The world is pretty fucked up right now — though I’m sure there have been people throughout the ages who felt that way. But here we are destroying our planet and arguing with people who simply don’t believe that fact. Well… what I say to those of you who think global warming isn’t real — Please tell me, exactly what harm would it do to preserve, protect & defend this planet?

Frikkin’ morons.

Am I happy with my chosen president? No — I am not. I feel disappointed. I thought he would be far more progressive. But he’s not. (Still better than the senile McCain though.) We’re still in Iraq & Afghanistan, we haven’t addressed health care in any meaningful way (like single payer… hello???!) He’s just too damned willing to compromise on issues where the rule of law should take precedence (i.e., Miranda rights). No one has been able to tell me exactly what it hurts to inform people of their rights. Of course he inherited a world of shit from his predecessor, the moron. And I do worry for his safety because of the lunatic fringe right wing nut jobs who are constantly egged on by the likes of glen beck and the big fat lying idiot limbaugh.

Then there’s the BP oil spill… oy… It’s frikkin’ overwhelming the amount of shit that is just wrong these days. It’s disheartening. What do we fix first? How do we fix things if everyone’s on the take? It’s maddening.

Another thing that I find incomprehensible are Arizona’s new policies on illegal immigrants. I cannot think of anything more completely un-American. These laws are without merit and seem to me unConstitutional. Using crime as justification for these laws is just a load of bullshit. Make no mistake these laws were written by white supremacist motherfuckers.

Arizona’s also going off the deep end trying to restrict not just what teacher’s are allowed to teach, but how they sound when they teach it? WTF? Here’s a good article on The Moderate Voice: http://themoderatevoice.com/71069/codifying-bigotry/

Rachel Maddow tells it like it is too:

“First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Back in August of 2006, Boots was diagnosed with CRF (chronic renal failure). From that time to this,  Boots fought the valiant fight until, as expected, the kidney disease finally won out. But he (and we) did win 3 extra years full of life and the pleasure of each others company.

Even though we knew this would happen eventually, it didn’t make it any easier for any of us. There is very definitely an emptiness in our home.  That feeling of a specific missing part of the whole. It has taken me a while to get used to not having to medicate  him every night. I kept thinking it was time to do his meds. I still have to remind myself sometimes.

There were many times that Boots seemed to be studying us, as much as we would study him. He seemed to enjoy watching us, but I don’t know for sure of course. I don’t want to anthropomorphize too much, but there were times I thought he was looking at us and thinking how strange human behavior is. I remember him watching me put on pantyhose, and I swear his expression said, “What the hell is she doing?”

He was fascinated by shadow and light. So when I went to my first (and last) cat show and saw the laser pointers for sale, I got one for him. He loved that red dot, man did he ever. He especially loved spinning around in circles until he was dizzy. And as soon as he recovered he wanted to spin around again. When the laser wasn’t being used, Boots would sit and stare at the usual spots where Bill would shine it, and look back and forth at Bill and these areas, with an expression of, “well, where’s the red dot, you gonna play with me or what?” Bill would happily oblige.

And he was a belly-boy. Boots absolutely loved to have his belly rubbed, and it was never a trap. He would purr up a storm.

Boots always loved to play with the water in the water bowl. As a kitten he would place his toys in the water bowl and bat them around. He did outgrow that, but he never stopped  moving the water dish around, and always moved it into the path of human foot traffic. Despite our best efforts we eventually would kick the bowl and spill water everywhere.

Since he’s gone, the water bowl stays where it’s been placed.

What is it that these larger companies don’t understand? It’s simple — we are paying them to provide a service, and at the very least — if they want to keep our business — they ought to provide informative, intelligent help. They pay lip-service to having online help, or response in 24-hours, but if and/or when you get a response it’s not meaningful, it has no bearing on the issue you’ve written to them about. 99% of the time it is someone who is paid to read from a script, asking a set of questions, regardless of the fact that those questions have nothing whatsoever to do with the issue you are having.

Long story short — shoulda been more diligent about backing up my blog dB (lesson learned). The blog dB got totally munged somehow, one day it was there, next day I went to login and it was all gone.

All I wanted to know from the hosting company (Dotster) was (a) did they have any backups (which I knew was doubtful) and (b) could they tell me if security had been compromised or the cause of the dB failure.

I got the usual automated responses that said I would hear from someone in 24 hours — but that didn’t happen.  The first response I received from an actual person made it seem as though I was going to get help. It said “this should be fixed with in 24 hours i have forwarded this to our team will be work on it.” Horrible English, yes — but the “team” was going work on my problem. A day passed, then two, it was New Years… so I waited ’cause who works during the holidays?

It took 2.5 more weeks before I got any further information, and by that time I was pretty well angry… not about my site, but about the lack of basic information, and/or courtesy — not to mention decent intelligible English.

All I wanted was an answer — the first time. I didn’t need a fake — we’ve got our team on it — just a hey, “we don’t backup customer databases” would have been fine. I’m sure it was something in the original agreement, but who remembers those things? Especially when your dB has been lost — I just wanted confirmation, information, an intelligent, courteous human reply.

I immediately moved the site here to Hurricane Electric. We’ve been hosting other sites with them since… 1994 or 1995. Never have had an issue, and always get timely, appropriate and *helpful* customer service responses. Shoulda been here with my blog since day one. Won’t make that mistake ever again.

At first I thought there was an automated XML file made of all my posts, but then I remembered I had actually done an export to XML a few months ago, thinking I would change hosting companies back then. I just totally forgot about it. (File under ‘getting old can suck sometimes.’)

I’ve got some more style adjustments to make, but on the whole, it’s looking much like it used to. I’m going to be backing up the dB faithfully and will tell all about the horrors of customer service over at Dotster in another post.

I am sitting here reading a book, a programming book I’ve had in my possession for some time, with a bookmark placed where I left off reading. At one point I just stopped reading it… and I wasn’t sure why until tonight.

I’ve got great reading comprehension, always have — but because this is a book on programming somehow it set off a math-trigger thing. Afraid I’d find out that I didn’t understand it, that I was too “stupid” to understand it, so I just stopped.

Now that I’ve started reading it again, I realize, I understand it! I am smart, I can comprehend, I can still learn. It was really hard to write “I am smart” just then really hard. It should not be so difficult.

I guess I haven’t been focused on my own writing these days. Mostly trying to keep going at work, very much trying to keep on keepin’ on and not focused on my own thing. Nothing extra-curricular as it were.

I’ve got all these grand plans — in my mind — but nothing will come of it of course, not unless I actually make the effort to ‘just do it’.

It’s easier with time off (oh, okay and a few drinks), to get some writing done. But I can’t be drinkin’ every damn day and expect that clients web sites will come out okay. Somewhere inside my ears I know that rhymes…

Not a lot of comments… it’s true. I think it’s ’cause I don’t promote this site in the other blogs I post at. I dunno why. Maybe I need to get over that and maybe not. I read some of the comments at the other places I frequent and there sure are a lot of idiots out there.

There are about 40 minutes left to 2007 as I write this… I’m having a grand evening, been hanging out with DH, and listening to some of my favorite tunes.

I hope 2008 will be a healthy & happy year for everyone.

Peace Out…

I’ve been a little stressed lately, so I’ve found myself thinking about it more frequently than I’ve become accustomed too. Of course once I actually smell the smoke of anyone else’s cigarettes, or even that lingering stench of stale smoke on any smoker, I remember one of the reasons I don’t do that anymore. But I digress…

As I stood there in my reverie, suddenly, like a needle scratching an old LP I heard the cashier say “$7.25″ to a man who had just asked for a pack of Marlboro Lights.

“Holy shit, you’re kidding?!,” I said.

“Nope, said tall reasonably healthy looking gentleman, that’s what they cost.”

“I’m so glad I quit.”

The guy asked what they cost when I quit — about $5 per pack (of course Dunhills were more expensive being imports hereabouts). “Still too expensive,” I said. He smiled and we laughed, and he took his cigarettes and left.

I still can’t get over the price. You can get a great lunch (even dinner!) for $7.25 (tax included).

We’ve got the kitty food bowls on the counter-top by the sink, and sometimes Orion gets up there and sets about making a nuisance of himself while I’m washing dishes. I’ll say, “remember, you are afraid of water” and he looks at me incredulously just before jumping down to the floor.

We have a spray bottle in the living room and merely holding it in my hands (I hardly ever have to use it) makes them stop whatever mischief they were into, and run away post-haste. It’s just water, but it is what gives us our only advantage over felinus domesticus.

If you happen to have one of those cats who is the rare exception to the rule, well, just give up my friend, there’s really nothing you can do, the cat has won.