Then the rest of the time they can sit around looking decorative, since I plan on painting them inside and out, including decorations. (My sponges are ivy leaves plus dots for berries.)

Well... silly me, I figured I could get them both sanded fast enough today to be able to lay out the borrowed shower curtain cum dropcloth on the back porch and spray 'em down, at least with the primer. I should've known better, and gotten the sanding materials yesterday and sanded them yesterday, which I could've finished in the basement, so I could start the painting today. The other thing I should've realized is that the primer would probably need a long enough time to dry (especially having to do the outside, let it dry, then the inside) there's no way I'd be painting them in their main color today even if I'd started the primer as soon as I got home. So it looks like I'll be finishing up the sanding tonight or tomorrow in the basement somewhere, then waiting for another mild enough day to coat 'em with primer outside, then wait for another mild enough day to paint 'em. (I'm using spray paint for the main color as well, so that also needs to be done outside.)

On the plus side, I got a couple tips from an older guy at the hardware store. He said for spray paint to make sure to keep the nozzle clean because otherwise it will tend to spit globs of paint rather than the nice fine spray. So I'll keep some wet paper towels at the ready just for that, so I can spray-wipe, spray-wipe. He also mentioned he saw an item in a catalog that attaches to the spray can to turn it into a trigger, so you can hold the trigger rather than pressing down on the nozzle, which makes it a lot easier. By the time I finished picking out the sanding sponges I thought I'd need I forgot to ask the clerk if they carried any, but if I go back I'll ask.

So I have all the outside of one box sanded, and I'll probably try to get them finished tonight if I can. It's supposed to be a lot coolor tomorrow and even moreso Thursday, but sunny and not raining or snowing, so I may go ahead and see about coating them with primer tomorrow and painting them Thursday. Otherwise it looks like it's going to be next week before there's anymore good weather, and it'll be cold as well so I probably don't want to wait for that. I may as well get the outside stuff done, so I can work on the fun part.

I've also been playing with templates more in MovableType. I noticed several pooheads had left comments on various subsections, unbeknownst to me given that MT3.14 has a bug that doesn't email comments even when checked. It's then it hit me I hadn't bothered to take a look at any of the commenting permissions for any of my other subsections to make modifications to whether I wanted commenting and how I wanted to allow it, nor had I updated the templates to use the new commenting tags. So I had to go through and touch all of those. The downside, is that my guestbook only allows people to post if they're signed into TypeKey. I've set it to accept both, but apparently it sees it as "TypeKey required" even if both are accepted. So that sucks, but no one'd used it since July anyway.

I'm setting up a big resolutions and self improvement section, and I think I've got all the main page templates done and organized the way I want. Now I just need to figure out how I want to set up the archives. Instead of being one year only like my New Year's resolutions, it's going to be ongoing and also cover a lot more. I'll be tracking all manner of things, each in a slightly different format. That's made everything a bit more complex, but the upshot is that I get to take advantage of MT3's subcategories ability, which I'm making tremendous use of. The downside is that it's taking a while to generate templates. I have been able to integrate it into the overall site themes, with just an additional independent, tiny CSS file to include with a few extra rules. It will grow a bit with whatever the archives need, but probably not too much.

I was going to play a lot more this weekend than I did, especially since I didn't get to play much all week. I didn't play at all yesterday after all, and so I've been playing today. Or trying to play, I should say. First thing I noticed was a couple times my pet would start attacking, and taking damage from, things I couldn't see. I'd try to attack, but it'd tell me I'm facing the wrong way, or too far away, even though I hadn't targetted anything (but presumably it autotargeted whatever it was), and I was standing right next to my pet, facing towards whatever it was facing.

Then, my guild window kept popping up. Over and over again. So, I relogged which usually fixes it. Right away I noticed it hadn't been fixed: after I killed something and looted it, it'd retarget the dead body 3 or 4 times before I either moved way away from it or started another fight.

Then I noticed it was worse. The guild window didn't keep popping up, but I noticed I'd be taking damage when there wasn't anything to fight, my character wasn't reacting to being hit, my pet wasn't attacking anything... then I'd try and eat something 'cause by that point my life was way lower than it should have been, and it'd tell me I can't do that in combat. WTF? So I'd walk around a bit, finally stop losing life (almost dead by that point), and be able to eat.

Dealing with that, which was a lot less likely and more intermittent, Mark came in and said "don't log off" because the login servers are having serious issues. And in general chat, people were saying they had no body after they'd died and gone to it as a ghost, and couldn't resurrect. And J was on and asked how he could be alive and still have a body lying on the ground. (If you're a ghost or wisp you have to travel to your body, which will show up to others as "corpse of " until you res. After which, there should only be a pile of bones that doesn't show up as anything. I guess he resurrected yet still had a corpse.)

The final straw: I got booted. I had just killed & looted a monster and was heading to another to loot it, when it just froze, and in a few seconds I was at the screen "looking up character info" or whatever. It was stuck there, so I cancelled and it next got stuck at "looking up realm info". I cancelled and hit "back" and relogged in, and it took about 30 seconds before it went forward, and it was still "looking up character info" when I said the hell with it and decided to bitch about it instead. I don't know if it found my char yet, no idea. But once I get back in, probably anything I killed will have respawned and I'll have one helluva fight on my hands. At least they're 6-7 levels below me.

Microsoft's AntiSpyware Tool Removes Internet Explorer and Microsoft Announces Ads for BSOD

Again, I have to thank my dad for forwarding these along. They're hilarious!

I love it when my dad sends news links. They're always about cool stuff. The first one I got yesterday and didn't get time to post. It turns out the reason some people never get bitten isn't a lack of attractive chemicals, but an abundence of repellent/masking chemicals. There is more than one chemical involved, and they're still working out the best ratio of them, but this promises an effective mosquito repellent not too far in the future. (It makes me wonder, though, if it will repel other things like ticks, fleas, and chiggers, or if they'll have to add this to existing sprays to cover the gamut.)

The second one is a finding that shows men and women really do "think differently", although not so much what they think about but how they use their brains to think about it. Coupling this with a forum thread that discusses, among other things, theories on why some men think and feel as women, and vice versa, I think it'd be interesting if they'd do their analysis on those types to see what the differences are there as well.

What happens a mere 2 hours after I get done and let people post? *BAM* Database server goes down. For at least 8 hours. (Was first noticed by another CW Cadre member at about 2am, was still down at 10am.) At least it didn't go down in the middle of the upgrade, right? That would have given things a really good screw, and not the good kind.

Now I can get to posting links and bitching about my life.

Edit: And if you're one of the rare people who actually comments here, don't feel timid about the new TypeKey thing. They really want a bare minimum of info from you: a login name, a valid email address (which I have the option of requiring it be sent to me if I want, but I don't and never will) and picking a password so you can log in. Oh yeah, and they give you a choice of 2 password recovery questions where you fill in the answer (and really, you can fill in a completely false and nonsensical answere there on purpose, just so long as you remember it verbatim should you need it). Beyond that, the only optional info you can even fill in is first/last name, up to 5 websites to fill in in the "typekey token" section so that you can use your own token to enable TypeKey on your own comments, and a few optional profile things (whether to show your email on your profile, your website(s), a photo to upload if you want, and "sites you enjoy"). I filled in the bio just for kicks and put in my website. That's it, and you don't have to do that.

They don't spam either. I think there was a checkbox on whether you wanted news or something, that I (made sure was?) unchecked (and was probably defaulted that way, but I can't remember). I haven't gotten a single email message from them except the standard confirmation email. And if you read their ToS they're not gonna sell your stuff. SixApart is incredibly good about wanting to preserve privacy.

Things were actually good to go about 5-10 minutes ago, but I was busy tweaking templates just a bit. (Nothing that was broken, per se, but just stuff that could now be slightly simplified.)

So... comment away. Just remember you'll have to get an account with TypeKey first, if you don't already have one. This will stop the pharmaceutical/gambling/etc. spammers, more than likely.

Given how big an upgrade this was in terms of what changed between versions, this was a rather painless upgrade. Heck, it would've been faster but in my slightly sleep deprived state I made a few stupid mistakes. So it really should've been a 30-40 minute upgrade, which really isn't bad given how many files had to be FTPd to the server, which takes time.

I'm upgrading MT here, so uh... don't try commenting, it may or may not work, and pigs might fly right out of your monitor if you do!!!11

I guess I'll be disabling a few entries' comments again until I can get MT 3 up. Good luck getting through asshole. If you do have a TypeKey account you bother to sign into for such cases, I can just ban it and report it to the TypeKey admins as abuse of their service as per their ToS, and get your account killed.

I also don't have to wait until the weekend to get upgraded, either. Heck, I probably won't wait for tonight to start in.

Edit: What's really funny about these, is the person or thing that spams these doesn't know how to write links. If you don't put quotes around the attribute, then Sanitize doesn't see any value for said attribute (in this case, the href attribute of the a element), and doesn't include it. So these can't even be clicked on or spidered. Heh. Hehehe. HAHAHAHAHAH. *cackles wildly* ... Oh, sorry about that, I got a little carried away. Lack of sleep will do that to a person, make them just a bit crazy.... *shifty eyes*

I want another t-shirt I can't wear to work.

I've been remiss in starting up a tracking of New Year's resolutions, particularly due to a busy start of the year and the fact I abandoned last year's in midsummer and never got back to them.

This year I've decided I'm going to flesh it out a bit more, and make a few changes. Of course, it's going to be more difficult to set up the templates (I may be able to simplify things once I get migrated to MT3 -- I'm still waiting to hear anything at all about making TypeKey work -- since it seems like it may be able to do subcategories, not sure yet), but I think I can make it work. Anyway, there will be a section to track certain goals as before, plus other categories where I can discuss things I did or haven't done to improve things in my life. My ideas for that are perhaps something like a weekly (or every other weekly) weigh-in and measurement taking, which I can use to keep track of how much I weigh, bust/waist/hips/arms measurements, etc. Yeah, I'm probably stupid to put that on the internet for all to see, but I've never been one of those women who was shy about her weight or age, or thought it was rude to ask, etc. So what the hell, right? Also, I may have a section for what chores I've done lately, such as whether I've put away clothes from laundry, whether I've done any laundry (J usually does it, but I should start helping with that and I have some delicates to wash, etc.), whether I've straightened up my computer workspace, etc.

I'm still working out in my head how I want to structure it, though. I do know it will have a lot more templates than my other resolutions pages have, and I know my daily progress stuff will be at the top, and that I'll certainly be making ample use of PHP for it. Plus, rather than its own look, I'm going to have it use the main themes, plus add rules for formatting particular things (like the daily progress grid) so that hopefully I can just include 1 more stylesheet, rather than having to add rules in to every sheet for every theme. So that will make it easier in some ways, harder in others. I may have to end up with separate header and footer pages instead of the main ones, though they'd certainly be similar in some ways.

Bleh, enough jibberjabber about it, I've got to start working on it. And really, though I've started the blog in MT and have begun the general configurations, I need to finish the latest theme first. It's 99% done, so I need to bring that to 100%. I'll add it, then see about whipping up a quick large font version, since it's meant to eventually replace the current "Forest" theme which does have that option. (For anyone using the current one, I'll wait for opinions on the new one before deleting the old one. If the new one is preferred, I'll delete the old one; if the old one is still preferred I'll keep it around.)

Apparently today is a personality quiz day. My thoughts just haven't been organized or coherent enough to write up a real entry. At least these pertain somewhat to my reality, eh? This one is pretty close too; since I tied between fire and water it picked two questions for me to choose between as being more important.

You scored as Water. Water is the element that predominates in your life. Water rules the signs Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces.

Water		65%
Fire		65%
Earth		50%
Air		35%
Spirit		25%

Which of the Five Elements are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Musical/Rhythmic. You are sensitive to sounds in your environment, enjoy music and prefer listening to music when you study or read. You learn best through melody and music. People like you include singers, conductors, composers, and others who appreciate the various elements of music.

Musical/Rhythmic		75%
Logical/Mathematical		68%
Verbal/Linguistic		64%
Intrapersonal		54%
Bodily/Kinesthetic		50%
Visual/Spatial		39%
Interpersonal		32%

The Rogers Indicator of Multiple Intelligences
created with QuizFarm.com

Pretty accurate, I'd say.

I guess I won't quite have migrated to MT 3, since I'm not quite there yet and I absolutely must go to bed. However, I think all I'm waiting on is fixing my implementation of commenting and the TypeKey system. The rub, is that there is no direct access to edit the form properly, since they threw all the logic into a system file and gave us simply MTCommentFields to plug in. This is because the logic as far as what JS to use, what form fields to use, etc., is rather complex with TypeKey introduced into the system. The problem with that, is that not only does it not output proper XHTML, but it also leaves no way to edit the form to one's preferred layout, and it doesn't give the ability to hook in only to the individual entry template, which is what I use for commenting since PHP includes cannot be done in a dynamic CGI template such as the commenting templates. I didn't know any of this until I was trawling the MT support forums searching for "MTCommentFields", wherein I also found a potential solution. However, it's stuck not validating my login, which is a problem given the whole point is to require TypeKey use to keep the spammers away.

In any case, all my plugins still seem to work as they do now from first appearances, and all my templates are working out. Plus I finally got all my entries to import; had to force my editor to specify UNIX style ASCII rather than "use whatever original version it was" which usually meant Windows/DOS in my case. Stupid thing can't weed out the difference between \r\n EOLs and \n EOLs; it chokes on the former. However, if I can get those comments to work with TypeKey, that should fix it.

I also am about ready to unveil a replacement for the Forest theme. I'm tired of it, it's old and simple and awkward looking, and I have what I think is a much more aesthetically pleasing one in the works which I started late last week, before this whole urgent move to MT 3 came up. The only issue with it is that IE refuses to expand the divs for the main posts to their full size when the text inside them isn't wide enough for it, and I've no clue why. I may just say the hell with it, mention it in the description, and release it anyway. I also have to see if the other themes have any adverse issues to putting an empty navtop bar in when there is no "real" one needed (a rare occurrence). But other than that it's pretty much finished.

To the utter and complete fuckstick who keeps spamming his four particular spam messages... fuck you!

Consider your hours numbered... I expect to be converted to MovableType 3 with no commenting allowed unless you're registered, by the end of the day. So get your damn jollies while you can, you scum that eats the slimy, rotted waste lining my garbage disposal, because you won't have them here for long.

According to the whois function of Network Solutions, my two domain name servers are cwpro1.crosswinds.net and pro.crosswinds.net, in that order (presumably the first is primary, the second is, well, secondary).

Again, thanks to lupabitch for the link.

Cosgrove has withdrawn his bill that would make it a misdemeanor not to report miscarriages within 12 hours of the event regardless of length of pregnancy.

Very pleasing, to say the least. It was largely due to the online shitstorm that resulted from the original article being linked to all over the internet. Cosgrove feels mistreated that it was posted before anyone talked to him (she waited 3 days on him to respond to her before posting). Another rep says bloggers brought up legitimate concerns with the bill. Read the link for the whole scoop though.

The final sign was the extraordinarily good parking spot I lucked into with someone leaving as I got here. (Yes, even at 7am it makes a difference. Not so big as it does by 8, let alone 9, but noticable nonetheless.) We always joke that the day's gonna suck in payment for getting a choice spot, but one really has to wonder some days.

But yes, the slight scratchy throat due to slight drainage that I've had for the past 5 days or so is now beginning to announce itself as an actual cold, with my sinuses finally starting to pitch in in earnest and my throat starting to feel a bit swollen and "lumpy" rather than just scratchy. I'm tired as hell because I didn't sleep well. And for over week now, perhaps as long as two weeks, I've been sleeping some way that makes where my lower jaw hinge attaches to my upper jaw on the left side really, really sore, which makes chewing painful at times. I suspect the way I'm holding it, is with the chin back a bit (as though to pretend to have an overbite), and a little to the left. It happens when I'm sleeping on my left side, which is most of the time, and apparently it gets in that position and my muscles are tense enough to hold it that way.

To top it all off, a program that runs on the server and is one of many steps in our data processing (pretty much the only step I wrote in this processing), is apparently pitching fits in our test environment. It's writing zeroes in buckets it shouldn't, and we don't know why, because we're using production data to test with, and it works just fine on test. How we know this? Because I came back on Friday to find we needed to make some modifications to this piece, to adjust some data we weren't adjusting and shouldn't have been (no, we're not munging data, this involves importing two sets of data that are on two different calendars and having to shift buckets left or right as needed to align said data to one of the two calendars). And of course we get it on test, I finally get it running without an Exception blowout and such, and not only is it filling in zeroes for the "new" buckets, all of a sudden it's pushing zeroes for other stuff that it doesn't push zeroes for in the production environment. I swear, either something in our environment is going nuts, or I am. It's too early to tell at this point. I've been working this all of Friday, all of yesterday, and so far all of today. And it doesn't help that each time we run the processing again, they have so much data that it easily takes 15 minutes to run just once.

All I want to do at this point is have some lunch, then crawl into bed and sleep until just whenever the hell my body decides it's time to wake up, get up and eat, then sleep until it's tomorrow.

(link from lupabitch)

Some idiot in VA has drafted a bill to require reporting all miscarriages regardless of how early to the police within 12 hours, else be charged with a Class 1 Misdemeanor, which is along the lines of rape, arson, stalking, etc. Talk about obscene and horrific. The form for reporting them isn't allowed to be changed, and includes things like the weight of the "product of conception". So... how do you weigh a 6 week old aborted fetus? Scoop it out of the toilet or squeeze it out of the pad and onto a kitchen scale or something? Riiiiight.

If you live in Virginia, it's definitely something to be scared about. Hopefully it won't even come to a vote, and if it does will have absolutely no support.

This isn't a terribly big surprise, but it is an interesting read that raised my eyebrows a few times.

I, for one, would love for prices to keep falling, or at least for the speeds to start going up for the same price. If the Bells can't stand a little competition heat, they should get out of the proverbial kitchen.

... noncommunicative lately.

Just been really busy, and not felt like writing it all down.

• Did Christmas with mine and J's families both, t'was good. I guess this is where I put "the haul" list, huh?
  • beautiful sapphire gold necklace from J. love you, sweetie
  • navy blue soft, unbulky and warm, perfect length robe, again from J, and again sweetie I love you
  • crafting table
  • check to go shopping with
  • gift certs to go shopping with
  • WoW, if you can believe it -- more on that further down
  • b&w laser printer & photo color inkjet printer, separate 'cause they each do their own thing the best; still waiting for Best Buy to call stating the inkjet is in for our rain check, these from J 'cause I was kvetching at our stupid Lexmark
  • chocolate
  • usual toothbrush & hand lotion from "Santa", hehe
  • socks 'cause I really needed some
  • kitty toys for our two cats
  • corner plant shelf thingy I'll use to put my started flowers in the spring 'fore they go outside
  • wolf calendars large & small
  • neat amber & silver ring, need to have it sized a bit bigger
  • sampler of different barbecue sauces
  • deep spaghetti/noodle spoon (w/ the claw around the edges, y'know?)
  • more stuff I'll try to remember to edit in when it's not closing on 3am
• Finally moved to XP Pro from Win98SE. Only forgot a few things; The 5.x ZoneAlarm is poopy compared to the 4.x versions, 'cause it stuck the NIC in the "internet" zone instead of "trusted" zone, which the other didn't do, and which caused me, my friend Will, and my dad to all waste time figuring out why no internet
• Went first with my mom, then with my dad, to look at pianos for my college grad gift; beautiful Young Chang piano was chosen Wed. afternoon and delivered Friday afternoon; now I have to find all my old music and start learning to play again; place we got it from gives free lifetime lessons
• Listened to the rain and played WoW to ring in the New Year, along with a kiss & hug from J
• Finished Dark Tower VII book; can't decide what parts of the ending I do & don't like, had to be mentally detached not to get upset every time someone died; started on another book
• Marvelling at the spring like weather we've had the last 3 days

So... that's what's been occupying me for the last couple weeks. I've hardly visited the forums the whole time I've been off, and am vastly behind on reading my friends list. I did manage to get my bookmarks & cookie settings imported into Firefox 1.0, which I went directly to after the XP install. I also managed, after some trial and error, to get all my email into Thunderbird 1.0 which I also went directly to after the XP move. It does not ask to import Netscape 7 mail even if it's already installed; I guess it can't find it if the profile is in a custom location or some shit. Anyway, did it manually, all is well. Got most of the utilities installed I really wanted to have loaded, not many games though. Still need to put on a bunch of stuff.

Did I say WoW? Yes, I believe I did. I'd been enjoying watching J play a lot the last week or so, in the evenings when I don't feel like reading or playing Zuma. I was watching him when helmite, who'd been encouraging me along with J to join them, hehe, when he came back, came up behind the couch I was on, and handed me first a canned air thingy I'd been meaning to get, so I could spray all the cat fur & dust out of the keyboard, and then upon saying "Merry Christmas" handed me a brand new shiny box of WoW. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I've been bemoaning how much it'd be for both J and me to play at the same time once our free months are up, and how I don't have time to get sucked in to a pay-to-play MMORPG, yadda yadda. But I had begun speculating what skills I'd want to learn on what type of character the last few days... Guess they both were seeing my interest grow even if I didn't, and he acted on it. And I must say I'm enjoying myself, though I definitely feel like a total n00b given I've never even played an MMORPG before, and the controls are still taking getting used to. (I really need to figure out how to make the arrow keys pan my view, and the left-click on the mouse let me move... left handed walking around the map is difficult on a right handed person, hehe.) I now have a level 7, nearly 8, night elf hunter, who is just learning herbalism and alchemy, and cooking. I already have several low level quests under my belt, have died at least 5 times I can recall, and have many quests still to go that may just kick my ass, dunno yet. Thankfully I have both J and helmite to help me out, along with other nifty guild members (both of them were on tonight, and there's another lower level night elf who was on tonight who helped me a bit).

Well, that's it for now. Long enough, if you ask me; I've been typing for 15 minutes. I'm gonna catch some snoozin'... Warcraft was doing weird stuff (good ping but behaving very laggedly), so I'm logged out. 'Sides, I can't keep staying up later & later if I'm gonna go back to work on Tuesday. Read a bit, sleep, try not to sleep in too long, then see about finding my piano music, and probably also playing WoW for rather a few hours.

Happy New Year, everyone, it's freakin' 2005!