ornamentalillness: August 2006

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Dude!!!!

I just switched this blog over to xhtml (the Blogger bits, not the former Greymatter stuff, which I will forever keep in html transitional in sort of a time capsule sort of way) and it passed validation!!!! I was a bit worried, because I kept checking it and I kept getting errors, and finally I said, oh screw it, I'll just do it, since it seemed that the errors being generated were not coming from my coding or template but that weird junk that makes up Blogger code generated on *their* end.

But it passed! It passed!

Wow!

OK, on to my next tasks...the other sites. Grrrrrrr....

Labels: Blog Info

Another New Corpse

Ants Win Gifts for Friends Mid-Century Insects Their Only Rebellion

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Schoolteaching DREAM

I dreamt I was supposed to be a teacher of young schoolkids. It looked very unofficial. I didn't have a chalkboard to write on, just a pad of 8x11 paper on the wall. I had to use magic markers, which weren't thick enough, so I feared kids in the back of the class wouldn't be able to see. I had to stand up on a chair in my stocking feet in order to reach the pad of paper. The weird thing is that when I said my name and introduced myself "Good morning class, my name is", I said a first and last name, but they weren't my own names. I forgot what the names were, but they definitely weren't mine. Then when I turn around to look at the class, they were mostly adults, and I don't mean adults as in college students, I mean adults like 40 year old adults, men in business suits. Weird.

Labels: Dreams

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Boring Code Stuff!

I decided to do some reading and research this weekend and found this very helpful site about xhtml.

So I nerded out today and fixed the entire jewelry area of my site to validate xhtml 1.0 transitional.

I hate doing this. It was painful. And I have a gazillion more pages to do in my other areas and site too.

Labels: Blog Info

Odd Balance in the Universe

The depressing news is that the pathetic human waste particle, John Mark Karr, who delusionally confessed to strangling that little girl that was murdered, will only face misdemeanor kid porn charges in California, and will probably be out of jail in 5 years, looking for more little girls to psycho over. But there does seem to be some balance in the world--another polygamist prophet pedophile pimp, Warren Jeffs, has been arrested somewhere in Nevada.

At the risk of being flamed by some socially liberal smile-on-yer-brother types, I think we should put all these sick f*c*s on an island somewhere, like they did with lepers in Molokai. Actually, that is probably too kind to them as they'd never get the eye-for-an-eye justice of being raped by Bubba in prison.

Sorry, but I have no compassion for these types.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Poll for All that Read, Post or Plan to Post Comments in Ornamental Illness

Which do you prefer, the pop-up Comment window as I have it now, or the way it used to be, i.e., when you click the Comment link you leave this journal and go to an full-sized Blogger page?

Unfortuantely I can't have comments that are customized to the style of my site as it used to be with Greymatter. Greymatter is gone and I'm not bringing it back. Blogger comment pages are NOT customizable, other than having it a regular page or a pop-up page.

I was going to leave the pop up, as it's not so not purple, blue and orange Blogger in your face, but then realized I can't do the target="_blank" code with links, so if someone posts a link in the comments, that means the page they bring up is in that same micro-sized pop-up window! How stupid is that. Sure it's resizable, but still a pain.

But I want to know what YOU the reader/poster think. Which do you prefer? Leave a comment to this post. Don't email me...it'll just get lost and be too confusing.

Labels: Blog Info

Stan's Highway Affair DREAM

I was travelling along a highway. I don't know if I was with Stan or not or what kind of vehicle I was in, but I remember getting out at some interstate rest stop that was also sort of like a store. I head toward the rest rooms and there seems to be a lot of high school girls in a sports team there. I turn around and go into the building. I see out the large windows that Stan is walking toward the building as well. I go out to see him and tell him I'm going to go to the restroom, and to wait for me. I head toward the restrooms again, but decide not to go in. I watch him out the windows. A woman, who looks like $!%@#, except she has red hair instead of brunette, walks up to Stan and they kiss on the lips. I grab a bag of peanut butter cookies in the store and walk out to Stan. I say something like, "Ah hah! I caught you this time!" I start admonishing him for having an affair with this woman. I am steaming mad, and I take the bag of cookies and start pushing it into his face so that he can't breathe. His features seem small, especially his nose which seems like a tiny baby nose instead of Stan's actual schnozz. At this time I am coming to consciousness and I'm halfway screaming/halfway moaning, breathing very fast and kicking as I wake up.

Labels: Dreams

Friday, August 25, 2006

Angry Dwarf Planet Tossing

Dwarf Planet. That is so politically incorrect. I think the proper term is "Little Planet" or "Volumetrically Challenged Planet." Or maybe "Planet of Small Size."

There are all these news reports about how all the schoolkids (not to mention us adults!) will now have to relearn the now eight planets and the mnemonic device: My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas. I don't know about you, but 1) I never had to learn the planets in school (I'll get to that later) and 2) Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and (the now dethroned) Pluto is a helluva lot easier to learn than some ridiculous so-called mnemonic device about some not-so-educated mother serving mass quantities of junk food. A very educated mother would hopefully have a little better nutrition sense.

Maybe it was because I'd been through three different school systems in three different states as a schoolkid, but my educational experience never included fun science like learning the planets. I remember learning how to grow beans in 4th grade in New York. We tried adding funky stuff to the soil to see if that made the beans sprout better. I remember I was in the group that added vinegar to the soil. I'll never forget the smell of vinegar-infused potting soil....ick. I remember science as one of the very dry subjects that I'd rather not endure and never take as an elective. Such a bad, or boring at best, experience with science through my younger grades made me decide to steer clear from it in high school and then later in college, even though it might have been good to study minerology or horticulture instead of art. Maybe not...maybe I'd still be making jewelry with a minerology degree and growing cactii with a horticulture degree and wishing I'd gone into art, which I really loved. Yet I digress. No, I learned the planets myself. We had some astronomy books (Time/Life or some cheap things geared toward kids) and I'd look through those whenever I was home from school sick. I probably learned more that way than if it had been taught by boring teachers in my boring classes.

Labels: Politically Incorrect

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Another Corpse

Above *Over* the moon pulling through by Jove!

Weird that I didn't get notified about this one after it was done.

Heart Attack Material

Saw on the news this afternoon that Apple is recalling iBooks purchased from sometime 2003 through last month. Since I bought mine in 2005, naturally I'm freaking out. Found out 14" ibooks aren't included. I knew there was a reason not to get the puny 12"!

Pluto: Back to the Underworld you go!

I found out today that Pluto is no longer a planet according to the International Astronomical Union. The formerly 9th planet in our solar system has been stripped of its planet status. That's sort of like saying 9th president of the United States, William Henry Harrison, has been stripped of his presidential status. Sure, he was only a president for a few weeks, but he was still a president, even though he probably didn't do a lot in office since he caught a cold during inauguration and died exactly a month later. Sort of a small and insignificant term as president, sort of like Pluto's term as a planet. But we wouldn't dare rewrite history books to eliminate a president. But it looks like we'll be rewriting science books. I say we grandfather Pluto in. I mean, Pluto has been a planet for 76 years, that's like 912 times longer than William Henry Harrison was president. Or maybe Pluto could have served its term. That way, even though Pluto is no longer serving a term as Planet, that's not denying it ever was a planet, after all it was a planet from 1930-2006. It will be introduced as "former Planet of the Solar System, Pluto." And after a while, just like previous presidents after more than a few decades have passed, it will be known as Planet Pluto, just like President John F. Kennedy, or President Franklin Roosevelt. Or President William Henry Harrison. We don't say "Former President of the United States William Henry Harrison." Of course he's a former president, it's been 165 years. Goes without saying. So it goes without saying, Pluto is a Planet.

Labels: Politically Incorrect

Suspect Theory

I've been up off and on all night due to bad weather, sirens going off, loud thunder, etc. There is a siren that is going off somewhere in Madison...I think it's stuck, because there's no tornado warning right now. It won't stop. So as I was watching news early this AM, I suddenly had an idea as to why that sick pervert freak who is the latest suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder wanted a sex change in Thailand: so he could go into hiding. Maybe he knew they were actually on to him and wanted to take the chase up a notch, or actually wanted to elude the authorities alltogether. What better foil than a whole new body and identity? That would support the guilt theory. I haven't heard this idea tossed about in the media. Am I just delusional from lack of sleep, or is this plausible?

And why is it that these infamous killers (or supposed killers in the case of this freak) have these double names? Is it some sort of legal protocol to identify notorious killers by both their first and middle name? Or does being known by two names plus a surname predispose one to a criminal life? John Mark Karr. John Wayne Gacy. Mark David Chapman. Lee Harvey Oswald.

Edited to add: James Earl Ray. John Wilkes Booth. Henry Lee Lucas.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

DREAM: Lustron Basement

I was in the basement of my parents' house in the room that Stan and I sleep in when we visit. I started to realize that the wallpaper was peeling off the walls, and coming through underneath was rust stains. In then started to examine the structures of the walls and ceilings, and determined that the interior of the basement was a Lustron house. I then wondered what on earth possessed whoever built the house to put a Lustron house inside the basement of another house. I wondered if it was just my parent's house or if other homes in the neighborhood had the same thing. The rustiness and peeling paint and wallpaper was freaking me out. Also, upstairs, the floorplan was different. Where my former bedroom was when I was a teenager, was a small hallway/vestibule that led to a small home office area or sitting space with desk that then adjoined to my parent's bedroom. This area was covered in real dark hardwood panelling. It was rather interesting, and definitely added more interest to the otherwise most boring house floorplan in the world.

Labels: Dreams

Friday, August 18, 2006

New Corpse

Haven't been doing this for a while; this is the last one I worked on.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

I'm Sorry!

I did a little more messing around and experimenting with the template today, and I have now determined it was The Butler in the Pantry with the Candlestick! Well, actually, it was the emoticons. Those damn emoticons was what was messing up MSIE. So I told them to vacate. It was sad. I'll miss them horribly. Really, I will.

Labels: Blog Info

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Depleting Quality of Mexican Restaurants

When we first moved to Madison, there weren't many Mexican restaurants in this part of the world. We did find one in our neighborhood and we used that for several years. I really loved their cheese enchilada smothered in green chile. Then they started introducing odd items like a mexican hawaiian wrap...just weird stuff that was not only not very Mexican or TexMexican, but not even very edible. Eventually, that restaurant went out of business at its eastside locaton. Then a few years later came our favorite Mexican restaurant. It stayed that way for several years, but they had a menu item change a couple years ago. It didn't seem the same. Last night we went again and figured out that we could substitute vegetarian items for the meated items. Great! I'm not vegetarian, but I prefer vegetarian Mexican food. Except there was a problem. On the chile rellenos, that should've been smothered in the sauce I was used to having it smothered in, it was smothered in some sort of red sauce that seemed familiar, but not that tasteful on Mexican cooking....what was it...let's see...then it hit me. It was Italian, like the kind of sauce you'd put on Italian food, not Mexican. Why is it that these restaurants are always so good at first, and then so quickly go downhill?

Monday, August 14, 2006

Priceless

Errors found on this page by the w3 validator: 15

Errors found on a blogspot page discussing various markup languages, syndication, blog tools, etc., using one of Blogger's own templates: 256

The time I save by deciding not to care anymore whether this blog validates: priceless

Labels: Blog Info

So Screwed Up

Blogger's code is in xhtml, which I don't know, which causes my site not to validate. Grrr. It won't even come up on IE.

Edited to add: So I figured out something was quite funky as the page would either not show up, or crash IE. I tried lots of things, but ended up taking out the blogger metadata tag, and now it shows up in IE, although some of the functionality is missing, but it's hardly noticeable.

Labels: Blog Info

Newt DREAM

I looked over at the newt tank and the newts were being especially feisty, biting eachother and the like. I looked closer and saw that they had babies, however we had never seen any eggs...all of a sudden there were dozens of little newts in the tank. It looked like some of the adult newts were trying to swallow the babies, but they spit them out. I didn't want them to get eaten, so I wanted Stan to separate the babies from the adults. Some of the adults looked very odd, like they were a cross between a tadpole and a newt. A bit disturbing. Stan got a fishnet out, and I figured it would be easier to remove the adults, but he just did a general scoop and removed a baby newt, which fell to the ground, and something else which turned out to be a mealworm (we don't feed our newts mealworms). He tried to grab the baby newt but it wriggled away. I didn't want him grabbing it with his manfingers. I forgot what happened after that.

Labels: Dreams

Sunday, August 13, 2006

They're baaack....

Emoticons! ;)

Yup...I can use emoticons now! =)

You won't be able to see them in Blogger windows (you know, in the comments area, dark blue band with orange, tan and white elements, but if you use the standard internet shorthand like colon-end parenthesis for smile you'll get this: :) or if you use the acronymm el-oh-el (laughing out loud) you'll get this: LOL, and they'll show up on my (ornamentalillness.com) entry pages.

I found the script at Free Blogspot Templates, and I altered it to use my own Bauhaus smileys. (yeah, that took time).

Also, in the upper right corner of this page in the sidebar, there's a link to "View Emoticon Guide" in case you need it. :)

Labels: Blog Info

What is going on?

I tried to publish my dream, but it wouldn't publish...blogger said not enough space on my device...blah blah blah my server. Well, there's plenty of space. So I created a new test blog over at blogspot, tried to publish, and the same error. So a while later, I tried it on Firefox (I basically use Safari for 90% of everything) and it worked.

I'm trying this on Safari, so either it's a blogger problem and they fixed the issue,, or it's me!

Labels: Blog Info

DREAM: Pug Play Date

I went to a Pug Play date by myself. I don't know why Stan wasn't there. It was at night, and at quite a different setting than the one we go to. It was more lavish, like a large rec room with couches, but it wasn't a domestic setting, it was definitely commercial. No one was talking to me. Then one women sits down next to me and keeps referring to Lucifer Sam as a bitch. I try to explain to her he is a fixed male, but she says "Oh, well, then, he's still a bitch."

There was also a lot of jumbled imagery in this dream that I can't describe very well.

Labels: Dreams

Friday, August 11, 2006

To Make a Short Story Long

So as I said previously, this hacker wasn't after me personally...it was just one of those spammers from a foreign country looking to exploit a GM-comments script by scouring the web. I had installed GM on Stan's site not even a month ago (he didn't even get a chance to use it yet!) for a future cactus blog, and despite the fact that I had an old GM script lying around at my main domain, I suspect this spammer somehow used Stan's script because when I went to check my email from my catch-all account, I got about 7,000 (I am not making this up, I am totally serious) bounced spam messages with fake back addresses like FredWilliams@Windowsillcactus.com. My webhost told me to update all my scripts I am running, but because GM is no longer actively being worked on, this had me concerned. They said my account was being used to process (send) 2000 spam messages a second of something. F-me! I don't need Stan's domain getting a rap for sending spam, since he is not doing it! I don't need any of my domains getting this rap. And although I was hoping the hacker used my old GM script that I'm no longer using and not the updated one I installed for Stan and previously for myself back in April, I have no way of knowing which script he used. I don't need my account suspended either! I did some Google research on the subject, and there are some webhosts who are completely banning all Greymatter from their servers!

Last night I deleted all my GM scripts. It was so sad, especially since I made those Bauhausian emoticons just 4 months ago and I won't be able to use them again. Seriously, I cried about it.

Who the hell reads these spam messages and acts on them anyway? It boggles the mind that people can be that stupid...both the spammer and spammee.

As for the 7,000 bounced spam message, I didn't download them all; I was afraid they'd crash my email. I stopped after about 200, then ftp'd up to my domain and deleted my mail inbox. I still am getting them too, but my laptop isn't set up to get the catch-all mail, and I don't use the other computer for mail much anyway. So I just periodically go and delete my inbox on my domain. It'll eventually stop, after the last server has bounced a bogus spam mal to a bogus email address, sent from a bogus email address.

Labels: Blog Info

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Well, I'm Back at Blogger

I wake up Wednesday morning to an email from my webhost saying my site was hacked and they had to suspend my domain. Like anyone wants to wake up to that. I panic, naturally, check my sites and they're all there. It turns out it wasn't a malicious personal hacking, but a spammer who somehow...somehow...aw crap it's 9:30 pm and I've been doing nothing all day but looking at CODE so it's like I'm suffering a small stroke when I'm trying to think of the word...exploited? is that it? exploited? some vulnerabilities in a Greymatter comment script. So to make a long story short, I decided to take down Greymatter (are we having fun yet? Like I haven't spent too many days within four short months analing over my own site, not to mention setting up a cactus blog for Stan that he hasn't even had time to use yet before I had to redo the entire damn thing in Blogger!

I. Need. A. Break.

I really hate code, and for some reason certain things with these Blogger templates aren't working for me, so I'm having to do it my way. Like that automatic profile thing up in the right corner didn't look right, heck, it looked AWFUL, so I just had to cut and paste the link instead. I did have fun with the question they gave me, ironically, it had to do with band names, which I guess is right up my alley.

Labels: Blog Info