Getting the feeling

I'm procrastinating on actually thinking and writing these days? I'll be back after finals.

President Bush Makes Fun of Himself (really)

This is pretty OK.

Thanks, Sam.

Who IS This Woman?

And how did she get electted? I mean, granted, this is Wyoming, but honestly, does she ever vote yes on anything? What the hell? There's such a thing as smaller government, and there's such a thing as going to serve in government so that the common money is spent on the common good, and Cynthia Lummis just DOES NOT GET IT. She is going to drive me to a heart attack.

COPS Improvements Act of 2009 - Vote Passed (342-78, 12 Not Voting)
The House authorized this five-year, $1.8 billion bill funding the Community Oriented Policing Services grant program.
Rep. Cynthia Lummis voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

Creepy Ugly Little Grey Men

Does anyone else get what I get from this one? If you have a google account, you can set your homepage to have a theme of the day, one that often changes over the course of those 24 hours. This is today's. Here is the blurb about the theme:

"By Cameron Sinclair
"Cameron Sinclair is the co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, a global non-profit that creates design solutions for humanitarian crises and brings professional architectural services to communities in need. Theme designed for AFH by famed artist Cole Gerst/Option-G."

It's not just that there are cranes and trucks in this particular image that makes today's theme appeal to me. There is also a picture of a flying saucer on top of a burning house where it crashed, and a little grey family with open Os for mouths, the little girl with a bow in her hair, the dad wearing a hat a la 1950s.

While some people who left comments about the theme seem possibly cognizant of what's going on here, others didn't seem to get it:

"good cause but the little gray men really creep me out"

"This theme is really cute in theory, but the graphics are not particularly nice which makes it hard to give it a better rating. I want to like it, but those ugly little men keep me from truly enjoying it."

"not a huge fan. It looks like something out of a picture book, which some people may like, but personally, not for me"

It just feels like too many of us are willing to escape in what we find pretty or familiar.

I Wish My Appreciation for Trumpet Hadn't Been Ruined.

From the fabulous Mrs. Smith:

http://www.261days.com/

PC Shield Deluxe 2009 is CRAP!

OK, so a couple weeks ago I finally sucked it up and bought the antivirus and antispyware software that had received good reviews wherever I looked: PC Shield Deluxe 2009. I read an ad that promised an instant rebate at time of purchase, so the software appealed not only to my wish to not have to worry about spending money on something that would be a pain in the arse, but also my yankee appreciation of a deal.

Well, this was not a deal of any sort. First, as soon as my PayPal receipt came through, it listed NO REBATE. I was charged the full amount.

Then, I downloaded the software, and my computer got really slow. OK, people, I do know that I am supposed to expect things to slow down when this stuff is cruising looking for problems, but it had become a problem just as soon as I turned the computer off and then back on to see if that would alleviate some of the slowness, set things in order, but instead the machine would not start. It just kept saying "tick tick tick tick," looking for the startup program.

So, $50 and a couple days later I had rented Tim's flesh and he had fixed my computer so it would work again, but now of course I have to redo my favorites list and all that. So what? Big deal. I can handle that. However, I am still awaiting a refund from PC Shield for the 40 bucks I paid them because do you think I am going to reinstall that software? Hardly!

Here is what I keep getting every couple days:

"Thank you for contacting PCSecurityShield's Customer Support!
Due to the recent news about the Conficker virus, we are experiencing a longer then normal response time to some of our email inquiries. If your question has not been addressed at this time please resend an email with your question to csupport@PCSecurityShield.com or contact us by calling toll free at the number listed below."

And here is what I will continue to reply, until I get my money back:

"Hi there. Thanks a lot for getting back to me. No, my problem has not beenaddressed. I downloaded your software and my computer crashed. I would likea refund for the amount of purchase, $39.99, please, and we will call it"even." (It cost me $50 to have my computer fixed. I could really use thatrefund, thank you. I will not be using your product.)"

I just want you all to know (and some of you already know me well enough to not have to be told this) that it takes a lot, I mean quite a lot, to really piss me off. I get frustrated at little things, and annoyed with various behaviors, and am perpetually cranky about the general state of how humans in Positions of Power maneuver to maintain that power and crap on the rest of us, but it really takes a lot to outright piss me off to the point I want vengeance (like I will never spend another penny at Hart's Alley Speakeasy because Sean took advantage of a mistake I made sending a private e-mail list without Bcc-ing and began to send his business ads to everyone on the list... Consider this a bad review for Hart's Alley, even though I love their old restored light fixtures and leather chairs. Too bad for me- wah.)

Anyway, I want you all to know that I consider this act of neglect on the part of PC Shield to NOT be good business, and this blog entry is a BAD REVIEW from me. At least send me an e-mail that says, "Hmm... how can we fix this?" Crap, a company that claims to have the best antivirus software cannot even get back to a customer for two weeks because of "news of a virus?"

Why do we let this crap persist when most of us are on edge, losing jobs, making less than we are worth, and all that, while the big guys are rolling in the cashola- still?

I like when people send good stuff I can share.

This is a pretty cool story. My first thought was, "People really do care." My second thought was, "Too bad they don't share the same empathy for each other as they do for an anthropomorphized object." Seriously, isn't this how the God thing gets started?

Anyway, I wish a Tweenbot would come here. Check it out; you can e-mail the creator about future projects. (Yeah, see that? The Creator.)

http://www.tweenbots.com/

Thanks today to Ebony.

THIS is Awesome!

It's Kind of Creepy

Last night I got an e-mail from my bro, "Gentle Tommy" as RobRohrTM so aptly named him recently, that the latest National Geographic Adventure mag features an article about Everett Ruess, that after 75 years, his body may have been found. So, he will save me the article because I can't read the whole thing online, but just what I read- and mostly saw- kind of gave me the creeps.

Like the article says, many people in the last century and a half have disappeared in canyon country. Ruess wandered all over- Escalante, Monument Valley, the whole four corners area- and if those are his bones, he died in a canyon on the Navajo reservation somewhere off what is now Highway 191, in the Chinle wash, a victim of a small band of marauding Utes.

Man, I just don't like that story. And I like even less the old photos of Everett's face with images of the recently removed bone and teeth imposed where they would be located on a face that was intact. It's creepy as hell. And I feel for his spirit, or something. I guess I'd be a pretty crappy forensic detective, and maybe a better Navajo. You just leave those things alone.

OK, sure...

Anyone who tried to keep those documents secret knows, and we all know, about the despicable behavior. We don't need to press charges to prove or bring light to guilt; the bastards already have done it for themselves.

Obama Releases Interrogation Memos, Says C.I.A. Operatives Won’t Be Prosecuted

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/secret-interrogation-memos-to-be-released/?8au&emc=au

Tommy J Said

Quote of the Week: 'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.' Thomas Jefferson 1802

Why am I so mad?

How often is that the title of my entry? Crap.

But seriously, so my brother sent this video of some monks doing their throat singing, which is pretty cool, at least interesting. I don't know if I could listen for longer than the 4 or 5 minutes of video time, but that's OK. The singing is some sort of prayer, and I don't get it; I'm not Buddhist, but that's OK, too. Tomas noted that his chest burns when he listens to these guys singing. Mine doesn't. Oh well.

Then I noticed that my brother's tag was listed in the comments, and that he had been involved in a conversation about the video. Now, I don't know if it's that I am protective of my little bro and didn't like the patently aggressive response of someone to his comment about faith, or whether I am just sick and tired of people being able to rail against the Ten Commandments being placed in the public arena via courthouses and such, but those people are permitted to spout their venomous hatred of all concepts even remotely mysterious, as though their nonreligion is the only real and true one and the rest of us had better start sucking it up and not believing in anything, just like them, or we're destined for hell on earth..?

Don't get me wrong; be an atheist. That doesn't bother me, and it's your choice, anyway, and I can honestly say that as someone who calls herself a Christian, that's my ethical philosophy, as the FFM so eloquently labeled my own "faith" rather than a religion or a belief in deity, some human-looking guy wearing long hair and a fresh white robe and walking around in the clouds. (Though I do find comfort at times in yapping with the Big Guy Upstairs, just to get my head or my heart straight, or simply to be thankful for all the cool stuff that makes up my life, regardless of how it or I got here.)

You can be Christian- of any number of denominations because, let's admit it, many denominations exist, thanks to the ability of The Bible to provide many opportunities for interpretation. Just don't proselytize at me about how your denomination is the "right" one. Are you sure the Big Guy really made you and not the rest of us in his own image?

You can be Jewish, but don't get me started on Israel.

You can be Muslim, sunni, shia, doesn't matter, Sufi peace-loving, Rumi reading, but if you're one of those intolerant religious buffs- like Christians who preach meeting people where they are at but then tell them how they have to live- and strive to hurt people who don't do what you want them to do, don't talk to me.

You can be Buddhist. Or Wiccan. Even the kind that feel the need for something but buck against the white man's western religion, so that's your reason for your leanings.

You can be Hindu, though I totally don't get the whole thing about that, and frankly, have little interest in finding out more, when there are other topics out there to explore and only so much time.

If you practice religion, or "spirituality," or simply humanity, or none of that, no big deal. But when people run around busting on those who have some belief system and then push their own proposed nonbelief in others' faces, it pisses me off. I just don't know quite why, but when you yell "screw faith" at my brother as he is engaging in a thoughtful conversation about people's tendencies toward belief in something, whatever it is, outside of themselves- out of your own fear, I'd challenge- and equate faith with "believing blindly"- I am just so glad you're not my neighbor on a dark Saturday night... You would not get donuts from me on Sunday as a make-up present.

(The picture here is of the frequency of the throat singing. Does it look like anything else to you?)

You know...

Paul sent a bunch of sweet sweet photos I opened this morning, but those of you who know and love me will understand why this one gets Picture of the Day.

No Woman

Apparently, Cynthia Lummis, my "representative"- hahahahaha- from Wyoming to the US Congress, comes directly from the Nancy Regan School on all matters, not just drugs:

April 6, 2009In this MegaVote for Wyoming's 1st Congressional District:Recent Congressional

"Recent House VotesGenerations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act - Vote Passed (274-149, 8 Not Voting)
The House agreed to the Senate amendments to this national service bill, sending it to the president.
Rep. Cynthia Lummis voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

"To amend the executive compensation provisions of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 - Vote Passed (247-171, 1 Present, 12 Not Voting)
On Wednesday, the House passed this bill intended to curb bonuses of executives at financial institutions that receive Troubled Asset Relief Program money.
Rep. Cynthia Lummis voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

"Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act - Vote Passed (298-112, 21 Not Voting)
The House passed this bill that would give the FDA regulatory authority over tobacco, but would not allow the agency to ban cigarettes or other tobacco products.
Rep. Cynthia Lummis voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

"Congressional Budget for Fiscal Year 2010 - Vote Passed (233-196, 3 Not Voting)
The House passed their version of the national budget for fiscal year 2010.
Rep. Cynthia Lummis voted NO......send e-mail or see bio"

I haven't been the least bit interested in seeing Jim Carrey's "Yes Man," but I wish she would consider it. She even says NO to answering my e-mails- still.

The Balance of Nature

Flesh Rental

I'm going to have to do this soon.

Here is a new blog of a friend who is a starving college student with two kids and a crapload of talent (and a wise mouth):

www.rentmyflesh.blogspot.com.

I like to share these things. I figure it's good karma for all involved.

India Rising

Yesterday afternoon instead of the usual Wyoming Public Radio "Open Spaces" program, I listened to a special program called "India Rising." Now, I cannot, more than 24 hours later, recall the exact words, but let me paraphrase for you here the words the reporter used that just made me laugh because they were so ridiculous, how could I not? Essentially:

India is a rising nation, economically and democratically, but can a nation rise to a position of world superpower, and leave so many of its citizens behind in poverty and squalor?

hahahahahaha
What the hell; the US did it.

Why People Go Postal?

It is just not OK that I cannot mail a book to someone from the comfort of my own home if I have the book, a big envelope, a roll of tape and plenty of postage stamps and a mailbox right outside the door, if the book weighs more than 13 ounces. No; I am required to take the package to the post office and say, "I am not a terrorist, and inside this package that is labeled 'Media Mail' and looks from the outside, and feels if you touch it, like a book, is a book."

However, I could stick a little anthrax, or some other minute killer, into a regular envelope, attach a regular postage stamp, mail it from my home like a regular letter, by placing the envelope in my mailbox and raising the little red flag, and TADAAAA! People could die.

This is just not OK, all around.

U.S. to Drop Case Against Ex-Senator From Alaska
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/us/politics/02stevens.html?nl=pol&emc=pola1

Who Are You?

There is this e-mail that goes around, with pictures of various foods that have been, let's say artistically arranged. It's titled "International Disturbed People's Day" or something like that. Sheila sent me the latest version, with this picture. I thought it was pretty nice of her to recognize my disturbity and to attempt to feed that.

I also realized within the same day or so that since moving to Wyoming 6 years ago, if nothing else, I am now more cognizant than ever of my noncoformist nature and concomitant resourcefulness. I don't know if that's good or not, whatever "good" is, because it hasn't made me rich or famous or even able to travel the world as I dream- yet, anyway. But the realization has helped me get my head around this funding for grad school thing and to get creative.

I think an appropriate mantra these days to quell the anxiety would be, "I eat cauliflower."