Happy Birthday, Mary!!

posted at 10:40 PM | link |

XP Woes

Not I-wish-I-never-upgraded type woes, but woes just the same. Like I said, the upgrade itself went very smoothly, and my system has been running very smoothly. The problem I'm having is getting to certain web sites, and it isn't XP that's giving me trouble - it's IE 6, which came bundled in the XP upgrade. There is no apparent rhyme or reason to why I can't get to some sites, while I have no problem connecting to others; I've been researching Microsoft's support pages the past couple of days for fixes and I've tried a number of things (deleting temp files, playing with privacy settings in IE, editing the registry, on and on) and nothing made a difference. Today I started posting to the Community newsgroups at Microsoft and a nice guy named Noel Paton has been giving me some help. No real fix yet, though. If I can't get this fixed for good, I'm going to uninstall IE 6 and go back to IE 5.5. If it'll let me.

Then I read this. Grr. So, I'm restricted from parts of the web, but some pre-pubescent geek jacked up on Mountain Dew and Cheetos can get to me. Better go download that patch before he finds out all of my innermost secrets and laughs himself silly.

posted at 9:46 PM | link |

My horoscope from The Onion:

Cancer: (June 22—July 22)
One of your wildest dreams will suddenly come true. Unfortunately, it's the one in which each of the demon's fangs has its own little shrieking face.

Oh, sure. It couldn't be the one where I come home at night to find Hugh Jackman running my bathwater, George Clooney chilling the champagne and Tommy Lee Jones lining up the massage oils...Wait - did I just say that out loud?

posted at 11:37 PM | link |

As promised, more treats. Here are a couple of games, full of flashy goodness.

Flight of the Season - click on the houses as they speed by and see how many houses you can deliver presents to. How that guy got 225 I will never know - my high score was 28! He/she must have a wicked spazzy clicker finger.

Christmas Tree Game - This one is less stressful. Arrange the lights on the tree in the correct order and before you run out of points. Good thing about this game: you can still finish decorating the tree when you've reached zero points. I know.

I know, I spoil you, but I can't help myself. Have fun!

posted at 10:40 PM | link |

Holiday treat time...Here's a fun Ornament Game. It's very much like Snood, in principle. I made it to level 7 without losing a life, and stopped to post this. Fun.

I think you deserve more holiday treats -- I mean you've all been so good all year, right? I'll see what I can do.

Note: Shockwave required

[link courtesy snarkcake]

posted at 10:10 PM | link |

"Throughout the building, telltale signs telegraph a rapid retreat from the U. S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Documents litter a diplomat's desk. Bottles of Fanta stand half full. Filing cabinets protrude displaying their contents."

Fanta? Are they sure it wasn't 1979 that the embassy was abandoned? It must have been indescribable, walking in and seeing the place looking as if people had just stepped away from their desks.

posted at 9:28 PM | link |

I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff.

posted at 5:23 PM | link |

Random television commentary...Who's making the best commercials on television today? Sprint PCS. Once they switched the focus from the Jack Webb-ish guy to the customers' tales of woe, they have gotten progressively better. The "Flour the kids?" and "Captain & Tenille/Backup for O'Neill" ads were pitch perfect, but they've outdone themselves with "I am PANDA CLAUS!" LOL, kills me every time.

OK, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

posted at 12:46 AM | link |

Colorgenics is a new-agey personality test. Pick the colors you feel most in "harmony" with at the time you take the test and they will generate a personal profile for you.

My Personal Profile is extremely depressing. What a loser! Of course, the fact that I chose black first probably didn't help matters. I think it hit the mark in a couple of places, but missed wide in others. At least I hope to Jesus that it did.

[link courtesy snarkcake]

posted at 12:36 AM | link |

AQ Test

As a companion to the article below, Wired magazine has provided a test that measures your Autism-Spectrum Quotient. The intro to the test reads:

"In the first major trial using the test, the average score in the control group was 16.4. Eighty percent of those diagnosed with autism or a related disorder scored 32 or higher. The test is not a means for making a diagnosis, however, and many who score above 32 and even meet the diagnostic criteria for mild autism or Asperger's report no difficulty functioning in their everyday lives."

So please, remember that if and when you take the test. My score: 24. Hmm.

posted at 5:32 PM | link |

"The chilling possibility is that what's happening now is the first proof that the genes responsible for bestowing certain special gifts on slightly autistic adults - the very abilities that have made them dreamers and architects of our technological future - are capable of bringing a plague down on the best minds of the next generation."

A compelling, six page article on the near-epidemic rise of autism in Silicon Valley.

posted at 5:14 PM | link |

"I was cuter than their Santa."

Jesus, show a little holiday spirit, will ya folks? The poor little guy.

posted at 4:52 PM | link |

Tomorrow's the big day - "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" opens in theaters nationwide. Here are 2 online raves:

Salon.com - The Movie of the Year
CNN.com - A masterpiece of a masterpiece

I read "The Hobbitt" in high school, but never the LOTR trilogy. I am remedying that right now. I'm about a third of the way through "Fellowship" and working as hard as I can to finish it. I cannot wait to see this movie!

posted at 4:47 PM | link |

Okay, everyone who is surprised by this turn of events, please raise your hands...yeah, that's what I figured.

posted at 6:03 PM | link |

Well, I did it.

I took the plunge and upgraded to Windows XP today. All in all, a very painless endeavor. That is mostly due, I'm sure, to the fact that I was upgrading a virtually brand new PC that has only one peripheral, no networking and no 16-bit applications. Still, I'm pleased it went well and I like it so far. So far.

posted at 5:11 PM | link |

Holiday Filmwise

OK, boys and girls (do boys come here?), I have yet more Filmwise Fun for you all. The Boyz at Filmwise are very excited - they were listed in Yahoo! Magazine's Top 100 websites. Here's what they had to say in their newsletter:

FilmWise got some pretty good news this past week: In its January issue, Yahoo! Internet Life magazine has published its annual "100 Best Sites" article, and FilmWise has clocked in at #3 in the Entertainment & Sports category, behind only Shockwave and the Internet Movie Database. This is pretty incredible (or the Boyz think so anyway), especially since most of the sites listed are huge operations, such as ESPN, E! Online, Real, Pogo, CBS Sportsline, Audio Galaxy and others.

The Boyz wanna thank all of you for helping FilmWise attain a modest level of success in a fairly short time. You're beautiful human beings (physically), and we couldn't do it without you. (I'm getting all weepy and stuff, so I better shut up now or else I'll run the risk of crying all over the front of my brand new fishnet tube top...)

Congratulations, Guyz!

And because you've been such good girls and boys, here's a snowy, not-quite-holiday version of Invisibles:

Invisibles #54 - Snow Job. I'm back - 7 out of 8!

Also, answers and top scores for last week's quiz. I don't feel as bad about my score of last week now - of the 8 movies, I've only seen 3. Whew.

posted at 5:01 PM | link |

A nice picture of President Bush, for a change.

posted at 4:18 PM | link |

No mention of pickup truck cabs?

posted at 4:13 PM | link |

I had read a couple of weeks ago that the Big Country lead singer, Stuart Adamson, had gone missing from his Nashville, TN home. It was the second time in two years that he had just walked away. Well, he won't be coming back this time.

posted at 11:09 AM | link |

X-Files Ep Review

Well, I managed to get another one done. Now I'll only be two episodes behind in my reviews. My thoughts on Daemonicus.

posted at 7:15 AM | link |

Gene Hackman. He is consistently the best thing about his movies. He's no looker, indeed, but the way he combines vulnerability with intense rage is very sexy and I've had a crush on him since I first saw him as the Reverend in The Poseidon Adventure over 20 years ago. His scenes with Frances McDormand in Mississippi Burning made me wish I was her.

posted at 7:14 PM | link |