Doncha love it when your Oracle sysadmin goes on vacation to Baltimore (hi Tara, takes all the passwords in his head, and you can't get ahold of him when things break?

It's grand!

(Please note: sarcasm.)

My new Solitaire best time:
46 seconds (Draw Three, Standard Scoring, Timed game)
Score: 15,857

(tip: On later versions of Windows, you can right click and automatically send cards to the pile at the top, if they currently have a place there.)

GAH!

I'm redoing the same thing I've done many other times (recently) right now.

First, I entered the material.

Second, I edited the material (adding prices)

Third, the material got overwritten. I had to edit again.

Fourth, the client (a very large household-name company that I won't mention here) changed their mind, and now I'm doing those edits. I also have to add images that just got lost somewhere in cyberspace when I attempted to upload them.

My life is one large case of deja vu.

There's not too much going on here, but I will blog anyhow.

I didn't do much this weekend. Had Chinese on Friday, made hot dogs on Saturday, and a spinach quiche on Sunday. Jay and I rented The Others and Ocean's 11 on Saturday.

Yesterday (Monday), I went to the dentist to have another part of my root canal done. Evidently, I have a mutant tooth. This particular molar is supposed to have three canals, but my tooth has four. They said that's not uncommon. But what sucks is that the root canal I had done before only had one canal, so it was a lot quicker to do. But when the chick put my crown back on, she didn't check my bite, and now it's off and I have to go back today to have it fixed. Yesterday, I kept falling asleep in the chair (very rare for me. I usually don't sleep well anywhere but my bed.) I kept jerking when I realized what was happening, which spurred future-dentist-chick to ask if I was ok. I couldn't explain that I was falling asleep with all that crap in my mouth. I was afraid I'd fall asleep, wake up, and bite her finger. I don't think she'd like that.

This weekend is the Ben Folds show in Louisville (and then Kentucky Kingdom the next day. It will be a great. What's concerning is that the show isn't listed on Pollstar, and on Ben Folds site it says, "Ticket sales, TBA". Well, we have our tickets via Ticketmaster, but I'd like it if it was confirmed somewhere else. Although I won't bemoan the fact that less publicity = less of a crowd. It'll be fun, I think. Mental note: Must find out how to get to Jillian's from the hotel.

On another note, my VINE OF DEATH in my office grew about 2.5 inches over the weekend. Scary. I really need to get a picture of that. It's going to attack me one day while I'm typing at my desk, I swear it is.

Might I note that I stole the idea to add stuff to the Southpark t-shirts from Beth. Credit where credit's due, etc.

ok, so I got bored and made some more Southpark characters (with the help of Photoshop):
Aimee 1
Aimee 2
Liz
Jay

Sometimes I wish I was way bitchier than I really am.

Oh, the things I'd say and do.... to dream, to dream.
See: Something Positive.
They'd be my idols.

But no, I'm a nice, sweet person that rarely intentionally exercises any visible bitchiness. It's not likely to change in the near future. *sigh* I can't stand to see people angry or hurt because of me. Even the ones that deserve it. Dammit.

It was a bad idea, and I knew it before I even had the first bite:
Home-made Chex mix followed by lemonade. Oh, god, the taste.

Last night was the Cracker show at A1A. Aimee and I got there at about 8:30 (the show was supposed to start at 9), and took a place at a table. At about 9:30, the opening act came on. They weren't my kinda stuff, but eh. Anyhow. Cracker finally came on at 10:45 (and I'm running on next to no sleep, so that was lovely). Aims and I went to stand up front, among the hardcore Crackerfans. OK, so, when a show starts that late, people get drunk. Really really drunk. One drunk young man was beside me. He kept dancing his ass into my hand (I'm standing there, my hands to my side, and then suddenly, "Oops, I've felt up that guy again.") Then he stepped on my sandalled feet three or four times. THEN he bumped into me and about knocked me over. I guess that was the point his drunk mind decided, "This girl has suffered too much, I must make amends", and he kissed me on the temple. I was dumbstruck. I've never had a random stranger kiss me before. How very confusing. hehe. I tried to get Aims to switch me places, he wasn't bad lookin', she coulda made a new friend. hehe. There was also a gay couple up front who felt the need to accentuate every word that David Lowery sang by raising their fist, finger pointed, into the air and punching with every syllable. I think we were smackdab in the middle of the hardcore fans. No matter how big a fan you are of an artist/group, other artists/groups fans always scare you. hehe. In the encore, they played a Camper Van Beethoven song that I knew from Nathan, "Take the Skinheads Bowling", which was pretty neat. I actually think there might have been a few more CVB songs peppered in there, I'm not really sure. What's really sad: as much I as I have enjoyed Cracker's live shows (I've been to two, and a short set on a radio taping), I don't own a single Cracker cd. I really should fix that sometime soon. I need to make a new revised list of cds I want.

Anyhow. That was my Wednesday night. Tonight, I am not going anywhere (outside of Jay's, maybe), and I'm doing nothing. Whoo hoo! My first dead night in a week!

I've stated my disdain for pretention on this blog before, and I will do it again. Jesus, constantly having an opinion contrary to everyone else to appear more learned and distinctive is just annoying. It doesn't make you smarter, more clever, or different, really. It just makes you obnoxious.

I'm all caught up at work, so now I must blog.

This past weekend (from Friday until yesterday, Tuesday), I travelled from Kentucky to Connecticut and back again. This is my Six States in Five Days tour. hehe. Friday I drove to WV, Saturday we drove 700 miles from WV to Connecticut (going through Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York on the way). What does going through Maryland and Virginia mean? TASTYKAKES!!!!!! Mmm. Delicious Tastykakes. I must have looked like I had some massive overeating problem, buying five or six packs at a time. I shared them, I swear, and there are still some left. Mm. Anyhow. I digress.

Friday: Drove to WV, stopped at the 'rents for awhile, and then went back to Grandma's to get some sleep.

Saturday: Leave at 6:15 am for Connecticut. It was me, my grandmother, and my cousin Emily's boyfriend Jason. It wasn't a bad trip up. Just 700 miles. We stopped along the way at a bad Subway, where I saw crab flavored potato chips (that's just gross. I think it might have just been Old Bay Seasoning flavored, but the thought of crab-flavored potato chips is gross.) We got there at about 6 pm, and had huge steaks for dinner a bit later. I've seen cows smaller than those steaks were. Anyhow, during dinner my uncle +new wife and baby show up. This was incredibly awkward. There is residual tension there between my aunt (his first wife.. I guess technically she's no longer my aunt, since he's my dad's brother, but I still consider her one). It got weird for a few minutes, with everyone running back and forth between the driveway and the inside (I stayed inside, I figured I'd see them some other time during the weekend when it was much less tense.) I didn't really do anything that night, other than rest and visit with my family.

Sunday:
New York, New York!!!!
Emily, Jason, and I boarded a train headed for NYC from Dover Plains at about 8:45 am. We got to NYC at 10:45 am, and found a dapperly dressed Matthew Davis at Grand Central Station. We then set out for something to eat, and eventually ended up at Katz's. I'd wanted to visit Katz's for awhile now, because it's mentioned in the TMBG Cub cover of "New York City" (the lyrics: "Statue of Liberty, Staten Island Ferry, Co-op City, Katz's and Tiffany'"). Wow. Katz's is highly overrated. We got there, and first had to figure out how the heck to order (you ordered a different place for whatever type of food you wanted.) I decided on a philly cheesesteak, and finally ordered it. I went to sit down and wait where Matthew put his jacket, only to realize it was waiter service only. So the waitress tells us to move, and I do. Emily comes back with her bagel: $12 for a bagel, cream cheese, and lox. My cheesesteak wasn't very good. Matthew and Jason were pleased with their meals, the breakfast specials. They were like $5, and got a ton of food. Oh, well. After that we took the subway over to Ground Zero. It didn't strike me was hard as I thought it was going to, although I think I'm allergic to terrorism (I had a bad case of the sneezes.) It was still very striking. Where the buildings were really just looks like a normal construction site now, but the buildings around it show the damage. Many are still burnt and in the process of being renovated. It was a very solemn area.

After that, we took the subway to Central Park, and wandered around there for awhile. It's really neat, a whole big green space in the middle of this congested city. And I think everyone that lives in NYC has a dog. After wandering around the Upper East Side looking for a bathroom (there were none, and not a single Starbucks. Someone must have made a contract with the devil to keep Starbucks out of the Upper East Side), we went back to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to wait for Jamal. Then it decided to rain on us. It was fun watching the poetry-selling-mime round up his pamphlets as quick as he could. Jamal found us as the rain was ending (convenient timing, Mr. Rogers ;) and we headed to find something to do. We ended up at FAO Schwarz, which was SO COOL. hehe. Three stories of toys toys toys! They had every type of Monopoly I could imagine. And the Barbies!!! hehe. There was a Jello Fun Barbie, I swear. I thought that was absolutely beautiful (Matthew or Jason said it should have been Jello Shooter Barbie. Matthew and Jason are scarily similar in personality types.) Jello Fun Barbie. Jeez.

We decided then it was time to find dinner. We were looking for Italian, and Matthew picked a place. hehe. It was expensive. It tasted ok, but it was pricey (yes, yes, I know everything in the city's expensive, but I know there are little restaurants that are cheaper. hehe.) Then we went to the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre to see a show. It was a great show, although some doof brought his under-12 kids, and they kept having to censor themselves ("but I'm afraid you've forgotten that my apartment backs onto a NURSERY.") Amy Poehler is hilarious. I've liked her in her Deuce Bigalow (as tourette girl) and Undeclared roles, so it was really neat to see her onstage in person. I'm a dork, I know. And some visiting guy from Chicago's Second City troupe was great, too (I really wish I could find out who he is, so we can see something he's in when Aims and I go to Chicago in August. You know, I'm ass-backwards. Most people get away from cities for vacation, I go to them.)

Anyhow, after that we headed straight to Grand Central in a cab (to assure Matthew wouldn't miss his train), and headed out, after calling my dad from Grand Central to wish him happy father's day.

Monday:
After sleeping in until about 11:30 am, they woke me up so I could take a shower and get ready to go to lunch with my Uncle Don and family. We went to a Four Brother's Pizza, which is pretty good. I got to meet my newest cousin, Jeremiah. It's weird to have a new cousin, after having the same four first cousins for 18 years.. now I have a baby cousin. He's a cute, happy thing. He kept trying to grab Blair's calzone. At eight and a half months, I think that might be a bit much for him yet. Then again, he is a McClanahan. After lunch we went and played miniature golf (I came in second to last, with Blair in last place. I find that odd, b/c she was the most athletically inclined out of all of us, I think. Aunt Pat won.) We went back to their place to get ready, and then went to Blair's graduation (the purpose of the entire trip to Connecticut.) It was an ok ceremony, but in the middle of it a lightning storm broke out. We were outside, in the middle of a field. With two tall metal lightposts in the middle of it. And the speaker just keeps talking, yadda yadda yadda, while lightning strikes about 100 yards away from the crowd. It never did rain, and the lightning abated eventually. Highlights of the graduation: The worst southern accent I've ever heard, my cousin going LA LA LA BAAAAAA NA BA as loud as he could (he was happy, but loud), and my grandmother and I instituting a two person buffer zone between my aunt and uncle.

That night we cooked out and I had part of a Doc's hard lemonade. It tasted horrible. All the lemon in the world couldn't hide the horrible malt beverage flavor. Blech.

I was sleeping in Emily's bed, after my futon I'd brought with me proved to be terribly uncomfortable on a hardwood floor (but it's grand on a carpeted floor). For some reason I've always found Emily's beds very comfortable, even when she slept in a cot when they lived at Indian Mountain School.

I am always overwhelmed about how beautiful Connecticut is (and how chilly it is in June.) So much green, open spaces, mountains, and really old houses.

Anyhow. one day left.

Tuesday:
We drove. All day. I got up at 5:30 am and got to WV at 6 pm, and immediately left for Kentucky. I got back to Lexington at 8:30, welcomed by a very affectionate kittycat and some huge tomato plants (they grew alot in the past few days.) I like travelling alot, but I'm always glad to be back home. I need some serious sleep, which I won't get tonight, because Aimee and I are going to see Cracker at A1A in Lexington. A decent band playing Lexington? What? hehe. This weekend I'm staying around here and taking it easy. It's only Wednesday, and my first day of work this week, but I'm already ready for Friday. hehe. At least it'll be a short week.

I think it's great when Lexington makes the national news.

(please note sarcasm.)

If I were a South Park character. (stolen and modified from South Park Studio)

New commenting, but not exactly what i want. I will modify eventually.

Do I do anything other than complain today?

I'm redesigning my comments myself. I apologize if they don't work/look right for you in the meantime. The other HTML didn't work in Netscape. People and their crappy HTML. It's worse than their writing. hehehe.

I just don't understand why people write so poorly. It's not just style, spelling, grammar, or punctuation, but all of those combined. I'm not asking for literature-quality work here, just some phrasings that don't sound horrible when you say them out loud. Hell, I don't use perfect grammar myself, I tend to use coloquially acceptable grammar (especially when writing copy for websites or ads). I'm also all for using contractions in most forms of formal writing (a no-no in standard formal writing, but to not use them sounds awkward.) I just read stuff I'm sent by clients to post on their websites and cringe, however, on a regular basis. People try too hard to make things sound "professional", and as a result only end up sounding stilted. Throw in poor punctuation and improper grammar and it's all one big logistical mess. I'm far from the world's best writer, but I know when something sounds wrong, and sometimes it befuddles me when other people can't see obvious mistakes. It's not such a big deal when it's in personal writing, for yourself, but for educational/business purposes, I just don't see how people get away with it.

(As a note, my own professional writing doesn't use a quarter.. an EIGHTH of the parentheses I use in my own personal writing.)

Aimee and I decided to attend the Ben Folds show at Jillian's in Louisville, and to get there early. Continuing our popular concert and a theme park trend, we're going to stay overnight in Louisville and go to Kentucky Kingdom the next day (complete with waterpark!)

Subway's new chicken teriyaki sub with sweet onion sauce was incredibly disappointing.

A thick teriyaki sauce (the kind you get with those crappy frozen veggie/meat teriyaki dinners) and blechy onion stuff. Nasty. Thank goodness for fresh-baked cookies.

This is a test. To see if my new commenting design is working.

spam, spam, I hate spam

This was originally posted to the tmbg.org mailing list (well, I tried to. I'm not sure whether or not it ever got through. Still, important info)

Suggestions for those dealing with an inundation of spam:

1) Unless you've specfiically signed up for a piece of email that's coming into your inbox, do NOT click the 'Unsubscribe' link at the bottom of the email. That just tells whomever's spamming that that's a valid email address, and they'll send you more and sell your name to other spammers.

2) Avoid putting your email address too many places on the web, or create an account specifically for this reason. Spammers search for email addresses listed on websites, message boards, etc. I'm guilty of not having followed this rule enough until recently.

3) Encourage people not to include your name in mass CC: s (usually when you're being forwarded some tripe about some little kid needing a new big toe which he'll get when you forward this to 50 people, and get a $25 gift certificate to the Gap) When people forward these pieces on (and on and on), they rarely take time to clean it up and delete the email addresses listed in the email, which has the potential to get to a spammer. Also, don't send out forwards with a long list of CCs, if there's a chance that it will get forwarded. ("Do unto others," etc.)

4) Encourage people not to enter your email address on one of those, "Send this really cute page with the annoying dancing smiley faces to all of your friends!" Often times this just gives your email address (and that of the person that sends it to you) to a spammer.

5) If you use AOL, use a separate screenname you never plan to use for email to visit chatrooms. Spammers sit and wait for you to enter the chatroom, then take the screen name and use it for spam.

6) Don't follow any link in a piece of spam, no matter how tempting it might be. There is no free lunch, and by supporting a spammer you're showing them that their method of "marketing" is acceptable. If you have any question about the validity of a spam (or forward), check out snopes.com .

Spam is more than annoying, it preys upon the ignorant and just plain stupid. It takes up bandwidth, the actions interrupt email services for good ISPs that have no clue that their clients are spamming (bleah, I've dealt with this), and it invades your privacy.

This message is brought to you by Colleen's Personal Crusade Against Spam :)

MMmmm. Juicy delicious peaches. One of the few redeeming pleasures of repressive summer heat.

The Good News:
Ben Fold is coming to Louisville! I can stop my whining.. but...

The Bad News:
He's coming to Jillian's, the worst concert venue ever.

Maybe if I got there early and got up front... it wouldn't be as bad...*sigh* If Ben really loves us, he'll add a Cincinnati date in there (there's room for it on the schedule!)