September 20, 2005
They're registered, too. You can find it here.
And don't give me any guff about posting the link to the registry, either.
You looked at the kid's ultrasound. You made that "awwwwwww" noise and went all gooey. You are now obliged to go and buy the kid stuff.
Now, shoo.
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11:34 AM
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Crystal Clear
Soldier's Angel
Sondra K
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11:04 AM
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September 19, 2005
I would just like to tell the people at Quit Plan that they should be glad the postal service saved their collective fat ass on this one. If they hadn't arrived, I would have hounded them to death with phone calls. Oh sure, they're all about taking calls and being cheery and supportive, but I'm pretty damn sure they wouldn't have wanted to listen to me open up a can of bitchcraft. I'm sure it's not a surprise for everyone to learn that I am quite handy with a can opener when it comes to getting the can of bitchcraft open. I don't mean to brag or anything, but I've got it down to 2.5 seconds or less in some instances.
I'm sure they're happy that the US Postal Service spared them.
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01:57 PM
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{...}Sounds from typing on computer keyboards are distinctive enough to be decoded, allowing security breaches caused by "acoustic snooping," University of California, Berkeley researchers said on Wednesday.The researchers said they were able to feed sound recordings of typing on keyboards into a computer and use an algorithm to recover up to 96 percent of the keyboard characters entered by typists.
"It's a form of acoustical spying that should raise red flags among computer security and privacy experts," said Doug Tygar, a Berkeley professor of computer science and information management.
"If we were able to figure this out, it's likely that people with less honorable intentions can -- or have -- as well," Tygar said.{...}
96% of recovered keystrokes isn't all that impressive, however, when you take into account the odds of recovering the missing four percent. After all, you need a password in its entirety---96% of it isn't going to magically open anything. While I will admit it's easier for a hacker to brute force the remaining keystrokes, you'd still have to know precisely what you were doing to get anything.
No, I'm not worried about this. I think this is a much more dazzling weakness as far as computer security is concerned.
{HT: Jonathan}
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10:12 AM
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September 17, 2005
/sarcasm
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04:14 PM
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September 16, 2005
I've been on the fringes of agriculture all my life, living where I do. I can see both sides of this story, so I don't know who wins this argument. I'm loathe to subsidize Archer-Daniels-Midland and Monsanto, and on the whole I don't think subsidies help anyone in the long run, but I can see where Phoenix does have a point.
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01:51 PM
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{...}But it's a significant phenomenon nonetheless - and if you broke it out by age and class, I'm sure that bisexuality would be even more common (and increasingly so) among upper-middle-class young people. If the experience of human history shows anything, it's that a large percentage of any given population will experiment with opportunistic homosexuality if the taboos against it are lifted - and at least in our country's more exclusive circles, the lesbian-experimentation taboo is dead and the gay-experimentation taboo is weakening. Ancient Greece, here we come . . .{...}
To which Jonathan adds:
I don't have anything to add to serious discussions about human sexuality, although comments like this one make me wonder if the trend is liberation, or just another instance of women going out of their way to attract male attention by any means:
Ashley, 20, a student at Northern Arizona University, agrees. "It's become this totally hot thing," she says. "And the reason why is that it promises this sexual experimentation to guys. They think, 'She'll kiss another girl; she's gotta be pretty wild.'"Ashley hasn't made out with that many girls: "I've only done it like a dozen times." It's been fun, she says, but mostly because of the titillation: "There's people watching it, and that makes me feel good. The first time I did it at a party, I thought, 'So this is what it takes to get the guys' attention.'"
You decide if this is benign or a case of women desperate for male affection. (You know you're old when you read Ashley's quote and instead of thinking, Hot!, you worry that she didn't have a capable, present father while she was growing up and hope that she'll spend some time working on her sense of self-confidence and self-worth.)
In any case, what interests me most is the proximate causes of what destroyed the "taboo" against LUGiness in the first place.{...}
{Ed. LUG=Lesbian until graduation. Amazingly enough during college I lived in an all-girls dorm and a sorority and I never saw anyone getting it on with their best friend or their roommate. It never happened. Really and truly. And if something like that WAS going on, believe you me, everyone would have known about it because a. girls are catty creatures and b. close quarters means gossip spreads like wildfire. So, I will admit I believe this whole LUG thing is an urban myth perpetrated by pr0n writers and men who really would like to think that living in a sorority house is all pillow fights and sapphic experimentation.}
Jonathan ultimately places the blame on Friends with Monica and Rachel making out in front of Chandler and Joey to get their apartment back. I think Jonathan's partially correct: Friends showed two women making out. What he misses, however, is that these two female characters were making out not because they were hot for one another but because they were trying to get what they wanted (their apartment) from men. That's when the taboo died: when it became cool to use said bisexuality to lure men into handing over what women wanted. Female bisexuality became a tool to manipulate men. Everyone knows that hetero men adore it when women get busy with one another. There's nothing new in that bit of information. What is interesting in all of this, however, is the lengths women feel they need to go to to get what they want. If making out with a woman will get them something, well, they'll do that.
The thing I find curious about the CDC's results is that, apparently, they did not take into account "The Threesome Factor" when asking women about their relations with other women. They did not ask how that coupling came about or if it took place with another partner present---in this example, a man who'd actually worked up the nerve and asked, "Would you consider being with another woman for me?" I'd be curious to know if this overall trend toward female bisexuality is the result of women actually wanting to love women or if it's just women trying to please their men.
I'd wager it's the latter.
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01:32 PM
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11:20 AM
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In her court filing, the chubby cheeker listed "fraud" as the reason she would like an annullment.
I'm sure Sheila would say that the fraud was on the part of the chubby cheeker. In fact, I know she will and I will update when she does.
I love making someone's day.
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09:42 AM
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September 15, 2005
- You know how the Germans are crazy about David Hasselhoff? Well, the Belgians apparently feel the same way about Doug.
- Ever considered digging a hole to China? Take a looksee at this and see if you'll actually end up in China. I ended up somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean---so I won't be digging anywhere, thank you ever so much.
- In case you weren't aware, Goldstein is on a roll lately. Just keep scrolling, and then when you can scroll no more, go into the archives and keep scrolling.
- Our Maximum Leader had a, uh, religious experience on his commute in to Dee Cee the other day.
- Random Pensees has a question for the ladies
- Sadie's waxing rhapsodic over Steff. Yes, that man was fine. I actually wanted Molly Ringwald's Andie to reform him in Pretty in Pink rather than dealing with the mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy Lane.
But that's just me.
Ok, that's enough from me. I've been so busy the past couple of days that it's obvious I'm behind on things. And since I've got more to do today---laundry, cocktail parties, dealing with a whopper head cold that one of my sister's offspring gave me as a parting gift---I need your help, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, to keep things interesting around here.
If you've got a link you'd like to promote, throw it into the comments. If you've read something interesting over the past few days and believe it could use a wee bit more publicity, go and throw it into the comments. I would only ask that you keep it clean and to please use hyperlinks. If you behave yourselves perhaps we can do this again sometime in the future.
God and head cold willing, I'll be back tomorrow.
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11:24 AM
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September 13, 2005
I'm taping it because, of course, the one night I want to be home my sister needs me to babysit her kids. I'm being a nice person, so nobody should post any spoilers in the comments, either, until I've watched it. Got it? Good. Otherwise you'll find yourself on the wrong end of my banning finger.
And, no, I'm not fucking about on this one.
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12:43 PM
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Who do you think's going to win this one?
{...}Galloway's preferred style is that of vulgar ad hominem insult, usually uttered while a rather gaunt crew of minders stands around him. I have a thick skin and a broad back and no bodyguards. He says that I am an ex-Trotskyist (true), a "popinjay" (true enough, since its original Webster's definition means a target for arrows and shots), and that I cannot hold a drink (here I must protest). In a recent interview he made opprobrious remarks about the state of my midriff, which I will confess has—as P.G. Wodehouse himself once phrased it—"slipped down to the mezzanine floor." In reply I do not wish to stoop. Those of us who revere the vagina are committed to defend it against the very idea that it is a mouth or has teeth. Study the photographs of Galloway from Syrian state television, however, and you will see how unwise and incautious it is for such a hideous person to resort to personal remarks. Unkind nature, which could have made a perfectly good butt out of his face, has spoiled the whole effect by taking an asshole and studding it with ill-brushed fangs.{...}
Tune in tomorrow, September 14, 2005, 7 pm EDT for the ultimate smackdown!
{Hat Tip: Martini Boy}
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12:28 PM
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A few observations.
- The Quit Plan people are a bunch of freakin' idiots. You're gonna love this one. I'm using their program to get help for quitting, right? I'm dependent upon them for my patches. So, I talk to them a couple of weeks ago to get my last shipment of patches. It's an eight week program, but they only send you the first five weeks worth---working under the assumption that most people start smoking again well before then and they don't want to waste postage/patches if they don't have to. They'd called me a few times during my first few weeks to see how I was doing, etc., but I'd missed their calls. So, when I finally got around to calling them, it was because they'd sent me a letter saying I needed to talk to them or they wouldn't send out the last batch of patches. I called, I chatted with this chick for a half hour, I told her I was fine with everything, that I haven't slipped because the patches had been so effective so send out the last batch, please. She agreed that they would and all was hunky dory.
Problem is, I haven't received the patches and if they don't arrive before Monday, Kathy's going cold turkey. So, I called them today, wondering why I hadn't received the shipment of nicotine-y goodness. Turns out the chick I chatted with forgot to do one simple little thing. After this half-hour "we really want to help you quit!" phone call, she forgot to click on the "send patches" button on her screen. To my mind that's the equivalent of a doctor working at freakin' methadone clinic forgetting to give someone their methadone. Talk about being surrounded by the obvious, yet somehow managing to forget the goddamn basics.
Pretty funny, eh? But wait, it gets better...
During today's phone call, the person who answered the phone had a thick Spanish accent, which I suppose is multicuturally wonderful and all that, but for someone who has trouble with accents because her ears aren't top notch, and who consistently forgets how much she uses lip reading to make up for her shoddy ears, well, it's not all that great a situation over the phone, eh? Yet she just answers the phone; she's not a counselor, so I'm not going to get too worked up over it. She tries to transfer me over to one, but apparently none are available. Is it all right if she sends them an email telling them they need to call me? No, it's not all right, I say, put me on hold. She apparently has some trouble with this, but manages it after about four minutes of goofing around and pressing buttons. After a ten minute wait, I am transferred to a counselor who makes me give her all my information again because it didn't pop up on her screen. Then, when I inquired as to where my patches were, she told me the information above: that the chickie-babe I talked to before never hit the "send patches" button on her screen. She apologized, clicked the "send patches" button and after apologizing briefly, told me that she hoped they'd make it to me before I ran out on this coming Monday. But if they didn't, well, she hated to advocate this, but I wasn't supposed to smoke more than ten cigarettes per day. She was really adamant about this one. Absolutely no more than ten cigarettes because that was the equivalent of the patch I'm currently on.
I had to laugh at that point, because I found that really funny. Because of the bureaucratic incompetence of a program designed to help people quit smoking, I'd be right back where I started---smoking.
Furthermore, she informed me that if I'd managed to go cold turkey for three days, and then the patches arrived, well, I wasn't supposed to use the patches then, because all the nicotine would be out of my system and I'd make myself sick.
For the love of God, etc. ad nauseam, ad infinitum.
The only reason I contacted these people in the first place was to get free patches, because I knew I wasn't going to be able to quit by going cold turkey and I sure as hell wasn't going to pay for them, not when the taxpayer could fund my largesse. If I'd quit cold turkey, no one would be able to stand the bitchiness. I would have found myself on the street because the husband would have kicked my ass to the curb within twenty-four hours of quitting.
But now it looks like, unless there's some miracle in the shipping world---it takes seven to ten days for the patches to arrive---I'll be doing precisely that.
It'll be fun, no?
- I've been on the 21mg patch for twenty-eight days. I jumped down to the 14mg patch yesterday and I'm freakin' tired.
Yesterday I spent the day with Christi and the kiddies, roaming around downtown, seeing what the skywalks are all about (kids love those things for whatever reason) and playing video games at this place (which was a lot of fun and earned me the eternal gratitude of my nephews and niece.), swimming in the pool at their hotel and, just in general, hanging out. I meandered my way home around four and I was freakin' exhausted when I actually got there. And I mean tired, like I'd been digging ditches for the entire day. Of course hanging out with kids is exhausting, particularly when you're not used to it, but this was above and beyond tired. It didn't occur to me until after dinner that it was probably the patch---and the lack of energy boosting nicotine---that was to blame.
Since we're babysitting tonight, I decided to stay home today and take a nice long nap to fortify myself for the evening.
- Eating hard candy to deal with the oral fixation will result in zits if you overdo it. Even if you're thirty-four-years-old and well past puberty, you will have a pizza face. Trust me on this one.
- I have yet to see any benefit from quitting. My lung function has not increased. I don't feel any healthier. I never had a smoker's cough to begin with, so accordingly I haven't lost one. I can't suddenly run a marathon. My sense of taste hasn't improved. Neither has my sense of smell. My palate was pretty darn good while I smoked and in some cases it's turning out that the smoking made things more flavorful.
Honestly, all I have to recommend quitting is a bunch of zits. Whoop-de-freakin'-doo.
- I have to say, I miss smoke breaks. Just taking a step away from everyone and everything and going and communing with the nicotine was a beautiful thing. I'm going to miss that.
And that's all there is folks. And no, still no comments allowed on these posts.
Posted by: Kathy at
11:59 AM
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Yet, for all I don't understand about Cricket, well, I do understand how this would be a great reward for winning the Ashes series against Australia.
{...}After partying all night, Flintoff admitted tongue-in-cheek "What is most exciting about winning the Ashes is it means I'll be awarded the freedom of Preston, my hometown."That means I can drive a flock of sheep through the town centre, drink for free in no less than 64 pubs and get a lift home with the police when I become inebriated. What more could you want?"{...}
The man's spot on. What more could you want?
Posted by: Kathy at
09:23 AM
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Portia Rediscovered
Mary Katherine Ham
TFS Magnum
Posted by: Kathy at
09:04 AM
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September 12, 2005
Posted by: Kathy at
07:44 PM
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Posting shall be light until further notice.
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08:04 AM
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September 10, 2005
While he was spot on with the line on Notre Dame, it's nonetheless apparent that the Nihilist does not have a future in bookmaking.
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07:06 PM
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Posted by: Kathy at
09:55 AM
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September 09, 2005
It's long but it's well worth your time.
(Mom, you're definitely going to want to see this)
{Hat Tip: Ith}
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04:27 PM
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