This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if I have enemies.
The answer is: not soon, God willing.
Bloggery Archive
It's been a busy week, hence the light-to-nonexistant posting. If I were any good, I'd be hammering away at the keyboard like Mike (and pals) at Cold Fury.
Work has been insanely busy. Customers who ought not to be fiddling with their networks during the Christmas retail rush have been breaking things. This puts them in direct contention for my time with customers who don't have to worry about retail sales, who plan on using the holiday season to break things.
Plus, it's time for the annual performance review. That would be going a lot quicker if the "goals" in my review weren't phoney-baloney boilerplate that doesn't apply to what I do. I guess I should just write some phoney-baloney boilerplate "accomplishments" to match... but that's a good deal more difficult than you might expect.
I took a fall during the wee hours Friday night/Saturday morning; it hasn't helped. I did something painful to my right leg (the good one) that's somewhat distracting. At least I didn't hurt my hands/wrists/arms in any way; I depend on them rather a lot.
I'm noticing a decline in my walking ability. I'm shakier on my feet than I've been in a while, and despite the nearly year-long regimen of physical therapy, there's weakness now I haven't had in maybe six months. I'm hoping the medicos get me in for that previously mentioned plasmapheresis treatment pretty soon... while I can still drive.
On the plus side, I got a package on Friday, full of wrapped boxes from the relatives in California. Nice. I'll resist temptation, and hold off opening any of them. The peanut butter fudge my mom made should hold me over until Thursday. Or at least until 4pm today.
Mom deserves her own show on the Food Network solely on the basis of her peanut butter fudge, that's how good it is.
Busy week here, hence the lack of posting.
Doctor appointments, later-than-usual nights at work, and so on.
After a checkup earlier this week with my regular doctor, my six-month checkup with the neurologist has been bumped up from February to next week. Some of my neurological symptoms are returning, which isn't what I'd hoped for, but which in hindsight makes a certain amount of sense, from an engineering point of view.
The shunt installed this time last year alleviated the symptoms, but did not — could not — resolve the underlying cause of the hydrocephalus. I think what's happening is that the problematic processes have continued on their merry way, and now they are beginning to catch up with what the shunt has been able to handle.
The solution, I'm guessing, would be to adjust the shunt to a higher rate of drainage. But, dammit Jim, I'm an engineer, not a doctor... so I'll be seeing the doc next week.
Sigh. And so it goes.
Kim du Toit, one of the great bloggers and a man with whom I've had the pleasure of meeting and shooting, retires from blogging.
He told us months ago that he would do so, and when, but it's still kind of hard to believe.
It's been an exhausting day, and I haven't got anything either terribly deep or really exciting to say. Fortunately, I have two fallback positions.
The first would be to find something interesting someone else said and make it a Quote of the Day. This might work, if I'd had time today to do any reading.
The other option is to write something about one or more of the cats, or post a picture. Fortunately, one of the various things I did today was take Kismet to the vet for an injection of Depomedrol to deal with his newly-diagnosed allergies.
It was a pretty quick trip, so his stress levels were not quite as high as they had been on his last trip, when the biopsy was performed.
On his return, he celebrated by shredding some of the paperwork from the vet.
We'll see how he's feeling tomorrow. I am, of course, hoping the injection is effective. Fingers crossed.
CY wonders who the biggest fools are.
The answer is "all of them."
I wondered why my blogrolls were refusing to load, so I tried going to blogrolling.com — the server is unreachable, and appears to be offline completely.
On a lark, I googled them, and brought up the cached version of their page. It appears blogrolling.com has been hacked by splodeydope wannabees. I took a screenshot of the Google cache as of 12:50pm today:
I'm reasonably sure they'll be back soon. At least, I hope so.
2pm update: Apparently all that was required for them to come back to life was for me to post something about it.
They'll be getting my bill in the mail soon.
The Anchoress: Why He’s Voting for McCain/Palin
Patterico: L.A. Times Distorts the Record on Responsibility for the Mortgage Crisis
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air: Israelis dispute pro-Obama video, plus (and it's about time) McCain blasts Obama, Democrats for Fannie Mae meltdown
Protein Wisdom: Obama and the Attempt to Destroy the Second Amendment
Cold Fury: Ayers America
IMAO: In My World: Guilt by Association
And some not-overtly-political stuff. . .
Castle Argghhh!: Like fingers of a hand: Four Soldiers, Sailor secure safe passage in Afghanistan
Hog on Ice: Finally, a Movie Where You're not the Villain
Lifehacker: DIY Skills You Know (and Don't)
Wizbang: The Knucklehead of the Day award
Who needs the kamikaze media anymore? I mean, other than those on the Left who enjoy hitting the talk show and cocktail circuit, being fawned over, sucked up to, and adored.
The new media of the Internet seems to be doing a pretty good job of reportage and analysis — one need only recall this to be reminded of the power of the web.
The latest effort from one of my favorite sites, The Jawa Report, is the kind of reporting that the media can no longer be relied upon to perform — especially when Democrats are involved.
To wit: Hope, Change, & Lies: Orchestrated "Grassroots" Smear Campaigns & the People that Run Them.
Devastating.
The above, which explores a smear of Sarah Palin — likely orchestrated by players in the Obama campaign — is a long, thoughtful, tech-savvy and well-researched investigative piece the likes of which you won't find in the press. Even when the target is a conservative, the press doesn't do things this thoroughly.
Kudos to Rusty Shackleford for his fine work. Maybe someone will sit up and take notice. Someone like, perhaps, the FEC.
FLAMING SKULL UPDATE [with the obligatory language alert] : Devastating, indeed. Ace notes that the videos in question have already been pulled from YouTube, minutes after Rusty's post. Good thing copies were made.
I see that the main YouTube account in question has been closed, too. The guilty flee....
The best essayist in the blogosphere, Bill Whittle, has a column up at National Review Online. Tagline:
For the first time, I feel like we deserve to win more than they deserve to lose.
Definitely worth the read.
Just testing my w.bloggar capability.
Yes, I know, I still need to populate the sidebars, fiddle with the visited link colors, adjust some of the spacing and whatnot.
Yes, I did sleep. From about 1am to about 4am. Not exactly what I would usually hope for, but I don't have to work later today/tonight, so a nap this afternoon should see me through.
There are still a lot of little things I need to do with the site before I'm happy with the overall look and feel, but at least I have figured out the MT4 template structure.
I'm fairly sure I'll be working on this for a while — tweaking settings, adjusting the sidebar contents, and so on.
If you encounter any particular problems, please feel free to let me know.
This has been a sad week for those of us who frequent the Cat Blogosphere.
Violette Noelle, known as "Sprout," the young daughter of one of our own, passed away after a terrible and tragic accident.
She was three months old. Her funeral is today.
I cannot imagine a more horrible thing for parents to have to endure. Please keep little Violette Noelle's family in your thoughts and prayers during this most difficult of times.
Yesterday, users of Internet Explorer version 7 were probably unable to view this site, or many other blogs, due to a bug in IE7 triggered by the Sitemeter code many blogs have embedded on their pages.
Information on the problem here, with specifics about the IE7 bug here.
Sitemeter appears to have resolved the problem on their end for the time being.
But... why are you still using IE7? Get Firefox.
Yeah, that was me.
Maybe one of these days I'll get another bit of linkage from the Prof, for something other than a crappy Photoshop job. Of course, that would entail me being creative or insightful, so don't hold your breath.
A few things that have caught my eye so far today:
- Darleen Click, Protein Wisdom: Bullies of the Living Constitution. Slow down, Canada — we're catching up to you.
- Just A Grunt, JammieWearingFool: Something That Needs To Be Said Again. Again and again.
- Ed Morrissey, Hot Air: Breaking: Obama passes on public financing. Pants on fire.
- Mike Hendrix, Cold Fury: Of motes and beams. I'm outraged.
- John Hawkins, Right Wing News: Parent Accused Of Child Abuse Based On Reports From A Psychic. I want to not believe.
- At Mostly Cajun: Marching morons. Lock-step on the road to Hell.
- Jay Tea at Wizbang! makes A Fearless Prediction. Unfortunately, he's probably right.
From Mostly Cajun, we have the latest episode of "The Name Game." It's a regular feature there, and reading it has the same horrid fascination as watching a train wreck; you can't turn away.
A former employee of one of the many medical offices I frequent just had a baby this past week. I heard from one of her co-workers that the child had been named "Jayden" or "Jaden" or something similarly homophonic.
I have no idea if that's supposed to be a boy's or a girl's name.
[Exit, shaking head in dismay.]
Another perfectly good word I've never before used here, and at some point might have used, but. . .
. . . Mike at Cold Fury has used it well enough that I don't have to: "risible."
(Language alert is in effect.)
Because I suck, that's why. And I'm rather busy today.
More later.
Or perhaps, maybe more, eventually.
- askance
- resentment
- raconteur
- hemorrhage
- nozzle
- knucklehead
- omelette du fromage
- blockbuster
- apotheosis
- spud
I recently got tagged by my long-time friend Beth, but sadly the "tag" was buried under an avalanche of recent comments. Anyway, here goes:
The Rules:1. Write your own six word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to the original post if possible so we can track it as travels across the blogosphere.
4. Tag at least five more blogs with links.
5. Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.
Six words? Hmm....
Disabled, nerdy veteran, hermit. Blessed, nonetheless.
(I'll take a pass on the followup tagging, though.)
I've installed the new software — MT4.1 (the open source variety) and have begun working on the template redesign.
You can see the current state of affairs here.
This is a lot more complicated than the older MT template system. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. It might be a while before I get even the basic functionality I need ready to roll out.
Having reached my fifth blogiversary, and my fourth with this design/layout, it's time to do a little remodelling and, I hope, some revitalizing.
I'm going to start with a fresh install of MT4.1, rather than an upgrade. I may hose my archives, maybe not — I'll keep them intact, but linkage may be broken along the way.
Redesign/rebranding is going to happen, as well. These templates take forever to rebuild, which really slows down commenting and rebuilding, for which I get a lot of grief from my webhosts. I can spike a server CPU without even trying.
Nothing much will be be changing right now, and I won't be putting up a fullly-implemented site all at once — the changes will be incremental — but don't be surprised if you visit one day soon and everything looks different.
One of the the things that makes a good blog is an active intelligent comment section.
At Protein Wisdom (one of my top five favorite sites) we read, in comments to the post Best & Worst Christmas Television Specials,
My other favorite Christmas special is the one where President Bush is trying to explain logic to a bunch of reporters and the reporters want to talk about moods and emotions and then all of a sudden Santa comes in with an Uzi and strafes the whole press corps.
Now I know what I'm asking for, for Christmas.
Envy — Whoever gets to kick Ted Rall's ass for this, I envy.
Lust — Someone really really likes fire... in an entirely inappropriate way. Pity we don't use firing squads to deal with such.
Gluttony — They always want more, and they won't rest until they get it.
Greed — Illegals demand: "Gimme gimme gimme!"
Sloth — Too lazy to do due diligence in their reporting, TNR gets pwned by Bob Owens.
Wrath — Code Pink is mad... mad, as in "insane."
Pride — "I'm a reporter! Respect me!" Um... no. That syllogism just doesn't work.
I saw this posted yesterday on MySpace*, and thought the article was rather interesting.
Interesting, indeed. I wrote it almost three years ago.
Annoying, that. If I depended on my writing for my living (which, I might mention, I used to do) or on hit-counts for my self-worth, I'd be steamed by someone lifting my work, even though (as in this instance) the "lifter" makes no attempt to pretend the work is their own.
They're called hyperlinks, people. Use them. If you don't know how, you perhaps ought not to have a web page of your own.
* [No, I don't troll MySpace; I saw it in my referrer logs. Would I be wrong to think most MySpace users are retarded?]
Steve H. of Hog On Ice may be many things — including one of the funniest guys I read — but I can guarantee that he's not an SOB.
Thanks, Steve.
Though I've not been able to make a personal contribution this year, it is incumbent upon me to point out that today is Tartan Day.
Some previous years' entries from Yours Truly can be seen here, here, here, here, and here. The last one might explain how a guy who isn't in fact of Scots origin is involved with Tartan Day in any way.
As she does every year to very good effect, Ith at Absinthe & Cookies is coordinating the Tartan Day festivities. Do go and check her out.
Continue reading Och Aye.
As I do every year, I have managed to completely forget my blogiversary, this year my fourth such having been on the 9th of this month.
Of course, this is an eminently forgettable site, more so lately due to my scant posting and lack of weighty discussion. Perhaps I can rectify that.
Four years I've been doing this? Egads, I suck.
Kvetch about my own problems as I may, they are nothing — nothing — compared to what Cathy Seipp has gone through these past few years.
If only all of us could show such grit as Cathy did in the face of defeat.
I've been toiling away on site maintenance issues... but not here. Which I should be doing, but that's another story altogether. I really do want to get a new design going....
No, rather, I've been assisting Ith at Absinthe & Cookies. I still have some tweaking to do, but go ahead and visit.
Having been tagged by Stander, and not having done a meme in a while, well, it's time.
The rules of the game: I whip up a quick blurb about 1) the 3 things I want most for Christmas, and 2) the 3 things I definitely DON'T want for Christmas. Then, I proceed to tag players B, C, D, E and F (that's five other other people, for the sequentially-challenged) in the Comments section of one of their recent posts with a note leading to my post inviting them to do the same thing. Simple, easy, and free traffic for everybody involved. What's not to love?
Here we go...
Wants:
1) Sing along with me: "All I want for Christmas is two working knees."
2) I want one or two more cats. Too bad Mycah doesn't play well with others.
3) Mostly, I want to see my family this year. OK, I already got that.
Don't Wants:
1) Don't get me something just for the sake of getting me something. I already have a lifetime supply of stuff.
2) Nothing girly. No scented soaps, no precious little figurines, etc. I like being a man, and would prefer not to be mistaken by visitors for anything else.
3) Please: no "self-help" anything. Ever. I believe in the principle of "it's the thought that counts," so if you send me something that implies I'm not already perfect in every way, I'll know what you're thinking.
Tagging:
Jim at Smoke on the Water
Vinnie, of Vince aut Morire
Maggie, she of the meanderings and shameless plugs
Lori at Downtown Chick Chat
Bob, at Confederate Yankee
I've been called many things before.
"Stretch," "Tiny" — classics. "Sasquatch," "Lurch" — a bit more creative. "Uncle Russ." My all-time favorite.
I won't get into the various insults.
But I don't think I have ever been called a "fine blogger."
It's not actually true. . . but I'll say thanks anyway to Jay Tea, who is 100% correct in the rest of his post on election dirty tricks. No one, but no one, gets a pass to mess with the integrity of our elections.
OK, when did my comments stop working?
Argghhh.
[8:00pm - OK, they seem to be working now.]
Bill Whittle has posted the next installment of his magnum opus: Seeing the Unseen (Part 1).
Today, it seems that legions of people – growing legions – are falling victims to ideas and beliefs that on the face of it are patently false…things that are so clearly and obviously nuts that you really have to wonder what deep, mighty engine of emotional need could possibly drive a brain so deep into a hole.
As always with Bill's work, it's a good read. No — a must read.
I wanted one of those submarines, too.
I've done some work under the hood here, and I think I might have broken something.
If you have a blog, could you please try sending a trackback to this post? (Or to any post, it doesn't matter.)
And, if it's not asking too much, if you do send a TB and it fails, could you let me know in the comments?
Thanks much.
Just in case you're the last blog-reader not to have seen it yet, check out Protein Wisdom's Jeff Goldstein in the debut of his new video series, The Citizen Journalist Report.
Episode 1 revolves around a great concept, well executed. It seems that the quality of Jeff's writing may be matched by his ability to think on his feet in a "live" situation.
It should be interesting to see what Jeff has in store for future outings.
This post exists merely to disprove the proposition that I have become nothing but a catblogger.
Don't get me wrong — I like cats — but I really ought to be posting more than photos of Mycah and seven-word movie reviews (eight, if you break out the contraction.)
But I'm at the office, and it's busy enough that I can't sit and compose anything longer at the moment... or most other moments, really.
It seems to me that if there is one lesson to be learned from Jeff Goldstein's current episode with the demented Dr. Deb Frisch, it is not in relation to blogs and blogging, nor is it about the state of political discourse on the web. Rather, it is to parents who give their kids unfettered access to the internet.
There are sick freaks everywhere, and given the opportunity, they will prey on your kids. Blogspace is no exception.
Parents: know what your kids are doing online. Don't guess — find out. And take threats seriously.
Jeff Goldstein and his family are under attack again. Known nutcase Deb Frisch is the presumptive malefactor.
The far fringes of the Left cannot out-argue Jeff on the points, so instead they try to silence him in other ways. One has, for the moment, succeeded... I hope it's only for the very short term.
Warning: there may be some extremely vile language in some of these links. Deb is not a rational person, and tends to inspire, shall we say, strong feelings in the comments of people who disagree with her.
I did a traceroute based on the IP address Ace posted - see a similar result at DNSstuff.com.
Hop number 14 in the traceroute linked above is at a device called eugn-dsl-gw01-97.eugn.qwest.net, which to those of us in the networking business shows that the destination address connects to a DSL gateway router in Eugene, Oregon. Surprise, surprise... this is the area of the country in which the ex-professor Frisch has said she resides.
Coincidentally, this is the same gateway that Deb was connected to the last time she pulled this crap, immediately before her departure from the University of Arizona. [I helped Jeff with the IP, DNS and other lookups at that time.]
It's time for Deb Frisch to disappear into the confines of a cell, padded or otherwise, and down the memory hole as well.
Internet verb, indeed.
Update(s) below the fold...
Continue reading Not Knowing When To Quit.
At Patterico's Pontifications, Patrick Frey documents, at length and with class and humor, the full tale of Glenn Greenwald's sock-pu