Yay! Blog! v1.0
Category: October 2003

I thought my favorite new television show this year would be Threat Matrix. But now I've abandoned it for Tru Calling. They're on at the same time and as cool as TiVo is, it only records one show at a time. I could watch one and record the other, but that means I'd have to watch something "live." *shiver* Tru Calling is good, but I tell ya... my most favorite show this season is....

Joan of Arcadia!! Yay!! What a a great show!! There are cool high school kids in it. God is quirky. The soundtrack is super!! And then there's Joe Mantegna. I love that Joe Mantegna.

Oh brother...

A while back, the Austin City Council passed a smoking ban. I was so happy. Then some new members were voted onto the council, and they decided to revisit it. Today, they changed the ordinance... now businesses just have to get a $300 smoking permit to allow smoking. I don't know if that's yearly or what, but what a crock.

Searches to my blog:

real mumy sex
dang hiccups
"true story austin texas football story email drinking golf"
kyan shirtless no couture!?
jack-o-lantern adam duritz
"free range eggs" "rats pee" Ewwwwww!
methylchloroisothiazolinone pictures hehehe That stuff's in my shampoo

Searches to my homepage linked to the page they found):

"Cheer Up" "Tommy Lee Jones"

I found Dogbite Music when I got an email that my song, Shadow of a Girl was featured. I was excited about that, but even more excited because the guy who runs the site, Guy, sifts through the music at MP3.com and finds some really great tunes. I enjoyed listening to the songs he had listed and will be watching for more!

The last three times I've gone to Wendy's, I've noticed something funny. After they take my money and tell me to go to the next window, they always say, "See you tomorrow." haha I don't go there enough for them to recognize me. Besides... a different person has said it each time. I guess it's kind of a not so subliminal subliminal message?

Since my hard drive crashed this week, I've been having to reinstall software galore. And since I upgraded to XP, I wasn't sure how things would go. So far the only thing that's not worked is the Intel Create and Share software that came with my webcam. I ordered an upgrade for that for $5.95 including shipping, so no biggie there. My other webcam software that I use to shoot and upload to the server works, though.

Since I was installing things on the PC, I decided to go ahead and install Cakewalk and the external soundcard software onto my laptop. I've been putting that off because I get so worked up when computer things don't go well. But it all seemed to install okay. I've got a radiohead cd playing through the external soundcard, and it sounds pretty darn good. Now I need to record something to see if everything is working. Ugh... I've not been motivated to record. I've got a Christmas song to do, though. Maybe next weekend.

On another note... is it okay if I just eat apple pie for dinner? It sure is good.

A shoutout to BrykMantra for coming to the WJEZ/SSM Broadcast this week!

I baked this!



Thank you, Sara Lee!

At 2:00 p.m. U.S. Central time, I'll be at the WJEZ/SSM broadcast and chat. It usually lasts until 4:30 or 5:00, so if you're up to some fun music and chattin', come on by. The highlight of the show is always when my buddy jeez does a live song from his living room in Nova Scotia. There's a rumor that his brother Gerry might join him today and the live spot will be several songs. What fun!

Since I had to put a new hard drive in my PC and start over from scratch, I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to Windows XP. I've been using XP on my laptop, and haven't had any problems (knock on wood). So far so good on the PC, too. The only thing that's giving me trouble is getting the PC to see the laptop on the network. The laptop can see the PC, though.

Another reason I decided to upgrade is because I've been craving a new PC, but I really don't *need* one. So I thought an OS upgrade might be enough to quench that craving.

I've got a nice computer as it is... Pentium 4, 1.3 GHz, 384 MB of RAM. And my laptop is even better, so what's my deal? All I really do on the computer is make webpages and graphics, surf the internet, stream music and send emails. Sometimes I record music, too. I haven't done that since I upgraded my RAM from 128 to 384, so I bet it will work even better now. Gosh darnit... I don't need a new computer!

Anyway... this weekend, I'll reinstall my software onto my PC and hope it goes okay.

I'm formatting my new hard drive. I bought a 40 gig hard drive at CompUSA. It was $69.99 and there's a $30 mail-in rebate. What a deal!

Putting it in my PC tower was no problem. But when I tried to use the software that came with it to initialize and format it, things weren't working so well. I went to the support website and looked through some things and was about to give up and cry when I read that if it wasn't working, to format the drive using a regular fdisk command (or something like that). So I took a shot and put in my HP Pavilion Recovery CD. It seems to be working. Whew!!

This weekend, I think I'm going to get another hard drive and an external case for it that has USB and Firewire. Then I'll have an external drive that I can use to backup both my PC and my laptop.

'kay... so what do you do with old hard drives? I've got 3 now. One that doesn't work, and two that I pulled out of old computers I recycled. I'd like to destroy them, but I'm just a girl without that kind of superpower. What's the procedure, eh?

Searches to my blog:

blog on a bun blt lily
what is the favorite pizza topping in England? kippers?
m&m's wallpaper for bathroom

Searches to my homepage linked to the page they found):

songs that you to do what you got to do
red river valley mp3

Uh oh... hard drive failure on my PC. I'm desperately trying to copy stuff over from the PC to the laptop, but it's touch and go. Boo Hoo. My biggest problem is that I can't focus enough to figure out what I really need to copy over. You know... priorities! Well... I better get back to it. Say a 'puter-prayer for my hard drive to stick it out long enough for me to copy stuff over.

I bought an acorn squash. I've never cooked squash before. I hope I don't screw it up. But then... what are the consequences if I do? I'll just fix something else to eat.

I cut it in half and scooped out the seeds. I placed it cut side down in a little water in a baking dish, and now it's baking at 350 for 45 minutes. When I take it out, I'll put butter and brown sugar in the scooped out part. Yum! I hope...

I tried to install two different solutions for the blog comment spam problem. If you're not aware of it, spammers have now figured out how to use robots to spam comments in blogs. Effin' Scum.

The first solution I tried makes commenters enter a security code that's generated as a graphic on the comment entry page. Robots can't see the graphic, so they can't post. It no worky for me.

The second solution was a thing where you can train your blog to recognize spam and not allow it. I would have rather used to the first solution, but this was my backup plan. It no worky for me either.

My main job at work right now is programming. I sit and debug programs all day long. I just don't feel like spending the whole weekend doing the same thing. Maybe I can find another solution. But right now, I just want to eat some leftover chinese and watch TV.

Searches to my blog:

"the hiccups" + "my butt"
dolphin poop and pee
crochet hot dog and bun and fries
number of each color in a pack of smarties I'll count them the next time. I love smarties.
food and ding pictures ding?

Searches to my homepage linked to the page they found):

Sci Fi Songs

Here they are! Pictures from the movie set of Cheer Up.

Tommy Lee Update... I watched them film a scene over and over from the 8th floor where I work. Then at lunch, I stood and watched from half a block away. I took some pictures, too! I'll post those later.

Tommy Lee Jones is in da house! They're filming Cheer Up outside my building today. Tommy Lee plays a Texas Ranger protecting a group of cheerleaders who witnessed a murder. I saw a couple of cheerleaders earlier, and walked by the Kraft Services truck. Oh yummy.. that food smelled good.

4:00 a.m. I can't sleep. Work stress. Blah.

I just took Lily out in the backyard and was amazed at the sky. The clouds that made things gloomy around here for days finally dissipated. The stars are so bright tonight! I saw Orion. It always takes my breath away. I saw Cassiopeia. And Sirius was almost blinding. The moon is bright, too. It was casting shadows on my lawn. So I turned on the computer to look at the Star Map.

I'm yawning so much it hurts, but anticipated conversations keep running through my head. I just wanna sleep. Back to bed to try again....

What's on TiVo?
TiVo recordings I need to watch

I gotta toot my own horn! This weekend while I was watching my favorite football teams get slaughtered, I decided to do some java programming. I developed a little servlet to grade our web-based training exams at work.

Currently, the training exam grading process goes like this:

1. Carolyn receives an email with the student's answers.
2. She grades the exam.
3. She emails the student to tell them how they did.
4. If they passed, she creates a certificate of completion in MS Word.
5. She faxes the certificate to the student.
6. She files the certificate and confirmation.

After I put the program into production, the process will go like this:

1. Student submits the exam and is taken to a webpage with a printable certificate of completion if he/she passed or feedback on what he/she missed if not.
2. Information about the exam is timestamped and stored in a flat file.
3. Carolyn does nothing.

Woo-Hoo!! How's that for labor saving automation?!

New Song - Shadow of a Girl
This really isn't a new song, but I haven't released it before now. It's a song I wrote for a movie. I haven't heard anything about the movie, and the website for the movie disappeared, so I'm letting the song be heard. It's called "Shadow of a Girl." You can read more about it and hear it at Kim and Friends' Songs.

Dear Lt. Governor Dewhurst,
Something you said makes me think that you were playing hooky the day they taught about why we have two houses in the U.S. Legislature. Just to refresh your memory about what you said:

"The majority of voters in the state of Texas support President George W. Bush and his policies, and while the majority of our congressional delegation does not, and that's just not fair," Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said.

I think you were out on the day they taught what the word "fair" means, too, but that's a different issue.

Let's review about this Senate vs. House of Representatives thing. All Texas voters vote for both Senate seats. So if we have more Republican voters in Texas, the Senate seats will most likely be held by Republicans. That's fair by my definition and your definition.

The House of Representatives isn't about the state as a whole, it's about our communities and letting us have a representative that represents our little community. So working on these redistricting maps that try to force the vote a certain way is pretty much poo-pooing all over the reason we have two houses in the legislature. I mean, how can the people of Travis county have someone to represent them when we're split into 3 districts that we have to share with San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley and Houston suburbia.

This is basic stuff that you really should know. But then again... you're one of the greedy politicians who could care less about letting the citizens have a balance of representation, and care more about what you and your party wants.

I'm not a Democrat or anything, but I sure would like to shake Alec Baldwin's hand for bringing those dog biscuits to Gov. Perry. So how 'bout you guys thinking less about yourselves and trying to do what's right for Texas citizens?
Sincerely,
Kim

Searches to my blog:

evil monkey movies
infected people movies
"like when they change"
baseball is a boring sport I hear you!
picture of nerdy shirtless man
"chris simms" + deniro
singing "Rhinocort"

Dear Gabrielle,
Are you related to Gabriela? She sent me an offer on a binocular camera earlier. Anyway, thanks for the email about the "Free Digital Cable PPV Descrambler." I didn't open it. I already got an offer for that yesterday from Christina. Do you know her? Maybe y'all could go to lunch sometime. You know... compare notes on how to sell unethical things.
Kim

Dear Gabriela,
Regarding your email "Binoculars and Digital Camera in ONE." At first I thought you had the wrong person because I'm not a pervert like that. But then I realized that since the first thing I thought of was to use the binocular/camera combo for perverted things makes me not 100% innocent myself. Luckily, as Kurt Cobain once said, "My will is good." My second thought, though, was that the binocamera might be good to use at the zoo 'cos sometimes the animals are so far away. In the end, I decided to just go ahead and delete your email without opening it. Thanks for the idea, though.
Kim

Dear Christina,
Regarding the "Free Digital Cable PPV Descrambler" email you sent me? I didn't open it. I guess my ethics got the best of me because it seems to me descrambling pay per view for free pretty much circumvents the whole PAY-per-view part of it.
Sincerely,
Kim

Dear Eric,
I got your email with the subject "Heat Things Up This Summer." I didn't open it because summer's over. And also because I live in Texas and the summers are really hot here without any extra help. Thanks, anyway.
Sincerely,
Kim

Just some quick notes to the spammers who sent me mail last night:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Jessica,
While I do want to "Stop Hackers Now," I'm not sure that you're not a hacker, so I didn't open your email.
Sincerely,
Kim

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Alex,
While finding the "Easiest way to learn a new language" is intriguing, I'm still learning the language I speak/write now, so I didn't open your email. Man... English is a tricky one!
Sincerely,
Kim

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Jordan,
I'm sure your "Medical Breakthrough" is a great thing, but I'm not in the market right now, so I didn't open your email.
Sincerely,
Kim

Sometimes I hear a song and one spot of it makes me smile a lot. Or maybe it makes me stop and close my eyes and sing along. Sometimes it might even bring a tear to my eye.

If you asked me for an example, I probably couldn't give you one right off the top of my head. My brain doesn't really like to store stuff like that, I guess.

But I just heard one, so I thought I'd share...

The chorus of The Jayhawks "Save It For A Rainy Day."
The lyrics are:

Don't look so sad, Marina
There's another part to play
Don't look so sad, Marina
Save it for a rainy day

The background vocals work so well there. Have you heard it? You can hear a snippet at Amazon.com if you want to.

I heard on the radio why there's no Starbucks at the Austin airport. The city council has said no to Starbucks because they want to keep the airport "Austin-y." They would rather see a local business have a coffee shop there. That's okay with me. There are no less than 5 Starbucks I pass on the way home from work (that's about 1 every 2 miles!). Now that I know there's no Starbucks at the airport, I'll just stop at one on the way. Yeah right... like I go to the airport often!

Anyway... the deejays were saying they're not sure any of the local coffee shops could afford to have a shop in the airport. Wouldn't that be a kicker... Austin City Council saves room for local business at the airport and the rent puts them out of business!

It was a great mail day! I got the Apache Tomcat Bible I ordered. I hope I can put it to good use. I really want to use Tomcat on our extranet, but I guess that's up to our IT Department.

I also got the Rainy Day Music CD by The Jayhawks. I fell in love with "Tailspin" over the last few months hearing it on the radio. And I already liked "Save It For A Rainy Day." I've read that The Jayhawks are great live. If I wasn't so old and achey, I'd watch for them to come to town. I just don't think I can handle standing up for several hours at a music venue. For now, I'll enjoy my CD.

Whew... Texas beat Kansas State yesterday.

Next week is the big one, though... Oklahoma. I hope we win.

I heard this year might be the last year they play at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas because both teams are demanding more money from the State Fair to play there. It costs a lot for travel and lodging and stuff! Not that I'd be particularly heartbroken... I'd rather watch the game on TV.

Today the Texans are on a bye, but Arizona is playing at Dallas. And the best thing... it's on TV! Go Arizona!! Go Emmitt!! Woo-Hoo!!

Searches to my blog:

leaf blower chicken
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who invented the water bottle
castaway tom hanks package shame on you for wanting to see tom hanks' package
singer with big mouth Steven Tyler?
kyan hat I think I dreamt that Kyan was cutting my hair the other night

Searches to my homepage linked to the page they found):

dogs of timberline lodge
candroid

The re-org at work was painless. At least for me. Two people I used to work with and a guy from another division were merged into my section. The same three people who will be doing the bulk of the work with me on the two major projects I'm managing. So it's a good thing.

One lady is being forced to use a PC after using a MAC all her career, though. She's not very happy about it.

This afternoon, I got a lot done on the java application I'm working on. Usually, I have a lot of interruptions and can't concentrate and get frustrated. But today things were pretty calm. I love it when that happens.