Our friend Annette now has a domain for her art - Makin It Up. Congratulations, Annette! Cool! BTW, I love the "diner"-esque logo for the site - *grin*
posted:7:58 AM | link |

Everyone seems to think it's terrific that Bush is planning on making his cabinet "bipartisan friendly" - unto itself, that's great. But it still reminds me of Coke and Pepsi commercials - comparing themselves to each other almost exclusively was a GREAT angle for getting audiences to think ONLY in terms of Coke or Pepsi, forgetting that there ARE other sodas out there! For the moment, I guess I'll be happy that other parties like Libertarians and Greens, etc., are actually starting to be elected at the LOCAL level. ACTUALLY, I don't really CARE about what they're doing as much as I love looking at patterns in ANYTHING - doesn't have to be politics - just happened to be the first news headline I saw this morning - LOL.
posted:7:49 AM | link |

It's a very freeing feeling to go to your profile in eGroups and unsubscribe yourself from all the lists you're no longer reading or interested in. And then, going back to your email program and deleting folders, old emails, and filter rules. Ahhhhhhhhhh - cyber-housecleaning.
posted:9:21 AM | link |

Would you want a phone that told you when the person on the other end was lying? It's kinda funny - things like this and caller-ID really change the assumptions you can make when using a phone. It's like - if we got video phones, what wouldn't YOU be able to do anymore while talking to someone? *grin*
posted:8:33 AM | link |

Cool - tom has his new conception du moment (design of the moment) up on his site - no more temporary emergency design! And there was much rejoicing.... yay... *grin*
posted:8:26 AM | link |

Take the Star Wars personality test and find out what characters most reflect who you are! *grin* Here are my results (you may not want to read these until you take the test yourself, but that's up to you. Thanks for the link /usr/bin/grl!)

Openness - very high (95 percentile)
Yoda -- This wise, philosophical, and thoughtful Jedi master challenges the establishment, encouraging his pupils to unlearn what they have learned and see the world in novel, creative ways. High scorers tend to be original, creative, curious, complex; Low scorers tend to be conventional, down to earth, narrow interests, uncreative.

Conscientious - very high (98 percentile)
Admiral Ackbar -- This rebel Admiral is renowned for his great powers of organization, responsibility, and administrative abilities. He is an individual who can be relied upon. High scorers tend to be reliable, well-organized, self-disciplined, careful; Low scorers tend to be disorganized, undependable, negligent.

Extraversion - high (74 percentile)
Luke Skywalker -- An ambitious, energetic, and adventuresome young man. He longs to leave the slow paced, lonely life on Tattooine. High scorers tend to be sociable, friendly, fun loving, talkative; Low scorers tend to be introverted, reserved, inhibited, quiet.

agreeableness - high (79 percentile)
Qui-Gon Jinn -- This Jedi master is loyal, sensitive, and sympathetic. High scorers tend to be good natured, sympathetic, forgiving, courteous; Low scorers tend to be critical, rude, harsh, callous.

neuroticism - very low (3 percentile)
Princess Leia -- A confident & calm individual who does not crack under pressure (e.g.,. when being threatened by Lord Vader). She is brave and relaxed, even when in great danger (e.g., when disguising herself as a bounty hunter to gain access to Jabba the Hutt's palace). High scorers tend to be nervous, high-strung, insecure, worrying; Low scorers tend to be calm, relaxed, secure, hardy.
posted:4:39 PM | link |

I had a dream last night that showed me, I think, why I stop myself from leading with my intuition. Why I often seem to hold back from expressing what I know unless there's already some physical means of justification for this "knowing" - most of it has to do with overt criticism, based on, naturally, nothing being "evident". I dreamt everything from a Malcolm in the Middle scenario where they take a private jet because they DIDN'T get on a plane and it crashed (rewards for listening to intuition?) to a Star Wars rebellion type dream where I was supposed to be following this one ship on an Empire controlled planet, but had an impulse to break off the convoy - didn't find out what I finally chose to do. Then, there was a MATRIX scene where I did something and the character "Switch" (who was rather 'rough' in the movie) jumped down my throat for doing something that I still was pretty sure wasn't going to hurt us and might actually help us, but her verbal attack really took me back. Yup - lots of 'stuff' here to look at!
posted:8:42 AM | link |

If mom taught me anything it's that even if the Christmas tree suddenly starts looking FULL, you can still fit at LEAST 30 more ornaments on it. :-) Plus the garland. Magic is where you look for it! *grin*
posted:8:18 AM | link |

They promised us rain, and all we got was showers and then partly cloudy skies. Geesh - if you wanna do something right you gotta do it yourself.

And I know that "Chrismtas doesn't come from a store" but we went out shopping for lights and ornaments and such yesterday and... well - I usually get excited about looking at all the stuff. But there was hardly any selection and I didn't feel ANY kind of Christmas spirit anywhere! Well, okay, there was a bit at the restaurant where we had lunch, but none at all in the stores. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I still am. We actually found more of the kinds of decorations that we wanted in the local GROCERY store. In any case, we went home and created our OWN holiday spirit - got the tree up and the lights on and watched Rudolph. *grin* I love it because of the memories, but looking at it with fresh eyes - wasn't Santa mean and ego-centric and snippy? heh heh.
posted:8:35 AM | link |

Incandescents are out, LEDs are in! LEDs are more efficient, don't heat up, are brighter, and last longer! (We have a couple of solar-powered outdoor walkway lights that are LEDs.) I just hope the white LEDs don't look like garrish flourescent lights, but I don't think they do. I hope. LOL. This is also a neat synch because I was thinking a lot about alternative energy and then this comes up - cool!
posted:8:27 PM | link |

Lots of "stuff" to do today - laundry, grocery shopping, and picking up some new holiday decorations - maybe we'll even get the tree up tonight! Woo Hoo! *grin*
posted:7:31 AM | link |

Since living here, I've seen many dead things - dead mice, dead rats, dead chickadees, dead squirrels, dead boar, and dead cows, if you count the old bones scattered here and there in the surrounding fields. Today, the dogs found a dead quail in the yard. (If I was into politics, this could be considered a bad sign for the republicans - LOL.) It looked like it just decided to leave - no trauma evident. I brought the dogs inside and picked it up with a shovel and placed it outside the boundaries of the yard. No doubt some coyotes or racoons or maybe even a bobcat will have a good dinner tonight.
posted:12:21 PM | link |

This article struck me as particularly well-written, in the objective manner that reporting SHOULD be - it was actually refreshing. I appreciated how they referred to this one group of high school students as "the students wearing the goth-type clothes" instead of labeling them something quicker and easier to react to. Basically, these students defaced part of a bible and ate a few pages and other students got into an argument with them about it, and then everyone else freaked out or reacted, rumors started, etc. Heh heh. I wonder if people actually use these incidences to take a look at what they really believe?
posted:7:47 AM | link |

Heh heh - thanks for posting about the aforementioned "archive tip" - since it was your discovery, I didn't want to blab about it without a release. *grin* I also want to add, that once you get done setting and resetting, as tom describes, then remember to go to "archives" and click the "republish all" button. Ha cha cha.
posted:3:28 PM | link |

Thanks for the "archive regeneration" tip, tom! It seems to have worked perfectly! (Archives are now all in the same design as the current blog, and have been updated to 'now'.) Also, thanks for adding even just a BIT of color to Nothing, as the black on white was making me think I was reading old technical manuals, and that just SCARED me. *grin* I await your new design eagerly.
posted:2:03 PM | link |

Yes! Check out the Satellite Photo of the U.S. West Coast - there are clouds EVERYWHERE, and a beautiful system coming in from the west. They are predicting a real RAIN on Monday, not just showers. I'm not just happy because we have yet to get a good rain in this so-called rainy season, but also because it will certainly help our stream start flowing AND will help replenish our well. Right now I'm running our pump for about 25 minutes and it sorta slurps its way along, basically filling the holding tank for a day's worth of water. When the well is replenished, the well pumps 100x stronger and fills the tank MUCH more easily.

So anyway - yes - RAIN RAIN RAIN!!! And some places will get SNOW and maybe we'll see pictures! *grin* The only commercials you see in California with snow in them are the Ford Explorer type where they are going up to the mountains skiing. I didn't realize this until we were watching a movie John had taped off the TV while still in New York, and we saw lots of commercials with snow two feet deep, cars stuck in it or driving really slowly, people shoveling. In New York, snow is a way of life, not a weekend vacation. LOL.
posted:7:53 AM | link |