Blah Blah Blah

I passed by one of your billboard advertisements the other night.  I suggest you fire your ad agency for this one.

“A bare-knuckled bucket of does”?  Seriously?  That’s the dumbest billboard being displayed in the Capital District right now.  First of all, I don’t think you’ll be able to find a bucket big enough to hold a single doe, never mind multiple does.  Deer may not be as big as moose and elk, but they’re not as small as chihuahuas either.  Plus, I’ve never seen a bucket with knuckles, bare or not.  What does this nonsense even mean?  I couldn’t even tell what you’re trying to sell, but when I do, I’ll be sure not to buy it.

In more succinct billboard news, the Mega Million lottery  is up to $83 million.

Filed by Kelly at 8:33 am under Rant
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What gives you the right to tell me who I can and can’t marry?  What gives you the right to tell anyone who they can and can’t marry?

Fifty years ago, people would have been up in arms (or worse) if I had voiced the notion that I wanted to marry an African American man.  Seventy-five years ago, people (certainly people in my family) would have been appalled if I’d wanted to marry a Jewish man.  Today, people get crazy if I say I’d be happy to marry a woman.

What gives you people the right to dictate who can get that piece of paper that legalizes a marriage?  It’s a piece of paper that’s provided by a government agency.  I know this because I have one of those pieces of paper, and it was the County of Jefferson in the State of Colorado that gave it to me.  That makes marriage a civil right.  Don’t you be bringing the argument of religion into it, either, bub.  As much as certain people in this country seem to think otherwise, we do not have a single, sanctioned, state-supported religion in this country.  We have this thing called “separation of church and state,” and I know there are people out there who just hate that.  Well, grow up.  Do you know how many religions the various people in this country adhere to?  Neither do I, but here’s a hint: religionsInUSA <> 1.  So you can’t have religion mixed in with politics without pissing off all the people that don’t adhere to the religion that gets picked.

And don’t start that bullshit about voting about who gets to be married.  You’re just trying to inflict your particular brand of religious idiosyncrasy on me, and I won’t have it.  Nobody gets to tell me who I’m going to love and spend the rest of my life with except me and the person I’m spending the rest of my life with.  You know what?  If marriage between a man and a woman got voted into nothingness, I’d be ok with that.  Not because I don’t want to be married (because I wouldn’t have gotten married in the first place if I didn’t want to be married), but because then it would be fair for everyone.

You’re the same people who voted so that my mother couldn’t marry an African American man.  It’s irrelevant that the thought never crossed her mind.  At least it was just peer pressure that kept my grandmothers from marrying Jewish men.  I sure as hell don’t want you telling my daughter who she can and can’t marry, because it’s none of your damn business.  I’m her mother, and even I wouldn’t have the audacity to tell her who to love.

If you don’t want to marry someone of the same gender, then don’t.  It’s really that simple.  Leave the rest of us alone.  Leave me alone, leave my daughter alone, leave my friends alone.

And don’t bother with your hateful comments, either, because I’m just going to delete them.  I had enough of you back when I was on Prodigy and Delphi and CompuServe.  Just go away.

Filed by Kelly at 6:17 am under Rant
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NaBloPoMo Day 30

I’ve got a lot of blogs and websites and web comics in my RSS feed.  And for this last day of NaBloPoMo, I thought I’d share some of them with you.

In the Art category, two of my favorite blogs are dot art and The Art of Madelaine.  Dotartdude creates fabulously colorful square abstract paintings with dots.  I know that sounds kind of odd, but I just love his art!  Madelaine paints the most wonderfully delicate watercolors of birds (and I don’t even like birds!) and fantastic other stuff, too.

There are three comics that make my week: xkcd, Girl Genius and Jesus and Mo.  xkcd is, as the site proclaims, “a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language.”  Every once in a while, the math ones have me scratching my head, but mostly I get it.  I love being a geek.  Girl Genius is a steampunk comic.  Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of steampunk.  In fact, the only reason I started reading it is because I’d met Phil Foglio a time or two at science fiction conventions a long, long time ago and have always liked his art.  Now, I’m hooked on the story he and Kaja have created!  Jesus and Mo is a tongue-in-cheek look at how organized religion can be just a little bit silly sometimes.  I have a crush on Barmaid.

And how about some of the people I follow?  They’re interesting, educational, entertaining and/or hysterically funny.  Sometimes all at once!  There’s John Scalzi at Whatever, Wil Wheaton at WWdN: In Exile, TJ at Temerity Jane, and Jim at Stonekettle Station.  Scalzi is a Famous Author.  He writes some science fiction stuff as if he’s channeling Robert A. Heinlein (only better) and then he writes science fiction stuff that is really, really funny.  Read his books, read his blog… you will like it.  Wil… yes, it is the same Wil Wheaton of Wesley Crusher infamy… but don’t judge him by that!  He’s a smart guy who is also very funny.  Listen to his podcasts!  Watch him in The Big Bang Theory (the Evil Wil Wheaton is outstanding!) and The Guild.  TJ is a real person kind of like me only way different who manages to say something just about every day to make me think, or make me laugh, or at the very least make me comment!  Jim lives in a place I wouldn’t live if you paid me millions of dollars. (I have nothing against Alaska except the weather… but, oh!  What weather!)  He’s intelligent, has strong opinions (which often make me stop and read his posts several times and just think about what he says) and is an artist!  He makes the most wonderful wooden birdhouses on his lathe.  I know they’re wonderful because I have one in my house.  (Why would I share a piece of art like that with birds??)

I have dozens more in my RSS feed.  These are just the shiny tip of the iceberg.  And they’re not the ones that will sink your ship if you wander too close in the dark.  No, for that, there is Basement Cat.

Filed by Kelly at 6:53 am under Babble
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NaBloPoMo Day 29

So, it’s the penultimate day of National Blog Posting Month.  I really didn’t think I’d be able to post every single freakin’ day for a whole month.  I’m pretty sure I deserve a prize or something.

Will I continue to post here every day once December rolls around?  Um, well… maybe not.  Probably not.  Will I post more often than I did before NaBloPoMo happened?  Yeah, that could happen.  Though I do feel like I’m talking to myself.  But that’s ok… I talk to myself out here in 3D Land, too.  Especially when I’m at work, programming the silly computers.  They seem to like it.

(I really like the stories I make up sometimes.  Especially the ones about computers and printers actually caring about what I do around them.  Maybe I’ll tell you some day about how I deal with recalcitrant printers.)

Filed by Kelly at 8:08 am under Babble
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NaBloPoMo Day 28

Well, actually I mark them as spam so Akismet knows to shut the door in your face next time.

Listen, if you have something to say that pertains to the post, that’s cool.  It does need to be written in fairly coherent English, but I’m not going to hold you to the same standards I hold myself.  I’m not going to let your word salad comments stand, though.  And I’ll delete your comments if you have links that I don’t find relevant, too.  Hmmm, sometimes I’ll just edit your comment and delete the links… depends on my mood.

My house, my rules.  If you come to my house and start speaking in tongues, I’m going to call the nice young men in their clean white coats to come take you away.  If you set up your slide projector in my living room and start sharing pictures of your last vacation to the rest of my guests I’m just going to toss your slides out into the street.  And call the guys in the white coats for you.

And if you want to know how I really feel about spam, check out what Jim has to say.  He’s incredibly eloquent.  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Filed by Kelly at 9:51 am under Rant
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NaBloPoMo Day 27

I don’t get many spam comments compared to other blogs, simply because I don’t have the traffic that other blogs do.  Most of the spam is pretty boring stuff.  But every once it a while, there will be one that makes me wonder what drugs the commenter was taking, or one that makes me snicker a bit.

For example, the other day a spammer asked, “What about the illegal [aliens] that make money here?”

Well, let me go on record as saying there is absolutely no one making any money here on my blog.  Certainly there are no illegal aliens making money on my blog.  There aren’t even any legal aliens making money here on my blog.  (And think about it… why would beings from other planets care about Earth money anyway?)  There are no legal or illegal non-aliens making money, either.  I hope that sets everyone’s mind at ease.

Filed by Kelly at 9:16 am under Babble
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NaBloPoMo Day 26

I am grateful for a lot of things, but mostly I’m grateful for the people in my life.  I’m grateful for my family and friends, co-workers and chorus-mates, my mail carrier and the UPS guy, the guys who take away the garbage and recycling, the cashier at the grocery store who is always cheerful and smiling, the salesman at the phone store who kept us all entertained while we waited in line forever.

I’m not always a “people person,” but I do appreciate all of you even when I want to hide in my room as far away from you as I can get.

Filed by Kelly at 12:47 pm under Ponder
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NaBloPoMo Day 25

As a homeowner, I have the opportunity to do many things I have no real interesting in doing.

• I could paint the inside or the outside of my house.  Some people think that I would enjoy doing this, because painting large expanses of walls and ceilings is just like painting on canvas or paper.  Except that it isn’t at all the same, because large expanses of walls and doors are generally painted a single (often boring) color and when I paint on canvas I use many interesting colors.  So, yeah.  Not even close to being the same.  Therefore, I go hire somebody to do the boring bits on walls and ceilings.
• I could replace carpeting and tile, or refinish the hardwood floors.  I watched my father refinish some of floors in the house I grew up in.  There’s no way I’m getting involved in that mess.  I’ve laid my share of tiles, and feel like I’ve had enough fun with that medium.  And I hurt just thinking about wrestling with carpeting.  Again, I’ll just hire somebody to do all of this.  Except for the floor refinishing… I’m not living with that mess, and the floors can stay the way they are.  Or I’ll hire somebody to carpet over them.
• I could fix all the quirky little electrical problems one finds in a house that’s over a century old.  These are simple things like replacing light fixtures and outlets and light switches.  But I’ve always hated dealing with electricty.  Sure, I know how to do all that stuff.  Doesn’t mean I want to do all that stuff.  Again… give someone else a job!
• I could deal with the annoying plumbing problems that sneak into a house of this age.  Oddly, I’m more likely to actually tackle a plumbing problem than any other.  I’ve fixed leaky pipes and replaced a few toilets in my day.  Sadly, it isn’t a lack of interest or desire that has me hiring these jobs out.  It’s the increasing amount of pain in my person causing a decrease in the strength needed to wrestle with tight fittings.
• I could mow the lawn, clear the weeds and trim the bushes outside.  I actually get my Spousal Unit to mow the lawn on a somewhat regular basis, but the rest of it just doesn’t get done.  I’m thinking, come spring, I’ll hire someone to take care of that, too.

Huh.  I’d probably be just as happy as an apartment-dweller… except for the probability of noisy neighbors.

Filed by Kelly at 7:15 am under Babble
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NaBloPoMo Day 24

You put this Windows Defender thing on my computer without my permission.  And you update it every other frackin’ day. You’re really bugging me, Microsoft.

Why do you think you know better than I do?  Huh?  Why?  I have an anti-virus/anti-spyware program already.  It’s a program I really like, and I trust its ability to sniff out and eradicate viruses and spyware so much more than I trust you, Microsoft.  After all, you haven’t exactly been the world’s leader is preventing hackers and spammers from doing what they do best, have you?  No.  You haven’t.

So stop trying to foist your version of programs onto the rest of us.  I don’t use, nor do I want, Internet Explorer.  Firefox makes me really happy.  I don’t use, nor do I want, your Windows Defender.  Yeah, that’s right.  I turn it off after every reboot.  I’m surprised my security software of choice hasn’t tagged you as malicious.  Ha!  Now, that would be funny.  If you want to protect the people who are dumb enough to use a computer without security software, that’s fine.  But for those of us with brains, you need to give us the option to remove the stuff we don’t want.

Are you listening to me, Microsoft?

No.  Of course not.

Bah!

Filed by Kelly at 6:59 am under Rant
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NaBloPoMo Day 23

Sometimes when I’ve driving around, I see color combinations that make me want to stop the car and pull out my paints right then and there.  This compulsion is especially strong when I see that orange-pink-purple combination in the sky.  This usually occurs in evening rush hour, and is why I don’t carry painting supplies in my car.  Can you imagine the conversation I could have with the police while trying to explain why I’m blocking traffic?

Filed by Kelly at 7:11 am under Ponder
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