Current Events

Bye-Bye New Orleans

In less then 5 hours.. Katrina is going to hit New Orleans.. And if the estimates are correct.. it will definitely be “not good”. If you live in New Orleans and you’re reading this.. now would probably be a good time to find a very tall, very secure building to go to… if you’re in a ground floor apartment.. you’re screwed!

Seriously, if anyone reading this lives in one of the areas that’s going to be nailed by Katrina, or has family in one of the areas.. Good Luck.. I hope you (or your family) was able to evacuate in time, and is safe.

Site Stuff

Movable Type Anti-Spam

One of MT 3.2’s new features, is the integration of SpamLookup, in conjunction with a built-in junk scoring system. So far, its been working flawlessly. I haven’t seen any comments/trackbacks getting junked that shouldn’t be, and only a couple of comments have made it through the filters to get to me for approval. This morning, I found out that this combination has more tricks up its sleeve… it can also auto-ban IP addresses that submit too many junk comments/trackbacks (apparently, 45 in a row is enough to trigger the auto-banning, since that’s how many I had in my junk folder)

Definitely a handy feature..

Just Stuff

Everyone’s got one

There’s one in every neighborhood… luckily, I haven’t met the one in mine yet.. although, I’m sure there’s one here somewhere.. My favorite part of the article:

“They’ve called on numerous neighbors to the Children’s Hotline, saying they’re abusing their kids, their kids run free in the neighborhood,” said neighbor Sarah Kozlowski. “It’s sad, you know, you have to watch over your back, you shouldn’t have to.”

Lesiak’s main targets were her next-door neighbors, Jason and Mary Ellen Ottinger.

The charges she made against them ranged from trespassing, to child abuse, to “engaging in unnatural acts with their animals.”

Complaining because kids run free in the neighborhood? Ummm.. she was expecting them to be on a leash or something? Sure… kids can be loud, messy, and.. kids.. but to report them as engaging in unnatural acts? Probably a bit excessive..

And to think, this nice lady only has 79 complaints filed against her neighbors

Just Stuff

Bill Collectors

1 Comment

Holy Crap!

You.. stop what you are doing right now.. and go here. Read the linked entry on some guy’s blog… and commence with laughing and snorting and whatever else it is you do when you’ve just read some of the funniest shit you’ve seen in awhile!

A Brief excerpt:

  • f.f.b.c.c.w.: “Sir, I just need to schedule a payment.”
  • me: “Schedule it for Friday, then.”
  • f.f.b.c.c.w.: “And you’ll be able to pay it by then?”
  • me: “Probably not.”
  • f.f.b.c.c.w.: “Then can we schedule it for a time when you will?”
  • me: “Sure. Schedule it for May 16th, 2010.”
  • f.f.b.c.c.w.: “I can’t schedule that far, sir.
  • “me: “Friday, then.”
  • f.f.b.c.c.w.: “But you’ve already said you won’t be making a payment then.”
  • me: “I won’t, but some other account representative will be on duty then, so it’ll be their problem.”

Ya gotta love seeing someone screw with Bill collector’s.. uhh.. I guess.. that is unless you happen to be a bill collector.. then you probably hate it unless its really funny, and not you that’s being screwed with

Site Stuff, Tech

Its released!

Today, Six Apart has officially released Movable Type version 3.2. I’d imagine there will be much downloading and upgrading done tonight! Since I’ve been running the betas, my favorite new feature is the “junk” feature, which works to help prevent comment and trackback spam.. and it seems to work pretty good.

I’m downloading now, and will update tonight. Two important tips… back up your database! and make sure that you have the mt-site.js file up to date… otherwise funky things happen on comments

Apple, Just Stuff

Sims 2 Expansion

2 Comments

Because all you Simmers (is that even a real word?) don’t spend enough time playing with your Sims:
Aspyr Media today announced they will publish The Sims 2 University, the first expansion to The Sims 2, with an anticipated release in November 2005.

Now you know what to add to ask Santa for

Current Events

Bikini

1 Comment

Further proof that women will wear anyting.. There is now a water based bikini floating around.. and apparently, its designed to have cold water poured into the cups to keep you cool…and adjust your breast size, and get you in shape, all at the same time.

From the Sun:

And according to boob boffins, the cold water will even help tone, firm and shape your beach body.

The bra’s filter funnel means bikini babes can top up the water level at their leisure, controlling how cool they keep their boobs.

My guess is the ‘tone, firm, and shape’ portion comes in, as you keep running around to refill your boobs, and escape the stares of every guy on the beach

Current Events

Interesting Headlines

2 Comments

Two interesting headlines that I stumbled across while working today..

The first one comes from Hawaii.

Its about a woman who tried to stop someone from stealing her car. She did this, by jumping up on the hood. The really interesting part? Apparently, the woman was buck naked while clinging to the car hood to get the thief to stop.

A woman, who was naked, jumped onto the hood of the car, trying to stop the thief, a man who was camping nearby, witnesses said.

(If for nothing else, read the article to see further quotes from the witness.. I found the way he was ‘talking’ to be hilarious)

Now.. what the article doesn’t mention..

  • Did she know the guy?
  • Why is she running around Hawaii naked?
  • Was it even her car?

Seriously.. I mean.. if it was her car, then I can understand it.. but, if it wasn’t my car, I think I’d be inclined to at least put on some pants before jumping on top of a moving car!
And the second, comes from the “people will complain about anything” category

Seems this lady went to the Dr about her health.. and while there, the Dr told her that her weight could cause health problems, and that she needed to lose weight… and this upset the lady so much, she complained to the State Attorney General..

Apparently, even though she knows she’s obese, she doesn’t want to be told she’s obese, and the Dr is bad for telling her. Of course, this means she is also probably one of those people, who if she got seriously ill (like diabetes or something) due to her being obese.. would probably sue the Dr for not telling her she was fat and needed to lose weight…

I Like the quote from one of the Dr’s other patients:

“What really makes me angry is he told the truth,” patient Mindy Haney said. “How can you punish somebody for that?”

Site Stuff, Tech

Adsense Changes

Google has made some changes to their Adsense program..

  • They’ve changed how they match AdWords up with Adsense ads.
  • According to some people, they’ve made changes in how they figure out how much you get per ad view/click through
  • You can now have up to 200 channels

None of these really matter to me, as this site isn’t here to make money off of. Sure.. I’m going to make a few bucks each month between Google and the iTunes affiliate program..but not enough to quit my job for..

The change they made that interests me?
You can now specify to Google’s bots and spiders, which content on your page should be considered when matching ads up to your page. The benefit? no more ads for blogs, because its looking at the sidebars (or, at least..that’s the idea)

To tell Google what content to look at just add:

<!– google_ad_section_start –>
and
<!– google_ad_section_end –>

around the content you want included. Next time Google checks your page, more weight will be given to this content.

This should help improve which ads show up when…and for those sites that are ad-revenue driven, it’ll help them make more money.

Tech

Google Talk!

Late Tuesday Google quietly introduced their IM client, Google Talk. Apparently, the official release is set for Wednesday. A quick glance at their client page, shows that once again, Mac users get the shaft… no “official” Google Talk client.. however.. in this case.. its not as bad as it sounds.. in that we can use iChat..or almost any other Mac based IM client, since Google’s IM is Jabber based. So.. here’s what you need:

  • A Gmail account (If anyone doesn’t have one.. I’ve got plenty of invites if you want one)
  • Setup iChat following these instructions. Which basically amount to:
  • Create a new Jabber account in iChat’s preferences
  • Username/password are your gmail account information
  • Server name is talk.google.com
  • The defaults work good for the rest of the setup

Then you’ll need someone to chat with.. my Google talk (and then obviously, one of my email addresses) is tepper(dot)dan(at)gmail.com (obvious formatting changes to try and at least slow down the amount of spam that’ll hit that account now.