Category: FYI

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BrokeBlog Mountain

[If this sounds just a bit queer, well it is.]

So, had a call from Bluehost saying I needed to move to a more expensive hosting service, which they very naturally had on offer, because my lil “let the voices in my head duke it out here” blog was exceeding a reasonable bandwidth usage.

WTF?

OK, now why would that be, since I have seriously scaled back on traffic by deliberately working for several years to drive idiots away (leaving the 0.01% of blog visitors as acceptable traffic *heh*)? The guy–not tech support but sales–surmised a broken plugin or some such, once I clued him in on the site’s usage.

MmmK. . . No new plugins recently, but I let him deactivate ’em all for testing.

Right. Everything except the built-in left sidebar and the blog title–*poof!*–disappeared.

Oh, joy. *sigh*

Re-enabled plugins one-by-one, checking bandwidth usage as I refreshed the site. One plugin re-enabled yielded the restoration of the right sidebar (as expected) and also–surprise, surprise!–ONE post, the most recent.

But no more.

Have now re-enabled plugins to match pre-disabled state. Still no spikes in bandwidth usage. Still only most recent post visible (we’ll see what posting this one does, eh?). I’ve tried to access the database optimization and repair tools available via cPanel at Bluehost, but no joy. Won’t let me log in with known good credentials and when the credentials are reset, still no login. :-/

I’ll cogitate on this a bit. I have my two most recent database backups (in three locations) I can use–once I can log into the database management tools–so all my head voices’ crap is still around. . . somewhere

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Hate It When This Happens. . .

. . . as it seems to be doing more and more often of late.

*sigh*

I just determined that my right mouse clicking problems on this computer aren’t entirely the fault of the mouse. *sigh* I live by the right mouse click! *heh* Dam*ed twitchy-finger. . . *grumble-grumble-gripe-complain*

Olde Pharte Body Fail.

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An Etymological Wonder

Back in the day when Britain still had an empire (and a queen with bigger balls than all but perhaps two or three living Republican politicians), some Brit, unhappy with “eggplant,” mugged a poor Frenchie for “aubergine”.

True story. No, really. Would a face like this lie to a face like that about a thing like that?

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How to Waste Your Time

A fact based, reasoned argument presented to a contemporary faux liberal (progressive, leftist, etc.) is like attempting to teach a pig to sing. All it does is waste your time and annoy the pig.

Ditto with the porker.

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Well, About Time!

I needed several days in a row of sub-90 degree weather to get some more painting done on the exterior of the house and. . . finally, weather cooperated and a good chunk is done (with much more to do, yet *sigh*). The thing is, i’s been 35 years since I managed a paint brush as high off the ground as this has to be, and I’m not as well-balanced, *cough* graceful *cough* and sure-footed as I was then.

I also don’t have my former youthful sense of invulnerability. *heh*

Plus. . . this time, I have a wall that I can only approach with a ladder from a sloping yard below. So, digging footings every time I move the ladder, wearing a safety harness and using a safety lanyard/rope attached to one of the safety anchors I left on the roof when I re-roofed last summer.

Cumbersome. Slow going. Especially since the paint I’m using has a STRONG warning to NOT THIN, so I MUST use a 3″ paint brush on the siding instead of spraying as I had wanted to do. Oh, well.

Must remember before next bout to take the ibuprofen BEFORE ascending the ladder. *heh* Hands’ll probably work a bit better.

Annnnnd, after this lil chore is finished, it’ll be back to downing and cutting up a few trees that have to go. Firewood, anyone? (It took me a couple of months last year to get someone who needed firewood to haul off a goodly-sized tree I had cut up into ~18″ chunks that still needed to be split. I’m sure if I’d split the wood for ’em it would’ve gone sooner. *heh*)

*sig* I seem to remember being much, much younger last year. . . 😉

Of course, since it’s going to rain for the next two or three days, I’ll have some time off from yard work and work on the outside of the house. Love it when a plan comes together. . .

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Benign Neglect Gardening

Well, not really. More of a “lazy-faire” *heh* approach to lawn care.

For some few years now, I’ve let about 1/3 of the back yard go more or less natural. Oh, a large section gets string trimmed to whack down any grass and weeds sticking above the “yard vine” I’ve been trying to encourage to spread (it’s working! :-)), and the “possum grape” vines sometimes threaten to choke things out (not a bad thing, since I almost always have some to pull down, cut back and use to make some fine charcoal out of the woody remains :-)), but one particular joy has been “The Boys’ corder.”

Before The Boys (Son&Heir’s dogs) ran off to dog heaven (RIP, guys!), I really encouraged the grape vine to grow over the fencing in the SW corner of the yard. Yeh, it provided a visual shield from the view of a neighbor’s large storage shed, but it also provided some great shade for The Boys in the dog days of summer. After they were gone, I just continued weed whacking that corner to cut down grass and weeds but took moderate care to NOT cut down anything that looked interesting like. . .

hollyhock
Not our back yard. A pic of our hollyhock may come soon.

Been keeping an eye on our volunteer hollyhock for a couple of years now. It finally bloomed just recently.

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And Not a Hint of Trouble During the “Bank Fails” of a Couple of Years Ago

One really nice thing about banking locally (no, REALLY locally) is the VERY personal service. Fraud alert call on a debit card? (Happened today.) Couple of minutes on the phone, fraudulent charges handled and card redlined. That’s pretty normal. In person: immediate service, two signatures. Now, fraudulent charges not only handled but new card and all, in almost no time. It really does help to know and be known face to face (and it doesn’t hurt to have the head teller as a next door neighbor :-)).

We deliberately took a percent and three quarters hit on our mortgage a couple of decades ago, because it meant going with our local bank. Got cookies and such from folks there when we paid it off early. Yeh, yeh, not a big deal, but it was a nice personal touch, and over the short time we carried a loan with the folks there, we had many times to be glad we had a direct line to the folks who “owned” our home with us.

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We Are All “Ham Sandwiches”

You’re familiar with the old saw that a prosecutor (persecutor, more like nowadays) can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich if he wants. Yeh, law enfarcement really is about that bad.

More than a few years ago, a client (who shortly thereafter moved with his family to an undisclosed rural, off-the-grid location–really) warned me to be careful what I said in phone calls, because the feds were listening in. I didn’t dispute his warning, because it didn’t matter. No matter how innocent one’s actions or speech may be, there are so many laws and regulations on the books now, that we are all “ham sandwiches”–open to be indicted for “crimes” thought up by our overlords any time they wish to have our blood.

Yeh, the “feddle gummint” has you by the short and curlies any time it wants to hang you. So? All one can do is live as best one can, as morally and ethically as possible, and let the chips fall where they may. *meh* Oh death, where is thy sting and all that.

Hell awaits law enFARCEment and bureaucraps who abuse their power. I wish them the joy of their final destination.

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Lil (Very Minor) Techie Pleasure

There are a (very) few TV shows I really enjoy that are sometimes just not all that easy to fit into a viewing schedule. Fewer still are shows that fit that category AND are enjoyed equally by my Wonder Woman. Sure, we could have purchased (or “rented” *gag* from our cable provider) some sort of DVR or found some other sort of specialty device to serve as a means of schedule-shifting, but why, since spare computers abound here at TWC Central?

So, yeh, the Windows Media Center box I’ve mentioned here before several times.

But still, it’s a source of pleasure to use the thing, connected to a nice enough external sound system (thanks, Josh!) and our TV to view what we want, when we want.

Right now? One of our mutual favs: Sherlock, via Amazon Prime Instant Videos. The series is a really good adaptation, The irritations experienced in plot changes in stories cited aside ;-), of Conan Doyle’s tales. Sometimes, the little surprises (like musical choices) are sweet additions, too.

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Friday Night Movies: No and Yes

Wht can I say? Amazon Prime Instant Video. Browser loaded on Windows Media Center computer. Two movies. One released last year, the other in 2010.

Last year’s Hollyweird attempt to make a Stephanie Plum movie, “One for the Money,” from the Janet Evanovich book of the same name, was. . . not good. The scriptwriters, producers and director worked very hard to get just about everything wrong. The book was (sometimes annoyingly) charming and enjoyable fluff with bits of spiciness strewn throughout. The movie was just mostly annoying and a bit dull. *sigh* Debbie Reynolds cast as Grandma Mazur is a prime example of the kinds of poor choices made in producing the thing.

So, both thumbs down.

Then, the 2010 French film (yeh, yeh, subtitled for those who really need it–and I did myself when the sound was really bad), “La fée” (The Fairy). It was surprisingly good. Actually, it was pretty darned wonderful. Exceedingly strange, but still very, very entertaining. The sparse dialog and spare acting from the leads was very effective given the plot. The dance sequences? Just about perfect for the absurd story. The rooftop choreography? Sooo good. Loved it. Three thumbs up. And SPOILER: Continue reading “Friday Night Movies: No and Yes”