I’ve been using movable type for many years, but I give up. It’s so hard to manage when something goes wrong, and I’ve just decided to go with wordpress instead. I give up a few things that I wasn’t really using much anyway, so whatever. I did the upgrade while watching the 10 o’clock news, before sports started. Slightly easier, no?
So anyway, things might look less complete over the next while, as I make sure everything is migrated properly. And until I find a theme I like or make myself one.
Driving home from work today, I’m on one of those metered on-ramps that’s two cars wide, one car per green per lane. There’s a VW in front of me, and a white pickup behind me as we approach the ramp. White Pickup Guy honks, and my husband and I assume it’s at VW Gal, since there is room for cars from our lane to move over to the left lane, and this is customary on this stretch of road. VW Gal must have thought so too, because she slowly made her way over to the left lane.
So it’s been over a week since I e-mailed KnitPicks and I haven’t yet heard from them. I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them a call. After looking up my account, I was promised a new cable, no questions asked. I figured they would, and I’m glad to report that they still have great customer service. Don’t know what happened to my e-mail though. I should have it, and some Bare Swish by the end of the week.
New Cosmos on the Science Channel. Same Carl Sagan, but new images and animations. I think I’ll go out to my bookshelves and find my copy of the book. And how cool is it that when I met my huz, he had his own copy of the Cosmos book, in French, that he had since he was a teenager too? My husband suspects that Hugo Weaving was imitating Carl Sagan when he played Mr. Smith in the Matrix movies. It sure works for me!
Share some of your favorite podcasts with me, mkay? Some of my latest finds are here, and the links are in the Bloglines list at the sidebar.
The Transmission – The best pocast about ABC’s Lost. I love puzzles, and this show is a puzzle, and it’s fun discovering how it all fits together.
Cast-On – A podcast for knitters
Celtic Music News – lots of great Celtic music
NPR: Most emailed stories – Since I listen to the podcasts in the car a lot, I miss some NPR stories, so this is the ones listeners liked the most from all the shows each day.
Hi My Name is Mark – I used to work with Mark Hoppus at the Wherehouse in San Diego, so it’s fun to tune in and see what he’s up to once in a while.
I didn’t really like the most recent Harry Potter movie. I knew the story, so that’s not it, I think it was the acting, maybe the director couldn’t get them to work as well as the director of the third film. I think I like that one the best.
I just saw the 40 year-old Virgin, and found it quite hilarious. I had no expectations, and I think that helped. I did squeak out a few eyerolls and a few groans, but the man-o-lantern almost had me fall off the bed I was laughing so hard.
Is anyone else addicted to the Japanese game show “Cooking Showdown” or “Dotch Cooking Show”? I Tivo it every Saturday and we try to guess who will win and which side has food that we would be willing to try. We have figured out that the side that gets the second tasting usually wins. Tonight they had noodles made of potato and sweet potato flour, and tofu made from American soybeans and seawater. Sounds wierd, but I would have eaten either side’s dish, they both looked yummy.
This is a nipple. I test knit the pattern for a friend for a forthcoming project to reclaim the nipple. She’ll explain her reasons for the project on her site, but I’ll give some of mine here.
I was astounded by the reaction to the Janet Jackson nipple incident whenever that was, I don’t remember, but I was shocked by the rediculous outcry and all the letters to the FCC. People in this country (USA) seem to completely equate nudity with sexuality. Why this is, I don’t know, but I am sure it has to do with the Puritan beginnings of the country. But it really is strange since this place is such a melting pot (or salad bowl for the Gen-Y crowd) that this sex/nudity thing persists.
I am convinced, by the types of letters I read on The Smoking Gun (letters sent to the FCC in protest of CBS) that women are completely ashamed of their bodies to the point that they can’t even see the bodies of other women, maybe even their own. I know that I am ashamed of some of the attributes of my body, I wish it were smaller, for example, but not of the fact that I am a woman. I think there is a difference between the two.
Is this why there is such a high number of Breast Cancer victims? Are women so afraid of their sexuality that they can’t bear to touch their breasts to check for cancer because someone might think they are, what, getting off on it? We are going to have another generation of women that will go back in time to the Victorian age if we let it happen.
The other side of the problem is men. This goes for men in countries that cover up their women as well as women here. Men who can’t control themselves have a need to control the objects of their desire instead of themselves. If a woman appears sexy to a man, well, you better cover her up, because there’s no telling what might happen. It’s going on right here in our country too. Women whose nipples poke through their blouses are tittered at behind their backs, and told to return to their offices to get a sweater. My husband has told me of it happening in places where he worked in the past. I have a co-worker who wears padded bras so her nipples won’t show if she gets cold.
Why is this? Everyone has them, we all know what they look like, what happens when we are cold. Why do they have to be hidden behind bras with “maximum nipple coverage” as described in the latest Victoria’s Secret catalog? There is no reason why a woman who wears a size DD bra should also have to have it padded so some passer-by won’t be offended.
You got a problem with it? Excercise your right to look away, don’t keep staring and then complain about what you are looking at.
Some other thoughts on my mind today:
You can’t legistate morality.
You do have a right to free speech, but not a right to not be offended by someone else’s speech.
Rants for another day, eh?
I am lucky enough to work for a company that offers a match for charitable contributions. Do you? If so, don’t forget about your employer matching gift contribution when you help.
And if you do, pop over to Give a Little and let them know that you did. They are keeping a tally of knit-bloggers and the like who have made a contribution.
And once you’ve done that, think about the kinds of questions we citizens should be asking of our representatives and senators, and governors and mayors. Where were the plans that were supposed to be made after 9/11? Why did paperwork delay the response times for helping these people. Why was the media able to get in and film all the suffering, but the National Guard was not able to get in and help? Where has all the money gone that was given out after 9/11? Wasn’t this supposed to go for emergency preparedness? Plans? Equipment? Collaboration between different government and service entities? If that wasn’t part of the plan, why not?
Is it really acceptable that trucks full of water from Wal-Mart (an organization I normally despise) were turned away when people were acting crazy out of fear of dying from dehydration?
Is the same government that said “bring ’em on” to the terrorists too proud to say “please help?” Isn’t it possible to just get the help that’s needed now and worry about who gets the bill later?
This is going to take so long to heal. This isn’t like a tornado where people just move to a neighborhood motel and go to work on Monday and go on. There is no work to return to, everything these people own will be destroyed by mold and sewage, and there will be thousands to be buried when the water is finally gone. They are going to need so much. It’s hard to imagine how much, but I am sure we will find out.
It’s easy to be angry seeing people looting stupid things like TVs and blenders when there won’t even be any electricity for a while. That’s why I have waited so long to post on the subject, I was angry with people who didn’t leave when they had the chance, or angry at people who would steal when everyone has lost everything. But now I am just angry at the amazing lack of leadership and coordination displayed in the last week.
How can we get politicians to think beyond the next election cycle? I really think this is at the heart of most of the problems we have in America. No Child Left Behind teaches just enough for kids to pass the next test they will have to take. Ridiculous ideas like Intelligent Design are taught in Science classes. What a joke our country will be when the next generation goes off to work and has no science to compete with the rest of the world? Why is the Plan-B birth control pill delayed again when it’s proven to be safe for people over 17? We deny cigarettes and alcohol and driver licences based on age, so why not this drug? Why not require cars to be more fuel efficient now? Why not place a value on innovation again, like when we went to the moon? Is it really as simple as believing that Jesus is coming tomorrow, so we don’t have to worry about clean drinking water and air for our children and grandchildren? Is there really any doubt that the rise in Autism and Cancers of all kinds and Asthma have been caused by our own desire for individually wrapped everything, sanitized for our protection? Is there any wonder why everyone is so fat, when our food doesn’t even contain food anymore, but it contains high fructose corn syrup and antibiotics that were fed to the animals so that the farmers wouldn’t have to care for them and keep them in conditions that would keep them from getting sick? How do we make it stop?
Does anybody else get these? I get nightmares whenever I eat Chinese food, like clockwork. Luckilly I can avoid Chinese because there are so many tasty alternatives, but no other Asian food bothers me like this. Not Japanese, Korean, Indian, Thai, Filipino, Vietnamese, nothing. Even the shops that advertise no MSG still cause nightmares.
For lunch yesterday, I had some orange chicken and bbq pork, and forgot all about it. Went to bed at the usual time, and blammo, about a half hour after I fell asleep I was wide awake with a nightmare. They always happen very quickly like that too, never late into the night, but just after I fall asleep. (I do have the middle of the night kind, but very very rarely, and never after Chinese food.) Sometimes they are the really terrifying kind, and sometimes they are more like startling enough to wake me.
I did an informal poll at work today and found that the only other person in my group to also get them is the other white girl. My dad has them too.
So what was the dream? Well, not the terrifying kind this time: It was me waking up from falling asleep on the sofa to a knocking at the back door. I approach the door (strangely, the blinds were gone from the window) and I see my sister outside with a suitcase. Her husband is helping her with her other suitcase and then leaves her. I scream after him, “Don’t think you get the house!” Then I help her come into the house and that’s where I woke up, sure that she was getting ready for bed in my bathroom.
A few weeks ago, my computer started having all kinds of problems, and rebooting randomly after only a few minutes of use. This was very unusual for me, since I don’t download (steal) music, or have any of that spy/adware stuff that hitches a ride with a lot of the free software out there. My firewall has never been down, my Norton AV updates daily (or it did till all hell broke loose) so I couldn’t figure out what’s going on. My huz installed one of those spyware finders on his machine and found hundreds of trojans and other crap, so he tried it on mine also. It found only two, but they both use the same port that mail software uses to talk. One of them may have been used for those spammer p2p networks that make me sick. Needless to say, I have cleaned up, and things are much more stable as of today, so I can actually have the machine up long enough to compose a post!
What have I been doing? Shopping, mostly.
OK, this is a bad week.
First, I find out that Angel is cancelled. What the hell! See saveangel for all the bad news.
Then Howard Dean is going to quit actively campaigning, but of course the news reports it as he is dropping out, so people that were planning to vote for him think that they can’t now. WRONG! If he’s on the ballot in your state, and you were planning to vote for him, DO IT! The more delegates he has at the convention in Boston, the better the platform Kerry (*sigh* I guess) stands on. We still get a say, even if it’s a fraction of what we had hoped for.
Good knitting news though. . . I am heading up to Oakland Saturday morning to go shopping! Yeah, I am going to the Stitches West Market on Sat. I hope to encounter actual wool, as opposed to flashy, furry, sparkly, plasticky stuff. We’ll see.
Aren’t we feeling safer now that Saddam is captured? So much safer