This is the Edward Gorey version of my blog. Miracles never cease.

Thursday, November 18, 2004  

HERE is a dramatic reinactment of the challenging technical problem which I was called to the testing center to solve today. That's right. They needed me to come fix the computer because part of the student's online test was cut off and he couldn't read all of the words.

It's a good thing I was here.

Sunday, October 24, 2004  

Went to 'The Grudge' last night with Shannon and P-chan and Kim. Not one of the greatest movies in history. All the character developement that they bothered to do was contrived. 'Look. Here's some photos of my friends who are now dead. I'll have a beer and go back into that house.' 'I really like my boyfriend, so I'll go back into the house.' That sums up ALL the character developement for the entire movie. Afterwards, Shannon and P-chan asked me if I wanted to go to a local spook alley. I said no thanks. I've had enough random and plotless creepiness for one day.

Monday, October 18, 2004  

On the bus this morning, random guy asked me what the date was. I told him that I thought it was the 18th. He said "Really? The 18th?"

"I think so."

"Huh. That's really strange. My phone is wrong. It says it's the 18th, but it also says it's Monday."

^^

I said, "It is Monday."

"It is?"

"Yes."

"Wow."

Indeed. Wow.

Anyway, I know that some of the stuff I've been writing lately has been lacking in sunshine. I am sorry about that. Please don't worry, though. The reason I can write about that stuff is because it's over now. I'm feeling much better. There are still some issues I would like to resolve, but if I can say that my mind was wrapped up in a dark place, it's because from my current point of view, I can see that it was. Thank you, though, for your concern.

Tuesday, October 12, 2004  

So I have moved into the YWCA, and it does, indeed, keep the rain off my head which is its primary purpose. The truth is, however, that it's about a half step up from a homeless shelter. Most of the people that live there are disabled, many with mental health related disabilities.

At the risk of sounding callous, I'm sure that most of the women that I'm coming to know here will influence my writing some day. I'm surrounded by fictional litterary characters. To further the Y cliche', on my second day in the program, one of the older ladies whose name is not Rachael came into the tv room to tell two of her friends (very loudly) that she had accidentally caught two of the residents groping. This isn't the funny part of the story. The funny part of the story is that as not Rachael shared this news with her two close friends (and whoever else happened to be within the enourmous range of her voice) she made sure to mention that we're all adults here, and that SHE doesn't judge. This would have been more convincing if she hadn't named names.

Thursday, September 30, 2004  

One of my most important friendships has been unraveling for about a year now. It's almost cliche', actually. When two long-time friends decide they can be roommates, there are bound to be struggles. You expect all the cartoony mishaps and the sudden urge to kill and a lot of other things. The last week has just been ugly and stupid and now I'm homeless again. Nothing I can do. I'm staying with a friend for now, and I'll be moving in to a new place as soon as I can come up with a deposit and first month's rent.

Physically, I'll be fine. Emotionally, I'm a great big wreck, but I've been one for some time.

I've seen it coming for months. Nothing I could say or do was right, and the demands were getting bigger and bigger. SHE is the one who is changed. Objective as I try to be in a situation like this, anyone who knows her would say the same thing. She is going through a rough time, and I'm a convenient target. This is what logic tells me. It still really really hurts.

Way back in May or April or something, I tried to tell a second very important friend about it. I really needed someone to talk to for the sake of my sanity. She promised to listen and be there for me, and immediately afterward, I felt like I was getting opposing signals from her. Like she felt I was a nuisance and a burden and a lot of other bad things. This could have been my imagination. It could have been a lot of things. But on top of everything else that was happening, I'm afraid that I did what a lot of people do when they're emotionally overwhelmed, and I started to revert to childhood patterns.

Now, for me, this means assuming that no one really likes me. That I'm not doing enough. That I'm not happy enough or helpful enough or that I'm just plain not enough and that everyone is just tolerating my presence. When a child feels this way for long enough, they decide to prove that they don't NEED any friends anyway.

Adult brain fought off these evil impulses to the best of her ability. However. I couldn't seem to stop myself from thinking childish and unworthy things about my remaining friends. Things like "This is the THIRD birthday present I've gotten her. How come she's never given ME one?" and "I TOLD them I wanted to play too the next time they dressed up for a convention! They didn't even ASK me!" and "If I'm not cool enough to be in their little clique, the least they can do is stop TELLING me about all the fun stuff they did together if I'm not invited!" All these signs seemed to point to the original conclusion. Nobody really likes me. I'm not four. I know better. But everybody HAS those little voices, and if you listen to them long enough, your changing beliefs may affect your behavior.

So I guess this is my apology to the world who never apologized to me. Or something. Lame as it may sound, I am sorry. But I'm down. Please stop with the kicking, already.

Saturday, September 18, 2004  

I had almost no use of my computer for the months of May and June. In March or so, I had picked up an adware program from KeenSpot. Yes, spot. It had been slowly adding programs and crap mostly of the autostart variety until my poor old processor was so burdened it could hardly do anything at all. I could run lavasoft every day and I would catch many things, but no matter how many items I removed that way, they would all respawn by the time I was done checking my email.

In the end, all I could do was reformat my harddrive (an epic struggle all by itself) and re-install windows. Luckily I have a cd. All praise Michael.

That was at the end of June, and about two weeks ago on a forum site, my computer showed signs of picking up the same ghoul infestation. Sure enough ...

Since it had been around for months, I assumed that I couldn't possibly be the only person who had struggled with it, so I tracked one of the ads to it's root server and then put a search in google for "Casale Uninstall." Fifth on the list was a forum discussion on PointSite "Casale Media popup spawning - SitePoint Forums" at http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192716. The thread had started with someone complaining about the same problems I was having and was followed by expressions of sympathy.

So about six posts down is an outraged response from a representative of Casale Media demanding an appology for the slander and insisting that his company does not do that sort of thing, or associate with anyone who does.

I can only assume that someone was playing around with different ways to ruin other people's computers and decided that they might as well throw in some advertising from a random ad company's client base because they thought they needed the sales. That must be it. Or. Out of the goodness of their hearts, some ad company with less than ethical practices decided to include a rival company's ads so that they wouldn't be burdened with all the revenue themselves. Maybe that's it.

Look, JasonCasaleMedia SitePoint Member, if you WRITE a program that causes popups when I'm in the shower with no copy of IE running, or you support the guy who does, WHAT is the diffence exactly? Either way, your company is making enemies.

One of the other posts pointed to a program for eliminating the problem. "HijackThis." Their Kung-Fu is strongest. Lavasoft won't touch the thing, but "HijackThis" eliminated it completely. If I had known this back in March, I would have saved myself a lot of pain.

Read this cautionary tale, and take what wisdom you can from it, my children.

And sorry about the invisible links problem. I'll fix that ... some day. Right now, I'm going to the library fair.

Friday, August 13, 2004  

Overall, Athens did a fabulous job with the opening ceremonies. Only one problem. If Salt Lake could get Sting AND Yo-yo Ma, why is it that Athens could only get Bjork?

So the Greeks out did themselves, and then the American announcers found as many ways as possible to annoy the viewing public. Particularly special moments (excepting that gawdawful Djibouti joke since they at least had the grace to be embarrassed about it) were the revelation that the ancient Greek god of love was apparently named Eras, and that the leader of Tonga recently visited Utah because of the enormous Tongan population of over six hundred. Do they KNOW how stupid they sound? Bob has ALWAYS been annoying, but Katie was obviously chosen for the job because of her brain.

NBC PAYS these people to say things like "Now they're going to project a DNA strand into the fog." Heaven forbid we should experience any surprise or sense of WONDER. No. Twenty seconds before anything resembling a double helix appears, the announcers do their job and tell us to expect it so that we won't be overwhelmed or confused by such an unrecognizable symbol. Thank you. Thank you Bob and Katie.