This one time in band camp… I read some really scary fan fiction.

Woke up in Chicago today, went to IKEA, spent much money (full details later) on sale stuff and drove 6 hours home.

Relaxing after getting in a few hours ago I just now had to explain to my mother why the “furries and plushies” website that had the url she wanted to register was not “cute” at all.

YOU try to explain THAT to YOUR mother without really explaining it for fear of REALLY weirding her out… and then explain how YOU know about it - I dare ya! HA! I just do OK? Yet another weird internet factoid I have burned on my synapses.

Thank god she didn’t wanderclick into the galleries or really read much… The website graphics were just kinda neat, she liked it.

Oi.

It’s fun!

Part One | Part Two

The larger highlights were…

From the Parentals:
The Knights Next Door - Written by a Cleveland Plain Dealer about the SCA in the USA - but mainly in the Ohio area (naturally), and featuring many folks I know.

A digital camera slave flash

From Mr Man:
As mentiond before, all 4 seasons of Farscape on DVD. Oh momma.
Oh yeah and we’re headed to Chicago to IKEA on the 29th - weather willing. It’s the annual Winter Sale to get a New Entertainment Center for the eventual new TV. (Ithe possibility of our choice being 50% off is too hard to pass up.) The sale is till the 17th but we can’t go in January, so while he’s off we’re going while the sale is young. How I love that man of mine.

From the brother:
A huge electric griddle - can do at least six grilled cheese sandiwches at once… I’ll never know for sure. We never have that many people over.

A Duran Duran dvd i didn’t know existed.
It’s, I assume from the title and inserts since I haven’t wached it yet, based from the book from 20 years ago (and which I just perused for the first time in years a few days ago when I rescued my DD collection from the attic when the tree stuff came down. (Shannon, we’ll watch this before the concert! I’m bringing it hoping I can get it signed!)

America: The Book - A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction

Does my brother know me or what?
Food stuff, Jon Stewart and Duran Duran, what more does a girl need?

Top of the list? I have to agree with them.

Sony’s Digital music Player:

No, really?!

How To Speed Up Firefox - for broadband users ONLY.

I did it - it works!

(#3, BTW, you right click anywhere NOT on a line, and go to “New” then “Integer” then enter the stuff it says to.)

We decided to do our xmas early since with all the snow I said his might come in handy with us being snowbound inthe house and him surely off work tommorrow… besides without kids our BIG christmas is with the families on Christmas Day.

I got him a number of xbox games, and some clothes. I was trying not to go overboard since I was trying to be Practical Jenny. PJ doens’t come out much. When she does I try to let her have her way. (the iPod was a PJ call, no really!)

The games mainly becasue he bought the Xbox for the one game he wanted Godzillla Destroy All Monsters. I have never been able to get him to try a second game. So now he has a The LOTR Return of the King, Simpsons Hit and Run and the GOOD new casino game (as opposed to the one reviewed as “the worst game released under hte xbox label”

Well, as usual, he outdid me.

Last year I got a $300 shopping spree at IKEA. This time, what I have been saying we needed to do was replace our dying TV of the many messed up colors, and since our entertainment center is too small for the stuff we have now let alone a new tv (our current one BARELY fits), a new one of those too (from Ikea of course). We also need to update our DirectTv boxes which are dying and 6 years old

Did he go practical? Oh no.

He confessed a few weeks ago he wanted to get me a Kitchen Aid StandMixer but didn’t know what color, and although I REALLY want one I said we need other things more this year. Like a New TV, like the other stuff we need, hint hint. He could get me the mixer next year, besides I really dont have a place to store it and in this house counter top space is limited - and besides, I’d feel guilty if I didn’t use it at least once a week. I can’t belive I said no to it, I so want one.

So what did I get? All FOUR seasons of Farscape on DVD - I’ll let you do the math on that.

I’m happy though! I have been whining for a few years that we got the 5 seasons of Babylon 5, and he got the 8 seasons of Stargate - *I* wanted to next start buying Farscape. We haven’t so far yet due to it being much more expensive than most other DVD sets. I figured maybe one for xmas, maybe one for a birthday, and so on. My thought was in two years we have it done. Mr Man is a ” it might go out of production, so let’s get it” guy. So he bought them all.

We are so gonna watch them all this month! (We could have had one hell of a nice TV for $500 though. Maybe nex month…

Five songs today… some From FunkyBlue, my bro…

South Park: Christmas in Hell
Family Guy: Christmas Song
Christmas Monster Mash
Yah Das Ist Ein Christmas Tree
And a swanky one… Esquivel - Frosty the Snowman

Something actually bloggable happened and I didn’t even mention it.

So, yesterday I am out of bed a grand 3 minutes. I’m staggering around the house bleary eyed and the phone rings. Being that the cordless handset was MIA, I scramble to the office phone and mumble “Hello.”

Girl: “Hello mumble blah blah mutter dinner blah blah President Bush-”

Me: (growling) I hate that Motherf***er, Piss off.

Girl: :::Silence:::

Me: Merry Christmas, and go to hell. (hangs up)

Now, it’s only after I hang up I hear “dinner” and “President Bush” in the same sentence. Aroo?

Were they trying to sell me a ticket to a dinner at some hoity toity local repub dinner at Stan Chesley’s mega-mansion? (Mr Man was regged Republican until Presidente Arbusto Ricochet started his regime, though he usually voted Democrat.)

The caller ID was useless so now I’m kinda sorry I didn’t hear what the deal was. Not that I had $2500 for a dinner with Satan anyway.

The hideous sweater the VBB girl is wearing comes “courtesy” of Christopher Radko the olde tyme ornament maker. He charges $178 for it, ON SALE.

I think that fact adds Mr Radko to the Axis of Evil list.

After I stopped laughing I knew I had to give it to VBB girl for xmas. Not that she’s ever done anything wrong to me to deserve it.

Geek humor? Frankly I’m not sure.

From a Professor and PHD of Medieval History I know, and is a cool factoid for the season:

“X” is the Greek letter “Chi”, which was the way early Christians abbreviated the Greek word for Christ, and abbreviating Christmas this way dates back to the Middle Ages, if not earlier. Some folks these days refer to it as “taking Christ out of Christmas”, but they simply don’t know their history of Christianity.”

Indeed, it’s true.

50 things to eat before you die

Bold is what I’ve eaten - btw this is a british list… thus the American Breakfast and listing of some basic American food. For them it’s exotic fare.

1. Fresh fish
2. Lobster
3. Steak
4. Thai food
5. Chinese food
6. Ice cream
7. Pizza
8. Crab
9. Curry - curriness is next to godliness to brits.
10. Prawns - thats “shrimp” to us’uns over on this side of the pond.
11. Moreton Bay Bugs
12. Clam chowder - not my thing, but good.
13. Barbecues
14. Pancakes
15. Pasta
16. Mussels
17. Cheesecake
18. Lamb - more please!
19. Cream tea - not a tea person
20. Alligator - the other yellow meat!
21. Oysters - only cooked
22. Kangaroo
23. Chocolate
24. Sandwiches
25. Greek food
26. Burgers
27. Mexican food
28. Squid
29. American diner breakfast
30. Salmon
31. Venison
32. Guinea pig
33. Shark
34. Sushi -a handful of times, all sorts, do not enjoy it.
35. Paella - bring it on!
36. Barramundi
37. Reindeer
38. Kebab
39. Scallops - rare please!
40. Australian meat pie
41. Mango
42. Durian fruit
43. Octopus - almost but no cigar.
44. Ribs - But of course!
45. Roast beef
46. Tapas
47. Jerk chicken/pork
48. Haggis - a bite!
49. Caviar - no thanks!
50. Cornish pasty Mom is an anglophile, british food is homecooking for us.

Nice. Wish I had knowledge or royalties off them ripping me blind!

Pixeldecor may soon be removed from the web. I’m sick of this.

The Fox Is in Microsoft’s Henhouse (and Salivating)

Zing! Ouch!

Karen has provided honest to god eBay Customer service phone numbers with real people on the other end. No kidding!

Slate has found Amazon’s impossibly hidden Customers service number that has been written about as a thing of myth an legend in the Hobbit, or something.

Now you know where to bitch. You can thank me later.

I’m pretty sure this one is a knock off.

I got an sock in the mail the other day from an ebay auction, I have a review here.

Alright, the webhost had removed the mt-comments.cgi file and changed the nescessary file mention in mt.cfg but it didn’t work and so after some work I figured out why, so I am putting this in here for googling sake for other folks.

Also
For added spam protection, while you are in the “comments listing” template…
It might look a little different depending on your template, but you are looking for the section of code that has the clear, preview, and post buttons… usually near the bottom. Remove the string for the post button. It might look like much this:

input style=”font-weight: bold;” type=”submit” name=”post” value=” Post ”

and remove the pointy brackets around it (if I put them in here the line would not show). I would also put a little note in it’s place (with a little break) explaining that previewing is required and they can approve thier messages on the next page.

After doing this tiny little step your commentors will HAVE to preview comments before posting, but it’s a quick transition to the next page. It slow down individual spammers and stops automatic scripts. Real commentors can hit the post button on page two.

I had done this little button removal trick months ago after getting hit with over 600 comment spams in an hour. It stopped almost immediatly. With the name change and that button removal, it should be pretty spam-free. It helped me tons with mine.

For those that like cute blog toys… ClockLink.com

Wayne’s car has got to go!