I know you’re there. I see the stats growing every day. Every once and a while, someone will post a comment, but mostly, you come, you read, you leave and I have no idea whether you got anything interesting out of your visit here.

I write this weblog for myself, but that doesn’t mean I’m not curious about you. Recently, Ward Jenkins had a Blurkers Rejoice entry on his blog and I thought it was a good idea:

• The Ward-O-Matic – Blurkers Rejoice!

Blurker (BLUR-kur): n. 1. One who reads many blogs but leaves no evidence of themselves such as comments behind; a silent observer of blogs. 2. One who reads many blogs but has no blog of their own; a blog-watcher or blog voyeur.

I’m interested in you, so please stop blurking just for today and leave me a comment telling me a little about you.

• Why do you visit my blog? For the writing and stories? The photography? For the links to weird stuff?

• Who are you? What profession are you in? Are you a boy or a girl? What do you do for fun?

• How did you find my blog? Link? Another blog? The Quotations Page? Starling Fitness? Doing a search on Google?

Just for today, leave me a comment and tell me just a little bit about yourself. I’m actually very curious about you because you come and read my words every day and I never know who you are.

• Awake. Excited about CodeAway today! #
• Finished reading RSS. #
• Doing dishes and laundry. #
• Errands to run this morning. #
• Getting antibiotic for Linda at the vet. #
• Thom go with the M&Ms. Ash Please bring potato chips. Any soda requests? #
• @ Ash Ruffles and your choice. I already have EG chillin in the fridge. #
• Ordering pizzas sounds good. #
• @ michaelverdi That looks awesome! Cool! #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

It’s so rare when I can click a picture of her actually sleeping. She was out for the count, though and I got two photos before she woke up and shook her head.

Maggie has been so lonely since Linda got sick. She and Linda would play together almost every day, but now, Maggie is left to her own devices. I’m kind of worried about what will happen when Linda finally goes…

• Twitter friends… Should I get an iPhone or not? #
• Only one spam in the forums this morning! Yeah! #
• Blurker (BLUR-kur): A silent observer of blogs. http://tinyurl.com/2gjqh2 #
• Finished with RSS. Off to go on a VERY short run. Can’t wait for next week. I get to run 5 days instead of 3… #
• Finished my run. Brought my camera and took pictures of all the red things. Too many flowers, cars and signs to mention… #
• Did you know this state park lets you dig for and keep the diamonds you find? Holy cow! http://www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com/ #
• @ jasonalba Congratulations! #
• There’s a special hell for spammers. They are trapped in an emergency and they can’t get help because their phones & Internet are clogged. #
• Mike and I waste several hours a week on spam. It’s a BIG issue, Ash. Don’t make light of it. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Amy Winehouse sets off every B.S. Detector in my brain, but I’m all for being able to let my hair do what it wants to do naturally. This hairstyle literally took me 30 seconds to create. Making my hair calm down and be a “nice” girl, takes 20-45 minutes. I don’t believe Amy Winehouse’s voice is her own, but I’m all about her hair!

Special Thanks to Matt and Hugh for reminding me that I needed to let my hair go. go. go.

• Twitter / Matthew Reinbold – Winehouse is getting odd amount of press for retro act.

• BIBLE VERSUS: BETTY WINEHOUSE

• Mario Party 8 on the Wii while we babysit the Moncur kids. #
• @ allaboutgeorge How about Scritti Politti? #
• Put the Moncur kids to bed. Now crocheting and waiting for their parents to come home. #
• Home from baby sitting. Finally put away the suitcases from Oregon trip 2 weeks ago. Nighty night, Twitches. #
• Good morning, Twitches. Just updated iTunes, but they have no Harisu in their store. Can’t find her at Amazon either. :( #
• @ libel_vox re: that Poison video. C.C. DeMille can make ANY song better! I actually like what they did! #
• @ libel_vox Just a slow day, I think. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

“You’re giving away your cowboy hat?”

“It’s green. It’s goin’. I thought I’d get one of those cowboy hats at Shopko that look all old and grimy and put a red band on it.”

“How about NO cowboy hat?”

“I figure if I have to live in Utah, I should wear a cowboy hat.”

“You don’t live in Texas! You live in Utah. The correct ending to that sentence is: ‘If I have to live in Utah, I guess I should be Mormon.'”

“That ain’t gonna happen.”

• @ marleigh The Presidio in San Francisco?! #
• People are NICE. I am so lucky! Check out this awesome Halloween site: http://www.rodlangecollection.com/ #
• Good morning! It looks like Mike fixed my Twitter Tools. He’z in UR code fixin’ yur scalin’ problems! #
• @ ThomAllen Thanks! Mike did all the work. I just did the pointing and grunting. #
• I’m stuck in Etsy and I can’t get out! http://tinyurl.com/2e954g #
• Guess I’m running on the treadmill today. #
• @ Cinegage Good morning! #
• Workout finished. 1 mile doesn’t seem enough, even though I’m running fast. It’s hard to take it slow. #
• @ alizasherman Alaska has a Starbucks, but no high speed cell network? Barbarians! #
• @ libel_vox Don’t know who Phil Windley is. Guess that’s best, huh? #
• @ libel_vox Phil Windley hasn’t been to North OR South Dakota. Kick him off your RSS!! #
• @ ThomAllen LYAO? Lingering Yearningly After Ogden? #
• @ missbhavens Try driving it and see if the flight is worth it… #
• @ missbhavens NY to CA is about a four day drive. Calculate your time away from work, the gas money and hotel stays. Flying is WAY cheaper! #
• @ missrogue Advice: Only give interviews if you have permission to post the transcript on your website. You’ll get the content that way. #
• @ caseymckinnon Good job! I didn’t know Joss was working on Buffy. Guess I gotta make a trek to the comic store… #
• I just found out that Charles Nelson Reilly went to the big Hollywood Square in the sky. http://tinyurl.com/25dp4y #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

I complained about A.I. a long time ago. I am STILL angry that the movie was so inferior to its ad campaign:

• Pick Me! » Artificial Intelligence

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought so:

• Cloudmakers

Cloudmakers has a little more information about the advertising campaign:

This much we were told from the beginning: Evan Chan was murdered. A web of clues was spun through the datasphere, and the Cloudmakers meticulously pored over each and every puzzle and detail. The Cloudmakers brought together diverse skills ranging from cutting edge spectral analysis to a unique and unrivaled knowledge of historical evends and world literature . . . and a whole lot more. Two heads may be better than one, but seven thousand combined to form the ultimate crime fighting syndicate. In fact, what we did was so groundbreaking that an in-game character, Jeanine Salla, honored us by “writing” a paper about us.

Microsoft was behind the curtain for the Beast; Elan Lee and Sean Stewart were the lead designers. The game was a promotion for A.I. The film was Stanley Kubrick’s unfinished project, and was directed by Steven Spielberg for DreamWorks. WarnerBros released the film in the US on June 29, 2001.

It has been almost six years since that movie came out and I’m still pissed. It’s not the advertising’s fault. It’s the fact that the movie that they made was so substandard with a plot line full of holes. Kudos to Elan Lee and Sean Stewart for creating a better story than Kubrick and Spielberg put together.

Via: lolbots: Haley Joel Osment is 20 Bucks Extra

• @ caseymckinnon Malcolm McDowell is irreplaceable, irresistible and just so luscious, even to this day. #
• @ caseymckinnon William Tell Overture or a big white horse? #
• Early dental appointment tomorrow. Nighty, night, Twitches. #
• Shower, Listerine, Intense Brushing and then Dental Appointment! #
• Finished with dentist. I love it when they tell me I have beautiful teeth. #
• RIT dye for our too white CodeAway shirts. #
• RIT dye in tan. That should appease Mike & me. #
• Working on project codenamed Earwax. #
• @ MediaJoltz Need more Q-Tips! #
• @ kitykity Do they have Fry Sauce at the Sonics in Texas? #
• @ UnholyKnight Next time you go, will you ask for it to see if they have it there? Just wondering… #
• Just injected 100 ml of Normosol under Linda’s skin. She tolerated it better this time. I think she has just given in to the treatments. #
• Phone is bugging Mike. Twitter off. #
• Back from IKEA. Haven’t figured out the computer desk thing yet, so we only bought meatballs. Shucks. #
• @ marleigh Congrats on the good interview! Skywalker Ranch, baby! Skywalker Ranch!! #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

I’m going to have Mike hack Twitter Tools and see if he can fix it for me. (Continue Reading…)

Fry sauce is rumored to be a Utah phenomenon. To be sure, I’ve never been able to get some in California, but that doesn’t mean it’s a Utah-property. My friend from Florida had never heard of fry sauce, but she also had never eaten a gyro, so I can’t really trust her food knowledge.

Eating at Sonic at lunch, I remembered they’re a national chain. They have fry sauce. Do they have fry sauce at the Sonics in Texas? I know they don’t have it at the regular burger joints. They’re all about the BBQ. No time for fry sauce.

Just wondering…

Instructables has an article showing you how to make a bicycle seat cover. Before Mike’s bike was stolen, I used to ride it to work every day. It had a really soft and cushy gel seat cover. If it got wet, though, it was a soft and squishy bicycle seat, so I had to protect it from the rain during the day while I worked. This article tells you how to make a cover to protect your seat.

• instructables : quick and easy bicycle seat cover : intro

I have two words for you folks at Instructables:

Shower Cap

Via: Craftzine.com blog: HOW TO – Make a Waterproof Bicycle Seat Cover

You know how you think, “My appointment is at 9:30 so I’ll need to get into the shower at 8:30,” and then think that your appointment is at 8:30, so you hop into the shower at 7 in the morning?

No?

I’m the only one?

The transition is complete. I am a red girl now. There are only a few green things that I have to replace: glasses, wallet, etc. On the whole, however, we have completed transmission… errr… transition.

I’m going to have Mike hack the Twitter Tools plugin and see why it isn’t working for me anymore. I suspect it’s a scaling problem on Twitter’s side, but we’ll have to see. For now, here’s another log list done by hand. Copy and Paste To The Rescue!

(Continue Reading…)

Even more red, dramatically showing itself in my life…

STILL doing these by hand… grrr… (Continue Reading…)

In my kids meal at Sonic, I got this little guy. He’s called Strawberry Tot. I don’t know if he’s supposed to be a strawberry flavored Tater Tot or a Tot made out strawberries. Probably the later.

More red has shown up in my life in the last two days than can be attributed to increased attention.

The transition to red has started…

Note to self: When creating fake advertising a list of companies and the fonts they use would come in handy.

• Hausschrift-Liste Unternehmen-zu-Schrift – Typografie.info TypoWiki

Via: A list of companies and the fonts they use for… (kottke.org)

I’m still doing this by hand. Why did Twitter Tools stop working? Where do I ask that question? (Continue Reading…)

I had no idea that my sense of self had been so wrapped up in the color of my car.

We bought a Toyota Prius last Friday and we HAD to turn in the Beetle to do it. Of course, I could have chosen to keep the Beetle, but it had been a lemon since we bought it. I’ve talked about the problems with the Beetle many times, but I summed it up perfectly here: Y2K Bug.

Thing is, the dealership paid us twice in trade-in for the Beetle than I think I could have gotten from a human being. Considering that the Check Engine light and the Airbag light were on (and have been since I bought the thing) AND the windshield was cracked AND I had over 94,000 miles on it, I can’t believe how much we got for the Beetle. I would worry that we got ripped off on the price, but according to the forums, we got an amazing price on the Prius. Since our lending was through our credit union and we got an amazing interest rate, we won all around.

Why am I grieving?

All weekend, I saw the lime green things that I have collected over the last eight years and realized that I had bonded with the color of the car far more than I ever realized.

I am not my car. I am not my job. I am not my clothing.

How many times do I have to learn this lesson?

The Beetle was a piece of junk, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love it. It was an abusive relationship from the beginning and I don’t know how much money I spent trying to fix all of its problems. But, damn… I loved that car.

I’ve decided that I have to get rid of the lime green in my life. That’s kind of a difficult decision since I have integrated it into EVERYTHING in my life, including the design for this weblog.

If I’m not my car, maybe I’m my iPod.

I think I’ll be a red girl now…

Update: As All About George says: This is a red alert!

We are at the vet. They squeezed us in at 3:45 pm and now we’re waiting in the exam room. A dog is whining in the other room. Linda is happy to stay in her box. Bad mojo, man, bad mojo…

On a side note, I’m continually amazed at how good a photo I can get with the dime-sized lens on my Treo.

We’ve had a busy couple of days. When I get busy, I neglect everything. (Continue Reading…)

This old school video was made by Galaticast for Spacesh!t. I wish more indie bands would get together with vloggers to create videos. The world would be a better place.

John T. Unger is an artist who specializes in large metal sculptures. His work is beautiful and requires the use of a tape measure regularly. Unfortunately, he always finds himself without one. Here is his solution:

• Brute Force Redundancy and Entropic Distribution: john t. unger studio

I solved that problem yesterday using a new strategy I’m calling “brute force redundancy.” I went to the dollar store and bought six tape measures and plan to let entropy distribute them to the places they are most likely to be used.

Funny thing is, I did the same thing with scissors, but it wasn’t a conscious decision like John’s. I bought a six pack of scissors at Costco. At first, they were all in their package. Then, one by one, they were distributed to the places they were needed most: the kitchen, my desk, Mike’s desk, with my arts & crafts, and in the sewing box.

Thank you for giving it a name, John: Brute Force Redundancy!

I find that I’m using Twitter less and less because it’s not reliable. I get messages out of order, so it can’t be a conversation. Sometimes the web doesn’t show messages that show up on my phone. I like the service. I really want it to succeed, but I find myself using it less.

(Continue Reading…)

I am starting a fiction weblog about a town named Merriton that is twelve hours away from San Francisco. It is updated every Wednesday and you can see the first entry here:

• Merriton » Blog Archive » That? That’s a shed…

My trip was VERY refreshing and I am finally able to write fiction again. Please enjoy!

Molly writes about whether her next significant other should be into technology or not.

• molly.com » The “I’m a Technologist but my Significant Other Is Not” Issue

She says:

“I’ve always had SO’s in my life who were at least somewhat interested in what I did. But maybe that isn’t the best focus. Maybe I should be taking a closer look at the curly haired handsome and affectionate chef who wants to open his own restaurant in the Yucatan but could care less about the Web related services he’ll need?”

Mike and I have been together for 17 years. Before we were married, we geeked together since third grade. The idea of a spouse who isn’t married to my technology as well as me is so foreign that I can’t even imagine it. Sure, he is my technological superior and I have to be brought into new systems kicking and screaming at times, but technology is so intertwined with our marriage that I cannot distinguish where one ends and the other begins.

Sometimes I feel like we have a whole array of children. Some of them, Mike gave birth to, like The Quotations Page. He started that one on his own. Sure, I supported it, even when the costs to keep the server running were outweighing the meager income it brought in, but he gave birth to that one on his own.

Pick Me! was my child. I walked into his office and demanded a weblog. He created one for me, but my daily writing and my vision for it was my own.

Starling Fitness, Starling Travel and The Gadgets Page have been children that we both planned for and conceived equally.

All of our websites feel like children to me. Some of them are even getting old enough to support themselves, but unlike real children, they will never be self-sufficient. With no human children to pass the “family business” on to, what will happen to the family business?

Who will take care of our children when we are gone?

Last night, I learned how to crochet jewelry. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but then I found Beaded Beauties at Michael’s Arts and Crafts on how to do it.

I like to think that I invented this on my own, but there is no way I would have learned how to weave it together on my own. I was planning on using some sort of toggle or fastener. That book was very helpful.

Hope she likes it…

My Twitter Tools plugin hasn’t been able to do my Twitter Log in a while, so I’m doing this one by hand. I wonder if the plugin broke, Twitter broke, or just weirdness. If I had to bet, it would be on a broken Twitter…

(Continue Reading…)

“Umm… The sign said this motel has wireless… is there a code or something?”

I didn’t see a wireless signal that looked like it might belong to Travelodge, but I thought I’d ask.

“Sure! Let me tell you the code. Do you have a piece of paper?” she happily responded.

I wrote down the code and tried it on the wireless signal called “max,” but it didn’t work. Then, Mike took the laptop out of the room and walked down the balcony toward the office.

“Got it!” he screamed.

He walked back to our room, “Lost it…”

We gathered up the computers and our room keys and went back to the office.

“We can’t get the wireless signal in our room.” I placed the keycards on the counter.

“Didn’t the code work?” She was genuinely nice and helpful.

“Yeah, the code works. We can get it if we walk down the balcony a bit, but we just can’t get it in our room.”

“I don’t mind if you work here.”

What I wanted to say was, “That ain’t gonna happen, missy! We gotta work and I ain’t stayin’ in another crappy place without wireless. I just spent a freakin’ week in an overpriced hotel in Anaheim that said it had wireless and never once was I able to get online. Sure, I can use my cell phone, but I would rather check out than get online with my cell phone tonight! GRRR!”

All I did, however, was shake my head and say, “We have to work.” It sounded totally rude, but that was all I could do without going medieval on her.

“Well, I have room 29… but…”

She hesitated, but I was all on it. “Mike, walk over to room 29 and see if you can get a signal there.”

Before he could leave, she interceded, “…but it’s a teddy bear room.”

Mike’s face lit up, “Alright! A teddy bear room!”

While he headed out to check the signal, she tried to reason with me, “It’s not like there are any actual stuffed animals in the room, it’s just…”

I knew what she was talking about. Jay and Ryanne had encountered a Travelodge Teddy Bear room in Reno during their move to San Francisco. I knew exactly what she was talking about.

“I don’t care what the bedspreads look like as long as I can get online.”

On our drive back home, we’re asking for the Travelodge Teddy Bear Room.

Someone corrected one of the errors, but there are at least two others. Mike says that seeing grammar corrected signs gives him hope in humanity. I think the company that printed the sign should be sued. How could they let it go out the door with three grammatical errors?

In July, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out and ends the series. I’ve been reading the series religiously for years and I have a very specific ending that I would like to see.

If you haven’t read all the books and don’t want certain things spoiled, stop reading now.

Sybil Trelawney predicted that one of two children would bring an end to Lord Voldemort: Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom. Voldemort attacked both parents, killing Harry’s and driving Neville’s mad with pain. Unlike many blood seekers out there, I don’t want to see Harry Potter die, but I really don’t want to see him defeat Voldemort either. I want Neville to do it. Underestimated from the beginning and the butt of so many jokes that even he believes that he’s almost a squib, I’d love to see Voldemort come to an end at the hands of Neville Longbottom.

Parents who are dead are dead. Parents who have been driven mad by constant and unceasing pain and have been that way for 17 years beg for avenging. I just want Neville to finish off Voldemort.

I also would like some sort of vindication for Snape. I refuse to believe that he is evil, despite the death of Dumbledore. Some aching part of me wants Dumbledore to return, just as Gandolf returned. The “death” was all just a ruse to combat Voldemort and Snape was in on it the whole time. I’d like to see that, too, but I realize that would be a cop-out. Some people are just bad eggs and I guess I need to accept that.

I’m excited about the book and once it comes out, will file it in the Harry Potter canon in my mind. For now, however, the story is open. It could end in any number of ways and all of them are open and stretched out before me. Once I finish the book, all those untaken paths will be closed to me, whether I want to walk down them or not.

Couldn’t finish it. Probably shouldn’t have started it. Mike says their Nitro-Stout is a pretty good imitation of Guiness. Looks like a rootbeer float to me. You get a bad surprise if you taste it. That’s not a rootbeer float AT ALL.

I got an email from the Knitting Pattern-a-Day Calendar people. They were holding a contest for their 2009 calendar. You can submit your pattern for the contest. Sounds pretty good, huh? Not really…

$500 will be awarded as First place for both calendars; there are also 2nd and 3rd place prizes; and all contributors whose patterns are used will receive a 2009 calendar.

So, out of 365 patterns in their calendar, they give one first prize of $500, an unmentioned second and third prize. Everybody else just gets a copy of the calendar. Does that sound like a good chance to you? I know I’m feeling uninspired to send my patterns to them. Quite frankly, I’m pretty unimpressed with the Crochet Pattern-a-Day Calendar I bought this year. I get more good ideas from the Craft Magazine blog and Etsy.

I have felt a resurgence of love for crochet, but it has nothing to do with major publishers. All my good ideas have come from looking at what other people are doing all over the world on the web. People have created some interesting and edgy ideas. Instead of crochet being the thing that grandmas do, it’s something young people do. We create iPod cozies, watch bands and even crazy little crocheted stuffed robots. It’s all new and exciting right now, but if I head into a Barnes and Noble to see if there is a new book, it’s all about the ponchos, doilies and ghastly sweaters.

Sorry, Accord Publishing, I’m not submitting my patterns to you. I’ll just give them away for free on the Internet.

• Trying out mobile Twitter on the Treo. #
• @ ashbuckles Dale Ernhardt Jr. is leaving Dale Ernhardt Inc. and is going to race for another team. #
• Why does this exist? http://catsinsinks.com/ And, where did the last half hour go? #
• Watching My Name Is Earl. Laughing at, “How bad do you have to be to be passed over by a trailer park perv?” #
• Up, email answered and spam deleted. Time to hit the RSS. #
• My twitches are asleep? Am I all alone here? #
• @ ThomAllen Get better, man. You’ve had that flu for too long. #
• @ alizasherman Yes, we’re here. Just busy working… #
• Still reading RSS. Engadget posts TOO much. I should just take them off my list… #
• Success: Spend less than you earn. Talk less than you know. Love as much as you can. #
• @ libel_vox I don’t know many bums that spend less than they earn, unless you consider panhandling “earning” money. #
• @ hundreddollar “Talk less than you know” is harder for me to follow than the other two. When I’m nervous, my mouth takes over. #
• @ libel_vox “Talking less than you know” means be a little humble and let other people talk as well. #
• kitykity has been inspiring me all day long! Wrote a 3rd Gadgets Page entry today because of her. #
• @ robertmerrill I think that counts as “bad naked.” #
• Very productive day today. Time to clean the house for CodeAway. #
• Going to dinner with Mike. Turning Twitter off. Bye, bye Twitches. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

We took a quick drive through our old apartment complex, Stonehedge. The baby ducks are still in their fluffy and cute stage. This momma duck was pretty angry with me for daring to get close enough to take a picture.

Sometimes I miss living at Stonehedge. Sure we had to deal with the Elephant Man upstairs and there were five speed bumps to negotiate before we got to our parking spot and we had to take our laundry to the washers and dryers instead of being able to just do it at 3am in our house. There were baby ducks for my birthday every year, and doesn’t that really just make up for all of that?