Thank god for old old backups and brain farts while falling asleep. I was laying there one night about a week ago and thought “Hey! I know I backed up stuff to DVD…” and voila! I had files from mid-2005 that I brought back to life! It took all evening, but I just finished updating (i.e. reformatting to CSS) all the pages so now I get to work on the little things like text blurbs and new graphics.
(It’s Hudson Ink if you’re interested in taking a look!)
I hate it when you get an email from a company saying “We’re sorry, but your credit card information may have been compromised.” I know it happens, but we’ve both been pretty lucky so far—if having only two occurrences of fraudulent charges is lucky (one on my account and one on Tom’s). This time it was CooksIllustrated.com—long story short, they can’t guarantee our information was taken, but it might have been copied (or something like that). So I called to place a fraud alert on my credit report and cancelled the credit card. North Carolina apparently offers a security freeze for such situations, except you have to either file a police report (to get the freeze for free) or pay $10 per bureau. I’ll decide on that after I sleep on it. I can’t imagine I’d really NEED it for one compromised credit card—but I guess it’s nice to know the option is there.
http://www.hotcrankypeople.com/
So since I’m currently banned from my favorite online community for another 10 days or so, I’ve been asking people on another board to give me their sites and/or blogs so I have something to read during the day. (Before you ask about work, let me just say it’s REALLY dead right now. Besides the fact that this time of year is notoriously slow, we also only have four actual active listings and probably 20 closings—which is a far cry less than we’d normally have.) So there have been quite a few submissions, but my most favorite has to be Hot Cranky People by sallypnut. I love her writing style, her sense of humor, the quantity and hilarity of pictures—and to top it all off? She’s a cat person! Whoohoo! Her blog is what I wish mine could be. (If you go visit her site, please don’t tell me how much her site rocks as compared to how much mine sucks. Thanks.)
My new favorite show is Firefly, which really sucks because there was only one season produced and it was cancelled long ago (2002). A million curses to the stupid Fox executives and their inability to successfully promote the show and keep it on the air for more than one lousy season (as evidenced by the fact I’m just now, in 2006, learning about it). This show is miles ahead of most of the slop out there today, and I believe it would easily have run for many seasons if more people had been able to actually see it in the first place. So, I highly recommend you rent or purchase the first season on DVD and then go out and rent or purchase the movie, Serenity (2005).
At the moment, I’m torn…do I rush through the remaining episodes one right after the other because they’re THAT good and I can’t get enough, or do I dole them out slowly, taking my time, because I know I only have a few more to go before THE END?
Life is not fair.
So, I’ve been temporarily banned from one of the online forums I visit regularly. Why? What could I have possibly done to get me banned for two weeks? Apparently, my only real faults were A) not being able to read the atmosphere of the board and the minds of the moderators and B) not clearly thinking through my choice of words. Translation? I posted what I thought was an innocent question, asking other people what they thought of hard news posts being posted as frequently as they were. Discussion ensued. The moderators thought I was picking on the forum member who posts these news stories. They called my post a “thinly veiled threat” against him. Huh? A thinly veiled threat? I still don’t get how it was a threat to him, but you never know with moderators. (And don’t even think about questioning a moderator because chances are that will get you banned right on the spot.) So I was banned for three days.
But the rub to all this is I also post on another board and apparently there are spies over there who like to tattle on people. So a lighthearted comment that I made over there was tattled back to the moderator of the first board, who then used what I said (or, rather, what was tattled) to determine my fate on the original board. Pure BS, but it gets worse (if you can imagine): I told Tom how I had been banned and he wanted to see the post that caused it. Well, him logging in on the same IP [as the one I was banned under] immediately got him banned for two days. Grrrr. So at the end of our time, I checked his account by logging in and his account was fine. I logged out as him and logged in as me and….I had 13 days!! What? Oh, they said I was once again “trying to get around the ban” and using my husband’s account. Um, no I wasn’t. But they don’t care to hear the story (well, they listened, but disagreed with me).
So, I was unfairly sentenced to begin with which led to further sentencing that was also unfair. In the mix, Tom has been permanently banned for life and I am on strike two.
It’s all so juvenile (the tattling) and heavy-handed (everyone is automatically guilty) it’s amazing. And it really ticks me off and gets my blood boiling…because there’s nothing worse than being innocent and no one believes you (or refuses to believe you) no matter what you say.
(Of course, there’s more to the story, but that’s the gist of it all.)
So about a month or so ago, I received a promotional email for Quiznos, with a link to a coupon for “Buy one sub, get one free.” This is a great deal, as their subs are expensive (about $5 for a small and $9 for a large)…but sooooooooo good.
A week or so later, we decided to print out the coupon again and guess what? The expiration date had changed! (We don’t know if this was a programming glitch or if it was supposed to change…but they accepted the coupon so we were thrilled!) So, then we started going like twice a week…always using the coupon. And the expiration date kept changing! Cool! And then they started GIVING us coupon booklets, which included B1G1 coupons, as well as dollars off coupons for other menu items. WOOHOO! And I just checked, and the coupon is still good so if you live near a Quiznos, take advantage! (Now that I look on the coupons they gave us, it appears the B1G1 deal is through 2/28, so I’m guessing the online coupon will keep changing dates until that time.)
So, conservatively, we’ve gotten subs from them about 10 times. Maybe more. I mean, you can’t beat dinner for two for $7 (medium size)…or dinner for two and lunch for two for $9 (large size, so you have half left over). We haven’t paid full price for one meal yet.
Tom has mainly stuck to the Black Angus on Rosemary Parmesan Bread, while I’ve sampled a variety. My new favorite is the Honey Mustard Chicken with Bacon on Italian Ciabatta Bread, although the Double BLT is a close second.
Hmmmmm…all this talk of Quiznos has me leaning towards heading there for dinner tonight! Unfortunately, it’s on the other side of town so it takes me longer to get home, but the subs are so yummy it’s worth it!
http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm
It took quite some time and testing of a few different software programs before we finally found one that worked well enough to buy it—thankfully, it was only $45. After this mess, I’d highly recommend File Scavenger. It recovered probably 90-95% of my files, and we need to make another pass at it this weekend.
So, I’m thrilled… and my Christmas letter was recovered, finished last night, and printed! YEEHAW!
http://www.okcupid.com/te…030990046738815
My results?
Joe Normal
34 % Nerd, 17% Geek, 17% Dork
For The Record:
You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal. This is not to say that you don’t have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you—we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again (I do!), and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip (that’s SO me!). But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren’t much outcast. I’d say there’s a fair chance someone asked you to take this test. In any event, fairly normal. Congratulations!
The test tracked 3 variables. Here’s how I compared to other people my age and gender:
I scored higher than 7% on nerdiness.
I scored higher than 14% on geekosity.
I scored higher than 8% on dork points.
FINALLY! We’re back online! It was touch-and-go today, however… We’ve had our appointment scheduled for about a week now—sometime between 1pm and 5pm today. So Tom made sure he was home (he has lots of errands to do now that he’s home—that honey do list, you know). He called me at 4:58 to say “THEY HAVEN’T COME YET. And guess what? They were at our neighbor’s house earlier today!” Oh, we were FURIOUS. If our neighbors got their cable a day after moving in and we’ve been calling and waiting for two weeks and didn’t get ours… But by the time I got home at 5:20, the cable guy was here…and by about 6:30 we had our six cable outlets hooked up! We had to make a trip to town to get the necessary connector for the Tivo ethernet cable (high importance, believe me!) and now we’re back to normal…we’re both sitting in front of our respective computers. (Now we just have to clean the office and add more conducive light for working.)
Last week, I started receiving loads of spam that appears to come from me. It’s horrible! I get about 10-15 a day, and they all have viruses and worms and nasty things attached, and they’re all addressed from hudson2001.com—either from admin@ or webmaster@ or administration@ or support@. And they’re all addressed to various names, from john to pedro to frank to sandra to kevin. And I can’t block them since they appear to come from my own address. My domain host was going to try and block the incoming ISP but it apparently hasn’t done any good. I HATE SPAMMERS.
I’ve been playing a little online poker but I really don’t like it because people bid stupid (not like you’re supposed to, according to the rules) and I can’t play with that. Why? I’m still learning, and it’s so much harder to learn when people don’t play according to the rules. Of course, I just had a horrible experience on a hand…
I was last to bet.
Pre-flop (before any cards are shown, so you’re just bidding on the strength of your two cards)—Everyone checked, I raised 200, then everyone called. O-kay. In a real game, it’s unlikely everyone would check then the same people would all call.
Flop (the first three community cards are turned over)—Check, check, a guy bets 600, then everyone calls (including the checkers). O-kay. Again, in a real game, it’s unlikely everyone would check then the same people would all call 600.
Turn (the next community card is turned over)—Check, check, a guy bets 10 – 10! So after having just bet 600, he drops to 10. What the hell kind of bidding is that? Everyone calls his measly 10 and I raise 200. Then everyone calls my 200. WHAT? So no one has a hand good enough to raise themselves (the past three rounds) but again they will call my 200?
River (the last of the community cards)—Check, check, check, checks all around of course, so I go all-in for almost 1300 with 2-pair and…guess what? Everyone calls! ARGH!! THIS ISN’T HOW YOU PLAY POKER!!!
I ended up losing to 3-kind, which I don’t care, but I CANNOT PLAY WITH PEOPLE WHO BID LIKE THAT! IT MAKES ME NUTS!
I just have to say how much I love ebay—although I’m sure most of you already know I’m an ebay freak because I freely admit it! It’s especially great living in a small town where there aren’t lots of clothing stores…I find brand name things (my current fave is Tommy Hilfiger) for a FRACTION of the price! I love selling, too… right now I’m selling a bunch of things I won on ebay but didn’t fit or decided I didn’t like! Hey, it keeps me busy while Tom’s away…
Welcome to the first entry of my new (but old—the account was created over a year ago) blog. Pretty, ain’t it? You can thank Jim, whose own blog experience made me want to actually work on mine! I always thought it would be cool to have my own blog (and, you have to admit, it seems like a Jen thing to do)—but since I have a whole website that I sort of consider a blog, I never really got around to doing it…why duplicate things? That, and I was sure it would eat up more time than I was willing to devote to it…because you all know how I get sucked in to anything computer!! But, then Jim had to go ahead and change blog providers and he got me all excited again. So…after wasting a GOOD 30 minutes trying to get it set up correctly (wrong paths, wrong ftp logins, wrong passwords), I finally did it! (Then add another hour or so for fiddling with account settings…) So I might try my hand at this for a few days and see how it goes. Enjoy!