I was sharing with my mother-in-law some of the things I'd gotten for Xmas, and said, "I've got it all done except for Greg and Robyn."

She answered, "Well, when you get your brilliant idea of what to get them, let me know, so I can steal it from you."

Well, I decided to redo our wedding pages. I had various reasons for that, but mostly, I couldn't stand looking at the 1999 design any more. Andrew argued against changing it, said it was a sort of "time capsule" but, no, sorry, my design skills and so forth have improved greatly, and I see the site as a frame for the information, and I'm sick of that frame (literally; the original site had a decorative frameset, of all things!).

I also,naturally, took the opportunity to completely clean up the HTML, which is, in fact, now XHTML, and completely validated, as is the CSS, and I updated all the links that were peppered throughout the site and updated some of the information just a bit here and there.

So, well, if you never saw the old site, you're out of luck, because it's no longer there, but you can still read all about our wedding and stuff, and do it on valid XHTML/CSS pages with a much improved (at least, I think it's improved) design.

The attitude that there's something wrong with introverted people is widely shared in society, where fast talk and snap decisions are often valued over listening, deliberation and careful planning. Extroverts seem to rule the world or, at least, the USA, which hasn't elected an introverted president for three decades, since Jimmy Carter.
 
"The signals we get from the world agree that extroversion is valued," says Sanford Cohn, an associate professor in curriculum and instruction at Arizona State University. "A lot of the messages we get from society have to do with being social, and in order to be social you have to behave a certain way."
 
But that is impossible for introverted kids.

(Speaking as a bona fide introvert - no, being opinionated and occasionally talkative is not necessarily a sign of "extroversion" - I nodded a lot while reading that article, although it does make me wonder why it's taken "experts" all this time to figure this stuff out. I mean, DUH...)

Waiting for a reply on a possible book to buy for Miranda, and I still need to find something for Greg and/or Robyn (sometimes we give them a gift for both, sometimes a gift for each of them), but I've gotten everyone else taken care of, even David. Hooray! I may yet meet my goal of never having to set foot in a shopping centre with the intention of buying Xmas presents.

I have written before about how much I detest Xmas shopping. I'm getting to where I really kinda like Xmas, now that it's in the middle of summer (totally different "mood" and since I didn't like the Northern Xmas with all th snow and short days and other crap, this is a refreshing change), but I still absolutely HATE shopping or going near a shopping centre around Xmas.

(Parenthetically, I'm not ashamed or afraid to write Christmas, it's just easier to type the X, and the X is the Greek letter chi, the traditional shorthand for the word "Christ" anyway, as in "Chi Rho", that symbol that looks like a P with an X over it, and which stands for "Christ Jesus" and is visible in many Christian churches and so forth; didn't expect to get a mini theology/Greek lesson today, didja?)

My goal this year is to get ALL of my required shopping done online or via catalog, thus keeping me out of the shopping centres. I've almost met that goal. Between eBay and various other online shops (I'm a member of EmailCash Australia, which has a pretty nice rewards program for all sorts of stuff, including online shopping, and yes, I've gotten reward cheques from them, it's actually pretty fun, seriously), I'm getting it all done. I've got all the child cousins (on the Bromage side) sorted out, I've got my father-in-law's gift (and it's pretty dang cool if I do say so myself), I think I may have a good lead on the final gift for Miranda, I've gotten all of the teacher gifts. I just need to figure out something for Andrew's brothers and for his mum, and I'll be set. If I can pull this off without having to go to the shops at all, I'll be thrilled...

Oh, I did buy a couple of things for someone in a shop, but it was well before Xmas season started and on a normal shopping trip, so I won't count that. I would have been there that day anyway.

I wonder if you can buy wrapping paper and sticky tape online... Hmmm.....

The music and film industries are demanding that the European parliament extends the scope of proposed anti-terror laws to help them prosecute illegal downloaders. In an open letter to MEPs, companies including Sony BMG, Disney and EMI have asked to be given access to communications data - records of phone calls, emails and internet surfing - in order to take legal action against pirates and filesharers. Current proposals restrict use of such information to cases of terrorism and organised crime.

I got a new phone today. My old phone was getting to where it wouldn't hold a charge for more than a couple of days, and it was a pain, and yes, I could have just gotten a new battery for it, but I really wanted a flip phone (they're so cool), so we went out and got me one.

It's got an awful lot of bells and whistles, to be honest. I did manage to find a decent ring that sounds like a real phone ringing and not like someone left the radio on. It's also got a camera and Bluetooth, among other things. The Bluetooth will be useful because I've actually got a Bluetooth card for my Palm, and I can download stuff to it via the phone (I have no idea how to go about that yet, mind you, but it's theoretically possible, it would seem).

I think I"m going to have to do something extremely geeky and take the manual with me to bed to read it. Yes, this is something I do. I've done it with motherboard manuals, The Photoshop Bible, the manual for my new camera, and a number of other gadgets and devices over the years. Which, of course, led to the joke: How can you tell when a geek has an orgasm? She drops the tech manual she's reading....

I've put some new pictures in my picture gallery. Go have a look if you like (details are there).

Feeling better. The physical fatigue is much improved, and even the customary pain in my feet is better (yes, I have aching feet all the time for no apparent reason, it's weird, but a known sign of FMS for some reason). No headaches, no stiff neck.

My brain is also finally starting to function properly again, thank goodness. I used to have this incredibly strong, flexible mind, I could do all kinds of stuff. Never had to write stuff down (okay, I had to write numbers down because of the dyscalculia), never had to take notes, never forgot things, could multi-task like a demon (bet you didn't know demons multi-task, didja?). There's a saying, "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most," and that's just how I feel. It's incredibly frustrating not to have that ability to do multiple things and remember stuff and just plain get stuff done. I hate it. The chronic pain is, well, a pain, the physical fatigue is annoying and occasionally worrisome, but the lack of mental acuity really, really, really bothers me.

Anyway, the increased magnesium seems to be helping, or perhaps it's just that the flare-up is subsiding on its own, but whatever it is, I'm feeling better and able to think and do more. I expect to be good to go very, very soon, thank Deity.

I learned something today that I didn't know (that happens pretty much every day, mind you, but I don't usually blog about it).

Melbourne has an ice hockey team. I had no idea. I did hear that the team is coached by an expat Canadian and most of the players are also expat Canadians, but apparently a few Aussies managed to learn how to not only skate but also chase a frozen pellet of rubber around a rink, hitting it with a stick.

I like hockey. Once I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out...

Your next door neighbours can be from Tunisia, Israel, Indonesia, Japan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Brazil, Spain, Malaysia...

The community is so concerned over the fact that muslim women can't use public swimming pools because there are men present that they have female-only periods.

The Greeks and Mexicans next door ask you over to have a barbeque.

You don't actually use the words 'sheila' or 'shrimp'.

You sleep with Aeroguard on.

You're wearing a cap emblazoned with 'Get A Dog Up Ya.'

You feel obliged to spread salty black stuff that looks like congealed motor oil on bread and actually grow to like it.

You actively dislike Americans, but watch their TV, eat their food and worship their idols.

You think Tall Poppy Syndrome is a national condition.

Democracy means the freedom to draw caricatures of John Howard.

Continue reading "You Know You're From Australia When..."…

Today is Zoë's sixth birthday (which I wrote about in her journal if you're interested). It's also my beloved grandmother's one-hundredth birthday (nevermind that she died in 1994, it's still her birthday, dammit).

So, happy birthday to Grammy, and happy birthday to Zoë. Yay!

I thought briefly that I was going to rally from my bout of fatigue, but it's still with me. The pain isn't too bad, thankfully, but the fatigue is terrible and my mental capacity is pretty thin at the moment. Increasing the magnesium seems to have helped the muscle pain (or maybe it was coincidental, hard to tell), but nothing is helping the mental lethargy. Not caffeine, not low-GI food, not high-GI food (yeah, I tried both, why not), basically nothing.

I also find myself craving certain foods, mostly high-fat ones, which is a very odd thing. I hadn't noticed it before, but I'll keep an eye on that and see if it's a pattern or just a coincidence that when I have a flare-up like this, I also crave high-fat foods...

Anyway, I'm pretty sure this isn't a virus. It feels and looks like a fibromyalgia flare-up. And unfortunately, there's not much that helps that other than trying to take care of myself, getting enough rest (but not too much, because if I sleep too much I get really bad muscle aches!), eating regularly and properly, etc. And eventually it goes away.

I just wish I knew what the heck triggered this, so that I can avoid it in the future! I can't afford to have days or weeks slip by when I'm mentally incapacitated. I've got stuff to DO, dammit! I'm capable of carrying on a conversation (more or less) and I'm not brain dead or anything, but the mental fatigue kicks in REALLY quickly when I do just about anything more mentally taxing than, oh, writing a blog entry... It sucks, pretty much. Yuck.

I'm doing something I may regret. I'm re-installing The Sims (and The Sims: Livin' Large and The Sims: House Party). I haven't had the game installed for some time, probably more than a year (whenever it was that my old hard drive crashed and I had to replace it).

The reason I may regret it is because I tend to lose days at time when I start playing The Sims. I haven't gotten The Sims 2 for that very reason...

Anyway, I was looking through some backups for something else and came across these Sims CDs and thought, "Eh, what the heck."

So, hey, if I disappear for a week or two, don't worry, I'm just lost somewhere in Simville...

A professor from the University of Rhode Island alleged Friday that the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign violated the law.

The PFA is Progress for America, a nonprofit group that spent $16.5 million running the Ashley ad in the late stages of the campaign.

It's hot. This is the Northern Hemisphere equivalent of May, and it's definitely feeling like summer. Yeah, I know, technically May isn't summer in the NH, but we all know it can be plenty hot in mid/late May, especially in some regions of the continent. Anyway, it's hot today. Hotter than predicted (and I checked several different forecasts, too).

If I'd been able to stay inside all day, that would have been okay, but I had to go out (twice) and I definitely felt the heat (isn't that a song or something? hmmmm...). Its not too bad inside the house, but I'm going to turn the fan on, anyway, and I think I might even change out of these jeans and put on something lighter and more summery (cotton trousers, not shorts; I almost never wear shorts because my thighs stick to the cushion on my chair, ick).

Anyway.

I feel a bit better, physically, but mentally I"m still really out of it. My concentration is terrible, and my mental motivation (for lack of a better term) is not there at all, i.e., I can't get myself motvated to do, well, anything. I dunno what the heck is going on, but I've decided to increase my magnesium supplements, as this is something that frequently helps when I get in a slump like this (no, I don't know specifically why; I only know from trial and error that it does help).

I'm so tired lately. I have no idea why. Yesterday I went to bed at the obscenely early hour of 9:30 (early for me, anyway) and was asleep by 10pm. I got up today around 8:30 or so, and I'm still completely exhausted. No amount of caffeine seems to help, and even my usual energy-boosting breakfast of museli (it does great things for my metabolism!) hasn't helped. I just feel like I'm going to fall asleep at my desk and hit my forehead against the monitor...

[EDIT] I went and had a lie-down, and dozed off an on for a couple of hours. Felt a bit better upon rising. Now, several hours later, I have a tummy ache. Perhaps it's some sort of mild virus or something.

Either that or I'm preganant. Ha.

A computer security firm said Thursday it had discovered the first virus that uses music publisher Sony BMG's controversial CD copy-protection software to hide on PCs and wreak havoc.
 
"This leaves Sony in a real tangle. It was already getting bad press about its copy-protection software, and this new hack exploit will make it even worse," said Sophos's Graham Cluley.

The fallout from a hidden copy-protection program that Sony BMG Music Entertainment put on some CDs is only getting worse. Sony’s suggested method for removing the program actually widens the security hole the original software created, researchers say.
 
Sony apparently has moved to recall the discs in question, but music fans who have listened to them on their computers or tried to remove the dangerous software they deposited could still be vulnerable.
 
“This is a surprisingly bad design from a security standpoint,” said Ed Felten, a Princeton University computer science professor who explored the removal program with a graduate student, J. Alex Halderman. “It endangers users in several ways.”

Okay. I've been working on this blog and its many templates off and on all day and I've gotten all of the templates of this site to validate perfectly. There's NOTHING wrong with the HTML or the CSS.

And yet, the individual entry pages (specifically around the comments) still don't display some things correctly in Internet Explorer. And you know what? I don't care. If I can write 100% valid code and the stinking browser still doesn't display correctly, well, that's just too damned bad. I can't be expected to figure out what the bug is that's causing the problem, and I'm not going to try.

If you're using IE and some of the display looks funny to you, well, hey, blame Bill Gates and then switch to something better.

Well, I've been poring over the code on the individual entry pages for hours. I cannot for the life of me figure out why certain aspects of the page design work perfectly in Netscape, Opera, and Firefox, but do NOT work in IE. It's GOT to be some quirk of the browser that I'm not aware of, some bug that affects the display. I'm genuinely perplexed, and very annoyed.

I'll keep messing with it because I tend to be obsessive that way, but I actually have other things that I need to get done, as well, and if IE can't read and execute perfectly valid CSS, well, I dunno what I can do...

Anyway. If youre using IE and the display looks weird to you, I do apologize, and I'm still looking into it, but at this point, I'm still scratching my head (mostly in the places where I've pulled out my hair).

Well. I finally opened up IE and started to check this blog with it. #@$%!!!!

I totally forgot about IE's idiosyncratic implementation of CSS, and I see a bunch of stuff that now needs to be fixed. *&^#@ I'm going to end up having to fix every single template and then rebuilding everything. *&^#$

Well. IE users (stop that, go get Firefox right away, and yes, you can import your IE bookmarks as well as enjoying a superior browser), I do apologize, and I'm working on it, but I put the blame squarely on Microsoft and their slipshod adherence to standards.

I have mentioned that I *&^#$ing hate IE, haven't I?

This is me fixing this website

I also noticed that due to the fixed background, the sideways scroll does weird things at lower resolutions. I'll be fixing that shortly. It's not IE's fault. For a change.

Most people know him as the Minister for Silly Walks on "Monty Python" or as Q in James Bond films. But John Cleese will also go down in history for another reason: lemurs.

After what feels like hours of tweaking (oh, wait, it was hours), I think I've got the new template sorted out, and the comments appear to work. I decided to just require a TypeKey authentication (easy, free, private, no problem) for commenting to save myself having to manually moderate the commenting system. Of course, people are still welcome to email me if they prefer.

I haven't yet checked the site with IE, although I did with Opera and it's fine. IE is my most hated browser (a position formally occupied by NS4.x, which I no longer give a damn about, and yeah, this site probably looks like complete crap in that one). I also haven't got a Mac, so I can't check with any flavor of Mac browser, but the HTML/CSS is pretty standard so I don't anticipate too many issues in that department.

Whew. And people wonder why I tend to keep the same site design for years at a time...

Sony's Web-based XCP uninstallation utility exposes users to serious security risk. Under at least some circumstances, running Sony's Web-based uninstaller opens a huge security hole on your computer. We have a working demonstration exploit.

There will be lawsuits. (Here's the first.) Police are getting involved. There's a Trojan that uses Sony's rootkit to hide. And today Sony temporarily halted production of CDs protected with this technology.
 
Sony really overreached this time. I hope they get slapped down hard for it.

---

(That link is to a blog entry, with lots of links in it and lots of comments with even more links.)

Well, that was more painful than I expected, but I got the new template installed. It was painful because I ended up doing a zillion and one rebuilds and MySQL crashed in the middle of it for some unknown reason and I had to figure out how to restart it by myself (which I did, I'm happy to say). Had a few tweaks I had to get sorted out, as well. I think I may still need to install the custom templates for some of the system pages, but I'm tired and it's late and I can't be bothered to check on it right now (I'll do it tomorrow.)

Comments are off at the moment because I can't seem to get the &^$#ing auth stuff to work (it works perfectly in the test blog, but not in this one, no idea why, too tired to deal with it).

Oh, and orange is not among my favorite colors. I can't remember ever doing a web design that was primarily orange. I wear orange a lot because it's good for my coloring, but I don't actually like it that much (if that makes sense), and so I put the anthropomorphic unicorn in an orange tshirt and black jeans (very, very me), and also because the orange shirt goes with the red hair in the toon, and then I just kinda had to carry the orange theme on throughout the design. I like it, and it's certainly fresh and different from the previous design, so it's all right.

Yeah, it's meant to be a sort of charicature of me, in case you were wondering. A sort of fantasy alter ego, so to speak (I'm not that cute).

Whew. Tired geek. Bedtime. Past bedtime. See you tomorrow.

Picture a fat, pale, redheaded, bespectacled geek woman doing the Snoopy Dance. That's how I feel at the moment. YAY!

I upgraded to MovableType 3.2 and it's been driving me nuts with a couple of really weird errors. I was actually so frustrated I was considering switching to something else. I had searched the knowlege base and just couldn't figure out what was wrong or how the heck to fix it, but I finally managed to hit on the right search terms and found out a way to fix the problem. YAY! *does the Snoopy Dance*

So, as soon as I can get the new template appropriately tweaked, I'll be able to change it all over. Whew. This has been driving me (more) crazy (than I normally am).

And guess what? I'm actually going to enable comments, I think (although with appropriate moderation and authorization key and stuff; I've never been keen on letting random strangers use my web space to further their own agenda, which is why I never enabled comments here).

Okay. Back to tweaking templates...

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

Stung by continuing criticism, the world's second-largest music label, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, promised Friday to suspend making music CDs with anti-piracy technology that can leave computers vulnerable to hackers.

(I still don't trust them.... do you?)

No matter what you do or where you go, you're always going to be yourself. And Panexa knows this. Your lifestyle is one of the biggest factors in choosing how to live. Why trust it to anything less? Panexa is proven to provide more medication to those who take it than any other comparable solution. Panexa is the right choice, the safe choice. The only choice.

Computer Associates said that new anticopying software Sony is using to discourage pirating of its music also secretly collects information from any computer that plays the discs including hundreds of people in Australia who buy BMG Sony music. One of the world's largest software and information technology companies, Computer Associates is the latest to wade into the growing controversy over Sony's efforts to curb theft and illegal pirating of its music.In Europe Police have been called in to investigate Sony's actions.

Hairy Nut Sack Runs the New York Marathon (NOTE: comical and cartoony, but may be offensive to persons of delicate sensibilities, don't say you weren't warned).

A gorgeous young redhead goes into the doctor's office and says that she hurts anywhere on her body if she touches herself.

"Impossible!" says the doctor. "Show me."

The redhead takes her finger, pushes on her left breast and screams, and then she pushes her elbow and screams in even more agony.

She pushes her knee and screams; likewise she pushes her ankle and screams.

Everywhere she touches makes her scream.

The doctor says, "You're not really a redhead, are you?"

"Well, no" she says, "I'm actually a blonde."

"I thought so," the doctor says. "Your finger is broken."

Armed with clipboards, pencils and matching "I LOVE NY" shirts, a team of surveyors recently set up shop in New York's Central Park on behalf of RSA Security to find out how much personal information consumers would give up while participating in a survey supposedly about tourism in the city.
[...]
The RSA Security Life Questions survey between August 24 and September 6, 2005. Questions ranged from essentially harmless "Is this your first visit to New York City?" to more sensitive requests such as the participant's date and place of birth, mother's maiden name, children's names, pet's name, favorite sports team, their methodology for creating passwords, full mailing address and more.

Andrew and I once had a discussion about the Puritan habit of giving their daughters names of abstract concepts that they felt virtuous. Names like Hope, Charity, Patience, Chastity, Constance, Silence, etc.

We then went on to think of modern virtues that might be names. We came up with a few (with the help of Andrew's brother, Greg). Here's a short list. You can think of your own, I'm sure...

Tolerence, Diversity, Productivity, Empowerment, Initiative, Community, Accountability, Sustainability...

Hmmm. Tolerence Diversity Bromage.... got a ring to it, dunnit....

I'm actively working on a new template for this blog. I may keep the existing one as an option if I can figure out how to do that, but I've never really taken much interest in "skinning" sites, so I may just retire this design. ANYway, the new design is in Photoshop even as we speak. Zoë liked it, watched me working on it and said, "Oh, that's so cute!" and Miranda commented "That's you, Mama!" so there you go. (Enough hints for now.)

I will say that it's being designed for a 1024 screen display width. I have traditionally always made my pages so they work at 800 width, and for some things I still will, but this is a personal site, and the design I'm using actually will work at 800 (you'll have to scroll, but then you can just scroll down and be able to read all of the content once your browser is "centered"), and I'm tired of restricting myself to a teeny little space. Hey, my screen resolution is set to 1200x1600, and I know I'm not alone in that, so I figure that so long as it works at 800 for the actual text, well, if you can't see all of it in one go, that's no great loss to you. The content (I hope!) is the important stuff here.

So, anyway, keep an eye on this blog for big design changes in the forseeable but as yet non-specific future.

On Monday, October 31, alert users discovered that Sony BMG is using copy-protected CDs to surreptitiously install its digital rights management technology onto PCs. You don't have to be ripping the CD, either--just playing it from your CD-ROM drive triggers the installation. The software installs itself as a root kit, which is a set of tools commonly used to make certain files and processes undetectable, and they're the favored tool of crackers who are, as Wikipedia puts it, attempting to "maintain access to a system for malicious purposes." In fact, root kits are often classified alongside Trojan horses. And Mark Russinovich, who created a root-kit detection utility and was one of the first to blog about the Sony intrusion, discovered another little gem when he tried to remove the DRM drivers. It broke his computer--disabling his CD drive.

Well, go look in the Picture Gallery if you're interested.

Ralsky has long been identified as one of the world's largest spammers by anti-spam organization Spamhaus. The group describes him as a convicted felon who uses virus-infected PCs to send spam, and claims that he has hacked mail servers in the past to spread his spam.

Life is just good. I feel contented, bordering on happy. I have no reason for this. I haven't won the lottery or anything. I'm just happy.

What a glorious, marvellous, magnificent feeling to be happy just because.

Pet the cat! (Requires Flash.)

I like the design for this blog (and other pages on this site which match it) but I'm getting a wee bit tired of it. It's been on here for years, and it also has this weird habit of doing strange things to the entries if I post anything that's too wide for it to cope with. I really probably ought to figure out how to do CSS-only layouts, but the last time I did that, I drove myself nearly insane because different browsers parse things differently (and IE has NEVER gotten the CSS right, and if you don't believe me, do a Google search for IE broken box css and see for yourself). I can usually fix stuff if I can get the browser in which it's broken, but in this case, it was only broken on a Mac running a particular OS and, gee, I don't happen to have a lot of Macs with different operating systems and while I did ask for help, nobody seemed to be able to figure it out, and I gave up.

Haven't gone back, really. Tables work for me, for the most part.

Anyway, I'm strongly thinking about redesigning this blog and the main domain pages, even have a vague idea of what I might like to use for a design motif, but it might be a while before I get off my large dimpled bottom to do it (I've got almost zero inspiration for web design lately, and by lately I mean, for several years).

I'm mostly making this entry to fill up space in the column so that the text will again flow properly, by the way.

Could you tell I was just rambling for no real reason? No. Don't answer that...