Zoë's pre-school is selling chocolates as a fundraiser. Andrew took the box to work and sold it out within the first day and a half, because pretty much everyone there is willing to buy chocolates in support of a good cause. These chocolates were so popular that someone asked him to get another box, which he did, and he sold that out, too.

Okay, I admit that I personally bought and ate several chocolates out of the first kit (the chocolate was SO fresh, it was amazing!). But still, this just proves what I've always believed. Geeks love chocolate.

No, there's no point to this story. Other than to make you crave chocolate, maybe...

Just reported a spam with this subject line:

C:\A MY OLD DOCUMENTS - BACKUP\all business data 05-07-02\A OLD MY DOCUMENTS\My Documents1\a COASTAL VACATIONS\SUBJECT LINES\Subject lines comb 007 - 006 007 008 009 all.txt

Now tell me this person's not a bloody idiot...

For the first time in my life, I've ordered something I saw on an infomercial. Don't worry, it's not Ginsu knives or a Pocket Fisherman or a device to scramble eggs inside the shell.

It's an exercise machine. Yes, really.

Well, it's not actually a machine. It's exercise equipment. It's one of those walker things that simulates cross-country skiing and is extremely low impact. See, I've got a bad knee (had surgery on it at age sixteen after dislocating it four times), and one of my ankles is kinda tricky, so anything with any kind of impact is right out.

I also don't like anything that requires me to lie on the floor, or which makes me remember certain special moves and count reps or sets or whatever. I just can't remember stuff like that, and I therefore won't do the exercises.

This, well, I can get on it, do the exercise including the warmup and cool down, and then get off the thing. I can watch TV while doing it. I don't have to remember to count anything, or how many things I have to do. And since I'm only interested in doing the exercise for my personal health and well being, I don't even have to keep track of it that much. A few minutes every day should do the trick.

I'm not, just for the record, trying to lose weight. I'm just feeling very icky lately and it's because I don't get enough exercise, and regular exercise helps you cope with stress and deal with things like the excess rush of adrenaline (epinephrine) and endorphins you get when you have a panic attack. You can burn them off a lot easier with exercise.

So, well, I've ordered myself an airwalker thingy. It was either this or an indoor pool... Now how much would you pay?

What's more obnoxious than unwanted advertising popups? Unwanted advertising popups that force your browser to full size. ARRGGHHH!!!!

Remote host: [deleted, but it's in Queensland, Australia]
site:
International Couples

title:
find a us husband

url:

name:
freewjoe

email:
freewjoe@yahoo.com.cn.

regarding:
I need some help with the HTML

desc:
I want to find an us husband through it

-------------------------------------------------
I deleted the International Couples Webring ages ago. I thought I had also deleted the website for it, but I guess I didn't. I certainly deleted all my links to it and I deleted the folder on my own hard drive.

Anyway, the mailform had a note telling people I was not running a dating service and to please not email me asking me to arrange meetings or whatever (can't recall the exact wording and I've deleted it now).

Well, it looks like a couple of smartarses happened upon the page and decided to be, well, smartarses. Hah. Hah. I'm so terribly amused by this.

In fact, I'm so amused I've banned your IP address, so that even if you sent this email hoping to see my reply here, you won't be able to (unless you've got multiple IP addresses, in which case I suggest you keep your annoying email to yourself).

As I've noted, to be listed here, the mail has to be both annoying and stupid. I think this qualifies.

Now and then, I think back on the days when I lived alone. It was scary at first, because I'd never lived alone in my entire life, despite being in my thirties at the time. But eventually, I got to where I kinda liked it.

I didn't have to answer to anyone. I could come and go as I pleased, I could eat what I wanted when I wanted. I slept all by myself in my very large waterbed, all flopped out all over the place, and I could turn up the heat in that waterbed without anyone to complain about it being too hot.

On the other hand, if I didn't take out the garbage, it didn't get taken out. If I didn't cook, I didn't eat. If I didn't personally attend to things that needed to get done, well, they didn't get done.

I learned a great deal about myself and the world. I learned that sometimes you have to ask for and accept help, but that you can't really count on anyone else to do things for you. I learned that being alone is not the same as being lonely. I remembered that I actually have always enjoyed my own company and that I tend to be solitary, and that "alone time" is a good thing. I learned that I am, despite what my mother said, very competent.

I'm not saying I'd necessarily want to go back to that. I really quite like being married. I like having kids. There are days when I wish I could have some time alone (particularly on the days when the toddler, who has learned how to follow people into other rooms, insists on going even to the toilet with me *sigh*). And I sometimes miss that great big waterbed.

But it's nice to get into our little, snuggly double bed and have a warm, furry, chubby bloke in there. He's always nice and warm, and he lets me put my cold feet on him to warm up, provided I don't move them around too much. And it's nice to have my little fairy child say "I love you, too," although she can't manage to say it very clearly. And it's even nice to have the bossy toddler take a break from whatever mischief she's been into and have her come over and climb into my lap for a cuddle. I like it here. I like being married to Andrew, and I like being a parent.

I'm still not crazy about taking out the garbage though. And it's times like that when you really appreciate having someone else around to do it for you.

Federal anti-spam legislation moved one step closer to passage Thursday as the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved the Burns-Wyden 'Can Spam Act' and sent it to the full Senate.
[...]
Hatch and Leahy, meanwhile, introduced yet another ban-spam bill, the Criminal Spam Act. Spammers who use open relays -- unprotected mail servers -- to disseminate their junk mail, or who falsify message headers to disguise their identity would face penalties of up to five years in federal prison (three for a first offense), and fines as high as $25,000 a day.

President Bush, trying again to explain the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (news - web sites), said on Saturday that suspected arms sites had been looted in the waning days of Saddam Hussein's rule.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed.

But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes.

A third of the American public believes U.S. forces have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. Twenty-two percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons.
 
But such weapons have not been found in Iraq and were not used.
 
Before the war, half of those polled in a survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001. But most of the Sept. 11 terrorists were Saudis; none was an Iraqi.
 
The results startled even the pollsters who conducted and analyzed the surveys.

Scientists have decoded the male Y chromosome, solving mysteries about how the chromosome works and why men exist.
.....

Well, it's about time someone figured it out, eh?

Raed, the blogger from Baghdad, is well worth reading. Want to know what it's really like living in the aftermath of a war? Raed can tell you.

"When someone agrees with me, I always feel I must be wrong." - Oscar Wilde

U.S. Troops Ambushed in Iraq as New Raids Launched

Not too long ago I was bitching in my blog here about a particular uncreative moron stealing my images to hack them up and recirculate them as image tubes (yes, I've gotten over it, but I still think she's a moron). That was annoying, but at least I wasn't ripped off by Saddam Hussein.

Oh, Saddam. Genocide, fraud, oppression, torture, and now image theft? How could you sink so low?

(Yes, that's my very black sense of humor asserting itself, in case you're wondering.)

The political debate over the Iraq war has shifted from the right of the United States and its allies to launch such a pre-emptive war unilaterally to the more nuanced question of whether the Bush administration and British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government in Britain skewed intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Iraqi chemical and biological weapons. In the coming weeks, congressional hearings, a parliamentary inquiry and investigative reporting by the world’s media will drive home this question: Did the United States and Britain launch a war to pre-empt a threat that did not exist?
 
Whatever the answer, one thing is certain: The specter of American troops coming home in body bags is one that haunts every president. That fact is particularly salient when the deaths occur during “non-combat” operations such as military police actions, peacekeeping missions or postwar occupations.
 
“I think it is bound to have a kind of wearing effect on support for the mission, and thus on the president’s popularity,” says Professor John Mueller of Ohio State University, who has specialized on the effects of war and foreign crises on presidential job ratings. “Eventually, the question in the public’s mind will be: Is it worth helping these people, who don’t seem to even want us there, if it is going to cost American lives?”

A court and execution chamber could be built at the US detention camp in Cuba under plans being drawn up by military officials.
 
Military tribunals for some of the hundreds of men detained at the US base on Guantanamo Bay moved a step closer last month with the appointment of a chief prosecutor and chief defence counsel.

Got this via the mailform for this domain. Please note that while I've left the idiot's name there (hey, it's spam, I don't feel guilty), I've removed their URL because I don't want to give them any traffic at all. Comments by me are in brackets.

---

My name is Ian Holloway. I have visited your site and I feel that we can help each other increase our search engine ranking by linking to each other. The more traffic for you..the more traffic for me. Why not?

[Because you're a spamming moron and I don't do business with slime like you?]

We run a site called [online dating service] which amongst other things has a directory of personals, dating and singles related web sites. As your site is targeted at this market then it should be in our directory.

[In what POSSIBLE way could you have gotten that I run a dating site? I'm very happily married and have been for years. Even if I weren't married I wouldn't be on a dating site. This is a PERSONAL domain, not a PERSONALS domain, you idiot. So much for your lie that you "visited my site" because if you had, you'd have a friggin clue. ]

To add your site simply go to [url deleted] and complete the form. Once you have submitted the form you will be shown a selection of banners or text links you can use to link back to us.

[Oh, goody.]

We will review all submissions within 48 hours and providing you have added a link back to us, your site could be in our directory and taking advantage of some of the 1500-2500 visitors we get every day within a couple of days. We look forward to hearing from you.

[You're going to be waiting for a long time. Not only have I posted your stupid email to my Moron Mail™ collection, I've blocked your IP address. I've half a mind to publish it so other people can block your IP address, as well, you spamming idiot.]

Ian Holloway
Admin Manager

[Bonni Elizabeth Hall, person with a personal domain that has absolutely zero to do with you or your sleazy business.]

I have a big, big problem and I have no idea how to solve it.

Yesterday my cable service went down for a while. When it came back, I could no longer connect to our server via FTP or SSH (i.e., no direct connection). I can, however access the server via the web, which is REALLY strange. Turns out my ISP actually runs an invisible proxy, which is fine with me (I know perfectly well why an ISP would run a proxy for web functions!).

The thing is, the proxy can connect to our server without a problem. My IP address can't. Since I need to FTP in and I need to SSH in, this is a problem. And I admit I haven't tried to POP my mail out because I don't read my mail that way, but I'm sure I'd be unable to connect to the POP server either.

In order to connect to our server, I have to quit my cable connection and use dialup, which is via another provider and has a clear route. This, naturally, puts a pretty big cramp in my style. Grrrr.

I have no idea how to fix this. Possibly, the routes have changed after whatever happened yesterday to take the network down, and I just have to wait for all the sites in between to refresh their data (it's a little bit like the way DNS propigates, but that's about the extend of my knowledge).

In the meantime, I'm kinda screwed...

U.S. military units assigned to track down Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have run out of places to look and are getting time off or being assigned to other duties, even as pressure mounts on President Bush to explain why no banned arms have been found.
 
After nearly three months of fruitless searches, weapons hunters say they are now waiting for a large team of Pentagon intelligence experts to take over the effort, relying more on leads from interviews and documents.
 
"It doesn't appear there are any more targets at this time," said Lt. Col. Keith Harrington, whose team has been cut by more than 30 percent. "We're hanging around with no missions in the foreseeable future."

Cheering throngs take to the streets of Baghdad to celebrate the fall of Saddam Hussein, grateful Iraqis thank US-led forces for their liberation, food and medical aid pour into the port of Umm Qasr.
 
These images, broadcast around the world over the past two months, have largely been replaced by more skeptical reports questioning the rationale for the war on Iraq (news - web sites), but they remain a staple of US-government produced television "news" stories now available to the public over the internet.

Someone I like and respect has just had to password protect her blog because of a small gang of trolls who have been pestering her. I'm not sure what she did to get their interest. I suspect she posted something too intelligent on a board they frequented, thus challenging them and their limited knowledge and understanding. They, in turn, decided to "put her in her place" by filling up her inbox with crap and other bullying tactics.

And another person I know who had a website offering free graphics has been continually hassled recently by people who apparently don't like the way she's set up her website. She has actually taken her site down (although I understand it's temporary).

So I'm just wondering... How pathetic, lame, and moronic do you have to be in order to do stuff like this? How little must you think of yourself if you have to get your thrills by harassing people this way? How can someone live with themselves when they do stuff like this, especially if it's habitual?

I have no time or patience for arseholes like this. I've encountered them, had to deal with them, etc. I just block their IP address and go on with my life and leave them to stew in their own pathetic juices. If the abuse is in a forum, I leave the forum, because I think forum managers should keep some order and this kind of behavior is disruptive and uncalled for (and I'm not talking about simple flames and arguments, I mean genuine harassment).

The thing that always gets me, though, is that they don't seem to understand that they ARE pathetic, lame, and stupid.

That's about all I've got to say on the matter at the moment. I can't think of enough ways to say that some people are bottom feeding lameoids who seriously need to get a life and maybe some attention from the mental health profession.

How much of a pottymouth are you?

By the way, the title of this post is a reference to one of the funniest movies ever, Galaxy Quest. The scene in question has Sigourney Weaver look shocked and her mouth clearly says, "Well, f*ck that!" The thing is, they later edited it and had her record it again so that her voice is actually saying, "Well, screw that!" Heh. So whenever I say, "Well, screw that!" I'm really thinking something else entirely...

So, if you went to hell, which level would you go to eh? According to the Dante's Inferno Test, I'm headed for:

Eigth Level of Hell - the Malebolge

Many and varied sinners suffer eternally in the multi-leveled Malebolge, an ampitheatre-shapped pit of despair Wholly of stone and of an iron colour: Those guilty of fraudulence and malice; the seducers and pimps, who are whipped by horned demons; the hypocrites, who struggle to walk in lead-lined cloaks; the barraters, who are ducked in boiling pitch by demons known as the Malebranche. The simonists, wedged into stone holes, and whose feet are licked by flames, kick and writhe desperately. The magicians, diviners, fortune tellers, and panderers are all here, as are the thieves. Some wallow in human excrement. Serpents writhe and wrap around men, sometimes fusing into each other. Bodies are torn apart. When you arrive, you will want to put your hands over your ears because of the lamentations of the sinners here, who are afflicted with scabs like leprosy, and lay sick on the ground, furiously scratching their skin off with their nails. Indeed, justice divine doth smite them with its hammer.

It's okay though. I have a Get Out of Hell Free Card.

The Bush administration distorted intelligence and presented conjecture as evidence to justify a U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a retired intelligence official who served during the months before the war.
[...]
The administration's prewar portrayal of Iraq's weapons capabilities has not been validated despite weeks of searching by military experts. Alleged stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons have not turned up, nor has significant evidence of a nuclear weapons program or links to the al-Qaida network.

The Pentagon's intelligence agency had no hard evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons last fall but believed Iraq had a program in place to produce them, the agency's chief said Friday.

Today is the sixth of June. It's the anniversary of two things.

First, it's the anniversary of the day I realized I was in love with Andrew. We'd been friends for a couple of years at that point, but one day I just suddenly realized, "Oh, my gosh. I'm in love with him!"

When I told him, he was kind, sweet, polite, and very clearly thought I'd get over it, that it was just a passing fancy. Hah. A few weeks later, it hit him that he was in love with me. So there. Now who's laughing, Mr Smart Guy?

Yes, in case you're wondering, we're still in love. We go through cycles, and it's not all that "romantic" any more, and it doesn't have that heart-thumping, dizzying, "oh-God-I-can't-breathe" feeling, but it's certainly still there. To paraphrase a line from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Sometimes, I know exactly why I married him."

The other anniversary is that of this weblog. I've been doing this for three years, although not all of that stuff is in the archive (only about a year or so). I started out doing it manually, then I used Blogger, then I used Greymatter, and now I use Movable Type (which I should probably upgrade, but I've been too busy and distracted to be bothered with it). Three years I've been posting my random thoughts, rants, links, and boring life here. Whee. I think I'll celebrate by cracking open a bottle of Diet Coke. Am I a party animal, or what?

So, happy anniversary to me and Andrew, and to me and my blog, and to those few of you (and there are a couple out there, I know) who have been reading my ramblings for three years... you have my deepest compassion. Just think how poor Andrew feels, having known me and read/heard my ramblings for going toward a decade...

When all three major U.S. newsweeklies--Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report--run major features on the same day on possible government lying, you can bet you have the makings of a major scandal.
 
And when the two most important outlets of neo-conservative opinion--The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal--come out on the same day with lead editorials spluttering outrage about suggestions of government lying, you can bet that things are going to get very hot as summer approaches in Washington.

It will be a question historians will debate perhaps for centuries to come.
 
How did a president remain solidly popular with the American people, even though:
 
• The economy stagnated during his watch;
 
• He turned a projected federal surplus of $5.7 trillion over the next decade into a projected $2 trillion deficit, fueled by huge tax cuts that enriched the wealthy and failed to stimulate the economy;
 
• He proposed and won more tax cuts, though most economists warned that they wouldn't likely create many jobs;
 
• His administration trimmed basic domestic civil rights, including the right to privacy, counsel and habeas corpus;
 
• He openly scorned relations with traditional allies and potential friends worldwide;
 
• He launched a war against a sovereign nation without establishing why it was urgent and necessary, and without achieving any of his stated goals for attacking, except regime change;
 
• The company once headed by his vice president landed a no-bid contract in Iraq far more lucrative than originally revealed?

When Andrew was a little boy, his parents always let him and his brothers watch The Sound of Music whenever it was on television. Due to the time of evening it was started and the length of the movie, about halfway through it was time for little boys to go to bed.

This "about half way" point always occurred at the beginning of the puppet show scene. To Andrew's mind, the puppet show came on, his mother sent them to bed. He was probably nearly an adult before he got to actually see the end of that story about the lonely goatherd.

When Zoë was born, I was staying in a public hospital, so Andrew couldn't stay past a certain time of the night (when Miranda was born, he actually slept with us, but that's another story entirely, she said parenthetically). After he went home, I was watching television and The Sound of Music was on. When it came to the puppet show, I thought that perhaps I should call him to make sure he was off to bed...

Now, of course, it's a bit of a family joke with us, and it applies to all puppet shows, pretty much.

In a couple of weeks, Zoë's pre-school is going to have a puppet show, and as it happens, that's a day when one of us will be volunteering to help out with the kids ("parent duty"). I have, however, been assured that they won't send Andrew to bed if he turns up to assist.

As President Bush plunges into Middle East diplomacy, a survey of 20 nations and the Palestinian Authority shows widespread distrust of his leadership, skepticism in the region about his plan for peace and less regard for the United States around the world.

Saw this headline:

Hmmm. I wonder which bits of him they're going to probe to find some intelligence? At least he's cooperating. It's a lot more painful if you resist, from what I hear...

From "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," right through to, "It was a surprise to me then — it remains a surprise to me now — that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."

Now how's this for a great title for a blog? confessions of a book whore

Thousands of sacked Iraqi soldiers swarmed angrily around U.S. headquarters in Baghdad on Monday, as squabbling tribal leaders told the Americans they could face war if they did not leave soon.
 
"The entire Iraqi people is a time bomb that will blow up in the Americans' face if they don't end their occupation," tribal chief Riyadh al-Asadi told Reuters after meeting a U.S. official for talks on the future of Iraq after Saddam Hussein.
 
"The Iraqi people did not fight the Americans during the war, only Saddam's people did. But if the people decide to fight them now, they are in big trouble."

Lawmakers from both parties, saying the United States' credibility is at stake, on Monday pressed the Bush administration to offer more information behind its charges that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
 
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said his panel would hold hearings on the issue, possibly along with the Senate Intelligence Committee, because "the situation is becoming one where the credibility of the administration and Congress is being challenged."