Well, it's that time of the month. No, not that. It's search query report time! This is a list of the terms that people have used to find my website. I'm hapy to report that "gywo" (for Get your War On, I hope) has surpassed "ann coulter sexy"* finally. So if you're an Ann Coulter fan, and you think she's sexy you better get back to your googling and clicking, buddy.

11: gywo
08: ann coulter sexy
08: dell dude
06: leggos
06: sexy ann coulter
05: ann coulter
04: momoko kikuchi apple
04: gaak
03: photographist
03: teh suck
03: delldude
03: the dell dude
03: sneakernet
03: cocoa blog
03: illovich
03: humansex
02: ha ha so funny
02: sexy liberals
02: blog ethics
02: sandman vs spiderma

* I note with some reluctance that "ann coulter sexy" and "sexy ann coulter" combined are still ahead of "gywo."

Well, today is Samhain/Halloween, the Celtic New year. Happy New Year!!!

What am I talking about? I'll let an expert, Issac Bonewits explain, by quoting from his excellent article Halloween History: the Real Origins:

"Samhain or "Samhuinn" is pronounced "sow-" (as in female pig) "-en" (with the neutral vowel sound) — not "Sam Hain" — because "mh" in the middle of an Irish word is a "w" sound (don’t ask me why, it’s just Irish). Known in Modern Irish as Lá Samhna, in Welsh as Nos Galen-gaeof (that is, the "Night of the Winter Calends"), and in Manx as Laa Houney (Hollantide Day), Sauin or Souney, Samhain is often said to have been the most important of the fire festivals, because (according to most Celtic scholars) it may have marked the Celtic New Year. At the least, Samhain was equal in importance to Beltane and shared many symbolic characteristics. Samhain was the original festival that the Western Christian calendar moved its "All Saint's Day" to (Eastern Christians continue to celebrate All Saints' Day in the spring, as the Roman Christians had originally). Since the Celts, like many cultures, started every day at sunset of the night before, Samhain became the "evening" of "All Hallows" ("hallowed" = "holy" = "saint") which was eventually contracted into "Hallow-e'en" or the modern "Halloween."

Whether it was the Celtic New Year or not, Samhain was the beginning of the Winter or Dark Half of the Year (the seasons of Geimredh=Winter and Earrach=Spring) as Beltane was the beginning of the Summer or Light Half of the Year (the seasons of Samradh=Summer and Foghamhar=Fall). The day before Samhain is the last day of summer (or the old year) and the day after Samhain is the first day of winter (or of the new year). Being "between" seasons or years, Samhain was (and is) considered a very magical time, when the dead walk among the living and the veils between past, present and future may be lifted in prophecy and divination."

I've felt an ambivalence about this holiday for a long time, and I'm not sure why. I certainly like the idea of it as a new year celebration rather than a candy grab fest... maybe I'm just old and the commercialization of holidays is getting to me now. Or maybe it's because anytime I try to get myself up in a costume, it sucks.

Whatever the cause, I do like thinking of today as the new year, because it just feels more sensible (I've never been particularly fond of december 31st/New Years Eve either). Am I just being difficult? Do I just have a knee-jerk reaction to the status quo and try as hard as I can to dissent?

Nah. The staus quo sucks, and society is run by the kids you hated in school. I'm right as rain. The only problem is, who do I celebrate new year with? I don't know any pagans, and I sort of even feel weird thinking of myself as a pagan... maybe it's because pagan is an exterior term, imposed by the romans. It's weird also, because even though I accept polytheism as true (or is that more true?), I don't really worship any gods or anything. I'm just not a worshipping kind of person. I don't even worship nature. I don't even go camping.

Happy New Year!

I found an article at mynetwatchman.com about teh suck messenger service spam. This piece of software (direct advertiser) is so annoying, because it uses the same ports as some essential M$ service, so it seems like a lot of people won't be able to completely and effectively wall off their machines from these spamattacks.

I'll be able to at home, but probably not at work, since we rely so heavily on win2k server stuff. I dunno, I'll talk matt and rick about it, cause they'd know better than I do.

It is possible to remove teh suck messenger though, thanks to mynetwatchman for the link.

Edit: M$ recommends in their ineffable document Q330904 - Messenger Service Window That Contains an Internet Advertisement Appears that users configure the firewall included with XP to block block NetBIOS and RPC traffic. That's probably good advice...but I still use Netbios to share files between my "good" pc and my old one, and kat's pc...both of which are still running Windows98 SE. That might mess stuff up. Guess I can always try it first and curse later.

Ok, this shit needs to be fixed right now:

Clearly, there is something wrong with this service, which doesn't seem to be removable on Windows XP. I'll admit that I haven't researched it fully, but so far all I find is that it's a "critical service" that can not be removed.

Ugh. I am so sick of this. I get like 8 of them a day, and now it's started at work too... no system administrator ever sends me messeges like this.

Anyone know how to fix this one? I can't take pop-ups when I'm NOT EVEN SURFING THE WEB.

Note to those who don't understand: this is a "feature" of windows that the spam brigade has started exploiting...they just send ads to random ip numbers that pop up on your screen no matter what you're doing, exploiting a feature of the operating system. And since I'm not really like a nuts and bolts winxp admin, I have no idea how to stop it. I don't know if winxp admins do either, actually.

Anyway, I have a dr. appt. now, that I have to go to.

I finally got around to dinging 55 over the weekend. Woot.

Planes of Power seems ok, although there doesn't seem to be much loot flowing around like with Luclin (when Centi Longswords were dropping off every mob in ME for about a week or two). It seems like the biggest winners of this one might be tradeskillers and their patrons.

I also have doubts that I'll ever be able to get into the so-called "flagged" planes, since they require a 60+ group (just one though) to win a fight in order to get the flag...

So now the race of improbablities is: will I get my Epic or or get into the Plane of Storms first? The probable answer is: neither.

But at least I have boo boo.

BOO BOO!

It turns out that worsification is a real word, but it means the "composition of bad verses."

Clearly a crime of which I am guilty.

So Apple has debuted their loser Switch campaign in Japan. I actually prefer the commercials in Japanese, becasue people look and sound so cool speaking Japanese.

I think Momoko Kikuchi has some real Feiss potential, if you know what I mean.

I just read a analysis piece over at MSNBC that really shocked me with the sort of naked truth that it casually discussed without recognizing it's inherent ugliness. The article Can Bush resuscitate Little Brother? is about the immense amount of political muscle George Bush Jr. has exerted since taking office to get his brother Jeb reelected. A partial list/excerpt:

"Since winning the White House, Bush has ordered Karl Rove, his political consiglieri, to spare no effort to get Jebbie re-elected -- even if doing so risks creating political complications elsewhere. The Bush White House has banned oil drilling off the coast of Florida, even while encouraging it elsewhere. It has funneled money to the Everglades rescue project. It has kept the Pentagon "Central Command" in Tampa. And Rove recently blocked an effort by GOP farm state senators to open Cuba to American grain shipments-- a move opposed by Florida's virulently anti-Castro Cuban exile community. Farm state GOP candidates were furious."

What boggled my mind is that these sort of things don't inspire outrage in most people. Forget partisanship...what is described above is corrupt abuse of power, and that the press and electorate will not recognize and abhor it is a telltell sign that we are jaded and corrupt ourselves, that we have lost sight of what it means to live in a just society and that our society is one that is ruled not by order and ethics, but by power, convenience and greed.

And don't think for a minute that Gore would have been any better. This is not a problem of the Republicans or Democrats, but of our political system.

EDIT: I wrote this on the 16th, but forgot to hit the Publish button... doh! Moved to the 16th after this was published on the 17th mistakenly.

since I was at FOX anyway, I stumbled on :Falwell Apologizes for Calling Prophet Mohammad a Terrorist.

Apparently he had said in an interview that Mohammad "was a violent man, a man of war.... I think (Prophet) Muhammad was a terrorist."

Now he says: "I sincerely apologize that certain statements of mine made during an interview for the September 30 edition of CBS's 60 Minutes were hurtful to the feelings of many Muslims."

Whatever.

You may have heard about how the Barbados racism conference expeled non-blacks from participating.

According to a FOX News story "[U.S. Delegate Jewel] Crawford said "the motion of exclusion was the will of the majority." 

Ghanaian delegate Maya wa Taifa agreed, arguing that Africans often are too generous for their own good and that "our over-hospitality" backfired on the conference. "

I'm not really sure what that means. Jewel Crawford's statement (if meant to justify the decision) is ridiculous, as a majority does not guarantee that an action is ethically defensible... for example: slavery & segregation were also "the will of the majority" at one time.

Maya wa Taifa was (I think) commenting on an "over hospitality" that led the conference organizers to process the registrations and (assumedly) accept the money of non-Africans who wanted to attend. And then kicked them out once they had flown to effin Barbados.

Graciously, the conference decided later to allow non-Africans who were there for work (a journalist, some interpreters) to come back in.

Actually if I was there for my job, I guess I would have been all like "no, don't worry about me...I wouldn't want to make anybody uncomfortable" and gone and kicked back on the beach or went swimming or something.

This really made me mad. I don't know why it did any more than any other incidence of racism. Probably because it was directed at white folks, so it hits close to home, cause I'm, y'know, white and eveything. And because it was a confeence against racism, which was like, um.

ironic.

In case you haven't heard (for example, I just did), Germany has extended constitutional rights to animals. They are the first European Union nation to do this, but this action builds on a large amount of already existing protection laws.

According to CNN, Switzerland passed a similar law in 1992, "allowing animals to be recognised as beings and not things."

It's not all wine and roses, though. The Americans for Medical Progress would like to offer you a second opinion.

And then Dr. Christian Sailer sez "right back atcha".

And then I'm like "no way."

And Peter Singer is all like "The only acceptable limit to our moral concern is the point at which there is no awareness of pain or pleasure, and no preferences of any kind. That is why pigs count, but lettuces don't."

And then I'm like "word."

My much-beloved Adbusters has a new campaign: Food Fight, whereupon they look to take on the Food Industry ("Big Food is the next Big Tobacco").

Wow. I don't even know if I'm up for it... but this is hilarious:

Click the image to download a printable sticker sheet from Adbusters.

I just got my newsletter from yet another company I never heard of,Video-C. But since they're peddling music videos for free, and I like videos, I clicked over.

I think they're new, because they have almost nothing. But, they do have a funny video about a couple frankenfruits having an adventure in the city after their friend is abducted by a strawberry picker. And I kind of like the song. The song is 'out of the city' by 2 heads. The frankenfruits in the picture.

Life should be beautiful.

In case you haven't heard, Jimmy Carter-the only honest President to serve in my lifetime, and yours probably- has won the Nobel Peace Prize. He certainly deserved it, lust in his heart and all.

A classmate just referred me to Stickysauce.com, which is a clearing house for internet related development (web building/java/perl/cgi/&c.) stuff. It looks pretty nice, at least as a place to search for free code snippets.

The following searches led people to my blog in the last month:

4: ann coulter sexy
3: sexy ann coulter
2: illovich
2: photographist
2: neverwinter adult -dragon
2: ann coulter
2: ha ha so funny
1: blog alli john
1: sandman vs spiderman
1: dreamy photo
1: blog in marketing
1: dnd adventures
1: plugin photo fx 2.0
1: cat alien
1: leggos
1: replacements ltd blog
1: sex blog
1: teh suck
1: my so called rights
1: what is a marketing ploy

I don't know that I'm quite up to the regimen described in Game over--86 nonstop hours later, but I guess I better start training.

I bet I can do 90 hours, minimum.

Thanks to Mikey "Funny" Elepano for the tip-off.

~la

Someone on the Apple Java list told me about BlueJ, a nice beginner IDE for student java developers. What's cool abut it is that it was written as an environment for learning java instead of working with java, so it's a lot simpler than using say ProjectBuilder or Netbeans.

Not to say I don't want to use them, but this has some very nice features, including the best compiler error handing I've ever experienced... not only does it tell you the error, but sometimes gives a hint as to what's wrong.

Written entirely in java, there are Mac OSX, Windows and Unix versions (the OS X version has the Aqua L&F).

This just in from United Press International, Serial killer Aileen Wuornos was executed this morning.

In her final statement, Wuornos said: "Yes, I would just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back, like Independence Day with Jesus. June 6, like the movie. Big mother ship and all, I'll be back, I'll be back." - UPI

I don't think that she was really a serial killer (in the standard sense), because from hearing her talk, it sounded liike she got fed up with johns that got creepy and violent.

Really fed up.

I felt sorry for her after seeing the documentary about her, especially all the bullshit she was put through after being arrested. Even a serial killer shouldn't have to deal with being adopted by hypocritical christian loonies. Note: the link does not detail the ways in which Wuornos was exploited by Adlene Pralle, her husband and their Lawyer. I recommend Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992), the documentary I mentioned above.

I saw Ken Bereskin's Radio Weblog for the first time today. He puts up one OS X tip a day... although it's aimed mostly at basic use, still it's a nice place to pick up a tip or two.

A woefully underreported story about CNN News Gettin' Jiggy With da Jive Talkin' has crossed my desk, and I am absolutely delighted.

Perhaps the next step would be to convince Puffy, Anthony Kiedis or Pink to step up to an anchor position.

Personally, I would make Pink the meteorologist, and do a tank girl style every 3 second camera cut to Pink in another outfit and hairstyle. Nobody cares about the weather anyway.

Hey, I recently got into streaming radio again (like this afternoon recently)... mostly to hear German Pop Radio.

What's irritating is again the 3 competing formats, mp3, windowsmedia and real media (vomit). I hate real player, and I hate microsoft, so I try for the mp3 stuff where I can.

Today I'm listening to Brainstorm-Radio, which Chris has graciously informed me is eurotrash techno. The djs are funny, tho. I also took a listen to Frozen Radio (NEU-IM-NETZ!!!, lol) which really is thumping bumping techno. THUMP THUMP THUMP ka-THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP ka-THUMP. Also amusing was HappyRadio - hits von damals und Heute! (hits from yesterday and today, basically).

Independent-Radio.com has a few different broadcasts, all comprised of only "music free of GEMA restrictions" (my translation...I think that's what they mean). I recommend the rap stream.

If you have a mac, iTunes should handle all the abouve streams. On a PC I think you need WinAmp, but WiMP (windows media player) might be able to handle it.

I love this stuff. Thank god for Audio Hijack.

I just figued out how to build java classes from Project Builder (that is, without switching to terminal and typing "javac filename.java" over and over).

Unfortunately, it takes longer and makes a whole lot of files, instead of just one filename.class file. Bleh. Maybe there's a way to set up a "I just want to make a stupid braindead thingy in java" template for PB.

FURTHER.

O'Reilly has released Essential Blogging, which is written by a bunch of people including Ben and Mena (writers of moveabletype) and Rael who wrote BlosXom, which is what got me started blogging in the first place.

If you're interested, you should buy the book. Or whatever, you know.

I am an instructional designer. Lucky.
One of the things I do is help people scan and OCR long documents with a scanner. Sometimes this produces something like poetry:

JAVIER ALREADY UHHH ! TEN (10) WITHOUT GONZALO

IT'S TRUE.

S SO NICE.

ALLIGATOR'S

IT ALLIGATOR'S Underkoffler

Don't ask me. I don't make 'em up, I just report 'em.

Apparently I'm competing with dr on who can update their page more regularly and dr is winning.

dr is celebrating his one year aniversary, and his new filing technique is unstoppable.