Spam-O-Rama
This spam thing is getting me down. Every time I log on I have a bazillion bounced messages. I hit check mail and then leave the room and empty the dishwasher and by the time I'm finished the MAILER-DAEMONS are all loaded up. Plus all the nice auto-responder notes from people who are on vacation but will get back to me as soon as they can. Sometimes these messages are in a foreign language but I'm guessing that's what they say. Some messages inform me that the email user has a spam filter and I haven't been approved so please reply to I can be approved. Or maybe even a scolding message that they don't accept spam messages and I'm not approved.
Who thought that technology development was going to do anything? The spammers don't even see the rejected messages.
I attempted to set up my own mail filtering but there are so many permutations, it didn't help much.I'm trying to think of an evil punishment for spammers but my creativity is on the fritz and all I can think of is letting the victims throw things at him or her. I'd throw cartons of yogurt 3 months past date.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Hijacked Again
My domain has been used by spammers again. There should be a way to do something about this. Right now I'm getting about 100 mailer daemons a day. At first they all looked like they were from Germany but now looks like everything. argh.
My domain has been used by spammers again. There should be a way to do something about this. Right now I'm getting about 100 mailer daemons a day. At first they all looked like they were from Germany but now looks like everything. argh.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Blogger is giving me fits. It won't let me correct "To Distracted for Words" to "Too Distracted for Words." I've even deleted the original post and then started all over with a new post. It's like Blogger knows I don't want to dick with the computer yet I wouldn't want to walk away from it with an error like that so it won't let me fix it. My other top annoying mistakes: its and it's and there, their and they're. Furk.
Too Distracted For Words
I have a few things here for a longer post but I'm distracted and trying to pull a few things together so this is it for today. The photo is the interstate bridge between Oregon and Washington at I-5. Bob and I took a walk along the river yesterday.
I'll confess that I've just this week figured out how to use the tabs in my browser and now that I get it, I love it.
Last item: when I was a kid I was interested in Amelia Earhart and for awhile read anything I could find about here. Here's a link to an alleged transcription of radio transmissions after the plane went down. A young girl was surfing the short wave radio — the page explains the story — makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Spider Pig
Bob and I went to see The Simpsons Movie yesterday at the first showing. There hasn't been one movie I was dying to see all summer except this one and when I mentioned it a month or two ago, he said he might be gone because it was a Cheese weekend. I indicated some disappointment with this and what do you know, he modified his plan.
We are huge Simpsons fans and rarely miss the show. Our favorite episode, I think the first episode we ever watched together is Bart the Daredevil which is the Springfield Gorge one. We have seen it at least 10 times and we clutch our bellies and squeeze tears out of our eyes in laughter every single time. We will stop anything we're doing to watch the last 10 minutes of that episode. One of us could sever a limb and we'd be running out the door with the cooler and a bloody stump wrapped in a towel and if the TV was on with this episode we'd pause before we rushed to the hospital. You can imagine our delight when this episode is alluded to in the movie.
I'm surprised there wasn't more Simpsons-mania. Yeah, sure the Oregonian had a cover story on the outrage that Springfield, Vermont got to host the premiere instead of Springfield, Oregon. Even Matt said he thought the Simpsons were from Springfield, Oregon. Or Beaverton. (Local humor.)
We bought our tickets in advance and arrived early and quickly found a seat in the almost empty theater. We sat through a half hour of commercials, mostly for TV shows. I hate to say it because I am desperate to cut back on my shows, but that new Bionic Woman show looks like it's going to be good. Also they had a bunch of shows that look like shows we already have. Someone with powers has to stop evil from ending the world. Some plucky woman overcomes some setback to make a new start. Is it because I'm old and have already see it all? Or is it because there are 10 trillion channels and the creative forces in the TV industry only have so many ideas?
By the time the movie started more people arrived. Mostly guys in the 20-40 range and I don't want to use the word nerdy, but let's say the kind of guys who can write computer code and watch Battlestar Galactica rather than the kind of guys who work in finance and use hair product. There were two other women in the room, both accompanying people too young to drive. Ladies, take note.
It's hard to have hope for America after sitting through a half dozen trailers for what have to be the dumbest movies ever. Daddy Day Camp? Some sort of underground ping pong movie that looked like a spoof of a spoof. A Santa Claus movie with Vince Vaughn that you could tell the trailer had the only good parts in the movie. Plus an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie that Bob was excited about. (Generational thing, no doubt.) And Horton Hears a Who which I love as a book but the trailer was not even a tiny bit appealing.
We loved the Simpsons movie. There were a very few moments where I felt my attention drifting but otherwise, they kept the energy and the laughs coming. I don't think it was a magical life-changing Simpsons, just a really long good TV episode — but I love the show so why not a big episode on the big screen? Plus you get to see Bart's doodle and Otto with his bong. When are you going to see that on TV? Two thumbs up from this household.
In other film news, I watched Howl's Moving Castle on DVD last night and it is fantastic. I also watched the first Fantastic Four movie on cable recently and it was dreadful.
Look, my first tomato, yay. I'm going to have it in my dinner salad tonight.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
How To Make A Taster Pie from Pastry Scraps
On Sunday I made a pie for someone else and what a rip to have the delicious smelling pie goodness in your house when you're not going to get to enjoy it. At least for Bob. I got a piece of the gift pie. So I made a tiny pie on the side.
I have a new crust recipe that has been working for me and part of the appeal is that it's generous so you roll out a giant thing and can fit it into your pie plate with ease. And you have yards of extra pastry.
We have a small casserole dish. I can't find a photo of something similar online at the moment. It's a little bigger than two grilled cheese sandwiches stacked.
I layer some scraps on the bottom. In advance I slice too many apples. This weekend I also threw in the last ½ cup of blueberries with a sprinkle of sugar, lemon and a thickener. Scraped the fruit onto the scraps. Covered them with the remaining scraps and crumbs and baked it next to the pie. I set the timer a half hour early and check it every ten minutes. Since it's small it can go from yum to sizzle quickly. Enjoy your mini pie.
In other news, I invented a fabulous sandwich for lunch yesterday which was Nutella and cashew butter on homemade buttermilk bread. Delicious.
Finally, I've been feeling a bit blue lately and decided to use my lunch hour for some retail therapy. First I went searching for a bathing suit (yes, not the best thing to be looking at if you're feeling down) but the Rack didn't have any or if they did I didn't see where they were. So I went upstairs to look at the shoes. The size 6 aisle: empty. The size 7 ½ aisle: empty. The size 7 aisle: about 9 women crammed in there. I didn't want shoes that bad so I thought I'd head over to Vicki's Secret.
They have this thing now (or maybe forever, this is the first time I've used it) where they have a sample of all the styles organized by size in the dressing room. So they measure you and then you pick the styles you want to try. Once you know what you like you can go into the store and buy what you want. I liked everything I tried which made me realize how stretched out my old ones are. (sexy!) But this was immediate love. It was the most fabulous bra I've ever put on in my life. I would marry that bra. I came out of the dressing room cradling the sample in my hands, demanding that I be taken to this section of the store so I could buy one in every color.
And you know what? That style is on clearance because the new season starts soon. There was not one bra in that style in my size. Not even brown. They dried my tears and told me to come back next week.
On Sunday I made a pie for someone else and what a rip to have the delicious smelling pie goodness in your house when you're not going to get to enjoy it. At least for Bob. I got a piece of the gift pie. So I made a tiny pie on the side.
I have a new crust recipe that has been working for me and part of the appeal is that it's generous so you roll out a giant thing and can fit it into your pie plate with ease. And you have yards of extra pastry.
We have a small casserole dish. I can't find a photo of something similar online at the moment. It's a little bigger than two grilled cheese sandwiches stacked.
I layer some scraps on the bottom. In advance I slice too many apples. This weekend I also threw in the last ½ cup of blueberries with a sprinkle of sugar, lemon and a thickener. Scraped the fruit onto the scraps. Covered them with the remaining scraps and crumbs and baked it next to the pie. I set the timer a half hour early and check it every ten minutes. Since it's small it can go from yum to sizzle quickly. Enjoy your mini pie.
In other news, I invented a fabulous sandwich for lunch yesterday which was Nutella and cashew butter on homemade buttermilk bread. Delicious.
Finally, I've been feeling a bit blue lately and decided to use my lunch hour for some retail therapy. First I went searching for a bathing suit (yes, not the best thing to be looking at if you're feeling down) but the Rack didn't have any or if they did I didn't see where they were. So I went upstairs to look at the shoes. The size 6 aisle: empty. The size 7 ½ aisle: empty. The size 7 aisle: about 9 women crammed in there. I didn't want shoes that bad so I thought I'd head over to Vicki's Secret.
They have this thing now (or maybe forever, this is the first time I've used it) where they have a sample of all the styles organized by size in the dressing room. So they measure you and then you pick the styles you want to try. Once you know what you like you can go into the store and buy what you want. I liked everything I tried which made me realize how stretched out my old ones are. (sexy!) But this was immediate love. It was the most fabulous bra I've ever put on in my life. I would marry that bra. I came out of the dressing room cradling the sample in my hands, demanding that I be taken to this section of the store so I could buy one in every color.
And you know what? That style is on clearance because the new season starts soon. There was not one bra in that style in my size. Not even brown. They dried my tears and told me to come back next week.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Breakfast in America
[Isn't the first rule of blogging: don't write about what you had for breakfast?]
I tend to eat the same thing for breakfast over and over and over. For years. This means the stuff I eat on work days. Weekend eating is a whole different story. I eat the same thing until I am sick and tired of it and have to come up with some new thing to eat until I hate it. Not a great system, I'll admit, but this is how I'm doing it.
One of my first major breakfasts, back in the 80's, was a bran muffin, an apple, and a Tiger's Milk bar. This was a time in my life when the size of my butt was an ongoing issue (well, you know, my size all over) and I eventually gave up the Tiger bar.
When I moved up here my breakfast was a bagel and a banana for eons. Then I graduated to variations of cereal and smoothie. When I was a vegetarian I made smoothies with tofu and protein powders and fruit and my favorite cereal was Grape-nuts. At some point I developed the notion that I was eating too many wheat products so I switched to muesli. Also yogurt was easier to deal with than smoothie making. So I had muesli and yogurt and fruit. Recently I changed the muesli to granola.
I've been getting sick of this breakfast for awhile now. I'm finished with bananas. I don't want to even see bananas and yogurt mingling in the same grocery bag.
Not last weekend but the weekend before we had tons of fresh berries in the house so I unwisely ate berries, yogurt and granola every day for about 10-12 days in a row which has pushed me to the edge. I have no idea what to switch to next. Maybe an Egg McMuffin. HA!.
[Isn't the first rule of blogging: don't write about what you had for breakfast?]
I tend to eat the same thing for breakfast over and over and over. For years. This means the stuff I eat on work days. Weekend eating is a whole different story. I eat the same thing until I am sick and tired of it and have to come up with some new thing to eat until I hate it. Not a great system, I'll admit, but this is how I'm doing it.
One of my first major breakfasts, back in the 80's, was a bran muffin, an apple, and a Tiger's Milk bar. This was a time in my life when the size of my butt was an ongoing issue (well, you know, my size all over) and I eventually gave up the Tiger bar.
When I moved up here my breakfast was a bagel and a banana for eons. Then I graduated to variations of cereal and smoothie. When I was a vegetarian I made smoothies with tofu and protein powders and fruit and my favorite cereal was Grape-nuts. At some point I developed the notion that I was eating too many wheat products so I switched to muesli. Also yogurt was easier to deal with than smoothie making. So I had muesli and yogurt and fruit. Recently I changed the muesli to granola.
I've been getting sick of this breakfast for awhile now. I'm finished with bananas. I don't want to even see bananas and yogurt mingling in the same grocery bag.
Not last weekend but the weekend before we had tons of fresh berries in the house so I unwisely ate berries, yogurt and granola every day for about 10-12 days in a row which has pushed me to the edge. I have no idea what to switch to next. Maybe an Egg McMuffin. HA!.
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